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

the comments they chose to publish are like PF's way of saying "see why we don't do open calls for new writers anymore? stop asking"

Because I assassin down the avenue, because my lies were always wishes, because you were right about the stars, because I've got reservations about so many things, and finally, because of Chicago.

― thomp, Wednesday, August 22, 2012 4:32 PM

this is an Interpol lyric, guys

156 SILVER JEWS American Water
157 FUGAZI The Argument

Home run after home run. Perfect balance of style and substance, ambition and accessibility, intelligence and ignorance. An emotional roller coaster. Universal appeal but still so personal. Overlook the title and its as perfect as albums come.

kris dotson, music fan

SD's second comment can hardly be interpreted as 'not a dig,' since the only reason I felt inclined to say something was that it isn't the first time he has made ridiculously shitty comments about Mel's RH fandom (see: 1st Mad Men thread). It's hard to give a self-admitted tedious dick the benefit of the doubt. Jokes are for friends, iirc.

I think ultimately this was a great way to converse about music, and most things were a shoe-in yet there were some sneakers at the end of the list.

Not enough shoegazing, though.

well you just gaze at shoes, sneakers are stared at adoringly

xpost Love how Melissa's list is basically a very ILM list with the entire recorded work of Radiohead and bandmembers dropped at the beginning.

― Tim F, Friday, August 17, 2012 10:27 AM (5 days ago) Bookmark

this was the post i was referencing (although i misremembered "very ILM list" as "very Pitchfork list") fwiw. we can keep talking about this if you want, but i think you can assume the people that need to hate me hate me already and move on. (xpost)

voter/gender/male/distinction index

no 1 is ween's 'quebec'

hating Ween is my tribute to feminism

http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj242/donaldparsley/ty.jpg

This thread has been locked by an administrator

oh they had another go at restoring that Jesus portrait then?

xpost

Pitchfork’s “People’s List” Is a Scandal
"In short, nothing about the list is surprising, and for those of us who love pop music in its many flavors and permutations—including pop music that is actually popular—the usual complaints apply."

People trying to shoehorn pop music into the pitchfork list is baffling to me. There's already a list for that. It's bad enough that six of the top ten albums are major label releases on a site that's supposedly "indie."

Did someone ask for a portrait of Jesus?

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m89splkWNs1r3dthwo1_1280.jpg

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/445/media/images/62428000/gif/_62428391_frescopic.gif

that Slate piece makes a few statements that are offbase but in general it's pretty spot-on imho

slate really is amazing

Pitchyorke.

last paragraph is solid tho

yassss that slate piece

esp the bit about it being a NICHE PUBLICATION

lead picture is solid too

yeah. my quibbles are with the stuff about co-ed bands and the pop aside already mentioned but still

xp

pitchfork is not a niche publication

(the co-ed thing has always confused me - what percentage of women need to be in a band before they count as women? 51% what if a woman writes most of the material and is the clear leader or co-leader of the band like the Cramps or Stereolab? etc)

xp

You start with:

http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/browbeat/2012/08/22/pitchfork_s_people_s_list_is_almost_exclusively_white_and_male_this_is_a_scandal_/117244894.jpg.CROP.article568-large.jpg

and you end with:

I’m referring to the list’s gender breakdown. If I’m not mistaken, there are just 23 records by women artists in the top 200, and only two in the top 50. And that’s a generous count, making room for co-ed acts like The xx, Beach House, and Portishead. Again, we can look to the self-selecting voting base. According to Pitchfork’s own stats, 88% of the poll respondents were men. “The Dudes’ List” might have been a more accurate title.

And that just gets one giant fist-pump from me.

the people's list putting lame indie dudes on blast is cool tho -- stereogum does this every year (or day) tho

Slate really couldn't have found a less flattering photo of Willie Nelson

pitchfork is not a niche publication

c'mon dude

the audience is pretty niche (as shown here) -- publication is not tho

tbf WCC I find the ubiquity of RH in the list roughly as offensive as the ubiquity of other whiny white indie guy albums (some of which I like/love but come the fuck on broaden your horizons people!)

Still—what the hell is wrong with these dudes? Did it escape their attention that for much of the past decade and a half, female artists have had a stranglehold on the popular music zeitgeist?

I think on the one hand this is dumb as shit. Presumably a lot of people are into indie and pitchfork specifically as a way to escape the popular music zeitgeist. On the other hand I think he left an unexplored question dangling there. To what degree have dudes escaped into indie beacause it's the kind of boys club that WCC discussed upthread?

Man, I am like number one Captain Save-A-Yorke on this board, and even I think that the Radiohead content of that list is ridiculous.

(Thom Yorke is still hott, though, and I still like looking at pictures of him.)

x-post

tbf what music publication isn't a niche publication

^^true

pitchfork is not a niche publication

c'mon dude

i think its a lot less parochial than its audience

The fact that Pitchfork is regarded in certain influential circles as something other than a niche publication—the fact that indie rock gets coverage in the high-middlebrow press way out of proportion to its popularity and cultural impact—says more about the tastes and prejudices of the pundit class than it does about Pitchfork, per se.

shoes just sponsor best of lists, sneakers write them

― Lamp, Wednesday, August 22, 2012 4:20 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

thanking u

i think its a lot less parochial than its audience

absolutely!

I think on the one hand this is dumb as shit. Presumably a lot of people are into indie and pitchfork specifically as a way to escape the popular music zeitgeist.

I've thought about this too but I wonder how much Popular Music most people who care about music actually get exposed to! The days of relying on saturation radio play are over; you have so much competition. The average twentysomething's exposure to popular music is at college football games and "Call Me Maybe" played in student union buildings.

pitchfork attempts a broad view, but remains pretty indie, pretty niche at heart, imo. this only makes sense, allows it to court new readers without alienating its core audience.

I've thought about this too but I wonder how much Popular Music most people who care about music actually get exposed to! The days of relying on saturation radio play are over; you have so much competition. The average twentysomething's exposure to popular music is at college football games and "Call Me Maybe" played in student union buildings.

well they roughly know what it's about and could easily seek it out if they were interested. I mean the obvious answer to "Did it escape their attention that for much of the past decade and a half, female artists have had a stranglehold on the popular music zeitgeist?" is no, of course not. They want to hear dudes with guitars, so the "popular music zeitgeist" has nothing for them anymore.

look, pitchfork isn't the singles jukebox. and it has wide gaps in coverage, sure. but there isn't a publication -- certainly not one on its level -- that covers as wide a breadth of music as in-depth. stylus beat it, back in the day. but it also had like 1/100th the audience. new spin is close-ish.

Some of the reaction of course is reflexive teenage "ew it's popular so it sucks" attitude.

maybe the guardian, idk

but there isn't a publication -- certainly not one on its level -- that covers as wide a breadth of music as in-depth.

this doesn't necessarily make it not niche. it makes it wide-ranging in its coverage. despite the breadth of coverage, its values, style, focus and audience remain pretty closely associated w indie music & culture.

Comparatively, Pitchfork does have a broad view compared to stalwarts like Spin and RS, though they still have pop and country and r&b blind spots (and a couple of those a coming into view slowly, though I don't think we'll ever see Pitchfork cover a country release that No Depression wouldn't have also covered if they still existed). It's the readers, both old and young, who tend to ignore the day-to-day content and just listen to records they recognize or have heard about from friends or from the "hot & new" section of the record shop.

i mean, a core part of indie's identity (or imagined identity) is "the informed sophisticate's" general interest in arts & culture.