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

You're totally overstating indie fans all being middle class. It's honestly not like that in Scotland at least. Sure lots of middle class folks like it, but probably more dont plus I can assure you lots of working class/non university people are into indie.

― Algerian Goalkeeper, Tuesday, August 21, 2012 12:02 AM (2 minutes ago)

that may be. i'm primarily talking about more-or-less mainstream indie music & culture in america today. as exemplified by pitchfork, "NPR indie", arcade fire, etc.

would never say "all indie fans are middle class", btw, and i'm not expressing any kind of class hostility (that i know of...)

In the U.S. almost 70% of high school graduates enroll in college these days, so I'm not sure that indie being "mostly educated" is terribly damning.
xp

no, just admitting that their perspective is a perspective - that pitchfork (very loosely) represents the interests and tastes of a specific culture and is closely associated with a specific genre, however difficult that genre may be to clearly define. admission itself is the first step toward moving past.

How would they do that? I was going to make some tagline up like Pitchfork- the Indie site, but then I googled it and their actual description on google is Pitchfork - The essential guide to independent music and beyond. Is that not fair? They don't go beyond enough? Or they go too far beyond and should stick to "indie"? Or what? I honestly don't get what people want from them. People seem to be saying that "indie" is everything and nothing. That it doesn't deserve to be categorized as it's own distinct genre but that it somehow makes claims toward universality.

"Pitchfork - Be forewarned: Our Perspective is a Perspective."

In the U.S. almost 70% of high school graduates enroll in college these days, so I'm not sure that indie being "mostly educated" is terribly damning.

it's not damning at all though. that's what's so bizarre about this whole thing. if you say that something is, for the most part, white and/or middle class, then a lot of people will automatically assume that you must be trying to cast some kind of aspersion. not at all! the american indie culture i'm describing is in no sense shameful, despite the fact that it happens to be overwhelmingly white (and arguably middle class, collegiate, etc). those qualities only become a problem when they aren't acknowledged, when they try to pass themselves off as universal personhood - or, of course, when they're expressed as bigotry.

But again, I don't even understand what that would look like for indie culture to acknowledge that it's mostly white and middle class. If it's not a problem, why does it have to be acknowledged? Pitchfork - The Essential Guide to Middle Class White Music? How could that possibly be a good thing? I could understand the pitchfork editors discussing the issue within the context of an interview or some kind of op-ed on their site, but as an overall statement of intent? There is no simple categorical solution there like say Decibel - America's Only Monthly Metal Magazine.

It was never really feasible for Pitchfork to remain an indie enclave specifically because of that natural curiosity a lot of its readers and writers would have had about the world beyond. As stated above, it's crucial for it to be aware of the underlying biases that influence its coverage of other things though.

How to do that in practice is a good question. Perhaps avoiding terms like "best", "definitive" and "classic" in general, and particularly when it comes to canon-building lists. I tend to judge generalist websites, which is ultimately what Pitchfork is aiming for, not by the music that they cover in isolation but the culture that they seem to be trying to foster. A willingness to challenge reader / writer preconceptions and a humility that acknowledges that there's a vast amount of amazing music they're not coming close to covering is just as important.

How would they do that? I was going to make some tagline up like Pitchfork- the Indie site, but then I googled it and their actual description on google is Pitchfork - The essential guide to independent music and beyond. Is that not fair?

yeah, that's perfectly fair. i have no idea whether or not that tagline was always there. for all i know, it was. the phrase "independent music" doesn't appear on their front page, but it's not like any regular reader doesn't know that it's their primary focus.

as i see it, that admirably accurate google tagline notwithstanding, pitchfork has adopted a curious reticence about branding itself as a specialist indie site. rather than explicitly focus on a particular culture from within, it at least seems to present itself as a generically authoritative "top down" voice regarding the state of contemporary music-as-culture. if an album, artist or genre seems important to it, it will provide its readers with an instructional point of view.

this reflects indie culture's interest in music as a whole, but like rolling stone rockism of days gone by, it threatens to organize the entire world as a suburb of itself. coupled with pitchfork's cultural prominence and the unacknowledged demographic makeup of the scene it's primarily aligned with, this becomes troublesome.

tbh, i'm not sure how pitchfork should announce its particular point of view and the inherent limitations that accompany it. i just know that most metal, dance music and hip-hop sites don't make a similar attempt to "cover the world" in an authoritative manner. they're much more up-front (and to my mind honest) about the specific culture and genre that they're organized around.

Starting to think Pitchfork can't win either way. Either it sticks to reviewing JUST indie rock with guitars (like a mag such as Terrorizer might have a policy of only covering extreme TR00 KVLT metal exclusively), in which case it would firstly have a dwindling remit as independent music diversifies and cherry-picks from electronic music etc, and secondly be seen as militantly SWM. Or it diversifies, accepts that its audience is keen to learn about music away from guitar rock and is then challenged as being condescendingly pious in its coverage. I don't think any of its readers are under any illusion where Pitchfork's roots and readership lies, but the fact they will cover important albums outside the typical indie rock sphere can only be a good thing. And of course attitudes to how the music is covered will be affected by the writers as well as the editors. Pitchfork readers may well come for the indie rock, but unless they're very stubborn they'll stay for the coverage of other styles ultimately seeking out other publications, sites, blogs that specialise in these new interests.

No one's under any perception that life begins and ends with Pitchfork. It's just another mag on the proverbial newsstand. That said, I do understand that, going back to the print media of my youth, Q, NME, Vox, Select did present themselves as generalist publications while focusing primarily on white alternative pop-rock and treating other styles as the exception. The NME is called "New Musical Express", a title denoting generalism, but it is still overwhelmingly rockist with a fairweather supporting bias of white indie trends (haven't read it in a year or two though, so maybe not?). Select was at its best when it wasn't constantly banging on about Britpop. The most interesting sections for me (even as a Britpop-loving teenager) were not the Noel Gallagher interviews, but the clubbing sections and occasional features on a pop, punk or hiphop acts outside of its usual remit. I don't actually remember Select being terribly "look at us we're interviewing the Spice Girls LOL!" about it, which was refreshing compared to a lot of other publications at the time.

Of course, it's worth remembering that musical approaches and attitudes have changed a fair bit since Pitchfork began. R'n'B and dance are assimilating, indie is taking cues from all over the shop, and Pitchfork has a duty not only to reflect the changing attitudes in the music it originally set out to cover, but also the music that is influencing this. Concurrently, Pitchfork also has tremendous influence over indie listeners' tastes, but maybe not so much outside of that readership sphere. I don't believe that a serious hiphop fan would use PF as their prime source of music info, for example.

Mags where the staff consists of an X-majority (where X is any unchoosable point of division) will always have X-centric lists, however relatively diverse and outward-reaching it might be.

So which comes first? The more diverse bias-neutral list, or the more diverse bias-neutral pool of list makers?

Did anyone have any interesting listmaking methods, and do you think your list was skewed as a result? I basically just pulled all my entries from the albums tab in my Last.fm stats, so if I haven't listened to it since I joined Last.fm (2006), it didn't get on. Seemed more honest that way. I manually ordered them, though.

I Would have liked to have gone through my entire collection, built an XLS and then pared things down, but I was at work so mine was largely based on instinct and recall. Not a particularly methodical way to do it.

they're counting down from tomorrow. I just realised a lot of albums I entered didn't actually show up on my list for some reason, so no Dopethrone for example. I'm kind of pissed off about that.

This sense of being hard to self-define is in part the same impulse that motivates dog latin to say he doesn't consciously consider himself to be a straight white male.

i.e. when your sub-culture considers itself to be "culture" (or alternatively "counter-culture") in general, it starts to lose its sense of specificity.

― Tim F, Tuesday, August 21, 2012 4:56 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^Truth Bomb, IMO

Yeah, that's a key lesson that people need to learn from this debate. Culture and society do a spectacularly good job of making the arbitrary and enforced appear to be absolutely natural and normal. It's myth-making.

eg truthiness, something Dog Latin is real good at

delete ilx

This sense of being hard to self-define is in part the same impulse that motivates dog latin to say he doesn't consciously consider himself to be a straight white male.
i.e. when your sub-culture considers itself to be "culture" (or alternatively "counter-culture") in general, it starts to lose its sense of specificity.

― Tim F, Tuesday, August 21, 2012 4:56 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^Truth Bomb, IMO

― my god it's full of straw (White Chocolate Cheesecake), Tuesday, 21 August 2012 14:19 (47 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, that's a key lesson that people need to learn from this debate. Culture and society do a spectacularly good job of making the arbitrary and enforced appear to be absolutely natural and normal. It's myth-making.

― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Tuesday, 21 August 2012 14:42 (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Cool cool, I completely understand this. I even alluded to this (the privilege of being able to consider myself in this way) when I originally said I don't generally go around defining myself in terms of gender or race. I'd prefer it if people stopped chewing my leg over it as it's greatly upsetting, as someone who is actively against racism and sexism, to be accused of prejudice when maybe I just don't understand a deeper issue, or wish to present examples in order to understand them better. Thanks.

i.e. when your sub-culture considers itself to be "culture" (or alternatively "counter-culture") in general, it starts to lose its sense of specificity.

The problem I have with this claim re:pitchfork is where is that drive toward universality actually coming from? The readers? The staff? As a response to criticism? Pitchfork could easily strengthen its sense of specificity by stopping coverage of chart pop, hip hop, dance music, metal, and any other genre that already gets extensive coverage and attention elsewhere. But that would go against everything people are asking for wouldn't it?

I'd prefer it if people stopped chewing my leg over it as it's greatly upsetting, as someone who is actively against racism and sexism, to be accused of prejudice when maybe I just don't understand a deeper issue

You're never going to get better at understanding a deeper issue if no one's allowed to point out when your perspective is coming from a place of unconscious racism/sexism. If you want to be "actively against" those things then you have to be committed to letting people call you out when you're wrong. And there are worse things in the world than being called out on racism and sexism. Such as being on the receiving end of racism and sexism, no matter how much it may be the result of "misunderstanding".

xposts above.

don't blame pitchfork.

start your own every-but-pitchfork site, and cover all the music you think should be covered.

just don't complain when you don't take over the world doing it.

top selling US artists of 2011:

1. Adele 6,744,000
2. Justin Bieber 3,393,000
3. Michael Buble 2,985,000
4. Lady Gaga 2,828,000
5. Lil' Wayne 2,651,000
6. Lady Antebellum 2,180,000
7. Glee Cast 2,104,000
8. Jason Aldean 1,884,000
9. Taylor Swift 1,847,000
10. Drake 1,591,000

Read more: Top 10 Selling Musical Artists, 2011 — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/entertainment/music/top-ten-musical-artists-2011.html#ixzz24BxlNQBW

Perhaps avoiding terms like "best", "definitive" and "classic" in general, and particularly when it comes to canon-building lists

I don't read Pitchfork much at all but why is it worse for Pitchfork to do this than for e.g. The Wire to do this?

You're never going to get better at understanding a deeper issue if no one's allowed to point out when your perspective is coming from a place of unconscious racism/sexism. If you want to be "actively against" those things then you have to be committed to letting people call you out when you're wrong. And there are worse things in the world than being called out on racism and sexism. Such as being on the receiving end of racism and sexism, no matter how much it may be the result of "misunderstanding".

― Melissa W, Tuesday, 21 August 2012 15:40 (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I fail to see how this is wrong: "Despite being one, I don't necessarily identify myself on a day-to-day basis as a "straight white male". You could say that's because I see myself as a cultural 'norm' and therefore don't have to, which I understand" - isn't that exactly what everyone's been telling me anyway?

I'm semi-regularly petrified that I've offended WCC inadvertently by saying something laden with truthiness or suchlike. And it's a horrible feeling being called out like that, like being told off when you're a kid for something you didn't quite realise was wrong until its pointed out. But I'm glad that WCC does it, because it makes me think, and reevaluate, and hopefully not do it again.

xps Commercially, female artists seem to be doing ok (though I guess there's a question about how the money for pop albums splits across artists/producers/writers etc.). I think the debate here is more about bias in the critical ecosystem and maybe also listener/industry/critical bias in certain genres.

(Cool thread, though it's pretty hard to keep up)

so fucked that a #1 artist is selling roughly twice as many as a #2 artist. also RIP bands (because with that dwindles the prospect of there being more successful bands or more-than-one acts that aren't all or mostly SWM).

Man, I wish I was half as terrifying as you lads seems to think I am!

(Then maybe the boss's son would listen to me at work and not make the stupid cockups he does.)

I don't read Pitchfork much at all but why is it worse for Pitchfork to do this than for e.g. The Wire to do this?

It's not necessarily worse but the impact is probably more significant given the scale of Pitchfork's influence on critical discourse and the fuzzy boundary of its area of professed expertise.

Lists called "The Most Important Album Covers Of The Last Three Years" are extremely grating, but surely this is a necessary evil of headline journalism - I especially hate seeing it on the cover of the NME - so self important. Maybe it would be more productive for me to think of Pitchfork as a US analogue of the NME, a publication which is infinitely more myopic in its music coverage.

I'm semi-regularly petrified that I've offended WCC inadvertently by saying something laden with truthiness or suchlike. And it's a horrible feeling being called out like that, like being told off when you're a kid for something you didn't quite realise was wrong until its pointed out. But I'm glad that WCC does it, because it makes me think, and reevaluate, and hopefully not do it again.

― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Tuesday, 21 August 2012 15:51 (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This ^ I'll be the first to admit a lot of my posts can come across as naive or misguided, and I appreciate being explained what is wrong about them. But there is a difference between this and being on the receiving end of a hellfire sermon about what a terrible human being I apparently am. It's not about "Aw you hurt my feewings" (although it does hurt), it's that shouting at someone and accusing them of being a typical example of an oppressive cultural hegemony is hugely counter-productive and not an effective way to get a POV across. I've been on this board a very long time and yet I don't know anything more about you guys than you do about me. I hope something people do know though is that I'm not here to fight or troll and yeah, I'll play devil's advocate a fair bit and ask some dumb questions, maybe use hypothetical examples more than I ought to for the sake of argument. But this kind of debate is difficult enough for someone such as myself to participate in as I am A: perhaps not as au fait with the intricacies of the wider debate as I'd like to be, and B: a SWM myself and therefore a very easy critical target. Being chased away from such a debate - a debate which I realise involves issues that people feel extremely strongly about - and told "You deserve everything you get as yours is the stereotypical opinion of the oppressor" isn't miles away from WCC's experience of being chased away from genre scenes "You're a girl, you wouldn't understand" etc... Hope this makes at least some sense. It's not my intention to hurt people's feelings or agitate sore spots.

Please. Stop. Projecting.

The closest anyone has come on this thread, at all, to giving anyone a "hellfire sermon" was me joking - hey, maybe it didn't come across as a joke - that you had said women don't do anger, and I made a joke that that comment made me so angry I wanted my browser to assault you. I apologise if you did not read that as the humourous irony it was intended.

But apart from that, you are projecting something that no one on this thread has been doing.

You have said some pretty dumb things ITT. And people have been *astonishingly* gentle with you. But, you know, casting yourself as some kind of victim here is the kind of thing that really gets people's backs up. Stop being so defensive and read what people have actually said, and you might learn something.

I'm sorry you feel so persecuted for being a white man. :( The sheer nerve of some people to react to hurtful things you said when you didn't intend for them to be hurtful! x-post

Also, drawing straight comparisons between "omg, women are being contemptuous of my opinions in this thread!" and "men in this forum are detailing their graphic rape fantasies about me every time I post" is really quite seriously jaw-dropping.

I kind of want to re-engage with this thread but just to talk about how much I love the albums I put on my list

also to mope that I didn't remember to put Barking on it

You put at least one Lamb record on your list DJP so all is forgiven.

DJP please make a Spotify list of your nominations?

(I made a YouTube playlist of my top 5 for a date earlier this week when they hadn't heard anything I was waxing excited about.)

I have THREE Lamb albums on my list! Love them to bits

I decided to only go with one album per artist, or I'd have had more than one. Of course, I went with one (What Sound you didn't choose!

Pitchfork could easily strengthen its sense of specificity by stopping coverage of chart pop, hip hop, dance music, metal, and any other genre that already gets extensive coverage and attention elsewhere. But that would go against everything people are asking for wouldn't it?

― wk, Tuesday, August 21, 2012 7:37 AM (1 hour ago)

afaic, pitchfork has the right to cover whatever they want. the more the better. i'd just like to see critics and critical organs be straightforward about where they're coming from & who they are. for pitchfork, it'd be nice to have links from individual reviews to critic bios, photos (maybe, if people wanted to be seen?) and lists of their other writings on the site. plus maybe a bit more upfront honesty about the fact that pitchfork is still basically an indie site and the ways in which that orientation frames their overall editorial/critical philosophy. i don't think the wire is at all reticent about the fact that they're primarily interested in experimental & avant-garde stuff. like the pitchfork of old, the specificity of their interest is what makes the wire distinct and useful.

fwiw, dog latin, i think you're doing fine here. you've said some stuff i disagree with, but you seem overall to have been open-minded and to have engaged with the debate in a fair and honest fashion. that's all that can reasonably be asked of anyone, afaic. of course, i can't speak to whatever offense you may have given anyone else...

i agree

Aw, it's so cute, you guys giving him manpointz when he so clearly wanted the Feminist Cookie.

WCC is seriously one of the best posters on ILX right now.

"We, the white men, were so totally not ~offended~!"

Because news flash: no one on this thread was ever actually offended. Dude said some bullshit, some people with actual experience took the time to correct those fallacies and now he's crying victim coz he done got told. Yay, white men! Let's go make some lists!

http://open.spotify.com/user/djperry1973/playlist/43Zk2ca6q9IBEFPoIDV8xm

Here's my ballot as a Spotify playlist. There are some weird omissions due to some things not being online in the US, like the Prodigy singles comp, Music Has A Right To Children, the Moloko albums and the first two Basement Jaxx albums, and things that just wouldn't be on Spotify like my brother's hip-hop group's album from 2003.

incredibly ironic xpost

gonna go and play my ballot on shuffle now, it's enough music for three days