The Pitchfork People's List - top albums 1996-2012

Maze ft. Avey Tare

Maroon 5 ft. Wiz Khalifa

The process is slow but I feel like all parts of the industry have a "better" ratio of women involved in higher ranking positions every year. Of course they're still subjected to incredible institutionalised sexism but even that is being slowly corroded. I would say that when I started working in the industry (Working in the actual "industry" part of music, not just putting on hardcore shows in basements) it was 90% male aside from assistants and publicists and that's probably closer to 70-75% now. Still far from perfect but an improvement of note in the last 10 years. I'm not sure how long that'll take to be filtered into the world of criticism but taking Pitchfork as an example, they've brought at least 3 female writers closer into the core staff that I've noticed in the past year (Laura Snapes, Jenn Pelly, Lindsay Zoladz). I think that's noticably improved the critical balance there. For instance, I think their take on Grimes is radically different to the average mid 30s swm journalist.
Anyway, not shilling for p4k but just thought I'd bring a little light to the end of the debate tunnel.

I don't think it's necessarily as simple as "music made by gender-race is more relatable or palatable to people in that group". For example, look at the rap-ification that's spread from Village Voice/NYT/Pitchfork/Stereogum/Grantland — very little of the loudest voices (to me) were black men pushing Clipse, Wayne, Kanye, etc. And hey, I'm not a black man and I write mostly about rap music. But what I'm saying is that there are definite cultural-artificial trends perpetuated by people who get to make those trends.

Cf, Sickmouthy's off-hand comment about women not getting free-standing criticism or the much-cited VIDA stats (http://www.vidaweb.org/the-count-2010).

I honestly think from an outside perspective that Pitchfork has made a concerted effort to hire more women and people of color, and that their work has improved as a whole because of it.

I thought, since I came to this thread via Southall's blog post about it, that this is what the conversation here was supposed to be about. And from my perspective, the way virtually everything gets framed in the media is driven by a consistently SWM (as it's put here) perspective. I mean, just to repeat a point from above, white guitar rock isn't even that popular, but it's still hanging onto the catbird seat in some editorial spheres. It seems like these are facts. The sort of angry reaction that reads like "oh I guess straight white guys just don't have a lane" — not the problem itself, which I think is getting worked on — is what's sort of execrable to me.

I was hoping people would rag on my list but it didn't last very long. I only was called racist once :(

As I said above, people are less likely to focus on listening to music "like them" than on listening to stuff they can talk about with people "like them:"

apologies for the late 90s gender symposium thing, but...

i would say that the general principle is that we are all the products of our acculturation, and we express our acculturation in our preferences. while individuals of course vary, the aggregate expression of a society's preferences tends to be reflective of its dominant culture, and this aggregate expression is fed back into all of that society's cultures in a self-perpetuating loop. the mechanics of this are no mystery. if a society's underlying "rules" of artistic quality were written ages ago by a bunch of straight white men in order to canonize another bunch of straight white men, and if straight white men continue to dominate the discourse, then it's likely that the discourse is colored by that. this will be true even if the straight white men in question are "trying to be good about it."

Not sure whether this has much to do with the current discussion, but I thought I'd leave this article here in case it's interesting to y'all.

http://thequietus.com/articles/09465-rainbow-ambiguity

Maybe it's a case that demographics that aren't SWM are marketed towards in a pandering, condescending or simply one-track way? As someone mentioned upthread, female artists are often compared to only a handful of standbys. Afro-American music often struggles to be labelled as anything other than rap or r'n'b. And music by gay artists is yet another very tricky subject - i.e. if an artist is gay, it is more often than not turned into a big deal (and by extension presented in a particular way) even if the lyrical matter does not deal with gay topics.

As I said above, people are less likely to focus on listening to music "like them" than on listening to stuff they can talk about with people "like them:"

― Tim F, Monday, August 20, 2012 5:59 PM (59 seconds ago) Bookmark

that's true-ish but i wonder how much most people (outside of ilx, anyway) place any kind of value on what music they can talk about with the people around them. i sometimes feel like people here get a very skewed idea sometimes of what i listen to because i actively discuss only a relatively small amount of what i'm listening to, while not letting the lack of ilx interest in talking about the other stuff stop me from enjoying it.

ie. I think it's more important for people to expand the range of their conversations about music than the range of stuff they listen to. One reason why ilx is perennially great.

Yeah some dude but we're talking about people who e.g. make their own lists for pitchfork, right?

As I said above, people are less likely to focus on listening to music "like them" than on listening to stuff they can talk about with people "like them:"

― Tim F, Monday, August 20, 2012 5:59 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Funny, when I started obsessing over the music that spoke to me specifically rather than the music we shared interest in our general conversations on music kind of puttered out for the most part.

I know Meryl Streep is a gay icon

if "talk about" encompasses making lists then OK, but i wasn't getting that (xpost)

we = my friends and I

Also some dude I *was* surprised by some of your choices e.g. Limp Bizkit.

Yeah "talk about" in the broadest sense - sorry on my phone so not getting xposts.

ha i have probably talked about bizkit on ilx more than half the things on my list!

Yeah I knew you liked them, but those conversations aren't the ones I see you in - the reaction is about my experience of ILX as much as yours.

The extent to which we keep vital details about the composition of our tastes and worldview from our friends, I've found, is a sad reality of aging.

(in which definition I fold in "marriage, kids, moving away")

I feel that way about eg. books and tv but not really music.

Also food guilt, definitely.

food guilt?! what like...what foods you like?

more so with film and books, sure, but my music listening and how it intersects with the lives and tastes of my friends is increasingly...balkanized?

The extent to which we keep vital details about the composition of our tastes and worldview from our friends, I've found, is a sad reality of aging.

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, August 20, 2012 10:12 PM (5 minutes ago)

Is that because your music taste is more abstruse than your TV/film tastes? Or because you're embarrassed? That seems like it would be a bummer, if the latter.

oh as in like consciously choosing to talk about certain types of food or restaurants rather than focus on the amount of pub meals I consume.

Balkanization, though, definitely. I could probably count the no. of conversations I've had about uk funky IRL on my hands.

i feel like someone made a witch-drowning joke already on this thread somewhere but jesus this thing's gotten long

― big-mammed punisher (strongo hulkington's ghost dad), Monday, August 20, 2012 4:49 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

whenever i hear a drowning joke now i just assume its going to be a whiney zing so this was a refreshing change of pace regardless

The extent to which we keep vital details about the composition of our tastes and worldview from our friends, I've found, is a sad reality of aging.

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 20 August 2012 23:12 (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Or maybe it's something to do with CDs, vinyl, books etc not so much as on display in our homes and more locked up in digital formats?

anyway i think it's relevant anyway, because i think that "white dudes only want to listen to music made by white dudes" straw argument doesn't actually hold up, it's not a good defence. i think very few people need to hear music made by someone exactly like them in order for it to be resonant.

I never said that white dudes only want to listen to music made by white dudes and I don't think anyone else did either. First of all I'm talking specifically and exclusively about the voice. The human voice in a pop song functions more like the protagonist in a work of fiction. So I think it's less like "where are the female directors in your list" and more like "where are the female leading roles." Both relevant questions of course, but the role of the human voice in a song is more complicated than a simple authorial role.

And "only" isn't the issue either. I agreed upthread that somebody who listened to music only made by men would be questionable but where is the line? Certainly there are black people who listen primarily if not exclusively to hip hop and there are women who only really like to hear women singing. My wife is that way. My 8 yr old daughter is much more interested in music sung by women than by men. Do people honestly not believe that there is some kind of basic human attraction to artistic voices that seem to be "like us"? Obviously this isn't a highly advanced impulse and not something to be celebrated by anyone who would consider themselves musically cultured in any serious way. But I also don't think it's necessarily always a sign of privilege and bias unless you believe that white male privilege somehow eliminates that impulse toward recognition.

Oh no -- I mean discussion. The simple answer is that I care more about these things than my friends.

i really enjoy discussions like this, and then all of a sudden, i really don't

so sincere apologies to anyone on a shorter leash

There've been some interesting (and rather lengthy, post-wise and thread-wise) debates on ILM recently. Definitely like this kind of thing. I'd like to make peace with anyone who might have been rubbed up the wrong way by some of my posts. Often I'm at work, on the hoof or doing something else that distracts me from posting and that can have a detrimental effect on how they get interpreted. All the same, with these discussions I feel I'm kind of learning a lot about cultural/critical theory - stuff maybe others have thought through a lot more than me - but I often find it easier to learn about the argument through the argument itself. Devil's advocate blahdyblah... Maybe not the best attitude to take online I realise. So anyway, apologies - It's music chat at the end of the day.

Hey, when do the results come out anyway?

It just says results this week.

i am going for 100% women week. so far all i have learnt is that i am really bad at guessing the gender of ppl w/ non-english names

I'm going to stay out of the general issues here (I've learned my lessons, thanks), but I want to make a couple comments.

I think something lex said upthread makes sense: that it would be more helpful to look at specific genres and how gender plays out in each, rather than taking all of music (or at least all of popular music). I hope that was a reasonable paraphrase, feeling lazy about searching the thread.

And for an example of a genre that has hardly any female artists involved, I think salsa is a pretty strong example of that (excluding Cuban timba, which is sometimes classified as salsa, but which is also different enough to be broken off and treated separately). I think reggaeton, or Puerto Rican reggaeton anyway, also follows this pattern, but I am not familiar enough to say so confidently. Two of the three women I've gotten to know virtually via a shared interest in salsa expressed a dislike for most female vocalists (in salsa or out), though there were also some exceptions, but within salsa, they were mostly the few obvious exceptions. In one case, it mostly came down to Celia Cruz and that was it. I wouldn't say the third woman ever expressed that preference per se, though she was joking with me lately about how all the new (non-Latin in this case) music I was sharing with her featured female vocalists, while the music she was sharing (Latin, but not salsa) featured male vocals. (In fact, I ended up pointing out to her that almost all the salsa and reggaeton I listen to features male vocals. I mean, it was kind of like she was the one forgetting all that other music I listen to in a male-dominated genre.) Also, the common wisdom about Latin dance music is that women determine the trends. If women dance to it, then it flies; not otherwise. I'm just saying that is what I've heard or read (mostly read) expressed as the general view of how things go, not claiming it's true.

And yes, I can rattle off the names of some other female vocalists in salsa, outside of Celia Cruz, but they are still exceptions.

(I never talk much about new salsa, incidentally, because I think most of the recent stuff sucks at this point.)

So you could have a genre in which women have some power as an audience, as consumers, and they could end up supporting that it stay male-dominated. Of course, that doesn't mean they aren't doing so because they have introjected sexist values; but maybe it could be something else, or something more complicated anyway.)

Also, I wish I had seen this in time to do a list, though I hardly ever read Pitchfork so I'm not the target audience.

Make a list anyway! Just type it out. 1996 - 2011

I'd be very curious to see yr list if you can still be bothered.

I hope mine didn't make me out to be some late 90s emo guy.

If women dance to it, then it flies

i think this is a pretty pervasive idea w/ dance music. lots of guys don't want to perform their masculinity in a room full of guys i guess. idk i find the politics/difficulties of getting groups of ppl to come out & dance in different places very revealing.

may also reflect "women just want to dance" / "men just want to dance with women" assumptions

(One problem with explaining away male dominance in salsa via: "well, the women ultimately decide because if they won't dance to it, then nobody is happy and the music fails," is that it's not as though it's exclusively music to dance to. The Fania era is known for some incorporation of socially conscious lyrics (which could just mean reflecting everyday barrio life). And then again, salsa romantica is/was as much about love songs to listen to, though again, the responsibility for the trend tends to be assigned to a female audience (generally in terms of blame). Which is kind of weird since it's often considered less danceable than previous styles of salsa. (But considered by whom? Possibly just really hardcore salseros and salseras.)

Sorry this is all rather niche.)

(And can I just say: Jesus people! Company of Thieves!)

may also reflect "women just want to dance" / "men just want to dance with women" assumptions

Yeah, but--the thing is, with a partner dance this is much more of a real issue. It's mostly not common for men or women (more common for women) to dance solo to salsa in a club or relatively open party setting (i.e., not just a small gathering of people who know each other well, where presumably things might be looser). (That's less true in Colombia though, where guys are a little more likely to just dance around solo, maybe in a group of friends. Or so I've heard. Very limited knowledge on what I'm babbling about.)

Maybe I will make a list. The other thing is I really have a blind spot for the 90s so it's probably going to be at most four albums from then.

Sorry this is all rather niche

no, the niche pov is v helpful! the thicket of unattached generalities becomes smothering otherwise. and it's interesting to hear about how these things play out in (what is to me) a less familiar context.

The example of salsa makes me think about the issue of specialization. I don't know if I feel more guilty that my list consists almost entirely of white musicians or that some people would consider it almost entirely "lol indie." And why I would consider it valid for a writer to specialize in jazz or salsa but "lol indie" is not seen as a valid specialization.

From lex pretend:

what makes me suspicious is when i see lists skewed towards genres where there IS a lot of female involvement - that includes indie and pop and dance and rap and in fact almost every genre that western popular music fans listen to - but SOMEHOW all those female artists are just not considered as good as the male ones.

I feel like I can only offer my personal experience on these questions, evidence for the proposition as it were, but this rings true for my list anyway, where (discounting pop and r&b), female acts charted lower than male ones. And I chalk that up to being exposed to predominantly male acts in my formative musical listening years (which p4k had a huuuge influence over).

Harking back to smth White Chocolate Cheesecake said, it's true that it was only upon encountering the poptimists here and elsewhere (incl. p4k) a couple of years ago that I became comfortable with accepting those Usher and Destiny's Child albums I loved as a 14 year old once again. So in my case Tim F's emphasis on the importance of the conversations around music providing models for building yr own identity is absolutely central. And I guess ilx is great because it provides a variety of conversations to contribute to, altho I'm giving this a moralistic spin that is perhaps unwarrented (I'm pretty new here).

This feels like one massive xpost, apologies.