The Pitchfork Top 500 List

Hmmmm. Let's start with the major talking point from the list: B.O.B. at number one. Now, I'm a big Outkast fan and I guess Pitchfork didn't want to put some American indie in the top spot, but seriously? B.O.B. isn't even the fourth best song on Stankonia. They justify it by comparing it to the 'world's first twitter feed' as if this is a good thing. A lot of people have claimed that the choice is tokenistic and that it was almost as if Pitchfork felt they HAD to choose a hip hop tune. This is obviously untrue: Pitchfork has always loved hip hop (check all the end of year singles/albums lists etc, the amount of rap albums they review each week etc) and I praise them for it, but there have been far, far better hip hop tracks this decade (in fairness many of them made the upper echelons of the list anyway).

Pitchfork bashing has become the norm over the last few years, and whilst I will readily admit that the quality of writing has dropped massively recently and the prominence of folky American indie on the site is off putting, I still check it daily. The guest columnists are usually great (Philip Sherburne's Month in Techno is always fantastic) and the track reviews chuck up some bonzer stuff. Oh, and the Pitchfork TV stuff is pretty golden too.

Looking at the list as a whole is pretty interesting. Obviously it's full of p4k approved indie but the techno choices in particular are decent. There's the odd curveball (Rachel Stevens anyone?) and I was massively surprised by how low down the list Panda Bear's Bros and The Past is a Grotesque Animal were as well.

Anyway, I can't think of any more commentary on the list for a bit, so have my top 5 songs of the decade instead.

5. UGK and Outkast - International Players Anthem

Everything about this just sounds triumphant. That Willie Hutch sample makes me want to go around high fiving people in the least wanky way possible. Every verse is chock full of quotable lines ("then I'd CC every girl that I'd see round town", "pullin' Bentleys off the lot, smashed up the grey one bought me a reeeeeeed", "I'm a million dollar mack, need a billion dollar bitch" etc) and that moment when the beat drops just before Pimp C's verse gets me every time.

4. The Avalanches - Since I Left You

Back when I was 11, I walked into the Virgin Megastore in Norwich armed with £25s worth of vouchers. Having read a few issues of NME, including the Christmas issue with those all important end of year lists, I ended up buying Since I Left You by Australian samplemasters The Avalanches and Is This It by The Strokes. Both still sound perfect to me today. I put this down to a combination of nostalgia and the fact that both are really good albums. Ok, so The Strokes never did anything again and beside the odd remix The Avalanches have been pretty quiet for the last eight years, they both put out some of the best music of the decade. The title track of Since... is one of those songs that gets better every time you hear it. Over the last of the eight years, each of the samples that makes up the track has, at some point, been my favourite component, but, like the guy who wrote the review of it for the Pitchfork list, it's the vocal that gets me. Oh and the Spanish guitar intro, the drums, the flute melody, the backing vocals, the cowbell, the chugging synth chords, the guy offering you a drink at the start, that keyboard line that sounds like a bird swooping into the sea...

3. Jurgen Paape - So Weit Wie Noch Nie

I've mentioned it on this blog before, but Erlend Oye's DJ Kicks mix is one of the most important records in my life. He used a slightly slowed down version of Paape's (one of the founder's of Kompakt records, a label I became obssessed with after hearing this song) five and a half minutes of blissed out glory to open the compilation. Having been raised on NME approved indie I wasn't really sure what to make of it. It was slow. It was repetitive. It had some operatic sounding German woman blathering on about "moonshine in zarum haan" or something over the top. But persistence paid off. I began to like the song more and more with each listen. It's hands down the best techno record of the decade and a song that I've yet to tire of. Kompakt, still going strong to this day, never really hit the highs of this song again. Hell, Pitchfork even included it in an article about how some sounds just sound perfect. They were right.

2. Of Montreal - The Past is a Grotesque Animal

NONE OF OUR SECRETS ARE PHYSICAL! NONE OF SECRETS ARE PHYSICAL...NOW!

1. Panda Bear - Bros
http://open.spotify.com/track/69okE3e6FhPASks9cajATJ

So good that I didn't want to use a youtube video to indicate it's greatness. I'm not really sure if I can describe why this song is so good. No, I can't. Just listen.


Enjoy!