pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

let's be honest, who are these ppl that are reading Pfork and exploring older decades of music for the very first time? That seems like two mutually exclusive sets to me.

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, September 11, 2018 11:50 AM (thirty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

these lists don't serve any purpose apart from harvesting clicks from old music nerds

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, September 11, 2018 11:51 AM (thirty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i pored over the old 70s and 80s lists as a teen

I have seen Wall E a bunch and the only songs I remember are from Hello Dolly.

'from a specifically UK/US viewpoint' is a limitation that I don't really know how these lists can be expected to get around unfortunately, as the token non-Western albums that do make these lists are always going to be ones that managed to cross over in some sort of way. it's certainly desirable to expand it as much as possible of course

I was too old for the older Pitchfork lists to influence me, but it impressed me when Low topped the '70s list -- and depressed me. My secret was out.

Peter Gabriel is a household name among millenials.

yeah he sings for TV on the Radio, right?

not to be ableist but the way that 95% of the reaction on ilm of all places is ‘x album placed but y didn’t??!’ is bad

the Omission Noticer has logged on

I absolutely poured through lists like this growing up, and learned about all sorts of music from them (as I probably will from this one as well, when I read the entries). However, I also think lists like these are inherently dishonest. On one hand, they present themselves as canon; why else would you rank the entries? (Almost typed wank the entries.) On the other, they are also meant to be provocative and inspire debate, which belies the idea of the canon. There's also a matter of the selections, which are probably not, as they say, natural selections, unless you believe every voter there is equally well versed in free jazz, pop, hip-hop, reggae, punk/indie and whatever other '80s genre (including those not represented, which is sort of a negative vote) and these are just the albums that popped up. My guess is by necessity the list has been massaged, because it has to be. Doesn't make it any less valuable! Again, even the omissions and weird inclusions are valuable, in a way.

for what it's worth, a) peter gabriel is all over youtube and so is virtually anyone else with a chance to hear these lists, but b) as one of the few people who actually did get into peter gabriel at age 16 or so -- via melt, actually -- even then I got the sense that it was considered embarrassing in retrospect, and if I had first heard him via "sledgehammer" or "solsbury hill" (neither of which I like, the former of which I think is actively embarrassing and the latter of which is wallpaper) I never would have

s/hear/make

Embarrassing? That's ... not generally a word I've ever heard to describe PG. Interesting.

That said, the list's omission of Weird Al is unforgivable.

have you ever read the lyrics to sledgehammer, they're... not good

Dare to Be Stupid is a solid album. xp

The viral Shining movie trailer def helped tarnish ‘Solisbury Hill’

xpost Most lyrics are not good! At least that one is intentionally goofy.

Agree Solisbury was hurt by Shining.

I thought the terror of Tom Cruise hugging Penelope Cruz did that to "Solsbury Hill."

Peter Gabriel was, ahem, my gateway to a thousand churches.

Including Kate Bush.

I don't know about "hurting" it but this is kind of what I meant by wallpaper -- it's been used for so much that it barely registers as a song that can be good anymore. kind of like "All Star" (to take a very different thing)

xp -- it was the opposite way for me, around the same time I got into Kate Bush I naturally heard "Don't Give Up" and "Games Without Frontiers." but then again, even those are tracks that are a bit too earnest and utterly irony-free in a way I can easily see not registering for others

They should learn to be a bit more earnest, those songs are awesome, fuck irony.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNjQxOTFmNmItMDk1Ni00NTk3LTk0N2MtNmU4OGE5NDIzYjJmXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQxNzMzNDI@._V1_.jpg

^'80s

xp -- I actually do like both of these songs, but I don't necessarily expect anyone else to

I really hope Games Without Frontiers will be helped once The Americans becomes a cultural touchstone, but I might be wrong on several levels there.

7/4 groove in "Solsbury Hill" is all-time.

seems very idiosyncratic these days - like i dont think young people even here in australia care about midnight oil anymore

Ha, "Beds Are Burning" went to #1 in Canada when I was 9 and is permanently burned into my memory.

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

thanks for reminding me how most of the omnipresent music of my youth was horrible!

xp way up thread to Whiney g -- Nurse With Wound and Psychic TV are way less "problematic" (esp. re call-out culture ) than Swans, Faith No More, etc. The latter camp is way more "bro-y"

the fuck did Faith No More do?

Mike Patton is kinda crepey and a bit, uh, i can't keep track of who has been called out anymore. But FNM is def on the bro-down side of alt-music

I went to the first YouTube hit to see what the kids thoughts of "Games Without Frontiers" and here you go:

Peter Gabriel is a brony. I just know it.

Most of it is stuff I heard from friends, though I do remember him touching my friend's butt at a Death Grips show about 5 yrs ago

(that was about Patton, not Peter Gabriel) sorry xp

It's interesting to me how relatively low Born in the U.S.A. places (#56) -- considering that it's an example of an album that was both hugely popular / "era-defining," as well as a (deserved) critical success.

Can we go back to talking about the greatness of Rudimentary Peni

not to be ableist but the way that 95% of the reaction on ilm of all places is ‘x album placed but y didn’t??!’ is bad

― flopson, Tuesday, 11 September 2018 16:34 (fifty-nine minutes ago) Permalink

lol flopson

Can we go back to talking about the greatness of Rudimentary Peni

They were no Crass imo.

In the "omission police" spirit, here are a few relatively well-known albums I would have included on a ballot, to reflect what the '80s (and I guess primarily the late '80s) felt like to me (I know, no one cares!):

Indigo Girls, S/T
Tracy Chapman, S/T
John Fogerty, "Centerfield"
Traveling Wilburys, “Vol. 1”
Lou Reed, "The Blue Mask" (possibly also "New York")
Fine Young Cannibals, “The Raw & The Cooked”
10,000 Maniacs, "In My Tribe"
Terrence Trent D’Arby, “Introducing the Hardline…”
R.E.M., "Green" (in place of "Reckoning")

xp apples and oranges IMO, both great

i agree that the blue mask should’ve been on there somehow, it’s much better than let’s dance

Another Life is @AmnesiaScanner’s most accessible and impactful release to date https://t.co/T8MktydrrG

— Pitchfork (@pitchfork) September 11, 2018

morrisp, i think a few of those albums were on the RS list posted upthread

I must be more of a Wenner kid, lol (shudder)

'from a specifically UK/US viewpoint' is a limitation that I don't really know how these lists can be expected to get around unfortunately, as the token non-Western albums that do make these lists are always going to be ones that managed to cross over in some sort of way. it's certainly desirable to expand it as much as possible of course

― ufo, Tuesday, 11 September 2018 16:31

I agree with that, and I'm not even sure I would particularly want them to do anything differently*, I just don't think we should be patting them on the back for "breadth" because hip hop and R&B are better-represented this time. It's good to remind ourselves that there's always more!

*Actually in a dream world perhaps spend some time considering what the selections tell us about the things Pitchfork writers currently think is cool and what that says about Pitchfork, but I realise that my interest in music writers talking about music writing is a minority interest.

I can't speak for anyone else but I don't nominate albums because I think they're "cool"

If cool was the top criteria then the Miami Vice soundtrack would be number one

Obv

that is definitely influential!