Pitchfork - has placed its head on the block - so when are you?

I think we are probably all aware by now that DJ Martian's epochal list is published on the 17th.

I'm not doing an albums list this year, as I mentioned somewhere. You never end up saying anything very interesting with them anyway. I'll mention some good albums along the way in the NYLPM rundown. BUT! We will be striking a blow for truly interactive, scientific and objective musical assessment (as long-time readers will know the aim of this website) next week. So look out for that.

Tom's got a phonometer, I've seen him use it. He's quite exacting.

Wot's a "phonometer"?!?!!?

Old Fart!!!

It's sad but I really don't feel like participating in any sort of "best albums" list this year. All the stuff I listened to this year that I felt really passionate about were released in years past. I just couldn't connect emotionally to a lot of the 2000's releases.

Like Kathleen and Tom (elsewhere) it's not been a bumper year for me. I think I'm in the same phase as I was in in about 1997, when I felt completely dislocated from new music and then everything changed for a while. I've not heard much on Pitchfork's list, but I don't want to. Closed-minded? Oh yes. But if you can't be prejudiced as a pop fan then where can you be? I did download a Dismemberment Plan track from Napster ('Gyroscope') but didn't really understand it.

I have a feeling that in time I'll listen to Lampchop's 'Nixon' properly. 'The Great Eastern' was good, but I think the distictive production masks a slightly weaker set of songs than 'Peloton'. I liked what I heard of the Broadcast album. 'The Marshall Mathers LP' is astonishing, but I'm sure you understand when I say I could never really love it.

The Magnetic Fields '69 Love Songs' and Fiona Apple's 'When the pawn...' were both released in the UK in 2000, so can I have those?

If not, then it's an album that didn't figure at all in Uncut or Pitchfork's lists. I suppose the critical consensus is that they've lost it, but duff tracks notwithstanding 'Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant' *still* sounds like the work of a band that is the only one worth obsessing over these days.

Oh, it's been a bumper year for me. But just not for albums.

I reckon this whole top 20 lps contention speaks volumes about the US/English cultural music divide. Whereas freakytriger strives to posit pop in an inclusive cultural context, Pitchfork's more (too?) purist aesthetic perhaps looks a bit insular & incestuous in comparison. Both agendas have their merits, both look feintly ridiculuous when viewed from the other perspective. pitchfork appears refreshingly unashamed of its vaguely avant-guitar leanings whereas FT sometimes manifests unhealthy self-loathing when adressing same. What makes this excercise interesting is noting the concensus & disparitys that arise: the vile bloated sacred cow that is radiohead apparently stradles the atlantic comprehensively ( hideous mental image anyone?), chancers like clinic & badly drawn boy get suprising credence. On the other hand, great lps by mirah, summer hymns & the microphones have a prominence unlikely elsewhere. sorry, i appear to have taken this whole fandango far too seriously, all polls are shite aren't they... I thought the maher halal hash baz album was incontestably the best record of last year, am i disqualified?

Tom, I was quoting this, from your thingamijig new non-blog thing re: the Uncut lists:

"I barely write about films because I barely know about films, but it feels to me looking at these lists like movies are more exciting than pop right now, are going through a huge exciting boom period like music did (or so I read) in the late 70s."

CW is right about the different ethoses (sorry - there's probably a more correct plural form of that) that inform Pitchfork and its ilk and Freaky Trigger. I have never understood those who take too exclusive an interest in alt-rock progress, but I guess that's just my own form of snobbery. They're weird people to hang out with anyway, that's for sure. I remember someone else delineating it as a US/UK thing (Tom?) and I'd never thought about it that way before. Maybe there is a more focussed 'serious indie' set in America. That reminds me of someone once saying that Pixies were an odd lot because they didn't hang out with any of the other bands in Boston. Not that that's the same thing really, but it just came to mind. Sorry, I'm rambling.

I've noticed a prevalent party line lately about P'fork -- too exclusive, clique-y, etc. While I have as many criticisms as compliments about them, I don't really understand the logic behind knocking their limitations (whatever those are to you). Here you have a seemingly small circle of late '70s-born white kids reviewing indie rock records. From what I can tell, they get along with each other, which only makes for inbreeding with their likes and dislikes. Pitchfork is rather specialized; you wouldn't expect Field and Stream to cover the ridiculous free agency sweepstakes in major league baseball, 'cause Baseball Weekly does that.

Freaky Trigger sweeps a broader range, but I think that has a fair amount to do with its bulletin boards. Some of the frequent and numerous contributors provide the make-up just as much as the columns. If the Bitchpork board were to take on an increased and varied exposure, the same could be said of them. Also, the format's different. If some of the Pitchfork types blogged in connection to the site, you'd probably read about more than the usual things. So it all boils down to what's more important -- focus or range.

Personally, I get more out of this site, though I do check up on the other from time to time. Out of the daily reviews on the other, I probably recognize two artists at the most. Three years ago would have been a different story, when I was more in tune and involved with those things. The smarmyness gets a bit repulsive at times, but it also makes for good humor when I'm in the right mood. But it's that same smarmyness that's kept me out of show-going for a while, and I imagine this possibly permanent pseudo-hiatus has prevented me from hearing some good records. Overall, I find FT to have a healthier attitude about things, but again, I'm sure this has much to do with the less formal format.

Top two following stankonia: Now Thats What I Call Music, Vol 5! and Now Thats What I Call Music! vol 4.

I'm probably doing a vague Top 10 singles and albums, for what it's worth, on Elidor.

The key differences between FT and Pitchfork aren't really down to geographical origin. The key difference - and this is reflected in the (I suspect) vastly huger readership of Pf - is that Pitchfork is a professional indie rock review site. Professional as in Ryan S. acts and runs the site like a proper editor (and nuff respect to him for doing that because it's a skill I really do not possess) and it has adverts on and gets freebie records, and you imagine somewhere down the line there is money to be made from it. Not that that's the main reason for doing it, I'm sure.

FT on the other hand was set up with a curious bipolar purpose viz. i) to be a vehicle for my ego and take on pop culture, and ii) to be some kind of interactive small community of similar pop malcontents. I have been pleasantly surprised by how well it's done in terms of hits - still very modest by the standards of larger sites - but the intention has never been world (or even web) domination.

Now both these approaches are born out of an obviously genuine love of music - in fact looking at FT you could make a case for saying we like music a great deal *less* than Pitchfork (cf. Tanya) - but this difference in focus accounts for the 'feel' of the two sites as much as does the difference between the staff tastes.

I think a lot of the non-taste-based criticism of Pitchfork arises from its high visibility - it's well-known and well-done and so it's more irritating when it fucks up because you know a lot of people are reading.

Very keen on: Broadcast, Amon Tobin, Lambchop, Montaigne re-issues of Dutilleux/Dusapin string quartets, Clientele compilation

Almost great: Jon Hassell, The Sea and Cake, The Aislers Set

Unjustifiable remaster splurge: Nick Drake, Scott Walker Get frequent airings, but ultimately varying shades of disappointing: B&S, Laika, John Surman, "Clicks_+_Cuts"

Curious to hear: Emmylou Harris, Radiohead (hint to Stevie), Kid 606, Gas, OutKast, Xenakis: “Persepolis”, more UK hip-hop (hint to Tim: bring as many records as you like next weekend)

Saving ‘til Xmas: Johnny Cash, “Ohm” box-set

In no particular order 'coz I couldn't even come up with five...

Jurassic-5: Quality Control De la Soul: Mosaic Thump Yo La Tengo: ...And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out Outkast: Stankonia Common: Like Water For Chocolate

I'm sure Miles Davis' Complete Columbia Recordings box is superb overkill...

Mr. Mod, you continue to surprise me. Such a hip-hop centric list. And whats more, a list dripping with such overearnest old-skool street cred. Have you begun to develop moral standards in your old age?

Hip-hop is what's always playing in my friends' rooms and the things they listen to are typically very, very good. My love for the streets grows with every passing day. Word.

I also forgot to mention Cat Power: Covers Record, BtS: Live (jus' to show I still have a thing for guitar wankery), Apples In Stereo: Discovery of a World Inside the Moone (to show that I still gots the hots for Spin Art). So indie isn't dead... it just slipped my mind.