Pitchfork: The Top 200 Tracks of the 1990s: 20-01

"da funk" is the only daft punk song i really and truly love, and it's hella catchy

"around the world" otoh is dreadful and grating

is there a difference between "hella catchy" and "grating" other than taste?

Songs that are about "a specific individual" can still be taken up and used as a trope in a way that leaves that individual behind.

And I never said it was an attack on the middle classes, it's much more of an attack on the upper classes, and on class tourism itself. But, as the Lex pointed out, I really resent the way that many of the middle classes take it up as a kind of battle cry, completely ignoring the fact that the lyrics are an attack on privilege itself, rather than on "someone more privileged than me".

Yes, I'm also aware that my takeaway from the song is also dependent on its context within the album and other songs and their themes. Which is perhaps where the conflation comes from, but I'm not the only person who has made that conflation in either a positive or negative sense.

"da funk" is many things, but for an instrumental single, i'm not sure if it's "memorable" in the sense that a pop instrumental is "memorable." (if you heard it once, on mtv, years ago, i'm not sure anyone can hold it against you for not being able to name the artist if you heard it again 10 years later.)

i mean it's no "sandstorm."

I voted for it, it is my precious. xp

too many favourites to choose from, but i plumped for depeche mode.

btw "sandstorm" robbed in both this and 2000's poll

Common People is the only song where the William Shatner cover is better than the original; wtg p4k etc.

tbf if shatner any pulp song it'd be better than the original

still need to make this happen somehow eight years later:

what would you like andrew wk to cover?

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"common people"

― jess (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, October 29, 2002

oh wait forgot Joe Jackson taking the chorus, I'll take the Pulp version over that actually

I fuck w/ every song here except for Beck, Weezer, Neutral Milk Hotel, Pavement, Belle & Sebastian. Voted "Enjoy the Silence" -- was a toss-up between that and MBV based on the insane # of times I've listened to each.

xp Yeah I'm also surprised about Sandstorm's absence. You'd think it fits in perfectly with p4k's pop reclamation efforts over the last decade.

good point, where is "sandstorm" on this list!!!

was it 1999 or 2000?>

it was both.

originally released in 1999, went massive in 2000

I have to really rrrrreaaallly resist the urge to make a "I prefer the Fake Blood remix" joke every time anyone mentions Sandstorm.

btw pretty sure i am the only "sandstorm" fan on staff tho

It's surely as rushy as Euphoria (Nino's Dream)..

btw pretty sure i am the only "sandstorm" fan on staff tho

― strongohulkingtonsghost, Friday, 3 September 2010 14:55 (2 minutes ago) Permalink

certainly not

in college parties at the 'russian suite' would play it three times over the course of one night

haha i almost added "except maybe drake"

it's a poorly-written song because cocker doesn't actually manage to portray this character as unsympathetic enough - she doesn't come across as malicious or unpleasant, just naive, and his vitriol comes off as disproportionate. your sympathies end up with her, not him.

― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Friday, 3 September 2010 14:40 (14 minutes ago) Bookmark

I would disagree that this song is badly written, and I'm a bit surprised you hate Pulp, Lex, I would of thought there is enough "non-indie" stuff going on with them to make it potentially of interest.

The whole album that this single comes from is pretty vitriolic, in particular "I Spy", the album's centrepice, a tour-de-force of bitterness and class resentment.

heady times

xpost. Sure, I guess so, but I'm still amazed that anyone could hear those lyrics and not clock that it's a song about class.

We, or at least I as a 13-year-old, knew it was a song about a rich person slumming it but the story didn't really MEAN anything. It was just a story, certainly not anything philosophical or political or even particularly meaningful. Having learned more about the British class system I get where Karen is coming from, but the song simply doesn't and can't resonate in the same way to people who haven't lived it firsthand.

no "sandstorm"?! another lol/smh @ this list

Lex in "disagreeing with Pitchfork list", more news at 10.

How about something like Wannabe? Heheheh..not sure how big SG were in the states. They would surely place on an ILM pop-centric list.

no "sandstorm"?! another lol/smh @ this list

― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend),

Who knew the lex was such a huge Cast fan ;)

the video is obviously important but windowlicker still sounds like the apotheosis of afx's phase (95-01) of hyperactively programmed dsp fuckery (or w/e), w/ the catchy central motif, some parodic relation to late 90s futurist rnb and the amazingly distorted cadenza

it's a perfectly formed track! come to daddy is also great but more obviously a pisstake

xpost. OTM. It's a vicious, vengeful, score-settling album and Common People has to be set against Mis-Shapes, in which unthinking working-class bullies are the villains. I don't think Jarvis is presenting himself as representative of his class, which is why I think Mis-Shapes is one of the weakest tracks because it says "we" instead of "I". Jarvis doesn't really convince as a spokesperson for anyone other than himself. If there's a major criticism to be levelled at the album, it's that sense of embittered, finger-pointing superiority, a la Dylan, but I find that bracing and fascinating rather than unpleasant (and there's enough compassion and ambiguity in tracks like Sorted and Underwear to counterbalance it).

it's the joke that needed to be made xxp

man cant believe they left of sandstorm

xp to Dorian Well put. Whatever you think about Jarvis' current public persona, he was IMO an always-interesting lyricist, but not always likeable, which actually contributed to him being interesting.

The problem is, really, that "Common People" made it very clear to me that *I* was not going to be allowed to be in the team of "we" described in "Mis-shapes". So that really made the whole album kind of fall down for me in a way that I really just could not ignore.

1. "Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang," 2. "Loser."

it's that sense of embittered, finger-pointing superiority

yeah i think this is def part of what k8 and i take issue with. i think this also has a lot to do with how you listen to music, how you align yourself with narrators. as you said, cocker doesn't work as a spokesperson for anyone other than himself, so you can't identify with the one pointing the finger (and if you do, that song gets even uglier) - you can't sing along as him. but then what role are you left playing? the one being pointed at? fuck off! or no role at all? well, maybe, but that's prob why the entire narrative leaves me cold.

"Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang" = "Common People"

like, "common people" works as neither a song that the listener gets to sing, nor as one that is sung to them...

And I disagree about Cocker not speaking for anyone but himself. He very clearly spoke for quite a number of people who identified with that angry, embittered, finger-pointing superiority. And it was almost *more* insulting to be told that people like me weren't going to be welcome in his army-of-the-different because I was different in an unacceptable way, even while he was gathering his flock of the different around him.

He often plays characters, though, although admittedly Common People is to some extent autobiographical. Identifying with an artist is such a subjective thing, I suppose.

"Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang" = "Common People"

― cee-oh-tee-tee, Friday, September 3, 2010 4:12 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

hmm, i'd never thought of it that way before

truthbomb

like, "common people" works as neither a song that the listener gets to sing, nor as one that is sung to them...

I'd agree with that but also say that it's not a problem for me.

I find the same with most hip hop to be honest. I don't need to identify with either the narrator or the subject of a song in order to like it.

Thing is, as is usually the case with pop records, most people engage with Common People because they find it a powerful piece of music, and don't get detained by worrying about who they should be relating to.

this is an excelent song, fits in with what its like to live in towns when u dress 'alternatively' in yr 11 there were 2 gangs the 'grebs' and the 'roodies' the 'roodies' being the ppl who were like pretty hard, but were compleatly senceless, wondered around creating trouble with mindless vandalisum and beating ppl up. the 'grebs' on the other had had quite a few intalectuals in, we didnt go round beating ppl up, cus most of us would get our heads kicked in if we tryed. but in 10 years time we are all going to be in decent jobs and they are going to be on the doll, in prison or a dustbinman (no offence to dustbinmen)

Thing is, as is usually the case with pop records, most people engage with Common People because they find it a powerful piece of music, and don't get detained by worrying about who they should be relating to.

^^^ this. It's all performance.