Pitchfork's P2k: The Decade in Music

y'allz can lol at me if you want but if someone held a gun to my head and told me to name the best record of the 00s, it'd be this one
http://z.about.com/d/folkmusic/1/0/s/E/GillianWelch-Time.jpg
will it even be mentioned in pfork's list?

(I understand the impulse to rank, though... whenever I think about making a list, it's more fun once it starts narrowing down to the top 10 or 15) xp

will it even be mentioned in pfork's list?

If so, no higher than #80. :(

I understand the impulse too, but for me once I narrow a list of favorite records down to, say, twenty records or whatever I couldn't rank them without being kind of dishonest. They'd all be my favorite records, but I'd have different reasons for loving them all.

I really love Wilco's a ghost is born. They're my favorite band, and I think it's their best work, but I couldn't honestly say I love it more or less than Joanna Newsom's Ys, another record I really, really treasure. I would rank them differently depending on my mood.

September 16: [nabisco] [.] on the mainstreaming of indie

Oh good, we were just arguing on that Wavves thread about whether indie was in fact more mainstream or not.

I'm not fuckin. I'm saying no one goes as hard as pfork in the "making lists" dept. Who else is gonna do 500 songs/200 albums?

How will this hold up: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/5358-the-moon-antarctica/

Which I assume is why I assume there's a thread about it

Re: the Pitchfork list... I wonder where the first CYHSY album will rate, seeing as it was God's gift to music for six months in 2005.

You know, that album only finished #18 on PFM's 2005 list. It got a 9.0 because Brian Howe loved it, and the site to a certain extent wanted to get behind it, but from what I understand there were quite a few staffers who didn't give a shit about it at all. Can't imagine it will finish particularly high.

i dunno i feel like lists are basically what music magazines do nowadays? didn't rolling stone do like a 500 greatest albums of all time? xp

100 greatest guitarists / 100 best singers etc

http://mentaldefective.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/illinoise.jpg

^ I wonder how high this will make it, too.

I think Wilco's "At Least That What You Said," which won't chart, should be in the Top 10 for best songs of the decade.

Good shout on Gillian Welch. Sun Kil Moon's Ghosts of the Great Highway and April would both be top ten for me... It's bound to be Kid A for Pitchfork isn't it?

Why doesn't any other music mag/sites do ambitious lists like this anymore?

Because the decade isn't fucking over yet?

Johnny, which do you think is better? Amnesiac? HTTT? In Rainbows?

____________________________________________

It would be hard to pick between Amnesiac and In Rainbows.

Good man! I bet CYHSY isn't in the Top 10. But Silent Shout has to be!

Ghosts Of The Great Highway would be a terrific choice, too. Maybe The Clientele!

(Sorry for so many "!" Kinda looking forward to this).

loving kshighway tbh

Thanks, J0rdan! :-D One of the few times someone has said something nice to me instead of trying to chase me off a thread. I really appreciate it.

young liars>>>>dear science any day of the week

I'd love to see a "Best Bands/Artist of the Decade" type list for guys like Spoon who have been consistently great throughout the decade, but don't make any of those big statement type albums that these other list tend to reward.

posting this list during summer 2010 would have been nicer.. the last 4 months of the 90's included some great releases, and i'm sure 2009 won't be any different.

pitchfork's assessment of 2000s music is far less interesting to me than their assessment of 70s 80s or 90s music. i will read their lists as they post them, and i'm not expecting to appreciate most of their favorites, as i don't find "chamber pop" along the lines of antony and the johnsons or fleet foxes to be all that interesting.. i also never understood the hype regarding battles, mountain goats, bright eyes, my morning jacket, destroyer, fiery furnaces, etc, etc, etc .. and i'm sure these bands will be thoroughly fellated before the festivities are through.

I'd love to see a "Best Bands/Artist of the Decade" type list for guys like Spoon who have been consistently great throughout the decade, but don't make any of those big statement type albums that these other list tend to reward.

Good call. I was just making the point last night to Kenan and the Rev that I've never loved any of Spoon's albums, but all of them are "pretty good" and they'd have a pretty stellar greatest-hits collection at this point.

If only I was a mountain goat, to feel the force of online fellation.

x-post Yes, and London Calling came out in December 1979.

yeah.. so did the wall

In my case, I wasn't interested in a sequel.

― Ned Raggett

The anticipation for Ned's Top 136 Albums of the 2000s begins... here, with me. I for one would find it infinitely more interesting than the Pfork end of decade features (though I am looking forward to individual lists from a few writers, and to those essays as well).

It all kicks off on Monday, August 17, when we'll begin a weeklong countdown of our Top 500 Tracks of the 2000s (most of which you'll be able to listen to)

Does anyone else have trouble playing those stupid Lala embeds or is it just me? I could before, then I created an account at Lala, and now I can't anymore. Fuckers.

yeah theyre retarded. works sometimes, doesnt others

The anticipation for Ned's Top 136 Albums of the 2000s begins... here, with me. I for one would find it infinitely more interesting than the Pfork end of decade features (though I am looking forward to individual lists from a few writers, and to those essays as well).

― I just wish he hadn't adopted the "ilxor" moniker (ilxor), Monday, August 10, 2009 9:44 PM (54 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I sure hope Tom Ewing does a Top 100 singles of the decade list. The one he did for the nineties is WITHOUT QUESTION my favorite list of all time. And it's how I discovered ILM in fact!

I'm not fuckin. I'm saying no one goes as hard as pfork in the "making lists" dept. Who else is gonna do 500 songs/200 albums?

That's a lot sure, but I def don't think we are guilty of doing many lists, or listicles. I also think having streams of most songs cushions the could-be bloat and allows the tracks list to work as a library that people can/ideally will return to as much as a list. As for LPs, contrary to opinion we cover a wide range of music than are credited with, go in depth w/reviews on way more records than most pubs, and this decade saw the release of much more music than most. Proportionally, I'm not sure 200 records on our site from the 00s is much different than 100 from a print mag a few decades ago. Or maybe I just want the non-obvious things, which will populate the second 100, to get some due.

As for why now...Well, for one thing, Spin and RS did their 90s lists in Aug/Sept a decade ago, and so I assumed they'd do that again. I also thought Blender would stick it out and end with a big 00s blowout around the same time. Most of all though, by the time everyone in the friggin world runs their own 00s and 2009 stuff, the last thing you all will want in Jan/Feb is another gigantic list, bigger than the others. Think of how much list fatigue you all get by the time our year-end list comes out anyway. This being the internet, we can amend the list later with extra blurbs if need be-- not re-rank but just add an extra page, not a big thing. On the whole the imperfections of doing this now vs. the imperfections of doing it later were weighed and for once we were into being first with our stuff instead of last (which, next to pazz and jop, we tend to be at a year's end). Doing this a few months later wasn't going to change the outcome much anyway: I doubt many 09 LPs would make it either way. Not sure I'll personally vote for more than one or two.

It seems like a lot of content, but it's really not as much as it looks-- three lists on our end, artists lists, a timeline wrapup of events, four essays. Were this a print mag, that's pretty much what any year-end issue would look like, let alone a decade edition. We're just spreading it out over seven/eight weeks.

How dare you have a plan, Scott. It's supposed to be all improv, to be more real.

scott i feel like it's worth saying you are a patient and awesome dude for coming to every inane ilm pitchfork thread and representing the brand with reason and class.

I also think having streams of most songs cushions the could-be bloat and allows the tracks list to work as a library that people can/ideally will return to as much as a list.

For the record, I wasn't complaining about the idea. I just don't like that Lala won't always work (for me, and possibly others as well).

yeah same, i like the idea a lot but prefer those youtube bottom things

why is it only in the last week that i have seen ppl refer to this decade as "the aughts" and not before?

Discovery will be no. 1.

If I had my way:

(1) just awful

(2) even worse

― kshighway, Monday, August 10, 2009 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

You are just cruising for a SB, aren't you?

scott i feel like it's worth saying you are a patient and awesome dude for coming to every inane ilm pitchfork thread and representing the brand with reason and class.

^^OTM

why is it only in the last week that i have seen ppl refer to this decade as "the aughts" and not before?

On Andrew Unterberger's countdown of his top 100 songs of the decade, he repeatedly calls it the "Naughty Oughties." The more often he uses the term, the funnier it gets.

You are just cruising for a SB, aren't you?

yah its pretty terrible when some1 like different music from u ~~~ its like theyre not even human!

Slightly off topic: Always been curious to see their original "Top 100 albums of the 90s" list complete with the little blurbs about each selection. Anyone have it saved or know how to access it at this point?

Scott, I'd really love to see that first Top of the 90s list. Unless you guys are embarrassed of it or something, any way I could get a look at it?

Original Pfork top 100 of the 90s list, no blurbs:

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/antoine_doinel/pitchforkmedia_top_100_albums_of_the_1990s__original_list_

and there it is. I think like six people voted in that, from what I was told years later. Ideally about 50 people will vote this time.

Surprised to see Uncle Tupelo on that list. I love Anodyne, but didn't get the sense that it would rank up there on a best of the 1990s poll for an indie pub.

lol Walt Mink

That Walt Mink album is one of my favorite albums of the 90s.

I remember exactly what I listened to in the 80s, and I remember exactly what I've listened to in this decade, but the 90s are a complete blur to me. Most of the Pitchfork list seems familiar, but not exactly likeable. If pressed, I could probably make a list of 100 albums from the 1990s that I like, but I'm really better off leaving a lot of that behind.

okay lol I just saw that El Producto is on there as well as Miss Happiness and yes, that is very lol

I remember exactly what I listened to in the 80s, and I remember exactly what I've listened to in this decade, but the 90s are a complete blur to me. Most of the Pitchfork list seems familiar, but not exactly likeable. If pressed, I could probably make a list of 100 albums from the 1990s that I like, but I'm really better off leaving a lot of that behind.

100% OTM.

Plus pop-star fans and casual listeners would buy albums for a song or two, these days you can just download those specific songs without the rest of the album. If they were released in smaller increments people might pay attention to all, say, four tracks being released at a given moment, where otherwise three out of four of those tracks may be almost totally ignored.

...if released all together on a eleven song album.

xpost

Thanks, Owen. I'll check out the Parenthetical Girls and get back to you here if I remember! :-)

there should be a poll of which album had the best write-up. i'd vote silent shout:

There are certain aesthetics so whole and singular that we use them as shorthand to refer to other things-- stuff can be Lynchian, Dickensian, Pynchonesque. Repeated exposure to this record makes it tempting to start describing things-- say, a bird of prey circling an ice-covered lighthouse-- as Silent Shout-ian.

I wonder if, from a PR standpoint, it would be more profitable in this celebrity-hero age for a pop star to have 4-7 songs out every 12 months, as opposed to one album every two years.

― Cunga

Was thinking about this yesterday (in response to this thread, I think). About the idea that record companies might become more like writer/producer/performer stables, releasing a steady stream of singles & videos based on whatever seemed to be working best at the time. No pressure to produce complete albums as artist statements, no incentive to release distracting filler of any sort (except maybe as a bonus for fans). Just crank out singles with someone's name on them, and when this or that name starts to attract attention, arrange tours and licensing deals.

Ppl are already working under the singles model. Rappers pretty much don't even make albums anymore

^that's a pretty wide brush you're using, dude.

Whiney v. Whitey.

I'm just saying with the mixtape/street single model, it's basically just throwing a bunch of songs at the wall and seeing what sticks.

well I'll try to remember some of the hip-hop mix (not in order.. the only same artists back2back were Blackalicious and Flynn Adam.. I regretted the Flynn Adam being back to back because they are too similar.. the 3 tracks with Pigeon John are very different)

Life Without Buildings - The Leanover (not rap - but was the first track - found thanks to NickB on ilx)
Souls of Mischief - 93 'til Infinity
Saul Williams - Black Stacy
Blackalicious - Alphabet Aerobics -into-> Chemical Calisthenics
The Fugees - Nappy Heads
Pigeon John - Cheerleaders
Pigoeon John & Freedom of Soul - Not this Record
Pigeon John & Kiz Charizmatic - Wow! (out there)
Flynn Adam - Such a Time
Flynn Adam - Just Don't Get It
Blackstar - Definition
Talib Kweli - The Blast
Jurassic 5 - Concrete Streets
Kyteman - Une Seule Fois (feat. Reazun)
Kyteman - She Blew Like Trumpets (the only song I regret putting on the mix)
The Black Eyed Peas - Rap Song
N.O.R.E ft. Tego Calderon & Nina Sky - Oye Mi Canto
Pharcyde - Passing Me By (edited because it's so long)
Madvillain - Great Day (found thanks to ilx)

I'm thinking I'll replace the Kyteman song with K'naan - Wavin' Flag next time I make this mix
That's the only replacement I can think of now...
but If I had time to listen to some more k'naan and some lifesavs and damian marley I might change up this mix a good bit

Thread brings back memories.

massive lols at Whiney's Will Smith YouTube autoplay

what should I switch up on the mix?

i mean what else would fit

a kashi granola bar with a hacky-sack stapled to it

well obviously it's mostly happy rap, I can't stand ghetto/booty shit

dat nigga delmar to thread