pitchfork

-al, suddenly not so proud to be from Baltimore

But they are pretty fuckin' funny.

super proud to be from Baltimore!-

the hype master

when was the last time the "most read reviews" section was updated? as is, it seems like ricardo villalobos and jose gonazales have been dominating the review readers' interest for about a year or more...

there's gotta be some crazy ass google action goin' on with "senor smoke."

If you'll notice, it's anyone with diacritical marks in their name.

there's some really old, terrible reviews on that site. probably time to get rid of everything pre-99 or something.

I think this one kinda takes the biscuit

wrong/crap in just about every way imaginable

At least it's not 1,000 words?

i think that wisdom guy's responsible for the 'fantastic' zaireeka review

i have a soft spot for this one:

http://pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/22068-tiny-music

bad reviews that are short irritate me MORE, somehow, than bad reviews that at least go into some depth.

This one will always have a special place in my heart.

Well, duh. Sorry to go monosyllabic, but... well, duh

Guy just blathers on about how much of a prick he is for 700 words, then reviews the album for maybe 500. Prick.

that's the dude who gave 0 to zaireeka, actually

talk about an about face!!!!@@!!!

This thread is making me feel old. I feel like I'm thinking in dial-up.

His review of Dark Magus starts out thusly: "Good old Japan. We bomb them, so they horde this Miles Davis gem, out of print for ages in the U.S." wtf?

errr :x

wow

How on earth did nobody come to edit out the first ten-odd paragraphs of that Soft Bulletin review? When good men do nothing etc

Meanwhile, Idolator just posted a little story...

so much ugh

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/22716-split-personalities

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/22719-gay

Hey guys, did you hear Ryan wasn't a very good writer when he was 19?

meanwhile
http://idolator.com/tunes/more-songs-about-buildings-and-traffic/brooklyn-academy-of-music-to-new-york-city-no-sufjan-no-credibility-264802.php

Someone needs to give that High Strung guy a smack around the chops. Although I do like the idea of eschewing one's lips.

Hey guys, did you hear Ryan wasn't a very good writer when he was 19?

fixed

I'm looking forward to his eventual equivalent of Jann S. Wenner's Goddess In The Doorway review, though.

I thought that's what the 12 Rods review was.

293 Views

Yeah, maybe Idolator should hide evidence of the number of readers they're getting.

Paul Banks
Living In The Moment
(Interscope/Starbucks, 2029)
[9.6]

I think all Gawker sites do that. And if Idolator gets significantly less hits than the other ones, that at least reinforces whole "music is by far the lowest rung on the pop culture ladder" thesis they're always hammering home. (xpost)

Paul Banks
Living In The Moment
(Interscope/Starbucks, 2029)
[9.6]

by 2029 this will be the entirety of the review

"Well, don't want to sound like a dick or nothin', but, ah... it says on this website that this record's fucked up. Ah, he sings like a fag, and his shit's all retarded."

when was the last time the "most read reviews" section was updated? as is, it seems like ricardo villalobos and jose gonazales have been dominating the review readers' interest for about a year or more...

I've accidentally bought that Ricardo Villalobos album five times now because of this.

Pfork gets a lot of traffic off google searches for obscure foreign bands, like ~ (Portuguese grime), é (Geneva twee scene), č (Latvian punk underground), ö (Magyar trance), and ť (Czech psych).

ysi

(Magyar trance)

:-O

(hi dom! all our traffic stats are public, but thanks for your concern)

pwned

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/

am i the only getting a 404/nginx/0.5.17 message ?

ok. a temp. blip. move along

close call

dude potch fork totally stole my line about that john maus record. do they read this site?

what was your line?

too lazy to look for it, too lazy to read the whole review. I closed my eyes and saw it, so trust me here

do they read this site?

lolol

wow - the maus review was filed on march 12, a few weeks before the maus/legend comment in the thread, but that is incredibly odd.

great minds think alike.

burt_stanton, too.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/author.php?author=Ryan+Schreiber

Coz any Americans might not see this on its other thread....

Are you fucking listening, Pitchfork’s [nabisco] [.]?

lol at calling Beth Orton's Trailer Park "William Orbit-produced", which anyone with two ears and a copy of Ray of Light/13/etc. will tell you is clearly not. Props for ""She Cries Your Name" still sounds great, with Orbit's luxuriously gloomy string arrangement" -- Eric Harvey, do you even know who William Orbit is?

Uh, William Orbit did produce that particular song, but not anything else on the album.

He co-wrote the song, but the versions he produced appeared on her debut SuperPinkyMandy and his own Strange Cargo: Hinterland. I'm pretty sure the one on Trailer Park--which is radically different--was Andrew Weatherall

Okay, I may be wrong on that one. I don't have a copy of the album anymore, but I thought he was credited as producing that one.

In episode 2F09, when Itchy plays Scratchy's skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib twice in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean, what are we to believe, that this is some sort of a magic xylophone or something? Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.

oh shush, fucking up a producer credit is not a blooper.

it's a capital crime

it's an insult to nature
the case against god

anyone with two ears could tell this

cant believe you idiot bags even read pitchfork anymore

it's light morning reading

for idiotbags

so is the ny times

it's light morning reading

i'm a dork i can't help it

Why read when you can watch?

i check it every morning to make sure they are shaping the indie world's opinion of Gucci Mane in a positive way /sarge

jeez poor charlie you can tell it's so humiliating for him

this is the best list/feature/whatever i've ever seen on pitchfork..

http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/7849-the-top-50-music-videos-of-the-1990s/

It's the first time I've seen them post a big list/feature/whatever where I liked every selection.. I didn't think it was possible.

writing on that is really good -- i imagine it was all scott?

Yeah it had to be all scott .. he probably chose the videos too.

I'm a little upset this hasn't recieved more fanfare.. it kinda made my week.

Looks like a great list, at a glance. Really wish I had time to watch 50 YouTube videos and give this some attention. (I've probably seen about half of these videos otherwise... really good stuff.)

so this thing has continued into The Top 200 Tracks of the 1990s

http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/7854-the-top-200-tracks-of-the-1990s-200-151/

and this is what i'd call the best list i've ever seen on pitchfork.

the dance people have brought their a-game entirely.

seeing 'real love' like 10 spots below 'dry the rain' is the pt at which i throw up my hands & o_O at indie

okay maybe i have been ignoring the indie choices a little.

Top 50 will be lots of indie, I bet we're seeing all the "dance" stuff early (i.e., lower) in the list.

#1 will be, like, "Summer Babe"

#2 will be "Paranoid Android"

#3 will be "The Insistor"

#4 will be butthole surfers 'pepper'

just realize markers prob never was around when that was big & felt old :(
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4WUlNSx_Wk

lol @ most liked comment on that vid

MajkeTiTvoje
1 month ago 48

Not many bands can become succesful with the word butthole in their name

#1 will be, like, "Summer Babe"

blurb transmitted from the past by ott on an old napkin touched by malkmus.

Ironically, despite its enduring legacy as the Neptunes' breakthrough, "SuperThug" wasn't Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo's first chart hit. That belonged to Ma$e, whose "Lookin' At Me" bore the Neptunes' imprimatur and reached no. 8 on Billboard's Hot 100. No one remembers "Lookin' at Me", but "SuperThug", released the same year, is unforgettable.

RUMP SHAKER????????? other than that, p good list so far.

i dont know if chad was involved w/ rump shaker?

ok the further i get in, the more i start to question things. the top 10 is going to have to be p fucking spectacular to not include groove is in the heart. brothers gonna work it out over terrordome? daytona 500 over winter warz? ice cream over glaciers of ice? got yr money over shimmy/brooklyn zoo? small quibbles, i grant you, in a still v interesting list

that vids list is aight but kind of heavy on the palm pictures dvd contingent, no?

That's an okay list, but where's "Tha Crossroads" and "Return to Innocence"? Both had very memorable videos, even if you don't like the music. And "Come to Daddy" as #1?!! I guess it's technically well done, but fuck that goth shit. As far as horror-inspired Cunningham videos go, "Come on My Selector" and "Afrika Shox" (which isn't even on the list) are both better.

in the singles list: mortal kombat theme is by the lords of acid dudes, not the klf.

Good list so far, I think, even though the order seems nearly inconsequential at this point.

Nice surprises in the 100-50 range:

Dinosaur Jr "Start Choppin'" over "Freak Scene"
Jeff Buckley "Last Goodbye" over "Hallelujah"
Disco Inferno "Love Stepping Out" at #74 -- AWESOME!

Questionable choices:

Stereolab "French Disko" over "Jenny Ondioline" -- both great, but I think the latter's their best.
REM "Nightswimming" over "Losing My Religion"/"Drive" -- hmmmm.
Sonic Youth "100%" over "The Diamond Sea" -- though "100%" gets an excellent blurb, so w/e.
GY!BE "Moya" over Swans "Failure" -- I like both, but Swans are clearly superior (and one of GY!BE's biggest touchstones).
Public Enemy "Brothers Gonna Work It Out" over "Welcome to the Terrordome" -- *shrug*...

I'm perfectly fine with "Got Your Money" and "Daytona 500" repping for ODB/Ghost, btw!

ice cream >>>>>>>> glaciers of ice

got your money >>>> brooklyn zoo/shimmy shimmy ya

tbh, this entire list is so completely baffling that it really transcends pointless message board arguments about right or wrong

tbh, nothing really transcends pointless message board arguments about right or wrong

I'm curious to know how the representative song for each artist was determined. Was it simply the highest-ranked song when the votes were compiled (and therefore all lower-ranked songs by the artist were dropped)? Or was it discussed beforehand?

the top 10 is going to have to be p fucking spectacular to not include groove is in the heart

Yeah, I thought this was oddly low, too. I'm not too surprised at stuff like "Real Love" over "Dry the Rain" b/c it's not hard for me to imagine that more P4k writers had formative music-listening experiences with Beta Band than with Mary J. Blige, but "Groove Is in the Heart" seems like such a universally beloved classic that it's definitely strange to see it rank below a Godspeed You Black Emperor track.

i had completely forgotten that beta band existed until this thread

is my memory hazy or haven't we had like 30,000 different thread for every pitchfork list where jaymc starts playing slash/fic with the voting process and everyone else pretty much rolls their eyes and says for the billionth time "it's editorial decisions not a democracy"

hes not "playing slash/fic" hes "discussing the results" on "a message board"

i hope the top 10 is interesting, i don't think anyone who reads pfork needs to be told once again how good those same few radiohead/mbv/pavement records are

like i can't imagine anyone fistpumping heartily when they see "paranoid android" pop up at #1 or whatever, regardless of whether they like it

lol deej -- I've heard that Butthole Surfers song a million times on the radio, although I didn't know it was their song until now. I only really started to pay attention to music in, like, 1998 or something though, and Wikipedia tells me the song was a hit in 1996 . . .

i told scott i'd only write about groove is in the heart if it was purposefully kept out of the top 100 just to fuck with people.

brothers gonna work it out over terrordome? daytona 500 over winter warz? ice cream over glaciers of ice? got yr money over shimmy/brooklyn zoo?

REM "Nightswimming" over "Losing My Religion"/"Drive" -- hmmmm.
Sonic Youth "100%" over "The Diamond Sea" -- though "100%" gets an excellent blurb, so w/e.
GY!BE "Moya" over Swans "Failure" -- I like both, but Swans are clearly superior (and one of GY!BE's biggest touchstones).
Public Enemy "Brothers Gonna Work It Out" over "Welcome to the Terrordome" -- *shrug*...

Y'all are kidding with this, right?

ilx never kids.

ilxor the poster gets wildly sincere about pfork lists

Noted. Fwiw, I think p4k is kinda killin it.

ilxor the poster gets wildly sincere about pfork lists

to be fair, p4k lists are serious, serious business.

is my memory hazy or haven't we had like 30,000 different thread for every pitchfork list where jaymc starts playing slash/fic with the voting process and everyone else pretty much rolls their eyes and says for the billionth time "it's editorial decisions not a democracy"

Well, do you know for a fact that it's editorial decisions or are you just presuming that it is? "Editorial decisions" is too vague to tell me anything, anyway. I suspect that the editors shuffle a few things around, but I'd like to think they're not determining the entire list themselves.

I only really started to pay attention to music in, like, 1998 or something though

That does make me feel old, though I really only started to pay attention to music in 1990.

oh my god dude

jaymc all the p4k lists are made the same way: staff votes + editorial massaging

Interesting that in the 90s video list, 15 of the top 20 videos are from 97-99.

I noticed this because I hadn't seen many of the videos, and those years were really the only years in the 90s that I wasn't watching mtv like 10 hours a day.

to be fair a lot of early 90s videos were REALLY bad. unless someone wants to make a case for collective soul rocking out in the woods.

Collective Soul. In the woods. Rocking out. Directed by Michel Gondry.

i'm kind of surprised Modest Mouse and (especially) D-Plan are so far on the list, honestly expected them to enter the top 50

I don't know, p4k tends to like Built to Spill a little more than Modest Mouse, and Dismemberment Plan seems like something they're just clinging to, so it makes sense to me that they'd be 100-51 range.

I'm pretty stoked that they chose "Trailer Trash." I'm not sure that Modest Mouse had a pivotal cultural moment in the 90's on the level of some of this other stuff, but for me and my friends "Trailer Trash" was earth-shattering.

Harvey Danger wuz robbed

perusing this track list, even the songs I don't like deserve to be on it

big ups for including "It's A Fine Day", puzzled look for (apparently?) bumping "Charly" for it

also MASSIVE ups for including "Wicked"

actually this is kind of a top 600, considering the "see also" choices

puzzled look for (apparently?) bumping "Charly" for it

― feel free to answer my Korn Kuestion (HI DERE), Wednesday, September 1, 2010 11:19 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

1 per artist, remember

i thought wicked over it was a good day was a smart move

Definitely. Also, I feel like you guys are picking a lot more up-tempo stuff than in the p4k 500.

When do we handicap the top 50?

I think the only 90s PE track I would pick over "Brothers Gonna Work It Out" is maybe "Burn, Hollywood, Burn". If "Fight The Power" hadn't been released in '89 that would have been a no-brainer.

So which Prodigy track is going to actually make it? IIRC they haven't shown up yet and if it's "Voodoo People" or "Firestarter" I'm going to hurt myself rolling my eyes. (It should be "Charly", "Everybody in the Place" or maaaaaybe "Out of Space" or "No Good (Start the Dance); I personally would pick "One Love" but that's me, I know not everyone else is as infatuated with that track as I am.)

"No Good (Start the Dance)" or "Breathe"

Pitchfork loves "My Boo."

My day is made.

it should be "out of space" but i seriously doubt ANY prodigy will make the list.

unless a lot of folks who were in high school/college at the time have some nostalgic fondness for "firestarter."

^^^ this is what I am afraid of

and i say this as the guy who wrote the "no good" blurb for the book.

but i mean, i'm happy to be proven wrong.

haha now watch, it will be #4: "Diesel Power" and we'll all be sitting here going "... huh"

ilxor the poster gets wildly sincere about pfork lists

If we're being honest I merely get bored and like to waste a little time with my over-analytical tendencies. Applies to pretty much everything in life, btw, not just Pfork lists -- which are fun to comment on because people react so *seriously* about it!

Alright, if nobody else is going to, I'm gonna take a shot at the top 50.

Unless that's a not cool move for some reason. Now's the time to let me know.

for fucks sake just wait two days, jesus

Aiight then. You don't have to yell. Shit.

he does, actually.

biological thing.

wait, did Oasis make it to the top 50 or did they not make it at all, because either way would be a bit ridiculous

I don't think, given their success, it would be particularly ridiculous for Oasis to appear in the top 50

even though I hate them

Ok, yall, I would seriously have an opinion on this if I could figure out what the pitchfork "narrative" is anymore. Like circa-1999 it was contrarian to RS/Blender/Pazz/VH1 canon, then circa-2004 it was contrarian to the Spin alterna-canon. And now I can't even figure out what it's trying to be at all. Like contrarian to the know-it-alls on ILX?

Like take the Public Enemy choice for example.

1. The old school RS/Blender/Vh1 thinking would have given that to "911 Is A Joke" easy—already on the vh1 list, political AND pop, everything hip-hop is "supposed to be" in the rockist viewpoint, both critically lauded AND a pop hit.

OK, but P4k can't be canon-loving rockists, so take it down to...

2. The kind of Wire/Signal To Noise/20JFG noise-is-art thinking, which would have given it to "Welcome To The Terrordome," no question. Avant-geeks traditionally stump for this because it's their most noisy, and also handily ties into shit like Burroughs, Girl Talk, mashup, copyrightlaw, plunderphonics, Tigerbeat6, etc...

But that's maybe whiteboy Spin-reader thinking, so...

3. The genre expert thinking: They seem to employ a lot of rap nerds/dance nerds on their staff these days to get lot of "genre voices"—really noticable this time out with all the dance stuff on this list, and helps them get the REAL SOUND of the genre from the REAL EXPERTS--which is def smart and appreciated (and RARELY done anywhere else, so kudos to fork on that) to not get token dance songs rock dudes who sometimes listen to Aphex Twin. However, any self-respecting XXL/Ego Trip/Vibe/noz/Complex whatever rap head would give it to "Shut Em Down (Pete Rock Remix)." It was a tunnel banger, probably the biggest "rap fan" Public Enemy song of the 90s.

So really, after you exhaust all those lines of thinking, what is choosing "Brothers Gonna Work It Out" actually saying?

they like it the best?

man y'all are some pychonian down-the-rabbit-hole motherfuckers

haha xpost

also lol at Whiney clowning others for overanalyzing the assembly of the list and then immediately after writing a 500-word post overanalyzing the assembly of the list

Ok, yall, I would seriously have an opinion on this if I could figure out what the pitchfork "narrative" is anymore. Like circa-1999 it was contrarian to RS/Blender/Pazz/VH1 canon, then circa-2004 it was contrarian to the Spin alterna-canon. And now I can't even figure out what it's trying to be at all. Like contrarian to the know-it-alls on ILX?

Like take the Public Enemy choice for example.

1. The old school RS/Blender/Vh1 thinking would have given that to "911 Is A Joke" easy—already on the vh1 list, political AND pop, everything hip-hop is "supposed to be" in the rockist viewpoint, both critically lauded AND a pop hit.

OK, but P4k can't be canon-loving rockists, so take it down to...

2. The kind of Wire/Signal To Noise/20JFG noise-is-art thinking, which would have given it to "Welcome To The Terrordome," no question. Avant-geeks traditionally stump for this because it's their most noisy, and also handily ties into shit like Burroughs, Girl Talk, mashup, copyrightlaw, plunderphonics, Tigerbeat6, etc...

But that's maybe whiteboy Spin-reader thinking, so...

3. The genre expert thinking: They seem to employ a lot of rap nerds/dance nerds on their staff these days to get lot of "genre voices"—really noticable this time out with all the dance stuff on this list, and helps them get the REAL SOUND of the genre from the REAL EXPERTS--which is def smart and appreciated (and RARELY done anywhere else, so kudos to fork on that) to not get token dance songs rock dudes who sometimes listen to Aphex Twin. However, any self-respecting XXL/Ego Trip/Vibe/noz/Complex whatever rap head would give it to "Shut Em Down (Pete Rock Remix)." It was a tunnel banger, probably the biggest "rap fan" Public Enemy song of the 90s.

So really, after you exhaust all those lines of thinking, what is choosing "Brothers Gonna Work It Out" actually saying?

― miccio kurihara (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, September 1, 2010 1:22 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

omg dude you were just making fun of jay-z for writing 'slash/fic'

omg

jaymc

what am i doing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_40kJlo9P4g

"Brothers Gonna Work It Out" is not any less noisy than "Welcome To The Terrordome" (and neither is "911 Is A Joke", for that matter)

man y'all are some pychonian down-the-rabbit-hole motherfuckers

jumping through the plate glass of pitchfork's expectations

Public Enemy never got it right til they did "Give It Up" on Muse Sick-N-Hour Mess Age - YOU KNOW IT'S THE TRUTH

here's a new expression I'm working on: "You can't be too cool for school and then turn around and submit a thesis." What do you think?

Public Enemy never got it right til they did "Give It Up" on Muse Sick-N-Hour Mess Age - YOU KNOW IT'S THE TRUTH

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh no

i was just thinking about this on my way to lunch and then typed it up when i got home, eesh

for real, though; remove the anti-Semitism and no one would have given two shits about "Welcome To The Terrordome" aside from the line "Hear the drummer get wicked!"

They don't have wifi at subway yet?

xpost as dumb as you think my posts are, congrats on topping it

ok, someone send up the Ott signal, i don't feel like talkin about this anymore

SUCCESS

it's kind of amazing to me that EVERY TIME pitchfork runs a list the conspiracy theorists come out of the woodwork for what amounts to a tabulation of ballots submitted by individuals.

uh, i still agree w/ u strongo

"there MUST be some deeper meaning!" yeah, and your toaster is talking to you, too.

Whiney G TalkingOutBothSidesOfHisMouthgarten

yeah, wow individuals can't be subject to critical trends, I MUST BE WEARING MY TON FOIL HAT

especially individuals who all write for the same place, how could they possibly influence each other, what a mad, mad, mad world

for real, though; remove the anti-Semitism and no one would have given two shits about "Welcome To The Terrordome" aside from the line "Hear the drummer get wicked!"

― feel free to answer my Korn Kuestion (HI DERE), Wednesday, 1 September 2010 18:31 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hi dere, this is stupid.

also yes i feel ashamed for forgetting the shut 'em down remix. 3xdope is that.

Max, you can call me Jay-Z if you like. ;-)

Can we instead talk about how neither "cmon ride the train" or "this is how we do it" are gonna make the list?

like smug fucking dan perry with his "UH THEY LIKE IT BETTER ASSHOLE" but if you can't see the types of things that these type of ppl stump for changing over time, i honestly don't think you're paying attention, duderoo

how can you possibly wear a foil hat that weighs a ton!?

mihatweighsaton

this is ridiculously funny

do you guys actually read pitchfork

I just scroll down threads made about it

I read this list because ppl were talking about it

Then apparently I gave Whiney an aneurysm by making a hyperbolic unprovable assertion

Not to, you know, actually engage with your question, Whiney (especially since you took your ball and went home), but... To me, this list has been about clearing away a lot of the critical detritus from the 90's and calling out the stuff that actually resonated/resonates that didn't get magazine play back then. So you get "Your Woman," "Steal My Sunshine," "Lovefool," "Freedom '90" and other pop moments that haven't gotten a lot of critical play; you get all the indie touchstones, naturally; and you get the most lasting rap moments of the 90's (I'm expecting "Passin' Me By" and "Mind Playin' Tricks on Me" and "T.R.O.Y." in the top 50, for example.)

The problem with "Brothers Gonna Work it Out" is that it fits more in the overlooked gems catagory than the rap classics catagory (cuz there are a handful of PE songs ahead of it there.) But in terms of p4k's overall narrative, it seems pretty reasonable to me.

Not to, you know, actually engage with your question, Whiney (especially since you took your ball and went home)

haha no he didn't!

http://www.anthonyfernando.com/uploads/Image/PositiveThinking.jpg

btw I was the one who said "they like it best" so I would like my full credit for being smug and not paying attention

"but if you can't see the types of things that these type of ppl stump for changing over time, i honestly don't think you're paying attention, duderoo"

dude seriously it makes it very hard to engage you on this topic when you're essentially calling me "these type of ppl"

well, i just just mean pfk ppl. All writers—self included—are wittingly or unwittingly part of some narrative, whether it be Stylus, Spin, Pazz and Jop or the Hype Machine. I just want to better understand why the pfk narrative has evolved into what it has.

it's the inevitable consequence of eclecticism.

xpost

Seems like you already know though. New writers come in, read the old stuff, and go "not this but this." The site is having an ongoing conversation with itself, and with other publications.

Also what he said.

The site is having an ongoing conversation with itself, and with other publications.

i basically said this upthread and ppl went NUH UH

also i dunno man a lot of the dance and rap blurbs have been written by people i would not in a million years consider experts in the field.

not to uh denigrate my peers or anything

well, i'm not gonna shit on any of the writers, but i can def say the dance/rap picks look a way more up on their game and less indie-rock "token-choice" than they would have in 2004.

"T.R.O.Y." in the top 50

This is definitely NOT gonna happen (sadly) and if it does I'll eat my fucking shoe.

oh well yeah i'm not gonna argue THAT either. xpost.

which radiohead track will be top 5

I heard sugar rays fly yesterday and sang along w/ it

which radiohead track will be top 5

I'm assuming "Paranoid Android"

"T.R.O.Y." in the top 50

This is definitely NOT gonna happen (sadly) and if it does I'll eat my fucking shoe.

― ilxor has truly been got at and become an ILXor (ilxor), Wednesday, 1 September 2010 19:02 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol what? troy is a fucking lock.
also jordan i think this is how we do it will be in it w/ no diggity as the two big r&b ranked tracks?

No TROY would be a damn shame.

I'm going to go ahead and call a Radiohead lower than expected shocker.

Wasn't "This Is How We Do It" listed as a "see also" track to something?

lol what? troy is a fucking lock.

I'd be surprised if Public Enemy dropped at #51 and Pete Rock/CL Smooth made it ahead of them, but I'm certainly happy to be proven wrong. Either way... Public Enemy is TOO LOW!

yeah, to "Poison" at #86

strange thread

The site is having an ongoing conversation with itself, and with other publications.

i basically said this upthread and ppl went NUH UH

Well, that probably has more to do with you being the one that said it. Fwiw, I think you're totally spot on.

Anyway, I tend to look at music lists as "check this out first"s more than as "this is best"s, and then "if you like it, take it and run with it." 99.9% of p4ks audience are going to be unfamiliar with most of those songs, and they're going to read this list and have a ton of awesome new directions to run in with their music collections. Which is why the one song per artist rule and the see also sections are awesome. I think p4k is doing an amazing job of facilitating other people's curiosity.

I'm assuming "Paranoid Android"

"Karma Police" has a (very tiny) chance at placing instead, I'd say.

Public Enemy's 80's singles just have a huge edge over their 90's singles.

"Tubthumping" better win this

also loool @ jay-z/jaymc

Enjoy the silence & pictures of you I think might qualify for this

And see also: ordinary world

The real question is, will they choose One in a million or Are you that somebody?

Ice cream got fuckin robbed.. shoulda been top 20 imo

Ice Cream-->Got Your Money-->Daytona 500-->something off 36 Chambers-->seems like a pretty solid Wu-progression to me

Bring The Pain, doy

I'll tell ya who wuz/will be robbed: Busta!

Probably cream but they might choose shame on a nuh

Bring da Ruckus and Protect Ya Neck also legit choices

In other words: Damn.

any guesses for mbv? they're not really "hit single" kind of guys.

"Soon." And I'm gonna guess it'll be top 5.

everyone forgets "to here knows when" was a single u_u

wu track in the top 50 has to be either cream or triumph doesn't it? anything else is kinda challops

Wasn't "This Is How We Do It" listed as a "see also" track to something?

― feel free to answer my Korn Kuestion (HI DERE), Wednesday, September 1, 2010 1:18 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

yep

who gets the highest track: pavement or biggie

thkw? i was thinking only shallow, at least. i'd puke if they pulled up 'sometimes', even tho i enjoy the song immensely. only for reason of it being in lost in translation and thus the new baby of adoring indie girls worldwide.

fuck biggie, pavement's got it cinched.

everyone forgets "to here knows when" was a single u_u

I think I'd pick "Only Shallow", personally

would like to see shook ones but i dunno if that's part of the Rap For Pitchfork Readers canon

"in the mouth a desert" gets my personal pavement pick (triple p)

god hope 'spit on a stranger' lands nowhere on the list

i wouldn't be surprised if "soon" is #1.

Perpetua breaks it down:

We had a nomination process in which we suggested songs and talked about what was important in a range of genres and categories which were determined in advance to keep things diverse. When it came to artists with many great songs, we worked toward consensus in narrowing it down to one to three iconic songs. A shortlist of something like 600 songs was established, and we each had to pick 100 for our ballot. After voting was complete, the editors chose to bring it down to one song per artist, which was done in the interest of covering more ground.

which was done in the interest of covering more ground

i wonder if perpetua gets voted off the island now that he's revealed the sinister inner workings of tristeropitchfork

I read that a bit ago and thought "600?" If we were doing this poll on ILM, we'd have 600 nominations in about an hour.

"in the mouth a desert" gets my personal pavement pick (triple p)

― oohhh weennnddddyyy weennnddyy what went wrrrooonnnnggg (kelpolaris)

the only pavement song I ever fawned over
everything else I've ever heard by them never packed a punch - nothing I ever wanted to own

We had a nomination process in which we suggested songs and talked about what was important in a range of genres and categories

= every shade of dance music imaginable and practically zero heavy metal

there was metal on the shortlist, i know that much.

a range is a range

good point

man, I hope "The Memory Remains" wins the poll

== every shade of dance music imaginable and practically zero heavy metal salsa music

I for one am bitterly disappointed in the lack of plena

oh here we go with this one

SOMEONE just got back from p.r. didn't they

yeah I have some bombass vids to upload to Facebook later

a range is a range life

we could settle down y'all

Top 50 predictions list (feel free to c/p and add. some might end up in the See Also)

Bjork
Beck
Cake
Talk Talk (The Ascension hasn't been mentioned yet has it?)
Radiohead
Built to Spill
My Bloody Valentine
Depeche Mode
Metallica (I know the were mentioned once in see also)
Nirvana
Alice in Chains
NiN
Soundgarden
Stone Temple Pilots

+
Red Hot Chili Peppers
U2
Coldplay
The Goo Goo Dolls

^^warning^^typos^^

Soundgarden
Stone Temple Pilots

http://www.papamiket.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/death-to-america-chant.jpg

STP are already on the list iirc

ahhhh, I thought STP wouldnt get anything besides a see also

I had real trouble putting enough context in my blurbs b/c I just kinda blithely assumed on some level that "The Angels Fell" and "Beau Mot Plage" and "Love Stepping Out" were universally acknowledged classics that everyone already knew and loved. Of course that couldn't be further from the truth ;_;

I feel like my notion of "what mattered in the 90s" is actually much more cloistered within an ILM worldview than my sense of the 00s, oddly.

Alice In Chains "Would" was already on the list.

lol history mayne you just gave me the best lol <3

thkw? i was thinking only shallow, at least. i'd puke if they pulled up 'sometimes', even tho i enjoy the song immensely. only for reason of it being in lost in translation and thus the new baby of adoring indie girls worldwide.

Whatever... "Sometimes" is so sick. I would love to see it place.

Still, Kevin Shields did so much more than have a droning guitar overlay acoustic. Sometimes is the song that can get somebody from the "mainstream" into MBV, the rest of the discography is where the real genius lies.

And I make it sound like sometimes is the weakest song from mbv, fuck no, i love the song and it really has this aural nostalgia about it i love. i just think mbv has much more deserving songs than the one that is the most popular download off itunes (again, that would be "sometimes").

Good to see George Michael get a bit of respect, you tell em Pitchfork. Freedom 90 is easy one of the best singles of that decade.

the CEO of pitchfork just told me the top 5 5. hey jealousy 4. summer girls 3. good vibrations 2. little black backpack 1. windowlicker

Well certainly "Windowlicker" would be a shock #1 but I think we're all expecting "Little Black Backpack" to be waaaaaayy up there.

windowlicker is hardly THE VERY BEST SONG of the 90's. maybe in the top 50. but for fucks sake.

and there is your Oasis.

wtf Enjoy The Silence is really not gonna make the cut? Really?

rollie pimperton was hating on 'check the rhime' in hipinion ... idg that its totally a classic & perfect representation of what they did well

I'm no Smashing Pumpkins die hard in the first place, but if you're only going to represent their spot in the '90s with one song, WHY WOULD YOU CHOOSE "1979"?!

it's what i would choose

It's their most beloved song, and it's awesome.

ok, whatever dudes.

I mean, not considering some of the garbage Corgan has recorded under that name recently, "1979" is probably the most atypical unrepresentative S.P. song there is. I don't hate it, but it's an anomaly.

yeah, no

song kicks ass also. and gets votes from ppl like me who arent about to put 'cherub rock' above adina howard

rollie pimperton was hating on 'check the rhime' in hipinion ... idg that its totally a classic & perfect representation of what they did well
--the embrace of waka flocka is v pertinent (deej)

It's basically the big atcq song with no gimmicks--can i kick it had Lou reed, segundo had a story, Bonita had the luv angle, scenario had busta, award tour had de la, sucka n---- had politics... This was just Tribe doin Tribe. If it was their best song is up for debate (it's maybe their fifth best IMO) but it's certainly a simple capturing of what they do best

Also 1979 was a piece of terrible shit even in like 1996 when I was a fucking smashing pumpkins fan

buggin' out

My friend used to sing 1979 as

"ner ner nernerner TUNA FISH"

1979 is a jam, no doubt, but also bullet w butterfly wangs

Electric Relaxation

Both accurate re: atcq but rime was a bigger hit

electric relaxation is the only one fuckin w/ check the rhime but the latter def better captured the vibe better & the chorus was discernable

I would have went "scenario" tbh

^^^ plus yeah

I kinda love that Electric Relaxation has no discernible chorus..

There really isn't any reason to deny the awesomeness of scenario for real

i agree re: electric relaxation i mean its a goofy fun track for that reason but it also disqualifies it as coolest tribe track to me for some reason
scenario is awesome. but idk, for a one-track-per-artist list i totally get why it wd get a pass

btw was just watching 'the hip hop shop' ad on fuse @ my girls place & rakim says he likes drake. :-/ to end all :-/

check the rhime has my all-time fave tip verse "if knowledge is the key then just show me the lock"

it's basically impossible to pick just one best tribe song, all of the 7 or 8 top contenders are unimpeachable

really enjoying this list/writing/youtube searches, would bit-torr3nt these 200 songs

it's a damn good list, but i'm wondering what the big deal is. seems pitchfork-ish, though slightly more tilted towards dance/pop/rap/r&b inclusiveness than one might expect. but not enough to seem like a radical about-face in terms of editorial taste or anything.

what's the big deal about anything really

I never noticed before but they're right: 'Autumn Sweater' is an amazing makeout song.

do tell

The real gem for me in the whole Smashing Pumpkings catalogue is 1979's b-side 'set the ray to jerry'.

deej, the one guest rapper on rakim's last album was.......maino :-/

picking Check the Rhime = :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

wish they included emusic/insound links for these songs (or at least identify the album on which each song appears). tracking down the correct album can be a chore.

deej, the one guest rapper on rakim's last album was.......maino :-/

― bernard goony (The Reverend), Thursday, September 2, 2010 2:48 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

thats not that bad really, i mean, at least no one is celebrating that dude for saving rap.

"Car" really changed the world forever, didn't it. "Kicked it in the Sun" #1?

Yeah, "1979" is definitely the Pumpkins song that non-Pumpkins fans like. I owned Siamese Dream like most white Midwestern 14-year-olds at the time, but I'd probably go with "1979," too, for the same reason I'd go with "Lost in the Supermarket" over anything else on London Calling.

Agree; "1979" is definitely Corgan's finest hour personally/creatively/commercially/blablabla. You can't really put you know "Apathy's Last Kiss" on there per Moka's post. Though it's my personal fave. "Glynis" is a nice haunter too; almost proto witch haus, right Scott? Pfft.

Well unless I accidentally included some artists who have already been on the list, I think I figured out who will be filling up 16 out of the 20 remaining slots on the list:

Notorious BIG
Wu Tang Clan
Nirvana
Pavement
My Bloody Valentine
Aphex Twin
Weezer
Radiohead
Neutral Milk Hotel
Dj Shadow
Daft Punk
Bjork
Beck
Talk Talk
Dr Dre
Belle And Sebastian

holy shit they picked Stardust

I love this list

and "Setting Sun"!!!!!!

wish "Unfinished Sympathy" was higher

jeez, when did Pitchfork turn into... me

In the spirit of overanalysis...

Joys:

"Everlong" -- as perfect a rock song as was released in the '90s.
The Pharcyde at #41 -- didn't think they might place!
"TROY" at #35 -- *eats shoe*

Disappointments:

No mention of PJ Harvey's post-Rid of Me material (her best).
"Unfinished Sympathy" at #44 -- there had better be some good shit ahead of this! I'd say it's top 20 material.
"The Private Psychedelic Reel" a notch below "Setting Sun" -- really?
"1979" being the Pumpkins' representative track -- LOL NOSTALGIA

Surprises:

GBV at #36 -- I thought these guys were going top ten!!
The Flaming Lips at #30 -- again, I thought they were "Pfork Canon" material and would place much higher. Wasn't The Soft Bulletin #3 on Pfork's previous '90s albums list? I think it was... oh well.
Spiritualized "Ladies and Gentlemen"... ELVIS VERSION!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

They can't possibly chart Talk Talk that high on an individual song basis. I don't think you'll DJ Shadow on there either but maybe "Mutual Slump"?

i think they could chart 'after the flood' or 'new grass' but yeah i don't think it'd fit the spirit of the list so much

i would expect dj shadow though, building steam maybe

'midnight in a perfect world' seems like the obvi one

"Midnight" to me deviates from his personal style too much, I never liked it. It feels cribbed. I don't know, being picky.

they'll probably go 'in flux'

Before "Girls & Boys", Blur were seen as just another Britpop band, maybe a couple notches above Dodgy.

yeah, no.

God that's horrid. I think it's better to refrain from posting excerpts and stick to placement...

I think if they are going to include a Talk Talk song, it'll be "Ascension Day" and for DJ Shadow it'll be "Midnight in a Perfect World". This is because they were included in their Pitchfork 500 list from 2007: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pitchfork_500 , which I think has been a pretty good indicator as to what songs would put into this list since I don't think the general attitudes to the 90s and the staff at Pitchfork has changed a lot in the past 2 or 3 years.

xp: I don't know that that's an unfair reading of Blur's profile in the US.

"Midnight" to me deviates from his personal style too much

This is pretty much what propelled "1979" to the list, though. I'd expect "Midnight" to place.

could still be a track from Violator to come, right? that was 1990?

also slowdive - alison

i don't get this list at all tbh

it's fine to be eclectic (i guess) but this just feels like two groups of people in mutual incomprehension, basically indietards + rap/dance heads

"Enjoy the Silence" in the top 20 would be mind-boggling to me (and Depeche Mode is one of my favorite bands)

"Enjoy the Silence" has to be in there, song was extramassive.

In re: Blur/US, nobody in the US knew what "Britpop" was, so, they couldn't well be seen as "just another Britpop band". Statement is a mess.

Yep. I don't think I've seen Depeche Mode on the list, so I'm pretty sure they will be in there.

Alison was already mentioned in the See Also for Spiritualized's "Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space (Elvis Version)" at 23.

oh rats

it's probably my favorite rock song that hadn't placed yet

And mayne I said about the same [on hipinion], it's a disconnected series of impulses. Received wisdom V personal tastes V editorial bent V ret-conning the past such that it fits with/informs the present...

"Enjoy the Silence" in the top 20 would be mind-boggling to me (and Depeche Mode is one of my favorite bands)

WTF u talkin' bout, Depeche Mode has always been a lock for the top 20.

"it's a disconnected series of impulses"

this is sometimes also called life.

In re: Blur/US, nobody in the US knew what "Britpop" was, so, they couldn't well be seen as "just another Britpop band". Statement is a mess.

― cee-oh-tee-tee, Thursday, 2 September 2010 14:01 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

The term hadn't even been coined yet - statement is a double mess

(if they'd said that it was the song w/ which Blur changed their game up without being vaguely snarky about bands the writer probably barely ever heard, that would have been legit I think)

That's awesome strongo. Happy 90210.

you used to be better at this.

not sure how many "rap/dance heads" there are

you dont really have to be a rap head to know & love a lot of the rap songs on this list but dance existed in sort of a different context during this time period, like you could listen to 2pac and green day on the radio but you probably wouldn't hear the orb

is guided by voices' 1995 track 'game of pricks' really the 36th best song of the 1990s?

like a whole s.tonne of picks, it's a completely unremarkable indie record

even the dude who did the blurb hasn't done his research. "The whole thing's just over a minute and a half long" -- yes, it's three quarters of a minute over a minute and a half long.

if it was in my toilet i wouldn't bother to flush [via 90s zings]

GBV at #36 -- I thought these guys were going top ten!!

for a different song or

Yup. See above re: "Car". Also really tired of "T.R.O.Y." as the go-to "I have a friend who's black!" hip-hop "awareness" herald.

And mayne I said about the same [on hipinion], it's a disconnected series of impulses. Received wisdom V personal tastes V editorial bent V ret-conning the past such that it fits with/informs the present...

― cee-oh-tee-tee, Thursday, September 2, 2010 10:05 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

how come we're getting these diplomatic ott posts and hipinion gets awesome hardman stuff like

The thing that kills me is Tim, like Ewing and the other ILMers, hate Pitchfork. They hate Ryan. But their desire to be read, to communicate, and try to drive dialog, is stronger, so they're functionally hostages of Pitchfork's success. There's a whole class there that pissed on Pitchfork from 2000-2006 but then waddled through the door with their USB cables between their legs, rationalizing it by pretending ScottPL's presence makes it OK. Nate Patrin in particular shocked me, that he sunk to that; I called him out for it on ILM, he was just rabidly anti-P4K for years. Breihan surprised me as well. I mean...I understand the sensation that's driven them to make this and other compromises, but I don't understand how, after going through the process for long enough to realize there is no material gain on the other side of it, you don't make the decision to write for satisfaction, and separate it from making a living. Because you can't make a living that way, and the compromises you have to make in trying devalue the whole process. How can you delude yourself for this long?

Because you haven't earned my trust.

this list is reminding me to buy Pharcyde

xpost we knew you first u_u

lol

how can we possibly hate pitchfork in the same way as we did circa '99 to '04 when a good 75 percent of the writers' roster has turned over?

Because of the 25% that hasn't, obviously. And let's not pretend the recent crop is exactly storming the gates of literary or critical canonization.

Yup. See above re: "Car". Also really tired of "T.R.O.Y." as the go-to "I have a friend who's black!" hip-hop "awareness" herald.

― cee-oh-tee-tee, Thursday, 2 September 2010 14:18 (1 minute ago) Permalink

this song rules d00d.

GBV at #36 -- I thought these guys were going top ten!!

for a different song or

I was anticipating "I Am a Scientist" in the top 10-20. Not that I'd rank it there myself, I agree that individual GBV songs can be unremarkable on their own, but I thought Pfork would disagree.

oh i dunno, ott. most of the writers i most hated from old-school pitchfork have long since given up their stake in it (if not their obsession with it).

Because of the 25% that hasn't, obviously. And let's not pretend the recent crop is exactly storming the gates of literary or critical canonization.

― cee-oh-tee-tee, Thursday, September 2, 2010 9:26 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

list is 'weird' i guess -- lol lists amirite -- but its also one id much rather listen to than a comparable list from 03 so

yes strongo, it's wrong and embarrassing to have feelings about music criticism.

it really is, but what else can a poor boy do.

ok quick question just out of curiosity, was there any tori amos in the list?

i do think there's a sort of weird duality here of pfork simultaneously trying to redefine itself, evidenced by all the landmark rap,dance,pop tracks in the list, while still clinging to its indie-is-the-best roots as evidenced by the high placing of "game of pricks", "car", "race for the prize", etc, none of which were as big or important or popular as a lot of the lower tracks in the list

there was a tori amos track in a 'see also' iirc

ok cool, just wondering. a small smh and i'll go back to happily ignoring this bs

"God" was a border jam.

"border jam"? what like...nearly a jam but not quite?

it's an excellent song, tho far from her best

Would it be too much to ask for Camp Lo to sneak into the top 20?

Yes, it bordered on being a jam. It was a preserve.

marmalade

god this is like if adrian dantley was giving interviews moaning about the pistons twenty years later. get a job already loser. grow up.

Fucking happy to see No Diggity presumably make the top 20.

(If it doesn't now, I may send anthrax to numerous pfork writers. Or forget all about and just go listen to Blackstreet.)

xpost
http://i39.tinypic.com/23m7tjd.jpg

Fucking happy to see No Diggity presumably make the top 20.

(If it doesn't now, I may send anthrax to numerous pfork writers. Or forget all about and just go listen to Blackstreet.)

― a hoy hoy, Thursday, September 2, 2010 3:41 PM (56 seconds ago) Bookmark

already charted

Did it? Oh my bad for missing it.

i mean who does this and then actually gets self righteous about it when called out on it. ps: caring about 'music criticism' past the point where you're being carded for tobacco = yes, actually pathetic, not honorable. pretending to care about 'music criticism' when really you're just pretending loudly you didn't fuck up severely years ago and years later still haven't figured out a next step = adult diapers level pathetic. grow up. get a job.

balls.

yawns.

adult diapers level pathetic

this calm cool detachment routine is extra fun since whiney's hipinion reveal

jesus christ what type of psycho loser posts on MULTIPLE BOARDS about a PITCHFORK LIST?????

not surprised growing up and getting a job doesn't interest ott but 'which built to spill song did they pick and where did it place?' leaves him riveted. pathetic.

ott = buster bluth
ryan pfork = lucille

ott has a job and makes twice as much as some pitchfork writer's yearly income iirc

[deej, help me out w/ this post?]

to be fair, i'm pretty sure ott is grown up and has a job. i'm not sure this obviates your complaints, though.

Whiney, btw I haven't received set 24/24 yet. I sent an email asking for an expected delivery date, no response. Can you check in?

i think what i was trying to say before is that these multi-genre lists start to look silly if you're coming at each genre from a different perspective. like, if your rock canon has built to spill and guided by voices at the top, then ok fine. but then why does your rap canon have biggie and wu-tang instead of like...company flow or black moon or something?

xpost, I know for a fact that 24/24 wasn't goin to u, dude!

markers got 1/24 i believe

And why do you need to collide these in an overarching single list, that's - nobody's fault - but that's the problem with the 1990s. The genre activity was so stratified and flourishing at different times, it just doesn't lend itself well to any fell-swoop summation.

Well the money was drawn out of my account, so something better be coming to me.

whats a 24/24?

anyhow gotta run a lowry's. pox on both yr houses if freak nasty doesn't make top ten.

Dunno if segregation is really the way forward though. HEY BLACK PEOPLE WAIT YR TURN, WE R CURRENTLY LISTENING TO WHITE PPL (and tv on the radio, depending on timeframe.)

be better if they just didn't include so many dull guitar records

kept hearing method man's "get emmmm" after each balls post

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKJC8GAxT5I

weren't dull guitar records one of the defining trends of 90s music though?

Little Fluffy Clouds should have been top ten.

or top twenty at least!

I checked and lucky for them "Da Butt" was '89. Totally would have called them out on that shit.

Before "Girls & Boys", Blur were seen as just another Britpop band, maybe a couple notches above Dodgy.

yeah, no.

― i am legernd (history mayne), Thursday, September 2, 2010 9:49 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

Looks like they changed this part (assuming that was a C&P from the Pfork blurb) to this now:

Before "Girls & Boys", Blur were a successful UK indie band

haha

o snap

face<IMG SRC="http://healthy-aging.advanceweb.com/SharedResources/Images/2009/072009/POM_16ozBottle.jpg";>

Awesome it's even better that way.

currently considering the possibility that banaka is ott

something tells me "They Want EFX" is not gonna make this list

theres a lot of stuff that didnt make it that id put ahead of das efx's 3rd best song

There really isn't any reason to deny the awesomeness of scenario for real

This. Especially if it's going to place above Geto Boys.

Also, is "Spottieottiedopaliscious" going to make the top 20? Because that would be solid.

Looking like the top 20's gonna be about 40% rap, r&b, dance; about 60% indie touchstones. That's not a bad ratio for p4k.

this just feels like two groups of people in mutual incomprehension, basically indietards + rap/dance heads

― i am legernd (history mayne), Thursday, September 2, 2010 7:00 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

terribly unfair, but still pretty accurate. i'd say it's more like 3 streams: basic p4k indie, rap/pop/r&b and dance music (as defined by UK tastes in). and it's kind of weird to me that they've worked so hard two incorporate these two worlds, but haven't broadened their tastes in other directions. list contains hardly any experimental/noise stuff, "world music", garage or punk rock, metal, contemporary composers, jazz or other improvisation, etc.

not that those absences are a flaw of any sort - they aren't - but it's interesting to me that p4k has decided to expand their brand in these two specific directions (basically rap & dance) and not in others. just a year or two back, for instance, they seemed to be making a serious attempt to incorporate metal, but lately that seems to have been relegated to outlier status. maybe the readership didn't bite?

for instance, they seemed to be making a serious attempt to incorporate metal, but lately that seems to have been relegated to outlier status. maybe the readership didn't bite?

stosuy jumped ship to stereogum iirc

i mean, and i'm the biggest whiner when it comes to including genres, but it always looks a little cloying when experimental stuff shows up in track countdowns. Because it sort of says, "Yeah, 'Make Em Say Uhhh' was a classic single and all, BUT HAVE YOU HEARD OVAL?

is guided by voices' 1995 track 'game of pricks' really the 36th best song of the 1990s?

like a whole s.tonne of picks, it's a completely unremarkable indie record

― i am legernd (history mayne), Thursday, September 2, 2010 7:16 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

game of pricks is only a "completely unremarkable indie record" if you're not deeply invested in the progress of indie guitar pop over the last couple decades. and if you're not, why the fuck would you bother with pitchfork rankings on any level? indie guitar pop is what they do - it's the absolute core of their aesthetic, their ethos to the extent they have one. and if you are invested in the history of that particular musical niche, then game of pricks is anything but unremarkable. it's crucial (though, yeah, you could and probably would quibble about which GBV track, alien lanes vs bee thousand, etc).

i.e., this kind of complaint seems so totally ass-backwards, given that it's a fucking pitchfork list.

t always looks a little cloying when experimental stuff shows up in track countdowns. Because it sort of says, "Yeah, 'Make Em Say Uhhh' was a classic single and all, BUT HAVE YOU HEARD OVAL?

― miccio kurihara (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, September 2, 2010 2:50 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

this is only true if the list in question treats the experimental tracks as token curiosities. if a legit interest in experimental music is part of your basic POV, then it doesn't seem weird at all.

game of pricks is only a "completely unremarkable indie record" if you're not deeply invested in the progress of indie guitar pop over the last couple decades.

well, i haven't been invested in it for a while. but i was, big time, back in the 90s. i can still grok what i liked about indie. but that song is nothing.

fyi, i'm a huge experimental music nerdball, and i would feel straight fuckin ridiculous trying to put Keijo Haino and Masonna and Borbetomagus up against like my 200 favorite banging pop/rap/dance/alternarock/MTV singles of the 90s.

Though I'd feel even more ridiculous putting milquetoast weiner music like "Bonnie Prince Billy" and Guided By Voices up against them

yeah, okay. sounded like you were airily dismissing indie rock in general, which makes no sense as a criticism of this or that track on a pitchfork list. but if it's it's more that you personally don't dig "game of pricks" or GBV in general, that's cool, matters of taste, etc.

i do think there's a sort of weird duality here of pfork simultaneously trying to redefine itself, evidenced by all the landmark rap,dance,pop tracks in the list, while still clinging to its indie-is-the-best roots as evidenced by the high placing of "game of pricks", "car", "race for the prize", etc, none of which were as big or important or popular as a lot of the lower tracks in the list

...like, if your rock canon has built to spill and guided by voices at the top, then ok fine. but then why does your rap canon have biggie and wu-tang instead of like...company flow or black moon or something? [2nd paragraph lifted from a subsequent ciderpress post]

― ciderpress, Thursday, September 2, 2010 7:35 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

don't think that one's interest in indie rock necessarily demands an across the board indie-is-the-best stance. though it's in flux, somewhat novel, and thus somewhat schizophrenic, p4k's current emphasis on mainstream rap and cult dance stuff seems pretty natural. remember their supporting acts like cannibal ox and aesop rock way back when though... did any of those tracks place?

omg dude you were just making fun of jay-z for writing 'slash/fic'

― max, Wednesday, September 1, 2010 1:26 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

omg

― max, Wednesday, September 1, 2010 1:26 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

jaymc

― max, Wednesday, September 1, 2010 1:26 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i knew there was a reason i clicked on this thread

borbetomagus was the most insane live thing i ever saw, just hellish and amazing

i would feel straight fuckin ridiculous trying to put Keijo Haino and Masonna and Borbetomagus up against like my 200 favorite banging pop/rap/dance/alternarock/MTV singles of the 90s.

i don't get this, whiney. why would that feel so ridiculous? i mean, i put shit & shine's "toilet door tits" as my single favorite track on some recent best-of-the-decade poll, along with all kinds of pop/rap/etc stuff. and other noise/weirdo stuff, too. is it my honest-to-god favorite song of the decade? fuck, i dunno. but i love it to death, love it every bit as much as "hey ya" or "my hood" or whatever. just in a different way. why should i let the fact that some of the things i love are unpopular marginalize them even further when i'm expressing my own individual taste?

No, but basically putting that on any ballot would be essentially throwing a vote away.

The point being that pop/rap/rock hits are things that we share via radio, MTV, mssg boards, blogs; and indie-rock songs like "Summer Babe" are similar in that they are usually shared on a smaller level—plus they build up legends, are passed around AS songs. You get down to expirimental music circles and—save the occassional Lightning Bolt song--it's almost impossible to find a consensus on ANYTHING since the music is tailored to individual tastes and ppl generally listen to albums instead of songs. Like get 100 casual-to-rabid Devo fans in a room and ask their favorite song vs get 100 casual-to-rabid Sightings fans in a room, and you're gonna have a lot harder time managing that second group.

Like it or not, there's a canon of 90s indie rock songs that Pitchfork can embrace or neglect, but it exists. Like name me five experimental music tracks from the 90s (non-IDM) that you would call "canonic"

Like Harry Pussy's "Pussy Control"?

that's an interesting point. not sure it's true, but it's interesting nonetheless. i've tended to think that there's "pop" in almost every genre and stripe of music, barring only the most extreme forms of noise & experimental music. by pop i mean qualities that enable shared appreciation among those who dig that genre. or elements that reach out of genre confines to more conventional/common appreciations, and that can thus unify fans. but maybe not.

like the devo fans analogy seems off, somehow. you get 100 people who maybe kinda like devo or have heard some devo, and you're gonna come to a quick consensus on the hits. but you get rabid fans in the room, and they're gonna be repping for shit like "gates of steel", "penetration in the centerfold", "be stiff", "wiggly world". they're gonna argue the minutia of live tracks and b-sides, some weirdo's gonna claim that "words get stick in my throat" deserves serious consideration.

just by treating "indie" indie as magnetic north, pitchfork steps aside from the idea that quality is what we share, into the idea that quality is what differentiates us. i'm not arguing that indie music is of higher or special quality, note, just that it's predicated to some extent on its supposed separation from a more thoroughly shared & sharable mainstream. and maybe it is harder to come to a consensus on like sightings or keiji haino tracks, but metal, punk and world music (for instance) have a unifying power that's similar to rap & dance music, at least among fans.

Like name me five experimental music tracks from the 90s (non-IDM) that you would call "canonic"

well, i'm not really hooked into that scene. certainly wasn't in the 90s. imagine that the people at the wire could bang something together though. or that you could just by indexing the references in their reviews for a year or two.

two people at the wire would have vastly different opinions, is what i'm saying

There's no "Summer Babe" of noise, dogg

xpost Super Shine!

i don't even think 'summer babe' is in the top 25% of pavement songs tbh

Not the hugest noise person, but I'm sure there is some Merzbow or Dead C/Gate or whatever equivalent to "Summer Babe" that plenty of noise fans agree on.

Goddamn I am so sick of all this Pavement love! If anything, they deserve the term 'milquetoast weiner music' above any indie fuxxor!

^^^

great guys, really interesting

feel it's more intense among people who weren't 'around' back then. and americans.

xpost

i'd argue that one of the reasons that it's hard for me (as a generalist type music fan with a pronounced taste for noisy psychedelic shit) to cough up the canonical experimental music tracks from the 90s is that mainstream critics haven't done the job of building this canon for me. they haven't done it either cuz they aren't tuned in, or cuz no one's demanding it - probably both. in the same way that tracks by basinski, fennesz & gas/voight have become canonical in the last decade, however, i'm sure that there's stuff that equally well represents the 90s. as pieces by cage, oliveros, subotnik, reich, lucier and stockhausen did in the mid-20th century. and pieces by laurie anderson, negativland, einsturzende neubauten and john oswald (etc.) did in the 80s.

^^^ those reference points cobbled together with full awareness of my own ignorance in these matters

It's just that they're as guilty for Crimes Against Interesting Music as all the 00s-middlebrow-consensus-indie Whiney loves to bash.

But one thing, I appreciate them in a 'conceptual' sense if not a musical one, to their credit. Would definitely listen to Prog-with-in-jokes.

I was pretty pleased that a Grifters song got a -see also- next to Arches of Loaf - 'Web In Front'. I believe Arches of Loaf is a more popular band and 'Web in Front' is not as good as 'She Blows Blasts of Static' (Agree/Disagree?). This would be just one case in which a more popular band won but I have to give Pitchfork credit for knowing about The Grifters (someone must be reading ILX)

Grifters ain't that obscure, dude.

lol at guy breaking up an actually intriguing ilm discussion with "Pavement sux. fukk those guys."

xp they might not be so obscure but many bands I like a lot seem to be obscure to Pitchfork Lists

for instance, should a song from one of the 90's Thingy or Heavy Vegetable albums make the list? hell yeah. Will it? hell no

The point being that pop/rap/rock hits are things that we share via radio, MTV, mssg boards, blogs; and indie-rock songs like "Summer Babe" are similar in that they are usually shared on a smaller level—plus they build up legends, are passed around AS songs. You get down to expirimental music circles and—save the occassional Lightning Bolt song--it's almost impossible to find a consensus on ANYTHING since the music is tailored to individual tastes and ppl generally listen to albums instead of songs.

Totally with this, except that the process that Perpetua described seems like it would have been totally conducive to picking consensus experimental tracks, if they'd wanted to go in that direction.

Also, the rap/dance/indie rock combination contenderizer mentioned earlier has pretty clear precedents--like SPIN Magazine and MTV. Perhaps that's just where the money/audience is.

Maybe I will listen to my Heavy Vegetable records tonight, hmm.

two people at the wire would have vastly different opinions, is what i'm saying

yeah, i get that. but i suspect that if you got like 50 people who regularly write for the wire to submit lists of the most important experimental pieces of the 90s, a canon of some sort would quickly emerge. moreover, that the population of this canon wouldn't come as any great surprise to most of the critics submitting lists. i suspect that something like this is already present in the way they think and talk with one another about the music they enjoy.

agree, fwiw, that experimental music is an umbrella for a bunch of (often unconnected) exploratory niches, each with its own unique aesthetics and points of reference, and that this does differentiate it as a field from, say, chart pop, which is widely shared by nature. but among the critics who are passionate about experimental music in a broad/general way, i'd be really surprised to learn that there isn't already a commonly understood and widely agreed-upon core set of "important" artists and works that speaks for the 1990s.

I agree with contenderizer on the basic principle, but in the context of a singles/tracks poll I'd never expect something like Derek Bailey or Matthew Shipp to chart.

Wire end-of-year charts from the 90s are up on http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/charts/?p=2 by the way, definitely some overlap with the Pitchfork list.

xpp personally I prefer Thingy's Songs About Angels, Evil, and Running Around on Fire (1997) more than any Heavy Vegetable album but I'm glad that I may have inspired you to listen to them tonight :)

Though I guess if it was a Wire chart you'd get Coil at #1.

hipinion thread on this is hilarious/bonkers
some bitter azz dudes on there -- the list could be anything & dudes would have a problem with it

"And honestly not charting Hootie is retarded. "I Only Wanna Be With You" was one of the biggest hits of all time. All time."

guess who wrote that

Hootie?

tuomas?

pitchfork gets judged more than others because it's omnipresent

and they have more 'best of' lists than you can shake a stick at

pitchfork gets judged more than others because it's omnipresent

omnipresent like the beatles.

That's one half of it at least; another half is that we care about Pitchfork in a way that I don't think we do about Rolling Stone or NME, it's part of the information universe with which we associate ourselves. When they screw up we complain because they could conceivably have done better.

And those that don't buy into this just like trolling those who do.

but in the context of a singles/tracks poll I'd never expect something like Derek Bailey or Matthew Shipp to chart.

yeah, i guess just the word "singles" tilts things towards pop - or pop attempts, at least. and i know that experimental music isn't a big part of pitchfork's purview. i'm not faulting them for failing to represent it in their lists. (their abandonment of metal is, to me, more disappointing, but i understand that their tastes aren't mine. no biggie.) still, i question the idea that this division is somehow inevitable, and if so, what makes it so.

there's been a trend in generalist music criticism over the past decade or two to prioritize pop and its paradigms over rock, which had assumed calcified dominance over critical perspectives. that's all to the good, but it's engendered the attitude that the most popular (or, oddly, pop-like) things are and, crucially, should be the natural center of critical attention. thus not only chart pop, but dance and electronic music that is, in some cases, relatively obscure. as a result of this shift, you see pitchfork beginning to split the difference between the pop-leaning indie rock that's been their bread & butter since day one and a "greatest hits" approach to rap and dance music. or something that splits the dif between a greatest hits approach and a more selective crit/nerd canon. i see that this has happened and have my own ideas about why it's happened: it seems natural to me on that level.

it'd still be interesting to see a parallel canon of "important" experimental music hashed out and popularized by semi-mainstream critics, one that isn't assigned stepchild status relative to pop bangers. it doesn't seem ridiculous to me to think that pitchfork or NPR might drive such an evaluation and popularization, or that their audience might be interested in it - not that they have any obligation to do this, of course. i dunno, it probably sounds like i'm stuck on some old-fashioned/elitist mindset where art of "real importance" can somehow be separated from the popular dross. honestly, that's not where i'm coming from. i just like it when critics make it their job to champion oddball enthusiasms, underdogs and non-consensus aesthetics. i like it when they get together in gangs to foist these kinds of argumentative (and often elitist) perspectives on the world at large. that, to me, is a big part of what makes music criticism eye-opening, challenging, worth reading.

hope this doesn't come across as complaining. i'm not complaining, just thinkin baot things.

"Maybe Rob knows and won't tell me."

in the same way that tracks by basinski, fennesz & gas/voight have become canonical in the last decade, however, i'm sure that there's stuff that equally well represents the 90s.

i mean even then, anyone who says there's a canonical SONG by any one of these artists is totally talking out of their ass. I agree with contenderizer re: an experimental canon would be interesting. But it's actually kind of part of the fun that there isn't

it's like the one thing the internet hasn't totally fucking ruined yet

"i only wanna be with you" is not even the best hootie song imo

challop 2 end all challops

i wasn't aware that they had other songs

hootie and the blowpoll : best hootie singlez

you should make that thread max

well, with fennesz you have "endless summer", and maybe you could say "dlp4" for basinski (?), but point taken. as i obliquely suggested above, i wonder whether the hesitancy to advance such a canon is anti-rockist fallout. like, after the dismantling of rock's claim to dominance - and more importantly, after the dismantling of the value-determining paradigms that elevated rock over pop - maybe it's now difficult to articulate and generate broad support for non-populist critical perspectives.

I had no idea this list was even happening until now and feel better off for it.

That's one half of it at least; another half is that we care about Pitchfork in a way that I don't think we do about Rolling Stone or NME, it's part of the information universe with which we associate ourselves. When they screw up we complain because they could conceivably have done better.

And those that don't buy into this just like trolling those who do.
― seandalai,

I don't fall into the category of caring about pitchfork but I don't feel like I'm a troll because I occasionally judge them harshly. People saying a movie is bad in a thread for that movie aren't necessarily trolls in the some way. I guess Trolling would be saying "you suck because you like _______". That's not the same as saying "I don't like ________".

i wasn't aware that they had other songs

hootie and the blowpoll : best hootie singlez

you should make that thread max

― / (The Brainwasher), Thursday, September 2, 2010 9:12 PM (50 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

helloooooo, 'let her cry'

max otm

Blues Traveler stomps all over Hootie

^ racist

which one has the black guy

they went with *we are the pigs* as the best Suede song of the *decade*!?

20-1 is in. some unexpected choices!

No Talk Talk, but Aaliyah, Pulp and Mazzy Star.

7. Neutral Milk Hotel
that band makes me shit vomit

I like that album, but I wouldn't have picked Holland 1945. Glad they went with MBV's Only Shallow

so did U2, Coldplay and The Goo Goo Dolls really not get any shutouts on the entire list? interesting

U2 had a shout out in the see also for "Stay (So Far So Close)" on the Brian Eno/John Cale song.

Good:

Mazzy Star -- not sure they belong at #19 but glad they are represented someplace.
OutKast at #16
DEPECHE MODE YESSSSS
Aaliyah at #8 -- nice placing, huh?

Bad:

Notorious BIG -- dude is top ten material, maybe if he switched places with Pavement it would all make sense?
Pavement at #1 -- Gold Soundzzzzzzzzz......zzzz................ *snooze*
Pulp at #2 -- I like these guys but I mean, really? This high?? LOL ANGLOPHILIA

Ugly:

Nirvana at #13 vs. Weezer at #10 -- LOL REVISIONIST INDIE HISTORY
Neutral Milk Hotel -- no mention of their far-superior (and much forgotten) first album.

Talk Talk -- missing?
Madonna? (surely she placed and I'm forgetting, right?)
TLC?
What else is left out??

that's a really good Top 20.

U2 deserves its own entry in the top 200, btw. Zooropa, Pop, Achtung Baby, all great albums.

TLC placed higher up with Creep.
No Madonna?

wait there is U2 but no Sublime or Red Hot Chili Peppers

I'm happy that the list gave shout-outs to Sloan, The Sea and Cake and Nada Surf

lol gold soundz. it's not even in the top 20 pavement songs let alone the best track of the decade.

TLC's Creep was there at 114.

I remember seeing Ray of Light somewhere in the See Also section.

No Talk Talk though. but maybe they felt they were were more of an album band or that most of their innovation had was in the 80s with Spirit of Eden.

#1 will be, like, "Summer Babe"

― markers, Wednesday, September 1, 2010 2:16 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

#2 will be "Paranoid Android"

― markers, Wednesday, September 1, 2010 2:16 AM (2 days ago)

alright, so we got "Gold Soundz" @ #1 & "PA" @ #4

I'm proud to be the first one to mention Talk Talk on this thread for some odd reason

It was 11 I think on their albums list, but yeah I can see not picking out one track from it...

I'm also surprised at Juicy for Biggie and Outkast's Spottieottiedopalicious as choices

(I don't consciously remember any of their albums list)

All of the artists in the top 40 on that list except Talk Talk, I think, are included here

i love the fact that Pulp came in second, totally deserving and really surprising to me. Pulp just seem more of a British/NME thing, so for Pitchfork to give it that good of placement is sort of cool.

Pavement, Radiohead, My Bloody Valentine, Neutral Milk Hotel and Beck are Top 10 indie = makes sense but Nirvana got robbed.

we got "Gold Soundz" @ #1

huh

A hiphop #1 would've been way cooler.

i couldn't sing appx 9 of these 20 songs if you held a gun to my head

Like seriously.. "Protect Ya Neck" would've been a perfect #1.

ugh, Neutral Milk Hotel in the top 10 + Pavement at #1 sort of spoils all the fun of the list for me. Shoulda known.

"Holland 1945" is really good though..

i couldn't sing appx 9 of these 20 songs if you held a gun to my head

Oh.. well I know all 20.

pitsfork ha.

uh, seems both solid and honestly representative of their brand as it currently stands. personally bummed to see sonic youth top out at #60 with 100%. it's a good song, but hardly the best thing they did in the 90s (see: kool thing, mote, bull in the heather, the diamond sea and hits of sunshine, just to start with). cruelly understates the shadow they cast over that decade, imo. that oasis and neutral milk hotel are given SO much more credit kinda lays me low.

the diminution of sonic youth is paralleled by the fact that there's zero representation for the rock/punk/metal/psych garbage that's most near & dear to me. i wouldn't have expected to see much of it, but the most obvious omissions include things like the jesus lizard, shellac, boredoms, brainiac, RFTC, skullflower and polvo. no matter how you slice it, a pretty thorough repudiation of the strains of indie rock that i actually give a shit about. but i never turned to pitchfork for that kind of support in the first place, so no surprise. maybe these bands & artists, like the experimental stuff whiney was talking about, belong more to albums than tracks? dunno...

man with the exception of stupid ol pavement i fuck with every song on that list

the top 20 i mean

jesus lizard and boredoms were both on the list iirc

There was a typo.. #1 was actually Sleep "Dopesmoker"

jesus lizard and boredoms were both on the list iirc

yeah, sorry about the tired/boozy lack of clarity. in my head, i was talking about the top 100, though i didn't actually say that anywhere.

it's a good song, but hardly the best thing they did in the 90s (see: kool thing, mote, bull in the heather, the diamond sea and hits of sunshine, just to start with).

There's too much of that going on with this list ... picking the "underappreciated" song instead of the more obvious hit. "Say it Ain't So?" "Only Shallow?"

Only Shallow kickstarted that album in the most shocking possible way. Great choice I think...

I'm not gonna go through this, is there literally one metal song? And it's Danzig?

The most glaring omission was "Let The Rhythm Hit Em."

ban all pitchfork writes from this board for allowing biggie to place outside of the top 10

Yeah no metal wtf.. Where's "Holy Wars???"

at least aaliyah made it into the top 10

I'm way more tired of "Say It Ain't So" and "Loser" than "Gold Soundz". Those two songs are still being overplayed on the radio.

like seriously not even being a pedantic "wot u don't listen to carcass" troll about it, but like

what's up dudes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBfygUiS50g&ob=av2e

not much yall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESjyB8EMw4w

can i play too?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkFqg5wAuFk

can i just
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rloidlFbi4w

i mean
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaysTVcounI

but then also
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPNFVj-pISU

it's not exactly like theres some shortage of metal that crossed over into the alternasphere in the 90s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY3LAFJbKyY

(a song I don't even really like that much)

I'd have to check, but it's probably the worst song on the black album

That's cool, but Holy Wars is a better song than all of those..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4OPQBNXdfc

and..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPUe1nv4gIk&ob

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfZMXR-a6fg

goodnight little dude
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hglVqACd1C8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALPH86ybA6U

I like that melvins track. body count too

but yeah, even the most indiest, most p4k friendly strains of hard/heavy/noisy music got short shrift. (billstevejim otm - no melvins wtf?) like not only is indie streamlined into its least confrontational, most comforting strains, the slack is taken up by expansion into pop genres that are heavily covered and well-represented everywhere.

i am one of these people who will find something to pout about no matter what.

if this stuff is really annoying to you (any of you), and barely covers the music you are genuinely interested in, then why bother paying attention to pitchfork?

billstevejim otm - no melvins wtf?

That was Whiney.. I was bummed out by no Megadeth or Slayer or Eric B & Rakim.

i think you just broke the code

xp

it's a sincere question. it wasn't meant as a "won't you just stfu about pitchfork already" post

i don't know. in part because it (pitchfork) so dominates the discourse, and i'm interested not just in music, but in the conversation about music. by that i don't just mean talking about music w my friends, which i do all the time, but the way that cultural "tastemakers" process the idea of music. and ilm is big part of my connection to that ongoing critical dialogue about music. therefore, what ilm talks about, i pay attention to. therefore, pitchfork. and beyond that, i can't pretend that i'm not indie at heart. a big part of my sense of what music is and can mean was formed in the mid 80s by bands like the replacements, husker du, sonic youth, big black, butthole surfers, etc. gotta be true to my roots.

nicely done.

I think it also goes back to what seandalai said upthread, that we care about Pitchfork in a way that we don't necessarily about Rolling Stone or NME, "it's part of the information universe with which we associate ourselves. When they screw up we complain because they could conceivably have done better."

so you feel that pitchfork represents your taste - or should represent your tastes?

yes to some extent, for me, at least more than other review sites except maybe the wire

no. maybe i'm misstating (by habitual rhetorical overkill) the idea that any of this is really annoying to me. it isn't. not at all. i think the pitchfork list is cool for what it is, and don't really care about it anyway. i guess what i'm operating from is a sense that "my music" - the fucked-up, bloody-knuckled strain of indie rock that i've always been most in love with - has become increasingly marginal and even moribund. this makes me feel old and grumpy.

xpost

Another glaring omission

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gUFO9vRH_A

marginal to what, what pitchfork covers? i mean, it isn't like pitchfork is the cable company that has a local/regional monopoly. you can find music criticism in other places.

lol at galling lack of cannibal corpse

I don't think any of us knows ALL the writers at Pitchfork, but most of us know a few (and it's a different few for everyone), so there's definitely an interest that goes beyond just that of the normal reader. When they, as a collective, fuck up a list in a very little or a very big way, it's kind of like we're slinking around at the back of the bar, laughing with the rest of your friends about how your one other mutual friend is totally blowing it onstage doing a karaoke version of "Total Eclipse of the Heart."

or is this just one of those threads where people complain about the results of some poll, the way grumpy old people complain how expensive everything is nowadays - because it is a way of bonding with others?

I think what it comes down to, for myself at least, is that Pitchfork is understood to be a tastemaker and canon builder, and that lists like this represent the construction of the 90s canon (for example). People are annoyed or pissed that Pitchfork--for, pick you favorite indie-baiting reason--edited their favorites out of the canon.

the 90s canon for a particular affinity group, it isn't creating _the_ canon

i think it comes down to this

if you care about music crit you care about pitchfork & their lists & what they review & how they review it & what score it gets

if you don't care about music crit you likely don't care about any of those things

Well of course, but this is ILM--isn't is understood that the "particular affinity group" of Pitchfork is going to have a vast overlap with the "particular affinity group" of ILM?

I just think it's fun.. isn't that enough?

i'm pretty sure i'm otm and we can move on

fuckin guy

i care somewhat about music crit, but i don't really care about most of the music pitchfork covers - and most of that is bands/records from my youth, and i don't really care about whether this or that major/large indie label record or song by a band of people i don't know personally makes some website's top 200 of a previous decade.

re, sarah: oh yeah, i know. again, i'm not really saying that pitchfork would better if it were different, or raging about the fact that the shit i'm interested in doesn't get adequate coverage. though they're so occasional as to seem dead, termbo do a decent job at hitting like 25% of it, and mosurak/still single bats clean-up for like half of the rest. if i were truly madly deeply serious about the remainder, i'd be reading the wire, decibel and other forums more regularly. but i'm not, and maybe i'm just trying to steer discussion here towards a corner of the indie universe that doesn't get much attention, even on ilm. like how many people post in rolling punk or les rallizes denudes threads?

this is my revenge.

So I guess the question becomes this: we're all enjoying ourselves to varying degrees for various reasons--why are YOU on this thread afaik xp

sarahel is playing the morbs role iirc -- but with more sanity of course

contenderizer: dusted is pretty solid

z_b: curiosity? maybe unhealthy? idk

i think you, sarah, are distinctly and perhaps (close to) uniquely outside the venn diagram, relative to most of the regular p4k thread coffee klatch/bitch fest. i mean, you are just not sufficiently indie.

no offense...

imidswtpitbh

lol - i am insufficiently indie it is true! thank you all for sincerely answering my sincere questions. i feel like i have learned something v important about ilx tonight.

contenderizer: dusted is pretty solid

yah, for real! dusted is where i get most of my irl music pointers. or those that don't come from ilm, anyway...

if this stuff is really annoying to you (any of you), and barely covers the music you are genuinely interested in, then why bother paying attention to pitchfork?

― sarahel, Friday, September 3, 2010 2:32 AM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i think sometimes people pay a lot of attention to stuff that annoys them! not even by choice. like the nyt style section annoys me to no end but i read it every week. twice.

i feel like i have learned something v important about ilx tonight.

what, that it is crazy indie fuxxors? cuz...

sarahel, if you don't mind me asking, what is your "affinity group"?

wish list included big l, big pun, and ween

noize iirc xp

yeh, it is the undiscovered country

who is spock in this scenario

@contenderizer

jesus lizard and boredoms were both on the list iirc

― Dan S, Friday, September 3, 2010 5:58 AM

I believe shellac and polvo were there also

were they? i miss so much...

again, was primarily concerning myself with teh all important/coveted top 100 slots

wow. im really really surprised by these results

also, fuck weezer forever

god i hate that band

if this stuff is really annoying to you (any of you), and barely covers the music you are genuinely interested in, then why bother paying attention to pitchfork?

i took this to heart last time people said it to me, when i bitched about pfork on the EOY lists, and i'm proud that i basically managed to completely ignore this list while it was happening. sarahel is right here, really. it's important to remember that this is NOT any sort of definitive or central canon, unless you associate yourself with a particular niche group of music fans. which i, obviously, do not.

but god wants me to love gold sounds

this is a weird-azz top 20 str8 up

it is a house divided against itself

i dont think its that weird, its pretty good, i like loser, and weezer, and all the bands lex hates, and i like a lot of the musicians he loves too, seems to me that if you made a cd with all these songs i would play it all the way through, probably even the pavement song

what about mazzy star

fuck yeah

i like pretty much every song i've heard out of these 20, exceptions being NMH & radiohead

the mazzy star trk is probably the only choice in the top 20 that didn't have me wondering why they chose that track from the particular artist

i have made out to that song too many times not to have feelings about it

i thought the choices in the top 20 were less bizarre than the rest of the list

only "protect ya neck" through me off

i don't really know tons about like mbv tho or something, maybe that one was a weird pick

threw*

i probably would've picked "ATLiens" or "rosa parks" for outkast but i'm not about to quibble w/ someone thinking "spottieottie" is that good

there's an old ilm post somewhere which basically says "mbv = enya with layered guitars instead of layered vox", and it's otm.

björk songs from the '90s that are way way way better than "hyperballad": human behaviour, come to me, aeroplane, play dead, big time sensuality, one day, enjoy, isobel, the modern things, bachelorette, jóga, pluto, hunter, unravel, all is full of love, my snare, sod off

actually i also way prefer the awesome brodsky quartet version of "hyperballad" to the original

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfhkZXZZVcg

"How can you delude yourself for this long?"

Board description? Please?

man I was sure the #1 spot belonged to me this time, wtf, had booked a table at le bernardin

there's an old ilm post somewhere which basically says "mbv = enya with layered guitars instead of layered vox", and it's otm.

easy to say, but ignores that how you layer is at least as important as that/what you layer

also ignores the fact that enya with layered guitars is rad

feel free to explain enya's layering in detail! i have only ever given a cursory listen to both acts and neither grabbed me, and it sounded pretty accurate from that.

i'm saying that yes, both consist of the layering of a given element and strive for/arrive at a soft, enveloping effect - but beyond that there isn't much similarity. enya's layering has less to do with textural contrasts and manufactured disorientation, doesn't run sharp/harsh tones into softer ones or try to generate soft sounds out of intermingled harshness. otoh, they both do wind up working in a similar way, so i understand the comparison.

lol at Pavement taking #1

totes mediokes imo

Trip-hop was already plenty cinematic by 1996, when DJ Shadow dropped his stunning debut LP Entroducing.... His contribution to the scene was to focus on the small stuff. Shadow dropped the world-weary narratives associated with the genre and zoomed all the way in, creating richly detailed atmospheres out of samples that felt less like film scenes and more like a master painter's collected work.

feel like this cat is bluffing most of the time. a bit like the blur thing earlier, it seems weird to me to talk about shad's 'contribution to the scene', as if he didn't help build the fuckin thing. i guess massive attack had 'world-weary narratives' but a lot of trip-hop followed in shadow's footsteps -- was instrumental hip-hop. whether his atmospheres are less filmy than painter-y, idk.

eh i didnt say it was a BAD top 20 i said it was a weird one. rlly shocked nirvana in particular didnt make top ten, and lost out to, well, weezer

Pitchfork's review section is pretty broad-minded - in the past two weeks they've reviewed Kemialliset Ystävät, Oren Ambarchi/Keiji Haino/Jim O'Rourke and Fennesz/Daniell/Buck amongst other non-fuxxor releases - but this isn't reflected in their charts or in the canonical history adopted by the site. As has been observed, one factor is that the intersection of the reviewers' tastes is presumably indiecentric and any consensus work will reflect this. Another factor I think is that their historical perspective (what they cover in terms of reissues/retrospectives) is a lot more limited.

But yeah, it's not as if Pitchfork=the critical universe. Their reviews don't have much influence on my purchases (unlike say 10 years ago) but I check it mostly to see what people are buzzing on.

xp - Weezer > Nirvana is a classic result.

this list is so hilariously challoping at every level

except of course that afaik its basically about counting up ppls votes

if in order to make it interesting you need to do things like say gold soundz is the best pavement song; maybe you shouldn't have made the list at all

then a group of ppl were challoping with their votes--don't see why that wouldn't follow

I thought it might be interesting to compare the Pitchfork poll with the results of ILX's 1990s singles poll. So here's the Pitchfork top 50, and I've put the song's placing in the ILX poll in brackets:

50. Oasis - Live Forever [#73]
49. Yo La Tengo - Autumn Sweater [-]
48. Foo Fighters - Everlong [-]
47. PJ Harvey - Rid of Me [-]
46. Stardust - Music Sounds Better with You [#16]
45. Geto Boys - Mind Playing Tricks on Me [#5]
44. Massive Attack - Unfinished Symphony [#15]
43. The Chemical Brothers - Setting Sun [-]
42. Nine Inch Nails - Closer [-]
41. The Pharcyde - Passin' Me By [-]
40. The Orb - Little Fluffy Clouds [#43]
39. Beastie Boys - Sabotage [-]
38. A Tribe Called Quest - Check the Rhime [-]
37. Sinead O'Connor - Nothing Compares 2 U [#17]
36. Guided by Voices - Game of Pricks [-]
35. Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth - They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.) [#65]
34. New Order - Regret [#6]
33. Missy Elliott - The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly) [#62]
32. Bonnie "Prince" Billy - I See a Darkness [-]
31. Underworld - Born Slippy NUXX [#28]
30. The Flaming Lips - Race for the Prize [-]
29. The Verve - Bitter Sweet Symphony [-]
28. Nas - It Ain't Hard to Tell [-]
27. Elliott Smith - Needle in the Hay [-]
26. Blur - Girls & Boys [-]
25. Mobb Deep - Shook Ones Pt. II [#51]
24. Built to Spill - Car [-]
23. Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space (Elvis Version) [-]
22. The Breeders - Cannonball [#3]
21. The Smashing Pumpkins - 1979 [-]
20. DJ Shadow - Midnight in a Perfect World [-]
19. Mazzy Star - Fade into You [#49]
18. Daft Punk - Da Funk [#23]
17. Belle & Sebastian - The State I'm In [#21]
16. Outkast - Spottieottiedopalicious [-]
15. Depeche Mode - Enjoy the Silence [#24]
14. The Notorious B.I.G. - Juicy [#35]
13. Nirvana - Smells Like Teens Spirit [#12]
12. Aphex Twin - Windowlicker [#8]
11. Björk - Hyperballad [#10]
10. Weezer - Say It Ain't So [-]
9. Beck - Loser [#14]
8. Aaliyah - Are You That Somebody? [#13]
7. Neutral Milk Hotel - Holland, 1945 [-]
6. My Bloody Valentine - Only Shallow [-]
5. Wu-Tang Clan - Protect Ya Neck [-]
4. Radiohead - Paranoid Android [#9]
3. Dr. Dre feat. Snoop Doggy Dogg - Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang [#18]
2. Pulp - Common People [#1]
1. Pavement - Gold Soundz [-]

8 songs in the Pitchfork top 20 also made it to the ILX top 20. 7 songs in the Pitchfork top 20 didn't place at all in the ILX top 100, though My Bloody Valentine, Wu-Tang Clan, and Pavement all had other songs place in the ILX poll. Oddly enough Outkast had no songs in the ILX top 100.

were there any denim tracks in the top 200? i didn't see one.

Boo, those whores.

That looks exactly the way Pitchfork's Top 20 Songs of the 1990s should look.

okay I'd never heard that Pavement song before and is just not made for me

no real opinion* on the rest of the top 20; most of it is awesome, some of it I never, ever want to hear again, pretty much all of it "deserves" to be there

* okay, more like "really obvious opinions"

Couldn't help but notice that "I Can't Dance" by Genesis didn't make any list, so I question the validity of the results.

Nothing from Dance into the Light either.

lol at Pavement taking #1

Really this is just as hilarious as it was last night when I first saw the list. I mean, if you just took Pavement down from #1 and swapped their entry with Biggie (#14), Nirvana (#13), Bjork (#11), MBV (#6) or Wu-Tang (#5), I think the top 20 would make a hell of a lot more sense. Pavement deserves to be in the top 20. All of those other folks would make fantastic #1 picks. But really, "Gold Soundz" is #1 of the decade?? O_O

no 'vogue'

I still don't remember, was there any Madonna at all??

"Ray of Light" as a See Also pick?

no xpost

I still don't remember, was there any Madonna at all??

hahahaha i'm not even bothered about this list so these ridiculous omissions are just funny to me. smh

Really this is just as hilarious as it was last night when I first saw the list. I mean, if you just took Pavement down from #1 and swapped their entry with Biggie (#14), Nirvana (#13), Bjork (#11), MBV (#6) or Wu-Tang (#5), I think the top 20 would make a hell of a lot more sense. Pavement deserves to be in the top 20. All of those other folks would make fantastic #1 picks. But really, "Gold Soundz" is #1 of the decade?? O_O

RIP polls

existence needs a hide polls option that we can turn on for as long as we need to

it's not surprising that Pavement is #1 on this list, and for Pitchfork, having Pavement there makes sense. although the song choice is, of course, debatable

mass debatable

Really and truly, though, I think U2 deserved an entry -- "One," "Mysterious Ways," "The Fly," "Stay (Faraway, So Close)," "Numb," "Staring at the Sun," "Please" -- all are light years better than anything Pavement ever did.

Was that Passengers album from 1990? If so, add "Your Blue Room" and "Miss Sarajevo" to the above list...

Are there really people out there who think Gold Soundz is the best pavement song?

has crooked rain ever been polled on ilx?

Really and truly, though, I think U2 deserved an entry -- "One," "Mysterious Ways," "The Fly," "Stay (Faraway, So Close)," "Numb," "Staring at the Sun," "Please" -- all are light years better than anything Pavement ever did.

don't like all of these u2 tracks but that effing glam rock batman one pisses over the whole pavement catalogue so... yeah basically