Pitchfork's Top 200 of the 2000s

Ok, looking through that list, I've only heard 3 albums and heard of less than half of the bands. I guess modern music is not really in my wheelhouse and I got some catching up to do.

And is Brian Howe's write-up on Bright Eyes' Fevers and Mirrors meant to invoke the Twilight Zone opening narration? Because I can totally hear Rod Serling reading it.

Yeah, agreed on the Yeasayer needing to be MUCH higher, and I'd almost say the same for Reatard's Blood Visions. Like I said on Facebook, I'm cautiously optimistic about this list so far, but I can't wait to see what their #1 is in case they totally shit the bed.

AS much as I like The Knife, it better be Radiohead. And LCD is way overrated.

When you're seriously lauding lyrics like "Riding by myself, well really not really/ So heavy in the trunk, make the car pop a wheelie." on any sort of "Best of" list... you officially have no validity.


Sorry, but Lil Wayne is shit, through and through.

What Eyeball said.

Also, no, no LCD Soundsystem is not overrated. Sorry.

Lots of good things on the list. I feel like a lot of them are a lot lower than they should be, but we'll see what comes next. Considering how many years they're covering, they grabbed a lot of albums I love so far...and some others I'd like to check out.

Good tip on that Lala sale!

It's not just them either.

I think the (sad) lack of a steady stream of "true," good hip-hop/rap has left people forced to pontificate over the "genius" of people like Wayne, Kanye (that's right), and their ilk. Years ago, that stuff was shit. And it still is.

It's stuff like this that makes me fear I'm slowly drifting into crotchety old man phase. I'm near 30... is this what happens?

There's plenty of great hip hop everywhere, so...no. And Lil' Wayne is great. He's crazy, sure. Daffy, yeah. Full of himself, yep. But so are most classic rock musicians and nobody has a problem worshiping them. The guy works his ass off to make really interesting music. If it's "not your thing," then fine...but don't blame it on Pitchfork, other music websites, or even getting older. I'm 31, so I beat you by a year.

Kanye West might be an egotistical asshole who likes to bum rush awards ceremonies, but I defy anyone to listen to a track like 'Gold Digger' and not want to dance. You're inhuman if you don't at least tap your foot.

Yep, this. Though I'm a mere 24 years old, so I'll get off of you guys' lawns here in a second.

*finishes pissing his name into the grass, zips up, runs away*

Well, then color me a vampire, because I loathe every single track that douche has ever made (and did before he became known as the raging asshole he is today).

And I didn't mean to imply that there isn't any good hip-hop today, there certainly is. Just that it doesn't get recognition compared to all this commercialized, auto-tuned, hammy shit.

I miss the times when OutKast was good. Those guys were the "real deal," as far as rap goes (in my opinion).

Abattoir Blues/Lyre of Orpheus is my highlight so far.

I guess I don't understand how someone can listen to a song like "Gold Digger" (which has no Auto-tune on it, by the by...so I wonder if you even know what you're talking about) and at not at least appreciate the work that went into it. It really says something that rather than looking at reasons for disliking it, you're attacking it on a surface level, both by referring to the artist (that Roman Polanski sure is an asshole, huh?) and the music (calling it "hammy" and "auto-tuned.")

Bottom line: OutKast is one of a kind and might be the best hip-hop duo in history. If Stankonia doesn't reach Pitchfork's top ten, I might be a little disappointed. But if that's the extent of "good hip hop" in your mind, you're not trying hard enough. And that's probably because you don't care to try.

Which is fine. But spare me the whole "this is overrated, that is overrated" bullshit if you're not even a fan of the music. It's like me going into a horror movie thread with a screen name called IH8HORROR and saying George Romero is over rated.

On the list: I've been talking to a lot of friends and loved ones about the list, and mostly people have been bitching. "Why isn't this higher, why isn't that higher, blah blah blah...what do they have to prove?" As if this list actually meant something, or placement on it was somehow demeaning not only to the artists these folks like, but themselves.

I don't get it. Pitchfork gets a lot of shit. I don't always agree with them. But you can't deny that the reason people read Pitchfork shouldn't be to have their own opinions reinforced back at them. I read the Pearl Jam thread here, and everybody was just bitching, shrugging their shoulders and going, "that's Pitchfork!...they don't like Pearl Jam." Getting all caught up in the grade they gave the album. Very few actually referenced the review. Most just passionately disagreed, blaming it on the cite itself.

Here's why this is bullshit. Pitchfork is a tremendous website because it opens up a million other possibilities to you. "You like this band? Maybe you'll like this one!" "You like this genre? Give this one a shot." But it only works if you're willing and able to give those albums/bands/genres a try. You have to meet them halfway. If you're consistently finding them siding with artists, bands, and styles of music you don't like, it might be time to find another music website. But if you find that you agree with them half the time, it should be in your best interest to try the other stuff they recommend. It helps you get adventurous with your taste and step outside your comfort zone. If people want to get approval of the stuff they like, they should just flip through their i-tunes while giving themselves a thumbs up.

I had a friend who bitches that Pitchfork has liked too much dance music lately. "Don't you like LCD Soundsystem?" "Yeah, but that's cool." "But it is dance music." "Well, yeah I guess." "Where did you first hear about LCD Soundsystem? "Pitchfork." And there ya go...duh.

Trust me, they bug me sometimes too, and I'm not trying to out and out shill for them. The whole emphasis on low-fi has been irritating lately. But every once in a while, I'll stumble upon a low-fi band I like, like NODZZZ. Finding a really great album is worth having to endure ten shitty ones.

So, long and the short of it...there's a lot of music and styles of music out there. It might not all be for you. And that's OK. But isn't it nice that there's a source out there that's encouraging you do like a wide spectrum of things? Wouldn't it piss you off if CHUD only covered horror movies? Rather than bitching about everything Pitchfork gets "wrong," maybe we should reevaluate and just be thankful that there's a source out there giving us as much information about ALL kinds of music possible rather then just telling us what kinds of music we should like.

196. William Basinski
The Disentegration Loops
[2062; 2003]

Having these discs on a best-of list is like saying a completely white painting is one of the best ever made. There's nothing to it whatsoever. The backstory is neat, I admit.

159. Girl Talk
Night Ripper
[Illegal Art; 2006]

One day everything popular may resemble a mash-up(it's getting there in a way), but this album, though well-done, is the equivalent of a really well done fanfilm. Do something original.

The vast majority of the others I haven't heard. Nice to see Cannibal Ox on there, I love that disc.

I'm sorry, but I would Smash Your Head on a short list of best pop songs of the decade. (Maybe not top 20, but definitely top 25) It might be a mashup, but man, there's a joy to that song -- especially the Tiny Dancer/Juicy section -- that's better than all the fanfilms in that world.

Yeah, and all that rock n' roll sure does sound the same. What an incredibly ignorant post.

At least for me, as far as the dance music complaint goes, it's not that they awkwardly transitioned into liking it but the fact that they wax poetic about losing yourself on the dance floor when you just fucking know the only way they listen to it is on their zunes on the subway.

I think that's pretty narrow minded thinking that assumes the same people that write indie rock and punk reviews are writing the dance reviews.

They have different people cover different genres for a reason.

Besides, does their credibility on the dance floor really have anything to do with their music? If it makes them feel like dancing, isn't that enough? I can't dance for shit but listening to a good track wants me to be able to know how. Ya know?

Nice to see Stars of the Lid on that list

If I remember correctly, LCD Soundsystem had two or three selections in the top 10 of Pitchfork's top 500 singles of the decade so it shouldn't shock anyone if they take album of the decade.

I'm ignorant because I wouldn't consider mash-ups eligible for a best of the decade list? No matter how good they are, and they are very, very well done.

I guess mash-ups aren't my thing, I consider it to be a more high-tech cutting and pasting. I'll shut the hell up now.

Jesus

You're ignorant because you called one of the most original albums of the bast decade unoriginal. Yes, its a "mash-up" album. But it proved that mash-ups can be something more than fun, dumb songs that marry the Spice Girls with Nine Inch Nails. Calling it "just a mash-up" album does it a great disservice.

Besides, I think of it more as a hip hop album than a mash-up album. And whats next, are we going to say anyone who uses samples is ineligible? There goes all of hip-hop, most dance music and bands like Radiohead.

You give Pitchfork much more credit than they deserve. I think their "influence" on people's tastes isn't as huge as the 'net makes it out to be. Most of my friends don't even know that Pitchfork exists. A good friend of mine who has extraordinary taste in music looked at me with a blank stare when I mentioned Pitchfork to her during a conversation. I thought for sure she'd have at least heard of them.

Now, I'm not knocking the site generally speaking. Most of their staff are certainly well-informed, literate, and passionate about the bands that they review. However, just like any site or publication, obvious biases do exist. You brought up the Pearl Jam review. I feel I have to explain myself a bit since I was involved in the "backlash" in that thread. The site not liking Pearl Jam wasn't the issue I had. It was the ill-conceived, snobby, and contradictory review that made me shake my head in disapproval. In essence, if you take out the words the dude swiped from his thesaurus, you're left with:

"I like their old stuff. Their new stuff sucks. I wish it would sound like their old stuff. This band hasn't tried anything new in years, but I want it to sound like their old stuff."

Sorry, the dude's quips with the band's new album stems more from ignorance and being out-of-touch with anything they released since the mid-'90s than with a supposed dip in quality and originality.

if you're a fan of the classicist, traditional, veteran bands, Pitchfork isn't the first place I'd go for the most objective opinion. Just like reading a Springsteen/Dylan/U2 review in Rolling Stone nowadays is pretty much asking for a self-endorsement of their music time and time again. The blindfolds are on.

What the fuck makes it so goddamn original? I appreciate it, it sounds good, but no. It is likely to get lots of people bumping in clubs, but it still comes down to being a mash-up, which Puff Daddy was damn close to doing in the late 90's, and I didn't like that stuff either. It's no different than Spice Girls and NIN, just more well-done. He's just going after more popular stuff. Whooptie doo, more people recognize it.

I already know my opinion is unpopular here. I'll just stay out of the music forums from now on, unless it's some band I'm like a damn dictionary with.

Ray, you're right, their influence doesn't have as much of an impact as people say it does. Look at this forum for proof. That's part of my point. I'm not saying "lets praise them for how influential they are." I'm saying "lets praise them for how influential they're trying to be." It would be easy for Pitchfork to stick to what it covered in the 90's...indie rock almost exclusively. But they're grown into covering all sorts of stuff. Meanwhile, people rarely break outside of their comfort zone in terms of what they like musically. My other point was, rather then say "Gee, thanks Pitchfork for not just covering one type of music, one style of music...thanks for encouraging artistic growth, thanks for shining a light on smaller bands" many people react and say "they're liking genres/bands/artists I don't like/know nothing about while dissing bands/genres/artists I do like." As if they can't be critical to a band like Pearl Jam for making the same kind of music they've been making for fifteen years while covering bands that barely anyone talks about on these forums, for example.

I'm glad you like the new Pearl Jam...but after listening to it, I have to tend to agree with that review. I'm not the worlds biggest Pearl Jam fan, but I suspect that after a year or two, after the sheen has worn off, Backspacer won't appear as the best thing they've done since sliced bead. And the review isn't as snarky as you're making it seem. He made a keen observation about the band that happened to be true. They took a lot more risks when they were popular. Now that they're not, they seem to be dialing it down. You can't deny that's not the case. I loved Vs, Vitalogy and No Code. But hardly anything I've heard from the band since that period excites me. That's just a fact coming from me, a music lover, not a Pitchfork writer.

As for your comment about them not being the source for "classical/traditional/veteran bands"....totally unfair, and also, untrue. One just has to go to their reissues reviews section to see them heap tons of praise on anyone from Big Star to The Beatles remasters (which gets tons and tons of 10.0's, not surprisingly) to James Brown to REM to ...yes, even U2 and Dylan...all of whom received favorable reviews.

In short, no one music source is going to be perfect, and Pitchfork certainly isn't the exception. Since you mentioned Rolling Stone, I'll pose you a question. Would you rather a music source post nothing but favorable reviews to big named bands while obscuring whole genres of music in favor of more attention to said big names? Or would you rather have a music source that covers as much music as possible while being tougher on the big boys that have the resources and the power to push the envelope?

Find me another album that sounds like Night Ripper. Unless you're talking Feed the Animals, you can't. Even though its using mash-ups, its original.

I don't know what you're talking about...Puff Daddy? But whatever. Yes, mash-ups aren't an original idea. Neither are guitars, drums and bass. You understand that, right? It's like calling The White Album unoriginal because Elvis was doing rock n'roll in the 50's. What the fuck is your point?

Parker, fair enough.

We'll just have to agree to disagree on Pearl Jam. Albums like Binaural and Riot Act are far "riskier" than anything they did in the '90s. When you've been around as long as a band like Pearl Jam, there's gonna be an identifiable rift in what you're trying to accomplish musically. Frankly, I think their second decade of existence will eventually be looked in quite a more favorable light years down the road. But we've got a PJ thread to discuss this in, so I'll just leave it at that.

I wasn't really referring to Pitchfork's reviews of reissues. Mostly the newer material from bands that have been around for awhile (of course there are exceptions, just like in almost any broad generalization).

Pitchfork and Rolling Stone are the yin to my yang. My tastes tend to verge right in the middle, to be honest. If you're asking me if Pitchfork is a viable source for discovering new music, then the answer is undoubtedly yes. I still read Rolling Stone. They may cling on to their tried-and-true loves, but there's something enduring and time-honored about it all.

Sound of Silver didn't get the #1 album of 2007 (Panda Bear did), so I don't see it getting the #1 spot (top 10 for sure though.)

I want to say Kid A as well, but that would be repeating their mid-2000's list, and they already did that with the singles list.

It's not like he found a new original music style on this album. He didn't. I've heard better individual songs in bars and such. he does an exceptional job, don't get me wrong, but it is NOT original. Look around, he's not even the best at what he does, which is basically cutting, pasting, and shitting on copyrights(the same could be said for Paul's Boutique, but that's not non-stop blatant like this disc).
Don't think for a second that I haven't heard a ton of mash-ups. If this were a list of great mash-ups, he totally gets a thumbs up. A talented musician he is not.
Talented? For sure. He should go different directions with it.

Every once in a while, I just lose all the will to keep on breathing.

You're making my head hurt.

So in order for one to be original, you have to create a new musical style?

You've heard better individual songs in bars and such? What exactly makes them original? Since you've heard them and I haven't...it doesn't really convince me of your point of view.

No, Paul's Boutique isn't, as you put it, "non-stop blatant like this disc." Yes, Paul's Boutique uses samples. As previous established, the using of samples isn't what makes it unique. It's creating whole songs (and indeed, albums) out of individual samples. I shouldn't need to explain this to you.

And finally...he makes music. And you admit he's talented. But he's not a talented musician? And what original direction should he go in, Nexus?

Editing other musician's songs together on Pro Tools or what have you, doesn't make you a musician. It means he's good at editing though.

I'm fighting a war I cannot win.

New music, not a new musical style.

I've heard better mash-ups in bars, yes. Songs that had better structure, and weren't simply "hey, let's throw some Nirvana at them now!", with only the rapping or backbeat holding the song together.

Paul's Boutique would make a song out of 10 samples, most of which would not be known to the general public, while this disc makes one song out of 5 popular tracks(for example).

Yeah, he's got an ear. So do I. Doesn't make me a musician. He'd be a good producer maybe, but he's not a musician. The original direction he should probably go in is MAKING ORIGINAL TUNES, but that may not find an audience. *gasp*

This is quickly devolving into a discussion on the nature of art.

Also, I'm not going to kiss PF's ass for "branching out". If we want to be totally honest, it's primarily just to make white hipsters feel ok about listening to hip hop.
/harsh

It might not make him a musician in the traditional sense, but what Girl Talk makes is inarguably music. Which, in my book, means that Gregg Gillis might not be on a list of the top 200 musicians making music today, but that Feed the Animals or Night Ripper certainly deserve to be judged in the same way that any other albums are.

Does it matter that Cole Porter, Phil Spector, or Leonard Bernstein weren't great performers? Of course not. They were writers and arrangers and, in many cases, their names eclipse the names of the people actually singing or playing the songs. Gillis is that in reverse: performance comes first, arrangement comes second. He's creating original, artistic content using pastiche, which is no different than what some Dadaists (generally accepted as legitimate artists) did years ago.

On the other hand, I'm a little torn on Girl Talk, specifically, being on this list. Conceptually, I like him. Entertainment-wise, I like him. I just wonder how his work will hold up, since, unlike other sample-heavy works like Endtroducing, Paul's Boutique, or Fear of a Black Planet, it relies so heavily on the listener recognizing the samples and noting their incongruity when placed into different contexts. It's art and commentary that's very effective in the moment, but perhaps not with as long a shelf life as many of the others on the list.

On the subject of the list, specifically, it's hard to find too much fault yet without knowing what lies ahead, but I will say that Pitchfork always does a balancing act between doing exactly what you'd expect them to do and doing exactly the opposite of what you'd expect them to do (which has, in recent years, looped around to being exactly what you'd expect them to do - I wouldn't be entirely shocked if a Rihanna album ended up in the top 5).

I'm one of the folks who does think LCD is a tad overrated - The Sound of Silver has a couple of excellent songs on it, totally worthy of being on the top singles list, but I don't hear a top album of the decade there.

And I'm a little disappointed that Black Sheep Boy, Twin Cinema, Give Up, Boxer, and Oh, Inverted World have popped up already, but I'm kind of a traditionalist singer-songwriter/pop fan, and I realize Pitchfork doesn't always share my enthusiasms there. I hold out hope that The Stage Names, Mass Romantic, Alligator, and one or two by Death Cab (Transatlanticism and Narrow Stairs probably have the best shot, but I'd love to see The Photo Album) will show up further up. I also hope there's room for Hail to the Thief, which could easily get lost in the expected Kid A and In Rainbows enthusiasm.

Also, if Boys and Girls in America doesn't go top 10, Pitchfork totally sucks, yo.

So now you come right out and admit that you hate the website because of the people who read it (which is where most of the criticism falls when people discuss Pitchfork). I can understand this to a degree, because I hate the type of person that needs to be "told" what to listen to, and rather than using their own ears to figure out what they like picks one reliable source and goes with however the wind blows. But again, that's not the sources problem. It's a problem with the people reading the source.

But I still find your comment here troubling. I'm guessing you'd prefer it if Pitchfork didn't cover hip-hop? Is that how I'm supposed to read that?

I don't need a music website to tell me to feel OK about liking hip hop. I'm white and lived in the suburbs growing up. Hip-hop was all around me. It hit huge during the time I grew up and everybody was into it. Why shouldn't I feel OK about liking it?

On the list: I'm happy by what they're including so far. I'm not so concerned about placement about whats being included. Ten years is a long time, and so far I agree with a lot of what they've included. Obviously not everything, and placement is all over the place. Tyranny of Distance should be way higher, for example. But I'm just happy its on the list in general. I think Black Sheep Boy should be higher too, but I'm almost positive The Stage Names will be higher on the list. They just happened to like that release better.

Pitchfork? More like "Let's Bitch"fork!

My main gripe with Girl Talk is that he should be far more discerning in the rap vocal samples he overuses. More quality and less god-awful rap vocals, please.

Other than that, the dude is quite talented at what he does. I'm a DJ, and from that sort of mindset/standpoint, he's very impressive (minus the tear-my-eardrums-out shit-hole rap lyrics plastered over 70% of his sets).

I like Girl Talk a great deal but I think you nail it pretty much on the head here, Dave. I always get the feeling that he's an arty version of Stars on 45 or that Jivemaster Bunny thing. He's obviously saying a lot more with his mashups than those disposable entities but I don't think he'll be around much longer then they were.

Separation Sunday rocks Boys and Girls in America's face off.

I agree, but the popular opinion is that Boys and Girls is the breakthrough. And Dave is probably typing right now about how Boys and Girls is a link between the bands former sound (more straight rock, spoken-word albums) and later sound (bigger anthems for the lonely characters, better production, singing).

But despite all that, I still prefer Separation Sunday...

"OK" was the wrong word. "More hip" or "cool" was what I meant.

And despite the fact that I had a great friend who started reading PF, almost instantly started to only listen to things that got an 8.5 or higher, became a stuck-up douchebag and then stopped being my friend, my primary problem with the site is the writing.
David Cross puts it better than I could hope to: http://pitchfork.com/features/guest-...hfork-reviews/

Haha...that is a good read.

Personally, I like the article from The Onion. "Pitchfork Gives Music a 6.8."

However, I think there was another one from somewhere else that read "White Guys On Music Forums Call Tha Carter III Over Rated." Which seems pretty relevant to this thread.... Attacking them for their writing is justifiable, as are the people who only stick to the 8.5's and above. But only one of these critiques can be charged against the cite. More often then not, I like the writing (although there are a couple of reviewers that really rub me the wrong way).

I also really don't like how they seem to exclude a lot of punk, and...more aggressively, pop-punk from their reviews But they still do a better job at covering all different kids of music then anywhere else I've found. So I still give 'em a thumbs up, wars n' all.

I get that - it's kind of artier with the spoken word stuff, the classic rock riffs are more in quotes than they are on subsequent albums, so I guess you could say it's more unusual. Using that "Custard Pie" groove, the mid-song Springsteen-style piano break, and the 70s rock title reference on "Stevie Nix" is almost as much commentary as Girl Talk in its way - it's using rock tropes to say something about the characters in the song. But Boys and Girls in America is less commentary and more the thing, itself: a killer classic rock album that doesn't skimp on the genre's simple charms like, yes, singing.

I'm not the most learned person on the planet about music, but I have spent a decade working at record stores and have purchased over 1000 albums in the past decade (not to mention free promo discs from labels or albums downloaded legally or otherwise). Having said all that, I am at a loss to the fact that I've only got 3 of the first 50 albums on the list thus far.

Which three? And since you're a music fan, are you curious about listening to the others that are on here? You can listen to most of them for free on Lala.