Year-End Critics' Polls '08

Still confused by love for "single ladies"--the random background synths are as annoying sick as fuck.

odd that "time to pretend" makes p4k's list again!

Yr all still crazy about "Love in This Club" it's #1 the best.

AY!

I don't get Crystal Castles, but Cut Copy is a fantastic synth-pop band.

based on the singles list fleet foxes are probably winning it all - maybe cut copy or portishead

btw were "flashing lights" and "no matter what" the two highest rated rap tracks? weird

yeah it's pretty easy to see why "belle & sebastian fans" like cut copy - 80s babies digging indie dudes doing 80s dance pop with huge choruses. seems like a no brainer

btw i <3 them

"Love In the Club" is the most boringly repetitive song of the year. The hook consists the exact same 2 bars of music over and over again without even the slightest variation.

xpost on high-rated rap tracks--and A Milli, and the Wiley song.

"A Milli" is higher than "no matter what" (xxxp)

Yeah, but what an amazing two bars they are! (xp)

And today is the first time I've listened to Cut Copy--not making an impression.

I'm surprised "A Milli" wasn't rated even higher

Vocals aside, most of this stuff seems more connected to Martin's previous work/collaborators than anything else.

― Alex in SF, Tuesday, December 16, 2008 11:04 AM Bookmark

You do you, umma do me

whoops, whatever I copied didn't copy

I may be wrong, but I don't think they listed more than 2 tracks by any given artist.

― beggin-ass keith (The Reverend), Tuesday, December 16, 2008 2:05 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

well, kanye's on it 4 times if you count "american boy" and "put on", but as main artists i think you're right.

You do you, umma do me

Suggest Ban Permalink
― beggin-ass keith (The Reverend), Tuesday, December 16, 2008 11:15 AM Bookmark

was supposed to be in response to

Yeah, but what an amazing two bars they are! (xp)

― Maciej (maciej recognizing trill), Tuesday, December 16, 2008 11:14 AM Bookmark

yeah, I just meant main artists xp

yeah it's pretty easy to see why "belle & sebastian fans" like cut copy - 80s babies digging indie dudes doing 80s dance pop with huge choruses. seems like a no brainer

btw i <3 them

― the usic man from the hilarious ilx message boards (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, December 16, 2008 1:13 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this doesnt make sense -- these two artists are totally unrelated -- more like ppl who are into 80s nites and new order and shit like that would like cut copy (i like cut copy)

and yeah whiney's post about them v crystal castles makes even less sense

ppl using b&s as strawman "indie" fan shocka

cut copy makes me think of new wave thursdays at neo in chicago, even if it is objectively not like that

Not nearly enough "No Air" love on these lists, btw.

A cynic would suggest the only reason Whiney made that point was because they are both broadly speaking electro and have alliterative C names.

Surely the guy making lazy comps to B&S fans would never pull something like THAT!

that was j0rdan s

Well, I've LISTENED to them (i even relistened to the four songs they rank on the Pfork list) but they're both so incredibly boring and completely incapable of leaving any impression on me that I'm never left thinking anything beyond "I hate this music" and "people that listen to Belle And Sebastien dance to this"

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Tuesday, December 16, 2008 2:06 PM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark

oh lol

Itt: Mean mugging ringtone dudes protecting lame electro bands from lazy zings

I mean you guys are right in that I was lazy and strawmanning, but seriously, given the subject matter, that's like getting up in arms when someone lumps Slipknot and Mudvayne in with "evil clown bands"

the pop songs on the list puzzled me too - "love in this club", "single ladies" and "live your life"?

pfork in hurriedly pulling a few random chart-toppers into their lists at the last minute in lieu of paying attention to pop and r&b throughout the year, shocker

why do you give 2 shitz about what pfork is covering?

im not going to take as quite a cynical view as lex but i feel like the pfork lists from years past (05, 06, etc.) had pop/rap picks that were more inspired than stuff like "love in this club" and "live your life" - but i guess that could just speak to the quality of pop music this year

b/c people keep talking about it as if it's a critically impt general music publication

This is the year-end list thread where we discuss year-end lists, lex.

So both Slant and PopMatters chose Portishead as #1 album. Now I've loved Portishead for a long time, but I have to admit that Third just hasn't pulled me in the way the other two studio albums did. I'm not surprised that it is making the year-end lists, but I am a bit surprised that it is considered the very best album of the year.

Do you folks agree? Disagree?

im not going to take as quite a cynical view as lex but i feel like the pfork lists from years past (05, 06, etc.) had pop/rap picks that were more inspired than stuff like "love in this club" and "live your life" - but i guess that could just speak to the quality of pop music this year

― Bomb Sackantino (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, December 16, 2008 3:05 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i disagree, a lot of their pop picks in, say, '06 ("Ring The Alarm," "S.O.S.," the Akon "Ghetto Story" remix, "One Blood" "Bossy") or most other years seemed like kinda scattershot random samplings of the charts.

ha earlier when i said the ambient acoustic guitar + quirky singer thing was real big in the pfork list -- it wasnt just fleet foxes & tough alliance but portishead too -- all different genres supposedly but all the same song!

i dont think lex was quite otm about it being 'mopey' though -- theres a certain attempt @ profundity there i think tho

When you put it like that I would agree that the pfork list is quite lacking in stuff that rocks. Token metal picks are very two years ago?

why do you give 2 shitz about what pfork is covering?

RIP Mullah Omar

Not many metal heads at PFM, but they do have Brandon Stosuy.

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/147495-column-show-no-mercy

I was pleased to see Hammers Of Misfortune made his list, along with several other musicians' lists.

i'm pretty surprised "single ladies" was on p4k's list. it should be of course. lex was OTM though, i cringed at about every sentence of its writeup.
i'm going to laugh when fleet fucking foxes is #1 album

Aren't these Pitchfork poll results from the readers not the editors?

xpost yeah I need to go through the Show No Mercy list soon, I'm not down with everything he likes but he's pretty on the ball.

k3v are you going to laugh any more than when Panda Bear was #1? Or Sufjan Stevens? This conversation is roughly equally as boring every year. As boring as Fleet Foxes or fucking "Single Ladies."

These are editors picks, "steampig67".

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/food/hk-pig-thumb.jpg

panda bear can write songs and is 100 times more interesting than that harmonizing geico commercial monkey

oh sry didn't mean to bring out any latent aggressive animal collection fan tendencies.

xxpost Thanks, I see them now.

Major love to Tom Ewing's singles list!

lol xxpost
forgot to say this, but i can say the same for beyonce

b/c people keep talking about it as if it's a critically impt general music publication

― lex pretend, Tuesday, 16 December 2008

yawn.

more influential than The Guardian or Plan B anyway...