pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

[q]Good post an hour ago. Nothing posted has offended me except when billstevejim called us lazy idle schemers. If we're going to grift, we deserve better pay.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 28 September 2022 18:25 (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink[q/]

With the hegemony of music coverage nowadays across the media from the big websites (NYT/Guardian etc) to the tabloid media meaning you only need a handful of publications to cover a handful of the biggest pop stars, making most music writers redundant, you will be lucky to get paid at all in the next few years.
Unless you write for niche publications, but maybe its too late for them now too as many, like P4K, tried to change into general pop sites and lost a lot of their relevance. It killed NME so why not P4K?

At our moment of greatest need, a hero emerges to heal the popist/rockist divide

30 years of Loveless. i still can't help but wonder how big MBV could have gotten if someone (such as myself) had delivered them a "radio ready" mix and master

are you ready to take your career to the next level and want your mixes to stand up today's pop hits? contact me today pic.twitter.com/aAmMQonJq1

— collin (@spiketvviewer) November 4, 2021

He's not wrong, it was called "Smashing Pumpkins"

Also the attack on her for "selling out" (which p4k participated in) feels pretty creepy these days

FWIW

Where were the top protest songs of the 90s: Todd Rundgren's "Fascist Christ", Joni Mitchell's "Sex Kills" and Lou Reed's "Sex With Your Parents (Motherfucker) Part II)"? Are these brave list-makers scared of old tit and dick?

xp some good points there - I remember when Rilo Kiley's last album got slammed several years later by everyone I know for going pop (more specifically, trying to be Buckingham/Nicks's Fleetwood Mac). It's probably my least favorite album from them, but there's like three or four songs I really enjoy that really lean into that sound, and the complaints over it sounded like a similar strain of snobbery mentioned in those comments.

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

I honestly prefer the original - that at least does seem like a classic pop-R&B song to me. (I like ODB a lot but I don't get much chemistry or connection between them on this.)

fwiw it's worth here's some metal stuff that is incredibly glaring by its absence imo --

1. pretty much anything from Death. Not everybody loves Individual Thought Patterns but Human? Symbolic? one of those two absolutely belongs on the list
2. Morbid Angel - Blessed is of course beyond reproach, Covenant is the going-for-it moment but Domination is sicker. I love Gateways but I get that at that point the Big Moment is passed and lists like these care more about Big Moments than about whether a record's good or not so ok, but MA belongs imo
3. SEASONS IN THE FUCKING ABYSS I mean honestly
4. At the Gates, Slaughter of the Soul, you don't have to love it but it's hugely important
5. Carcass, Necrotism -- or you could pick Heartwork for all I care, but something, it's fucking Carcass, come on
6. something from Sepultura -- I hate to keep saying "important" but those guys inspire so so many people, globally, to start playing loud aggressive music, but putting that aside, their shit slams & would slam if it hadn't inspired anybody -- Chaos AD, Roots, Arise, one of these belongs on any list like this (I go for Roots but that's me)
7. either Emperor or Immortal, but there's one very good and awful reason to not want Faust from Emperor on your list but Immortal is so key to chops being a big part of the pic & they're literally the visual model on which ALL mainstream "lol black metal looks like this!!" is based, like there's innumerable dudes in BK who never get into metal & start writing about it without Immortal shooting a goofy video first
8. CALCULATING INFINITY please? did the early 2000s just not happen?

ok there's more but I gotta bail you get the idea

Do you like Obliveon's Nemesis?

prob easy to votesplit the carcass catalog. symphonies of sickness was def on one round of ballots i sent bc it is the greatest album of all time

Nothing posted has offended me except when billstevejim called us lazy idle schemers.

Lol it was not about ILM people.

fwiw it's worth here's some metal stuff that is incredibly glaring by its absence imo --

1. pretty much anything from Death. Not everybody loves Individual Thought Patterns but Human? Symbolic? one of those two absolutely belongs on the list
2. Morbid Angel - Blessed is of course beyond reproach, Covenant is the going-for-it moment but Domination is sicker. I love Gateways but I get that at that point the Big Moment is passed and lists like these care more about Big Moments than about whether a record's good or not so ok, but MA belongs imo
3. SEASONS IN THE FUCKING ABYSS I mean honestly
4. At the Gates, Slaughter of the Soul, you don't have to love it but it's hugely important
5. Carcass, Necrotism -- or you could pick Heartwork for all I care, but something, it's fucking Carcass, come on
6. something from Sepultura -- I hate to keep saying "important" but those guys inspire so so many people, globally, to start playing loud aggressive music, but putting that aside, their shit slams & would slam if it hadn't inspired anybody -- Chaos AD, Roots, Arise, one of these belongs on any list like this (I go for Roots but that's me)
7. either Emperor or Immortal, but there's one very good and awful reason to not want Faust from Emperor on your list but Immortal is so key to chops being a big part of the pic & they're literally the visual model on which ALL mainstream "lol black metal looks like this!!" is based, like there's innumerable dudes in BK who never get into metal & start writing about it without Immortal shooting a goofy video first
8. CALCULATING INFINITY please? did the early 2000s just not happen?

Agree with a lot of these, especially Sepultura; would also add Helmet's Meantime, Ministry's Psalm 69, Earth's Earth 2, Godflesh's Pure or Selfless, Entombed's Left Hand Path (I'd throw in Dismember's Like An Ever Flowing Stream, too)...

Doing all that metal shitposting and not riding for Faith No More, Sleep and Tool = DUD

Is Tool metal or King Crimson for guys who shop at Zumiez?

Some mighty falls from grace.

Modest Mouse - Lonesome Crowded West from 29 to 125
Talk Talk - Laughing Stock from 11 to 33
Neutral Milk Hotel - Aeroplane from 4 to 31
And Flaming Lips - Soft Bulletin from 3 to 99

Surprised to see Oval on there too but it used to be at 47!

Talk Talk is surprising but yea the rest of those feel like "you had to be there" things

Modest Mouse in particular are just one of those bands which no longer hit the spot

the rest of those feel like "you had to be there" things

But NMH were comparatively ignored by people who were there in 1998.

xposts Modest Mouse and Flaming Lips pretty well reflects how those bands have faded a bit. The two are still pretty high--but NMH seems like the platonic Pitchfork indie album so it's a bit shocking.

The Other two

none so vile, bergtatt, heaven in flames, 666 international, still life

Tool are the dullest "heavy" band on Earth.

NMH got plenty of critic love in 1998/1999

in the aeroplane over the sea is still good but the cult around it was very silly for a while, glad that's faded away

Jehovahkill isn't even the best Julian Cope album of the 90s you loonies

xp I loved Modest Mouse, but it definitely feels like they fell off a cliff. It's strange - like they got their #1 album (which still seems amazing in retrospect) and I actually thought it was their best one, and then it seemed like they never built on it. I think the next thing they put out was a rarities collection and then nothing for a really long time?

The stories of people sing-screaming and crying at the Magnum reunion shows were so cringe, who can really blame P4k’s new “Smoke weed, listen to Sade” policy

Jehovahkill isn't even the best Julian Cope album of the 90s you loonies

Definitely is though

lol, quite

NMH got plenty of critic love in 1998/1999

I don't think it's false to say that it's an album whose popularity and esteem grew in later years, as opposed to one that mostly resonated with only those who were listening to it at the time of its release.

(My undergrad recording students picked the title track as their song to play, record and mix in class a few years ago.)

That’s obviously true but saying it was “ignored” is being facetious

it is on all three '90s lists

Is there a link for the earliest list?

On the matter if ITAOTS's changing reputation (not me) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:In_the_Aeroplane_Over_the_Sea#Placement_of_memes_sentence

An interesting Twitter thread:

Because I like to waste time I was just looking at the Pazz & Jop archive versus the new @pitchfork Best Albums of the 90s lists and here are some albums that mattered to us then but which seem to have lost their sheen for cool people... 1/

— Feeling Distant (@annkpowers) September 28, 2022

The albums Powers noted:

Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Ragged Glory
Living Colour, Time's Up
Rosanne Cash, Interiors
LL Cool J, Mama Said Knock You Out
Richard Thompson, Rumor And Sigh
Neneh Cherry, Homebrew
Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Spinning Around The Sun
the first two P.M. Dawn albums
Johnny Cash, American Recordings
all Moby
Latin Playboys, s/t
Los Lobos, Kiko & Colossal Head

Ragged Glory and The Bliss Album....? made my list iirc

LL too.

In my experience — i.e., people I know — Aeroplane Over the Sea is/was embraced as holy text by kids in the 10 years after its release. As somebody who was aware of it but mostly ignored it in the moment, I was surprised to find via some younger acquaintances that it had acquired this canonical status. The previous Pfork list came right in the midst of that surge of veneration. The current placement is more reasonable to me, but I don't know if it means that people who loved it 10 years ago have cooled somewhat or if they just make up a smaller portion of the Pitchfork pool.

Which, xposts, mostly lines up with that Wikipedia link's analysis.

I may be the only person under 30 who discovered it through (lol) Q magazine instead.

Is there a link for the earliest list?

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r)

https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/5923-top-100-albums-of-the-1990s/

The first 90s list has possibly been purged, but someone made an RYM list with it:

https://rateyourmusic.com/list/antoine_doinel/pitchforkmedia_top_100_albums_of_the_1990s__original_list_/

NMH at #85

There are definitely things to like about that '99 list...

Modest Mouse in particular are just one of those bands which no longer hit the spot

― frogbs

This is interesting to me, because MM's 90s output should hit the same 'raggedy loose American indie guitar band' spot that Pavement does today. Guess they haven't had a totally unexpected B-side algorithm revival with zoomers though...

Blowout Comb is at #105

― “uhh”—like, this is an insane oatmeal raisin cookie “uhh” (President Keyes), Wednesday, September 28, 2022 11:24 AM

sorry just realized i used "omission" inappropriately there- definitely glad for the mention, but at very least i'd say it deserved to be in the top half of the list.

(it's easily top ten for me)

and ❤ you, alfred. we have our differences, but i love to see you keep fighting the good fight.💪🏻

xp Very different vibe, IMO

Xp sorry Keyes and Sund4r didn't realise there was an even earlier '99 list!

haha, two Walt Mink albums (including the sucky major-label one) - ok, that's bonkers

and love to everyone. i know i'm a scatterbrained fucker and "the list sucks" but the conversation is what i'm here for and it's excellent.

That '99 list is out the gate! Three (?!) Built to Spill albums in the top 20, the lowest ranked being the only one to survive the next two lists.

And Sunny Day Real Estste at 15! Teenage me is vindicated! Haven't listened to them in over a decade, they're probably competent but shite now I imagine.