Pitchfork’s best albums, the right type of white people, and the crowd-sourcing dilemma
Pitchfork put out their top 200 albums of the 2000’s recently. They got #1 right with “Kid A.” But each successive entry pissed me off incrementally. Arcade fire #2! Wilco #4! Ok, I’m sure that a lot of you True Slant readers like these picks just fine, and yeah, I guess most of these records are ok. But, what really made me angry was what wasn’t there. The 2000’s list is too new, so the flaws of omission that I see as obvious might actually be (gasp) my own aesthetic failings. Instead for this post, and to really get my undies in a knot, I went through their list of the 90’s 80’s and 70’s.
So, let’s play What Are The Insanely Obvious Records Pitchfork Neglected!! Yay! In the first round let’s use their best of the 1980’s list… The rules are simple, stroll through the list and try to find missing landmark records. Take your time, I’ll just sit here and sing the Jeopardy theme, do de do do, do de dum… Ok did you spot the #1 and #2 omissions? Yes! Good call! Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” and “Ride The Lightening” are nowhere.
All right, good job contestant… For the bonus round, let’s play the same game with their 1970’s list. Take your time, I’ll sing the Tic-Tac-Dough theme song, do de dooo did-da-le do de dum… Ding ding ding! Yes! Good eye again! Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid” is in absentia.
Ok, ok, I know, you’re a TS reader, so that means that you’re probably the right type of white person who likes his/her metal contained to the ironic days of his/her youth. But, A. Why?? Don’t you know that metal is good for you? And B. this isn’t about you, this is about 1. getting history right, and 2. about how the rise of Rotten Tomatoes/crowd-sourced/meta systems of review that work really well for video games, and reasonably well for books and movies, is terrible for music, and leads to sites like Pitchfork to generally put their blinders on and stick to NPR style music, and avoid anything out of their milieu.
(more about this last point coming soon)
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Mastodon played the Pitchfork festival in 2007. I think that’s the token metal appearance. What a breath of fresh air they were, all those little hipster kids standing there stunned in their skinny jeans and over-sized sunglasses.
Heh… I saw Mastodon a few years ago in NYC. They’re somewhat acceptable for indie kids, maybe because they’re so good… But the crowd seemed to skew towards the Vice magazine cocaine loving scumbag crowd. I would have loved to see the crowd reaction at Pitchfork.
In response to another comment. See in context »Well, the cocaine loving indie rock crowd actually got into it. My friend who was much taller than me was shocked to see a most pit forming. My reply, “do indie-rockers mosh?” got somehow picked up on Time Out’s “overheard” section that week. But I was sincere. I’d never see them do more than sway a bit in between poses.
Better yet, was the response later that evening when Yoko One took the stage. Thurston Moore played guitar, on his knees since she’s so tiny, but a steady flow exited the park. Snickering and laughing. My friend again, had a great view, this time of history.
So much for being alternative, he said. Love her or hate her, Yoko Ono was maybe the original indie rocker. Alternative to everything else, and she’s remained true to that today.
In response to another comment. See in context »Given how long it took Pitchfork to explain why Kid A is the No. 1 album of the aughts, that’s more evidence of what Kid A really is — an album you have to talk yourself into liking.
And the reason Pitchfork is often so douchey and dangerous is that it’s codified “indie rock” into the wan, soulless shit much of it is today. Pitchfork reviewers wouldn’t know honest-to-God, ass-kicking emotion if it knocked the PBR can out of its hands.
“Given how long it took Pitchfork to explain…”
I don’t think that’s true, I think they just gave it more ink because it was #1. I mean, to be fair Kid A isn’t an easy record to like. There really is a lot there, emotionally, texturally, and harmonically. It is extremely dense.
I do agree with the codification of wan soulless indie-rock…
Anyway, I’m sorry that I only talked about metal in the final draft of this post. It’s not just metal that’s neglected it’s anything weird… also absent from the 70’s list?? Frank Zappa. It’s the same for the 2000’s, anything really out there is generally overlooked.
In response to another comment. See in context »Show your hand, Ben. I think this calls for the first annual SGD list.
hmmmm, coming up with a list sounds like work, rather than just writing random bullshit. I still have a few months left, I’ll think it through.
In response to another comment. See in context »