pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

Disrespecting one's elders is a punishable offence.

Raising Hell sounds v fresh to my ears

could never make it through an entire Janet album so I can't say that Control sucks, but I never understood what's to like about the sound

I like "Together Again" a lot...

Good mourning!

If Cecil Taylor's gonna be one of your two token jazz titles, how do you opt for For Olim instead of nodding to the In Berlin '88 box set, a landmark in jazz history, period?

I thought that too, but realistically, how many of the voters own a copy of the widely-distributed single-disc For Olim vs. the insanely-expensive blink-and-you-missed-it mail-order-only Berlin '88?

Most insanely glaring omission for me is Marvin Gaye's Midnight Love.

realistically, how many of the voters own a copy of the widely-distributed single-disc For Olim vs. the insanely-expensive blink-and-you-missed-it mail-order-only Berlin '88?

I own something like three dozen Cecil Taylor albums - For Olim isn't one of 'em. I find it to be a genuinely baffling choice, not just as one of only two jazz titles in a list of 200 but even from among Cecil's catalog. You know what would have been a perfect choice? Garden, also a solo album and a much more highly regarded one AFAIK (and recently reissued, which gives it extra marketing juice).

Does anyone know if they literally just averaged out the rankings on each ballot, or if the editors applied some “special sauce” (to elevate or downgrade certain albums of their choosing)?

my strongly felt tuesday morning opinion - beefheart’s ice cream for crow is a much better record than i dunno, 90% of the jerky art rock that did make the list

― I'd Rather Kecak (NickB)

doc at the radar station even better, but like tom waits it doesn't _sound_ like what people think of when they think of '80s music. i wouldn't put either beefheart record on a "best music of the '80s" list.

have to agree it there are albums on this list that have very strong singles but aren't really good albums, like Let's Dance, who listens to that all the way?

I own something like three dozen Cecil Taylor albums - For Olim isn't one of 'em. I find it to be a genuinely baffling choice, not just as one of only two jazz titles in a list of 200 but even from among Cecil's catalog. You know what would have been a perfect choice? Garden, also a solo album and a much more highly regarded one AFAIK (and recently reissued, which gives it extra marketing juice).

Ha, same; it does seem like a random pick. Garden would've made much more sense.

Most insanely glaring omission for me is Marvin Gaye's Midnight Love.

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Tuesday, September 11, 2018 5:55 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i couldn't fit this record into my own top 50 but god it's so good. never imagined it would ever make this list though

have to agree it there are albums on this list that have very strong singles but aren't really good albums, like Let's Dance, who listens to that all the way?

― niels, Tuesday, September 11, 2018 6:59 AM (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wait let's dance is on the list???? ugh

in all fairness it is a little worse than like a virgin i guess

The Lexicon of Love doesn't make it, but INXS and Whitney Houston do. That's all you need to know about this list.

it's kinda funny how looking through this list it has so little to do with so much of the actual music that was *everywhere* in the 80s

no AOR/MOR like REO, Air Supply, Rick Springfield, Styx, Bonnie Tyler, Bryan Adams, John Cougar Mellencampm, Christopher Cross, Foreigner
no hair metal Warrant, Ratt, Def Leppard, Cinderella, Quiet Riot, Whitesnake etcetc even Van Halen (unless I missed 1984)
no new wave one/two hits like Cutting Crew, Fixx, Kim Wilde, Simple Minds, Wang Chung, Men at Work
no Eliminator by ZZ Top, no thrash except Metallica
no Police Synchronicity
no Dire Straits Brothers in Arms
none of the huge soundtracks that were so dominant like Top Gun, Footloose, Dirty Dancing, Pretty in Pink, Flashdance
no boomer comeback stuff like Henley, Raitt, Heart, Boston, Aerosmith, Genesis/Collins
no pop/R&B (except Madonna, Whitney) stuff like Paula Abdul, Bobby Brown, Bananarama

All of which isn't to argue that the bands and albums on the list aren't great...or shouldn't be there...
but it's funny how these lists are really conversations between themselves and the people that wrote them and the existing lists and canons and writers that did lists and canons before them...like the things that are removed are removed to make statements about prior lists and canons and other things that are added are added for the same reasons....

and none of the lists really tell you anything about what the lived experience of being around in the world and hearing music was really about

(which isn't again the job of a critic, i just think it's funny how much history diverges from the reality of the times...and it makes me wonder what it would have been like in the 60s and I would have probably heard like, um...Fifth Dimension all the time and never like Jimi Hendrix or Moby Grape)

the singles list is a bit more representative in that sense, iirc.

also, pour one out for eliminator that record kicks ass.

no boomer comeback stuff like Henley, Raitt, Heart, Boston, Aerosmith, Genesis/Collins

yeah there's a late 80s period I think of as the Wilbury Era, where it felt like 60s and 70s folks took up a large part of the charts/airwaves/magazine inches.

Traveling Wilburys shoulda made tha list

no AOR/MOR like REO, Air Supply, Rick Springfield, Styx, Bonnie Tyler, Bryan Adams, John Cougar Mellencampm, Christopher Cross, Foreigner

almost all of these acts are fucking awful

like if you lived through it that's fine and I'm sorry but I don't have to

ums is right that these lists aren't really about what was actually representative of any given decade.

I don't think you could find a single person in 1990 who would have actually listened to/been familiar with all 200 of the albums that placed.

(also, most of that music is still everywhere, via oldies/'80s/JACK-FM type stations, so The Youngs probably actually have heard it everywhere, constantly, and can report that it is in fact bad)

like if you lived through it that's fine and I'm sorry but I don't have to

I bet Dr. Casino could start some listening threads for you so you could suffer like the rest of us did

katherine that has nothing to do with the point of my post if you read it - i went out of my way to say so

i even specifically said i didn't take issue with the quality of the stuff that was on and in fact i own and listen to a great deal of the list

i was just noting that it's interesting, cfe my thought about the 60s

i was talking about lists in general, sorry if REO makes u angry

I'm not sure what the point of your post is, then -- this isn't a list of the songs most popular in the '80s and never attempted to be. if you want that just go look up the Billboard charts

god fuck this place

I don't understand what I said wrong, but I'm really sorry

all the 70s lists full of Krautrock and Dub Reggae and Punk probably look pretty weird to people who spent the decade listening to Poco and Linda Ronstadt.

(this is serious -- I genuinely have no idea what people want from these lists. it seems like no matter what people pick, it's wrong, which is incredibly demoralizing)

hey I didn't even read it! I don't care about lists.

I like arguing about what albums are good though

(this is serious -- I genuinely have no idea what people want from these lists. it seems like no matter what people pick, it's wrong, which is incredibly demoralizing)

Personally, I'd like to never see another one as long as I live. Because these ignorant, arrogant, myopic circle jerks being accepted as any kind of portrait of a/the culture makes me want to go on a birthdate-based killing spree.

But I'm having a bad month, so ignore me.

please do tell me which music I should like in order to deserve not to be killed

Christian Rock

(I also don't understand why what I said was bad enough to get a "god fuck this place" but "I want to kill everyone involved with this at least of a certain age" isn't)

no AOR/MOR like REO, Air Supply, Rick Springfield, Styx, Bonnie Tyler, Bryan Adams, John Cougar Mellencampm, Christopher Cross, Foreigner

almost all of these acts are fucking awful

― aloha darkness my old friend (katherine), Tuesday, September 11, 2018 10:50 AM (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

like if you lived through it that's fine and I'm sorry but I don't have to

― aloha darkness my old friend (katherine), Tuesday, September 11, 2018 10:51 AM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

loool otm

President Keyes otm, thread needs more jams for the lamb

The Joshua Tree is on there.

It’s largely a “cool music” list, what can you say (^^Joshua Tree and a few others notwithstanding)

I think ums was pretty up-front about his post - that this list is one thing (a list of music from the 80s that certain people think is cool right now) as opposed to another (a list of music that was actually significant in the 80s)

I just... don't know what the point of saying that is? again, it's not trying to be a list of the music significant in the '80s. there are lists for that already. and more to the point, posting something like that in a discussion that largely consists of people complaining about omissions/inclusions is inherently going to seem like another complaint about omissions/inclusions

I think ums was pretty up-front about his post - that this list is one thing (a list of music from the 80s that certain people think is cool right now) as opposed to another (a list of music that was actually significant in the 80s)

What's the difference?

What was significant in 1989 and 2002 is less significant in 2018. That's the nature of history and changing tastes among critics and artists.

xpost Er, impact?

the list is obv trying to say something about the 80s, otherwise why limit it to a specific decade in the first place, but then in a way it fails because it's more interested in finding the best/coolest music than the music most representative of the decade

in a way it fails because it's more interested in finding the best/coolest music than the music most representative of the decade

but... that's... the literal point of the list

if someone asks you what your favorite food is you don't consult the national restaurant association to figure out what the most popular lunch item is in 2018, you say what your favorite food is

It's gonna be tragic when the 2010s list comes out and completely snubs Foster the People and Imagine Dragons

The counterpoint is if the list doesn’t really “reflect the times” as they were lived, doesn’t the “1980s” aspect feel kinda arbitrary?

Would the list work if it were not ranked? Why rank the albums at all?