Pitchfork revealed their Top 50 Albums. Better luck next year Kanye.
50: Orthrelm OV
49: Fiery Furnaces EP
48: Okkervil River Black Sheep Boy
47: The Boy Least Likely To The Best Party Ever
46: Fiona Apple Extraordinary Machine [Jon Brion Version]
45: M83 Before the Dawn Heals Us
44: Vashti Bunyan Lookaftering
43: Spoon Gimme Fiction
42: My Morning Jacket Z
41: Róisín Murphy Ruby Blue
40: Young Jeezy Let’s Get It: Thug Motivation 101
39: Robyn Robyn
38: Devendra Banhart Cripple Crow
37: Dominik Eulberg Kreucht & Fleucht
36: Keith Fullerton Whitman Multiples
35: The Game The Documentary
34: Silver Jews Tanglewood Numbers
33: Bloc Party Silent Alarm
32: Beanie Sigel The B.Coming
31: Konono No. 1 Congotronics
30: Franz Ferdinand You Could Have It So Much Better
29: Serena Maneesh Serena Maneesh
28: Sunn O))) Black One
27: Jamie Lidell Multiply
26: The Decemberists Picaresque
25: Alan Braxe & Friends The Upper Cuts
24: The Mountain Goats The Sunset Tree
23: Ladytron The Witching Hour
22: Broadcast Tender Buttons
21: Bonnie “Prince” Billy & Matt Sweeney Superwolf
20: The Hold Steady Separation Sunday
19: Sleater-Kinney The Woods
18: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
17: The Clientele Strange Geometry
16: Love Is All Nine Times That Same Song
15: Clipse We Got It 4 Cheap, Vol. 2
14: Vitalic OK Cowboy
13: Various Artists Run the Road
12: New Pornographers Twin Cinema
11: Isolée We Are Monster
10: Wolf Parade Apologies to the Queen Mary
09: Cam’ron Purple Haze
08: LCD Soundsystem LCD Soundsystem
07: Animal Collective Feels
06: Deerhoof The Runners Four
05: Antony & the Johnsons I Am a Bird Now
04: M.I.A. Arular
03: Art Brut Bang Bang Rock & Roll
02: Kanye West Late Registration
01: Sufjan Stevens Illinois
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WOW, almost no one is giving architecture in
helsinki any love. i honestly thought that would at least be in pitchforks top 25. the national should have been included as well. overall it isn’t a bad list though. o and i dont even pay attention to their rap reccomendations any more. too many times i have been falsely informed about that. I am glad that animal collective was represented well but i am still mad at pitchfork for giving The Unicorns a measly 8.9 ive been known to hold grudges.
LonelySpacePanda: you win 800000 e-stars for including Wind in the Wires in your list. And #4!? Awesome.
Patrick Wolf is a music genius.
Anniemal was 2004 and it was on their list last year.
And I agree about Black Sheep Boy, but I honestly don’t think they would’ve remembered to put it on there had it not been for the Appendix’s recent release. Their end of year lists are actually unfairly biased towards the end of year stuff. Sure, there’s stuff from the beginning of the year and on that would’ve obviously made the list, but they put a lot of the late year minor splash albums on there as opposed to the early and mid-year minor splash albums. That’s why stuff like Sun O))) and Love Is All made the list. I’m amazed that The Boy Least Likely To made it.
I think Superwolf should be higher, but no matter how much coverage Pitchfork gives him, no one will listen to Bonnie “Prince” Billy.
I think P4K could have made separate lists- One for indie and one for rap. That way the genres are separated, like they should be. Indie kids could read one list and not bitch about rap, and rap fans could do vice versa. Problem solved.
Probably the only thing that offends me is when people try to classify indie as a genre. That’s really irresponsible.
Sorry if my comments are poorly written. I’m writing these before and after an exam.
Oh, one more thing (for now), I’m actually glad that Pitchfork is the only publication that agreed with me on Blinking Lights and Other Revelations. I can listen to Eels recycle the same formula for 40 minutes in a row tops. 95 is too much.
akron/family , johann johannson, & quasimoto, where o where ?
sigur ros, BSS, the national and rogue wave were the worst omissions. If they wanted to fill the list with a bunch of mediocre rap why didn’t they just make it a top 60?
Doesn’t Q magazine make a top 100 of the year? haha. Pitchfork should follow, or probably not. I was just trying to state before that pitchfork’s lists are misleading on their release dates:
Sigur Ros – AE released in 1999
BSS – You Forgot it in Poeple 2002
Love is All 2006
To make things even more confusing, I was saying how Anniemal is on par with Sigur Ros in that it was only minorly released in her/their home country one year and the next year saw a release in UK/US and everywhere else.
Also, why do British mags/zines (NME, Q, Mojo, Playlouder.com) wait to review American albums upon English release (Arcade Fire is on all of their lists, which came out 2004 in the States). Yet American publications never wait (pitchfork, stylus, Spin, etc.) IE. Go! Team and Annie was on everyone’s 2004 list. Anyway, I’m just confused and bored. I guess British are much more polite and patient.
Alligator by The National is THE BEST ALBUM OF THE YEAR and probably one of the best albums of the decade.
The list is O.K. I don’t know enough hip-hop to say if they were right or wrong, though I think some of it may be too goofy or obscure. Kanye and DangerDoom were O.K. this year. My big irritation: I have no idea why Architecture in Helsinki didn’t make it. That’s No. 1 on my list. Also, though I wasn’t that irritated about it, I’d still put Andrew Bird, Devin Davis and Rogue Wave high up there. Also, “Sugar, We’re Going Down” should’ve been on the song list.
cam & jeezy? no. clipse? yeah boy.
overall tho, too much coke sympathizing fromm the extra-medium set. it’s an easy trick of product placement for awkward blow heads.
reup reup
“Sugar We’re Going Down”? How can you tolerate Fall Out Boy? I was watching the Radioactive Man Movie episode of the Simpsons and I couldn’t stop thinking of that goddamn band (and their awful cover of “Love Will Tear Us Apart”).
Did anyone notice that on the Artists’ lists, Clipse put his own album at #1? I mean, I know we’re talking about rap, but what an ego!
Status Aint Hood called y’all “quasi-racist.” Ha! I love that dude.
I’ve been coming to this site regularly for about two years or so now and I had to post to say that the below comment is the most moronic comment I’ve ever read on stereogum :
SUFJAN STEVENS AIN’T ALL THAT AND YOU KNOW IT.
FIFTY STATES? GROW UP.
Good god, where does one even start on the intelligence level of this nitwit? Hey Gabe- can you tell all of us readers what is “all that” and what you consider “grown up” music? Throw a few more “ain’t”s in too while you’re at it. Also please further your education for the sake of all mankind. It’s disgraceful you even breathe the same oxygen as everyone else.
Cam was released this year… get YOUR facts straight. Lay off the hip-hop hate. Why do people get so mad at a list? If this was the fifty hottest girls, would you still get mad if Jessica Alba was #3 instead of #1? Well, I guess I would, but that is a whole different issue…
First of all, HOW DARE pitchfork put Love Is All on their list. It isn’t even released yet! I mean honestly, what nerve! They’ll get what’s coming to them. Secondly I can’t believe Architecture in Helsinki, Hilary Duff, and Jens Lenkmen were not included. If they leave these albums out, they must know nothing about music. Also, If I know nothing about Young Jeezy, then no-one should. The individual writers at Pitchfork are objectively wrong for enjoying Cam’ron and Robyn. I mean really, even if most of the writers did not vote for Broken Social Scene, don’t you think they could’ve just thrown it in there anyways. I think it’s the right thing to do. I Hate You Pitchfork!
YOU GUYS ARE IDIOTS. It’s the Best of Music list, not Best White Trend-Fucking Albums of Hip Genres Released on Indie Labels list. Music includes rap (commercial or not), so get over it. Pitchfork is indeed lame, but at least they recognize that this isn’t the mid/late-90s anymore, and indie kids can’t just live in a cave and keep listening to Royal Trux and other obsessively-indie music. Go home and fall asleep to that boring ass National album and cry about how Camron is higher on a list than your photography-major girlfriend’s favorite band. Or cotton to a more diverse musical world, becuase it’s about to be 2006 and Pavement still isn’t reuiniting anytime soon.
alot of people are bitching about the rap choices. alot of them are complaining about jeezy and cam and about how so and so needs to be on thie list, but no one is bitching about or praising the fact that beans is on the list. RECOGNIZE FOOL!!! beans is the shit and the b.coming is the best album all year. and who can slap on a delfonics track with vocals, rap over it and make it fire, GHOSTFACE!!!
Boy the indie kids are some ignorant racist little fucks. What makes you think your preferred musical genre is a priori superior to others? Real people listen to Art Brut, M.I.A., Young Jeezy, New Pornographers, Antony & the Johnsons, & all sorts of other “indie” & “rap” albums (& jazz, & metal, & electronic . . .). Only adolescents or people who never grew up listen to only one kind of popular music. If you don’t think yr opposition to the astonishingly good Cam’ron & Young Jeezy is the result of racism, you clearly think one-dimensionally. You don’t have to be a white supremacist to be a racist. If I were you cloistered, privileged little shits, I’d consider broadening my musical horizons. Believe it or not, just because someone likes different music than you do doesn’t make him WRONG. Read some Kant, listen to some rap, try to understand why what you’re saying on here is so offensive & ignorant that the Village Voice has published an article about your inanity. I love Young Jeezy, love M.I.A., hate Andrew Bird – & guess what? I’m not “right” or “wrong” about their records. Kudos to Pitchfork for recognizing there’s more to popular music than guitars. Hip hop IS catchy, at its best, geniuses. You’re small-minded, racist, classist, & idiotic. That’s how it is, chumps.
whitebread assholes. do you all live in red states, in housing developments? fuck all y’all. you’re in the middle, bland, mediocrity. too pussy to listen to really smart, deep, weird shit that you’ll find in the experimental section, too pussy to be seen listening to a Z-Ro/Cam’ron/Tupac CD, too pussy to seek out some old school jazz or avant-garde classical, too pussy to listen to any music that doesn’t fit into your pitchfork demographic (the long-gone circa ’98 demographic, that is), liberal skin, conservative hearts. stick to the Hot Topics and the Paul Thomas Anderson movies that you’re used to.
I hope everyone realizes I was being sarcastic. No one can give props to hilary duff or claim “I hate you Pitchfork” with a straight face.
i think all you guys that are discrediting the hip hop albums are full of shit and have never listened to any of these albums. I guess i wouldn’t put jeezy on there but the B.Comining is one of the best albums of the year bar none. This is the voice of a man staring hell in the face, full of remorse and introspection. To put it in lehmans terms lyrically this album shits all over danger doom or whatever other token “underground” rap you indie assholes are pumping (with maybe the exception of the new Atmoshphere) stop fronting and check the album out before you criticize. btw Purple Haze is an end to end burner as well and the documantry was the best produced album by a collective thats come out in years, fuck Danger Doom, that dj is the most overated prodicer in hip-hop
one more thing, i have not seen a beanie siegal, cam’ron or clipse video on MTV for years so if you think that this is catering to the “MTV” crowd you have once again displayed the fact that you have no idea what you are talking about
I like pitchfork, but I think that there year-end lists are a bunch of kiss-ass bullshit. No organization as pretentious as pitchfork could form a list to please music-lovers AND stay consistent to their dynamic. I do think Sufjan had the best album of last year though.