P2K: The Top 200 Albums of the 2000s: 20-1

jesus fucking christ

hmm, of these records prob silent shout or stankonia

jesus fucking christ

Did this poll with the top 20 Pfork tracks, also -- "Ignition" won, and the results were quite interesting. If you don't like the poll, don't vote.

Discovery > Supreme Clientele > The Blueprint > Stankonia > Sound of Silver > Silent Shout > Kill the Moonlight > Kid A > White Blood Cells > Late Registration > Since I Left You > Is This It > shit

Voted for Silent Shout. Stankonia, White Blood Cells, Discovery, Kid A and Supreme Clientele not too far behind. Maybe Sound of Silver, too?

I haven't checked but is MPP 1 or 20?

neither

Voted for The Blueprint, but it was pretty half-hearted.

i would have voted for kala

is this it

Ghostface

outkast is the only one of these that i loved the first time i heard it and still love. i guess discovery, the blueprint and white blood cells would be next in line. then supreme clientele, which i respect but don't love. whole lotta overrated underheated indie schmindie stuff here. but i guess consider the source etc.

Avalanches. Ghost and Outkast close behind, but each have at least one very very skippable track.

Outkast over Ghostface and Daft Punk.

oh, and Kanye, natch.

the blueprint by some distance - silent shout only one to come close

hadn't seen the actual list before, that's a really horrible selection of albums

i like all the albums on this list that i've heard (around half of them)

Outkast over Ghostface and Daft Punk.

― a single man owns you (Ioannis), Sunday, October 4, 2009 4:11 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark

The Avalanches vs. The Knife vs. The Strokes

person pitch

Voted Discovery. I agree that all the albums I've heard from this list (haven't heard Avalanches, Spoon, Sufjan or Wilco) are pretty great, if sometimes overrated, and don't understand all the hateration. Are people honestly offended that a music website put out a Best Of list that doesn't perfectly line up with their personal tastes?

white blood cells

Voted for Discovery

Silent Shout.

Tho, if I could, I'd write in for Untrue.

only heard about half of these ... Fave is YHF. Sorry, ILM!

The Strokes.

favorite to least

Daft Punk - Discovery
Jay-Z - The Blueprint
Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
The Avalanches - Since I Left You
The White Stripes - White Blood Cells
Radiohead - Kid A
LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
Ghostface Killah - Supreme Clientele
The Arcade Fire - Funeral
Kanye West - Late Registration
Spoon - Kill the Moonlight
Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
Modest Mouse - The Moon and Antarctica
OutKast - Stankonia
v
v
Interpol - Turn On the Bright Lights
The Strokes - Is This It
The Knife - Silent Shout
Panda Bear - Person Pitch
v
v
v
v
v
v
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

haven't heard: Sigur Rós - Ágætis Byrjun

jay or lcd. or maybe outkast

jesus fucking christ

i hate agaetis byrjun.

Having a good laugh pondering future Classic Albums documentaries involving these. Why the long face, David Fricke?

he likes the strokes http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/290610/review/5940478/roomonfire

Are people honestly offended that a music website put out a Best Of list that doesn't perfectly line up with their personal tastes?

I think some are confused by the notion of a list not composed mostly of challops. "Pitchfork presents: P2K - a bunch of albums that will confound you with their audacity and maybe scare off a few indie kids".

stroaks

Avalanches > Daft Punk >>>>> the rest

Nobody seemed to care nearly as much when SPIN's top 90 albums of the 90's or Rolling Stone's top 100 albums of the 80's were revealed, but the internet age gets people upset over stupid shit a lot more often and makes people think their exact opinions matter that much more.

voted for Discovery, with close runners-up: 2)Illinoise, 3) Silent Shout 4) Sound of Silver/ Is This It/ Since I Left You
I know Sufjan Stevens is not too popular around here, but when I hear this album now it still gets to me. Its density, the beautifual vocals/harmonies, the storytelling, the melodies, the semi-classical instrumentation all add up to something great.

I thought a lot of people here were cool with Sufjan.. I'm into it.

Voted for Discovery, it comes closest to being the 'decade's soundtrack'.

Are people honestly offended that a music website put out a Best Of list that doesn't perfectly line up with their personal tastes?

i don't feel offended or even that annoyed - the main emotion is pity w/a tinge of contempt

not particularly keen on radiohead, but kid A is easily the best thing in the list.

Nobody seemed to care nearly as much when SPIN's top 90 albums of the 90's or Rolling Stone's top 100 albums of the 80's were revealed, but the internet age gets people upset over stupid shit a lot more often and makes people think their exact opinions matter that much more.

― billstevejim, Monday, 5 October 2009 06:29 (4 hours ago) Bookmark

I'm sure they got a bunch of letters by people annoyed that Album X or Record Y didn't make it by people who had only one or two people to talk to about it. Now I can tell the whole freaking world if I'm annoyed by a list!

Not that I am, as I unashamedly love:

Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
The Arcade Fire - Funeral
The Avalanches - Since I Left You
Daft Punk - Discovery
Ghostface Killah - Supreme Clientele
Interpol - Turn On the Bright Lights
Jay-Z - The Blueprint
The Knife - Silent Shout
LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
OutKast - Stankonia
Panda Bear - Person Pitch
The Strokes - Is This It
Kanye West - Late Registration

Kind of like:
Radiohead - Kid A
Spoon - Kill the Moonlight
Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
The White Stripes - White Blood Cells
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

And either haven't heard or just don't like the last couple.

Lists are fun!

(Don't know what to vote. Most probably Ghostface as it has my favourite single of the decade on it.)

Always get Agaetis Byrjun confused with Agyness Deyn.

my vote goes to this amazing little album which we recently polled, but a lot of excellent albums on that list:

NeighborPolled: Arcade Fire - FUNERAL poll

10:
Daft Punk
The Avalanches
The Knife

9.5:
Jay-Z
Panda Bear

9:
Animal Collective

8.5:
Ghostface
Radiohead
Outkast

8:
The Strokes
Kanye
LCD Soundsystem

7:
The Arcade Fire
The White Stripes.

I haven't heard the rest.

I'm not offended that these lists don't "perfectly line up with my own personal tastes."

However, what I AM very much OFFENDED - no, actually - OUTRAGED about - is that half the human race just seems to be routinely totally ignored or discounted when it comes to making these "canonical lists."

That's kind of a bit different than "personal tastes".

But I've learned that complaining about this sort of thing is like pissing in the wind.

...the results of which also tend to be heavily skewed along gender lines

Kate out of interest which female artists are in your top 20 for the 00s?

I felt a bit self-conscious that I only had 3 female artists in my top 20 and 25 or so female-only artists/groups in my top 100.

I don't *have* a Top 20 for the 00s because, well, I'm not really a list-making type of person. I suppose I could come up with one if you gave me a couple of days/weeks. And even if I did so, it would be again, accounting for personal tastes.

And for the record, I don't want to only "count" all-female artists/groups. It's the total *lack* of women - I mean, there are only 3 artists in that Pitchfork list that have a woman anywhere NEAR them, even in a drumming or accordian playing role. Perhaps the 90s only looked more gender-balanced because of the cult of the female bassist in 90s indie behemoths like Sonic Youth or the Pixies.

I don't pretend this is an encompassing list at all - because it's so heavily slanted towards mine own personal tastes - but here's a list of female artists or artists with a strong female presence that I would have to consider if I were going to make a "best of 00s" for mine own use... (and this is going to be incomplete because I don't have my record collection in front of me to look at)

School of Seven Bells, Goldfrapp (either of the first two albums), Ladytron's first album, Annie, Asobi Seksu (Citrus), Bat For Lashes (Fur & Gold), Aaliyah, Ellen Allien, Natacha Atlas, Missy Elliot, Blonde Redhead, Sugababes, Britney Spears (Blackout), Je Suis Animal, The Long Blondes...

Sorry, that's what I can come up with off the top of my head as people that have released albums in the 00s that I've listened to a lot without looking at my CD collection or my proper MP3 collection, and I'm sure I'm missing out several people whose names are on the tip of my tongue.

And even though I don't personally like them, I'm shocked that, say, indie heavyweights like The Gossip, that woman with the harp and the helium voice, oh what is her name, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the like don't make the Pitchfuckingfork list.

8 of my 9 albums of the year this decade were made by women - kelis, aaliyah, trina, teedra moses, kate bush, ellen allien, britney spears, erykah badu. and my album of 09 is almost certainly going to be electrik red. all of those albums are superior by a long, long, long way to everything in the p4k list except jay-z and the knife.

This is by no means an attempt to make any kind of canonical list. Just spouting a bunch of things off the top of my head. Every single one of which, I would certainly think had more right to be on the Best Of 00s than some of the options up there.

xpost

Both the Joanna Newsom albums placed OK on that list I think but to the extent that I gave a flying fuck I wouldn't have held my breath for either of them to place higher than they did. I prefer them to almost everything on that poll, personally, but there you go

kate i'm guessing that people will just respond with the usual "oh but why would you expect pitchfork to cover or acknowledge those acts, it's not in their white indie male demographic!"

as discussed on the other thread, yeah, you have to buy into a certain indie mindset to appreciate the pitchfork aesthetic. i'm not upset about it any more, but again...yeah, pity is what springs to mind. more fool you if you buy into that.

School of Seven Bells, Goldfrapp (either of the first two albums), Ladytron's first album, Annie, Asobi Seksu (Citrus), Bat For Lashes (Fur & Gold), Aaliyah, Ellen Allien, Natacha Atlas, Missy Elliot, Blonde Redhead, Sugababes, Britney Spears (Blackout), Je Suis Animal, The Long Blondes...

blonde redhead would be in mine, but none of the others im afraid.
But I only own 8 of the p4k 20 and none of them would make my own 20. Not even the modest mouse album and i love MM.

Joanna Newsom! That's her name. I kept thinking "Emily something..." but that was a single, right?

I mean, it's a cumulative effect here. People respond with the usual "oh but why would you expect pitchfork to cover or acknowledge those acts, it's not in their white indie male demographic!" and then the Uncut list that we were discussing on twitter, and the same "oh but why would you expect uncut to cover or acknowledge those acts, it's not in their white indie male demographic!" and then the RYM list and "oh but why would you expect RYM to cover or acknowledge those acts, it's not in their white metal male demographic!"

and it gets to the point of... OK WHERE IS SOME OTHER PERSPECTIVE FOR PEOPLE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE VAST AMOUNTS OF QUALITY MUSIC NOT MADE OR APPRECIATED BY WHITE INDIE MALES?!?!?

This makes me lose any kind of respect for even the idea of "canon" because it's already so slanted. (Not even getting into the gender politics of who gets to make and release records fullstop)

Oh god, I said I wouldn't talk about this any more, because it just makes me rant and rant and rant. But at least people on ILX are willing to entertain the idea that there *might* be some bias involved rather than "women don't make good music" or the crap I've heard elsewhere.

i like Joanna Newsom but again she wouldn't make my top 20. but then again i dunno who would. I like looking at lists but i hate compiling them.

This makes me lose any kind of respect for even the idea of "canon" because it's already so slanted

yes! completely. my brief period of conscientiously trying to get into the canon was marked only by disappointment. yet so many otherwise smart people seem to buy into the importance of it, the importance of lists like this, without acknowledging its flaws.

An Uncut review once made me buy a Neko Case album fyi, they don't all hate ladiez.

An album that didn't make the P4k list, so... I dunno, actually, forget I ever said anything.

My female picks would probably overlap a lot with a fuller list from Lex:

Teedra, Aaliyah, Kelis, Missy, Electrik Red, Foxy Brown, Sugababes, Trina, Stina Nordenstam, Maria McKee, Taylor Swift, Girls Aloud, Mis-Teeq, Robyn, Ada, Lhasa, Kylie Minogue, Bjork, Ashlee Simpson... And then mixed stuff like Gang Gang Dance, Low, Sonic Youth, The Knife, Fleetwood Mac.

Interestingly though of the non-mixed options the only one which seems Pitchfork friendly is Bjork (she made the list I'm pretty sure) (and Robyn ha). And then of the mixed options all of them seem pitchfork-friendly except Fleetwood Mac. Not sure what this means - possibly only that indie-friendly music is more likely to be comprised of mixed gender bands as compared to dance music, R&B, pop etc.

Other amazing ladies not yet mentioned, if we are in a macho-list making mode: Sleater-Kinney, Cat Power and Electrelane.

ha ha, the only reason I didn't list The Knife is coz they actually made the P4K top 20 list.

gah the obvious exception in my list is KATE BUSH.

god, you guys are getting worked up over nothing

Incidentally (for people that care about such things), I think the first Kelis album would have made Pitchfork's list but for being disqualified for being released in late 1999 in the US.

did 'aaliyah' make the list? i assume you voted for it but it deserved to be up there

Everyone is so busy accusing people of getting upset that Pitchfork didn't pick the albums they wanted, but when you really look, these people who are supposedly upset about the list don't actually exist. Its just a thread full of people telling people who aren't there to stop being upset over a silly list.

Kevin I did but for unknown reasons i totally fucked up the ordering of my ballot and it came in at number 12 when it should have been around number 7.

how many women voted in this btw

lol at lex for pitying those whose aesthetic doesn't mirror his own.

If their staff lists are anything to go by, a similar proportion of women as actualled turned up on the list. Funny, that.

Stankonia, easy. Completely blew my mind and it still sounds great, give or take a couple of ho-hum tracks. Discovery, Supreme Clientele, Person Pitch and Jay-Z still get regular spins from me, and all still sound magnificent. Been a long time since I listened to the Avalanches, but I loved it at the time. Perhaps I should dig it out again. I listened to Is This It? and White Blood Cells a LOT when they came out. Easy to hate on them, but they're cracking good records, if not masterpieces. Likewise YHF. Yes it's overrated, but it has some very good songs and sustains itself over the album.
Funeral I loved at the time, now it sounds pretty overwrought and clumsy, although it's still a million times better than the rubbish follow up.
I've not heard much by Spoon. Whatever I have head by them has completely passed me by. Find the pfork love for them pretty inexplicable.
It's a slightly dull and predictable list, but I can't really get mad over it. The only entry that makes me go NOOOOOO!!! is Sigur fucking Ros. They're the post-rock Enya.

Eh, the Venn diagram of Lex's and my taste don't really have a huge amount of overlap, and I still blame his comments on ILX for tricking me into listening to that Paris Hilton album, but I totally get the pity and contempt. There's a weird undercurrent here of stolid "serious" music, which is a pretty large part of why I've bailed on indie over the last decade. It's become the most resolutely boring genre, in part (I think) because the indie kids have grown up and assumed positions of middling power. While I'd say that it's reinventing notions of propriety and maturity, it's still propitious and mature, and those aren't always virtues that I think should be privileged. Looking at that top 20, there's hardly an anti-social or difficult or weird album on it.

I think that has to do with indie (if you'll grant me the self-aware genre conceit) finally realizing and grasping for canonical status, but in large part doing so by aping the perceived values of other works canonized by Rolling Stone (and Mojo and Uncut, etc.). It under-appreciates the weirdness of yesterday, and over-sells its own innovation and strangeness. I remember friends talking about their minds being blown by MPP, and it was like, really?

How would a collection of people come to the consensus that an anti-social record is one of the 20 best albums of the decade? Is it just me or does that seem willfully contradictory? Likewise, wouldn't the majority of people voting need to be weird in the same way for a weird album to do well, and how difficult is a difficult album if a decent number of people understand and like it?

I don't think this list is pointing out anything different from what lists like it have pointed out for decades, except maybe that indie kids now think it's okay to listen to hip-hop.

(or maybe indie kids have more black friends, ha)

Couple things re: the representation of women in the RYM and PFork lists.

1st: apples and oranges. RYL voting body is self-selected and democratic. Whoever wants to vote can vote. So the fact that the results skew this way or that isn't necessarily a problem. It may be depressing to see yet another male-dominated list, but there's no reason to take it as a slight.

PFork list is a very different matter. The voting body isn't self-selected, but rather hand-picked, and to the extent that it reflects their regular writing staff, it's probably overwhelmingly male. Of 30 reviews published since last Monday, for instance, only two appear to have been written by women: Amy Granzin on Port O'Brien and Rebecca Raber on Islands. Dusted Magazine, another similar site, skews much the same way: of the 33 "Recent Reviews" they list, only three seem to be by women (those by Josie Donelley and Jennifer Kelly). Since it was mentioned elsewhere in this thread, it looks like all 15 reviews on Uncut's main Music page were written by men.

This is a problem, and it may help explain why these canon-forging lists tend to be so male-dominated. A massively male-dominated critical culture writes about the things that interest them, and surprise! It turns out that most of the things they most respect are made by other men. I'm half surprised that indie-crit culture, so hand-wringingly progressive/PC in word, should be so retrograde in deed. But only half surprised. I mean, I'm sure it's all but impossible to find smart women who'd even be interested in writing about pop music...

I can only really compare it with Plan B - a magazine that actively recruited female writers and actively covered musicians of both genders. Thing is, the magazine didn't *have* a list-oriented culture, never used ratings. The end of year round-ups (which I participated in a couple of times) deliberately used non-rating non-list type ways of getting at your favourite music of the year - asking for moments or events or songs rather than albums or gigs or the like.

It was such a different way of *thinking* about music - but one that seemed a lot more inclusive. Both to the artists covered and the writers writing about them (and it showed in the demographics of the people that *read* - or at least subscribed to the thing.)

What was the distinction between an event and a gig?

I don't understand the question. An event could be anything.

Going to a gig. Hearing your favourite song on the dancefloor. Going to a party and hearing music you'd never dreamed of. A happening. An art party. A listening party. Anything.

A massively male-dominated critical culture writes about the things that interest them, and surprise! It turns out that most of the things they most respect are made by other men

i can see why this might be the case, but i'm vaguely disappointed that so few of these cultural commentators seem to lack the self-awareness to attempt to rectify it. also, i don't think it follows that "dudes like music made by dudes"; it smacks of the "black british music doesn't do well because the black population of britain is so heterogeneous and comparatively small in comparison to eg the USA" argument that i encounter so often. i don't think you have to be black to appreciate "urban" music, nor female to appreciate female artists. i am neither! and my favourite artists are almost all black women.

i don't think you have to be black to appreciate "urban" music, nor female to appreciate female artists. i am neither! and my favourite artists are almost all black women.

This ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

It's like... women seem perfectly able to listen to and rate *male* artists and get something out of the experience. Are men somehow too stupid or narrow-minded to do likewise? Isn't that a bit of a negative thing to assume about your gender?

I don't understand the question. An event could be anything.

Going to a gig. Hearing your favourite song on the dancefloor. Going to a party and hearing music you'd never dreamed of. A happening. An art party. A listening party. Anything.

The way you wrote that was a little confusing because it seemed like going to gigs was something that was explicitly excluded, yet they asked you to name your favorite events and it seemed like your favorite gig would fit very nicely into that category.

I still kind of don't see how that's non-listy but that's just me being obstinate. :-)

Couple thoughts on yr Plan B reminiscence: It's a shame that the only music publications that seem to have a gender-diverse writing pool are those that make a point of it. Plays into that "male = normal, female = different" paradigm that feminists often (rightly) gripe about.

Also, while the Plan B approach might be more inclusive, it might also help explain why "the canon" (a list made of lists) is so male-dominated.

also, most of the ringtone rap crew on ilx are gay or bi! i don't think the assumption stereotypes is a constructive path to go down.

Dan - because it wasn't a list, it was "pick one of each" of these really open-ended categories.

It's a shame that the only music publications that seem to have a gender-diverse writing pool are those that make a point of it.

I really don't understand WHY this seems to be the case. It just seems so counter-intuitive.

I suppose it goes to that classic gender-divide thing of "men volunteer to do things actively, women wait to be asked" - why bother actively going around recruiting and asking women to write, when you have a pool of thousands of young male blogger just panting to do something.

i don't think you have to be black to appreciate "urban" music, nor female to appreciate female artists

but it HELPS, generally, is the point

It's like... women seem perfectly able to listen to and rate *male* artists and get something out of the experience. Are men somehow too stupid or narrow-minded to do likewise? Isn't that a bit of a negative thing to assume about your gender?

― Masonic Boom

Honestly, I think the politicization of taste is horrible. The more we worry about what our taste "should" be, the less well we know ourselves and the less authentic our tastes become. This is a bad thing no matter how you slice it. If most men do, in fact, tend to prefer music made by men (and I don't think this should be taken as a given), I don't think this is necessarily a problem. In fact, it makes a kind of simple sense.

No, the problem, the only problem, is the construction and maintenance of a critical culture that is composed almost entirely of male voices.

well, no, it doesn't. as kate says, women are rarely unable to appreciate male artists. i know very few people whose taste doesn't cross gender/race lines. why on earth should it help?? it's an unhelpful and inaccurate line of thinking.

and critics should be ESPECIALLY aware of it, too.

xp

I think it's important to avoid generalizations about men being too stupid to appreciate music made by women for a lot of reasons, but one is that this seems to depend on the genre. Like in country and R&B female artists are totally canonical both now and in the past. So this seems to have a lot to do with genre, and specifically indie.

and jazz? and metal? and funk? and techno?

Dan - because it wasn't a list, it was "pick one of each" of these really open-ended categories.

This is where me being obstinate comes into play because that is still a list to me, only instead of being "20 best [x]" list it's an "[x] questions" list. I understand that you see it differently, though.

i'm vaguely disappointed that so few of these cultural commentators seem to lack the self-awareness to attempt to rectify it.

What would you like them to do? Vote for/rep for stuff they don't actually like, but feel they should?

Your taste, Lex, isn't a model for the universe. No one's is or should be. And it isn't helpful to go around preening about how wonderfully diverse your own tastes are. People like what they like. The more honest we are about it, the better. Even if that means we have to admit our biases.

Maybe the difference is between an ordered list [bad] and an unordered list [ok]?

What would you like them to do? Vote for/rep for stuff they don't actually like, but feel they should?

― Granny Dainger

^^^^ This. We need to broaden the pool, not try to shame people into lying about what they like.

Also got to take into account that it might not just be the writers who are the problem- i.e. hip-hop is rarely made by women, so naturally less women making rap music will make the lists. In fact, this imbalance is most probably true of most genres although not to the extent in which men dominate hip-hop.

Why are there less female lead guitarists? Or are there thousands of them we just don't know about because of the big bad pitchfork critics not liking ladies?

My friend, I don't "politicise" my tastes. I listen to what I like. Some of what I like is male, some of it is female. I have noticed a slight aesthetic tendency towards female vocalists because I simply prefer the sound of female voices.

But it's like, the moment you try to address this vast imbalance of how men can't seem to listen to women (and in some cases, as Kerr pointed out about metallers that fight against "girly" music) - you're accused of "politicising" things.

I mean, maybe this requires a vast change in the way that female musicians are marketed, a change in the way that men view women, fullstop (as one of my bandmates commented on straight male audience members - "it's like they're so busy figuring out whether they want to shag us they haven't got around to noticing what we sound like").

The mostly male voice of the media is FAR FROM the only problem, and it's massively oversimplifying the matter to say that it is.

Maybe the difference is between an ordered list [bad] and an unordered list [ok]?

Well no, it's a different type of list but it's still ordered; you just don't get to see what came in 2 through 20 for the various questions. Even an "unordered" list still has some order to it, otherwise you'd just write down everything you did for the time period being covered. Whenever you pick your favorite anything, you're making a ranking.

Why are there less female lead guitarists?

Generally speaking, women are smaller than men.

yeah, by "ordered" I meant "linearly ordered" as in "these are 20 picks, ordered from best to worst" whereas an unordered list doesn't indicate what's better than what. But your point, I see, is that by selecting anything as worthy of mention, it's being declared better than what wasn't selected. That makes sense.

women are rarely unable to appreciate male artists

neither are men in my personal experience (men i've met and spoken to about music over the last 20 years). but this is a really unhelpful generalisation either way.

the generalisation that people are MORE LIKELY to like music made by people they can relate to may be unhelpful too but it seems more of a 'truth', again, in my personal experience.

re: a hoy hoy

That's the other side of the coin, and a fair rebuttal. Some genres such a boy's club that worrying about critical gender bias is beside the point (metal, f'rinstance). But that isn't true of music in general, or of pop. It isn't even true of indie. In this case, the canon seems narrower than the genre. At least a little narrower.

Dan, it's the difference between "your favourite" (i.e. subjective) and "the best" - which is the way that these "best of" top 10 lists are posed with this illusion of "objectivity" which clearly does not exist the moment you look at them on a slightly more than casual level.

And please, let's not get into the "oh, but there are just *less* female X..." because that, like everything, is a point of who is doing the counting. I was on a messageboard where someone tried to say that there were so few female superstar DJs because "women don't DJ." The irony being, that, seeing how I was a member of a mostly-female DJ collective, I personally knew at least a dozen female DJs, while, before signing up for that forum, I had known maybe 3 male DJs?

i don't think race or gender is much of a factor in my being able to "relate" to an artist.

i don't think men are unable to appreciate female artists at all, which again brings up the question of why there's this huge gender imbalance. maybe the kind of man who ends up writing for an indie webzine is unable to appreciate female artists?

xps

and yeah certain genres are largely gender-coded. hip-hop masculine; r&b feminine; pop feminine, metal masculine. which has a lot to do w/which genres get "critical approval", too.

I don't think being able to appreciate something will automatically make it your favorite thing; a lot of it is going to depend on what music imprinted on you at a watershed moment and, given the demographic skew and the power structure of Western civilization, that means that for many of the people who end up contributing to a "best of" list, many of the entries will feature men, most of whom will be white.

I think this changes across the board when the bars to access drop; the trick is identifying and getting rid of the bars, something that we've made remarkable progress on but likely will not see the full fruits of in our lifetime.

also ;_; that everyone is ignoring my "less"/"fewer" grammar joke

My friend, I don't "politicise" my tastes...

But it's like, the moment you try to address this vast imbalance of how men can't seem to listen to women [...] you're accused of "politicising" things.

I mean, maybe this requires a vast change in the way that female musicians are marketed, a change in the way that men view women...

The mostly male voice of the media is FAR FROM the only problem, and it's massively oversimplifying the matter to say that it is.

― Masonic Boom

I agree with all that, except that I think you're talking about a huge, complicated social issue that can't really be satisfactorily addressed. Maybe in an incremental, long-term sense, but even then, only indirectly, as the net result of a thousand sub-steps. That's why I think it's more useful to focus on simple, practical issues like the fact that music publications refuse to hire women as writers.

And I think you are both politicizing and faulting male taste, as you perceive it, an approach that seems counterproductive to me.

the fact that music publications refuse to hire women as writers

actively refuse?

(and in some cases, as Kerr pointed out about metallers that fight against "girly" music

I should point out that 'girly metal' isnt usually metal thats made by girls, its the metal made to appeal to teenage/pre-teen girls.

and jeff

I think gender imbalance in genre should be taken into account though if 'how many critics are male or female' can also play a part. Not saying 'women don't DJ', I'm saying there is an imbalance that also needs to be addressed.

It doesn't relate to this list but hip-hop is finally starting to show a bit more balance in the jerkin movement than it has done for decades. And not in a 'all female rappers have to be like lil kim and wave around their fanny' kind of way either. Once it stops being kids learning their trade with the odd single to producing albums, I think women in hip-hop - or at least in the jerkin part of the list - may start to show up as more than just 'token female rapper who hangs around with more imposing male rapper'. They are more likely to get written about if they actually doing things and making their own sound.

(Of course, getting more attention/critical respect is not the same as getting enough attention/critical respect.)

xpost.

actively refuse?

― blueski

Well, in effect refuse. TBH, the active/passive question ceases to matter when the end result is so glaringly obvious.

I haven't read the x-posts since the Lex... but

I think, also, when looking back on things, for whatever reason, there is gender distortion.

It's like, when you read contemporary accounts of new music, there's an equal balance. Which seems to disappear with perspective and difference. Like, maybe female artists are viewed as more "pop" and therefore by nature more ephemeral.

I'm thinking of genres like Punk, where Debbie Harry and Patti Smith got as much attention AT THE TIME as the Ramones and Television - or in the UK, Siouxsie and the Slits and X-Ray Spex being players, but looking back retrospectively, it's all the Sex Pistols and the Clash.

I bitch about this in the Nu-Gaze scene - that original era shoegaze was very gender equal - boy-girl acts like MBV and Lush were the people defining the genre. And yet, the retrofetishists all seem to be boys in leather jackets.

But perhaps that's it, that the tendency to assign music into genre and cling to retrofetishist scenes and look back upon the past like a historian is more a male tendency - or at least a rockist tendency, while simply taking things at the moment is the poppist (and therefore perceived as feminine?) one? That it's the men who do the looking back, so they pick what they want to remember.

And then bring into play the different ways that age is treated with regards to gender, when original bands reform...

there's just so many things coming into interplay. It's never simple.

I think that history is viewed through the lens of the cultural default, and in all of the genres you listed it is very easy to revert back to the cultural default (ie, white men).

music publications refuse to hire women as writers.

This just isn't true. When I was writing for CTCL/Plan B, there were quite a few publications that tried to recruit me on those grounds.

In my case, it was that I didn't want to write for those publications. It was't as fun or as interesting as Plan B - or their deadlines and wordcounts or "you can never use the first person" or the insistence on using ratings made me just not WANT to write for them.

There's metal made for preteen girls??

multiple xposts

You never heard Stryper?

(But also, I hated feeling like being tokenised. I used to write letters complaining to guitar magazines, for instance, saying, why do you never cover female guitarists, why do you never have females demonstrating the correct way to finger chords - in fact, no females at all, except the half naked ones posing with BC Riches in the ads? And I did get a letter back - more than once - saying "come and write for us" - but I didn't WANT to be the token girl, you know? so they could turn around to the next person and say "we're not sexist, look, we've got AN GIRL on our staff")

slipknot fans are over 12??

I don't WANT to have to be the token girl repping for the tastes of ALL WOMEN - which is what you are expected to do when you are a Token Girl.

I want men and mens roles to change as much as female roles have changed. But again, pissing in the wind.

Ha Kate, in those situations I have viewed tokenization as an advantage! My thought process has always been "My job is to use every tool possible to get my foot in the door and then kick incredible ass once I'm there. If that includes my race, so be it; it's not like I've got piles of family money/connections behind me."

(Granted, it did get tiring to be asked "how do black people feel about [x]?" all of the time; that's one of the reasons I'm never going back to my hometown. When you're talking employment, though, particularly in an arena you are passionate about, I feel like you're selling your opportunities short if you don't use every tool at your disposal, and sometimes that tool is your race/gender/sexual orientation.)

Maybe, but... these weren't paying gigs, you know? And I had/have too much else going on in my life. I will only EVER do music crit if it's fun. I'd rather be making music or DJing or drawing paisley if I'm not gonna get paid for it.

This just isn't true. When I was writing for CTCL/Plan B, there were quite a few publications that tried to recruit me on those grounds.

― Masonic Boom

Thing is, MB, your experience isn't necessarily indicative of the big picture. It wouldn't be terribly difficult for PFork to hire a few more competent, dedicated female writers, if this was something they really cared to do.

Maybe, but... these weren't paying gigs, you know?

oof say no more

"How would a collection of people come to the consensus that an anti-social record is one of the 20 best albums of the decade? Is it just me or does that seem willfully contradictory?"

Pssh. Either I communicated unclearly or you totally missed my point. Plenty of albums about crime or that are explicitly critical of mainstream culture are none-the-less popular, both critically and with the record buying public.

I'd argue that crime and an album about crime are two distinct things, only one of which is anti-social, and that being critical of mainstream culture does not preclude you from being part of or co-opted by mainstream culture (see emo, Hot Topic).

I don't think it's particularly controversial to opine that the wider an audience for a particular art form becomes, the less shocking that art form becomes, or to argue that by the time you get down to a shortlist of "best [x] whatevers" for a given time period, the contenders you would expect to see on that list should be unsurprising if you understand the audience and the people putting it together.

This makes perfect sense and will, I suspect, almost always be true. This is why those of us who were initially attracted to the risky/transgressive/antisocial aspects of a thing will complain about how "safe" it becomes as it's mainstreamed.

k i like a lot of music sung and/or written by women, but tbh on average i just prefer listening to male singers. ok yes i'm a man but seriously it's a purely aesthetic thing and i think this is true of a lot of people. if i were writing a list and it turned out that every single album was written and sung entirely by men i wouldn't think twice before publishing it, my only consideration would be whether it was an honest reflection of my tastes.

dan OTMing it up

"I'd argue that crime and an album about crime are two distinct things, only one of which is anti-social,"

I'd argue that you're trying to parse my argument too finely, and that if you really want me to qualify everything like a proper essay I can, but that this is going to lead mostly to semantic quibbling and a waste of time. Because as it stands, you're arguing that an album that endorses crime is de facto not anti-social, which would mean that either you've got to argue that it's impossible to create anti-social art or that crime is not anti-social (it was a broad category rather than a specific example, but you appear to have conceded it already, so we can elide debates over whether crime is necessarily anti-social). If you concede that it's possible to create anti-social art, you should also be willing to concede that there has been popular (both mainstream and critically) anti-social art. You were the one who said that anti-social work on a top 20 whatever was contradictory, and I don't think it is. I think it's a cop-out to say so.

It's not particularly controversial to say that things get more mainstream as they get more popular; it's nearly tautological. However, in saying that you should be able to understand the list based on the audience and the people who put it together, you're forgetting both that this list wasn't promoted as "Here are the top vote getters from a bull session me and my pals had down at the bar," but rather a play at objectivity. While we're all sophisticated enough readers to get the biases, you're ignoring that there's still a valid critique in pointing out that by putting forth the list, they're attempting to canonize those biases (which include, say, a stunning lack of diversity, and a lot of humdrum schmindie).

It comes back to the fact that if these are the albums that are being canonized, people have boring, worthy taste in music. That this reflects the selectors and the audience isn't an excuse—why should these people be picking the "best" music if they've got such boring taste? Instead of carrying forth the deemphasizing of the canon, it's indie kids retrenching their mediocre listening at the expense of great music.

Whups—Forgetting both that… etc. and that this list is canonizing biases.

I'd like to see this gender debate get a bit more erm specific. Not because I disagree that there's a "problem" but I think it's hard to say what that is, if it's a single thing etc.

Like, lets think of a couple of prominent categories of female music that mainstream rock crit tends to ignore/marginalize etc. Apologies if making a list seems masculinist and hence part of the problem (although on the other hand I feel uncomfortable with "women don't like making lists" arguments - if only because they remind me of old saws like "men are good with maps; women never lose their socks"... though I guess a simple insertion of "... are conditioned to..." gets over the cultural feminism style essentialism issue)!

1) GROUP: Indie Rock made by or involving females
ISSUE: Not "ignored" maybe, but perhaps critics are less ready to acknowledge "genius"? Very few exceptions eg. Joanna Newsom.

2) GROUP: Female R&B
ISSUE: Ignored to the extent the genre is ignored. In some ways female R&B has a higher profile amongst indie-rock criticism than male R&B, though the difference has narrowed in the past few years. No strict gender bias here, but arguable that the lesser position afforded to R&B vis a vis indie rock is related to a former or even ongoing "music for girls" bias. Does it go without saying that many women have rapped me over the knuckles for liking female R&B on account of its (to compress into a single phrase) negative gender modelling - either content-wise or contextually (e.g. the idea that championing female R&B is effectively endorsing a model of music creation where female artists are "locked out" of much of the creation-side - I don't agree with this argument obv but it's not flat out wrong either, these are vexed and I think interesting issues).

3) GROUP: Female singer-songwriters/folkies/etc.
ISSUE: After Joni Mitchell, almost all are regarded with suspicion by the indie rock press. Some including Kate herself are suspicious of what is perceived to be a limiting notion of femininity in this music (let me know if I'm mischaracterising you here Kate). Though I personally find it difficult to see how, say, Ani DiFranco and Tori Amos and Sarah McLachlan can be lumped together in this regard. At any rate the female singer-songwriters/folkies etc. that are accepted by the indie press - Newsom obv., but also, say, Neko Case - don't appear to embrace other concepts of femininity or even be majorly stylistically different, so much as simply possess a requisite if at times ineffable air of "indieness". One thing I'd have to think about more is: are similar male artists lacking a sufficiently indie vibe treated with equal suspicion and/or derision? I'm not sure - anyone have an opinion on this?

4) GROUP: Female country artists.
Ignored to the extent that the genre is ignored/disliked. I could be wrong, but I don't get the sense that indie listeners make gender-biased assumptions about country per se or country artists specifically - male and female artists seem to come in for equal and similar ire, and I don't think country "reads" as feminine to the non-fan.

5) GROUP: Female rappers
ISSUE: Pretty much a mixture of all other categories: ignored to the extent that the genre is ignored, perhaps swimming upstream against a "masculine" sounding chosen genre, perhaps also struggling to be noticed by an indie mindset inclined to find genius in males rather than females...

The fact that all of these are different doesn't disprove the argument that sexism at work (the opposite if anything), but I think it means that it's distortive to simply lump it all together under some broad category of shameful indie male sexism. These things definitely warrant thinking about IMO.

there's also the issue of gendered aesthetics at work here ... if a male artist has a large female fanbase, & does poorly in a pitchfork poll, its a diff issue than a female artist with a larger male fanbase in a pitchfork poll, right?

like, gender of the artist vs. gender of the audience vs. gender of the critic vs. gender of the producer vs. gender of the songwriter vs....

Apologies if making a list seems masculinist and hence part of the problem

I think the discussion is part of the problem anyway tbh, on account of the vast majority of its participants not being women interested in this subject, so you might as well flex those listy muscles like a big man.

i guess i understand where you're coming from when you talk about women not being featured in guitar magazines, because so much of that culture is sexist in a Rock-Typical way. but looking at the above Pitchfork list, i hardly think that gender matters. besides a few obvious exceptions (Jay-Z, the Strokes), and i believe this is the case with pitchfork and indie as a whole, issues of gender and sexuality are repressed/non-existant. not a lot of hetero attitude among the Pitchfork set of bands. ESPECIALLY in this decade, where the indie ideal seems to be Prepubescent Boy Next Door (sufjan stevens) or asexual "genius" collectives (radiohead, wilco). hell, daft punk aren't even HUMAN.

This is such patent bullshit that gender/sexuality issues are non-existent.

It just plays, yet again, into that utterly sexist bullshit that default non-gendered gender = MAN. And does not admit invite the existence of women. It's that old "It doesn't matter if it's a man or a woman" = ALWAYS A MAN.

Kate is totally OTM here.

Yup. It's amazing to me that anyone would say that gender doesn't matter on the PFork list when it's almost all guys. I mean, the math is not complex.

And I wonder about Tim F's genre-splitting. I suspect that the core issue isn't who's being covered and how -- that's just a symptom -- but that the critical voices are almost all male. That the critical culture is a boys club of the most old-fashioned sort.

same reasons as why ILM is male-dominated more or less

That makes sense, except that ILM (like RYM) is a self-selected pool, and therefore its gender skew isn't anyone's responsibility -- to the extent that the local culture doesn't actively exclude interested women, anyway.

Given that PFork and the like selectively hire their writing staff, it's a different issue. Related, sure, but not the same as.

Hrrrrrrrmmmmmmm.

Well, and there was a mention of politicizing taste up above, and I think that it's sort of begging the question, in that it was a defense of these sorts of lists on a, "Well, these folks like what they like," basis. Yeah, OK, sure, but if what they like ends up being a boring schmindie list without a lot of diversity, replace some of those boring-ass critics. Then it gets into an editor saying, "Well, but he's my pal and I like the way he writes," which is fine, but if the result is a boring read, why not take active steps to mix it up?

But hey, I don't read Pitchfork and when I applied years ago they didn't even answer me, so I flatter myself thinking we've got a mutual apathy going on. On the other hand, I am a music fan, and they are the biggest online organ for music news and reviews, so I'd like them to not suck as much.

I bitched about the politicization of taste, because it seemed to me that MB was complaining that guys should attach more (equal?) value to music made by women, and I disagree. I'm very much of the opinion that the only obligation people have WR2 their tastes (musical, sexual, etc.) is to be honest about them and at least moderately open to new things. The problem, again, isn't the personal taste of this or that guy, but rather a critical culture that seems MUCH more interested in male than female opinion.

Maybe "open to new things" (nudge nudge, wink wink) isn't the right phrase. "Respectful of difference" ought to be enough.

Except this isn't about *taste* so much as what is *canonised*. They're perfectly happy to listen to this stuff, but not to get out the "genius" brush. A bunch of Brooklyn hipster boys can fart in a microphone and it goes to the top of the Pitchfork list as a work of staggering genius, but a woman can come up with The Hounds Of Love or something, and still not quite make the grade.

And I do think that male can do a hell of a lot more taste-expanding in terms of seeking out female artists and not just going to their comfort zones - *and* combine that with actually *listening* to what female artists sound like, instead of just looking at the luscious pouting pictures on the album covers. I *do* think that you have the obligation to explore, challenge yourself, try new things, test your boundaries - if you're going to call yourself a music critic.

(But I admit, this is coming from long-term frustration with so many aspects of this gender equality business - the answers always turn out to be "well, women need to do X, Y or Z different..." and never venture the idea that men might need to get off their lazy, comfort-zoned arses and change themselves.)

I mean, this is the thing, isn't it? These people are not representing themselves as "Casual Listeners Who Like What They Like" - they are setting themselves up as Critics and Canonisers and Arbiters Of Taste.

And if you ARE going to do that, then you do have a responsibility to stick your head a little further out of your comfort zone and take some responsibility for what it is you are canonising, and what that says about you and about the world at large.

I think that is part of the job, yes.

A bunch of Brooklyn hipster boys can fart in a microphone and it goes to the top of the Pitchfork list as a work of staggering genius, but a woman can come up with The Hounds Of Love or something, and still not quite make the grade.

hmmmmmm

Yeah, but see, I don't like The Hounds of Love all that much. Or Kate Bush period. So, though I can appreciate her skills and contributions in a distant sort of way, I wouldn't put her at the top of MY all-greatest list, even if it was submitting it to Canon Central. Instead, I'd include stuff I do actually like. Which would probably skew male. And maybe that reflects some deep-seated internalized sexism on my part, but then again, maybe it doesn't. And there's no way to ever know. I work at appreciating all kinds of stuff and like a great deal of music made by women, but my very very favorite albums/artists lists would probably be just as bad as PFork's -- if not RYM's.

Personally, I suspect that my tastes are more indicative of what I relate to than what I endorse. And so, as a guy, it's entirely unsurprising that I most strongly relate to guy shit. If that's the case for any significant number of people, then Canon Central has an active obligation to gather opinion from a gender-diverse pool. Unless they actually intend to present a specifically masculine P.O.V.

And if you ARE going to do that, then you do have a responsibility to stick your head a little further out of your comfort zone and take some responsibility for what it is you are canonising, and what that says about you and about the world at large.

(a) this is all great but is unquantifiable to the point of meaningless in practice

(b) the % of reviews that are written with the actual intention to canonize its subject, as opposed to just saying how good the record is or isn't, is very likely close to zero

The one point I agree with IEC on is that the list is a reflection of the contributors; if you want the list to change, get different contributors.

You can "not personally like" something and still admit the fact that it is meaningful and worthy and even important as a work of art. That's kind of the point of a "Canon" - that it's removed from the idea of mere personal taste and raised up to some abstract idea of "this is what our society considered meaningful at this time."

I mean, this is what makes this all-male Canon so bloody dangerous - the idea that only white males are capable of making Great Art.

Isn't that the point of a Critic as opposed to a casual Fan - that they go beyond "I like this" or "I don't like this" to try and impose some order and meaning onto this sea of cultural product?

Or perhaps I've absorbed too much in the way of the idea of standards from art or literary or other forms of criticism - music always seems to be different from other artforms in that way.

Can I just ask, who brought "this is the canon" to the table here? Pitchfork, or the people who don't like this list?

I think it was Haagen-Daas.

I think that the moment you start making statements like "These are the Top 200 albums of..." you are making an attempt at claiming some kind of canonical status.

PFork's cultural uniformity/bias/skew is another matter. The culture they represent is a niche and therefore at least passively exclusionary. They aren't Music In General, they're PFork indie. So it's appropriate for them to represent a somewhat narrow range of cultural viewpoints. The tendency of niche cultures to skew this way or that, demographically, is not a problem. I'm not even saying they should be 50/50 male/female, necessarily. Just that 10/1 does surprise me a bit.

I think that the moment you start making statements like "These are the Top 200 albums of..." you are making an attempt at claiming some kind of canonical status.

I guess I'm questioning this because this list certainly isn't my canonical list of What Was Good this past decade, so I'm pretty much ignoring that aspect of it; I think the analysis of what ended up on it and where it placed in terms of sociological post-mortem is interesting but it also seems like this list is not the end-all, be-all of music this decade and needs to be combined with a myriad of other sources before one can start talking about The Canon, including other publications, the Mercury Prize shortlist, the Billboard charts, etc etc etc.

It's just this kind of build-up of frustration - as I said earlier - at seeing list after list being 90% male. And every one gets excused as "well, this is kind of a niche audience, so of course..." until you get to the point where you realise that there IS not a place where female artists seem to be getting rated as canonical until you go to places that are built to be pro-female by design.

This discussion is going round in circles at this point, because we are back to where we were yesterday again, talking about Plan B.

I just think that P4k have declared themselves to be this kind of bastion of What It Means To Be Indie circa the late 00s and they don't even accurately represent the state of their own self-proclaimed genre.

I'm not saying that it wouldn't be GREAT if the staff of these music organs were 50% female. I'm just saying that's not anywhere near the whole problem.

heh, this is the first list I've looked at tbh; I'm kind of shocked that 4 hip-hop artists made it but mostly shocked at The Knife because I didn't realize that Pitchfork loved them so much (ha I said both of these before so yes, circular talking)

I think that the moment you start making statements like "These are the Top 200 albums of..." you are making an attempt at claiming some kind of canonical status.

― Masonic Boom

PFork's relative prominence plays into it, too. It's not like their word is law or anything, but they are an influential critical/cultural voice.

I still disagree with you, MB, about the extent that one should force a kind of dispassionate distance on oneself when one's voice might be heard by the culture at large. It's fine to ask questions (like, "geez, why is my list all dudes?"), but at the same time, I think it's important to be true to yourself. Maybe I'd agree that Hounds of Love is an "important" album, but so is Thriller. And Universal Consciousness. And Born to Run. And Court and Spark, and Astral Weeks, and Odyshape, and Kind of Blue and Expensive Shit and so on. The job of the critic isn't simply to agree with some disembodied, objective voice that bloodlessly annoints "true greatness", but rather to express an individual point of view, a personal set of tastes and ideas.

kate, what would your top 20 look like?

Isn't that the point of a Critic as opposed to a casual Fan - that they go beyond "I like this" or "I don't like this" to try and impose some order and meaning onto this sea of cultural product?

i think impose is really the wrong word here. i do consider myself a feminist, but that doesn't mean i should be dishonest about my tastes-something that afaik is outside my control-in order for my list to reflect it. i think there are much more important ways to express your feminism than this silliness you're proposing.

In speaking of PFork's "niche", I wasn't excusing the massive (apparent) gender bias, MB.

The job of the critic isn't simply to agree with some disembodied, objective voice that bloodlessly annoints "true greatness", but rather to express an individual point of view, a personal set of tastes and ideas.

otm

Dude, you are preaching to the choir on that count. Hence why I liked the fact that Plan B *didn't* run best of lists or ratings. But it's that these things are being represented as some kind of subjectiveness when they are clearly so far up their own objectivities they don't even seem to admit it. There *IS* a difference between "I like this" and "This is Canon". If the latter, you DO need to ask "why is my list all dudes?"

And that's why a diversity of voices is important. I agree with you that there need to be more female voices within the community of criticism... BUT...

My (albeit limited) experience of the music press has been that it's actually somewhat *less* sexist than many other aspects of the music industry. It was *MUCH* easier for me to get a place as a female music writer (even before I got the Everett True stamp of approval) than it was, say, to get a place as a female musician or female songwriter or female DJ or some other more active and public-facing role.

I don't know if that is true for other women. I don't know if it's indicative of the scarcity value of female voices in music criticism or indicative of what direction mine own talents lie. And you can dismiss my experience with "that's not the experience of most women" like you did yesterday.

I mean, maybe this is the point of a good editor - to balance all the individuals making their scribbled lists so that you get a balanced viewpoint. (That was certainly the way that Plan B operated.)

But I *DO* believe that as a Critic - or even as a *serious* music fan, you do have to ask these questions and challenge those boundaries. Otherwise, how on earth would you ever grow, as a music fan or as a human being?

im not sure if ur against The Canon or canons in general.

MB: I didn't mean to dismiss yr experience yesterday, just to draw a line between individual experience and broad statements about the way things are. Sorry if I came across as belittling or diminishing what you had to say.

FWIW I don't think that PFork presents their list as an inviolable canon. Sure, it's gonna be received that way, at least by some, but they're reasonably humble about it. The whole thing seems framed by an admission of subjectivity, at least to me.

Neither am I, really. x-post

idk, read anything about lists to see why the mediocre rises to the top as here. it is interesting that the lowest common denominator is what it is at p4k, that beeing said. possibly critics internalize the canon as they perceive it (ie vote for "what's important").

cf the 'white ribbon' thread title: feels like classic even as you're watching it. not 'feels like a good film' but 'feels like a film that will be deemed good'.

Maybe relevant?

What the PnJ results would look like if only women voted.
Pazz and Jop 2004: If Only Women Voted

what's kinda crazy abt this discussion is how ppl insist on viewing pitchfork as some kind of music-crit death star, when all they actually do is review 5 records a day and have a really great marketing department.

Those are relevant, and interesting. At least as much for the discussion they generate as for the results themselves.

I feel you, cad, but I can't imagine arguing that PFork isn't influential. Like maybe even 70s Rolling Stone influential.

yeah i would never argue that it's not influential but i think there's a huge gap between its self-presentation and perceptions of it. smartest thing they ever did was not add user comments.

kate, what would your top 20 look like?

― Ømår Littel (Jordan), Tuesday, October 6, 2009 12:29 PM (54 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i also would like to know.

snap

I would have to give a lot more consideration and time and looking through my record collection than I am able to give during boring downtime at work.

these lists all end up looking the same because sure, maybe everyone's top ten picks only have two or three of the "usual suspects" compared with a bunch of relative obscurities, but then everyone probably has different obscurities and probably mostly the same picks from the more popular pool. so you end up with everyone "agreeing" that kid a is the definitive album of the oughts.

My top 20 list at this point is overwhelming female, I think. I don't know if there was sexual bias, but I was shocked that Neko Case didn't place higher (and more often), no Rilo Kiley that I noticed (could've been far up on the list), no Dixie Chicks/Carrie Underwood/Taylor Swift/Little Big Town (tho as Tim noted, country in general has issues, and IIRC Miranda Lambert and Loretta Lynn both were listed? Or maybe Lynn was just listed on the singles list, when she dueted with Jack White, which might be an entire other issue), Beth Orton, Cat Power, Kathleen Edwards, Laura Marling, Regina Spektor (was there really not a single Spektor album?), the Yeah Yeah Yeah's poor placement, the Gossip, Amy Winehouse (Still blown away by her non-inclusion), Kelly Clarkson, Pink, Rihanna, Noisettes, Pretty Girls Make Graves.

And that's sticking to the genres that readily come to mind as being relevant (theoretically or actually so) to the PFM aesthetic.

(Though I did earlier post a list of albums I would at least have to give consideration to above.)

I would want to be perverse and put Britney Spears' Blackout as the album of the decade on so many levels.

snap

― pfunkboy (Herman G. Neuname), Tuesday, October 6, 2009 1:28 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it wasn't meant to be a snap. i honestly would like to know.

mordy i would just say that for a lot of the examples you gave pfork has been pretty consisting in maybe liking them but not loving them--i was surprised that for neko case records only blacklisted made it, i thought they loved fox confessor--but other than that, they've never expressed more than like standard approval of pretty girls make graves, amy winehouse as an albums artist, yyy's albums after fever to tell, etc. etc.

also like kelly c. and rihanna where way the hell up there on the tracks list--i don't think it's insane for an indie rock reviews site to not rate them as albums artists.

(Though I did earlier post a list of albums I would at least have to give consideration to above.)

but most of the albums you posted were in the list, just not in the top 20.

Yeah, just noting that it's possible to stay within the P4k aesthetic and rank female artists near the top of the list. My own list will, I'm guessing, be predominantly female artists. "never expressed more than like standard approval" is maybe worth looking at closer, tho, maybe? Like, why not?

it wasn't meant to be a snap. i honestly would like to know.

i was meaning snap as in "me too"

I think that's an unanswerable question, Mordy. Why should PFork staff be fond of Amy Winehouse or Pretty Girls Make Graves? We can justify our love/respect for things, but that doesn't mean that other people have to love/respect them in the same way. Personally, I hate Pretty Girls Make Graves, and I don't think that my distaste is worth any particularly close examination.

mordy yeah maybe--someone could go read the reviews. i remember they did have specific issues with the amy winehouse record, mostly because i really love that record. pretty girls make graves were basically an a++ emo band. kind of gets into personal taste because ultimately most of the list was created by the votes of what, 30 people max?

like yeah i do strongly doubt we could find evidence of gender bias at work tbh

Huh, that actually is an accepted definition of "snap," according to Urbandictionary.com, but it doesn't appear until the second page.

yes how shocking that the dixie chicks, taylor swift and miranda lambert didn't make the pitchfork end of decade list. i remember when they reviewed all the albums by those artists and gave them high ratings. stunning.

Yeah, I really have no clue if there's systematic lowering of grades for female artists. And if there is, I have no idea what kind of bias that exposes. Like someone mentioned above, different genres are gender-coded differently, and there could be any number of issues in there. Do country website round-ups (I know a couple ILXors contribute to those) rank female artists much higher than male artists? Is the RS list going to feature Dylan/Bruce/Radiohead in the top 3 spot?

XP yeah, that's why I noted there's a genre issue there.

guys, it's not gender bias, it's genre bias. there is plenty of fawning words for neko case's work in the new pornos (as well as one of her albums placing) and they've long been head over heels for annie & robyn. relax.

Yeah, I really have no clue if there's systematic lowering of grades for female artists.

i mean can we just get baseline agreement that is does not happen?

*that this

I can't imagine that it's true.

This is rapidly devolving from an interesting conversation into painful concern-trolling. Can we not generate diabolical active conspiracies to rail against? The actual passive reality is hard enough to resolve without chasing windmills as part of the process.

Can't post at length on bberry but the most salient recent pts seem to be

- kate on editorship - if pfork has any pretences to being more than a ghetto/niche site then this is evidence that it needs a wider variety of voices; I don't believe necessarily male or female but certainly more who are prepared to look beyond the white indie male canon (I'm aware it has like a couple of these already, and no coincidence that tom e, tim f and david d are like the only readable ppl on the site)
- whether or not pfork wants to be more than a niche - contenderizet frustratingly otm re its influence. If we and it accept that it's just an indie niche, it should not have that level of cultural tastemaking influence. At all.

Yeah, I was throwing that out there as what this isn't. It's not conscious. It's probably built into the genre codes and idk, maybe for some people the male voice sounds more important/significant (maybe going back to Dylan being rated over Boez or whatever). My only point was that they could've clearly included more female artists. It's not like the artists/albums don't exist.

How does p2k singles list compare with albums list for gender stuff?

there's a pretty good reason why Dylan is being rated over Baez. I'll let you guess what the reason is.

i always lol when i read something (not necessarily on pitchfork, though i think i read this re: rilo kiley once on the site) that dismisses a female artist as being too "lilith fair" or something. i'm almost positive i've read that kate bush or nina nastasia or vashti bunyan, even. i mean a lot of music with "softer" aspects is just totally disrespected, on both sides of the coin, but it's a little tougher for women.

lex i don't really know what you're saying except that you don't like pfork except for when ppl you know write for it?

lol jon lewis why don't you go see for yourself?

I don't want to get all critical kung fu out (I try to save that shit for school), but our critical methodologies for evaluating value aren't immune from gender considerations. Oh god this is becoming a retread of a popist/rockist argument how did i get sucked into another one of these. For what it's worth, I don't give a shit about how many female artists are on P4k's list. It's a boring list, non representative of the kinds of stuff I like, and for me to care about how many female artists are on it, I'd have to first care about anything that's on it.

maybe going back to Dylan being rated over Boez or whatever

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_7HIPu3-ElDI/SOIY6KQO1wI/AAAAAAAAAF8/pjhTt5sIn0I/s400/DEFENSA+BOEZ.jpg

Pitchfork's top 20 tracks:

20. The Walkmen
"The Rat"
[Record Collection; 2004]

19. R. Kelly
"Ignition (Remix)"
[Jive/BMG; 2002]

18. Hercules and Love Affair
"Blind"
[DFA/Mute; 2008]

17. Annie
"Heartbeat"
[679; 2004]

16. The Rapture
"House of Jealous Lovers"
[DFA; 2002]

15. The Knife
"Heartbeats"
[Rabid/Mute; 2002]

14. Jay-Z
"99 Problems"
[Roc-A-Fella; 2003]

13. LCD Soundsystem
"Losing My Edge"
[DFA; 2002]

12. OutKast
"Hey Ya!"
[LaFace/Arista; 2003]

11. Gnarls Barkley
"Crazy"
[Downtown/Warner; 2005]

10. Arcade Fire
"Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)"
[Merge; 2004]

9. Animal Collective
"My Girls"
[Domino; 2009]

8. Radiohead
"Idioteque"
[Capitol; 2000]

7. Missy Elliott
"Get Ur Freak On"
[Elektra; 2001]

6. Yeah Yeah Yeahs
"Maps"
[Interscope; 2003]

5. Daft Punk
"One More Time"
[Virgin; 2000]

4. Beyoncé [ft. Jay-Z]
"Crazy in Love"
[Columbia/Sony; 2003]

3. M.I.A. [ft. Bun B and Rich Boy]
"Paper Planes (Diplo Remix)"
[XL/Interscope; 2007]

2. LCD Soundsystem
"All My Friends"
[DFA/EMI; 2007]

1. OutKast
"B.O.B."
[LaFace/Arista; 2000]

So 6 of 20 in the singles list?

ftr that LCD Soundsystem song eats dog balls

which one

haha "All My Friends", oops

i always lol when i read something ... that dismisses a female artist as being too "lilith fair" or something. i'm almost positive i've read that kate bush or nina nastasia or vashti bunyan, even.

― omar little

Well, to be fair, a lot of male music gets dismissed for being "too jockish" or "for frat boys". It's basically the same complaint (that the thing in question is gender/culture coded in a way that is boring or even offensive), just broken out for use in different contexts.

At PFork, I suppose it's really just a way to say "not indie enough" (too ordinary, suburban, mom & dad, etc).

When was LCD Soundsystem dismissed for being too jockish?

So 6 of 20 in the singles list?

7 if you include Arcade Fire

Wasn't talking about LCD, Mordy. Think PFork most recently leveled the "fratboy" thing against a Bob Marley comp they were (the writer was) otherwise positive about.

lol jon lewis why don't you go see for yourself?

Bcuz cannot get away with looking at p4k at work at this particular moment.

k sorry i was harshin up there

"It's just this kind of build-up of frustration - as I said earlier - at seeing list after list being 90% male. And every one gets excused as "well, this is kind of a niche audience, so of course..." until you get to the point where you realise that there IS not a place where female artists seem to be getting rated as canonical until you go to places that are built to be pro-female by design."

I take it by "places" here you mean indie magazines or websites? And if so, then it is a niche audience. Let's not conflate music crit with indie crit.

Her complaint has general validity. The canon-forging (crowning?) critics' lists that get the most attention at year's end tend to be male-dominated in most genres. The tendency isn't confined to indie-land. Pazz n Jop voters seem to take pains to be inclusive/generalist, but still...

pazz n jop was created by a dude who dismissed the runaways as sluts so maybe his torch continues to be carried?

i think pazz n jop has the opposite problem, where old lechs vote for feist

"At PFork, I suppose it's really just a way to say "not indie enough" (too ordinary, suburban, mom & dad, etc)."

But ordinary suburban moms and dads listen to "indie" music. It's not like Kid A or OK Computer was just bought by the secret heads that are totally into this hermetic indie. Fuck, this stuff shows up in car commercials. I think we can stop pretending that it's not mainstream.

k i'm going to gently suggest that we not do the what is mainstream argument here

is feist hot?

the what is mainstream argument seems slightly less annoying than the current 'SEXISTS!~!!! SEXISTSSS!' argument

xpost

Always fascinated when gender comes up. Seems like it was such a part of indie discourse back in my youth ie 90s. Not always as much anymore.
I always think the phrase self-selecting doesn't quite nail it. Maybe self-reinforcing is better? I always seem to tell the same story on this issue: back when I was promoting shows in college our little organization was all of 3 guys. We never turned any females down, or anyone for that matter, yet we didnt have any in our group. At one point, a couple of females did want to join but they ended up not doing it, and even felt dissuaded by the gender imbalance. Yet we wanted them to join, and not because of our genitals but because we needed the help and they were cool people. Nobody was actively or passively trying to exclude or be excluded and yet it happened anyways (the only caveat we, two nice-guy hippies and a harmless house dj, stoners all, gave to any prospective members is "be ready to coil microphone cables").

Which is why sometimes it is really important to try and interrogate perceived imbalance. Its not about trying to prop up some false, rigged parity to satisfy "gender police" or something like that its more about making sure options are perceived as existing. so the whole "what percent of top 20 are female" is a bit of a distraction. more important is to try and see if there are certain roles that must be played (yes there are, but for both genders) and whether the hierarchy of those roles favors one gender or another.

as for me, given what i felt about music this decade, it was really the listener that was unfairly discriminated against.

on another note: r&b/pop production, is for the most part, ultra-fordist so I would imagine Usher should suffer just as much as Rihanna in the whole "don't write their own songs, can't program synths, etc" rockist discourse.

Lastly:
Fever Ray wuz robbed!

let's try to prove that the #1-selling album among women 25 - 40 in Shakopee, MN is Bat For Lashes

I will pay for gas if you drive.

But ordinary suburban moms and dads listen to "indie" music. It's not like Kid A or OK Computer was just bought by the secret heads that are totally into this hermetic indie. Fuck, this stuff shows up in car commercials. I think we can stop pretending that it's not mainstream.

― Giorgio Marauder (I eat cannibals

Since cannibals said it, and since I'm now safely insulated from cad's objection by several posts, it doesn't matter how popular indie gets or who listens to it. It's still (and inherently) coded as non-mainstream. This is, I think, a big part of comfort-indie's success -- and PFork's influence -- in the "we're all non-mainstream!" social climate that nabisco describes in his essay on the Decade In Indie.

i'm watchin you contenderizer!

Re: Shhh!

Self-selecting and therefore self-reinforcing?

Plus Fever Ray OTM.

well, in the case i described there was agency involved, eg girls not choosing to join, but because they didnt join the concept "girls can be part of this organization" never became established so other people coming along later who didnt know about this earlier choice may have never understood that the above statement is true.

I keep thinking that maybe Fever Ray suffered because of the lateness of the release but really I was a few months behind in May when I bought the album and I would hazard a guess that Pitchfork got to hear it before its March release date. WTF?

bitte orca and veckatimest came out way later than fever ray so i don't think it's that.

For what it's worth, it took FR quite a while to grow on me. I mean, I liked it at first, but was inclined to (partially) dismiss it as a pleasant but less-catchy Knife offshoot. I.e., really good mood/background music, but still... (This in spite of many warnings from other ILXors that real appreciation would likely take time.)

Maybe a lot of PF staffers never had that eventual "aha!" moment with it?

I guess I can see that album being a slow-grower if you're coming at it from the context of The Knife, but I instantly loved it.

Also, if I were making a short best of the decade list, I might be inclined to slight Fever Ray in favor of The Knife, who I still prefer, if only by a slight margin. Just to make room for other stuff...

except for if i had a heart which is so doomy and creepy and awesome, it kind of sounds to me like a less-rich version of silent shout. still great, but lacking something to take it to the next level (cue accusations of sexism).

The space is what makes it awesome IMO; if every song were as thick as most of the Silent Shout tracks it would basically just be another Knife album. I like that it dials back the danciness and operates much more in drama.

Having said that, Silent Shout is fucking brilliant, too.

xpost

maybe that is it - I liked them before the show, loved them afterwards - maybe if the US leg occured earlier in the year...

i really generally do not complain about these sorts of lists, especially since I am not the target audience... but my original statement stands.

yeah dan that's def. fair and accurate.

It's funny, when I think of albums I admire more than I like, the first one that leaps to mind is Speech Debelle; I think she nailed exactly what she was going for and did a fantastic job of it, but what she was going for was not something that I am particularly geeked to hear. It was a very pleasant album and I'm glad I bought it but I'm certain my wife will play it more than I will, and she NEVER plays any of my albums except for MIA and Santigold.

If I Had A Heart is the worst thing on the album and can't believe it was the lead single but the album is excellent anyway

there's a pretty good reason why Dylan is being rated over Baez. I'll let you guess what the reason is.

― Mr. Que, Tuesday, October 6, 2009 12:57 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

a penis?

jk

If I Had A Heart is the worst thing on the album and can't believe it was the lead single but the album is excellent anyway

That's crazy talk, the worst thing on the album is "It's Not Over".

Yeah, I might agree that Heart isn't the best song on the album, but it's far from the worst.

hoping you don't mean I'm Not Done xp

but seriously folks -- 1) i think contenderizer was upthread defending ppl's right to let their taste be, that if u move away from your taste for political concerns you're being dishonest somehow ... i dont get that. I have to say that while my taste for individual songs feels very immediate, natural & linked to who I am as a person, I can't say that my 'taste' is so rigidly linked to my sense of self ... records i liked a couple years ago ive since rejected, & oftentimes for much more arbitrary & random reasons than politically-related gender concerns.

if anything, i think my worldview can be kind of self-correcting ... if i spend a lot of time listening to a certain aesthetic worldview for a while, i'll get kinda tired of it & autocorrect ... & gender (largely unwittingly) figures into this ... i mean, i listen to some super-gay house music one minute, then super-masculine gangster rap the next, and like both of them, & see how they complement each other within a larger rubric of my taste ...

i think at some level ive never been super-confident in the idea of 'taste'. there's stuff im drawn towards, but really your 'taste' always requires conscious effort in order to be engaged. & taking into account gender issues happens as a part of who you are. claiming that sexism is already written into your world outlook (probably true) is fine, but denying that its something u can be aware of & dialogue with internally is nonsense, your taste can absolutely be affected by self reflection etc

That's all true. Taste changes all the time. Geeking out for a couple years on lo-fi garage punk has definitely whetted my appetite for more interesting production. Listening to doom and black metal for a couple years chased me into lo-fi garage punk in the first place. That kinda thing.

And I agree that people should think politically. If you suddenly notice that you only ever listen to duderock and become curious about the rest of the world, that's great. Open-mindedness is a plus. But I don't think that people should be shamed into thinking they shouldn't like what they do, or that some enjoyments are morally superior to others. I don't think there's anything wrong, for instance, with wholeheartedly loving "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah", regardless of the associations. (All apologies.)

And I don't think there's anything wrong with genuinely tending to prefer music made/sung by guys. Not necessarily, anyway.

i think ppl already DO think politically

but heres the thing ... its so much more complicated than just listening to more women. its more like, being open to other kinds of aesthetical concerns that tend to be bigger with female audiences, for example

one record i think pitchfork really shortchanged was that amy winehouse LP. that really seemed like a huge demographic crossover record in so many ways, a really central record to the 00s -- > it was indie, but it crossed over; soul revivalist dudes liked it, but it also had a contemporary vocalist who sang w/ contemporary slang & wasn't trying to sound like motown, but like herself; & she was big w/ both black & white (female) friends I had. Dudes didnt really get into it too much, but even chicks started dressing like her around here. She was pretty huge indie-wise among chicks i knew anyway.

& i didnt vote for it either. But i liked it, & all my female friends being into it was what led me to check for it. but a lil more self-awareness on my part -- not 'politicization of my tastes,' but just further reflection when considering my albums list - would have probably led to me including it. there are like 5000 records i heard this decade maybe, & which ones i decided to vote for is less about "ooh so honest & true to my taste" & more about a huge multitude of different factors & concerns when i was constructing it

agreed w/ that second paragraph. without getting too far into the tedious gender discussions here, to answer something kate posed earlier, i think the mark of a critic are his/her interesting thoughts and perspectives on whatever he is writing about, not the horizontal scope of their tastes.

xp

Went for Daft Punk, but this lacks almost all of the central UK albums of the decade. I mean, no Franz Ferdinand? WTF?

so basically i'd rather read someone who writes about (and listens to) primarily, say, R&B (or punk or whatever) with valuable opinions than someone with a super self-aware politically correct taste w/ nothing interesting to say

xp

the mark of a critic are is his/her

a few other points --

1) tom ewing made this point in his freakytrigger thing on up-and-coming music writers suggest to him by his networks online, but there werent too many women, and the women who WERE identified very very rarely identified simply as music writers -- music was something they wrote about, but it was part of a larger project

2) we still havent addressed the fact that female ARTISTS dont necessarily appeal to female CRITICS, that Usher might do better among a bunch of female critics, Kylie might do better among a bunch of male ones (& even better among a bunch of gay ones? another demographic whose aesthetic concerns impact any discussions of gender)

i dunno this is all super-complicated

True, deej, but the all-girl pazz & jop lists do seem to include at least a few more female artists. Which is what I'd expect. Not looking for any huge transformation. Not in the short run, anyway.

Agree with you on the importance of being open to multiple points of view and different ways of looking at art, even art you're already familiar with. Still hesitant about the idea that cultural breadth in one's taste is morally/politically laudable (implying as it does that narrowness is a moral fault). I know that's not what yr saying...

I can't say that my 'taste' is so rigidly linked to my sense of self ... records i liked a couple years ago ive since rejected, & oftentimes for much more arbitrary & random reasons than politically-related gender concerns.

arbitry random reasons > politically related ones

There's nothing I really love on this list:

Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion - Seems a bit manicured, and I'm not big on Beach Boys harmonies.
The Arcade Fire - Funeral - Seems kind of standard-issue indie rock.
The Avalanches - Since I Left You - Proves that one can combine lots of samples and still end up with boring instrumentals.
Daft Punk - Discovery - Seems a bit twee to really rock a dance floor.
Ghostface Killah - Supreme Clientele - Good, but seems dated for a 2000s list, a leftover from '90s hip hop.
Interpol - Turn On the Bright Lights - Takes derivative to a whole new level (see also: Strokes).
Jay-Z - The Blueprint - He seems a likeable guy, but his music is curiously bloodless.
The Knife - Silent Shout - Not sure when I'd be in the mood for something like this.

I could go on, but I'll spare you my snarky comments.

politically related ones

― samosa gibreel, Tuesday, October 6, 2009 4:59 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

i dont agree -- 'politically related' just means, like, 'i wonder why i havent ever paid attention to xyz...' & then u check it out. its not about being shamed by peta into checking animal collective or something

Daft Punk - Discovery - Seems a bit twee to really rock a dance floor.

funny, but ... this only makes sense if youve somehow managed to avoid a dancefloor w/ daft punk sometime in the last decade

Just had to jump in on the Fever Ray praise. It's my album of the year thus far; even better than the Pitchfork consesus picks, Bitte Orca and MPP, I think.

Don't forget that Grizzly Bear disc in your list of P4K "consensus picks."

9 years later still feel Avalanches LP is a super fun happy slide borderline masterpiece

I just heard it for the first time, thanks to the P4K list and the Lala sale.

It is v. good.

(and immediately accessible, which helps, given my shortened attention span)

& i didnt vote for it either. But i liked it, & all my female friends being into it was what led me to check for it. but a lil more self-awareness on my part -- not 'politicization of my tastes,' but just further reflection when considering my albums list - would have probably led to me including it. there are like 5000 records i heard this decade maybe, & which ones i decided to vote for is less about "ooh so honest & true to my taste" & more about a huge multitude of different factors & concerns when i was constructing it

deej i think you are totally right and yr other posts underscore why this is so complicated (and why i didn't wade in for quite a while) but i wanted to talk about this a bit more--like, any critical list-making activity is going to have its share of different factors and concerns, but i assume every critic approaches this differently. you seem to be saying that if you had weighed a certain factor more youd have voted for the amy winehouse album, but isn't it just as likely and valid that other critics, with their own priorities, would prefer to make this a more internalized exercise and not take a wider range of information into account? (and, say, not vote for the album in the exact scenario you lay out?)

9 years later still feel Avalanches LP is a super fun happy slide borderline masterpiece

haha 9 years later still feel happy I never spent any money on or an appreciable amount of time listening to Avalanches

win-win!

dan otm

So how is this thread not overlapping with the other PFM thread? Are the joeks funnier here?

one thread just wasn't enough

Daft Punk - Discovery - Seems a bit twee to really rock a dance floor.

funny, but ... this only makes sense if youve somehow managed to avoid a dancefloor w/ daft punk sometime in the last decade

― xhuxk mangione (deej), Tuesday, October 6, 2009 6:05 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

Daft Punk - Discovery - Seems a bit twee to really rock a dance floor.

funny, but ... this only makes sense if youve somehow managed to avoid a dancefloor w/ daft punk sometime in the last decade

― xhuxk mangione (deej)

one more time...

funny, but ... this only makes sense if youve somehow managed to avoid a dancefloor w/ daft punk sometime in the last decade

serious question: o. nate who the fuck are you?

leading prediction: an alien

but not a robot alien, like a gooey alien. robot aliens i'm sure get down to discovery like weekly.

For the record, The Hounds of Love is actually one of my top 1 or 2 albums of all time.

funny, but ... this only makes sense if youve somehow managed to avoid a dancefloor w/ daft punk sometime in the last decade

i think the twee thing is generally funny cuz daft punk are pretty twee which tends to be downplayed round here

but the idea that this gets in the way of them rocking a dancefloor is, yknow, 100% 180 degrees rong

Other music that has been too twee to rock dancefloors:

Disco

House

i was wondering where twee and disco intersect. i always saw 'digital love' as a throwback rather than a twee anthem, though i've heard it used as the latter at indie clubs.

I think in popular consciousness disco is considered pretty twee, or at least twee crossed with camp divatude, and unless you care about such things the difference between the two is probably considered unimportant.

e.g. "You Make Me Feel Might Real", "Don't Leave Me This Way", "Rasputin", "I Will Survive", "Young Hearts Run Free".

i dunno i kinda think of twee as being a lot smaller in scope but maybe i dont know twee like i thought i did ... i kinda assume the diff between the two is pretty wide! like twee is never about big confident diva-esque wailing

Maybe I Don't Know Twee Like I Thought I Did

A Novel

by Deej

short novel

lolz

And I don't think there's anything wrong with genuinely tending to prefer music made/sung by guys. Not necessarily, anyway.

no of course not - but

1) on an individual level, if you're a critic you should be questioning why you respond to certain things all the time - and questioning why you don't espond so easily to other things, and maybe pushing yourself a lil bit in directions you're not comfortable in. i agree w/most of deej's points on the construction of taste here; there's also the issue that some genres need a lot more investment and understanding of their rules and values than others. as a listener it's easy to fall back on your comfort food, but - as i hope everyone here has experienced - it can be so worthwhile teaching yourself to appreciate something which you don't initially get. a basic example would be hip-hop for me - i didn't grow up immersed in it at all, but from the initial gateway songs throughout the 90s to being led more into via the r&b crossover to being able to delve as deeply into it as i wanted via the internet, i've gained such a great appreciation for it - and these days it's become a comfort food.

this applies equally to "female-coded" music. and what i think when i look at a list as homogeneous and predictable as the pfork one is that not enough contributors to it are interested in doing this.

2) on an editorial level you should be trying to ensure a diversity of tastes and value sets being represented, certainly if you're as significant a cultural arbiter as pfork is. nothing wrong w/one individual writer preferring dudes. a whole lot wrong with the vast majority of them preferring dudes.

is this ^^^^^^^^^^ dude really lecturing people about not exploring music outside of their comfort zones?

you have an issue w/that?

emphasis on the "this dude" - got no problem w/ people exploring music outside of their comfort zones

you have an issue w/me?

you've earned your reputation on this site due to your loud dismissals of genres you have no interest in ever liking and artists you've never heard.

you obviously don't know me. luckily, others do.

Ahem lex I love you but with respect to indie rock he's technically correct.

Not that i cry myself to sleep every night over how you pay disrespect to indie rock.

my dislike of most - not even all - indie rock does not mean that i don't push myself out of my musical comfort zone regularly. it's got nothing to do w/the points i was making.

out of curiosity, what's a more recent example of you getting into something you initially disliked?

steve why do you always fucking nitpick everything i say rather than addressing the points i made? it's about stuff i initially didn't "get", not stuff i dislike, so - country, probably.

you don't think it's theoretically possible that many of the p4k voters push themselves outside of their musical comfort zones, listen to about as much rap and female-produced music as you listen to indie rock - and just happen to like animal collective more?

(cause I'm pretty sure that's the case for a lot of em)

I dunno, I think trying to compare the open-mindedness of different people's tastes is a nigh on impossible exercise.

Like, I think the standard response w/r/t music we don't find interesting is to think "I "get" it but I don't like it."

I don't think there are many people who openly dismiss mainstream country who would allow "Oh but to be honest I'm sure this is actually really interesting and sophisticated music, I just haven't gotten my head around it."

More often the reverse is true - there's a kind of "I see right through what this music is trying to do" reaction, as if all this music we don't like is obviously really boring and shallow and we have luckily escaped being hoodwinked by it.

Usually it's only after we successfully come around to a style or an artist or whatever that we go "oh yeah, I totally didn't get that before."

The main exception i can think of is where people you respect are into something, such that when you're underwhelmed you give it the benefit of the doubt and think "i don't get it." For some people, "people they respect" = the canon, so they're more inclined to say "I don't get Bob Dylan" than "I get Bob Dylan but I don't like him."

But all of the above is why I tend to think that the best negative reviews - "I get it but I don't like it" - are disappointed reviews, reviews where people thoroughly understand the kind of aesthetic the artist is pitching for and so can measure very precisely the falling-short that has occurred.

Interestingly, Joe Tangari (pitchfork writer) is kind of my idea of someone who does seem to have generally wide-ranging ears, picking up on stuff across an impossibly broad range of genres, genres which don't even necessarily share much in the way of similar aesthetic impulses even*, and I feel musically narrow-minded by comparison.

*Just as there as an "indie mindset" that can embrace folk, punk, instrumental music, certain kinds of hip hop, certain kinds of dance music etc, I feel like I have a "dance-pop" mindset which means that often the kind of qualities I'm reacting to in pop, R&B, hip hop, dance music etc. are really very similar, such that for me listening to all these styles requires less open-mindedness as a listener than might be assumed.

1) on an individual level, if you're a critic you should be questioning why you respond to certain things all the time - and questioning why you don't espond so easily to other things, and maybe pushing yourself a lil bit in directions you're not comfortable in. ... it can be so worthwhile teaching yourself to appreciate something which you don't initially get.

this applies equally to "female-coded" music. and what i think when i look at a list as homogeneous and predictable as the pfork one is that not enough contributors to it are interested in doing this.

2) on an editorial level you should be trying to ensure a diversity of tastes and value sets being represented, certainly if you're as significant a cultural arbiter as pfork is. nothing wrong w/one individual writer preferring dudes. a whole lot wrong with the vast majority of them preferring dudes.

I totally agree w/100% of these two points.

And no, I don't think it's ironic coming from The Lex at all - if you spent any time at all listening to him or reading his work instead of kneejerk shouting at him, you'd realise that although yes, he does frequently write off the entire tiny birdbath genre of whiteboy indie guitarrock, his exploration of the 90% of current music that *isn't* the indie birdbath is pretty open-minded.

x-posts coz I knew this would get long...

Going back to something raised earlier, which might be tangential now...

All I can do is offer mine own experience and the experience of friends.

Someone back there said that they never *meant* for their organisation to be all-dude, they wanted to get girls onboard, but the girls were turned off by the all-male environment. I don't think that men can ever really realise JUST HOW HARD it is to be the First Girl In The Room. And just how self-reinforcing all-male environments really are. You may not intend for them to be intimidating, but it remains so - even someone like me, who has brass balls (to make up for my lack of flesh ones) finds it incredibly intimidating to try to enter into an all male environment. Simply the fact that you see no other women doing something makes one feel like women will not be welcomed, either actively or passively.

This is something that comes up again and again in a different setting - a resource for women in tech that I read - it talks about how important female role models are. I don't think that it's necessarily that the female psyche *needs* role models more than the male - it's just that males ones are so more readily available in every single field.

One wants to conserve one's energy for things you know you have the *possibility* of attaining. To give you an example - walking into a new club last week, I thought "hrmm, nice place, good crowd, close to home, I would really like to DJ here some time." But then I looked up on the stage and in the DJ booth, and there wasn't one single woman up there, all night. My band's manager was all "oh, you should totally ask!" Thing is, there's that voice in the back of my mind - and I suspect in the back of a lot of women's minds, conscious or unconscious - that thinks "I don't see any other women doing it. I wonder if there's a reason for that." And it's so hard to shake that idea that they won't even listen to your mix let alone book you because clearly, EVIDENTLY, they don't book women. (And this is reinforcing itself yet again, when you ask, and they just never get back to you - I mean, a male DJ would probably think "eh, my tune selection wasn't that great, my beatmatching was a little off, I'll work on that and try to improve" - but, as a woman, you're constantly wondering and second-guessing "is it because I'm a woman?")

So when you're sitting there as the booker or the editor or the promoter and you're wondering why women don't approach your organisation or don't join or even ask - think about the message that you are giving out - through your all male lineups, or your all male lists.

I recognise, from my continued fairly lonely existence on this forum (and others) that I am (perceived as?) an oddity for participating in this culture as a woman. But if a brass-balled, elephant-hide woman like me has gender-based doubts and insecurities - what does that say about the participation levels of girls who *aren't* freaks like me?

Felt like I should chime in since I'm one of those elusive Women Who Write for Pitchfork. I don't know how representative I am of female listeners, female rock critics or even female Pfork writers (prob not much of any of them), but...

While compiling my own Pfork decade lists, the sex of the musicians never factored--not once!--and was in no way a conscious part of my selection. I've never really had a particular bias towards male or female musicians or vocalists (though funny thing--I've known tons of guys who prefer female voices rather than the other way around!). I voted according to my own taste, (which will, of course, be somewhat gendered, but ultimately isn't a lot different from men who share my socio-economic background, listening habits) and of Pfork's top 20 , Spoon, the Strokes, the White Stripes, the Knife and Panda Bear were in my own top 20. I had Interpol, LCD, Kanye, Arcade Fire and Radiohead lower on my list. I'm sure (I hope) that the other female voters in this poll approached it the same way. I wish Ys had landed higher. Not because Joanna Newsom's a woman, but because it's an extraordinary record. And it probably would have placed higher if there hadn't been a lot of voters who prefer Milk-Eyed Mender.

You'd have to get the number from someone who actually knows, but I'd estimate somewhere between 5 and 8 of this list's listmakers were women. Which totally sucks, of course. But I doubt more women voting would have much changed the outcome because like all strong publications, Pfork does have something of an institutional voice and taste, and the people who gravitate to the site share that to some degree. That said, I know the editors have worked in recent years for greater diversity of taste, which includes writers who specialize in chart pop, hip-hop, metal, world music, etc, and more women. I was recruited (yeah, like a girl I waited to be asked) and am very much a part-time rock critic as I've got several unrelated gigs going. But I do write up a number of records that don't seem to interest other Pfork staffers and, thus, *might* not otherwise get covered (though my preference for these doesn't seem particularly gendered).

I wish I knew why more women aren't getting paid to write about music. Dude culture's part of it for sure (but that's also true of law and finance and a million other occupations that women have come to be reasonably well-represented in), and I definitely agree that some aspects (apples to oranges listmaking, assigning numbers to records) are probably less appealing to female critics (for whatever reason!). They are to me, anyway. But yeah, we shouldn't even have to have this discussion in 2009.

Yeah, see that's what I keep trying to say. People here are conflating two different issues. (Though similar forces may be behind them, they are different issues.)

Point 1) canonnical lists are overtly slanted towards male artists

Point 2) it would be good for many, many reasons if there were more females writing for the organs that produced said canonical lists

HOWEVER, fixing Point 2 by itself is not BY ITSELF going to fix Point 1

And if you think that it is, then you're falling into that "only female writers can write about female artists" bullshit which only leads to ghettoisation and pidgeonholing and all that other bad, bad stuff.

I've mainly been concerned with point #2, cuz it seems like the only thing that be reasonably addressed in a direct manner. I.e., it's something that any editor can (and should) do something about -- right now.

Changing what people/critics enjoy, respect, and put on lists is a much bigger and more complicated task. Moreover, it's not one I'd feel good about "taking on" even if I thought I should. And I don't. I'm more inclined to think that the imbalances reflected in cultural tastes can and will change slowly over time, and that the best we can do as individuals is to behave thoughtfully/responsibly in the short term (i.e., hire more women writers).

I've never thought or said that PFork's having a more gender-balanced writing staff would necessarily result in a more gender-balanced list. Not right away, anyway. (I mean, I think it probably would, though the immediate difference would likely be more subtle than profound. Again, see all-girl Pazz n Jop lists...) I just think that it's a shame that PFork doesn't have many girls writing. It strikes me as strange and depressing, especially given how achingly, self-consciously PC their general tone can be. That said, I understand it. Music crit is and long has been a boy's club.

cricket, thanks for chiming in--do u mind indicating who u are?

it's jessica harvell iirc

How hot is she in person, I'll tell you what

And lex, you've totally earned your rep as an at least occasionally narrow-minded defender of the music you think is right and proper. You may not be the lex you once were (dunno, been away for a while), but you have in the past been rather famously frustrating in this respect -- though not quite to Geir levels. This isn't an attack, you're generally a very interesting poster, and I don't think any of the light mockery above was anything but fond. Not to mention fair...

Plus yeah -- thanks for the perspective, cricket.

when i disdain indie rock it's "narrow-minded", when others admit their prejudice against non-indie rock genres it's just their honest taste. right.

I would think that the details of your celebrity would be a point of pride, but what do I know?

when i disdain indie rock it's "narrow-minded", when others admit their prejudice against non-indie rock genres it's just their honest taste. right.

No, they're narrow-minded too! Everyone's narrow-minded about SOMETHING (for example, as far as I'm concerned the vast majority of country music can go fuck itself).

it's kind of annoying when i spend most of my time on ilx repping for and talking in depth about music i like, to be characterised as narrow-minded just b/c the one genre i openly disdain happens to be the critical mainstream. and i only disdain it b/c i like it on the rare occasion when it's done well!

lex i know yr critical faculties are sharp but i would suggest this is a perception issue based on you regularly wading into indie rock and pfork threads with no purpose beyond expressing your disdain.

I suspect people are less bothered by people dismissing entire swathes of music than their tendencies to bang on about their disdain, unprompted, over and over and over

i think i've done more in this thread than dismiss and disdain. as have kate, tim, deej, contenderizer, dan &c.

pfork is for better or worse a cultural arbiter beyond "indie rock" - if it wasn't, i wouldn't be confronted w/it on a regular basis and i wouldn't have to think about it ever.

lol yes you have in this thread but that's because this thread has gone off on some pretty major tangents iirc.

lex have you softened yr position since you wrote this last year:

"when i first went to university i made a real effort for maybe 5 months to get into the old music i thought/was told i "should" like and i'm not joking, it almost all sucked...dylan, stones, beatles, bowie. dreadful! so many hours wasted trying to get into them. those 5 months may have put me off delving into the past 4 life."

it's not the only genre you openly dislike tbf lex

^^^^ this this this this this this this

And the fact is that yr generally pretty funny about it, lex (see above quote). It's part of yr brand, and I don't see anyone really hating on your for it -- not on this thread, anyway.

hang on, my experience of actively trying to get into stuff i didn't know about is "narrow-minded" now? oh, fuck you all. well done especially to the people whose only contributions here are snarking at me rather than responding to any of the points raised.

yeah let's make this a thread about how Lex dislikes stuff, that will be original AND productive

xp: okay too late

I know how we can settle this. FIGHT! FIGHT!

Preferably involving Turkish Oil Wrestling, please.

sorry lex, i wasnt having a go at you, i was just making a point.

lex i know yr critical faculties are sharp but i would suggest this is a perception issue based on you regularly wading into indie rock and pfork threads with no purpose beyond expressing your disdain.

― call all destroyer, woensdag 7 oktober 2009 16:12 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

Well this, basically, makes me agree with most here on how you got your 'reputation'. I wouldn't say you're narrow minded, but I have shaken my head on more than one occassion seeing you entering a thread about some band or genre you just do not like, and we all understand, but you seem to be there only to express your disgust of that music. It's not narrow minded, rather than 'pointless'.

(and I'm NOT joining in on a hate march here or anything Lex, please believe)

what a disaster for the canon

my experience of actively trying to get into stuff i didn't know about is "narrow-minded" now?

― lex pretend

No, dude, it's yr experience of actively (and hilariously) slagging off like 90% of the music in the world. With special bonus points for the casual dismissal of sacred cows in a manner that makes die-hards see spots. All of this is to yr credit.

when i went to university i made no real effort at all to get into dylan, stones, beatles, bowie etc. but i didn't have that same feeling that i should, or maybe i just found that i could dismiss this as i felt comfortable enough with the relative broadness of contemporary music love. i would say i've become more...appreciative of that older canon stuff as i've aged (matured? hmm) tho not to the extent that it figures in my regular listening much, just that i'm more willing to see why they're good (when they were/are good).

so ignoring them at the time as i did may seem narrow-minded, just as a blanket dismissal (at least one beyond 'tried it, don't get it/not for me') of them might despite the initial gesture of being prepared to give them a chance could be considered the opposite.

just picking up on this because it struck as interesting if not particularly relevant to the main topic.

Well, you're getting old, and "contemporary music" will become Old Music soon enough.

Not to put to fine a point on it, but the most usual complaint about canon (from those that I hear, at least) is NOT about what is included, but more about what seems to be almost deliberately EXCLUDED. Just sayin'

No, dude, it's yr experience of actively (and hilariously) slagging off like 90% of the music in the world

bowie/beatles/stones = 90% of the music in the world now?

ppl who diss the many artists and genres i love don't seem to get this sort of treatment.

I don't notice people coming on the threads for music you love and mentioning the "pity w/a tinge of contempt" they feel for people who like that music. Although being plenty narrow-minded and not actually reading those threads myself, how would I know?

Geir does, kinda. That's a whole nother ball game tho really. xp

Not to put to fine a point on it, but the most usual complaint about canon (from those that I hear, at least) is NOT about what is included, but more about what seems to be almost deliberately EXCLUDED.

otm. it's the LACK of many artists that i consider to be the elite of this decade that galls most than the inclusion of whatever band i dislike or don't care about. where are mariah carey, ellen allien, ce'cile, ashlee simpson, taylor swift, teedra moses, busy signal, young dro? where is the dubstep and grime and dancehall and techno and house and teenpop and funky?

Yeah, I can't imagine someone turning up on ILM slagging off rap as a genre and getting clowned out of here

xp x 3

It really comes as a shock to you that loudly slagging Bowie/Beatles/Stones (etc. -- you forgot the very extensive "etc.") earned you a rep as a narrow-minded shit-stirrer on an indie-centric crit site? Really really? Cuz, man, I thought that was the whole point. Color me confused.

I wasn't aware that ILM was indie-centric.

If anything, in its original incarnation as the discussion board for Freaky Trigger, it was POP centric.

we could go on all day abt how sincere it is, but lol @ indie rock is pretty much the #1 conceit on this board.

the whole point of ilx for me when i joined is that it WASN'T just another indie-centric crit site - it was a place where all the genres i loved were held in as high esteem, or higher.

actually that's another thing that galls about the pfork-and-beyond critical consensus @ the end of this decade: it seems to be a total regression given all the pro-pop, pro-r&b, pro-hip-hop, pro-dance critical thought of the past few years. so many arguments made so eloquently for a shift in critical assumptions, and then...we get the same ol' same ol' bullshit.

let's not forget that according to those meddling poll results, ILM's favourite album of then 90s (and all time) is 'Loveless' and 'Kid A' won the 00-04 mega-poll.

that doesn't mean ILM hasn't traditionally been more popist (with Wu-Tang and Daft Punk at #2 in those polls/lists respectively) than most channels but it does always serve as a reminder of what i think is ILM's default direction (coming FROM indie) if not current position

Yeah, but wasn't that same bunch of polls that revealed Loveless to be the best album revealed Britney Spears as being best single?

Yeah, but "lol @ indie rock" is (or at least can be) a very indie thing to do. The non-indie thing is to just talk about something else. Indie gets a LOT of play around here -- at least it always has during the four or five years I've been reading/posting. Endless Vampire Weekend & AnCo threads, endless PFork threads, tons of Sonic Youth, Radiohead & MBV stans. Liking pop singles and indie albums is a TOTALLY indie stance. I think y'all doth protest too much...

yeah you're right obv, i guess my point is more that this is a shitty place to be an earnest new indie poster

louis ears burnin'

i think tons of lex's & MB's points are right on, but seriously looking @ the p4k albums + singles lists, for an indie-centric site the two lists taken together aren't even that bad! r&b & hip-hop (as well as female artists) have a pretty solid presence in the singles list, especially in the top 20. the albums list yea could use some work but i wouldn't call it a "total regression given all the pro-pop, etc" critical thought this decade

I mean, I totally feel lex on his last point, but fundamentally indie-oriented critics and fans collectively made a big point of embracing pop, hip-hop, r&b and dance music over the course of the past decade. That's a huge part of the indie narrative. Doesn't make the basic POV any less indie though, and it's totally unsurprising that this should show through in the end.

the characterisation of r&b and pop as genres which throw up brilliant singles but no worthwhile albums is the no 1 way of implying that they're not important, significant genres compared to indie rock, and not to be taken as seriously in terms of their form or values

fundamentally indie-oriented critics and fans collectively made a big point of embracing pop, hip-hop, r&b and dance music over the course of the past decade

well that's the point. it feels like lip service. it doesn't really show.

So, erm, basically, even if your tastes mature or grow or change, you are forever tainted with this "indie" association? Is it like Catholicism or something, that you can take the kid out of indie, but you can't take the indie out of the kid?

That seems pretty, um, ridiculous to me. If a genre has become that amourphous or all encompassing.

and this brings up another problem with my idea of trying to come up with a personal "best of" or "favourite of" for the 00s. My tastes have grown and changed and widened over the past 10 years. Am I supposed to be looking at "stuff I rated at the time" in early parts of the 00s, or "stuff that I rate now" - knowing full well that my tastes in music *do* change and in another 10 years, I'll have a completely different view of what the 00s were about?

Ten years is a long time. And I know that I certainly don't have enough perspective on the 00s yet to come up with any "best of" conclusions about the decade.

it seems to be a total regression given all the pro-pop, pro-r&b, pro-hip-hop, pro-dance critical thought of the past few years. so many arguments made so eloquently for a shift in critical assumptions, and then...we get the same ol' same ol' bullshit.

I think this point was covered on the other thread, but the list does make sense considering these advances. The number of early 2000's albums is indicative of it (though there are other reasons such as the further back in the past can = staying power/canon). The narrower taste of the early part of the decade wrapped up in the pre-mp3 craze colluding with the more major-label indie aspect having hot sex with the indie-kids-have-grown-up-and-broadened-tastes-mentality all means that everything is much more niche now than it was then, so sacred cows in recent times are harder to agree on.

That said, I'm coming from that being pretty close to my experience, and the p4k top 20 oddly reflecting that. Early 00's albums represented were some of my favs when they came out, but recent stuff like AnCo have completely passed me by, and as such I feel out of the loop in regards to p4k (American?) indie. Can't say what my number one would be, but I've listened to Studio's West Coast more than any other album over the last several years, and it's nowhere in the top 200. In 2002, Kid A and Moon and Antarctica and Is This It might have been my votes.

i think part of this is that pfork probably represents the best chance, by some distance, of achieving the diversity (as opposed to specifically reflecting their own tastes better) people here would prefer to see compared to their rivals. and tho it is a more diverse list than most you will see from major pop cultural arbiters (e.g. how many other mags will feature as many as 7 nationalities in their best of 00s top 20s?), what it lacks and obscures will stand out to ILM readers more than most people.

what other publications/websites might be producing a best of 00's rival canon?

genuine question, not a 'p4k stan(d)s alone' statement

Well, we discussed the Uncut one on Twitter - which SURPRISINGLY - actually had higher female content in their top 10 than the P4k one.

NME, Q, Uncut, Mojo etc.

Vice, Spin, Blender (i can't remember which of these still exist and which don't if any)

Drowned In Sound? actual UK newspapers (Guardian and/or Observer Music Monthly maybe)?

xposts

...even if your tastes mature or grow or change, you are forever tainted with this "indie" association? Is it like Catholicism or something, that you can take the kid out of indie, but you can't take the indie out of the kid?

― Masonic Boom

Thought this was worth highlighting, just cuz it's funny. Serious answer: it depends. I expect that we're all similarly marked by what we loved when, but then again, we all grow up different. My tastes have revolved around the punkish end of the indie rock spectrum for something like 25 years now, so I know where I stand WR2 yr question. I'm sure it's different for others.

Will The Wire run one? If so, I'd be curious to see what they come up with.

a runaway victory for Insane Clown Posse obv

I've not read in Uncut in years. Is it taken seriously as far as music criticism goes? I always felt it catered towards a particular affluent audience of a certain age, and would rather write about the heydey of Pink Floyd than address it critically. xposts

blueski: I suppose I was wondering which ones people on this board would take seriously. Surely the NME wouldn't be.

Well, we discussed the Uncut one on Twitter - which SURPRISINGLY - actually had higher female content in their top 10 than the P4k one.

alison krauss and meg white?

I wouldn't take any of them seriously as such, but there will be if a general end of year/end of decade thread listing all the lists surely, plus yet more pointless polls etc.

Gukbe, that's why it was so shocking to me to see a publication like that with higher female content than the supposedly female-friendly (at least originally back in the dinosaur sands of time) indie genre.

x-post no there was a third, but I can't remember who it was - her out the Arcade Fire probably. :-/

I always think AP magazine is hilarious but frustrating knowing the impact it has on shallow teenagers. Imagine how male dominated THEIR list would be. Paramore would be the only one on there, because Paramore is the first band where it is OK to have a girl singer you know...

lol yeah kate it was the arcade fire woman

I rest my case.

otoh the uncut top ten includes plant, dylan, brian wilson--whose deification years ago informs a lot of what we're talking about now

because Paramore is the first band where it is OK to have a girl singer you know...

god you'd think 'Bring Me To Life' has never been written

the characterisation of r&b and pop as genres which throw up brilliant singles but no worthwhile albums is the no 1 way of implying that they're not important, significant genres compared to indie rock, and not to be taken as seriously in terms of their form or values

― lex pretend

This is the usual read, and a fair one. But I don't think it's the only way we might reasonably interpret this common tendency. For one thing, the making of albums and the making of singles aren't exactly the same task. And I don't think that either one is necessarily any more important or significant than the other.

That said, I do notice that the list of my favorite singles of all time is more pop/fun oriented, and that my albums list is somewhat darker, heavier and more intellectually ponderous. And maybe that communicates my tendency to attach "real importance" to album-length work, but then again, maybe it just reflects that singles and albums function differently. They do different things and serve different contexts -- at least some of the time.

plus rap albums always have those stupid skits right guys?

otoh the uncut top ten includes plant, dylan, brian wilson--whose deification years ago informs a lot of what we're talking about now

― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 15:12 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^read this as defecation

No no AP magazine kids live in their own sideways haircut world. There are no windows. Paramore was the first. Evanescence is for the nu-metalers.

fwiw it's pretty easy to train ppl out of the albums more valuable than tracks mindset--esp in the age of itunes.

one of life's little pleasures is noticing a new issue of AP in the store and having literally never heard of the band on the cover. i mean i keep my ear to the ground decently well but damn.

In retrospect, I'm slightly surprised/saddened by the fact that Dalek's "From Filthy Tongues of Gods and Griots" didn't make the list anywhere (at least I don't think it did).

Does anyone else still care about this record?

obviously not, I guess...

Looking at the site, I guess they never even reviewed it. sadface

for the record, women in Uncut's top 20

Amy Winehouse
Kate Bush
Meg White (of White Stripes)
Gillian Welch
Beth Gibbons (of Portishead)
Régine Chassagne and Sarah Neufeld of Arcade Fire
Alison Krauss (of Robert Plant &)

Alison Krauss (of Robert Plant &)

their list is still worse than pfork's tho

It's just too short. A top 20 list just isn't that interesting. Expand to 100 or 200 and you start to see more interesting stuff. I was thinking an anti-consensus thread of favorite albums that probably won't make the megalists.

For what it's worth, I've been ignoring the thread title and talking about the entire top 200 all the way through.

where are mariah carey, ellen allien, ce'cile, ashlee simpson, taylor swift, teedra moses, busy signal, young dro

This is where "personal taste" roars to the forefront because I personally have a VERY hard time taking seriously ANYONE who would say that Mariah Carey, Taylor Swift or Ashlee Simpson released albums that were among the best of this decade. I have not liked Mariah as an album artist since her first album and I maintain that "Vision of Love" is her best single. Ashlee Simpson did some fun, quirky songs but nothing I ever actively want to listen to. Taylor Swift is a talented songwriter who can't sing for shit and writes about stuff that I alternately don't care about or actively can't stand. I couldn't name a single song by any of the other people you listed.

Conversely, I would seriously consider Depeche Mode's Playing The Angel one of the best albums I encountered this decade; ditto The Cure's 4:13 Dream and New Order's Waiting For The Sirens' Call. Also, Poem-Cees' Paranoia.

This is really a matter of perspective at the end of the day; I don't particularly care if my tastes are reflected in the decade's canon or not because I've already identified what's important to me and I'm more than happy to exist in that self-defined space. You want to redefine the global discussion to privilege the stuff you like, which makes sense given your vocation.

I'm curious if other ppl think deej should have voted for Amy Winehouse given what he said about the way he saw the impact she had.

("privilege" is the wrong word to use in my post because it is too loaded, it should really be "explicitly include")

I have to admit an aversion to seeing artists who've been around for ages placing high on these things. This wasn't really a conscious thing but when I think of my 00s favourites they're almost all by artists who weren't already established ten years ago.

/ageist

I don't particularly care if my tastes are reflected in the decade's canon or not because I've already identified what's important to me and I'm more than happy to exist in that self-defined space.

^this is basically a perfect sentence as regards my feelings on the issue - good articulatin' Dan

That said I can definitely see Lex's POV in that so many of his favourites are at least as visible and commercially successful as much of this top 20 here - far more so in some cases - whereas finding yourself gravitating towards a lot of stuff that sells a few thousand copies or whatever, like I have I guess, doesn't put you in much of a position to wrong your hands about it not being given mainstream coverage/canonical status

apols for wring spelling

I can't complain about this list, as it had led to inappropriate shamu jokes.

Okay, rather than search out all the other threads, I'll just say that I was reminded how much I used to enjoy albums by the Libertines, Dismemberment Plan, DYBE, Fugazi Boredoms and Fennesz and will make a new playlist to re-listen to them all together. Two notable albums I had not heard are #86 Belle and Sebastion - The Life Pursuit (which is odd as I have all their others) and #43 Luomo - Vocalcity. I've had plenty of friends laugh at Original Pirate Material back in the day, and it's nice to see it's had staying power at #36, though I wouldn't personally rank it that highly, and I don't much like his other stuff. Also good to see S-K's One Beat at #72. I've heard people say they sound like Rush on that album, but it's not entirely a bad thing!

With Justin Timberlake's hilarious bits on SNL, I want to go back to Futuresex and see how much of that wit is lurking in there. I also need to reconsider some of the albums by Band of Horses, Califone, Hold Steady, Shins, Camera Obscura, Ghostface Killah, Mountain Goats and Vitalic which didn't make a big impression the first time.

"finding yourself gravitating towards a lot of stuff that sells a few thousand copies or whatever, like I have I guess, doesn't put you in much of a position to wrong your hands about it not being given mainstream coverage/canonical status"

the above is why I ultimately can't get too worked up about the list as a whole.

http://www.discogs.com/Convextion-Convextion/release/787518.

A record like this doesn't even factor for so many people...

I am not sure I would afford it "best of decade" status but Tamara Wellons' Life Is... is a pretty great album which hardly anyone knows about because it was self-produced and released mainly in the DC area.

http://www.myspace.com/tamarawellons

http://i35.tinypic.com/zxa83k.jpg

Hey, Dan, Taylor Swift writes about and to teenagers in a way that a Cure fan should understand. I mean, The Cure haven't grown up, so imagine how much smarter Swift will be when she looks like Robert Smith.

1. lol at the image of a Smithified Taylor Swift
2. "understand" does not and will never automatically mean "like" or "enjoy"

"Look, Taylor, Robert Smith was the best abuser of make-up of all-time. all-time etc etc"

x-post

You want to redefine the global discussion to privilege the stuff you like, which makes sense given your vocation.

sums it up for me too!

of the 3 you cited i think the lack of mariah is most o_0. swift's rise has been too recent to be canonised by anyone yet, and she's talented enough that i'm pretty sure she'll become a canonised artist in the end. simpson jr, sadly, doesn't really enjoy the sort of critical respect commensurate w/the quality of her output b/c of...other factors. but mariah - the emancipation of mimi was critically acclaimed, its entire narrative is that it's a phenomenally successful commercial and artistic comeback, it's an album which has "classic" status among the record-buying public. if pfork doesn't have enough people willing to rep for it in a list like this, the problems are to do with pfork, not mariah.

well, that or else it's an entirely predictable divergence of taste. either way...

the woman's only been around for two decades receiving a substantial amount of critical success and a huge amount of commercial success. she's an important & unignorable figure in pop music. if pfork is unable to get to grips with her...it reflects badly on them. maybe it's like when they didn't bother reviewing the erykah badu album last year until it got a ton of positive press - hey it's ok to like THIS black woman, jump on that bandwagon!!!

wtf

but anyway all the defences basically boil down to "but pfork is indie, get over it" and "but ilx is indie, get over it" - i would like to find somewhere which ISN'T BLOODY INDIE now.

i would expect big coldplay or dmb fans to make a similar argument re the absence of those bands on the list despite their massive success and perceived excellence.

but the indie mindset is obviously pre-disposed to disregard that kind of band almost if not as much as artists like Mariah. that said Coldplay will surely get some support in UK rock mag lists.

yeah i don't follow the plot too closely, but pfork is not a pop music entity.

is the problem not then the indie mindset and its being prejudiced against an artist without, i'm guessing, even bothering to hear the critically acclaimed album in question?

i mean your defence of the place basically makes it seem irrelevant to everyone except those with an "indie mindset"! so why do so many people pay attention to it?

I think you're overselling the critical acclaim of The Emancipation of Mimi. I don't disagree that it was an enormous commercial success, but the "artistic comeback" narrative was largely because her previous two albums had been such unqualified flops. Mimi scored a mere 64 on Metacritic, which, according to that site, makes it tied for the 3,662nd best album of the decade.

- i would like to find somewhere which ISN'T BLOODY INDIE now.

yeah i mean 2 out of 209230459820348 websites are indie centered, wtf is a pop lover to do?

lex, why are YOU paying attention to it? why do you give a fuck? why are you buying into giving it this importance that so clearly it doesn't deserve?

looks like they gave decent reviews to rihanna, ciara, beyonce, amerie, etc. but maybe mariah is too much a part of the old-school megapop establishment for pitchfork.

anyway, mariah doesn't need help from p4k.

xp

i think you know as well as i do how meaningless metacritic ratings are as stats that prove anything. mimi is almost universally canonised within its genre, by r&b fans and critics; most r&b fans will tell you it's one of the best r&b albums of the decade.

xp because it's bloody EVERYWHERE - i can't ignore it. 5 million threads on new answers here, cluttering up my twitterfeed...

lex i think that mega-successful artists are a blindspot for a lot of people, esp. those who fancy themselves as looking for stuff outside the mainstream (could be indie, techno, hip-hop, whatever). tbh mariah could make a million albums and i'd never listen to one all the way through--that is also how i feel abt dylan, the stones, bowie, etc. fwiw. this may not be the best reason but hey whatever it's kind of how i feel about really ubiquitous musicians a lot of the time.

looks like they gave decent reviews to rihanna, ciara, beyonce, amerie, etc

did any of these show up in this canonised list? oh wait

Yeah, basically that album got props because Mariah took some cough drops before she went into the studio to record it and stopped whispering on ever single fucking track; I still don't think it's anywhere near as good as her first album and I would actively campaign against it being in a "best of the decade" list because the current incarnation of Mariah is something I wish everyone would stop paying attention to.

xp: lol your whole stance of "only the albums matter" makes you just as conservative as the mindset you are criticizing!

lex i think that mega-successful artists are a blindspot for a lot of people, esp. those who fancy themselves as looking for stuff outside the mainstream (could be indie, techno, hip-hop, whatever)

i) is following the critical mainstream any better than following the commercial mainstream? is pfork so unself-aware that it doesn't realise how critically mainstream it is?
ii) appreciating mega-successful artists and obscure experimental underground shit = not mutually exclusive, at all, and anyone who thinks this should not be a critic

i have to say that i've never heard 00s mariah when hanging out with any of my friends who are hardcore r&b fans.

xp i don't really disagree with either of those points, i'm just sayin

xp because it's bloody EVERYWHERE - i can't ignore it. 5 million threads on new answers here, cluttering up my twitterfeed...

Then don't read ILM? subscribe to different twitter feeds? But I think you like being alone in the wilderness, it's how you self-identify.

without, i'm guessing, even bothering to hear the critically acclaimed album in question?

― lex pretend

That's assumptive, lex, and likely rong besides. I'm sure that a number of sometime PFork writers have heard the friggin Mariah album -- at least in passing, at least in part. It doesn't surprise me one bit that most of them didn't go for it in a big way, and I don't fault them for it. No more than I fault the Mariah Carey Fan Club's monthly newsletter for failing to cover many hundreds of extremely important Wavves singles.

The point isn't what's good or bad, important or unimportant in some ridiculous/fictional "objective" sense. It mostly comes down to what specific people are personally interested in for basically arbitrary reasons. I mean, no one's obliged to be interested in Mariah Carey. Certainly not at Pitchfork lolindie central.

i guess what i really want is for mainstream popular music critics to stop being so indie-centric in the main; i had really high hopes of this happening about midway through the decade, but it's even worse now! i don't really enjoy being a voice in the wilderness; it's just a consequence of interacting w/mainstream critics and those who engage with/talk about them.

If Blender is still around I'd imagine they'll come up a list that is more inclusive of mainstream pop and R&B. Rolling Stone to a lesser extent.

what i really want is for mainstream popular music critics to stop being so indie-centric in the main; i had really high hopes of this happening about midway through the decade, but it's even worse now!

― lex pretend

I think what you were observing (WR2 Pitchfork) was a combination of mainstream American rock critics becoming more indie-centric, and PFork-style indie criticism becoming A) more mainstream and B) more interested in non-indie music. Whiney was saying this the other day, and I kinda disagreed, but I see his point.

Once Pitchfork attained a certain level of popularity/influence, they not only could boost indie popularity into mainstream sales, they could also pull records out of other genres (dance, hip-hop, etc.) into the view of their massive, cash-flush indie-crossover nation. This seems to have created an open-minded audience and fertile ground for cross-pollination. And maybe it's true that they've become less inclined to use their power this way in the 2nd half of the decade -- or less successful at it.

Yeah, lex, sorry, but the only consistent critical props Carey ever got (apart for "Vision of Love" very early on) was for Mimi (it even got a proper SFJ review in the ol' New Yorker).

mariah carey fucking sucks

Honestly before I saw who Lex was talking about I thought he meant Kate Bush.

i think 'mimi' is a dope record & i voted for it

'we belong together' was song of the summer that year

& while i dont agree w/ all of lex's specific complaints & criticisms I think hes absolutely on point that its an acclaimed record & were I voting for pforks list (heyyy -- i was!) i would choose mimi before 90% of that list (heyyy -- i did!)

not really sure why thats super objectionable to ppl

Honestly before I saw who Lex was talking about I thought he meant Kate Bush

The Emancipation of the Red Shoes.

Dan saying "Depeche Mode released one of the best records of the 00s" is more like lex stumping for paris hilton (not in any way critically acclaimed, purely a personal challop choice)

No, they did. :-D

not really sure why thats super objectionable to ppl

Well, I don't give a damn about Carey apart from a few singles, but she's totally defensible -- most things are if you're a good writer! When I was features editor at Stylus I entertained every kind of defend-the-indefensible pitch, to the amusement of our readers (and, honestly, a few staff members), who genuinely thought we were Being Ironic.

Yeah, lex, sorry, but the only consistent critical props Carey ever got (apart for "Vision of Love" very early on) was for Mimi (it even got a proper SFJ review in the ol' New Yorker).

i think this is a bad thing and an indictment of critics everywhere, not something to sigh and go "eh, whatever" over

Well, and William McKinley is an underrated president. Get the fuck over it.

u guys are being pretty dick-ish

xxp lol it is an indictment of critics that they don't like something you like

There's a fairly strong, loud Carey claque here. Go pitch some essays. It's a shame PFM won't take them.

who will be Mariah's Leon Czolgosz?

i still dont think lex saying "mariah should have made the list" is really that absurd. I understand that on a personal level Dan doesnt like her music, but purely from an objective standpoint, its obvious that r&b is underrepresented in pfork's voting blocs when her record doesnt make the list. neither did records by Aaliyah, (R&B elite mindgardgen choice) Teedra, Usher, etc

*mindgarden

a weingarten?

you guys are acting like this is some minor niche interest kind of deal. its not the same as dan still listening to new order 2 decades after they mattered

not really sure why thats super objectionable to ppl

It's not super-objectionable to anyone, I don't think. I'm just saying that Mariah Carey not making Pitchfork's list doesn't make it all "what a disaster for Pitchfork." You know what else didn't make Pitchfork's list? Anything by Bob Dylan, who topped the Pazz and Jop poll twice this decade. Which I don't really hear anyone complaining about.

There's a fairly strong, loud Carey claque here. Go pitch some essays. It's a shame PFM won't take them.

oh no you didn't. fuck you too.

pfork clearly does not have enough writers repping boring old man rock

xxp lol it is an indictment of critics that they don't like something you like

have you even managed to read any of the wider issues which kate/deej/myself and others have been discussing at length here

i dont think im saying "what a disaster for pitchfork." I dont think its ridiculous or challopsy to say 'i wish pfork's albums list had more R&B.' If not mariah specifically, then a few more of the other acclaimed R&B records of the past ten years.

I don't think Bob Dylan records not making it is comparable. R&B appeals to a young audience. Pitchfork has a young audience. Bob Dylan records sell to a cult of followers, like a bigger-screen baby boomer version of dan perry's fav 80s artists Still Making Music

plus its a total auteur-cult type deal that get ppl saying hes still making GENIUS SHIT this long into his career ... i mean seriously

I'm more in sympathy with you three than you think -- most posters here are! But this conversation is akin to sitting in a bar with people whose reactions you can predict to a metronome.

xp yeah i have and tbh it is often difficult to rectify those larger points with the stuff you say post to post

plus its a total auteur-cult type deal that get ppl saying hes still making GENIUS SHIT this long into his career ... i mean seriously

― xhuxk mangione (deej), Wednesday, October 7, 2009 8:00 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

have you listened to Love and Theft?

Here's two smart Carey articles.

I dont think its ridiculous or challopsy to say 'i wish pfork's albums list had more R&B.'

I don't think it is, or that anyone is really saying it is - it's just that when you start talking about individual records it's hard to give empirical airtight reasons why anything should be elevated above *an entire decade's worth of albums* to this uh hallowed top 20 status, and it's also pretty easy to find reasons why this *shouldn't* be the case

(obv that goes for the stuff that is being polled here [lol remember when this was a poll thread] at least as much as Mariah or whatever else)

I still don't get it, though, deej. I can totally understand saying "Mariah made a great fucking record. More people need to know this." And I can totally understand being uninterested in the Pitchfork list due to different taste.

But I don't get the idea that Pitchfork NEEDS to include this or that album, or that there's something WRONG with the fact that it's not paying proper respect to certain things. I don't see how this would matter to anyone who didn't have some emotional investment in PFork that they now feel bitter about. Or envied PFork's influence. Both of which seem a bit ridiculous to me.

That's what bugs me about the complaints. It's not like PFork = the fucking government or something.

Barack Obama uses 'Tom Ewing' as an alias.

I don't think it is, or that anyone is really saying it is - it's just that when you start talking about individual records it's hard to give empirical airtight reasons why anything should be elevated above *an entire decade's worth of albums* to this uh hallowed top 20 status, and it's also pretty easy to find reasons why this *shouldn't* be the case

― Vladislav Delap (DJ Mencap), Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:06 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

but ... 'individual records' representing indie made this list, & altho folks nitpick they mostly agree on em
go to a message board w/ ppl talking about rap or R&B and a lot of them will agree on a bunch of records too, including most likely the mariah record

have you listened to Love and Theft?

― Mr. Que, Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:02 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yah i heard it when it dropped, funny old man record no one would have paid attention to if it wasnt by BOB DYLAN

i dont think im saying "what a disaster for pitchfork."

The Lex said something about how it reflects poorly on Pitchfork not to have an album as self-evidently great as Mimi on the list.

In general, though, yeah, I'm with you: it'd be nice to see more R&B on the list. I don't think anyone disputes that. I'm also not particularly incensed that it's not there.

Plus the ridiculous young vs. old bullshit isn't helping your argument, deej. If that were the case, Pitchfork would have an equal responsibility to pay respect to all kinds of shit it currently doesn't. It's not fucking PeterPanFork.

But I don't get the idea that Pitchfork NEEDS to include this or that album, or that there's something WRONG with the fact that it's not paying proper respect to certain things. I don't see how this would matter to anyone who didn't have some emotional investment in PFork that they now feel bitter about. Or envied PFork's influence. Both of which seem a bit ridiculous to me.

b/c pfork's influence is such that its aesthetic spreads throughout pop culture in such a way that it impinges on the stuff i like? i'm sure deej can tell you about how the internet has ruined hip-hop in some ways, and a whole lot of that is to do with the indiefication of it

and fucking juno won an oscar, etc

It's not fucking PeterPanFork.

can we start a letter writing campaign, plz?

i guess i get that but you should consider practicing steely resolve in the face of these attacks.

no wait i don't get that--how does the aesthetic of a website that doesn't cover stuff you like impinge on stuff you like?

Wait, "Diablo Cody" is a pen name for Brent DiCrescenzo?

yah i heard it when it dropped, funny old man record no one would have paid attention to if it wasnt by BOB DYLAN

this is 100% insane.

and there's nothing wrong with funny old man records

notice my restraint, however, in not clamoring for it's inclusion in Pitchfork's list

quite frankly I think SouljaBoy and crunk did more to ruin hip-hop than anything else but that's just me

In general, though, yeah, I'm with you: it'd be nice to see more R&B on the list. I don't think anyone disputes that. I'm also not particularly incensed that it's not there.

― katherine helmand province (jaymc), Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:11 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol im not buggin out in sal's pizzeria here .... but doesnt it start to get meaningless when yr like, "well, i guess it would be nicer to have more R&B ... would also be nice if i didn't just give myself a papercut" on the spectrum of distaste

at any rate, pitchfork & 'indie' are at some level about whats cool / trendy, i think R&B & hiphop are cool and think they make sense in pfork's broader rubric, in a way old man rock doesnt. i dont know wtf 'peterpanfork' has to do with anything.

and there's nothing wrong with funny old man records

― Mr. Que, Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:15 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

of course not. but are you seriously trying to compare the entire genre of R&B to the cult of bob dylan

how does the aesthetic of a website that doesn't cover stuff you like impinge on stuff you like?

^this, serious no-snark question - I don't read the damn thing at all regularly (mainly just if someone on here or elsewhere links to it), it may have bled into the various stuff I fill my time with also but I really wouldn't know how I was sposed to tell

i have ably avoided mojo magazine and alternative press for YEARS

i dont think it does & thats not a point i made, but i do think pitchfork's given a lot of centrality in the discourse around popular music by the music press that is out of whack with its areas of focus.

I'm just not buying the idea that Pitchfork is this critical snarling despot that owes the poor, trampled R&B legions its beneficence. It's some geeks who like Sufjan Stevens.

i mean, its basically the only spot for long-form music criticism read by a wide audience ... they get like 2m readers a month, which i imagine blows any other niche non-gossip music review site out of the water ....

of course not. but are you seriously trying to compare the entire genre of R&B to the cult of bob dylan

no. i'm just saying, if you ignore the cult of dylan (as i do) you might find something interesting going on in his arrangements, his phrasing, his grizzled voice and his hilarious lyrics. i was mostly responding to this

plus its a total auteur-cult type deal that get ppl saying hes still making GENIUS SHIT this long into his career ... i mean seriously

to dismiss him as old man rock tells me you a) just aren't that interested in rock music and b) you're not understanding that the guy is making great records (note i did not say GENIUS SHIT) almost fifty years after his first one. when mariah does that, be sure to let me know.

do think pitchfork's given a lot of centrality in the discourse around popular music by the music press that is out of whack with its areas of focus.

deej, are you getting paid by the word to repeat and write your thesis or are you bored?

pitchfork's given a lot of centrality in the discourse around popular music by the music press that is out of whack with its areas of focus.

^^^^^^^concisely summing up what kate and i kept saying earlier, which contenderizer seems intent on misrepresenting

Possibly because I'm British, I actually *don't* think that Pitchfork is as influential as it's being made out to be here. No one here ever mentions Pitchfork in non-critical circles and even in the Brit critical discourse the NME (old and new) and yer Reynoldses and so forth loom much larger.

Look at bands like Spoon, Wilco, etc - revered by the Pitchfork kids but with next to no cultural or critical cache over here. Lex I think you're paying disproportionate attention to the critical discourse in messageboard land at the expense of the professional critical discourse you're actually part of and the market you're writing for.

i do think pitchfork's given a lot of centrality in the discourse around popular music by the music press that is out of whack with its areas of focus.

― deej

Horrible, endless can-of-worms argument. Pitchfork should receive less attention because it's not aggressively universalist? I just don't see what good can come of this.

The only people I ever see giving Pitchfork centrality in the discourse around popular music are complainers on this board who don't like it when their lists exclude women and R&B! No one in my circle ever talks about it, ever.

(I would not be at all surprised if this is a 20s vs 30s divide.)

Pitchfork should receive less attention because it's not aggressively universalist? I just don't see what good can come of this.

hopefully either

a) pfork becomes more universalist and more representative & respectful of the whole spectrum of popular music; or
b) pfork receives less attention

jesus christ dude stop putting words in ppls mouths every time you argue with them xxp to contenderizer

at any rate, pitchfork & 'indie' are at some level about whats cool / trendy, i think R&B & hiphop are cool and think they make sense in pfork's broader rubric, in a way old man rock doesnt.

I don't even like Dylan at all, but to dismiss him as an old man who gets good reviews because of his reputation does him a disservice. It's not like we're talking about Jann S. Wenner giving five stars to Goddess at the Doorway. Anyway, I think there's always going to be older stuff that the Pitchfork audience likes and respects, even if it's just because M. Ward lists them as influences. And Dylan fits into that. I know guys of his generation are never going to be the site's main focus, but I wouldn't be surprised if Amanda Petrusich or William Bowers or Josh Love all put "Love and Theft" high on their ballot.

concisely summing up what kate and i kept saying earlier, which contenderizer seems intent on misrepresenting

― lex pretend

Shit, I'm just trying to understand where yr. coming from. And I don't think that deej's argument makes any kind of sense. Essentially you guys seem to be saying that PFork's focus should marginalize it, and that people are wrongly treating it as central. And this is just horseshit. There is no right or wrong in questions like this. No one has an obligation to make sure that the center is centrist.

I actually think even Drownedinsound's influence vastly outstrips Pitchfork's in the UK and THAT'S not going to get a thousand-post thread when it puts up it's rubbish albums of the decade list.

i dont know why this is such a big deal -- pfork's staff already acknowledge & have actively recruited ppl to make up these deficiencies, from an editorial level ... so its like you guys are defending them from something theyve already acknowledged is an issue back when ryan wrote that funny intro to we are the world ....

getting the uk critical establishment to respect r&b is EVEN MORE of a non-starter and if you get me started on that i may end up stabbing someone UGHHHH critics' stupidity and bad taste is so frustrating sometimes!!

I don't even like Dylan at all, but to dismiss him as an old man who gets good reviews because of his reputation does him a disservice. It's not like we're talking about Jann S. Wenner giving five stars to Goddess at the Doorway. Anyway, I think there's always going to be older stuff that the Pitchfork audience likes and respects, even if it's just because M. Ward lists them as influences. And Dylan fits into that. I know guys of his generation are never going to be the site's main focus, but I wouldn't be surprised if Amanda Petrusich or William Bowers or Josh Love all put "Love and Theft" high on their ballot.

― katherine helmand province (jaymc), Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:28 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

jaymc i never said no one should review bob dylan, just that arguing his later-years records (however good they are) are kind of a ridiculous thing to compare to the central records of the 00s R&B canon when it comes to discussing what was excluded from the list

(I would not be at all surprised if this is a 20s vs 30s divide.)

hahah i think it is a crazy weirdo vs. normal ppl divide.

The older records have had the chance to really cement themselves, so initial reviews of say Discovery are not quite as relevant. But how different do you think things would be if a different Pitchfork writer wrote the review for the new Animal Collective and gave it a 8.3? I want a machine that generates outcomes in hypeland based on Pitchfork reviews.

and if you get me started on that i may end up stabbing someone UGHHHH critics' stupidity and bad taste is so frustrating sometimes!!

pro tip writing like this is why you catch shit sometimes.

pitchfork's given a lot of centrality in the discourse around popular music by the music press that is out of whack with its areas of focus

If a reading audience, by and large, including writers and commenters on music in their own right, chooses to limit the vast majority of its music reading to Pitchfork alone, is the fault Pitchfork's for not giving said audience anything and everything or is the fault the audience's for only reading Pitchfork and nothing else and/or prioritizing what Pitchfork thinks at the expense of anything else out there?

Who are you really more disappointed with?

For myself, I assume that whatever audience I have, in whatever venue, reads and reacts to my thoughts as part of a large context. It may be Pitchfork, it may be something else. But I'm not going to waste time chasing down phantoms. There's music to listen to -- like the Lady Leshurr mixtape the Lex recommended a few weeks back, and which is v. good -- and thoughts to consider, and work to do, and life to live.

pro tip writing like this is why you catch shit sometimes.

do you catch shit for being fucking dense?

i do think pitchfork's given a lot of centrality in the discourse around popular music by the music press that is out of whack with its areas of focus.

― deej

I'm not trying to put words in yr mouth, deej. I'm honestly and sincerely trying to parse the implications of what yr saying. You complain that PFork is "given a lot of centrality" in a way that's "out of whack with its areas of focus".

Okay. This suggests to me that you think that PFork's focus (shmindie) should naturally marginalize (decentralize) it to some degree. And the "out of whack" bit suggests that the "music press" is making a mistake in failing to enforce this marginalization. That's what I took from yr statement, rightly or wrongly.

If my read is way off base, lemme know. If not, I think yr making an indefensible argument about what critical entities should be obliged to do.

I actually think even Drownedinsound's influence vastly outstrips Pitchfork's in the UK and THAT'S not going to get a thousand-post thread when it puts up it's rubbish albums of the decade list.

― Matt DC, Wednesday, October 7, 2009 8:29 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Well we have a head start, let's make this dream a reality ILM Drowned In Sound Top 66 Albums Of This Decade

If a reading audience, by and large, including writers and commenters on music in their own right, chooses to limit the vast majority of its music reading to Pitchfork alone, is the fault Pitchfork's for not giving said audience anything and everything or is the fault the audience's for only reading Pitchfork and nothing else and/or prioritizing what Pitchfork thinks at the expense of anything else out there?

Who are you really more disappointed with?

For myself, I assume that whatever audience I have, in whatever venue, reads and reacts to my thoughts as part of a large context. It may be Pitchfork, it may be something else. But I'm not going to waste time chasing down phantoms. There's music to listen to -- like the Lady Leshurr mixtape the Lex recommended a few weeks back, and which is v. good -- and thoughts to consider, and work to do, and life to live.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:34 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i dont know why this is such a big deal -- pfork's staff already acknowledge & have actively recruited ppl to make up these deficiencies, from an editorial level ... so its like you guys are defending them from something theyve already acknowledged is an issue back when ryan wrote that funny intro to we are the world ....

I suppose it depends on whether you read this as correcting deficiencies versus simply expanding their coverage.

just that arguing his later-years records (however good they are) are kind of a ridiculous thing to compare to the central records of the 00s R&B canon when it comes to discussing what was excluded from the list

― deej

And I think that the assumptions yr broadcasting here about what is and should be important to critics are at least as questionable as Pitchfork's failure to respect R&B. You haven't just dismissed Dylan, after all, but "old man rock" in general, and by usage of that phrase a bunch of other people and ideas. Don't see how this is any different or better than what you accuse PFork of. Worse, really, cuz it's so much more obviously prejudiced.

Saying this as someone with no interest in Dylan.

I suppose it depends on whether you read this as correcting deficiencies versus simply expanding their coverage.

― katherine helmand province (jaymc), Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:39 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

one & the same

You haven't just dismissed Dylan, after all, but "old man rock" in general, and by usage of that phrase a bunch of other people and ideas. Don't see how this is any different or better than what you accuse PFork of. Worse, really, cuz it's so much more obviously prejudiced.

OTM

And I think that the assumptions yr broadcasting here about what is and should be important to critics are at least as questionable as Pitchfork's failure to respect R&B. You haven't just dismissed Dylan, after all, but "old man rock" in general, and by usage of that phrase a bunch of other people and ideas. Don't see how this is any different or better than what you accuse PFork of. Worse, really, cuz it's so much more obviously prejudiced.

Saying this as someone with no interest in Dylan.

― That's not just me saying that, that's the Pentagon. (contenderizer), Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:42 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

jesus dude get over it, i was just being mildly troll-y in order to emphasize the ridiculous of the comparison between dylan & the entire genre of R&B

the ridiculousness

why don't you get over your little R n B snit, then, and we'll call it even?

let's ALL untwist our panties

i mean, its basically the only spot for long-form music criticism read by a wide audience ... they get like 2m readers a month, which i imagine blows any other niche non-gossip music review site out of the water ....

at this point I would guess Rolling Stone is the only music-related publication with a larger audience than ours in the world. We also have 1.2 Twitter followers, #101 in the world last time I looked, between the NFL and Amazon.com.

I only point this out for context and because I know it pisses off the Lex.

MDC: I have no way to quantify our influence on other crits or whatever in the UK, but to give two examples, the biggest crit bands over there last year-- Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver-- I would guess were introduced to the UK music press via us. (BI we ran as a headline review of the self-released LP in early autumn 2007; Fleet Foxes we began to cover in late Jan or early Feb after hearing a song on their MySpace, then booked for our fest and our SXSW party) (same with Bon Iver on both counts.) I don't care about the credit, it's an empty claim anyway esp since FF wound up on Sub Pop and BI on Jag and would have reached an audience anyway, but I find it hard to believe that major UK music pubs aren't looking at our site and there isn't some ripple effect. (We obviously look at the Guardian/NME/Uncut/Mojo/DiS/etc as well.)

straight white male indie rockers with guitars were a serious minority in, say, the top 50 of our tracks list, but of course that hardly fits Lex's arguments so let's ignore that

but...but....you're only sincere if you rate their albums!!

one & the same

― xhuxk mangione (deej), Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:43 PM (21 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yeah, but you can expand your coverage without it implying that you were wrong not to have done so earlier.

re: straight white male etc, I guess I should go w/o saying I'm being flippant and reactive to everyone's else demo complaints and the way they can be bent around a POV you want to advance rather than actively reducing the artists we cover to types and demographics and thinking in those terms, but just in case...

So would the ideal Pitchfork be totally universalist, equally aware of and interested in every genre and style of music? Would it democratically cover blues and classical and hip-hop and Bulgarian folk and punk and metal and dance pop and electroacoustic experiments (and everything under the sun) without any distinct POV or editorial identity?

I think that Pitchfork is valuable (and popular and influential) precisely because it DOES have a distinct point of view. And that in having a distinct point of view it is necessarily narrow, even myopic. These qualities are GOOD things in that they help make Pitchfork what it is: at least somewhat individual and distinct. Even to the extent that it's not equally interested in all things. Even to the extent that certain stuff gets slighted.

Then again, it's hard to reconcile that argument with my earlier complaints about its gender imbalance. Hmmm... I guess I just don't see "maleness" as a essential component of its individual (collective) identity. Maybe I'm wrong about that...

That last in response to deej saying that correcting deficiencies and expanding coverage are "one & the same."

Also, deej, I really don't see how Mariah Carey is obviously more in keeping with Pitchfork's aesthetic than Bob Dylan is. This is a site that devoted an entire week to the Beatles remasters.

bob dylan remasters =/= of-little-note records bob dylan makes in his 60s

We also have 1.2 Twitter followers

they're that bad?

contenderizer keeps spilling out little crazy readings into what i said that doesnt actually link to what ive said at all -- might keep letting him do this?

Gaaah! It was a friggin'

question

You say that correcting deficiencies and expanding coverage are "one & the same." What do you mean by that? Do you mean that Pitchfork should be truly universalist? Or only that it needs to cover some things more than it currently does? And if the latter, why only those things?

Huh, I just checked to see if Pitchfork reviewed Emancipation of Mimi and look what I found: a 2008 column from Scott about albums Pitchfork never reviewed and why they didn't review them:

Mariah Carey: The Emancipation of Mimi [Island]
Miranda Lambert: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend [Columbia]
My Chemical Romance: Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge [Reprise]

Over the course of this decade, Pitchfork has slowly expanded its coverage, taking an increasingly more wide-scale view of the pop landscape. Our more cynical readers tend to think that we do so in order to attract readers. Well, really, the opposite is true. Frankly, we're gambling: We approach Justin Timberlake, Beyoncé, Lil Wayne, or Kylie Minogue as artists rather than personalities, when most of our readers don't want to consider them as either.

When it comes to pop-minded performers, those who spring from the underground (Annie) or strike out on their own (Robyn), or mainstream artists who get oddly dicked-around by their record labels (Clipse, Amerie), seem more palatable to many of our readers, suggesting that the mechanics behind creating or selling music, whether listeners are assaulted with marketing, or whether listeners feel they are making different choices than the "masses" are, in some ways, still important to many of our readers.

The only two pop groups we've really criminally overlooked are UK chart-toppers Girls Aloud and the Sugababes, but since we've examined their greatest hits collections, I'm setting them aside to highlight an even more objectional-to-many trio of records, each a success in a genre many of our readers likely despise: Melismatic, superstar r&b, mainstream modern country, and mall rock. You know the names already, you've likely formed an opinion, but keep the records at least in the back of your mind and someday, somewhere give them a chance.

So would the ideal Pitchfork be totally universalist, equally aware of and interested in every genre and style of music? Would it democratically cover blues and classical and hip-hop and Bulgarian folk and punk and metal and dance pop and electroacoustic experiments (and everything under the sun) without any distinct POV or editorial identity?

Sorry of this is a bit obvious but the complaints about Pitchfork are usually damned-if-they-do-damned-if-they-don't. When they are very open about their limitations and admit that they come from a specific culture/music background people complain about the ethnocentrism and oppressive indie-ness of their tastes (Lex's argument, sort of), but when pitchfork tries to overreach and be a "music-loving citizen of the world" and tackle all comers then the accusation is pretension, that the site doesn't know their place and should stick to Indie Land.

x-post

i think it depends who is writing about these records, Cunga

So would the ideal Pitchfork be totally universalist, equally aware of and interested in every genre and style of music?

how could it? discernment is part of the deal. we're talking about what codes 'they' are using to discern.

Would it democratically cover blues and classical and hip-hop and Bulgarian folk and punk and metal and dance pop and electroacoustic experiments (and everything under the sun) without any distinct POV or editorial identity?

no, but it would discuss/argue/debate which of these deserve more/less coverage. which is what we're doing here.

i put 'they' in quotes bcuz we get to borderline tinfoil hat territory the more we talk about this like its a conspiracy instead of inadvertent bias

xpost to Cunga

Def there is damned if we do, but in part that's because people assume Pitchfork is one brand with 50 similar voices, as if I'm handing a Pole record to some dude who spends most of his time listening to skinny jeans indie and asking him to give it a chance instead of assigning it to, in that case, Philip Sherburne. We have a staff that's mostly eclectic, curious generalist listeners, and some specialists (and even they are less specialist than they are perhaps typecast by their assignments for the site). It's not like a bunch of indie kids groping around in the dark though, sorry (not these days at least).

That you all are complaining that Pitchfork isn't covering enough R&B LPs or modern country, as if it's something Pitchfork obviously should be doing, is surely some sign of how much the publication has changed in the past half-decade or so.

i think its a sign of how much yr audience has changed, too

you music critics sure like to drastically exaggerate the importance and impact of music criticism huh. kinda cute.

i mean, with the 'mainstreaming of indie' & the increasing readership, at some point u end up with readers who have different backgrounds & perspectives, but are drawn to the site / indie as a whole .... one person i know who reads the site is an af-am woman who listens to a lot of the kinds of music pitchfork's pushing (esp. the beach-y stuff) & she grew up w/ her dad throwing parties with house music & disco, & her mom listening to R&B albums ... its not like shes super-anti-mariah-carey or something

her mom listening to mainstream 'melismatic' modern R&B albums, i should say ...

Deej, now that you write for the site, maybe it'd be more fruitful to bring these concerns to the editor-in-chief? (Not that he's not reading this thread already.)

I dunno. I don't wanna fite...

I see Pitchfork as a basically good thing, as it has been and as it is. I think its success and influence are probably direct products of its "personality", and that therefore its personality has real value. Maybe not to me, personally (though I do use it as a resource), but certainly to lots of people out there and to American pop/rock culture as a whole. Its distinct collective identity is what has allowed it to find and bond with its audience.

Therefore, I'm not inclined to fault it too much for its basic POV. If it were a different entity, then it likely wouldn't be as successful -- and if it were successful, it would be differently successful. I don't think anything really "deserves" pitchfork coverage. Or Fader coverage, or Rolling Stone coverage or whatever.

That's an abstract and maybe a careless argument. I also understand that as cultural entities become influential, their biases can start to have significant effects. You can't sweep away ALL complaints of exclusion by simply claiming that this is what you and your audience wanna hear about. But I think that PFork generally does a damn good job of reaching out from where they stand.

With the exception of the boy/girl thing, but I guess we've all got our axes to grind...

xp im not sure that i have any real 'concerns' here that i dont fix by writing reviews of, like, maxwell records? im not sure what else there is to do, other than convincing other writers that these records are worthwhile

But wouldn't you like the site to hire more writers who are as into R&B as you are and make it a priority to review albums like New Amerykah closer to their date of release?

i mean frankly my 'concerns' are more about how the centrality of pfork's place in music discourse makes indie front & center ... its less a complaint about pitchfork & more a complaint about how pitchfork is treated ... but i think as it becomes more popular, it will have to respond to an expanding audience & expanding idea of what indie 'is' -- im not sure i ever framed these concerns as problems w/ editorial, i just wish mariah carey was taken more seriously in polling

xp yeah but who do they hire? i dont really have an answer so

won't anyone think of mariah

why wont critics give bob dylan the respect he deserves

"Def there is damned if we do, but in part that's because people assume Pitchfork is one brand with 50 similar voices, as if I'm handing a Pole record to some dude who spends most of his time listening to skinny jeans indie and asking him to give it a chance instead of assigning it to, in that case, Philip Sherburne."

Heh. The problem for me is too many dudes listening to skinny jeans bands and schmindie folk (I hate Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes), and not enough reviews from people whose taste and writing really click for me (Leone would be one huge example). But even they listen to schmindie every now and then. And what seems to be the house style, of choosing a formal conceit for nearly every review, only really works with strong writers.

I guess basically what I'm saying is that you should be something you're not, and then I'd like you better.

Also, I have a slow-ass computer, and your site can take forever to load. It's almost as bad as AMG.

So, grow your site bigger, but make it simpler; hire more women and minorities, but not just because they're women and minorities; hype up bands that I like so they can make more money, but don't hype up bands that won't hold up (Black Kids) or who already have enough money (Vampire Weekend); run more essays and interviews from writers I like, but fewer from ones I think are tedious.

Then I'll vote in this ILX poll and have it mean something, man.

also create a monthly mariah carey column

Ask the staff to chip in for a new computer, I eat cannibals.

The staff, that's a good one. I got laid off about eight months ago, my laptop died about six months ago, and I've been trying to keep my ol' G3 running since then.

Unless you meant Pitchfork staff, in which case I think it's only fair that they buy me a new computer. You know, for the page views or something.

also create a monthly mariah carey column

― pariah carey (Mr. Que), Wednesday, October 7, 2009 4:57 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

month in dubstep was only slightly more absurd

'imo'

month in terius

day in gucci <--- cuz i know yall were waiting for this

I think the Mariah album is great but it didn't make my top 200. There were heaps of albums I like better that didn't make it either.

I took my songs list more seriously than my albums list because it felt more rather than less important. Someone making a perfect song/track (perfect for me obv.) seems more worthy of singling out than someone making an album that happens to be pretty good throughout.

I partly agree about the whole songs vs albums "importance" issue (as espoused by Lex above) but I think it's as much a case of indie rock producing less "anthems" as a proportion of its music overall than R&B or pop.

i.e. I'm much more likely to have a quandary like my one this year where I want to put The-Dream and Electrik Red on my albums and songs lists (because stuff like "Rockin' That Thing" and "So Good" and "Friend Lover" hit me as isolated experiences with attendant video clips etc.) with R&B/pop stuff than I am with music that I tend to get into on an album-as-a-whole level - not much rock music actually, since I don't listen to a huge amount of it, but, say, new albums from artists I already like, or lots of electronic music.

I think this feeds into why greatest songs lists mostly feel "fresher", more contemporary and more diverse than greatest albums lists - we're more likely to be hit by the excitement of new things on a song-by-song basis than an album-by-album basis.

i joined too late for the traxx list ;_;

also i DO think there's something LESS fun about the traxx list, and thats that its a lot harder to find that tension between consensus & personal choice ... like, a personal fav song of mine could easily end up with one vote where albums are just larger cultural objects if that makes sense

i.e. it feels even more useless to bitch about my favourite song not making the grade??

(I think I can say the below without disclosing any significant trade secrets)

The song poll process was actually much more convoluted than the album process for this reason maybe. There was kind of a two-tiered selection process, so you would have had to lobby to ensure your personal fave was a final voting option. Rather like the ILM polls. The albums poll was just a list of your favourite albums.

The idea presumably being to prevent as much as possible vote-splitting across multiple songs by the same artist (or even sub-genre for stuff like dance music).

Interestingly, the songs list ended up more "representative" and less indiecentric, which suggests that when (p4k) critics are thinking more self-consciously about what "should" end up on a list they possibly adopt the approach deej advocates w/r/t amy winehouse. Whereas when people are making a private list of their 200 favourite albums they might fall back on "comfort" music more easily (hence dominance of early 00s indie?).

On a more prosaic level, the structure of the songs poll provided an opportunity for people to hear things they hadn't heard previously and then adjust their vote accordingly.

I can't remember now but I think I vagued out during the songs nomination process and hence was privately miffed that e.g. I couldn't vote for most of my personal favourite 2-step anthems.

to be clear w/r/t amy winehouse its not as cut & dry as "this belongs here" -- thats just one element that went into it (i mean, i did enjoy the album too!) & i think it goes into every album you choose to greater or lesser degrees (along with, like, how often did i play this, how well do i identify this w/ this time in my life, how likely is this to actually be voted, how unlikely is this to actually be voted, etc etc)

Yeah I get you, I'd be surprised if someone listed an album or song that they don't like but think is important, but there are all sorts of strategic cultural considerations that might give one album an edge over another equally enjoyable album... and these differ for each person.

In a more structured nomination process I think you're more likely to think "woah, this list has no (insert x style of music), I think something should be on there even though it might not make the cut in a purely private top 100."

e.g. I can well imagine someone bumping up "Gasolina" on their top 100 songs list because they want to make some sort of acknowledgment of how much they enjoyed reggaeton generally during 2005-2006.

GOD DAMN IT'S HAPPENING EVEN IN THIS THREAD.

Basically, it's been me pointing out, over and again, the gender imbalance in this and every Canonical List, and yet all the answers and the discussion and rebuttal is directed to The Lex like I'm not even here or something.

And I'm the person whose criticism (apart from one snide dig at Animal Collective) has NOT been phrasing it as "hey, why isn't *my* particular taste represented here" but phrasing it in terms of a wider and more systematic issue.

But, you know, I'm not gonna make the list of canonical ILX posters because, you know, girls don't get to be on canons.
:-P ha ha ha.

And I'm the person whose criticism (apart from one snide dig at Animal Collective) has NOT been phrasing it as "hey, why isn't *my* particular taste represented here" but phrasing it in terms of a wider and more systematic issue.

lol are you sure bout that.

Unless you consider "female" to be a genre, yes, I am sure about that.

Surely there has been extensive discussion about the subject you adressed though, no?

wild idea - a big part of the reason why your top 20 has more female artists on it than say, mine, comes from your taste in music vs. my taste in music.

it may not be a genre issue - that doesn't mean taste doesn't play a role.

and yes, this ridiculous discussion has gone on and on and on and on. do you expect some sort of resolution from this kate? or do you just want more credit for successful trolling?

has iatee been the most dense and least helpful poster in this thread? i think so.

poll

considering this thread, I would consider that title an honor tbh

i mean...if we don't bother talking about or addressing these issues, if we pretend these aren't issues at all...we'll still be looking at 90% white male indie canons in 10 years, 20 years. i mean, do you really think the current state of affairs is acceptable?

god, iatee, fuck the fuck off then. you're not contributing anything helpful and entertaining, no one gives a shit who you are or what you say. leave the grown-ups to talk.

lex i hope you can fix this global canon crisis alone

it is up to you

save the canon, save the world

http://blogs.suburbanchicagonews.com/sportsbeacon/Scrappy%20Doo.jpg

i mean...if we don't bother talking about or addressing these issues, if we pretend these aren't issues at all...

But how can you say this when in fact, apart from some lame bickering, the issues have been talked about extensively? Have the absence of women in the list and the fact that P4k doesn't cover R 'n B not been talked about?

yes, it's been good! i was referring more to iatee's worthless interjections though.

Alright, got it.

Talking is great. Some action, some change would be better, or we'll just be having this same conversation again in 10 years when the % of female artists has dropped from 3 out of 20 to 1 out of 20 or 0 out of 20?

I'm really sick of the way people talk about their "taste" like this is some ineffable, unaccountable, unchangeable THING that floated down on high on tablets from Mt. Olympus rather than something which is so tied up with culture and status and familiarity about which we must never dispute or challenge or attempt to influence.

The idea that there is nothing more than some ineffable unaccountable "personal taste" going into the canonisation process - the process of deciding, of *privileging* one artist over another - it's almost insulting in its simplicity and reduction of complex issues to shrugs of abnegation.

anyway re: deej's good point about the readership -

one person i know who reads the site is an af-am woman who listens to a lot of the kinds of music pitchfork's pushing (esp. the beach-y stuff) & she grew up w/ her dad throwing parties with house music & disco, & her mom listening to R&B albums ... its not like shes super-anti-mariah-carey or something

blaming the readership on a publication's failings or limitations - not just pfork, this applies everywhere - always comes across as a totally craven defence. i don't think music fans are anywhere near as tribalist or predisposed to kneejerk hate vast swathes of popular music as people can assume; i don't think they're as easily categorisable, either. most people's taste is wide-ranging and unexpected regardless of their basic likes and dislikes. and even if they are, surely it is the critic's job to ~open their minds~ by arguing cogently the case for mariah carey or miranda lambert or my chemical romance. because the case should be made and none of those artists deserve to be treated as though they're critically worthless.

as i've said a worse indictment of pfork recently was its failure to review last year's erykah badu album until it had been legitimised by the white indie mainstream press. kinda indicates that they didn't consider badu an artist worth covering initially despite her track record and success and credibility over the past decade - and then suddenly, once she received a certain type of hype, suddenly then it was ok!

nb: i, personally, have no time for my chemical romance or fall out boy or the bands in that vein. just don't like 'em. BUT various smart people i know have written about them in such a way over the past few years that my position has moved to ignoring them to taking them seriously and affording them a certain level of respect, regardless of whether my ears can take the music.

i complained about the lack of Badu review at the time because i kind of expected pfork to be fuelling that hype ("crossover neo-soul LP" or whatever) more than anyone else for some reason (maybe also the relative popularity of 'Voodoo' among pfork writers, different tho it is).

guys, sometimes there are other reasons for people missing reviews. i remember lex, you talked about this in the other thread and nabisco was kind enough to reply

lol remember when they reviewed new amerykah like 4 months after it came out, presumably because they hadn't considered erykah badu worthy of inclusion prior to that, and then were like: shit! critical consensus! better jump on that!

also partly because I was really busy with some personal stuff and took an embarrassingly long time to turn the review around -- but hey, any good LOL-on-P4k theories that help distract from my own flakiness are appreciated and encouraged round here

― nabisco, Wednesday, August 26, 2009 5:41 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah i did remember that post just couldn't remember where it was

the formattings weird on that, here's the post

Pitchfork's P2k: The Decade in Music

just saying--sometimes the reasons you think a place doesn't review something don't quite add up to a conspiracy

well damn i guess that excuses them everything then

no one's accused anyone of a "conspiracy" lol. institutional bias ≠ conspiracy.

iirc p4k actually pays? might factor into them not reviewing every record that's released. it's not a fucking government department so calling a disinclination to reviewing fucking mariah carey records does not amount to institutional bias.

not to mention new amerykah is like the pitchfork-friendliest badu album EVER

I can personally guarantee that a large part of the sloth with respect to reviews appearing is because of situations as per [nabisco]'s above.

I think it'd be wise to drop this particular anecdote because it's already been disproven (unless we're calling nabisco a liar). Lex the failure of this example doesn't disprove your point, but surely a better example could be found.

Plus Samosa is spot on - no way was pitchfork ever gonna not be on that album's dick, it's indie catnip.

Basically, it's been me pointing out, over and again, the gender imbalance in this and every Canonical List, and yet all the answers and the discussion and rebuttal is directed to The Lex like I'm not even here or something.

Maybe because you stopped posting yesterday afternoon and The Lex continued throughout the rest of the night? Some people probably didn't even scroll back and see that you had posted at all.

well it's mostly cuz you're a woman tbh

thread needs some will2k

Worth noting as well that Amerykah is not the first Badu album that Pitchfork have reviewed.

Apropos of nothing in particular: I had this funny experience in first year uni where my partner and I, responding to some complaints that none of the gay guys seemed to know jackshit about radical feminism and were maybe being sexist at times, started a unisex radical feminist reading group. We got a lot of the following 2 responses:

1) "I object to you reappropriating feminist discourse for male consumption" (well, only 3 people said this if I recall, it being a fairly odd thing to say); and

2) "While you are sitting there reading and talking about feminism and sexism, do you think that you're actually doing anything to meaningfully challenge patriarchy?"