Pitchfork's P2k: The Decade in Music

Also, the Elephant blurb is just "hey, cheers for the free promo", right?

I would agree with putting Junior Boys above Missy. Both good, but I find that Missy has a hard time sustaining her brilliance over a full length record.

― untrue pitch, Wednesday, September 30, 2009 2:33 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

enlightening

http://emoticons4u.com/fingers/fing37.gif

huh, there I was sure that Ys would be top ten, or at least twenty. I know nothing.

Yeah, can I just say that Ys at #83 is my favorite part of this list so far?

(Also, there's a lot of decent stuff on here that I like a lot. And it doesn't seem to suffer from quite the same schizophrenia as the singles list.)

Purpose and common sense coalesce around the 70 mark. A top 100 would have sufficed.

the fix >>> your top 200

FWIW the Uncut top ten is

10. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
9. Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker
8. Bob Dylan - Modern Times
7. Arcade Fire - Funeral
6. Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Raising Sand
5. The Strokes - Is This It
4. Brian Wilson - Smile
3. Wilco - A Ghost Is Born
2. Bob Dylan - Love And Theft
1. The White Stripes - White Blood Cells

lmao raising sand

I can't name a single song off Raising Sand. I'm not even sure I've heard a single song off it.

It's a pleasant album at best, but nowhere near Top 10 material on any list (except for Uncut I guess).

SexyBack" is likely a time capsule joke in a decade or two-- our very own "Y.M.C.A."

^^^whaaaaaaaaa?

― Samuel (a hoy hoy)
____________________________________________

i think he might be right about that tbh

― rather shipped (J0rdan S.)

Yep. Y.M.C.A. --> Ring My Bell --> Achy Breaky Heart --> The Macarena --> SexyBack.

Very pleased to see Guitar Romantic at No. 60. A great throwback rock record.

Also, there's a lot of decent stuff on here that I like a lot. And it doesn't seem to suffer from quite the same schizophrenia unpredictability as the singles list.

Fixed.

S Club Juniors' Together.

I was sure Hissing Fauna would be in the top 20. Arular too.

lol just spotted another 9/11 ref in the Sleater-Kinney blurb

We keep our wise-ass friends for basically two reasons: Some are really nice guys once you get to know them, and some are just jerks who say a lot of funny shit. Andy Falkous and Steve Albini have made it clear where they fall, so it's no surprise they teamed up on Do Dallas-- the richest depository of quotable malevolence this side of Hell Hath No Fury. It's probably a stretch to call Do Dallas "subversive" when the production gives your speakers razor burn and the "ballad" is called "Fuck This Band". But think about 2002, when the prominent memes of rock music were wish-fulfillment fantasies of empathy, togetherness, hope, solace...heck, most of the anger was more of a cry for help than anything. We all talked a good game back then, but how long before you eventually got back to cutting people off in traffic, pissing on public toilet seats, off-handedly boasting about your cool shit, and caring more about The Bourne Identity and the World Cup than the news? The temptation to be a total dick just because you can carries an enormous power, and Do Dallas was a weapons-grade, vulgar display of that; it was also exactly 36 minutes of the most blisteringly intense pop-misanthropy the decade had to offer, but that's just Mclusky being better than your band. --Ian Cohen

WTF

Nabisco's Exploding Hearts thing is way awesome

lol just spotted another 9/11 ref in the Sleater-Kinney blurb

― some dude, Wednesday, 30 September 2009 14:48 (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

Yeah but like a 1/3 of the songs on One Beat are actually about 9/11 as opposed to "oh hey i'll never be able to listen to this unrelated record in the same way ever again".

i think ian cohen is taking the "asshole" facet of mclusky far too seriously. i never tried to act out anything i heard in a mclusky song, but that didn't stop me pissing myself laughing while listening to it.

mclusky blurb a bit much but i think falco's bitterness is pretty damn singular on that record

haha @ Ian Cohen's blurb. If you've never met Ian, know that this is the way he talks.

I kept trying to listen to that Mclusky album, and couldn't get past the first three soundscans.

Try his new band, Future of the Left. It's better than McClusky.

Thought the Decade in News was their snobiest article yet. For example they don't like Dave Matthews so TB writes about when Dave's bus driver dumped septic from the tour bus into the Chicago River and onto a boat and spends most of the article trying to blame the band without saying whether or not anyone thought they had a hand in it. And above it, Zach Braff tainted New Slang by putting it in his movie! "Thanks, Zach Braff." Its not an appalling cinematic moment, snob. Etc. etc.

wow

Evan, come on..."most of the article": There are, 18 words out of 108 about the band and the actual emptying of their bus' septic tank, none of them trying to lay blame on anyone. And of course it doesn't imply they "had a hand in it"-- how could we know such a thing? It was an accident, and it simply states that to date the DMB employee has been found criminally at fault and the band hasn't had any repercussions, despite civil suits against them. But don't let facts spoil your impression of us.

I guess since a few stray potentially "snobby" lines in tens of thousands of words over the course of eight or so features-- one being a light jab at poor defenseless Zach Braff-- colors the whole thing for you, your impression of us is already made and nothing is going to intrude on that. Oh well.

i mean tbf, scott, pfork (or ANY indie rock site) even MENTIONING dave matthews band (a band not in their coverage range) is probably going to have a a hint of implied snarkiness and snobbery to it.

But why is that a bad thing, Evan? Fuck Dave Matthews, srsly.

Poor Dave and Zach, I hope they are ok!

Fuck Dave Matthews, srsly.

otm, and it can't be repeated often or loudly enough.

What a disaster for Dave Matthews

why are they so bad and so hated

"ha ha DMB lost their poop"--

Pitchfork, 9.3

ian cohen always comes off as an asshole so it was nice to see him finally own up to the fact that he gets off on being one

regardless it was really well-written imo

I know this is "just a list", and generally accept it as such, but I do wonder whether any real editing effort was made by the staff (maybe addressed upthread, but I'm not reading 2,000+ posts, sorry). I'm sure the whole process was very complicated, etc., but, for example:

Let's say you're charged with voting in the (for Pitchfork anyway) Kompakt-heavy electronic music category. Did you really vote the landmarks of Michael Mayer's "Immer" (#116), or Gas's "Pop (#85) BELOW the current bargain-bin staple of The Field's "From Here We go Sublime" (#58), an album that also beats out, btw, Ghostface's "Fishscale", Portishead's "Third", and The White Stripes "Elephant"?

Not to diss The Field- it's a fine album, but if you really knew anything about minimal techno, the Kompakt record label, and electronic music in general, you just wouldn't do that, unless of course you don't take into account the relevance, impact, and reception of a record. And while I know these lists are a marmalade of individual preferences, if you don't take any of those things into account, you're kind of just whacking off.

tbh whacking off is more fun than considering the relevance, impact and reception of minimal techno

seriously tho the field's placement over those two records isn't really surprising is it? like, the field is definitely in the pfork canon, and i'd wager that a lot of the writers who aren't way into minimal techno probably have heard the field and not mayer/gas or at the very least have connected with the field over mayer/immer because it is newer and was brought to their attention first etc

what a disaster for minimal techno label Kompakt

why would people vote for the highest profile record in a fringe genre?! what fucking idiots!

next thing you're gonna tell me that Mastodon was ranked higher than Electric Wizard!

Sure, of course, I get that Chris. And we certainly made a joke or so at the band's music in there. But at this point how often are we snarky? A bit in news here and there and that's about it. Nowhere near as often as, say, Blender was. But nobody then talks about snarkiness as their defining quality, or draws a line from their jokes and jabs to "snobbery" since they covered pop stars and we almost never do. (Though if we do, it's almost because we're talking about their music or them as artists rather than as personalities or punchlines.)

Anyway, not sure why I cared in this case, no offense to Evan really.

xxp re: GAS, i'm not sure if this factors in, but i feel like gas's 'pop' is probably located in more peoples' minds as part of the 90s canon - it capped off a series of albums that felt like a whole statement that all appeared in the late 90s. maybe it didn't factor in that highly b/c people didn't even think of it that much as something from the 00s? i mean kompakt wasn't even born yet, was it?

(and it's interesting in general to see albums on the list from 2000 on the list, and thinking about which ones appear more "of" the 90s than kicking off the 00s)

basically jordan s otm wrt the field & the p4k canon

xpost

Not really surprising at all- just a tad baffling that the other said albums actually did make it onto the list in the first place without someone looking at the order and saying "oops". I mean, "Alcahofa" was somewhere around #165 or so, and "Easy Lee" itself would sensibly put that record near the top of any "best of the decade" list (or at least above anything by The Field).

But yes, agreed- whacking off is way more fun than minimal techno considerations. Just had to get it off my chest (the rant- not the whacking- eeewwww).

i just heard easy lee for the first time... is the vocal supposed to sound all crackly and imperfect or did i get a bad leak?

i don't know exactly what ur hearing but it's sung through a vocoder so yea it should sound kind of fucked with

Haha sorry to make anyone upset (Scott), I was just annoyed at that part of the article: "Wohl eventually pleaded guilty to reckless conduct and water pollution, but Matthews continues to get off scot free. (The passengers on the boat did sue the band, though.)" The Zach Braff one happened to be next to it, and I remember skimming over some other things that I felt were similar in tone. I was in a grumpy mood when I wrote that. I don't mean to upset anyone- lets be friends.

Also its regardless of how much anyone likes Dave Matthews.

capn-save-a-dmb