Pitchfork's P2k: The Decade in Music

deej and some dude are SPOILING me with radio killllllah beef : )

i inhale it

xp to nabs ok but it still means that choices are being made for indie that aren't being made for pop.

wait, could you explain this more? because I don't entirely see the difference. "that fantastic pop single we all loved that summer" versus "that terrific indie tune we all embraced that winter" -- we might get different things out of these categories, but the choices we make about putting them on lists are basically the same, aren't they? either way, it's something that was good and felt broadly significant (whether it was significant in the big pop world or within the smaller indie world).

i'm not sure i can define what the difference is between "we all heard the new jay-z single and thought it was great" and "we all bought yankee hotel foxtrot and decided that 'poor places' is one of the best two or three songs on the album" but i think it is something and i think it might be significant.

one of the songs is a single, one isn't

I think you're making an incorrect assumption that people only engage with indie records by buying whole albums and then deciding which songs they like best. That seems flawed to me. It's part of why I mentioned old mix-tape favorites: just because something comes from an "album" sphere doesn't mean people can't still collect around certain tracks in a very track-based way. (And again, I haven't listened to the whole of Funeral in years, but I do really love that Arcade Fire single!)

Trying to find a better example of this. I mean, look, I know some of you might laugh and/or gag at this notion, but if someone is really immersed in the "indie" world, something like "The Past is a Grotesque Animal" may feel every bit as momentous in their sphere as a huge-smash r&b single feels for the larger pop world -- it may be the thing everyone in that space is talking about or marveling at, the thing that happened that year. With that song, it wouldn't be because people studiously decided it was the preferred track on the album, it'd be because the long-ass crazed grim centerpiece of the thing was what seemed significant and important about it, the thing that happened on it.

from a dude who discovered the-dream after his 2nd album dropped ....

Pardon?

lol more entertainment for he1go comin up

no doubt ppl can listen to indie in a track-based way, but the filter that's getting them there is still different from something like a hip-hop single, where it might be released by the record company well in advance of the album, and then played on the radio and in public places and stuff. there's no need for a critic (anyone from a p4k writer to your friend who tells you about music) to be like "hey this is a track to check out"--it's kind of already been decided that this is the track you WILL check out.

looking more at the indie selections i'm surprised at how many of them actually WERE released as singles! so maybe my argument is a nonstarter. lol i'll just stick to complaining about the lack of metal or something.

or maybe the problem i'm having doesn't really begin to show itself until you get to the low numbers, like--

24. everything in its right place
21. since u been gone

this reminds me of when people make ilm polls that are like pick one: motorhead or whitney houston.

haha I was gonna ask how yr hip-hop model was at all different from the indie model aside from maybe terminology ("single" vs "EP" and even then there are still a bunch of indie singles)

Part of me still has a hard time accepting that indie is more singles-driven than it used to be, even though it clearly is in some ways. I also refuse to believe that "The Empty Page" and "Incinerate" are consensus Sonic Youth songs for the decade the way "Teenage Riot" and "Schizophrenia" would've been for the '80s.

i was pulling rank on a dude who discovered the-dream on his sophomore album acting better than pfork for having heard it

For the record, I picked up on the first album in mid-2008. I was well into The-Dream by the time the second album dropped; I bought it on its official release day (not much of a downloader), so that's that.

Not acting better than Pfork, either. I understand they don't get around to reviewing everything the moment it's released. Also, even though doubtless some of the site's writers are into the album, it doesn't exactly play to their core readership to review that one.

let's keep talking about this

Regardless of whether there's any intent or agenda that exists or is being projected onto it, it is fair to point out when a site takes several months to cover a major label release that is generally really on top of covering prominent releases by the week of the release date or soon after.

pitchfork's coverage is pretty spotty, though, and there is no attempt to cover anything close to a significant amount of major releases. also was love vs money prominent? they never reviewed love vs hate, did they? also it didn't place very high.

*major label releases

but i mean they take months to review LOTS of things...they're only really on top of stuff that their core audience is going to be expecting a review of.

I'm not saying they cover everything prominent, obviously they don't. I'm just saying with most 'major' releases that the average Pitchfork reader is angling to see a review of, they're usually very prompt w/ coverage so that tardier coverage seems notable or somehow a statement in and of itself. (xpost)

the thing that CAD is getting at wrt to voting blocs for seemingly random songs was the exact same criticism levied at mid-decade pitchfork when nick sylvester, sean fennessey & tom breihan et al got clipse's "zen" to the #2 track of 2005 (or whatever it was) right? or when beanie sigel and the game made it on the albums list. stuff like that is always gonna happen when you have a small number of ppl voting in a group list.

it would be hilarious to read a pitchfork review of love vs money, but i really don't see them reviewing it, ever. i hope i'm wrong!

yeah -- tbh i have no idea how big or small the voting pool is for this list or for those old lists (xpost)

or when Miranda Lambert hit Stylus' top three.

(xxxpost)

jordan you might be right--do we have any insight into how this list was created (i.e. how many voters, how many songs did they vote for, and how much massaging of the results was done)?

i still think there's a difference between how indie ppl receive indie music and how they receive non-indie music but it's probably going away with downloading and in the end i guess i don't really care.

it would be hilarious to read a pitchfork review of love vs money, but i really don't see them reviewing it, ever. i hope i'm wrong!

I dunno, didn't deej review the Maxwell album?

do we have any insight into how this list was created

If a poster gets 51 SBs, it immediately triggers a poll. Once the poll's results are in, we have a thread discussing what to make of them. If someone on the thread suggests that a second poll is in order, that automatically triggers a re-poll. The re-poll's end-date, when it arrives, automatically triggers seven new polls on the same subject. The names of the seven polls are Envy, Sloth, Gluttony, Greed, Avarice, Pride, and Lust. The Lust poll is on the ILTMI board but the other six polls are granted their own boards, whose continued survival is assured, or not, only by daily polls on whether they should be allowed to continue. If the daily-survival poll participation threshold drops below 50% of those ILX registered posters with ten or more posts to their names over the past month, this triggers a poll. The poll triggered by this concerns whether Physical Graffiti is a better album than Judy Garland's Judy at Carnegie Hall. The results of this final poll are binding.

i'm all for voting blocs if it means blasting sweet and totally deserving album tracks to the top of a list. i guess it's the type of thing you have to be careful about, but "idioteque" is a wonderful song and if they had to put some heads together to get it up there well ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

my problem now is that it seems like - and im basing this mostly on the 08 list - their mainstream pop/hip-hop and r&b choices are way less inspired than they were in 04/05 - the 08 list seemed like it was like "flashing lights" and nu-t.i. stuff that is not good but since t.i. is now established on their site that they should like a 'return to form' rap single like "no matter what" which is just okay & no one cared about

mr. que are you bored? are there other threads you could do this in?

was "whatever you like" on the 08 list?

also i always thought it was funny when the individual lists were posted and 3 or 4 posters would have the new fall out boy or paramore or my chemical romance albums listed and yet they were never reviewed - it seems like mainstream rock is one place where pfork never got comfortable going unless it was like "sugar, i'm goin down" or something (and now even with track reviews back it seems more like it's used for songs that no one has heard & everyone will forget instead of back in the day when it was to set forth the site's opinion on big tracks as well as lesser known stuff)

makes me wonder how tim f got that 8.1 review of futuresex/lovesounds up

mr. que are you bored? are there other threads you could do this in?

just saying--it might be a good idea to take nabisco's advice and look at this as a mixtape or whatever rather than *the* list of all time. i mean it's just a fun list, designed to trigger conversation, do we really need to see the breakdowns and stuff to be able to enjoy it?

Well, clearly some people do!

JT is up there w/ Jay-Z in no brainer gotta cover mainstream (xpost)

i think the three highest hip hop tracks were "a milli" (this deserves it), "flashing lights" (barely even an 08 single) & "live your life" and "no matter what" (lol what) - mid decade pfork rap renaissance had much more inspired & nuance taste than the hip-hop voters do now

(basically what i mean is that the 'indie voters' or w/e can push the grouper album into the top 50 but there's no one to push the rap equivalent of the grouper album into the top 50, which is basically what happened when beanie sigel made the top 50 list)

it would be hilarious to read a pitchfork review of love vs money, but i really don't see them reviewing it, ever. i hope i'm wrong!

― samosa gibreel, Wednesday, August 26, 2009 3:34 PM (7 minutes ago)

uh not really, if they got the right writer?

just saying--it might be a good idea to take nabisco's advice and look at this as a mixtape or whatever rather than *the* list of all time. i mean it's just a fun list, designed to trigger conversation, do we really need to see the breakdowns and stuff to be able to enjoy it?

pls look upthread where i say exactly this? i think this is actually an interesting conversation and that it's not that weird to be curious about how the list was built given p4k's past editorial practices on these things?

i don't think there's any real reason why pitchfork should be covering the-dream tbh - i mean it sold a lot of copies but it's not like i feel like they should be reviewing chrisette michelle either - i mean there's def not a huge groundswell afaik aside from deej & tim f who are like 5% of the writing staff compared to juelz santana mixtapes or whatever it was back then

i think the right review would get lots of their readers into him. i can't be the only dude who got hooked on him despite not really being up on recent r&b at all.

it seems like mainstream rock is one place where pfork never got comfortable going unless it was like "sugar, i'm goin down" or something (and now even with track reviews back it seems more like it's used for songs that no one has heard & everyone will forget instead of back in the day when it was to set forth the site's opinion on big tracks as well as lesser known stuff)

otm. the only chart pop/hip hop tracks i've seen reviewed lately got low scores. um i think maybe there is some sort of a consensus among pitchfork writers that 2003-05 was a "golden age" for pop music, i think in the sound of silver review this is adressed. anyways, all track reviews now are "here is what we think of songs that are getting played on like every blog in the world right now."

yeah CAD for the record I'm not entirely disagreeing with you -- sometimes you get a situation where like a dozen people think Band X released the best songs of the decade, but don't automatically agree on which one ... and since nobody makes tracks like where the top 10 is all their favorite artist, it can help to try and find some consensus pick, however artificial. thing is, that can actually work for pop singles, too: you can have a dozen people who all think Jay-Z or Missy Elliott released the best singles of the decade, but not automatically agree on which one! so yeah, there's a desire to look for broad "important" consensus picks and not just vote your weird personal favorite.* and sometimes with pop acts that means gathering around the big single; sometimes with "album" acts it means gathering around album centerpieces and "statements" and the like.

I guess more of my point was that this happens anyway, outside of lists -- that pop singles and album centerpieces/statements create a consensus that This Is the Important Thing totally outside of critics and lists. often I think that's the point of them -- that the indie band putting together that album anthem is trying to define what it's about every bit as much as the pop star putting together a new single.

* (we would probably get more interesting and singlesy lists if people didn't do this, but of course they'd be super-weird: a bunch of critics who all thought Jay-Z recorded the best single of the decade, and all thought "Toxic" was okay and merited #97, might come up with a list topped by Britney with no Jay-Z on it at all.)

their mainstream pop/hip-hop and r&b choices are way less inspired than they were in 04/05

the rap equivalent of the grouper album

Trying to imagine what sort of record this would be...

i think the three highest hip hop tracks were "a milli" (this deserves it), "flashing lights" (barely even an 08 single) & "live your life" and "no matter what" (lol what) - mid decade pfork rap renaissance had much more inspired & nuance taste than the hip-hop voters do now

(basically what i mean is that the 'indie voters' or w/e can push the grouper album into the top 50 but there's no one to push the rap equivalent of the grouper album into the top 50, which is basically what happened when beanie sigel made the top 50 list)

― sailor goon (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, August 26, 2009 3:42 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i dunno maybe it's just that i personally thought '08 was a VERY weak year for rap (not R&B) singles, but i dn't feel like that's so offensive really. woulda been nice if "Put On" was higher, i guess, but for the most part what little i did like wasn't stuff i'd have expected to see on that list anyway.

xpost haha what jaymc said

yeah nabs that makes sense and ftr i think most of the time that model works. there are other times where maybe i missed the consensus or wasn't around for it, and a few that leave me genuinely questioning.

i'm not sure i can define what the difference is between "we all heard the new jay-z single and thought it was great" and "we all bought yankee hotel foxtrot and decided that 'poor places' is one of the best two or three songs on the album" but i think it is something and i think it might be significant.

o_O. Things like Two Weeks, or Rebellion (Lies), or A-Punk etc. were all proper singles and had videos that were all over the web and got played shitloads in clubs and on the radio and stuff.

I think it's a question of audience size, though. An R. Kelly or Jay-Z single might be heard by 100 times as many people as hear the whole album, the ratio might be more like 5-to-1 for something like Vampire Weekend. I'm making those numbers up, the margin may be way smaller (or way bigger) but there's definitely a significant margin.

xp let me know what clubs you go to so i can avoid them.

"rebellion (lies)" was nothing less than a big 'ole booty-blastin single here in montreal, as were neighborhoods 1, 2 and 3, so i am not surprised at all to see some of them near the top of this list.

haha CAD can we reach a point on ILX where we take that kind of joke as a given and don't need to actually make it every time?