pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

I think the self-critical point above is interesting. I think it could have been a fascinating history of criticism to read about the Tom Waits that dropped out entirely, or Sister, or the re-appraisal of Janet, or how in many ways Arthur Russell wasn't really even around in 2002.

I mean maybe that's only of interest to me and the 11 other people that own Stranded, but still.

Generally speaking I think the songs list did a better job with this because it's usually easier with a song to provide context/description and say something passionate in the same breath.

But I don't think these ranked lists are useless. Someone reading this list with the happy expectation of having their belief in the greatness of Purple Rain or Daydream Nation confirmed is much more likely to then read, say, the blurb for Meredith Monk's Dolmen Music and be intrigued enough to check it out than they likely would be otherwise. In many ways the primary reason to re-blurb the former two is to create a context where readers are more likely to read the latter.

That it's technically meaningless to say which of those three albums is "better" than the other doesn't really seem to me to be that important - the ranking is really just a device in my view, and I don't think anyone involved is seriously suggesting that there is a meaningful difference between being ranked 42 and being ranked 43.

I should qualify by saying that I think sometimes providing description is important in criticism when the critic is saying something, but sometimes I'm just given adjectives and I don't know what the critic is saying about these characteristics of the music. So, I sometimes come to the conclusion that the critic is not, in fact, saying anything and is just providing description.

xp
The flipside to that is: if you (say) don’t think Daydream Nation is a particularly tremendous album, seeing it ranked near the top yet again will reaffirm your belief that “these jokers don’t know what they’re talking about,” and maybe you’ll be less likely to take the list seriously as a whole, etc.

(Or feeling that your favorite band has been slighted in some way... “What good is this list!”)

My favorite band had a string of flawless albums in the 80s, and they don't appear anywhere in the list. I did enjoy the brief period about 10 years ago where they suddenly gained a slight amount of cred after being pariahs in the cool world for several decades.

name names!

Rush. For me, every single song from Permanent Waves through Power Windows is excellent. They could easily throw Grace Under Pressure in this list and it would be both correct and not at all a cliche.

If any reader really does approach a list of this sort thinking they will or should agree with each assessment, or that the list is fatally flawed if their favourite album is not on there, then I worry for their mental health tbh.

check out this Rush video directed by Zbigniew Rybczyński

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMSFqXGZ5TQ

Yep, that video is terrible, and is also for a song that was not on one if the albums I mentioned, but cool point. Rush is obviously not a particularly hip band.

And just to be clear, I'm not at all surprised they didn't show up on this list, and I don't believe that makes it fatally flawed. I do think it shows a very obvious blindspot though.

"Time Stand Still" is great!

(the song, not the video. I don't even love that period of Rush as much as some ilxors do but I do think it's a great song.)

Tim — point taken; but keep in mind these are rock ‘n roll fans we’re talking about... ;)

It's a good song, goofy video (not their only one), I don't love Hold Your Fire. Don't really know what Whiney was aiming for, it's a bit too late to shame me out of being a Rush superfan.

xxp

I like that song... gotta say, I’m legit affected by the sentiment (“Kids growing up, old friends growing older”)

Musically, it’s not too far away from something like French Frith Kaiser Thompson

Oh, I like Rush, I'm just saying that video has aged very poorly

I would not vote for that video in a top 200 videos of the 80s poll. Now the Subdivisions video on the other hand...

Aimee Mann is cool af in it

morrisp, they seem to have had a similar visual aesthetic as well.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/30/FrenchFrithKaiserThompson_AlbumCover_Live.jpg/220px-FrenchFrithKaiserThompson_AlbumCover_Live.jpg

Well goddamn. I don't read this thread often, but that old net advice about how on a long enough time scale every internet conversation will eventually become a discussion about Rush.

It certainly will if I'm around for it

I just want to read writers that feel passionately about something and have something to say

this is the first time i’ve felt bad reading a criticism of this list bc this is exactly what i’m trying to do

Fascinated by Geddy Lee's eyes being scaled to 80% and pasted in the middle of his face. Also that video is astonishing for the fact that someone signed off on it.

"time stand still" is such a good song

xp The original list results must have been far more heavily based on adding up tallies since once list has two Pixies albums in the top 10 and the other has two Bjork albums placed beside each other.

"the other" = another

Also, someone earlier mentioned Midnight Oil and it reminded me that the 80s was a great era for Australian rock, and that normally gets ignored in these US-centric lists; I think INXS, Nick Cave and AC/DC are the only ones who made it, and they all crossed over in the States. For starters Midnight Oil, The Go-Betweens, Hoodoo Gurus, The Triffids, Paul Kelly, The Birthday Party, Sunnyboys, Mental As Anything, The Church and Crowded House all have records that I still listen to and love from the 80s. Go-Betweens omission is maybe the most surprising; I would've expected to see 16 Lovers Lane at least.

australia certainly was ignored, even more than it was in the rolling stone list from the time. even as an australian in my 20s i'm unfortunately not too familiar with my country's output from then but The Church & The Go-Betweens are certainly deserving of more attention. there's probably something to be said about the lack of much of a music press here, leaving no one to strongly advocate for any sort of Australia-inclusive canon and leaving all the acts you mentioned much more forgotten to time than they should be.

this is imo a rad list - the lower end in particular is pleasingly eclectic, ppl are writing about what they care about & it's prompting me to listen to a lot of stuff I wouldn't otherwise be considering listening to rn. almost all the suggestions itt would make it worse, although the lack of latin american stuff is surprising.

I love this sort of enterprise; attempting to remake the canon into something more interesting and useful, the slightly giddy feeling you get from surveying so much different stuff, & trying to get ppl interested in an album in a paragraph is a noble format.

^ yeah this, well written and with lots of great new-to-me stuff to check out.

Somehow, I had always thought Crowded House were 100% Kiwi but I see now that they were based in Melbourne and the non-Finn members were all Australian or American. Huh.

Those are good points ogmor - this is a fun list to think about and look at as a whole and yeah, there are definitely things from it I want to check out. Of course there are placings I disagree with and there are lots of personal favourites missing but that's to be expected. For me the most OTM comment in this thread is Simon H's point about 200 not being a big number for a whole decade, there was so much going on in the '80s, you could have much stricter criteria and still fill the list. I think that's why I really enjoyed the 1998 piece they did, I liked that they could recommend 50 records from a year that isn't really talked about as being part of a classic era for music or whatever.

Reviewing the whole list, glad to see La Monte Young, Meredith Monk, Branca, Ornette, Manuel Gottsching, lots of Eno, Metallica, Slayer, Mercyful Fate, AC/DC, Richard/Linda.

(Listening to French Frith Kaiser Thompson while typing this and came across the line "Now that I have kicked, Rolling Stone has picked my albums as the best that be.")

Soul Mining rarely gets a look-in with these things which strikes me as odd; Giant in particular seems to be exactly a blend of a load of the different genres they like.

Jan Hammer was at his coolest on John Abercrombie's 'Timeless'.

― pomenitul

allow me to introduce you to a song by the name of "don't you know"

Well goddamn. I don't read this thread often, but that old net advice about how on a long enough time scale every internet conversation will eventually become a discussion about Rush.

― Elvis Telecom

you're confusing rush with hitler. again.

The best thing I saw yesterday?

This guy from the Baltimore Ravens Marching Band playing PERFECT air drums to Rush's "Tom Sawyer": pic.twitter.com/uKxtXue0PM

— Prescott Rossi (@PrescottRossi) September 10, 2018

95% of this list is stuff you would have wanted to check out if you were Spin Magazine reader back in the 80s. Seems odd that it looks like a step forward for a music site in 2018.

how have I never seen that Rush video before, that's incredible

I wonder how much different the list would have looked if the writers had simply listed the albums from the decade that they listen to most frequently (in order of frequency)?

what’s the frequency, pitchfork

I love the way this Rush video starts, before it hurtles into wtf territory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wziJqdq4LcA

Now that's what I'm talking about!

(Listening to French Frith Kaiser Thompson while typing this and came across the line "Now that I have kicked, Rolling Stone has picked my albums as the best that be.")

Kaiser has put out 2 albums in the past 10 years called "Plane Crash" related to that line.

https://pitchfork.com/levels/why-tesla-is-hip-hops-new-car-of-choice/

Teslas still don’t dominate rap lyrics the way some other sports cars do, but it is on the rise. Whether they’re intrigued by Elon Musk as a tech mastermind, or fixated on what the future looks like, or simply into the surreality of hands-off driving, rappers are quickly making Tesla a staple and a signifier. As they cruise around in one, their dreams of flying spaceships are realized.

Sounds like concluding paragraph to a 10th-grade book report.

god this Rapper Product Endorsement Column is embarassing

Damn is that a lot of passive voice