pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

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).

Without a doubt, George Jones' "The Grand Tour" and Tammy Wynette's "He Loves me Al the Way" would make my list. There's so much great stuff on Jones' '70s albums, it's amazing, and same for Wynette.

I would've included "Delta Dawn" and "Rhinestone Cowboy" as well, and probably "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down".

Haggard was on fire mid and late decade too

Yeah, Haggard's 30th Album from '74 is so amazing.
It's a sad day when Billy Swan has been forsaken. "I Can Help" is so quintessentially '70s.

Btw, Alfred, I saw your 1978 list today on Facebook via Chuck Eddy. You get major love from me for including the Norma Jean album. "Saturday" rules.

!!

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.

yeah i mean, in my experience, the dollar bins have been bereft of these kinds of records for some time. with homemade/vanity press stuff you kind of just have to jump in and take a chance, since it's mainly all stuff that never made it out of its geographic origin in the first place.
i wasn't sure if upper mississippi meant this private press kind of stuff or just major label stuff like yeah willie nelson (which indeed has "better songwriting" than the emerson records but is kind of beside the point of the appeal of "baby".) and all this here i wrote has nothing to do with whether or not "baby" belongs on a list or whatever

Lot of Canadians on that list.

But no Kate & Anna McGarrigle!

The Donnie & Joe entry doesn't bother me that much; obviously, it wouldn't be here if it hadn't been an acclaimed reissue from a few years ago and recent(ish)ly covered by some yucky (but inexplicably beloved) indie act, but how much of this list looks the way it does because it is being made in 2016?

Still, while I like the Donnie & Joe record just fine, if they're gonna count recently unearthed obscurities along with the Bowies and the Jonis, I'd've gone with Willie Wright's Telling the Truth, reissued by Numero a few years back, instead.

(Also, just noticed that clemenza was referring to the RateYourMusic list linked immediately above his post, not the p4k one...which still doesn't have Kate & Anna)

see i would recommend Argus by Wishbone Ash from that list but I don't even know if that's a dollar bin thing anymore. More of a 3-5 dollar thing, maybe?

i've owned 29 albums on that dollar bin list and this is kinda my favorite song off of an album that most people don't remember:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfbus8RLblU

"Boys In Action" from the first Starz album would make a 70's list of mine if i made one.

also that first chilliwack album is only a dollar bin album in canada. also i love it. also i love that he puts city boy and crack the sky right next to each other because they are both right next to each other in my heart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HoNbowIqgo

Wishbone Ash's "Blowin' Free" would definitely be on my '70s list--and I might even count it as power pop.

"You get major love from me for including the Norma Jean album. "Saturday" rules."

me love too!

honestly is it even really a 2016 list? or more of a 2011 list? there's zero city pop on there- and that genre of music has been a massive influence on vaporwave over the past several years. if you're going to go for the '70s sound of today, where's hiroshi sato or tatsuro yamashita?

speaking of norma jean, i wrote about one of my fave 70's songs/albums for the pitchfork magazine a while back. "I Try" would make the top of my 70's list. this whole thing is epic hyperbole on my part, but it didn't matter because nobody cared:

Angela Bofill – Angel of the Night (GRP -1979)

As far as albums from 1979 go, Angela Bofill's Angel of the Night might not have been as immediately arresting as Michael Jackson's Off The Wall or Fleetwood Mac's Tusk, but it is certainly a more pleasurable listening experience than Pink Floyd's The Wall or The Clash's London Calling. Needless to say, Pink Floyd and The Clash's lurid fantasies of British fascism still sell by the ton, and Angela is mostly remembered (and dimly at times) by 50-something R&B radio listeners who last bought a CD in 1996. Angela's legacy is also tarnished somewhat by a string of sometimes generic 80's electro-soul albums that were only saved by the fact that one of the finest and most talented Latin-American singers of the 20th century was singing on them. The neon spray paint world of the 80's could be hard on brilliant and idiosyncratic jazz-pop artists of the 70's.

To truly understand the breadth of Angela's talents, you must look to the two albums she made in the late 70's for Bob Grusin's GRP label. Her debut, 1978's Angie, finds Angela reaching the highest of bird song heights a la Flora Purim on her majestic self-penned “Under The Moon And Over The Sky” and also reaching down deep for almost Robeson-esque African-American art song gravity on an album that swells with vocal invention and cosmic soul import. Her universal pleas for the children of the world sung in that dark plum pudding (or perhaps flan soaked in rum) of a voice might have inadvertently invented the UNICEF-pop that Whitney drilled into our souls, but this was accidental on Angela's part.

Her follow-up, 1979's Angel of the Night, is even better. It's her masterpiece. There is nothing her voice can't do. Angela COULD have oogied as good as any master oogie boogier, but her love comes from a higher place of mind and soul. She is ABOVE the dance floor. But not in a snooty way. She's too nice to gloat. And in keeping with the times, the title track's angel lyrically resembles Stevie Nicks more than any Christian deity. The album's opener, “I Try”, written by Angela, is a better song than anything ever written by Roger Waters or Joe Strummer and it's also one of the finest songs of the decade. It aches and breaks so exquisitely and it might make you want to be sad for a living. It's a stroke of genius. This album was, in some ways, the end of an era. A hopeful and unselfconscious blend of Latin-inflected jazz/soul pop (that would perhaps strike some modern listeners as a little naïve in a Disney /Broadway way) made with real money by studio pros at the top of their game. The 80's would be a different game altogether. And way less hopeful. The last track on the album, “The Voyage”, also self-penned, is an epic tribal call for peace that finds us sailing on a ship to a new galaxy of existence. With the grinning skulls of Reaganomics, crack, A.I.D.S., and rainbow scrunchies just around the corner, this would be the last time in American pop music history that someone would ask us to see the world through a seagull's eyes. Which is really kind of a shame.

who?

xp

"can't slow down" is an absolute monster jam, never heard anything else by her.

maybe it'll make the 80s list

dollar bin 80s dudes THE SYSTEM were the backing band on that '84 Bofill album iirc

backing band / produced

scott's post above about disco immediately had me listening to 'Rock Your Baby' on repeat.

that Henry Gross song is spectacular!

the system put out a v good record a few years back too

Goddamn so many great suggested jams here

Dreamin' Wild by Donnie & Joe Emerson is NOT a dollar bin record lol

Dreamin' Wild by Donnie & Joe Emerson is NOT a dollar bin record lol

― flopson, Wednesday, August 24, 2016 8:44 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah no shit

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/

― a confederacy of lampreys (rushomancy), Tuesday, August 23, 2016 4:49 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Karl - sorry I wasn't clear - I was actually against private press stuff really, like when we're leaving off really great bands like ZZ Top, the Meters, Gapp Band, Richard & Linda Thompson, James Gang etc etc like why the hell does like oh gee it's a neat song and I'm glad these kids could kinda play and they had a cool dad that made them a studio and it's fine enough but seriously I'd rather fucking "Thunder Island" by Jay Ferguson or "Fantasy" by Aldo Nova or shit like that was on the list as an actual representation of what the 70s really was instead of like some shit that no one cared abt and kinda reminded ppl of some precursor to 00s lo fi indie shit

also i'm pissed at whatever money i've wasted at record stores or garage sales on "rare" private press stuff that's usually limp dan fogelberg crap anyway

ha also scratch aldo nova which was 80s for jane by jefferson starship but it's the same song

I have a lot of love for private press stuff even the limp "Christ there's only one actual song here" variety but ums is nevertheless otm. it's weird how this list is...kind retro-Pitchfork? like, it's got a canon it already decided on, major MAJOR players from the era just aren't involved in it so they get no love

bummed to discover that ZZ Top is not cool :(

weirdly zz top and ac/dc are the only non-inclusions where i'm like hmmm. i dunno how many current pfork staffers are bumping "la grange" on the regular though. (did i miss it or were aerosmith shut-out too? though again I suspect a lot of the new crew are 90s babies ether scarred or sated by the mega-ballad era.)

still think these things would be much more interesting with a one song per band rule but w/e i don't make the rules.

I wonder if Pitchfork's new anti-Devo stance is because nerds are the new bullies or because new wave sold itself out to swiffer commercials or like "lmfao fischerspooner" or because new wave/punk is the new cis white male corny ass dickbeater dad "real music" like the Beatles/Stones were or all of the above

did devo not appear on the '80s list

no

same w/r/t Gary Numan, non-disco Blondie, the Police, Squeeze, Only Ones, the Knack w/e

like, go watch Reality Bites DAD

"Go watch Grosse Point Blank and listen to Tubeway you saddo cis fuck"

*slams door*

*blasts Womack and Womack*

Again, I don't think this is "wrong" or "bad," I just think it's funny/interesting how tastes are changing

simple answer.

devo rule pitchfork drools

I will still love Devo even if they are lame dad music now

okay, i made a suburban pool party megamix from the top 200. ALL kinds of white people would be happy to get down with this on a hot july day when the beers are cold:

neat neat neat
ca plane pour moi
american girl
radio radio
surrender
teenage kicks
miss you
mr. blue sky
love is the drug
(don't fear) the reaper
deacon blues
what a fool believes
train in vain
immigrant song
just what i needed
lola
rock lobster
baba o'riley
rock & roll
roadrunner
the chain
war pigs
london calling
young americans
psycho killer
good times (gotta have my one disco jam!)
wish you were here
walk on the wild side
ever fallen in love
blitzkrieg bop
rock with you (aw hell yeah, MJ!)
sweet jane
search and destroy
when the levee breaks
changes
heart of glass
lust for life

Karl - sorry I wasn't clear - I was actually against private press stuff really, like when we're leaving off really great bands like ZZ Top, the Meters, Gapp Band, Richard & Linda Thompson, James Gang etc etc like why the hell does like oh gee it's a neat song and I'm glad these kids could kinda play and they had a cool dad that made them a studio and it's fine enough but seriously I'd rather fucking "Thunder Island" by Jay Ferguson or "Fantasy" by Aldo Nova or shit like that was on the list as an actual representation of what the 70s really was instead of like some shit that no one cared abt and kinda reminded ppl of some precursor to 00s lo fi indie shit

also i'm pissed at whatever money i've wasted at record stores or garage sales on "rare" private press stuff that's usually limp dan fogelberg crap anyway

― Pull your head on out your hippy haze (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, August 24, 2016 10:59 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otmmmmmmmm

also no smokey robinson? no paul simon? no barry white?

also the cars is a band that i can't understand why anyone gives a shit about

catchy tunes, cool sounds? i'm not a huge fan or anything, but i understand why people like 'em.

cars rule.

each list is an overcorrection of the last, which at least is more interesting than ossification

if someone put a gun to my head and made me choose between the cars debut and pretenders debut and b-52s debut i would go ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh just shoot me!

I love The Cars' first two records and a handful of post-1980 moments w/out being passionate about them; I'm pretty sure that's the reaction they wanted or expected.