pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

nazerath
poco
swamp dogg
glen campbell
au pairs

Obviously ZZ Top is on the list. I don't even need to check---WHHHHHAATTTTTT!!?

So it's ok to post notable omissions now?

Emitt Rhodes "Somebody Made For Me"
King Crimson "One More Red Nightmare"
Jefferson Starship "Miracles"
Carole King "It's Too Late"

i thought we were just naming acts from the 70s

jesse winchester
kc & the sunshine band
999

tony orlando and dawn- knock three times

seems like most of the soul picks are determined by the popularity of the recent rap songs that sampled them.

ha yea this seems very weird

melanie - brand new key

/seems like most of the soul picks are determined by the popularity of the recent rap songs that sampled them. /

ha yea this seems very weird
--marcos

I love that one of them is Will Smith's "Miami"

was surprised that the Isaac Hayes pick wasn't "Walk on By" for that very reason

that's bc it came out in 1969

i was also upset that "tears of a clown" was disqualified bc even though it was a hit in 1970 it was an album track in 1967

Two lists, for balance:

Things I really liked seeing that weren’t necessarily automatic:

Germs: “Lexicon Devil”
Siouxsie and the Banshees: “Hong Kong Garden”
Karen Dalton: “Something on Your Mind”
Donnie & Joe Emerson: “Baby”
Black Flag: “Nervous Breakdown”
Five Stairsteps: “O-o-h Child”
Kool & the Gang: “Summer Madness”
Neil Young: “After the Gold Rush”

(I realize Neil Young himself is automatic, but there’s a core of songs I would have considered inevitable, and “After the Gold Rush” isn’t one of them.)

Some things I would liked to have seen, ditto--one song per year:

Jethro Tull: “The Witch’s Promise”
Undisputed Truth: “Smiling Faces Sometimes”
Hot Tuna: “Sea Child”
Slade: “Merry X'mas Everybody”
Grand Funk: “Bad Time”
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel: “Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)”
Maxine Nightingale: “Right Back Where We Started From”
KC & the Sunshine Band: “Keep It Comin’ Love”
Walter Egan: “Magnet and Steel”
Shoes: “Too Late”

I said Rod Stewart was absent--missed the Faces song, although that's a bit of a stretch. Anyway, I'll change the most egregious omission to CCR.

the Five Stairsteps is in there cos of Guardians of the Galaxy of course

Maxine Nightingale: “Right Back Where We Started From”

This is quite possibly the most annoying song ever recorded.

i walked outside to smoke a cigarette today and a guy drove by on a motorcycle blasting "year of the cat".

(xpost) Loved it when I was 15, love it today. Possibly my favourite disco song, even though it predates the explosion (and I don't think was marketed as such initially).

rock the boat was probably my fave early disco song when i was a kid. 1974. though it originally came out in 1973. (one of those weird cases where its on their first album but it gets so big that they put it on their second album too. that doesn't happen every day.)

and a guy drove by on a motorcycle blasting "year of the cat".

I feel like I'm had dreams about this.

the donnie and joe emerson track was the one that made my eyes roll more than anything else. i like private press records, but they do not belong on a "best 200 of the decade" list.

Fine Art were robbed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz_cjMG21Io

idris muhammed track is very cool but u have to ask if it's there bc of the jamie xx sample

yes

Donnie and Joe Emerson are no different for me than Jackson C. Frank or Creme Soda or Manuel Göttsching or the Charlatans (San Francisco version) or countless other things I never found out about until long after the fact because someone else listed them or wrote about them and got me interested enough to listen. If I'd been voting, my list would have been 100% in the present moment, whatever I love most right now.

i was also upset that "tears of a clown" was disqualified bc even though it was a hit in 1970 it was an album track in 1967

― who is extremely unqualified to review this pop album (BradNelson

oh man – this explains why the track doesn't sound like 1970 at all.

Donnie and Joe Emerson are no different for me than Jackson C. Frank or Creme Soda or Manuel Göttsching or the Charlatans (San Francisco version) or countless other things I never found out about until long after the fact because someone else listed them or wrote about them and got me interested enough to listen. If I'd been voting, my list would have been 100% in the present moment, whatever I love most right now.

― clemenza

idk i think comparing donnie & joe emerson to manuel gottsching is a poor comparison. gottsching was underground, and the emersons were (talented) nonentities, nonentities who have yet to gain significant cultural resonance from their rediscovery (in contrast to say the shaggs). i'm not necessarily saying that '70s musical criticism needs to be historically informed (though there's an argument to be made for that) but if you're going to engage in revisionist history you ought to be able to look beyond the present moment. ultimately a list like this says so much about 2016 that it winds up saying nothing at all about the 1970s - or about any time _other_ than 2016.

donnie and joe emerson had the fortune to be reissued in the past couple years and not ten years ago, which is why they're on this list. tbh the albums LITA reissued *are* good but still...

I don't know anything about Manuel Gottsching except that I love "Quiet Nervousness," so I won't even try to bluff my way through that. I think the list strikes an okay balance between this-was-the-'70s and this-is-how-we-view-the-'70s today. If a balance was their stated goal, I'd say they did a little worse than what they were after; if it's just a bunch of random individual ballots tallied up and whatever happens, happens, I'd say they did a little better.

donnie & joe emerson is pretty ridiculous tbh, that song is fine but we could go hit a dollar bin any day and pick out random shit and get songs as good as that. edd hurt just hipped us to artful dodger in the big star thread and their big single is way fucking better than donnie and joe emerson

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

I saw Artful Dodger open for Kiss and Blue Oyster Cult in 1976. Thrilling. But I like "Baby" better.

damn that was a sweet show

my dream is to time travel to see the late period byrds/blue oyster cult/mahavishnu orchestra tour :(

did "sentimental lady" by bob welch make the list? that's a better soft rock ballad than emersons

best chillwave eagles song should have made it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Faik2GobaXw

ripe for reappraisal imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5Wpn3dFrEs

man, that is one unfortunate album cover

Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band would make it onto any '70s list I came up with. And it was sampled all over the place. Cory Daye!
George Perkins' "Cryin' in the Streets" is commonly thought of as a now-canonical late soul single and it was released in 1970. Nolan Porter's "If I Could Only Be Sure" ditto, 1972. Timmy Thomas' "Why Csn't We Live Together."

donnie & joe emerson is pretty ridiculous tbh, that song is fine but we could go hit a dollar bin any day and pick out random shit and get songs as good as that.

no sarcasm - can you recommend a few songs that are as good as that from obscuro bargain bin kind of albums? i have no opinion on whether private press shit deserves to be on a top 200 list from a decade, but i would be into more songs like that because i like that song a lot

is this soft rock obscurity on the list?! it's pretty happening
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy89HhtMDjo

the thing about the "canon" is that things on it get forgotten! admittedly i'm not a huge soul head but i'd never heard of nolan porter's single (he was married to frank zappa's sister? crazy!).

Ozark Mountain Daredevils' "You Know Like I Know" (1976), which sounds a lot like a Todd Rundgren ballad.

Karl Malone, this doesn't sound much like "Baby" but you might like this song by Robert Lester Folsom: https://youtu.be/bzKDK2mMb-w

Also this personal space comp is full of lo-fi soul kinda emerson-esque. more uhmm... 'competent', though, imo.

oops meant to post link https://www.discogs.com/master/view/436551

oh shit, here you go, karl: https://youtu.be/h_O0cDszcuE

just suggesting similar stuff in that vein, nobody start getting semantic with me

no sarcasm - can you recommend a few songs that are as good as that from obscuro bargain bin kind of albums? i have no opinion on whether private press shit deserves to be on a top 200 list from a decade, but i would be into more songs like that because i like that song a lot

― I look forward to hearing from you shortly, (Karl Malone)

this guy has a good list: https://rateyourmusic.com/list/bpnicast/denizens_of_the_dollar_bin/

Lot of Canadians on that list. We're evidently the dollar-bin of countries.

thanks brimstead! i know the personal space comp, but i did enjoy the Robert Lester Folsom song, which was new to me. but i still think both of those wouldn't exactly be bargain bin finds.

i guess i've just had bad luck with finding no-name gold in the bargain bin. i mean i know there's great stuff by people like Willie Nelson that you can often find in a bargain bin, but every time i take a chance on a cool looking $1 LP by The Dry Potato Singers or whatever, there's never anything even close to a song like "Baby" on it.

xpost niiiice rusohmancy, thanks!

Poco is probably a top 5 bargain bin band but i'm sure you already know about their quality

I think the '70s had my favorite country music of any decade. "I Can Get Off On You," "Behind Closed Doors," "The Gambler." They coulda snuck in a few more of these beyond "Jolene" (which I actually thought would be higher than #30).