Pitchfork's Top 200 Songs of the 90s

Urm, well, yeah...

[pitchfork.com]

On the one hand, it's nice to be reminded that the decade had plenty of great stuff that tends to get lost in the shuffle.

On the other hand, a list where "There She Goes Again" doesn't break the top 100 but friggin' Weezer makes the top 10 reminds me once again why I want to indulge in a cantankerous old geezer moment and line up every indie music fan under the age of 30 and lovingly punch each one in the face. (Well, most of them, anyway. There are quite a few who are very fine people.) I try to avoid such things, but sometimes I just have to say grrrrrrrrr.

I will never get the surreal adulation for Weezer, and I'm frankly quite proud of that fact. And I freely admit that my problem with them is with the audience more than the band - if they were held in regard on a commensurate level with their actual worth, I'd be fine with them. I just don't get why they're treated like a majorly important band.

Even though I have my issues with Pavement, I do get the admiration for them even if I don't share it much past Slanted and Enchanted. And while I wouldn't put them at #1, I don't have any problem with Pitchfork doing so. But Weezer? I'll never be able to see them as anything more than a halfway decent pop band led by a smart-assed dumbass who's only about 1/5 as clever as he's convinced he is, but yet has persuaded untold legions that he's brilliant. I just want to sit them all down and make them listen to some Ron Mael lyrics to set them straight.



Post Edited (09-03-10 10:18)

I have to confess - at this point Pitchfork is so far removed from anything I might actually listen to that I didn't bother to read the list. I bet if I made a similar list it would have maybe half a dozen songs in common with theirs.

I don't get the Weezer thing, either. Their songs are OK, but nothing special, and Rivers Cuomo always seems like he's constantly trying to prove he's the smartest guy in the room.

Here's what I don't get: all these damn lists!

I took a glance at the thing. I don't get it.

I like Pavement as much as the next guy (I guess), but "Gold Soundz" is the best track of the decade...seriously?

Here's just one example of how stupid and arbitrary this list is: The KLF's "Wichita Lineman Was a Song I Once Heard" is on it (70 spots behind Weezer, of course).

I think Gold Soundz is a great pick. Maybe its b/c I was in college at that time, and met my wife (now ex-wife) on the day I bought this record (actually cassette). This song produces instant wistfulness, happiness, and nostalgia as soon as I flip the tape -- Side two, song 1. IThis song captures everything I love about early 90's indie rock.

"There are a lot of ways to think about the music of a decade. Sometimes when you sit down to make a list like this, you think about songs that seemed important-- maybe they changed music or were emblematic of prevailing trends in culture. And then sometimes you think about songs that make you feel good whenever they come on. You hear the first few notes, remember how much the song does for you, the excitement builds, you want to sing along, and hey-- they're coming to the chorus now..."



Post Edited (09-03-10 11:06)

I once wrote a parody of G. Marcus' "What is this shit?" about Weezer on this very board. Most overrated band ever that was once halfway decent? They're my pick.

I actually like Pitchfork, even though I do disagree with them a lot. It's interesting reading, at least. And any list of the the 90's best songs without "Smells Like Teen Spirit" as number one is fine with me.

I like Pitchfork just fine also, though it's on these lists where they really decide to indulge their "we're going to really show how smart we are by not picking anything obvious and shaking things up by tossing in a lot of hopelessly obscure stuff as well as some other stuff that's so popular that it's hip to be unhip enough to like it."

Though the latter half of that equation was surprisingly absent from this particular list - I'm genuinely shocked that they didn't sneak something like "One More Time" by Britney Spears or "Genie in a Bottle" by Cristina Aguilera on here. (To say nothing of "Vogue" or "Ray of Light" by Madonna, either of which would have a genuine claim to be on it over a heck of a lot of other choices.)

But honestly, trying to do a list like this for the 90s was destined to end up seeming hopelessly random and bizarre. I think the 90s was the decade where pop music (to use a generic blanket term) finally fragmented to such an extent that there was no possible way for anyone anywhere to do an overarching list of the best popular music of the decade without it being incoherent to the point of uselessness. (Though of course none of these lists have any actual use anyway beyond saying THIS IS WHAT WE LIKE).

And anyway, the criteria is random anyhow. The biggest star on the pop charts of the decade was probably Garth Brooks, and obviously country music got no consideration on this list (hell, alt-country didn't even get a token nod unless you count Wilco, but anything from Summerteeth would stretch that definition beyond the breaking point. Oh - and Bonnie Prince Billy, I guess) - but honestly, I'd wager to say that the Mavericks or Dwight Yoakum would have as much business rubbing shoulders with the Las and Pulp as the Orb and TLC do. Yet a decision was made somewhere sometime by somebody that techno or whatever is fair game for a Pitchfork list, but country music is not although it seems desperately arbitrary to rope in stuff from one direction but not another.

And speaking of country, wow, did they really mean to not include anything from Johnny Cash's American Recordings? You'd think they'd be contractually obligated to at least nod in the direction of The One Country Singer Everyone Is Approved To Like.

Wow. That really rambled far afield from where I had intended.

Right on, Brad. And to take your point a step further, how about the absence of anything from Emmylou Harris's Wrecking Ball, Steve Earle's Train a Comin', I Feel Alright or El Corazon...too country?

And no Aimee Mann tracks made the cut? In addition to great tunes, she ended up being an innovator re. the business of music, too.

I guess I'm just old and uncool.

I don't pay any attention whatsoever to Pitchfork or any other critically-minded source that concerns music.

No. Wait.

They are severely underrating the quality of the other songs in The La's catalog. It's amusing to me the cult artists they think are worthy of having a cult, and those they treat with the same dismissive shorthand a mainstream source might.

Also, is "Gore Veil" by Deadly Snakes not on this list, because I'm pretty sure there weren't 200 better songs than that one in the 90s.

Grrrrrrrrrr.

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Post Edited (09-03-10 18:51)

Exactly spot on brenester

And lists short change Meat Puppets perennially

Pitchfork is good at what they do - better than Spin or Blender or Maximum ever were, really. But they bend to hiphop for clicking visitors at the expense of Ray of Light (great pop song) and alt country and -- for fsm's sake!-- anything truly punk scares them. (Rancid? BR?). We could make a list 100x better. (And probably will one day).

I've still got a grin on my face from the phrase "smart-assed dumbass"