great popular (and semi-popular) albums of the past 5 years that Pitchfork didn't review

On the P&J thread -- Do we have a PAZZ AND JOP 2009 thread yet? -- scottpl threw down the gauntlet for people to name great popular albums that Pitchfork missed (didn't review, didn't include in a year-end list, etc.). So list records from 2005 onward that you love and that sold at least 200 thousand (or, if that's hard to verify, had a high Billboard peak) that PF didn't cover. This isn't to bully him or shame PF or tell them to change, at least that's not my intention, but just to challenge the notion that the popular music they cover is the only popular music worth writing about.

1. Fall Out Boy - Folie à Deux

2. Demi Lovato - Don’t Forget

3. Young Dro - Best Thang Smokin’

4. Miranda Lambert - Crazy Ex Girlfriend

5. Britney Spears - Blackout

as Scott said in the other thread, Miranda Lambert doesn't count, was in a year-end list.

5. Jeremih - Jeremih

6. bjnilsen - "the short night"

we didn't cover Blackout in part because Tom E wrote an entire column on it, but that's a fair answer obv

young dro is a v good answer!

Caveat: I'm not going to Google to verify whether Pitchfork covered all of these. Don't have time. If I get any wrong (i.e., list any that were actually covered), somebody say so and backstrack numerically accordingly. Thanks.

Starting with 2009 and moving back:

7. Brad Paisley – American Saturday Night (Arista Nashville)
8. Selena Gomez & The Scene – Kiss & Tell (Hollywood)
9. Pat Green – What I’m For (BNA)

"backtrack," I meant

10. Mary J Blige - The Breakthrough
11. Alan Jackson - Like Red on a Rose

12. My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade

13. Paramore - Brand New Eyes

14. Mariah Carey - The Emancipation of Mimi

15. Slayer - Christ Illusion

16. Robin Thicke - Something Else

2008 (a couple of these probably under 200,000, but they all charted fairly well I think)

17. Ashlee Simpson – Bittersweet World (Geffen)
18. Ne-Yo – Year Of The Gentleman (Def Jam)
19. Taylor Swift – Fearless (Big Machine)
20. Sugarland – Love On The Inside (Mercury)
21. Dierks Bentley – Greatest Hits / Every Mile A Memory 2003-2008 (Capitol)
22. Montgomery Gentry – Back When I Knew It All (Columbia)
23. Heidi Newfield – What Am I Waiting For (Curb/Asylum)
24. Trace Adkins – X (EMI) reviewed here
25. Ashton Shepherd – Sounds So Good (MCA Nashville)
26. The Veronicas – Hook Me Up (Sire)
27. Billy Currington – Little Bit Of Everything (Mercury Nashville)
28. Lady Antebellum – Lady Antebellum (EMI)
29. Lil Mama - Voice of the Young People (Jive/Zomba)
30. Jamey Johnson - That Lonesome Song (Mercury)
31. Phil Vassar – Prayer Of A Common Man (Universal)
32. Toby Keith – 35 Biggest Hits (Universal)

Did Alejandro Escovedo or James McMurtry sell enough that year? Guessing not, but I might be wrong. (Heidi Newfield album was Top 10 pop, so I'm figuring it came close enough. Not real sure about Lil Mama, either.)

Also, feel free to deduct the best-ofs above if you want, but I don't know why they shouldn't be reviewed.

33. Pink - Funhouse

34. The-Dream: Love Hate

(I'm getting all the easy ones out of the way here)

(lil mama, the veronicas, and taylor swift made year-end lists)

Ne-Yo is the probably the best answer so far imo

although I seriously doubt the veronicas LP sold more than 200K in the U.S.

35. Porcupine Tree, The Incident (#25 in the Billboard 200, not sure if that implies >200,000 sales or counts as a high peak)

what, albums year-end lists or singles year-end lists?

(lil mama, the veronicas, and taylor swift made year-end lists)

Year-end lists for singles, though, right? Not sure that should count here.

ha, xpost

36. The-Dream - Love vs Money

(honorable mention on year end doesnt count imo)

according to Wikipedia, Hook Me Up sold 128,000 copies in the US

OK, so let's strike that one.

36. John Legend - Once Again

2007 (backtracked to 36 thanks to Veronicas)

37. Jack Ingram – This Is It (Big Machine)
38. Blake Shelton – Pure B.S, (Warner Bros)
39. Toby Keith -- Big Dog Daddy (Show Dog Nashville)
40. Brooks & Dunn – Cowboy Town (Arista Nashville)
41. Gary Allan – Living Hard (MCA Nashville)
42. Sarah Johns – Big Love In A Small Town (BA)
43. Keith Urban – Greatest Hits (Capitol reissue)
44. Gretchen Wilson – One Of The Boys (Epic)
45. Brad Paisley – 5th Gear (Arista Nashville)
46. Carrie Underwood – Carnival Ride (Arista)
47. Faith Hill – The Hits (Warner Bros. reissue)
48. Tim McGraw – Let It Go (Curb)
49. Little Big Town – A Place To Land (Equity Music Group)
50. Aly & AJ – Insomniatic (Hollywood)
51. Kid Rock - Rock N Roll Jesus (Atlantic)
52. Taylor Swift - Taylor Swift (Big Machine) (technically '06)

Guessing Travis Tritt, John Anderson, and Jordan Pruitt wouldn't have come close to 200,000.

Yeah all those artists made year-end singles lists. That's obv fine then if they don't count here, or get asterisks.

The parameters were drawn that way in the other thread bcuz the original context was 'which quality artists are big in the real world yet we aren't engaging with them'. you could argue we engage with some of them the same way the 'real world' does (singles), but you could of course say the same thing about a lot of indie bands too these days, that people are checking out a song or two and that's it.

Yeah, at the end of this we can put asterisks on all the artists w/ singles or other albums covered/listed and see how much smaller the number would be. I don't know if it'd be significantly smaller, though.

53. Lil Boosie - Superbad: The Return of Boosie Bad Azz

but just to challenge the notion that the popular music they cover is the only popular music worth writing about.

is this really a notion that needs to be challenged?

37. Jack Ingram – This Is It (Big Machine)
42. Sarah Johns – Big Love In A Small Town (BA)

I'm sort of doubtful as to whether these sold more than 200,000. Especially Sarah Johns -- that album's Billboard Top 200 peak was #198.

based on these lists i'd say the question is whether p4k would make an editorial decision to cover modern country or not.

Scratch Ingram for sure:

His first album for the label, "Live: Wherever You Are," sold 84,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and his second, "This Is It," sold 152,000.
(Reuters, Aug. 14, 2009)

The editor of the publication put forward the notion, and I wouldn't surprised if a lot of the staff felt the same way. But this is really more of a fun exercise to see how fully I can illustrate my point without sidetracking the other thread. (xpost)

OK, let's strike those.

52. Say Anything - In Defense Of The Genre

yeah i totally get that it's just striking how many of these records come outta modern country

2006

53. Montgomery Gentry – Some People Change (Columbia)
54. Toby Keith – White Trash With Money (Show Dog Nashville/Universal)
55. Paris Hilton - Paris (Warner Bros.)
56. Rodney Atkins – If You’re Going Through Hell (Curb)
57. Ne-Yo – In My Own Words (Def Jam)
58. Kellie Pickler – Small Town Girl (BNA/Sony BMG)

Aly & AJ Xmas album at 135,000, according to Wiki; assume Def Leppard covers album and Veronicas debut didn't hit 200,000. Also left off Trent Willmon and Eric Church, for sales reasons, but could be wrong about those.

cad, you gotta take into account that xuxhk is listing more that anybody else at the moment (which I have no problem with). plus country is a bigger blind spot for PF than mainstream rap or R&B, maybe even more than straight up pop.

59. Birdman & Lil Wayne - Like Father, Like Son

right, it's almost certainly their biggest blind spot. so i guess it's like, do they have any interest in changing that? what would the motivation and value be of doing so? and would their readership be more/less/equally receptive to suddenly seeing toby keith and brad paisley reviews?

so yeah i'm just kinda thinking out loud about stuff

oh sorry that more/less/equally should refer to the current occasional pop and mainstream rap reviews they run

would country fans read pitchfork if they had a regular country column and reviews?

2005

60. Little Big Town – The Road To Here (Equity)
61. Gary Allan – Tough All Over (MCA Nashville)
62. Carrie Underwood – Some Hearts (Arista)
63. Toby Keith – Honkytonk University (Dreamworks)
64. Dierks Bentley – Modern Day Drifter (Capitol)
65. Brooks & Dunn – Hillbilly Deluxe (Arista Nashville)
66. Miranda Lambert – Kerosene (Epic)

Assuming Shooter Jennings and Living Things debuts come nowhere near.

Also, missed this from 2006:

66. Dixie Chicks - Taking The Long Way (Sony)

I think this is the closest Pitchfork's come to covering country.

67. Keyshia Cole - Just Like You

(Actually, I take that back -- Deusner and Breihan used to periodically cover mainstream country singles.)

I think well-received mainstream metal is a big blinder too.

68. AC/DC - Black Ice
69. Slipknot - All Hope Is Gone

The 2005 Little Big Town album went platinum, btw.

I don't know why people think p4k should review country albums.

Because how can I enjoy a Dierks Bentley album without knowing how many tenths of a point it ranks above or below a HotRats album?

lol

What about rascal flats?

some dude, first of all, though I haven't heard all of them, I'm inclined to believe not one of the albums mentioned above is actually "great". There's probably an exception or two up there, but most of them, sorry, no.

I'm also pretty sure there are others out there who are not really interested on having Pitchfork use time and space w/ the likes of Fall Out Boy, Demi Lovato, Mimi et caterva. So get this: I disagree with the very premise that these albums, though "great", have been criminally neglected by Pitchfork.

Second, about Shrinebuilder, you're being disingenuous. It's not popular on the level of Taylor Swift or what have you, but it is successful, somewhat edgy and influential within its specific niche, therefore "semi-popular". Pitchfork being quiet about it is certainly stranger than Pitchfork being quiet about the latest Bon Jovi album.

The problem w/ this kind of thread is not the eternal subjectivity of personal tastes as much as this "anything goes, f. the haters" mindset. It's a kind of populist snobbery that amounts to demanding Big Macs on japanese restaurants.

― Now, Saturday, January 30, 2010 9:51 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

a) it must be nice to know exactly how good or bad an album is without hearing it, if only we all had that skill
b) greatness in the eye of the beholder, and the idea was simply that if a person on this thread (who probably more often than not is as much of a professional critic as any PF staffer) says it's great, that's enough
c) read the thread, "criminally neglected" was not the premise
d) read the first post of the thread, the specific sales threshold for "semi-popular" was 200 thousand, pretty sure Shrinebuilder haven't moved that many units
e) again, nobody "demanded" anything and I absolutely want Pitchfork to be Pitchfork, I just don't want them to have any illusions that they're incapable of missing out on anything good and popular (or, worse, illusions that they're the only good restaurant in town and anything they don't serve is fast food)

fwiw although chuck named a lot of country albums that still leaves about 40 other non-country albums named in this thread, maybe we can talk about those instead of pretending to get the vapors about the idea of PF reviewing Keith Urban

would love for people to pick back up on that and maybe get the count up to 100, btw

Jay Reatard-Blood Visions

Didn't they review Slayers Christ Illusion? that seems weird.

no way did that sell 200k

although "great indie albums that Pitchfork didn't review" is I guess the inevitable sequel to this thread that'll fill up with suggestions way quicker

OK, just one thing about a): the first thing I said was "though I haven't heard all of them" etc. You got that part right? Anyway carry on etc. I'll even give you one hint: Pitchfork real blindspot is not the Billboard crowd, but non-US/non-UK releases. That's where they must improve. Start w/ Argentina's LeMicrokosmos 1st album.

No I don't think I will.

I didn't think you would as I was replying to some dude's message, but that's ok. Let me guess: you like a Lady Gaga fan. Some kind of aristocratic camaraderie perhaps.

you ARE a Lady Gaga fan, forget the "like"

alfred is it true your significant other is a lady gaga fan?

xp dammit

http://musicgoss.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/now-30.jpg

haha. hard to review those kind of compilations, i think.

i doubt they sold 200K, but rodrigo y gabriela's 11:11 sold 500K+ worldwide, it's a rock disc (and really not the "jam-band"-type disc that i assume p4k wouldn't review), and a very good one, at that, but no p4k review.

haha I was just making a Now/Lady Gaga visual pun

I don't have any opinion of any of these until I see a number and a decimal point. ;)

I don't know why people think p4k should review country albums. that is absurd.
― van smack, Sunday, January 31, 2010 3:03 AM (14 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

It's not in the least bit absurd because they already review country albums.

Again, Ryan Adams' Heartbreaker (122), Band of Horses' Everything All the Time (109), and Neko Case's Blacklisted (141) all made their top 200 albums of the decade list. Those ARE country albums, through and through. On their top 200 songs of the 1960s, there are three Johnny Cash songs, three by Patsy Cline, and two by Loretta Lynn, and Merle Haggard, George Jones, and Tammy Wynette all appear once. Loretta Lynn's Van Lear Rose received a 9.3 from P4k in 2004. Wilco, My Morning Jacket, Magnolia Electric Co., Ryan Adams, Kathleen Edwards, Drive-By Truckers...they review them.

This is not evidence that they review country satisfactorily, but that they value SOME country music. The question is: How do they define the confines of this genre's worth? Am I surprised that they skip Toby Keith, Dierks Bentley, Carrie Underwood, Kellie Pickler, et al.? No. But there are dozens of artists and albums that seem to fit nicely within the niche alt/country model that they've carved, yet remain entirely ignored. Hell, the new Justin Townes Earle album had a brilliant Mats cover on it.

If they don't want to devote the space required for full reviews, why not simply add another (bi)monthly column the way they do for grime, dubstep, etc.? That seems reasonable.

band of horses is country?

those seem like "alt-country" or country that dovetails with indie.

p4k reviews those albums b/c they are indie, not b/c they are country (and they're not really country; they have a small tinge of "country influence). loretta lynn is maybe the one exception, but that's undoubtedly b/c that album has one song with jack white on it (especially since this was 2004). and anyway i'm pretty sure the point of the thread is to say "this is what p4k didn't cover" not "this is what p4k should cover"--they don't have to cover everything

Yeah, I'd rather not read mainstream Country reviews on P4K if they're all going to be No Depression-y rants how how Hank wouldn't have dun it this way. But I agree the lack of Country coverage does mean that P4K has a narrower focus than it thinks it does.

scottpl says p4k is a generalist pub, if it was it would cover country. compare NYT music coverage for instance. also not sure about what he considers obvious to everyone as too shit to cover: would have possibly voted for "i gotta feeling" in trax poll though i know it's hated a lot.

p4k reviews those albums b/c they are indie, not b/c they are country (and they're not really country; they have a small tinge of "country influence). loretta lynn is maybe the one exception

― een, Sunday, January 31, 2010 5:57 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Uh, what? Heartbreaker's not country? Srsly? Best trad. country album of the last decade.

you guys do realize "generalist" means "not bound to certain genres only" more than it means "scrupulously covering every genre" right?

There's a difference between not "scrupulously covering" a genre and almost totally ignoring it.

lol but the point of all these posters is that the site does NOT totally ignore country!

Heartbreaker's not country? Srsly? Best trad. country album of the last decade.

Not in a decade that had That Lonesome Song, There's More Where That Came From, Heaven, Heartache & the Power of Love, Home, Like Red on a Rose, Rattlin' Bones, & Whiskey or God

@call all destroyer: Absolutely. I still stand by the positions I've held in this thread, which I believe have been more than reasonable in relation to Pitchfork's specific aesthetic and coverage. "Scrupulously" covering country would redefine their aesthetic, so no, I'm not suggesting that. The modest suggestions I made were: cover Bloodshot releases, those albums whose songs end up on their Best Tracks of the Year lists, and--if space is an issue--make a (bi)monthly column instead.

Look, I'm a big Pitchfork proponent. I'll be the first to defend them against their many naysayers because I believe they're still the most reliable opinion on the web since the demise of Stylus. What they've done with their music festival and Pitchfork TV is truly commendable. My gripe has more to do with odd inconsistencies rather than complete ignorance.

@Pres Keyes: Of the ones I know, I'd label nearly all of those contemporary country, not traditional country; but even conceding the point, I'd take Heartbreaker in a blink over all of them. Only country album I liked more this decade was Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. I've never heard Whiskey or God, but will check it out. Thanks.

Is it really possible that they didn't review DJ Sprinkles's Midtown 120 Blues?

they haven't reviewed that disc (at least not yet)

x-post
The thing is that all of those albums I listed, within the Country genre, are regarded as trad, (or at least neo-trad) even retro. Definitely out of step with contemporary trends.

Most of them also sound no less like "traditional" country (from whatever earlier decade) than Ryan Adams does, fwiw.

Is it really possible that they didn't review DJ Sprinkles's Midtown 120 Blues?

― with hidden noise, Sunday, January 31, 2010 6:51 PM (4 hours ago)

this seems more wtf than all yr taylor swifts but maybe thats just cos i reckon it was the best album i heard by a good distance

but how can one song on an overwhelmingly consistent album be considered excellent and the rest be unworthy of review?

The truth is probably more prosaic:

The "specialist" slant of Pitchfork doesn't mean that it will refuse to run certain things (or if it does I've never seen evidence of this), more that the editors won't go out of their way to find reviewers for certain things if they don't voluntarily pitch a review.

I'm possibly the only pitchfork crit who purchased the album at the time that it was released, and I'm so lazy I rarely if ever pitch anything (also why I never pitched DJ Sprinkles...).

Taylor won over a lot of non-country fans with "You Belong With Me" - people who didn't like "Love Story" even. Pitchfork's end of year polls aren't masterminded by the editors or anything so if enough of the writers grew to like the song it would end up on the final poll. But this was well after the album was released.

Lady Gaga also won over people with "Paparazzi", which ended up on the end of year poll too. But it was the release of The Fame Monster which gave Pitchfork the chance to review Gaga without obviously playing catch up.

There's almost a tiered structure with a lot of the take-up of populist stuff - e.g. Taylor and The-Dream both fall into the same camp whereby:

1) Early Adopters - got into the first album from each artist pretty much immediately
2) First Wave Take-up - got into the first albums 12 months or more after their release, were primed for 2nd album from each
3) Second Wave Take-up - got into the second albums 6 months or so after their release
4) Confirmation of Sweep - all of the above groups primed for release of 3rd album

These four categories relate to:

1) one or two people hyping artist on ILM
2) groundswell of support on ILM
3) groundswell of support amongst critics generally
4) Review on Pitchfork

(120 Midtown Blues is) the best album i heard by a good distance

i've come around to feeling this way, too

it was the release of The Fame Monster which gave Pitchfork the chance to review Gaga without obviously playing catch up.

Well, again, I'm not saying what Pitchfork should or shouldn't review, but Swift released an expanded version of Fearless right around the same time that Gaga put out The Fame Monster (and by then, "You Belong With Me" had already hit.)

Yes but it'd be a lot more like "catch-up" given - unlike The Fame Monster - it really is just a repackaged version of the original and none of the new songs were particularly good!

Tim, thanks for the response. "Jump Then Fall" was pretty ok, but I'd agree that the rest of the expanded Fearless edition was more or less superfluous and/or pointless. Your large post makes perfect sense if 'playing catch-up' is considered a negative, but is it?

Is it not fair to assume that the vast majority of your readership has still not heard Fearless but might consider doing so if you dropped a 7.something on it a la The Fame Monster? I'm absolutely sure that I've seen you guys review albums in early new years that came out in the early Fall of the year prior, which I'm assuming was a product of a writer saying: hey, I'm going to review that album because it deserved to be reviewed and we missed it.

Perhaps it would be beneficial to have someone write a column at the end of January or February of the following year called, 2009: What We Missed?

the editors won't go out of their way to find reviewers for certain things if they don't voluntarily pitch a review

yeah i was gonna post something along these lines yesterday, it bothers me far more that people are making philosophical arguments as to why pfork shouldn't cover taylor swift or whoever when the truth is probably more like that combination of finite resources/writers + narrow editorial purview re: what it'll make an effort to cover (as opposed to waiting for a writer to pitch it). more than ever at this point though, i can't work out whether pfork thinks of itself as specialist or generalist, even scott seems somewhat confused on this point.

none of the new songs were particularly good!

ahem "untouchable"! it's beautiful

Actually I agree re "untouchable", I forget about that one.

Also I agree with that entire previous post lex. Really I don't think any publication has its aesthetic (and corresponding editorial policy) totally worked out to the nth degree - most of the time it's about post-facto elaboration on what's really a combination of instinct and institutionalised habit, although scott (and I assume ryan) seem to think about this as much as or more than other publications I have experience of.

Indexed to some extent you're right - I pitched and reviewed Electrik Red on that basis pretty much (and got an 8.something for it). But again a lot of this is actually about individual writers making the effort rather than some hyper micromanaged editorial policy.

How ironic that you did the review of Electrik Red! I couldn't think of a finite example, but that's perfect, because the day I read your review I downloaded and listened to that album. The latter is something I rarely ever do on the first day of owning a new album because my queue is typically quite large. But I had been meaning to grab that forever and then the review dropped and I simply had to hear it...

Fair enough on the whole writers/resources argument--it's absolutely understandable, and I assumed it to be the problem all along. Hence the closing P of my first post in this thread:

"Moving forward, Pitchfork would benefit from hiring a full-time country writer, one familiar with the history of the genre, but who can still recognize young talent. SP: Really want to take a risk in achieving #2 ("expose nominally indie/guitar rock kids to non-indie music"), quit reviewing stand-up comedy records and remix EPs from one-note indie bands and take on a genre of music that remains one of America's richest and most rewarding. You might even get a few new readers."

Re-listening now for the first time in months, I'm going to change my opinion on the Platinum Edition Fearless bonus tracks: I like most of these! Girl's gotta helluva knack for a pop chorus.

a little late, but

79. Shakira - Fijación Oral Vol. 1
80. Shakira - Oral Fixation Vol. 2
81. Shakira - She Wolf
82. Calle 13 - Calle 13
83. Calle 13 - Residente o Visitante
84. Daddy Yankee - Barrio Fino
85. Julieta Venegas - Limon y Sal
86. Pitbull - El Mariel

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

rick ross - deeper than rap

^yep

88. Nellie McKay - Get Away From Me