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

That people are debating this list as if it says anything about the actual quality of the music only indicates to me that many listeners aren't looking for actual music?

It was looking at these lists that made me realise : I would hate to have to make a list, ranking them, positioning them, etc.

You can, but "I'm Out"

what's being said is that there is an overwhelming desire, when confronted with a list of music, to talk about everything about it EXCEPT the music

xxxposts Bjork had the reinvention I'd say. Definitely the equal amount of "art" (maybe more) compared to Radiohead. I'd say her album trajectory is also very similar in that the last several releases have had great moments but a few clunky experiments mixed in which manage to pull themselves above the parapet all the same through sheer conviction and execution. That said I haven't heard maybe the last two records by her. Radiohead probably have a few more hits (i.e. songs that most people could sing if you gave them the title), most people know Creep, Fake Plastic Trees, High & Dry, No Surprises, although these dwindle as their career goes on, but still that "I know that band because Jamie Cullum covered a song" factor exists among the Mondeo driving generation. With Bjork people know It's Oh So Quiet, but something like Bachelorette or The Hunter are less instantly-recollectable.

Yeah, I get that Owen, and it's a good point as to "why Radiohead", but I just feel like there really is something more to it, because it still does not explain why the list is 90% white and male because apparently those techniques do not reach Pitchfork voters when the people employing them are not white males.

Not fighting with you, BTW, you have really given me a think. It's a good perspective, and something I've argued with Radiohead fans before (their best artform is worldmaking, not peerless music) but it's not the whole story to what people are objecting to in that list.

Mmm, I'd say "Human Behav", "Venus as", "army of", "Big Time Sens", "Quiet", without looking up the list.

They get radioplay even now, am I right?

DJP, except it's directly preceded by the implication that only hegemony going on here is good PR?

xxxxp I'm on a phone

The absence of Mariah Carey on this list only further proves my point. Mariah aims for Grammys, sales, hit singles, hit videos, shattered records, and she has them, all of them. Why no love on a Pitchfork list? Because she's in People magazine, she's dating Nick Cannon, etc. I know the names of her kids; I don't even know who in Radiohead have kids (and I don't care, don't tell me). Sure, there's a cult of Mariah, gays like me who own Glitter on DVD, but it's not marketed with the same level of "inaccessibility", of "otherness". Thus, she doesn't inspire the same devotion in her fans.

Look, I'm not trying to draw any lines here and say "THIS IS WHY ROBYN IS POPULAR"-- I think Robyn got lots of votes because Robyn is the jam--

When I fell in love with OK Computer, RH were that Creep band who had an okay second album and in my experience, people didn't perceive them as having much of a mythos at all (it grew after that of course, but it wasn't present when the album was released). And they did a ton of interviews and were pretty much in inescapable here in Latin America, particularly due to the influence of MTV Latino. But I fell in love with the music, and I'm kind of wary of pseudo-psychological explanations for that love when none are particularly necessary. And my story isn't particularly unique. I just don't think that their myth or inaccessibility has much to do with why I gravitated towards them immediately, because it just wasn't there initially.

The absence of Mariah Carey on this list only further proves my point. Mariah aims for Grammys, sales, hit singles, hit videos, shattered records, and she has them, all of them. Why no love on a Pitchfork list? Because she's in People magazine, she's dating Nick Cannon, etc. I know the names of her kids; I don't even know who in Radiohead have kids (and I don't care, don't tell me). Sure, there's a cult of Mariah, gays like me who own Glitter on DVD, but it's not marketed with the same level of "inaccessibility", of "otherness".

So explain Kanye.

@ croupier

That people are debating this list as if it is something that says anything about Pitchfork, white people, men, Converse-- not to even mention, say, the actual quality of the music contained on any of these records-- this only indicates to me that many music listeners are looking for a fixation, not actual music.

Yeah I revised a clause and the sentence made less sense. I was initially trying to say that this list was a massive victory for these bands' publicists and their policies, and that the fallout debates were deflecting the focus away from the reality that "fans of band X are too passionate for their own good". I don't actually 100% believe that so I changed it-- the connection was a stretch.

I revised to say that "fans of band X are more interested in engaging in debate, worshipping, lolgiffing and fanfic-ing re: band X (that is, fixating) than they are in forming an objective opinion about 'the best music of the last 15 years'"

Says you.

I totally agree that cultivating mystique is a major factor, but the idea that the only thing that links these groups is mystique and that the list doesn't say anything about "Pitchfork, white people, men, Converse-- not to even mention, say, the actual quality of the music contained on any of these records" is absurd.

So explain Kanye.

I can't comment on Kanye's publicity scheme because I'm not familiar with its tack, but whatever it is, it seems to be really fucking working pretty fucking amazingly as I've met as many stultified Kanye stans over the last couple of years as I ever have Radiohead stans. Actual conversation: "I'm going to Coachella next week!" Really, who are you going to see? "Kanye West!" Oh yeah? Who else is playing? "Who the fuck cares?" Oh really? The best part about Coachella is just walking round and being surprised by random Bauhaus reunions or w/e... "Yeah, but it's Kanye West. I've seen him seven times!" (This was a paid music writer, too.)

Did anyone talk about liking The Girls because of their music or because the guy was born into a cult then was a gutter punk. Because he couldn't sing, ripped off melodies, lots of boring songs, boring progressions. Bon Iver sounds better to me but people talked about him because he was a sad alone guy in a cabin and got his song lyrics from golden plates he found in the woods or something.

Kanye is a legendary oversharer and currently dating Kim Kardashian - the guy has great PR but he is no less of an attention-seeking, ambitious gossip-and-glamorhound than Mariah Carey.

@ croup

I'm not saying it's just "mystique", it's more zeitgeist. Records that are looking to catch that moment and inspire a mass of people to a level devotion beyond what a single record typically would inspire.

this just in: straight white males like ridiculous black dudes

(level OF devotion)

lol DJP

xpost yes and if you look at who the "mass of people" are and aren't and who the artists rewarded are and aren't, you might notice that there are some similarities and connections beyond good publicity.

I mean, even if I find him more supportable as an artist, I'm not going to deny at all that a lot of what is fueling Kanye fandom is exactly what fueled R. Kelly fandom circa "Trapped in the Closet"

this just in: straight white males like ridiculous black dudes

― Lil Swayne of Pie (DJP), Thursday, August 23, 2012 11:12 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's why you my dawg (fist bump)

hahaha

kanye's also the patron saint of all the emo rap/r&b about being a young man with serious fucking alcohol and women problems that makes up the distinction index list for teenagers on the poll

i agree there's a "crazy dude" element but also i think a bit more identification going on (just look at the reviews) than with r. kelly

yeah I think Kanye is at least seen as smart but crazy in a megalomaniacal way, whereas R. Kelly is just seen as absurd (and often not given credit for deliberately playing into the absurdity).

also this is a poll of collegiate dudes and kanye is a rapper who named his albums College Dropout, Late Registration and Graduation before moving on to the topic of being rich and obsessed with women.

So why does R.Kelly or Kanye get rated by SWM for being ~crazy dudes~ but when it's Erykah Badu or Lauren Hill doing that shit, it's ~this just in, lady is OMG batshit crazy~ and does not help them in the same way?

Are we now talking about myth-making rather than music-making? Which works into adoelscent projections of self-I'd-Like-to-be; Arcade Fire are all about intense teenage emotions and love and death and stuff; Radiohead are all about alienated experimentation, band-as-gang-in-nuclear-bunker; fuck knows what The National are all about but presumably they have some kidn of mythos. NMH also about intense emotions and passion etc etc; i.e. ideas beyond the actual music that people latch onto as much as the music, and which carries them through said narrative (or into said world) of band (or artist). Is it harder to do that as a solo artist? As a woman? Do audiences other than white boys want that kind of mythos beyond music? Probably, but do they culturally find it elsewhere?

These are half-formed thoughts from behind a window of intense personal stress, so don't take too seriously.

Kanye has the aspirational thing going on for SWMs, as da croupier just beautifully illustrated. Drop out of college! End up rich motherfucker!

tbh i don't think r. kelly is rated higher than Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill album-wise, but that those mystique hoarders failed to make the list does underscore that ZEITGEIST isn't the whole of the law here.

I'm pretty sure people rate r Kelly as a lunatic who pisses on high school freshmen chicks for his kicks more than a serious artist

anyway

Some of you may have picked up on a cynicism toward Radiohead fandom on this thread and I assure you it is not my intention to accuse anybody of being shitty music listeners

I for one have been through Tori and Bjork fandom and come out the other side and I intend no disrespect, and fuck me if I'm not still there with Bowie

But I am saying that all of these bands in the top 20 have deliberately sought to release "zeitgeist defining records" that capture and enslave all of your eyeballs

And it seems that outside of this safe haven of a message board, they have succeeded

And if you want to say that these records' success a symptom of a blog or a gender or a race, you are playing into their hands and are still enslaved

ime irl as opposed to in the realm of hardcore music lovers (but even there too maybe)

And if you want to say that these records' success a symptom of a blog or a gender or a race, you are playing into their hands and are still enslaved

you're creating a false binary and i don't know why

Like Frantzen deliberately setting out to make "the great American novel", these guys etc set out to make "the great (American) album", and due to publishers, zeitgeist, etc etc, they managed it? Yeah, I can get with that.

And if you want to say that these records' success a symptom of a blog or a gender or a race, you are playing into their hands and are still enslaved

I don't understand what you mean by that. Or at least I hope you're not saying what I think you're saying. x-posts

Whether an album is a 'great' album depends less on content than on context? So X artist can make a truly astonishing record, but not in the right context, and it gets ignored, or praised to an extent but no further? And Y artist drops a bog standard chugging indie record with a narrative / mythos about passion and death and intense emotion etc etc and it hits at the right time, and the public, or all stripes, only have a certain amount of these records they can take in at any time?

All that is true, but dismissing any discussion of any other subject other than "the top 20 are really good at taking advantage of lightning striking" is ridiculous.

@ da croup you are contesting my points as if I'm presenting them without caveats. This is an interpretation and if I get hellfire about any points it's because I'm having a good time.

@ Sick I'm sorry to hear of your personal stress.

It's more than "the great American album" even. It's more like the difference between L. Ron Hubbard writing sci-fi and L. Ron Hubbard writing "Dianetics"

pitchfork didn't just give a top 20, they gave a ton of demographic data that one can definitely make observations more sound than "wow, what a comprehensive list of people who can utilize 'otherness'" off of.

House sale/purchase might fall through tomorrow, but no one will die, so it's no biggie.

I remain unconvinced that Erykah Badu's eccentricity works against her

Lauryn Hill's absolutely does, but this is largely because the issues she's dealing with began directly manifesting themselves as outright contempt for the people who come to her concerts (assuming the one time I saw her was indicative of what her performances in the 00s were like, which seems to match what I've read about her shows), plus she hasn't released any new music in 15 years so all people really have to talk about is her Fugees work, Miseducation, and her legal issues.

No, what I'm saying is again and again and again, SWM are taught that SWM opinions, art and work is the only stuff worth paying attention to on a canonical cultural level.

And if they have had their consciousness expanded in enough of a way to realise that they should pay attention to other viewpoints, they will expand their viewpoint to encompass straight-dudes-who-are-not-white, especially if those dudes extoll virtues they have been taught to think of as manly. But to get a Pitchfork identified SWM to expand their viewpoint as far as paying attention to women is a hard sell, and to get them to pay attention to black women - because they, also, exist, and gender and race intersect rather than cancel each other out - impossible!

It would be a funny, charming quirk - my, aren't SWM so sheltered and silly - if they didn't have power to control the cultural dialogue so much so that their choices and biases take on a disproportionate weight.

It's not playing into their hands, it's pointing out this thing, that they are doing, and saying "knock that shit off, it's unacceptable in 2012!"

I think these are complimentary rather than oppositional arguments; the myopia described by WCC is the climate being exploited by the mythmaking described by Owen

they are complimentary but i honestly don't see the "caveats" owen says he's making.

Of course they are complimentary!

It's only Owen positing that what I'm saying has ~nothing to do with~ the issue at all, which is silly.

Look, I'm not trying to draw any lines here and say "THIS IS WHY ROBYN IS POPULAR"-- I think Robyn got lots of votes because Robyn is the jam--

tbh i don't think r. kelly is rated higher than Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill album-wise, but that those mystique hoarders failed to make the list does underscore that ZEITGEIST isn't the whole of the law here.

― da croupier, Thursday, August 23, 2012 11:22 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

i was gonna say something to contradict this but i just realized that New Amerykah Pt. 1 isn't on the list or even on the top 20 of '08, which no surprise but ugh fuck this shit x1000. i imagine it still got votes than all of R.'s albums combined in this thing, though. Miseducation probably did too, even as a write-in vote.