To "rock fans", what is meant to be the canonical, everyone can agree on, album of the decade?

A bit too much metal there (typical RYM). This is the same chart without child genres:
http://rateyourmusic.com/customchart?page=1&chart_type=top&type=album&year=2000s&genre_include=1&genres=rock&include=both&origin_countries=&limit=none&countries=

And well.. Still not good. They should have had an opportunity to only include albums that have been rated by at least 1000 people.

I'm halfway through The Glands. It's like a dreamier Game Theory with some Kinks, nice so far.

I'm not convinced about Kid A. First, I really have trouble thinking of it as a rock album (any more than the Eminem album is a rock album). And I just don't agree that Kid A has the kind of broad, unifying appeal that Whiney claims it to. I guess I'm basing that largely just on personal experience (even with 'rock listeners' who like the older Radiohead stuff). Maybe if there was more than one big single off it, I'd be more convinced. American Idiot seems reasonable and I see the case for Elephant, even Coldplay.

― Sundar, Wednesday, February 18, 2009 8:19 PM (2 hours ago)

come on.

leave me alone.. this question was stupid to begin with. the 00's contained far too many rock subgenres for "rock fans" to agree on anything. (probably xpost since this is a fairly obvious statement)

that said.. although it's not strictly a rock record, every last "rock fan" i know enjoys kid a.

TBH, I was thinking of The Eminem Show when I posted that.

This kind of blows my mind:

every last "rock fan" i know enjoys kid a.

Not even every mainstream rock critic enjoyed it!

attempt to come up with THEE answer to dom's question isn't worth the trouble. kid a is a good suggestion, that's all - something that probly oughtta be on the list somewhere. taking it much farther than that seems silly. i'm guessing that it'll be seen as one of the definitive new century records a few decades down the road, but that's just my shot in the dark

sundar OTM, though. i've known some rock pplz to sneer at radiohead/ kid a

Not even every mainstream rock critic enjoyed it!

I didn't say it was universally beloved..

dudes i do not know how many times i have to repeat this, but there is a huge backlash against kid a among average "rock dudes". the repeated DUH IT IS OBVIOUSLY KID A SHUT UP on this thread is either A) amusing trolling B) completely insane or C) people that imagine rock in a critical vacuum in which the titular "rock fans" aren't allowed to vote.

it is the radiohead album i like most, but the general rock dude public couldn't give a fuck about it, srsly.

Yes this is true.. Kid Rock, for example, stated his opinions about Kid A very loudly, which echoed what many fans of more "traditional" rock were feeling at the time.. but there are also people who dislike any band. There are lots people who hate The Beatles, who are probably the most beloved group ever. This is why the question is stupid.. there's no such thing as an album that "everyone can agree on.."

However...

Seven Nation Army is certainly the consensus rock song of the decade.

This is severely OTM.

jjj: i think you're being a little presumptive about the "general rock dude public". lazer radiohead @ the science center draws a lot of GRDs. and this isn't about what some universal rock stan hivemind thinks of this or that record, but how the 00s will be logged in the great rock canon of evermore. similar thing, but not exactly the same

dude all i do all day is sell guitars to the "general rock dude public" and i am telling you that the same dudes that voted OK computer as the best guitar album in the guitar world poll about guitar rock in the 90's thought that Kid A was a betrayal of ROCKNESS/ a pile of unlistenable techno shit.

john, (the titular) "canonical" =! what rock dads agree on.

'canon' implies some sort of critical consensus

guitar stores ppl is a significant slice of GRDP, but it aint the whole thing, not by a long shot. and the narrow-minded loudmouth jerk skew factor is CRAZY high. i mean, use a "cool" indie rock record store as the other end of the spectrum, stick a pin somewhere in the middle, and i think that's probably as fair a picture as yr. gonna get.

that said, i think it's a mistake to narrow the canon to critical consensus and nothing else. critics howling in a vacuum about stuff no one else cares about tend to be marginalized. critics are one element, super-die hard geeks (especially musicians) are another, and the general public is a third.

truth be told, i think the average rock listener dude thinks of "Kid A" as a misstep. and even i, who thinks it is a perfectly good album, dont really think of it in a "rock" context. it might be a top 50 of the decade contender for albums in general, but "the rock album of the decade"? no chance.

not rock enough is a valid objection, but i don't know how universal it is. to purists, sure. to less conservative types, not so much.

plus i still think yr narrowing GRDP down to too narrow a strawman. that dude exists, sure, but he isn't a fair picture of "rock fans" in general.

i mean, i think kid a and other, similar (and dissimilar) records have done a lot over the late 90s and 00s to broaden the definition of rock. maybe i'm wrong...

dude, using actual people that i talk to as an example is the exact opposite of strawmanning. calling it "what rock dads agree on." and "the narrow-minded loudmouth jerk skew factor" is straw man 101.

also i think the whole idea of broadening the definition of rock implies a certain bias towards the results you are looking for.

agreed taht "narrow-minded jerk loudmouth" was a cruel strawman. but i calls em as i sees em. if the people yr. talking about are super open-minded, gentle and thoughtful in how they construct and deconstruct "rock", lemme know. strawman i was objecting to is the reduction of rock fans to the guitar store crowd. that demo is a legit and often vocal subset of rock fans, but they are not by any means the whole deal.

not sure about that last point. looking at the 00s, completely independent of gaydioheads, i see a broadening and intermingling of scenes and sounds -- this becoming super apparent only in the last few years.

that's not an attempt to open the door for kid a, just an observation based on what seems to be going on

agreed taht "narrow-minded jerk loudmouth" was a cruel strawman. but i calls em as i sees em. if the people yr. talking about are super open-minded, gentle and thoughtful in how they construct and deconstruct "rock", lemme know.

you are still strawmanning though, creating a not open-minded, ungentle, unthoughtful group of people that are incapable of "deconstructing" rock that fail to see "Kid A" as a rock album. all i am saying is that i know lots of regular joe strawman style rock dudes that couldn't give a fuck about kid a, and i know a lot of music-critic big ear strawman dudes that think "Kid A" is shit hot awesome, but because it is a "important album" not an "important rock album".

I read two thirds of this thread and my eyes went blurry, so I say

Actually, I'd probably say "Hybrid Theory" by Linkin Park.

― kingkongvsgodzilla, Wednesday, February 18, 2009 8:09 AM

jjj: i admit the strawmanning, somewhat regretfully. but i've spent enough time in & around guitar stores to have opinions, as you do. i'm a way overcommitted rock geek, but guitar store dudes (this unfair generalization i've formed based on experiences & interactions, good & bad) aren't exactly my tribe. some are, some aren't, and i don't mean any of this personally. same goes music-critic big ear strawman dudes, though, yeah, i stray more in that direction.

that said, i realize i've said some dickish shit here, esp in that post you just quoted. regretted it as soon as i hit submit. i have this concept that NOT ALL but a fair contingent of guitar store dudes and guitar magazine voters are sort of proud to be somewhat narrow-minded in defense of rock. this may be bullshit, but it's this impression i've gathered. what i'm observing & describing has nothing to do with intelligence or capacity or any of that shit: it's a shared vision, an ethos. rock doesn't need to be "constructed or deconstructed". it just IS. shit either is or isn't rock. metalheads stray in this direction, too, and the metalhead/guitar store crossover is huge. or seems to be (again, my impression only)

in using non-rock language like "gentle and thoughful" i was kinda trying to poke wink-wink holes in my own strawman, for lols. guess that didn't come across.

lol louis and DJ, yeah i could sit here and post shit off like the first blind shake record and all this other obscure shit i like but they are not going to be canonized.

― Yo, I just copped dat brand new Manity Kane cd. (M@tt He1ges0n), Wednesday, February 18, 2009 8:13 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i know what you did last nite...

mommy, how iz cannon formed?

what iz rawk?

this man may have an answer:

http://www.dickdestiny.com/arroganceblog.jpg

the whole rock-or-unrock question is b.s. to begin with: suicde is rock bcz it was influenced by rockabilly but soft cell isnt rock bcz it was influenced by suicide?

also i know whole swathes of diehard rockists that consider white stripes as indie scum...and this is in michigan, mind you...and quite a few who can't stand kid rock or linkin park or nickelback. they might like kid a if they listened to it, just bcz of how trippy it is, but maybe not...

(kid a was more in league with the college-stoner crowds I encountered...not so much the diehard grunge leftovers I hung out with in high school & after dropping out of college...)

'in league' is a poor word choice there...i meant something more along the lines of 'catered to'

but that's neither here nor there, bcz what this thread really allows me to do is to plug some of my favourite albums of the decade...

here's two more with rock signifiers that I really like:

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h279/juicyfrt/51Syp8o1r8L__SL500_AA280_.jpg

this one is fantastic; might make my top 10

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h279/juicyfrt/51qWzsTPOdL__SL500_AA280_.jpg

this one not quite as great, but still lots of fun...

also I think Chuck is otm wr2 White Stripes having so many albums so as to split the competition (I wd vote for de Stijl (plus awes non album covers like Jolene and Party of Special Things to Do!)) though I think as a whole Elephant has much more chance making top 5 lists than Is This It? (or the Marshall Mathers LP, which will scare & shame critics with its rampant alleged misogyny-homophobia into placing it lower than prolley wd have been expected say eight years ago...)

love secret wars, not as much as each one teach one, but luv still = luv

each one teach one is another on the to-get list (if only a bit farther down), but "winter shaker"....damn.

oh damn that clinic album is so good

honest answer? there isn't one cause Jack White never bothered to manufacture one. that said, my money's on Marshall Mathers.

xps

nice mekons-ish cover on that Oneida disc.

the whole rock-or-unrock question is b.s. to begin with: suicde is rock bcz it was influenced by rockabilly but soft cell isnt rock bcz it was influenced by suicide?

yeah it IS b.s. but it's b.s. that's true.

like i can't give you some smart guy answer, all reasoned out, why suicide is rock and soft cell isn't...but it's just a fact. like it's cold outside or it's not. or it's raining or not.

^ more inclined to side w this than the "bends is rock but kid a is not" argument. rock, like metal, isn't strictly a matter of sound/instrumentation. it's a culture as much as anything else

which is a not-terribly-smart, half-reasoned answer. soft cell weren't "of rock". that's not where they were coming from, who they were speaking to, or what they were talking about. kraftwerk sit somewhere in the middle.

I think the biggest issue in this thread is whether "rock fans" means "average guitar-store rock dudes" or merely "rockists."

and I can agree with that...Suicide brought certain aspects of rock into Silver Apples-type minimalist-techno,a nd then Soft Cell took it out (replacing it with Motown prhaps?) so Soft Cell consciously veered away from what Vega & Rev were doing in that sense...but it gets very very amorphous when you try to distill the rock from all of its practicioners and turn it into its own sustainable entity...Suicide is unquestionably rock, and so is Amon Duul II, but you take out all the unrock elements of the two bands and get down to their true rock essence and youre still dealing with apples &oranges...you get me?

xpost whats the difference jay?

but you take out all the unrock elements of the two bands and get down to their true rock essence and youre still dealing with apples &oranges...you get me?

yah, 100% i wanted to 2nd guess myself on the "rock is a culture" bit for exactly that reason. it's more like a bunch of cultures - sometimes cooperative, sometimes hostile - loosely grouped under a very tattered banner. which makes it easy to sort out in a fuzzy logic sort of way, but hard to nail down foursquare once and for all.

xpost

average guitar store rock dudes don't waste this much time thinking about whether or not soft cell was rock or not?

AGSRD, what's on yr ipod?

don't need a weather man to tell who's a eurodisco fag, don't follow leaders, watch your parking meters, etc etc