pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

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?

I've totally committed the "Never Too Much" karaoke folly.

I Wanna Be Adored is on both the 80's and 90's lists

I want to read the blurbs and discuss, but that takes a lot more time than commenting on just the list of tracks

but given p4k's role in modern music crit the list in itself is interesting, and probably works as some kind of new pop-political manifesto? even though this may be totally obvious choices for the new generation, I find it weird to have no Neil Young, Tom Waits, Lou Reed or Bob Dylan tracks when all those legends released some p good 80s stuff

some fair points, well made http://www.collapseboard.com/music-blogs-3/considering-pitchforks-200-best-80s-songs/

lotta otm stuff in that collapseboard piece imo

geeta wrote about the apple thing too the other day:

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2015/aug/24/rolling-stones-greatest-songwriters-list-corporate-sponsorship-apple-music

You know, when I looked at the list the first thing that caught my eye was the Apple thing. But whatevs on that front. I don't, however, think this list felt particularly clickbaity. Pitchfork has been doing this for years ('60s list was great), and the format and rollout remains (iirc) pretty much unchanged. I do like the idea that contemporary perspectives have skewed or revised past canon (I am old), but some things on here are inexplicable. Again, like "Purple Rain" at number 1 (is it because younger and more diverse writers listen to or hear Prince differently in 2015 than I did in 1984?) or the absence of college rock ringers (if only critics listened to the Go Betweens at their prime, who listens to them now?) or two GNRs or two Bowies/Replacements when one would have easily done, etc.

Hard to jump in this thread at this point, but the list itself didn't bother me much -- it had tons that frankly, I just wasn't familiar with, and usually that's a good thing in a list. I wish XTC was in there, and agree that on the can't-be-a-coincidence of NWA having 2 songs near the top (and I like them!) Seemed very white, indie-listener centric -- hardly a surprise coming from Pitchfork. I like the quote above regarding the notion of convincing a listener in 1995 that some Whitney Houston singles were better than the New Order ones or whatever. Not totally sure who gets zinged more by that.

The Apple Music stuff in the articles above is obviously troubling. Not even sure what to say about it, because people have said the same kind of stuff about Rolling Stone in the past, and to argue about it misses the point that as long as you have ANY advertising in journalism, you're opening the doors to diminished objectivity. It's a music site, and as any musician can tell you, you have to hustle to make the money work. Don't buy into everything you read, right?

not seen the list but no senses working overtime?!

?!??!?!

"Purple Rain" is an amazing song but it's not exactly a weird choice. It's the title song to his biggest movie, the one that all millenials saw last year at the art theater.