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

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.

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.

― wk, Monday, August 20, 2012 8:46 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well because "lol indie" is too popular among "shallower" demographics that aren't musically mature enough to respect, much less specialize in something like jazz. People don't need a acquired taste for soda and therefore a soda connoisseur wouldn't be as appreciated as a wine connoisseur might.

Mercer Finn: 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).

Evan: Well because "lol indie" is too popular among "shallower" demographics that aren't musically mature enough to respect, much less specialize in something like jazz. People don't need a acquired taste for soda and therefore a soda connoisseur wouldn't be as appreciated as a wine connoisseur might.

Another way to express my beef with a lot of the discussion above is that it assumes that it's somehow self-evident what "lived experience" is reflected back to people by a given piece of music.

There is a banal, simplistic sense in which this is correct - e.g. that a male performer reflects a male experience.

Even adopting for the sake of discussion that "lived experience" is a particularly key part of what is communicated by music per se (as opposed to certain more confessionalor "journalistic" forms), as Lex notes above, one of the barriers to the popular/critical uptake of many female artists is that the lived experience they are assumed to communicate by (let's assume male) sceptics is different to that which their fans would say they are communicating - i.e. the allegation that a female singer is shrill or hysterical or man-hating is one that in most cases the fan would just deny, rather than say, "yes, that's one of the things we like."

So what we often relate to - positively or negatively - is really a gloss on (or framework for) the "worldview" expressed by the music, and this gloss is mediated through our experience of the social experience of music (this is particularly apparent when internet dudes talk about the musical taste of their ex-girlfriends).

The distinction between music that we "get" pretty much straightaway and music we really have to work at to enjoy/appreciate/understand (though I use those terms subjectively - i.e. "I feel like I understand what this music is doing" - rather than according to some objective measure of expertise) itself most commonly turns on the distinction between being able to apply a readymade framework (maybe marginally modified from one we've used before) and being forced to build one from scratch, whether through trial and error or by trying to learn from the experiences of others.

Indie music appreciation isn't inherently "shallower" than jazz appreciation, but for people in a certain demographic, frameworks that enable the listener to feel like they "get" the music are more readily available and hence easily adopted and applied.

The risk (though it's only a risk, by no means a certainty) of any form of specialisation or just confined contexts for listening (e.g. a "pitchfork worldview") is not the sclerotisation and hardening of one's taste per se, but that of the frameworks through which the music is perceived. IMO the cause for concern about, say, having hardly any female artists on a list of favourite records is less the possibility that it signals I don't listen to enough female performers, and more the possibility that it indicates I am applying certain frameworks to my engagement with music like a crutch - i.e. less the lack of diversity of records per se than the lack of diversity of relationships with records.

Well because "lol indie" is too popular among "shallower" demographics that aren't musically mature enough to respect, much less specialize in something like jazz.

that's such bullshit, unless I'm misunderstanding what people mean by "lol indie." I meant that my list of favorite stuff from the past decade is heavy on obvious pitchfork stuff like Animal Collective unlike some of the more pop oriented lists people have posted. And I have listened to jazz since I was a child and studied and played it starting at the age of 13. You really think that contemporary pop or hip hop is as "musically mature" as the kind of stuff pitchfork regularly covers?

I like a ton of what I think "lol indie" is, and that is just what I perceive the reason is in relation to jazz and salsa as you mentioned.

So hip hop is wine and white dudes with guitars are soda basically right?

ell no, the analogy was only applying to your comparison to specializing in jazz or salsa.

Well*

Well because "lol indie" is too popular among "shallower" demographics that aren't musically mature enough to respect, much less specialize in something like jazz. People don't need a acquired taste for soda and therefore a soda connoisseur wouldn't be as appreciated as a wine connoisseur might.

― Evan, Monday, August 20, 2012 7:50 PM (47 minutes ago)

assume this is satirical snark? cuz otherwise, it's complete bullshit. we get out art what we manage to put in, nutshell = infinite space and all.

the only problem with indie (etc) is its overcelebration by people who claim - either actively or passively - to be knowledgeable generalists interested in everything. this leads to horrors like the "acclaimed music" lists from the late 70s and early-mid 80s which were getting polled a while back. they promote as critical consensus the idea that "smart" white guitar rock is by far the best music in the world. i reject this completely.

i mean, i accept that the talking heads and wire were making music that appealed - and still appeals - quite strongly to critics with a special interest in smartguy guitar pop, but that's where i draw the line.