pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

part of it might be too that people caught on to waits essentially doing the exact same thing for 30 years

― marcos, Monday, September 10, 2018 10:33 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm no stan but this isn't even remotely true

The only challops I'll take is Bad >> Thriller or Dangerous >> Thriller

apparently all the ugly and shady MJ facts still do not prevent the usually very polico Pitchfork to stan for him.

also... the top 5 has 4 records which dads and mums of indiekids would love. So i guess parents DO have taste huh, and the masses too.

Pretty sure president keyes was joking about the “backlash”

at least the BADlash has ended

is this list a new jersey

There's 40 albums that I don't know about that I really want to listen to now and in the end this is what lists are for right?

Like there's deep insecurity if you get mad at the ordering of albums or even exclusion on a website's list of whatever.

I wonder how many people are missing out on Joey Purp's review because the big list was released the same day.

does anyone outside the cult pay attention to Zorn anymore?

Good question! I think at this point he is, at 65, something of an elder statesman. He's also so prolific there's really no humanly way to keep up. But he's definitely not slowed down, and the diversity of his catalog is such that he gets respect from a lot of different cults at once.

i think i picked up naked city when i was a teenager solely bc of its appearance on the pfork '80s list

i might be misremembering that since naked city came out in 1990 hm

Sometimes I forget how young some of you are (and/or how old I am).

btw i guess there's a reason zorn isn't here, the album everyone would vote for technically doesn't count

no, you're right, Naked City was on their first 80s list

Zorn sold out his three shows in SF, so he's doing okay with his cult I guess

re: MJ - I don't know if this is news to anyone here or not but my opinions on MJ's music mirror other certain ILMers opinions on the Beatles. An overexposed sacred cow I never want to listen to, with diehard fans who never shut up about him. Oddly, while both the Beatles and MJ were critical, formative listening for me, I by and large don't care for the *sound* of MJ's catalog, it's generally harsh and brittle, and I don't find much to engage me in terms of inventive arrangements or sounds (perhaps it goes without saying that I prefer Prince's vision of 80s R&B to Quincy Jones'). And lyrically Thriller is wall-to-wall embarassments - whether it's the nonsensical posturing of "Thriller" or "Beat It" or the let's-have-a-gentlemanly-slapfight delivery of "The Girls is Mine" or the very-creepy-in-retrospect "PYT", there's very little that holds my interest. Nothing funny, or clever, or emotionally engaging. The closest thing to a recognizable emotion of a fully-formed human is "Billie Jean" (far and away the best song on the album) which unfortunately also is not remotely believable, coming from a person whose cultivated image is of an asexual manchild.

I'm sure none of this convinces anybody, but there ya go. MJ is the kind of subject for whom opinions are set in stone.

would you prefer the music haters weighed in

ik this was a joke but it sure would be nice if robust discussion of great records from a particular era of pop culture could ever be spurred outside the context of a fucking ranked list

thriller is a great record that has stood the test of time. some have recently and falsely claimed otherwise -- i'm thinking specifically of bill werde while arguing earlier this year that beyoncé should be mentioned in the same breath as mj et al -- but nearly all of its tracks still percolate constantly through the ether today, and for good reason. it is better & more 'impactful' (altho this should cease to be a consideration for whether records are good) than off the wall, the token mj pick among Real Music lovers.

also no one ever use the word "impactful" again pls thanks

I've probably told this story before, but when MJ died I went to a tribute concert. When songs from Off the Wall were played folks a bit older than I went nuts. When Thriller stuff was played me and my peers perhaps reacted the most. When Bad stuff was played people a bit younger than us perked up. And so on (with a little bit of overlap between each group, of course).

I finally looked at the whole list and by and large and rank aside I don't think there is anything I would necessarily outright gong. Maybe INXS's Kick - though lots of hits! - or Stop Making Sense, which is a cheat, because I don't think it would stand without the implied corresponding visuals of the movie.

re: MJ - I don't know if this is news to anyone here or not but my opinions on MJ's music mirror other certain ILMers opinions on the Beatles. An overexposed sacred cow I never want to listen to, with diehard fans who never shut up about him. Oddly, while both the Beatles and MJ were critical, formative listening for me, I by and large don't care for the *sound* of MJ's catalog, it's generally harsh and brittle, and I don't find much to engage me in terms of inventive arrangements or sounds (perhaps it goes without saying that I prefer Prince's vision of 80s R&B to Quincy Jones'). And lyrically Thriller is wall-to-wall embarassments - whether it's the nonsensical posturing of "Thriller" or "Beat It" or the let's-have-a-gentlemanly-slapfight delivery of "The Girls is Mine" or the very-creepy-in-retrospect "PYT", there's very little that holds my interest. Nothing funny, or clever, or emotionally engaging. The closest thing to a recognizable emotion of a fully-formed human is "Billie Jean" (far and away the best song on the album) which unfortunately also is not remotely believable, coming from a person whose cultivated image is of an asexual manchild.

I'm sure none of this convinces anybody, but there ya go. MJ is the kind of subject for whom opinions are set in stone.

Agree with this 1000%. Except the "crucial, formative listening" part. I heard all the Thriller hits when they were brand new, but there were plenty of other Top 40 songs I liked a lot more - Eurythmics, the Clash, Prince. Jackson was just OK. And after Thriller, he wasn't even that. I remember hating the song "Bad" instantly.

It's surprising to me that Remain in Light and Stop Making Sense (in the top 5 and mid-60s, respectively, on both lists -- with no other albums by the band included on either one) appear to be the two consensus Talking Heads albums of choice.

The first one seems to be the most canonized, perhaps because it is so weird and distinctive and removed from all the albums before and after it?

I guess so... the first three are such classics in their own right, though (and hold together better, IMO)

(And Stop Making Sense, as you said, isn't as "impactful" [sorry!] as an album than a film)

No argument from me. I think Bush of Ghosts is much more overrated, to be honest, despite being huge fans of everyone involved and recognizing its importance.

xpost

I remember hating the song "Bad" instantly.

haha yeah this was almost comical, an "is this really happening" moment

the first Boredoms album got yanked :(

can't be having anything too noisy, or any punk except fucking Sandinista

or Minor Threat, who are as everyone knows well crap

morrisp, they couldn't put the first 3 TH albums on this list

haha, oops!

I fro-got the whole premise

xxp Black Flag's on there, too (fwiw)

Black Flag - another dull Yank-punk outfit. PENI FOREVER

the best songs on Thriller are "Wanna Be Starting Something" and "Human Nature", in my opinion

I agree there's something weird about listening to it now, an album that's so well-known and canonized and really doesn't reveal much beyond the songs you already know (unlike say, the classic Beatles albums). It sounds like a compilation to me, almost like Sports by Huey Lewis & the News or something.

one fun hypothetical is "what if 'Behind the Mask' made the album?". as you may or may not know MJ toyed around with including a rearranged cover of the YMO song, recording a few demos but never actually officially releasing it. I thought his version was good, and probably could've helped make Thriller a more "perfect" album. Plus I wonder what it would've done to YMO. Who, by the way, should've placed at least 2 albums on this list :/

(I'll listen to BF properly soon lol I promise)

speaking of non-Yank bands -- I noted that the 2002 list (100 albums) included three (3) albums by The Fall; whereas this new, expanded list only has one...

(also, the two they dropped are *THE* two Fall albums, IMHO)

obviously

well, THE two 80s Fall albums

ya

Black Flag - another dull Yank-punk outfit. PENI FOREVER

― imago, Monday, September 10, 2018 3:21 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you are sentenced to life in THE SHED

I think in general the list has become more US-centric?

There is a third jazz-album, btw, Alice Coltrane is on there with Turiya Sings. But perhaps that's not jazz enough? Would love to see a bit more, but I'm not sure there really are that many consensus 80's jazz records? What else should be on there? I'm not sure I buy Tutu and Wynton Marsalis.

Also, seeing as there's a lot more classical than before, it's pretty surprising that Tabula Rasa has fallen off the list. And wrong, btw, that record is as great as they say. I could also someday see John Adams get on there, either with Nixon in China, or if we're being more quirky, The Chairman Dances (that whole album is weirdly consistent).

That Alice Coltrane album isn't jazz at all - it's a cassette of devotional/spiritual music she sold to her followers. It got rehabbed in the last year or two when Luaka Bop put out a compilation of her spiritual stuff (which is good, mind you, but it's not jazz in any sense and she'd have told you so herself).

I think in general the list has become more US-centric?

For sure. But then the US seems to have gotten more US-centric, so it's not a big surprise.

Would love to see a bit more, but I'm not sure there really are that many consensus 80's jazz records? What else should be on there?

maybe something like ‘as wichita falls’?

Err ‘as falls wichita’ obv