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

wonder if biggie knows what pitchfork is

i think the guy that said "when I die, fuck it I wanna go to hell" knows about pitchforks, yeah

i think knowing what we know about the demographics

yeah 'life after death' feels like the sort of iconic rap album that even people a few years younger than me latch on to but i may be totally overestimating my own anecdotal xps here

but like i had no idea more than 10 people in the world liked the arctic monkeys so

I still think that they could've rigged it so that the first time someone wrote in an album, it would subsequently appear in the database for others to find. The main problem with that, I guess, is typos and misspellings. But I'm curious how that was dealt with for write-in ballots in general. Was there some sort of normalizing system to ensure that votes for "Brihgten the Corners" were counted alongside "Brighten the Corners"?

I was concerned about that issue re: Dopesmoker/Jerusalem. In retrospect lol @ myself.

I can't believe my #1 vote for The Glands wasn't enough to get it on the list. This is an outrage.

if i were p4rk, i'd have tried hard to partner with allmusic on this, so that if respondents couldn't find the album they wanted in p4rk's db, they could link to allmusic and search there, then port the artist, album title and art back in for use by other respondents. would ensure write-in consistency and allow p4rk's db to grow as the poll went on.

can't imagine why allmusic wouldn't want to partner w p4rk on this, like for free, so long as they didn't have to do any work themselves. would be hugely beneficial for their brand. then again, i don't get most things. maybe the two sites see each other as "the competition".

you really couldn't imagine why?

again i think this entire discussion overlooks the fact that almost nothing would've changed had the database been expanded -- maybe 'reasonable doubt' would've hit number 186 or something

i can see Lauryn Hill doing pretty well if it wasn't a write-in

maybe. but people would've had to search for her name to find it. at that point, why not just add it in manually?

incidentally, the 4th biggest write-in album was some major label emo bands i've never heard of? weird

btw did anyone work out the highest-charting album that wasn't on the "best of" selection provided?

you really couldn't imagine why?

sincerely no. seems like it couldn't do anything but benefit allmusic. sharing artist & title info on a few thousand albums wouldn't undercut the value of their intellectual property, i don't think - especially not if they're getting hits out of it. i mean, p4rk could easily write code to strip that all info out if they really wanted to...

I'm sure someone already mentioned this, but, aside from, err, QOTSA, no metal on this list??1 #thefuck0)))

not even a token metal album? lol. Were any on the list to choose from?

shocked, i tell you, shocked

incidentally, the 4th biggest write-in album was some major label emo bands i've never heard of? weird

haha i cant believe youve never heard brand new!

as a branding exercise though it totally makes sense to only include the things that you have put your site stamp of approval on. pitchforkers are crafty dudes.

there have been a number of metal albums on the staff lists, so yeah there were plenty to choose from

i'm kinda surprised that mastodon didn't place... they probably would've had this poll been done 2 years ago

If P4k just wanted an album database w/out licensing issues they could have used Musicbrainz. But there's no evidence they had any interest in doing much to help writers-in.

Or Discogs, I guess (not sure how easy it is to get their data).

Thought a Boris album might at least make it

Did Big N Rich place?

haha i cant believe youve never heard brand new!

― Lamp, Wednesday, August 22, 2012 8:53 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

i thought it was clear i don't know any emo bands unless they go platinum

yeah, that's kinda bugging me out

lol but sd isnt your favourite band an emo band who went platinum?

think this was a genius idea for the amount of pageviews the list-making must have got but it might have been a better idea just not to have published the results, impossible not to have predicted they would end up this way but kind of depressing nonetheless

i said "unless" -- although Say Anything never had a gold album, and apparently Brand New did, so i'm exaggerating a little but really these guys were never on my radar at all beyond the vague knowledge that there was a band called 'Brand New' somewhere out there

don't you ever dream of all the emo bands who never went platinum you might have loved tho!

I guess w/ Boris votes were probably split across their albums. I'm sure at least 80% of Radiohead fans placed OK Computer above all other Radiohead albums. Acts with a universally accepted career highpoint were more likely to place higher. That said, That's likely a bad example w/ 4 Radiohead records in the top 20.

can't say i do (xp)

can't tell if it's bugging j0rdan out that they placed or that i never heard of them

some dude were you surprised by the lack of sonic youth records itl?

sincerely no. seems like it couldn't do anything but benefit allmusic. sharing artist & title info on a few thousand albums wouldn't undercut the value of their intellectual property, i don't think - especially not if they're getting hits out of it. i mean, p4rk could easily write code to strip that all info out if they really wanted to...

I'm pretty sure Allmusic's whole business model is licensing their DB to other companies who need it. So no, giving it away for free makes no sense at all.

¿maybe no one cares about boris records?

xp fair nuf

can't tell if it's bugging j0rdan out that they placed or that i never heard of them

― some dude, Wednesday, August 22, 2012 9:12 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

latter

some dude were you surprised by the lack of sonic youth records itl?

― Lamp, Wednesday, August 22, 2012 9:12 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

it actually didn't occur to me to look! i thought maybe Murray Street would place but i'm not shocked it didn't.

again i think this entire discussion overlooks the fact that almost nothing would've changed had the database been expanded -- maybe 'reasonable doubt' would've hit number 186 or something

― young money color me badd (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, August 22, 2012 5:42 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i can see Lauryn Hill doing pretty well if it wasn't a write-in

― some dude, Wednesday, August 22, 2012 5:43 PM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I just realized that the write-ins are represented in the lists by year. So the top write-in, Brighten the Corners was #13 on the 1997 list. And Mogwai - Young Team was the lowest ranked '97 album to hit the top 200 (at #165). So I guess that kind of puts the write-ins in perspective.

to clarify, Mogwai is #9 on the 1997 list and Bob Dylan, GYBE and Portishead all would have hit the top 200 before Pavement.

Lauryn Hill is #14 on the 1998 list and Silver Jews at #7 is the lowest ranked '98 album in the top 200, so the Beta Band, Mercury Rev, Tortoise, GYBE, Belle & Sebastien, and Cat Power would have hit the top 200 first.

haha i cant believe youve never heard brand new!

Me too! "Jesus Christ" was a big Singles Jukebox favorite in 2007.

Although, come to think of it, I have literally never heard of them in any other context.

i can't tell if their single that's named after a line from Rushmore is familiar or if it's just familiarly eye-rolly in the same way as every other song or video from that era with a Wes Anderson homage

oli#ver wa#ng on FB

I guess I'm of several minds here. On the one hand, I totally get what Matos is saying. The People's List mostly seems to affirm the Pitchforkiness of Pitchfork.To that extent, it really doesn't tell us anything new or surprising.

But tha
t said, I feel like we could take the reactions to their list the same way that, in previous generations, people reacted to the Pazz and Jop poll (back when that seemed more relevant) or any of the Rolling Stone's 100-500 Greatest [fill in the blank]. On the one hand, such lists simply affirmed the identity of the publications and their presumed readership. Call it an insularity feedback loop.

And I think the reason we react to those things is because they mostly feel like an affirmation by those already on the top: hegemony taking an unnecessary victory lap. So yeah, it's not new. It's not surprising. But at the very least, it's annoying b/c these are the dominant outlets of their respective eras/communities and "mainstream society" devotes more attention to them than, say, The Murder Dog's People's List. And race and class and gender all have something to do with that. The outlets that white middle class men gravitate to will usually hold more sway than publications that cater to a broader or different demographic.

But that said (told you I was of several minds): if J's students know Jeff Buckley but not Nina Simone, I have a hard time laying that at the feet of PF. In this regard, I see PF as a symptom of a larger problem around how various kinds of cultural knowledge are privileged but I don't see them as the source of it. Student ignorance/bias may steer them to PF but it's not like PF has some inextricably gravity (as is obvious with this crowd here!)

Well, ok, if they're a symptom, I guess they're one of those symptoms that also propagate problems on their own: an indie rock pneumonia (as opposed to the boogie woogie flu).

i totally did not hide his name. eh what's he gonna do, sue me?

wa♯ng♯ ∞

i liked his comment too.

And I think the reason we react to those things is because they mostly feel like an affirmation by those already on the top: hegemony taking an unnecessary victory lap.

I really agree with this. For a site started by a Chicago alt doofus going "Shit, cat" at the five jazz cds he's owned, pitchfork has evolved its scope impressively, and really is offering more diverse content and perspective than a lot of people appreciate. However, doing this kind of reader's poll and labeling it the People's List just underscores how milquetoast its core market remains, and while i'm sure converse is happy it does undercut any backpatting about what a long strange trip it's been.

well, it's been long anyway

quality zing imo