Pitchfork: Top 50 Albums

peace
gear

At least Pitchdork has found the sense of getting behind one decent band this year in Art Brut, and the blurb for Art Brut's entry pretty much summed up why they're awesome and you're not.

Also, I think I may be in the minority, but I don't think I'm feeling Sufjan as much as everybody else seems to be either.

yeah it is, but wasn't that from last year?

xpost -- definately not feeling Sufjan as much as i did when it came out, i only listen to 'John Wayne Gacy Jr.' now

AFAIK, Pitchfork hasn't used the (50, 49, 48, ...3, 2, 1) voting system in a couple of years. Once the points are weighted toward higher votes, Orthrelm scores big with a #1 and a #2 vote, whereas Lekman was named on a bunch of ballots but didn't crack anyone's top ten.

(Sigur Ros were also named on a bunch of ballots -- including #3 and #5 votes -- but somehow didn't score enough to make the top 50)

I wonder if the weighting was particularly extreme this time ... this might explain why so many people chose not to list the full 50 albums?

Only 7 of the top 30 would crack mine, i think:

MIA, Clientele, LCD, Antony, Mountain Goats, Wolf Parade, maybe CYHSY.

i think it is interesting to see how much communication happens between staffers at publications. specifically pfork and stylus. there were definitely some albums that seem revered by only pfork (serena maneesh, love is all, boy least likely to, etc,)While with the stylus list im sure will include girls aloud and kelley polar(is that him on the front page?)

50: Orthrelm - OV [Ipecac]
49: Fiery Furnaces - EP [Rough Trade]
48: Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy [Jagjaguwar]
47: The Boy Least Likely To - The Best Party Ever [Too Young to Die]
46: Fiona Apple - Extraordinary Machine [Jon Brion Version] [mp3]
45: M83 - Before the Dawn Heals Us [Mute]
44: Vashti Bunyan - Lookaftering [Fat Cat]
43: Spoon - Gimme Fiction [Merge]
42: My Morning Jacket - Z [RCA]
41: Róisín Murphy - Ruby Blue [Echo]
40: Young Jeezy - Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101 [Def Jam]
39: Robyn - Robyn [Konichiwa]
38: Devendra Banhart - Cripple Crow [XL]
37: Dominik Eulberg - Kreucht & Fleucht [Mischwald]
36: Keith Fullerton Whitman - Multiples [Mischwald]
35: The Game - The Documentary [Aftermath/Interscope]
34: Silver Jews - Tanglewood Numbers [Drag City]
33: Bloc Party - Silent Alarm [Vice]
32: Beanie Sigel - The B.Coming [Roc-A-Fella]
31: Konono No. 1 - Congotronics [Crammed Discs]
30: Franz Ferdinand - You Could Have It So Much Better [Domino]
29: Serena Maneesh - Serena Maneesh[Honeymilk]
28: Sunn O))) - Black One [Southern Lord]
27: Jamie Lidell - Multiply [Warp]
26: The Decemberists - Picaresque [Kill Rock Stars]
25: Alan Braxe & Friends - The Upper Cuts [PIAS]
24: The Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree [4AD]
23: Ladytron - The Witching Hour [Rykodisc]
22: Broadcast - Tender Buttons [Warp]
21: Bonnie "Prince" Billy & Matt Sweeney - Superwolf [Drag City]
20: The Hold Steady - Separation Sunday [Frenchkiss]
019: Sleater-Kinney - The Woods [Sub Pop]
018: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah [Clap Your Hands Say Yeah]
017: The Clientele - Strange Geometry [Merge]
016: Love Is All - Nine Times That Same Song [What's Your Rupture?]
015: Clipse - We Got It 4 Cheap, Vol. 2 [mixunit.com]
014: Vitalic - OK Cowboy [PIAS]
013: Various Artists - Run the Road [679]
012: New Pornographers - Twin Cinema [Matador]
011: Isolée - We Are Monster [Playhouse]
10: Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary [Sub Pop]
09: Cam'ron - Purple Haze [Roc-A-Fella]
08: LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem [DFA]
07: Animal Collective - Feels [Fat Cat]
06: Deerhoof - The Runners Four [Kill Rock Stars]
05: Antony & the Johnsons - I Am a Bird Now [Secretly Canadian]
04: M.I.A. - Arular [XL]
03: Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock & Roll [Fierce Panda]
02: Kanye West - Late Registration [Roc-A-Fella]
01: Sufjan Stevens - Illinois [Asthmatic Kitty]

plus: Individual writers' Lists

Bloc Party I look on as a bit 'work in progress'. Silent Alarm was good but not great, in a way that suggested they'll make better albums in the future.

It was also interesting that Broadcast and Ladytron ended up next to one another. They, along with M83's inclusion, could mean one thing: shoegazing's back. Hurrah (perhaps). I love the Clap Your Hands Album, but am still not feeling LCD Soundsystem one little bit.

I'd disagree with them on detail about Roisin Murphy's album though. Matthew Herbert's arrangements ARE what make it sound distinctive.

oh you cannot be serious. it's KATE BUSH. she's a living legend. she's made an album on a completely different plane of existence to 100 of that list. show some respect!

i thought indie kids liked kate bush?

Just felt this piece of wisdom needed to be highlighted...

hrrmph

re-listening to it right now for the first time in a few months and this is precisely my conclusion too. it no more deserves nme album of the year than i do. they'll make some amazing music one day, though.

art brut at number 3? that's right up there with them hitting the cover of rolling stone in germany! fair play to 'em.

oh don't worry i wasn't claiming that was the reason it wasn't in amongst this largely sorry lot.

not surprised that: Kanye and Sufjan finished in the top 2 slots

still not getting: Antony

Sufjan is a novelty act. Feels is the real #1, obviously.

Pitchfork 50 Best Albums of 2005
http://rateyourmusic.com/list/ijkidd/pitchfork_50_best_albums_of_2005

haha, I've been told this before!

Cuz they toured with Clap Your Hands?

roffles

Keep up the good work suckas!

What is more interesting to me is gauging the attitude of a group like ILM (I'd say: a group of cultural (critical) elites)) on those "casual readers" Nabisco mentions. This is something that's changed in rock criticism, I think: when I read Lester Bangs, I get the impression this guy is writing for that casual reader. Even though the music may not be all that accessible to that casual reader, Bangs wrote like it was his divinely appointed mission to convince that ordinary guy that he hadda love "Fun House", that it was just like "Wooly Bully" but MORE SO...and now I read rock crit and I'm not so sure that this is a goal anymore. Why exactly is this? Is it because of continuing mistrust of the mainstream out of fears of being coopted by the establishment ("just another way to be right wing")? Or is it that the rock market has shrunk and so we know that e.g. Nelly's got a better chance of reaching the common guy than most of the elite-loved stuff and so as a consequence we ignore the common guy? Or is all this just a Freud/fraud and crits these days are still just looking for the great songs, other cultural/instituitional biases be damned, and by def. great = accessible to anyone?

In short: how important is it to you that a song/record be something we (in pretty broad terms, "we", not just ILM or indie kids or whatever) can reach a reasonable consensus on? Is that a virtue or a vice or a non-factor?

Perhaps Orthrelm is not whiny or pansy-assed or even embarassingly self conscious (or Sunn(((()___________0)??? for that matter), but those are two examples, pork thrown to dangerous lovers of all things metal. Would you want to anger them? I think not! Though the fact that the Snicksnack review of this mentions Steve Reich, Can, alcoholism induced painting and mathematical concepts only serves to tell us how boring the whole thing likely is. If it's so great, how come it didn't beat out Sufjan Stevenson? Is Bitchwork secretly controlled by neo Christian suburban art punk hippies? Most likely.

I almost never count on this anymore - very few bands today reach beyond a narrow audience. Arcade Fire and Sufjan are becoming popular, but a lot of my favorite albums of the last couple years stick to a niche (Rehearsing My Choir). Or think about Othrelm - they deserve recognition, but I wouldn't recommend OV to any of my friends.

OK, my original comment is an exaggeration. I don't own any Old Skull recordings (anymore). But I'm weary of all things tepid and tasteful. So very, very weary...

"...not to mention Neu! and Can..."

Also, what in God's name is "math-jazz"?

As for my favorite recordings of the past year that is hard for me to say. As I mentioned before I am a feeble old man and I live in far northern Canada where it is cold and desolate and there is a dearth of independent music stores. So I am a pauper when it comes to experiencing the avant garde of what's "groovy" these days, and I can barely hear anymore due to my years of studying Ligeti's studies in dissonance and inonation at extremely loud volumes.

That said, I would say that William Oldham's most recent recording gave me some pleasure. Album covers with blood-covered feminine hands and songs about werewolves surely don't qualify as pansy assed. William Parker's Sound Unity recording raised a few eyebrows up here, but it's certainly not his best (also not pansy assed or maudlin). And that band called Deerhoof can really cobble together an quite an interesting array of grinding sounds and lilting sounds (possibly maudlin at times, but never pansy assed). Most everything sucked though, and showed us all how very difficult it is to make good music.

http://www.stereogum.com/archives/002172.html

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