pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

Breihan defended "Hold On" last year:

https://www.stereogum.com/2161122/the-number-ones-wilson-phillips-hold-on/columns/the-number-ones/amp/

I disagree on basically every point xpsbl re: Austin

I'd like to hear better criticisms than the "they sold out by including whitney instead of shellac" type grouching that seems to be what a lot of the online reaction comes down to

I Wanna Dance with Somebody is one of the greatest songs ever.

I Will Always Love You is one of the worst songs ever.

xxpost Then it's settled

i mean, my friends and i liked to make fun of wilson phllips - that's a nice memory of them.

and i should state my bias: as ever, i was mainly a hiphop and r+b fan throughout the decade, so seeing such mentions alongside outkast and odb is quite amusing. very much "lolgtfo" reaction.

Very funny that Morrissey and Kozolek got scrubbed from the list but a literal Nazi gets to be on there because Stephanie Tanner sang his song on Full House

I mean this is just qed for the general read on this whole exercise, right? scrub the stuff we now feel like we'd need to make untenable excuses for, include the stuff people won't come at us about. Joker from AoB has been, at least apologetic about the genuinely foul shit he got up to as a teen ("we didn't write the songs" kinda doesn't wash with this shit though - as the Vice piece about it put it, "I just can't imagine a full recovery from this sort of hatred" -- the EP he made is actual nazi skinhead shit, worst of the worst.) So I suspect that the working algorithm here is "if there's general agreement among a broad segment of our readership that //person// hasn't answered for their shit, they're non grata, and if most readers won't care, we don't either"

My fav Whitney songs are My Love Is Your Love and It's Not Right But It's Okay. I've seen neither in these sorts of lists.

I'd like to hear better criticisms than the "they sold out by including whitney instead of shellac" type grouching that seems to be what a lot of the online reaction comes down to

well, in order to keep its readership happy p4k didn't even review Mariah Carey albums until 2014. I imagine that old audience feels a bit jilted.

old audience ain't supplying the precious clicks

xost to left- thank you for that, but i don't think that was my gripe at all. more of a confusion on my end. maybe this can clarify: i am decidedly not a mariah carey fan, but if any of her songs were to be the top pick, i'm really happy it was that one. "selling out" or whatever doesn't matter to me. i loved rawkus records, but i wasn't so much of an elitist that i didn't have that mariah 12" single too.

reiterating: not a terrible list, just a confusing one at times.

For my own fun, albums which are probably in my top 50 albums ever but aren't here: Dog Man Star, Jehovahkill, The Holy Bible, Experience, Dig Your Own Hole, 13, Now Is Early, D. I. Go Pop, Apple Venus Volume 1, The Beta Band, Sing to God, Casanova, Guerrilla, Remedy, Pre-Millennium Tension, Beaucoup Fish, Holiday. I do realise these are all British except the last.

jilted readers- they're not shy about it on twitter. which is weird since the hip thing to was always to hate(read) old-p4k and complain about how bad it was, not celebrate it and mourn its passing

austin- sorry I didn't mean to attribute that sentiment to you specifically

Anyone else think it may be time for a new thread? There's no way I'm clicking this.

― jmm, Wednesday, September 28, 2022 11:23 AM (forty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Ending the thread with a spate of lamentations that Pitchfork is covering pop music would be appropriately full-circle.

the revolution betrayed

I'm not going to spew any elitist bullshit, but Wilson Phillips, Mariah Carey? Oh my fucking God. I'll stay for a little while to see if P-Fork still serves my needs, but with today's front page, I'm not counting on it. I understand the career move, but I just don't think it's going to serve me any more.

For my own fun, albums which are probably in my top 50 albums ever but aren't here: Dog Man Star, Jehovahkill, The Holy Bible, Experience, Dig Your Own Hole, 13, Now Is Early, D. I. Go Pop, Apple Venus Volume 1, The Beta Band, Sing to God, Casanova, Guerrilla, Remedy, Pre-Millennium Tension, Beaucoup Fish, Holiday. I do realise these are all British except the last.

― you can see me from westbury white horse, Wednesday, 28 September 2022 17:13 (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Holiday is so good that I could consider it honorary British

Making a list of the greatest is an inherently elitist exercise.xp

lol Evan

I wonder if it's going to serve anyone's needs. I don't think a web- only publication can attract readers interested in Whitney Houston and 4 Non Blondes. To my knowledge, no one actually hunts down information about such artists. People just hear about it on tv and that's it. Let's give Pitchfork a few months, until the corporate contributors pull the plug.

"I don't mind Pfork covering pop music so long a it's MY pop music" is a defense.

also just thinking aloud: i am just as amused giggly about old pforkers getting mad at garth brooks as i am at just how far contempo-pfork is reaching for "a different audience"*

*read into that however you like. i don't mean anything malicious by it. i promise.

What I like about best of lists like these is that because they're the exact product of their time, place, contributors, readers etc they become great at plotting shifts in the 'canon', where the reputation afforded certain songs or artists or albums shifts. That's stating the obvious ofc but the 'canon' is one of my 'specialist interests' (so I'm told).

final thought: i'm just here for the show.

I'm gonna guess lack of consensus is what ultimately keeps Ween out of lists like this. Though I suppose if enough people cared, Chocolate & Cheese might be where Pitchfork would settle.

― billstevejim, Wednesday, September 28, 2022 11:37 AM (thirty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

imo if any Ween album was gonna make it it would be The Mollusk, it's almost certainly their best 90s work and it exists in a genre all its own. plus it apparently was the primary inspiration for Spongebob so it probably deserves points for that. anyway I get these lists have to omit a lot of important things but I do get the impression they were trying to at least include token representations of everything big going on in the 90s (besides nu metal I guess), so yea in retrospect not including any of this stuff seems like a mistake

if nothing else, these lists are a great excuse for people to post variations on "this is what a particular set of people think of the soundscape of the 90s at this point in time" and "this is a terrible list and these people are wrong"

To me, the song list does kinda feel like what the decade was “actually like”

"Everything I Do" should be #1 if that's what they're going for.

Unlikely people coming out of the woodwork today

They put a Hole album higher than Nevermind. That's all you need to know about this list.

— David Firth (Salad Fingers) (@DAVID_FIRTH) September 28, 2022

xp I'm not talking about just "reflecting the charts," but what I was actually hearing/listening to.

The most frothing, misguided, incel rockist Twitter wahmbulance complaint about this is still less embarrassing than the weird full-throated defense Soto has been mounting over the last two days

my only terrible take is that if it's a reflection of what the decade was like vs. what songs we collectively are thinking of and want to remember...

..I'm glad we've all collectively forgotten Deep Blue Something

I was hearing it a lot more than "Fantasy (Remix)"!2xp

Albums list is less terrible (for me). Ask the Ages making it is the most I could have hoped for from this.

To me, the song list does kinda feel like what the decade was “actually like”

would also like to co-sign this. "shook ones" was such a pillar and it felt for so long like the hiphop crowd was the only place where it received its proper due. wonderful -and again, hilarious- to see it alongside "steal my sunshine." that is very representative of "my 90s experience"™

the whirlwind of beef, whiney craves it

That's also my favorite sandwich at Arbys

xxp - Yes, and obviously it's subjective (maybe that point got lost; I was explaining why I personally responded to the list, not that it reflects some essential nature of the decade that everyone must recognize).

-i think this list feels pretty balanced overall, i don't have huge problems with it
-the velvet rope being top 10 is a triumph
-between this and whichever rolling stone list it was i think we're at a point now where miseducation is a little overrated, it's good but not thaaat good
-surprised love deluxe wasn't top 10 after diamond life was in the 80s list a few years back, 52 is shockingly low
-american water is a lot higher than i would have expected
-i'm glad little earthquakes is at least on there but where the hell is from the choirgirl hotel on a list like this
-lol i just found that little earthquakes was actually #8 on pitchfork's original 90s list from 1999, what the hell happened
-no underworld, seriously? also no low, afghan whigs, olivia tremor control, super furry animals but wasn't really expecting any of those
-when did exile in guyville's critical standing get this high again, it felt like it was out of fashion for a while. don't think it was the best 'indie rock' of the decade at all
-violator is somehow underrated now
-was not expecting sheena ringo at all but disappointed regardless

most frothing, misguided, incel rockist Twitter wahmbulance complaint about this is still less embarrassing than the weird full-throated defense Soto has been mounting over the last two days

― hi hole im dad (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, September 28, 2022 1:32 PM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Hurricane days.

xxp - Yes, and obviously it's subjective (maybe that point got lost; I was explaining why I personally responded to the list, not that it reflects some essential nature of the decade that everyone must recognize).

Right, I get you. My reaction to the songs list was close to the opposite.

I do think it's funny that most people seem to be discussing the top 10 and bottom 10 entries on both lists and not much in between, which I guess reveals how people seem to be reading these lists

I like both American Water and Guyville a lot, but I was also surprised at how high they're ranked (there are various other great bands/albums I would have also liked to see represented - maybe in 15 years....).

DJ Premier’s trademarked plinky piano loop kicks in seconds into “Work” and you go “uhh”—like, this is an insane oatmeal raisin cookie “uhh”—only for Guru to instantly echo your satisfaction with an “uhh” of his own.

As the personal is musical, here are my cards-on-the-table 10/10s that were never going to make it (8s and 9s obv too numerous to mention), in chronological order: Cardiacs - Heaven Born and Ever Bright, Julian Cope - Jehovahkill, Suede - Suede, Current 93 - Of Ruine or Some Blazing Starre, Deep Turtle - There's a Vomitsprinkler in My Liverriver, Rudimentary Peni - Pope Adrian 37th Psychristiatric, The Sea Nymphs - The Sea Nymphs, Tim Smith - Tim Smith's Extra Special OceanLandWorld, Neurosis - Through Silver in Blood, Cardiacs - Sing to God, The Loud Family - Interbabe Concern, The Fall - Levitate, Earl Brutus - Tonight You Are the Special One, Mansun - Six, Boredoms - Super Roots 7, Spratleys Japs - Pony, Coil - Musick to Play in the Dark, Cardiacs - Guns

I stopped my list at top 50 ever when I realised I was mostly just listing British rock albums but it could expand to e.g. C'mon Kids, Six, Extra Special OceanLandWorld

"Fantasy (Remix)" is a great #1.

Jehovahkill is decade best

oatmeal raisin was a popular cookie, and it still is

Jehovahkill is all-time (fifth) best

All of the above

xp Indeed I listened to it earlier which is why I sent my list earlier