pitchfork

There's no "Summer Babe" of noise, dogg

xpost Super Shine!

i don't even think 'summer babe' is in the top 25% of pavement songs tbh

Not the hugest noise person, but I'm sure there is some Merzbow or Dead C/Gate or whatever equivalent to "Summer Babe" that plenty of noise fans agree on.

Goddamn I am so sick of all this Pavement love! If anything, they deserve the term 'milquetoast weiner music' above any indie fuxxor!

^^^

great guys, really interesting

feel it's more intense among people who weren't 'around' back then. and americans.

xpost

i'd argue that one of the reasons that it's hard for me (as a generalist type music fan with a pronounced taste for noisy psychedelic shit) to cough up the canonical experimental music tracks from the 90s is that mainstream critics haven't done the job of building this canon for me. they haven't done it either cuz they aren't tuned in, or cuz no one's demanding it - probably both. in the same way that tracks by basinski, fennesz & gas/voight have become canonical in the last decade, however, i'm sure that there's stuff that equally well represents the 90s. as pieces by cage, oliveros, subotnik, reich, lucier and stockhausen did in the mid-20th century. and pieces by laurie anderson, negativland, einsturzende neubauten and john oswald (etc.) did in the 80s.

^^^ those reference points cobbled together with full awareness of my own ignorance in these matters

It's just that they're as guilty for Crimes Against Interesting Music as all the 00s-middlebrow-consensus-indie Whiney loves to bash.

But one thing, I appreciate them in a 'conceptual' sense if not a musical one, to their credit. Would definitely listen to Prog-with-in-jokes.

I was pretty pleased that a Grifters song got a -see also- next to Arches of Loaf - 'Web In Front'. I believe Arches of Loaf is a more popular band and 'Web in Front' is not as good as 'She Blows Blasts of Static' (Agree/Disagree?). This would be just one case in which a more popular band won but I have to give Pitchfork credit for knowing about The Grifters (someone must be reading ILX)

Grifters ain't that obscure, dude.

lol at guy breaking up an actually intriguing ilm discussion with "Pavement sux. fukk those guys."

xp they might not be so obscure but many bands I like a lot seem to be obscure to Pitchfork Lists

for instance, should a song from one of the 90's Thingy or Heavy Vegetable albums make the list? hell yeah. Will it? hell no

The point being that pop/rap/rock hits are things that we share via radio, MTV, mssg boards, blogs; and indie-rock songs like "Summer Babe" are similar in that they are usually shared on a smaller level—plus they build up legends, are passed around AS songs. You get down to expirimental music circles and—save the occassional Lightning Bolt song--it's almost impossible to find a consensus on ANYTHING since the music is tailored to individual tastes and ppl generally listen to albums instead of songs.

Totally with this, except that the process that Perpetua described seems like it would have been totally conducive to picking consensus experimental tracks, if they'd wanted to go in that direction.

Also, the rap/dance/indie rock combination contenderizer mentioned earlier has pretty clear precedents--like SPIN Magazine and MTV. Perhaps that's just where the money/audience is.

Maybe I will listen to my Heavy Vegetable records tonight, hmm.

two people at the wire would have vastly different opinions, is what i'm saying

yeah, i get that. but i suspect that if you got like 50 people who regularly write for the wire to submit lists of the most important experimental pieces of the 90s, a canon of some sort would quickly emerge. moreover, that the population of this canon wouldn't come as any great surprise to most of the critics submitting lists. i suspect that something like this is already present in the way they think and talk with one another about the music they enjoy.

agree, fwiw, that experimental music is an umbrella for a bunch of (often unconnected) exploratory niches, each with its own unique aesthetics and points of reference, and that this does differentiate it as a field from, say, chart pop, which is widely shared by nature. but among the critics who are passionate about experimental music in a broad/general way, i'd be really surprised to learn that there isn't already a commonly understood and widely agreed-upon core set of "important" artists and works that speaks for the 1990s.

I agree with contenderizer on the basic principle, but in the context of a singles/tracks poll I'd never expect something like Derek Bailey or Matthew Shipp to chart.

Wire end-of-year charts from the 90s are up on http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/charts/?p=2 by the way, definitely some overlap with the Pitchfork list.

xpp personally I prefer Thingy's Songs About Angels, Evil, and Running Around on Fire (1997) more than any Heavy Vegetable album but I'm glad that I may have inspired you to listen to them tonight :)

Though I guess if it was a Wire chart you'd get Coil at #1.

hipinion thread on this is hilarious/bonkers
some bitter azz dudes on there -- the list could be anything & dudes would have a problem with it

"And honestly not charting Hootie is retarded. "I Only Wanna Be With You" was one of the biggest hits of all time. All time."

guess who wrote that

Hootie?

tuomas?

pitchfork gets judged more than others because it's omnipresent

and they have more 'best of' lists than you can shake a stick at

pitchfork gets judged more than others because it's omnipresent

omnipresent like the beatles.

That's one half of it at least; another half is that we care about Pitchfork in a way that I don't think we do about Rolling Stone or NME, it's part of the information universe with which we associate ourselves. When they screw up we complain because they could conceivably have done better.

And those that don't buy into this just like trolling those who do.

but in the context of a singles/tracks poll I'd never expect something like Derek Bailey or Matthew Shipp to chart.

yeah, i guess just the word "singles" tilts things towards pop - or pop attempts, at least. and i know that experimental music isn't a big part of pitchfork's purview. i'm not faulting them for failing to represent it in their lists. (their abandonment of metal is, to me, more disappointing, but i understand that their tastes aren't mine. no biggie.) still, i question the idea that this division is somehow inevitable, and if so, what makes it so.

there's been a trend in generalist music criticism over the past decade or two to prioritize pop and its paradigms over rock, which had assumed calcified dominance over critical perspectives. that's all to the good, but it's engendered the attitude that the most popular (or, oddly, pop-like) things are and, crucially, should be the natural center of critical attention. thus not only chart pop, but dance and electronic music that is, in some cases, relatively obscure. as a result of this shift, you see pitchfork beginning to split the difference between the pop-leaning indie rock that's been their bread & butter since day one and a "greatest hits" approach to rap and dance music. or something that splits the dif between a greatest hits approach and a more selective crit/nerd canon. i see that this has happened and have my own ideas about why it's happened: it seems natural to me on that level.

it'd still be interesting to see a parallel canon of "important" experimental music hashed out and popularized by semi-mainstream critics, one that isn't assigned stepchild status relative to pop bangers. it doesn't seem ridiculous to me to think that pitchfork or NPR might drive such an evaluation and popularization, or that their audience might be interested in it - not that they have any obligation to do this, of course. i dunno, it probably sounds like i'm stuck on some old-fashioned/elitist mindset where art of "real importance" can somehow be separated from the popular dross. honestly, that's not where i'm coming from. i just like it when critics make it their job to champion oddball enthusiasms, underdogs and non-consensus aesthetics. i like it when they get together in gangs to foist these kinds of argumentative (and often elitist) perspectives on the world at large. that, to me, is a big part of what makes music criticism eye-opening, challenging, worth reading.

hope this doesn't come across as complaining. i'm not complaining, just thinkin baot things.

"Maybe Rob knows and won't tell me."

in the same way that tracks by basinski, fennesz & gas/voight have become canonical in the last decade, however, i'm sure that there's stuff that equally well represents the 90s.

i mean even then, anyone who says there's a canonical SONG by any one of these artists is totally talking out of their ass. I agree with contenderizer re: an experimental canon would be interesting. But it's actually kind of part of the fun that there isn't

it's like the one thing the internet hasn't totally fucking ruined yet

"i only wanna be with you" is not even the best hootie song imo

challop 2 end all challops

i wasn't aware that they had other songs

hootie and the blowpoll : best hootie singlez

you should make that thread max

well, with fennesz you have "endless summer", and maybe you could say "dlp4" for basinski (?), but point taken. as i obliquely suggested above, i wonder whether the hesitancy to advance such a canon is anti-rockist fallout. like, after the dismantling of rock's claim to dominance - and more importantly, after the dismantling of the value-determining paradigms that elevated rock over pop - maybe it's now difficult to articulate and generate broad support for non-populist critical perspectives.

I had no idea this list was even happening until now and feel better off for it.

That's one half of it at least; another half is that we care about Pitchfork in a way that I don't think we do about Rolling Stone or NME, it's part of the information universe with which we associate ourselves. When they screw up we complain because they could conceivably have done better.

And those that don't buy into this just like trolling those who do.
― seandalai,

I don't fall into the category of caring about pitchfork but I don't feel like I'm a troll because I occasionally judge them harshly. People saying a movie is bad in a thread for that movie aren't necessarily trolls in the some way. I guess Trolling would be saying "you suck because you like _______". That's not the same as saying "I don't like ________".

i wasn't aware that they had other songs

hootie and the blowpoll : best hootie singlez

you should make that thread max

― / (The Brainwasher), Thursday, September 2, 2010 9:12 PM (50 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

helloooooo, 'let her cry'

max otm

Blues Traveler stomps all over Hootie

^ racist

which one has the black guy

they went with *we are the pigs* as the best Suede song of the *decade*!?

20-1 is in. some unexpected choices!

No Talk Talk, but Aaliyah, Pulp and Mazzy Star.

7. Neutral Milk Hotel
that band makes me shit vomit