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

Minneapolis one of the only cities that didn't lead with OK Computer.

... We chose Neutral Milk Hotel In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. :-/

lol joke's on u

also that the older albums > younger albums (maybe not so much the case w/ radiohead, tho i think 'in rainbows' is creeping up there)

xxp

i love that neutral milk hotel record and have adored it since release but it's not even the best elephant 6 album

I do wonder how many contributors questioned the tastes and assumptions of their youth – do Radiohead voters still think Amnesiac is awesome? I hovered over Blur and Roni Size a couple times before deciding that nostalgia sucks.

Nothing in the list even half as surprising as the revelation that DJP ran track in converse. I felt a twinge of sympathy pain in my own feet upon reading that.

198 THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

lol

and i say that even though i even like a few songs on that album!

ouch

i think that made my list!

I should probably give NMH another try; at the time, it was the antithesis of what I wanted to hear in music (which was basically Arular)

I had pretty much the opposite reaction towards Roni Size (New Forms) lately than I did with Gus Gus: listened to it for the first time in forever and found it mostly stultifying and really unnoteworthy.

I think I've listened to In the Aeroplane... exactly once. That's not fair to it, really, and I know some albums are "growers," but I'm a pretty good judge of whether or not something is a thing I (n)ever want to hear again.

New Forms is an album I've always admired more than I liked, aside from "Brown Paper Bag" and "New Forms"

i think maybe i just hate consensus, especially when it reflects the tastes of so large a group of people. everything that might interest me is in the individual particularities.

then again, if there were even a small handful of albums i really felt strongly about in the top of the results pool, i might feel a bit more invested.

i like the Neutral Milk Hotel fine, not enough to vote for it or feel like a part of its crazed following but i'm more okay with it than anything else in the top 25 besides OK Computer

xxpost

Yeah, there's a handful of decent and innovative vocal tracks, but the bulk of it sounds like someone playing the 'jungle' track on a Casio.

For a second I was all "Hmm, I don't recall the NMH album sounding like that."

I should probably give NMH another try; at the time, it was the antithesis of what I wanted to hear in music (which was basically Arular)

do not give NMH another try.

I've heard On Avery Island (and kept "Song Against Sex" and one or two more) but I actually don't know I've heard In An Aeorplane aside from a guy yelling I LOVE YOU JESUS CHRIST on a bar jukebox.

I've had the appeal of the Roni Size album explained to me before - very succinctly in fact - by Tim F and the bobbins crew, and I still find it kinda tepid on the whole. Maybe just not for me.

On Avery Island

is this where Pitchfork apostates were sent in the early 2000's?

i HATED ITAOTS first time i heard it. Caterwauling and hard strummed acoustic guitar are among my least favourite sounds in music. But I really like it now. There's kind of a beautiful, delicate underlay beneath the spiky ugly exterior. It really does require a go or two.

read that as I HATED IHOP

Honestly I think it takes some things to have the energy to make one of those: a) some degree of narcissism to assume that literally anyone cares what albums you like b) enough self esteem to believe your choices are correct or to not care if people disagree with you or think less of you because of which albums you like c) the fastidious patience to actually complete a task that is based mainly in narcissism.

I have some of these things, and there are many women who also have these things, but I would say in general that men are more apt to have all of them.

― da croupier, Wednesday, August 22, 2012 10:20 AM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is p dumb imo

xpost FUCK YOU ROOTY TOOTY FRESH AND FRUITY

this is p dumb imo

Unless you have a professional reason to make a list like this, it makes sense to me.

exactly

i also dig the idea that your top 10 can change like everyday--i get that making lists is fun, but it's pretty meaningless and dumb

why do anything, its all so narcissistic

fashion = you are narcissistic for thinking anyone cares how you look

I really wish that either NMH managed to capture the sense I got from their live performance that Jeff Mangum is possessed or channeling something wholly outside of himself. It was mesmerizing in person, much less so on record.

eh I don't really care what she thinks, people should really see my list imo

i also dig the idea that your top 10 can change like everyday--i get that making lists is fun, but it's pretty meaningless and dumb

― Mr. Que, Wednesday, August 22, 2012 10:57 AM (43 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

of course, as mine could. but ... you're also describing listmaking as 'fun'

i should have put fun in quotes

idk i think that sharing what music you like is fun without quotes. its only corny & narcissistic when ppl get all "this is the right way things should be" or w/e about it. but i dont think making a list in itself is a narcissistic exercise at all & that her trying to shame men & other women from participating is corny

ANYWAY the point is that I love making things like that and I went to make mine and I had 70 albums and got overwhelmed with ranking them and forgot and never published it. Honestly I think it takes some things to have the energy to make one of those: a) some degree of narcissism to assume that literally anyone cares what albums you like b) enough self esteem to believe your choices are correct or to not care if people disagree with you or think less of you because of which albums you like c) the fastidious patience to actually complete a task that is based mainly in narcissism.

she admits she loves making lists, too! but ultimately it's pretty stupid

it takes a degree of narcissism to think that we're not all specks in a massive cosmos & our lives are completely irrelevant, esp when we all die of global warming in a few years.

re in the aeroplane over the sea: it's a good album. trying, but good. the sort of thing you have to be born to love, i guess (or born again).

i bought a copy when it came out and remember friends going completely nuts for it at the time, but i only really enjoyed a few songs - notably "large-hearted boy", "gardenhead" and "holland 1945" - and basically never wanted to listen to it. i'd gone through a similar arc with on avery island (minus the friends going nuts part) and missed that album's wall of fuzz, but the hugely expanded ambition seemed a fair trade off.

looking back, aeroplane seems more than any other album to embody what went wrong in american indie, both as music and as a social phenomena. you know, relative to what i grew up with and wanted out of it.

as i said upthread i'm pretty sure anyone who saved 20+ albums on the site had their ballot counted, so that girl probably voted without realizing it

listening to "Rosa Parks" and "Ms. Jackson" for the first time in years and man I love Outkast

so fresh so clean is so good

i think you're projecting the "shame" here, d-40

do Radiohead voters still think Amnesiac is awesome?

Yes.

??? she calls men who make lists narcissists?

xp to croup

im just sayin, say it loud, i made a list & im proud

there's really no reason why I don't already own Idlewild and I should have put ATLiens on my list

I feel like Andre's total weird out on The Love Below ultimately makes everyone look at Outkast as failed potential as opposed to fucking amazing even when being totally self-indulgent

read it again, d-40

looking back, aeroplane seems more than any other album to embody what went wrong in american indie, both as music and as a social phenomena. you know, relative to what i grew up with and wanted out of it.

Yes. My gut says yes to this. NMH and the cult of the Beach Boys.

is there a way to see a list of results that excludes all ballots containing Neutral Milk Hotel?

― Gurdas Mane (crüt), Wednesday, August 22, 2012 2:34 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

If you do this you're excluding my list, and if you really want to do this then you have to promise to never again listen to the White Noise. Sorry crüt, that's the way it's gotta be.

Anyway, my one, my only, response to this list: loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool

Honestly I think it takes some things to have the energy to make one of those: a) some degree of narcissism to assume that literally anyone cares what albums you like b) enough self esteem to believe your choices are correct or to not care if people disagree with you or think less of you because of which albums you like c) the fastidious patience to actually complete a task that is based mainly in narcissism.

I have some of these things, and there are many women who also have these things, but I would say in general that men are more apt to have all of them.