pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

realised tori amos isn't on the list and lmao how do you make a list that's like this and not include her

Rebel girl bumped her out

Is Carl Wilson going to have to rewrite that book now that Celine Dion is actually good?

I had absolutely no feelings one way or another scrolling through this list does that mean I’m depressed or enlightened? Just kidding. I think I just tune out when the criteria of a music list is so broad because I have such a personal connection to the music I do enjoy that I don’t expect anyone to identify with or understand it, so therefore I have no real desire to debate merits. I was just dispassionately reminded of songs as I went down the list. Not a single ounce of “hell yeah” or much much more importantly “wtf!” Damn maybe I am depressed.

Also, NO Dave Matthews?!?!??

I had absolutely no feelings one way or another scrolling through this list does that mean I’m depressed or enlightened?

depressed. i felt the same way. it wasn't enlightened. i thought "none of this matters", and then i saw myself thinking that and thought "what an asshole"

Well more specifically it’s anxiety in my case, because I thought “none of this matters”, and then I saw myself thinking that and thought “then why are you looking at it you asshole you’ve got WAY to much fucking work to do!!!”

I think what has struck me about this exercise is with those past list they made since for Pitchfork. This one is just so blah that you should find this in the pages of Entertainment Weekly or something. I guess time marches on and all that but this is simply not for me. Hopefully albums are better.

Which contributors are responsible for Wilson Philips?

Name names

John and Michelle Phillips & Brian Wilson

Is Carl Wilson going to have to rewrite that book now that Celine Dion is actually good?

Celine Dion doesn't even agree with this.

Pitchfork snubbing Neutral Milk Hotel but including Korn and Celine Dion songs is just wild to me.

But yeah I kinda agree with what Bee OK was saying above. This list could almost be something that would appear in Rolling Stone. It’s probably better than the one from 2010 but it does feel like something is lost with, say, Archers of Loaf’s Web in Front getting snubbed.

They nailed it with #2 and #3 tho

i'm with whiney, i don't really get the point of getting a bunch of ppl to write goop-on-ya-grinch style blurbs to 250 pop and r&b songs everyone already knows and loves. there's almost nothing on this list a young person getting into music wouldn't already know, or couldn't find about from, like, an extremely generic Best of the 90s playlist on Spotify. this form of middlebrow poptimism 2.0 feels extremely played out imho. music writers would benefit from branching out into other types of music

it definitely has deeper cuts than that, though mostly in the electronic tracks

my main issue with it is just that it's swung so far in this direction that the rock rankings are all very weird to the point that like, "1979" and "enjoy the silence" are now somehow underrated (let alone "regret")

27. Elliott Smith – "Needle in the Hay"

When they remake The Royal Tenenbaums in 2030, this will get back in to the 2032 list.

'wild kindness' is a weird SJ pick to me; never thought of that one as a highlight of theirs

Perhaps more current contributors owe it to themselves as paid influencers to bother listening through the entirety of previous lists before settling on their choices. But they don't, because they're lazy.

I logged in just to tell you to fuck off

This list could almost be something that would appear in Rolling Stone

In terms of institutional age and history, isn't Pitchfork pretty much Rolling Stone circa 1991 at this point?

i'm with whiney, i don't really get the point of getting a bunch of ppl to write goop-on-ya-grinch style blurbs to 250 pop and r&b songs everyone already knows and loves. there's almost nothing on this list a young person getting into music wouldn't already know, or couldn't find about from, like, an extremely generic Best of the 90s playlist on Spotify. this form of middlebrow poptimism 2.0 feels extremely played out imho. music writers would benefit from branching out into other types of music

― flopson, Wednesday, 28 September 2022 05:59 (fifty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

thank you for putting into good words what I typed out several times earlier and then deleted as I felt like I was being maybe too much of an asshole

you are free to like or dislike other people's musical tastes, writing, whatever, but it's unmitigated clownshit to claim that people -- many of whom are freelancers who are juggling this with at least one, sometimes multiple other jobs -- are lazy just because they don't enjoy the music you think they should

this list is surely stylistically broader than the previous one too

the 2010 list was horrible

the unspoken thing being that this form of middlebrow poptimism dominates ILM too, both due to individuals' listening habits and the monstrous razor that is poll aggregation hewing off the interesting parts of people's ballots, even if we are thankfully less inclined to write about what these songs 'allowed' 'us' to do or what 'cultural space' they etched out

is this new list stylistically broader? scrolling through it induces a giant feeling of ennui - yeah this is mostly good, but what's the point etc, so many subcultures just completely erased

lists like this and Pitchfork in general feel like the work of school bullies who also happen to be the cool kids

weird sonic youth picks too. 'tunic' and 'kool thing' just feel like "songs sung by kim on goo (the album with the cool cover art)" and not like anyone's particular faves. "bull in the heather" would be a more inspired pick in the same spirit imo

o_O

2010 list has Ice Hockey Hair, so it's better

xp- lol i may be way off. kool thing rocks obv. seems weird to have 2 songs off the same album when dirty, washing machine, experimental jet set are right there tho

yeah those were bizarre picks, even just sonic youth having two tracks place is weird, let alone one of them being a random album cut

the lack of sfa is a real shame yes

that face wasn't directed at any specific comment tbh

2010 list also had a Boredoms song. like, you could maybe try have more of that sort of thing? pretty please?

a 90s list with the same curatorial spirit as the sunday review would be dope

tbf a *real* alfred pick would have been something off 'under the red sky'

― mookieproof

my boo

lists like this and Pitchfork in general feel like the work of school bullies who also happen to be the cool kids

― imago

It is in a sense a relief that in times like these you remain as clueless and myopic as ever.

Picking on the list I don't mind and I expect it; but comparing a considerable portion of the women, people of color, and queer writers to "bullies" makes you sound like a legislator in a conservative state bitching about woke culture.

Was the 2010 list done in the same way? The new one is a straight tally of voters' ballots, right?

i drew no such parallel. any sort of canon affirmation that eschews eclecticism and the avant-garde in favour of pop is essentially the assertion of might-is-right downward-punching in a cultural context no matter who's doing it. 'this is our music, this is what you should like', ad nauseam, and it's always the same rough outline, the same tediously regurgitated content, the same reduction of the vast, mad array of music from a particular era (or range of eras) to a shape of manufactured consent that excludes WHOLE SWATHES of what matters to a lot of people. and while i guess these people don't have to read pitchfork, it sure feels like it's p central to the ILM discourse, and so we have these clashes

and yeah, good to be inclusive. but i would argue this list absolutely isn't that. pitchfork is an elitist organisation that operates by creating for itself a powerful, exclusive brand, and it can use all the identity politics it likes to make itself sound more righteous, but it is ultimately an Authority and it operates From On High. it is the opposite of punk. i am not calling its individual writers bullies, nor am I claiming that they are not discriminated against on the basis of identity in their regular lives, but to my mind, pitchfork itself is the bully and its contributors participate in the bullying. no power is being fought by pitchfork. within its orbit, its power is absolute

taiwo's writings on elite capture feel apposite here: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/olufemi-taiwo-identity-politics-elite-capture.html

fight the power came out in 1989

honestly think a lot of the choices on here can be explained by a change in electorate from people who were adults in the 90s to people who were kids. wouldn’t that naturally cause a narrowing of scope towards popular songs remembered fondly and a selection of approved picks from the gen x canon?

“borrowed nostalgia for an unremembered 90s”

Of course Pitchfork is going to publish a consensual list, that's not a shocker. You're just not the audience, ILX is not the audience, the list is fine for young people getting into music who didn't live through the 90s and who want a basecamp. Or casual listeners for a trip down memory lane. You can always branch out of popular music, you don't need pitchfork to take your hand for that, what would the point be. Of course that doesn't diminish the pleasure of bitching about it, I get that.

Johnny Fever put it well when he described the ILM polls as frivolous fun. This isn't different, even if people are paid.

i'm with whiney, i don't really get the point of getting a bunch of ppl to write goop-on-ya-grinch style blurbs to 250 pop and r&b songs everyone already knows and loves. there's almost nothing on this list a young person getting into music wouldn't already know, or couldn't find about from, like, an extremely generic Best of the 90s playlist on Spotify. this form of middlebrow poptimism 2.0 feels extremely played out imho. music writers would benefit from branching out into other types of music

Always had problems with Pitchfork but this list seems so defeated. Like they've given up on having a point of view and are now just indiscriminately flattering a new generation of consumers and assuring them "you're doing great, sweetie." You like singing the 4 Non Blondes song at karaoke? Fine, it's one of the greatest songs of all time.

imago would you contend that pitchfork fought the power in its indie days

No, but at least it was unafraid to make a prat of itself, hence giving Brent DiCrescenzo a gig reviewing major albums. Now everything is sous vide

lists like this and Pitchfork in general feel like the work of school bullies who also happen to be the cool kids

― imago, Wednesday, September 28, 2022 2:18 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Lol cmon man be serious

I mean, not that that is even preferable - some of BDC's hitjobs were lamentably stupid and even destructive to reputations, but that's because Pitchfork were already, even then, an Authority that punched down at artists. I'm just saying that they were a bit more willing to entertain reviewers' personal critical stances then; it doesn't feel it was as editorialised then; it was a chirpy, quirky zine that gained outsize power way too quickly