What will be the best album of 2007 according to pitchfork?

who's jacking titles

Why American Bands Are Best

Our new columnist argues that the best new music is coming from across the pond these days…

Ever since the Sixties, when the success of our pop groups made it easier to cope with the sun setting on the Empire, the British cultural identity has been tied up with its pop cultural identity. Particularly when it came to the 'special relationship': sure, the Americans had all the money, but so what?

We were the cool older brother who played guitar. But it's not what it once was.


The recent Blair retrospectives enjoyed rolling out the clip of Noel Gallagher at Number Ten because it was film from another age. Alastair Campbell's diaries make the invitation sound like almost an accident, that it meant nothing to Blair, but it’s nevertheless impossible to imagine anything like Cool Britannia happening today.

There are a whole series of reasons why that is - the country today wouldn't tolerate a government appearing that infantile, for one thing - but what about the musical ones? Well, the problem is that now all the cool kids seem to be American.

The Strokes, The White Stripes, The Flaming Lips, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Arcade Fire, The Gossip, Scissor Sisters, The Killers, to name just a few - damnit, those bands should have been our bands. Well, maybe not The Killers – they're our bands already.

But, still, something has happened.


The Americans have a vibrant, original, alt.music scene that doesn't exist in this country. There is a proper sustainable mainstream alternative over there in The Shins and Modest Mouse, Spoon, Death Cab For Cutie, Bright Eyes and Rilo Kiley.

Bigger than merely cult bands, they amount to a coherent and credible scene with a following.

And those are just the college radio topsoil. Beneath them, there are tons of interesting US artists (Battles and Secret Machines, say, or the Elephant 6 collective) filling halls and making exciting and well-received music. Somehow, it all seems to be working out for them.


Contrast that with the playlist of our leading alternative rock station today: Athlete, Editors, Reverend & The Makers, Travis, Turin Brakes and The Twang.

Wait for Coldplay, Keane, Razorlight and Hard-Fi to cluster bomb us with their next releases and you've got a whole Music Scene of the Damned: no ambition, dying of boredom.

The important thing here isn't that every British band I've listed there is duller than David Cameron's (not bad) record collection, it's the less tangible feeling that the Americans are outflanking the UK somehow on our own turf - difficult, intelligent, groundbreaking, literary "indie rock" records with a genuine emotional core - uncompromising, existing on their own terms. We stupidly thought we owned that land.


It's like American TV. In the 80s, American telly was a joke. We might watch Dallas or Knight Rider, but safe in the knowledge we were effortlessly culturally superior. Then, quite unnoticed, all of that began to change, until suddenly American dramas, thrillers and comedies were the only ones worth having.

Now, we barely even expect to compete. It has become that way with music. The shame!

Of course, Britain won't lose it completely. Britain will continue to produce bags of great stuff to love at a cult level, burning brightly and fading away. We can still make The Office and we can still birth The Libertines, but two helpings of each, at most. Then we have to watch the horizon for the next thing.

You might ask why it matters.

I suppose it shouldn't. I mean, I'm happy listening to these foreigners, and they seem to come over here to play often enough (at least in the big cities). But as a music fan, I'm starting to feel like the Brits in the war, dazzled by American GIs with their nylons and chewing gum. And that's no way to be, is it?

Where's that from?

"our leading alternative rock station" = radio 1?

msn.co.uk

Good grief.

What's their new columnist's name?

dom passantino.

hahahaha

do we actually have "mainstream alternative" over here?

or just NME 'alternative' (i.e. the mainstream!) and well, actual under-the-radar alternative bands like erm... Electrelane? minds gone blank here... kate or someone who pays a bit more attention than me might have some names? please god not louis (no offence) or the sfabooradley fellation squad please? UK bands/acts formed after 1997 and actually releasing records now?

k lets give this it's own thread

I wish that pitchfork would choose an album on it's artistical merits rather than it's coolness.

They did this last year :)

PS who cares

Electrelane, 65daysofstatic, Working For A Nuclear Free City, Patrick Wolf, Guillemots, The Clientele, the Warp etc roster (now made up of, OH LOOK, YANK ALT.BANDS LIKE !!!, Battles, Grizzly Bear), Twilight Sad, King Biscuit Time, The Aliens, Shack, Camera Obscura...

It's there, but it's small, and doesn't work on the same fronts as the Yank analogue.

It's the less tangible feeling that the Americans are outflanking the UK somehow on our own turf - difficult, intelligent, groundbreaking, literary "indie rock" records with a genuine emotional core -

been wanting that question as a separate thread for a LONG time!

so to answer this one ... M.I.A? unless she's seen to be repeating too many of the ideas in her first album, maybe Panda Bear? but maybe will lose points for being a friendlier, more conservative take on Animal Collective?

It will either be a solidly American record, but definitely NOT anything beardy-weirdy/indie-dance/pan-global & 'controversial' or electronic (i.e. anything that 'peaked' already in the indie conciousness)

ok, probably M.I.A. after all for vaguely (via producton) roping in the blog/fidget house/nu-rave axis, outside bet on Klaxons.

It'll probably be that new Sunset Rubdown.

NB: I've not heard the new Sunset Rubdown, just seems like something the 'Fork masses would name album of the year.

Panda Bear or LCD Soundsystem.

Or perhaps Battles, or Deerhunter, or Of Montreal.

Of the albums that haven't been released: maybe Animal Collective?

albums that have gotten a 9 or better from p-fork so far this year:

battles - mirrored
the field - from here we go sublime
panda bear - person pitch
lcd soundsystem - sound of silver

hmmm

"COLLEGE RADIO TOPSOIL"

I'm not sure you can judge just by whats received 9+ ratings, The Knife only had an 8.6 rating last year.

Why do I care enough to look that up?

Field album seems quite over-rated. 'Sound Of Silver' too.

Sunset Rubdown sounds like a perfect 60:40 hybrid of Arcade Fire and Modest Mouse. Upsides: Catchy, literate. Downside: Totally unoriginal.