In the meantime, I found myself so bothered by Pitchfork's Top 100 Albums of the 1990s Redux that I had written a very lengthy reaction to it. Here it is, preceded by a list.
If I had to pick my favorite 10 albums from the 90's right now, I would pick:
- Spoon - A Series of Sneaks
- Radiohead - OK Computer
- My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
- Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
- Weezer - Weezer
- Jeff Buckley - Grace
- Radiohead - The Bends
- Nirvana - Nevermind
- Daft Punk - Homework
- DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...
The only number that matters is that Spoon album being #1 (partly admittedly out of spite). If I had an extra hand, I would grab Green Day's Dookie, too. Here's that essay bit:
After reading Top 100 Albums of the 1990s Redux , I have come to realize how mind-numbingly terrible the site is becoming. Pitchfork has always endured criticism on the web, but usually wrongly. Most people managed to find a bunch of their favorite records trashed in reviews on the site and became personally offended. These people failed to realize that Pitchfork is not one all-encompassing opinion, but just a collection of writer’s who cared about music with passion. Each review was presented not as plain fact, but of a writer’s specific, arguable opinion about an album, almost always backed up with some of the best musical knowledge and evidence found on the web. And what’s more, Pitchfork was meant to piss people off. People never want to hear what’s wrong with their favorite records, and Pitchfork is good at finding that.
As soon as I found out about Pitchfork, I fell in love with it for all of those reasons. Plus, they actually did enjoy a lot of the same music as me, even ones that could have been easy for them to bash. Kid A was given a 10, and Is This It and White Blood Cells were both rated in the 9 range. Pitchfork also helped turn me on to a lot of new music, most notably giving me the heads up about Interpol before their album had even come out.
But lately I’ve grown disgusted with Pitchfork. The site has seemed to become a parody of itself, trying so hard to keep away from people’s expectations expressed in their “Mailbag” section that the reviews become bogged down in meaningless and more-knowledgeable-than-thou drivel. The Top 90’s Redux comes across as Pitchfork’s attempt to recast itself as having the most obscure tastes, as well as boasting a roster of writers who are bigger hip-hop fans, and possibly coming to terms with trip-hop. I would use some reviews as an example, but because of my inability to connect with any of the writing, I quit reading them before I am finished and forget about them. An example I can remember is Brent DiCrescenzo’s bit on OK Computer for the new Top 90s list. He uses complaints about download times to explain why “people” bashed “Treefingers” and “Hunting Bears” to ultimately make a point about albums ceasing to exist as a viable format to sell music, which, although an interesting one, really isn’t that important to why OK Computer matters, because truthfully, I doubt that anyone’s real reasons for loving Loveless and OK Computer so much is a fear of no more cohesive albums being made. All of the best albums this year were albums meant to be taken as a whole (Basement Jaxx's Kish Kash, an album chock full of singles yet still a cohesive work of art, springs to mind). Another clear example of becoming obsessed with meaningless language and points that only serve to highlight the author’s intelligence is the review of the White Stripes’ Elephant. Yes, Elephant is a terrible album, but after reading the review, all I remember is something about fried chicken.
More than bad writing, however, is that I find Pitchfork to be just plain wrong about more and more every day. I can use the Yeah Yeah Yeahs as an example. Machine was only meant to be a single. The song itself is fantastic, and I was happy to find two extra tracks included on the CD to subdue my wanton YYY cravings. Pitchfork tore it apart for being an over-priced EP; the reviewer flat-out missed the point. And when Fever to Tell severely lacked the energy of the Yeahs' live show, their previously released recordings, and their sessions with Steve Lamacq and John Peel, Pitchfork finally realized and decided to recognize that the Yeahs were a good band, giving the record much too generous of a rating.
In short, Pitchfork is failing to matter like it used to. I wait for weeks for reviews to the music in my rotation to surface on the site, and usually the writers have misguided, misinformed takes on the album. Maybe the site would have liked the Stills Remeberese more if they had been dying for the band to release anything like the rest of us who had been listening to the band online for months. Maybe the writer would have been harsher on stellastarr* if they had heard the potential of their debut EP. Maybe the site wouldn’t have to review already-reviewed songs [“Cat Claw” appeared on both the Black Rooster EP and the following full-length] if they had listened to the original Kills debut EP instead of a re-release. Either way, Pitchfork needs to get back to regularly seeking out the best new music and writing about it in an intelligent way that can still matter to other people. When they do this, they are invaluable to the music world, helping break bands like Broken Social Scene, Out Hud, and M83 with their staggering moments of musical insight. When they don’t, people’s criticism is going to be justified.
[Ideally, I would not have to justify the circumstances of my writing; the context would just be implied and absorbed by you, the reader. Unfortunately, the Internet is not always such an ideal place for clear communication. Because of this, I would like to point out that although I did back up my points in this rant on Pitchfork with decent evidence, by no means did I put the amount of effort into it for it to be scrutinized in the way that I come off as scrutinizing Pitchfork. However, this is just a weblog, and it’s my weblog, so suck it.]
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