Shit You Listened to Today

[Guest Incandenza]

Here ya go.

You're not missing much.

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

Wow, you're right. What a bunch of tools.

 

::stays put::

[Guest Incandenza]

I did find this bon mot there, and I will say I enjoy it quite a bit. It's from a thread called "ya gotta shoot the jizz."

 

ya gotta shoot tha jizz guys. this weak shit aint cuttin it no more. i wanna see one eyed bitches comin out this place. YA GOTTA SHOOT THA JIZZ

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

Well, I kind of want to hang out with that guy, but otherwise: tools, all.

[Guest EricMM]

[Guest AzkulKazul]

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

Holy crap, Refused!

 

I've actually recognized one of AzkulKazul's albums! Dude, this is a banner day.

[Guest Kinetic]

The Pitchfork board isn't all that bad. The main problem there is that a lot of the fairly knowledgable people are more interested in being funny than discussing anything. In the rare event that music is actually discussed in depth, it's a good place to be. You'd need a time machine at this point, though, because it rarely ever happens anymore.

[Guest Incandenza]

Aside from the couple of mongoloids who were more interested in dismissing out of hand anything I said for trashing My Aim is True, that E.C. thread was a fine example for nice music discussion. But yeah, they're much more interested in being wacky and zany. That's fine, but very, very little of it is funny.

 

Hey, why don't I throw out what's been listened to this morning? I recieved my Christmas presents a little early, and easily the best of the (small) lot is a $100 Best Buy gift card. I've spent some of it already, and the third disc picture here was one of my purchases.

 

 

I also picked up rapper El-P's Fantastic Damage disc and Pavement's Slow Century DVD. Yep.

[Guest Kinetic]

Off-topic, I'd highly suggest that everyone read The Onion AV Club's "Least Essential Albums of 2002." It's quite funny every year they do it and this is certainly no exception. This especially applies to those of you who are familiar with the existence of the A*Teens.

[Guest Incandenza]

Pitchfork has their top 50 for the year up. It's a mix of stuff I've never heard of and things I am aware of, and am not the least bit surprised by their respective rankings.

 

Speaking of year-end lists, Spin's has managed to irritate me more so than any other I've read so far. Yes, these lists define meaninglessness, but they put the friggin' White Stripes at number one. Hey, I liked White Blood Cells, too, but it came out LAST YEAR. I don't care if V2 reissued this year, it shouldn't have been considered. And when did this magazine stop doing their "top 20 albums you didn't hear" list? It was arbitrary, yes, but it gave exposure to records that usually get very little; it also was the one thing that seperated them from any other major music magazine. Now, there's no difference between them and Rolling Stone.

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

I noticed that. I was also really surprised to not see the Trail of Dead album on Spin's list.

 

Rolling Stone did their top 50, and they did the not-of-this-year thing too. They've got the Hives Veni Vidi Vicious up there, even though it was originally released in 2000. I don't think this is quite as weak as the White Stripes change-up, but guys, come on: if you missed it the first time, don't try to cover your ass.

 

Of course, Rolling Stone is about as revisionist as a magazine can get, so who even cares anymore?

 

Edit: Checked the Pitchfork list. I don't quite get the thing with The Books, though. I downloaded a few tracks, and it was...well, pretty much nothing. Some minimal sounding blips and bloops with a bit of fuzziness attached. Ah, avant-garde crap.

[Guest Kinetic]

It's probably just a matter of personal taste, but there's no way in hell that Turn On The Bright Lights is better than Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Or Source Tags and Codes. It's pure speculation on my part, but I'd say that those three were arranged as such so that the most obscure one came out on top. Fucking Pitchfork.

[Guest Incandenza]

Interpol's only more obscure than Trail of Dead by virtue of the latter's being on a major label. I've read just as much press on Interpol in spite of it.

[Guest Kinetic]

Well, that or they wanted to throw their readers a curveball by placing the 9.5 record above the two 10.0 records. There must be some logical explanation for it. Superior quality isn't it.

[Guest Flyboy]

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

I like the Interpol album better than both of those other two, but you've heard me flog that horse before. Though it is kind of odd that the ratings are out of sync--you'd think the 10.0s would be the top two, but I guess that's the product of working with consensus rather than one guy's list.

 

What's surprising me about end of the year lists is that so far I've seen none topped by Springsteen or Wilco, which seem to be the obvious choices...though Rolling Stone's wasn't ordered, so I imagine they gave it to the Boss.

[Guest Incandenza]

Edwin and Kinetic--The initial reviews are only a reflection of the person who wrote them. I'm assuming the Pitchfork staff compiled their list the same way everyone else does; they had all their staffers compile their personal lists, tabulate it based on the individual rankings, and you get those results.

 

As for the quality issue, Wilco was better than Interpol, but Interpol is much better Trail of Dead. MUCH better.

[Guest Incandenza]

[Guest Kinetic]

I expect time to be a lot kinder to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot than these year end lists would suggest. SPIN's #1 album of 1992 was Teenage Fanclub's Bandwagonesque, while their #1 album of the decade was Nirvana's Nevermind--which was released in 1992. Funny how that works out. Which is not to compare the impact of Wilco's album to Nirvana's, but simply to say that with the benefit of eight years hindsight, I expect Yankee Hotel Foxtrot to be viewed as the best album released this year. Because it is.

[Guest Incandenza]

Due to your bizarre reasoning of Trail of Dead being better than Interpol, I want to disagree with you out of spite, but I can't. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is too terrific.

[Guest Kinetic]

As I've said before, a lot of people are seeing something in that Interpol album that I'm not. Source Tags and Codes not only rocks, but it also builds to better crescendos than anything I've heard this year. It's a marvelous piece of work and probably the best hard rock album released in this decade thus far. I will, of course, keep attempting to like the Interpol album for a while, so don't be surprised to see one of my trademark changes of heart somewhere along the line.

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

If you count 2000 as part of this decade, I don't think anything tops Queens of the Stone Age's Rated R which sears, and maybe only falters slightly because of a bit too much drugginess in the middle.

 

I can definitely see your point on time being kinder to Wilco. Still can't agree on Trail of Dead, though, as I find myself liking Madonnna, their album previous to Source Tags, much more interesting.

 

::goes and listens to Interpol out of "rebellious" spirit::

[Guest Incandenza]

I haven't forgot you, dear thread!

 

 

I'm gonna try my hand at a serious top ten list for 2002 by the end of the week, and El-P is a strong contender for the #2 slot.

[Guest Incandenza]

I won't let this thread die...until I go out of town this Sunday. It's on its own after that.

 

 

Now playing:

Wowee Zowee is one of those albums I find myself compelled to listen to three or four times a year, in spite of my not liking it. It's a wildly ambitious, experimental failure, but I admire the handful of songs that succeed, as well as the album's general ballsiness.

[Guest R2DFooster McSockman]

 

With the final four being Christmas gifts. From first listening, Wowee Zowee is by far the weakest Pavement album. However, I took a few listens to realise the brilliance of Slanted and Enchanted, so that opinion may change.

[Guest Incandenza]

Unless any of you people post here after Saturday, this thread will DIE. The clock is ticking...

 

 

I actually had that Pulp album for a couple of months, but it kinda fell by the wayside, and I never got around to listening to it. Now that I have, I am inclined to believe that frontman Jarvis Cocker should've broken up the band BEFORE making this record. Ugh.

 

Anyway, now playing:

[Guest Flyboy]

[Guest Brian]

Anyone else been listening to a lot of Clash lately?

[Guest AzkulKazul]