pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

I couldn't find a playlist on spotify (I'm sure there must be people who made it into a list already but search function sucks or it takes some time to update). So here's a link, I'm sort of busy so this might take two days but half of the list is there already:

https://open.spotify.com/user/moteldemoka/playlist/491iIVQpdjtGOa8keqt0mP

ha "slang teacher", awesome. thats a jam.

Interesting that R.E.M. only gets one song on the list (and not even top 100 treatment) considering they listed Murmur as a top 5 80s album when they did that list a decade ago. Reflects the exodus of Gen X white dudes I guess.

Ok I actually completed the list already, faster than I though. It's missing all songs from Prince but one, pictures of you, Rhythim Is Rhythim, De La Soul and someone else I can't remember right now.

sorry to be the dick who points this out Moka but it was built yesterday and has 600+ subscribers
http://open.spotify.com/user/norwich5/playlist/5rYtPUau6Aewf3UrsM7r66

"strings of life" is filed under derrick may

xp n/m

My feeling about the aesthetic delineated by the list is that, while it ostensibly reflects a post-poptimist awareness, it's nevertheless iconoclastic in a way I think I genuinely have a hard time relating to at least my own sense of what the poptimist experience is about. Like "Thank goodness there's no 'Come on, Eileen'" is an interesting statement to me. It reminds me of the fact that "Thank goodness there's no 'Come on, Eileen'" could have easily been uttered in an '80s indie culture context. And then I look at this list and, what do you know, I see the Wipers and the Chills and Husker Du and Galaxie 500 and Beat Happening and Spacemen 3 and Mission of Burma and the Pixies and the Minutemen and Nirvana and Nick Cave and Black Flag and Dinosaur Jr. and Bad Brains and Sonic Youth (and a fair number of other things easily integral or peripheral to '80s indie culture as well).

Someone upthread said something about there being no space for an artist like Taylor Dayne on this list. That's interesting, too. Pitchfork writers not happening to be Taylor Dayne fans is, of course, one thing, but I wonder how is it that there's no space for her here. Again, I wonder about my perception of a new iconoclasm and, if that is indeed the case, who's getting left outside the door.

No "Double Dutch Bus" or Jets or New Edition or Debbie Gibson. Just adult music? "White Lines" and "The Message" the only early rap. No pop metal.

double dutch bus was bothering me as something i'd been forgetting.

two things

a) belated thanks to people who brought up my blurbs! finally reading those madonna liner notes growing up came in handy for something

b) my mother's comment when I told her there was a list: "what, no flock of seagulls?"

lol

I'm starting to meet students whose dads were "into Brian Eno in the eighties."

it was built yesterday and has 600+ subscribers

http://media.giphy.com/media/wJ7hpVsjkT3u8/giphy.gif

i was just happy to see Egyptian Lover first thing

― welltris (crüt), Monday, August 24, 2015 7:51 AM Bookmark

haha apparently I am partially responsible for this bc I played that song for Nate Patrin this spring.

all the dope early 80s dance is the best part of this list imo.

otm

This has caused me to do a fair amount of retro listening over the past day or two and reminded me how much i love Don't Stop the Rock, I Can't Wait, Two of Hearts, Oh Sheila, Jam On It, Pump Up the Volume, Something About You, Crush on You, You Dropped a Bomb on Me, Lookout Weekend, Let It Whip, Feel for You, Sweet Love, etc

Yeah, the live for The Groove on Sirius. "Party grooves from the '70s and funked-out early '80s jams." (Now playing: Dazz Band, "Let It All Blow")

I mean, come on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zTdKHIQkvc

top 50: 25 black artists, 25 white artists. what a fucking coincidence, right?

The Gang Starr inclusion is very ???!??

It's totally the "About a Girl" THESE GUYS WERE IMPORTANT BUT NOT IN THIS DECADE pick of their hip-hop selections. Except "About a Girl" is really good song in it's own right, where "DJ Premier in Deep Concentration" is a bit of a footnote even within Gang Starr's career? I mean it's cool and all but how many brilliant 80s rap songs got skipped over so a scratch record by someone no one really cared about in 1989 could make the cut?

or what I'm really saying is NO "THE NEW RAP LANGUAGE", NO CREDIBILITY

Interesting that this list, on the whole, doesn't really have a ton of MTV new wave/college rock, apart from a few iconic bands. Like, if Pitchfork had made this list 15 years ago, I feel like there'd be more R.E.M., Violent Femmes, B-52s, Blondie, Devo, Duran Duran, etc.

There are so many lenses through which people can view the 80s, but it seems like magazines/sites have always done it through the new wave/college rock/prestige artist view, and it's why R.E.M., etc appear on all the lists every time. Not that they don't deserve their helping of praise, but FUCK YEAH it's about time I saw a list with Al B. Sure! on it. I know a lot of work went into this and I feel bad for not reading everyone's blurbs, but I'm mainly just happy the list is different.

Yeah, I agree with that. Love seeing Chaka Khan, Evelyn Champagne King etc

Just thinking about how that '80s stuff seemed so formative to '90s alt/indie. Like, the Spin Alternative Record Guide gave high marks to Just Can't Get Enough, the 10-CD '80s new-wave comp.

It's just funny how some Top 40 from the 80s is acceptable to like in 2015 and some still isn't. There was no way in hell EVER that a John Cougar Mellencamp song was going to be on this list, or New Kids on the Block either, yet room was made for Tears for Fears to appear twice.

But it's a tracks list - not a list that celebrates entire discographies. So it's not really a reflection of whether Tears For Fears is more important than some other 80s artist, but rather just showing appreciation for two great songs that deserved to be included.

I think the "In the Air Tonight" blurb is an example of the framing of this music in iconoclast (and not particularly poptimist, in my view) terms.

Perhaps more than anything else, though, "In the Air Tonight"—written around four space-age synth chords and a thin drip of a drum machine loop—documents Collins’ fervent love affair with the aspirational music technology of his time. The brutish drum sound in the song’s second half was created through a jerry-rigged prototype of the technique that would later become known as gated reverb—which, prior to current imitations, served as a reliable watermark to date pop recordings made between 1982—1991. Vocoder technology was used to create shadowy underarmor for Collins’ main vocal, which in itself was processed into a jagged shadow of itself, drowned in some futuristic outgrowth of the slap-back echo which once sheathed Elvis’ croon. On top of this there are harsh, distorted digital storm clouds—from a synthesizer? guitar? some Frankensteinian combination?

Yeah, I agree with that. Love seeing Chaka Khan, Evelyn Champagne King etc

― jaymc, Tuesday, August 25, 2015 8:25 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not even the most canonical Chaka!

But it's a tracks list - not a list that celebrates entire discographies. So it's not really a reflection of whether Tears For Fears is more important than some other 80s artist, but rather just showing appreciation for two great songs that deserved to be included.

― billstevejim, Tuesday, August 25, 2015 11:34 PM (3 minutes ago)

Right, but doesn't it feel "safe" to admit your love of those two TfF singles in a way that admitting you're all in on Pat Benatar doesn't?

Pretty sure I voted for Pat.

<3 u Tim

I knew there was a list elsewhere. I used search function and didn't throw anything and I wanted to listen to it while driving. I don't know if there's a point in keeping it... if it doesn't get a significant number of followers in the following days I'll ditch it and make it private. Was just trying to be helpful. It's not like I get any money for sharing spotify lists.

Thanks for the strings of life tip!

This list doesn't have have "Pump Up The Jam", "Pump Up The Volume" or "Pump Me Up".

"Confusion" is better than any of these New Order songs.

Cosign all you people saying "Back In Stride Again" should be here. Feel like with all the quiet storm faves this should have made it in. Also, that song is the motherfucking best.

In other things:

Of course there will always be omissions but everybody else already posted their "I cant believe x isn't on the list!". So my two cents:

- I would have preferred if they had limited entries to only the most voted song per artist. It feels like almost half of the list is by the same artists. Maybe they deserve it but I would have preferred the other approach to see a more diverse list.

- There's some great surprises on the list particularly on the first half. Also some songs I didn't know which are amazing. Two favorite discoveries for me are Jungle Brothers and Egyptian Lover.

- Guns n Roses?... twice!? If you're going to do space in the list for douche-rock then having Ac/dc twice or something like Aerosmith would've been less annoying. At least those guys handle their douchiness with a tongue in cheek.

- Important omissions that noone cares about because it's not my list:

Songs that feel like 'pretty big deals in the 80s to me':

Tom Waits - anything from him would've been nice, really
Julee Cruise - falling
Glenn Branca- lesson no 1
A number of names - sharevari
Grauzone - Eisbar
Rheingold - Dreiklangs-dimensionen
Young Marble Giants - Final day
Visage - fade to grey
Righeira - vamos a la playa
Alexandre Robotnick - problemes d amour
Die doraus and des marinas - fred vom jupiter
Les rita mitsouko - marcia baila
Billy bragg - a new england
Liasions dangereuses - niños del parque
Enya - orinoco flow (yes, really!)

Songs that are more 'pop' and aren't important omissions but better than similar songs that did made it:
The fixx - one thing leads to another
Human league - dont you want me
The flirts - passion
Pat Benatar would have been cool, too.

No pump up the jam is killing me. I honestly thought that was 1990

The other two, whatever

It hit in the UK in 1989 and in the US in 1990, so that might account for the overlooking of it.

The other two, whatever

smdh

No way!

Pump up the volume > the other two pump songs.

I count pump up the jam as 90s in my mind.

either way it's also missing from their best 90s songs list.

Pump up the jam is way more timeless as dance floor material IMO

"I can't believe x isn't on the list!"

*makes joke, goes back to sleep*

has anyone mentioned how surprising the presence of the Alice Coltrane pick is? because it really is

Yes the Alice Coltrane pick was a nice surprise. I was also surprised with the Nina Simone inclusion but in the opposite way, I think it's an unremarkable song of hers, yet still happy to see her. Both artists sound a tad out of place in the 80s though.

also whoa a Tatsuro Yamashita mention in the see also section for Never Too Much?! I'm so happy. Whoever was responsible for that... I love you. Also the only Japanese artist brought up here, no?