Pitchfork’s “P2K” project completed its first installment today, with its countdown of the best singles released between 2000 and “sometime in mid-2009″ revealing its top 20. The site bequeathed its “No. 1 single of the decade” title on OutKast’s “B.O.B.”—which, as it turns out, was also No. 1 for the site’s best of 2000-2004 list from a few years back. I actually don’t have a problem with either the pick or the implied classic-rock consistency; the messy chaos of “B.O.B.,” which splatted all over the genre map when it came out at the beginning of this decade, was and remains, as the ‘Fork’s Stuart Berman writes, “a future-shocked ferocity… that just cannot be duplicated.” But it made me wonder about how well the songs from the first part of the decade had aged in the minds of writers—and, by extension, the minds of people who love arguing over every proclamation Pitchfork makes. Let’s get counting down!
The top 10 of Pitchfork’s 2000-2004 list, with the end-of-decade placement in parentheses:
10. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “Maps” (No. 6 of the decade)
9. The Rapture, “House Of Jealous Lovers” (No. 16 of the decade)
8. Missy Elliott, “Work It” (No. 54 of the decade)
7. Beyoncé ft. Jay-Z, “Crazy In Love” (No. 4 of the decade)
6. Annie, “Heartbeat” (No. 17 of the decade)
5. Kylie Minogue, “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” (No. 37 of the decade)
4. Missy Elliott, “Get Ur Freak On” (No. 7 of the decade)
3. LCD Soundsystem, “Losing My Edge” / “Beat Connection” (”Losing My Edge”: No. 13 of the decade)
2. OutKast, “Hey Ya!’ (No. 12 of the decade)
1. OutKast, “B.O.B.” (No. 1 of the decade)
In contrast, we can say that the Revised Top 10 Of 2000-2004 (i.e. the “best of the decade” list with songs from 2005-2009 stripped out) looks like this:
10. Jay-Z, “99 Problems”
9. LCD Soundsystem, “Losing My Edge”
8. OutKast, “Hey Ya!”
7. Arcade Fire, “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)”
6. Radiohead, “Idioteque”
5. Missy Elliott, “Get Ur Freak On”
4. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “Maps”
3. Daft Punk, “One More Time”
2. Beyoncé feat. Jay-Z, “Crazy In Love”
1. OutKast, “B.O.B.”
I present these lists side-by-side with the obvious disclaimer that Pitchfork isn’t a monolithic entity, despite Internet types’ constant attempts to characterize it as such; the makeup of the staff has changed over time as far as population and “growing up,” etc., etc. But it’s still kind of neat to juxtapose these two lists; the plunge of “Work It,” for example, makes me wonder if the critical love affair with Missy Elliott has sort of ended thanks to her not-so-consistent outing. On the flip side, “99 Problems” was No. 22 in 2004. Has time made it a better song? Is the secret hidden somewhere within Rick Rubin’s beard?
And just for the sake of Making More Lists, here’s the list’s broken-out Top 10 of 2005-2009:
10. Antony & the Johnsons, “Hope There’s Someone”
9. Justin Timberlake feat. T.I., “My Love”
8. Rihanna feat. Jay-Z, “Umbrella”
7. LCD Soundsystem, “Someone Great”
6. Kelly Clarkson, “Since U Been Gone”
5. Hercules & Love Affair, “Blind”
4. Gnarls Barkley, “Crazy”
3. Animal Collective, “My Girls”
2. M.I.A. feat. Bun B and Rich Boy, “Paper Planes (Diplo remix)”
1. LCD Soundsystem, “All My Friends”
Note also that the Top 10 of 2000-2004 ended at No. 14 on the big list, while the back end of the decade petered out at No. 28; if “Ignition (Remix)” (No. 19 on the big list) had come out in 2005, it would have placed just behind “Blind” and rendered the Top 10 even more pop-centric. Your theories for why this might be the case are welcome!
The Top 500 Tracks Of The 2000s: 20-1 [Pitchfork]
The Top 100 Singles Of 2000-2004 [Pitchfork]
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Also, why was “1 Thing” so low (#32)? Are we burnt out singing it’s praises? That song still has major raditude.
I actually like the entirety of the project, except for “My Girls”‘ high placement. They can take those adobe slabs and shove ‘em. And I LIKE Animal Collective
Can we have smart debate here? Pleasepleaseplease? Twitter is only so good.
I disagree with the back-loading of “indie” hip-hop (DOOM, Lupe, etc.) and front-loading of the big stuff, but I think there’s a really solid top 35 or so in there. I especially like the remix of “Paper Planes” being there (for Bun) and Clipse and JT juxtaposed.
Well, I think it shouldn’t surprise you to find out that I would not be averse to switching the placement of “1 Thing” and “My Girls.” Ahem.
@Maura: Only “My Girls”? I might hop it up to #7 or #6.
Other questions: Where is T-Pain? Where THEEE HELLLL is “Irreplaceable” or the rest of Ne-Yo? Did I just miss them, or…?
Found it: “Irreplaceable” is 183. “Yeah” is ahead of it. A Girl Talk song is ahead of it. “Toxic” is ahead of it. Something is wrong. Are the summer songs just that much more powerful?
I think part of the takeaway here is that pop songs tend to be more enduring than their indie conuterparts. Probably this is due to the fact that more people hear pop songs, which helps create a larger collective memory and therefore an (apparently) greater meaning for those songs. “Losing My Edge” is a very meaningful song for beardo record collector types, but “Crazy In Love,” “Get UR Freak On,” and “Hey Ya!” are songs that everyone remembers and associates with a certain time in their lives. Of all the tracks in the overall top 10, I cannot imagine “My Girls” holding it’s place if we were to take another stab at creating this list 5 or 10 years from now, it just appeals to too narrow of a group.
“Sure, Brit bounced back with Blackout, but for better or worse she was a warbling ghost in her producer’s gleaming machines. “Toxic” was the last great Britney single (so far), the last where it felt like a personality was inhabiting the tune. (Britney always had more individualist pep than her peers, important when you’re dealing with steamroller productions from the mind of Max Martin.)”
Jess, I love you, but: Some of “Radar” and all of “Piece of Me.” The personality’s just changed from temptress to snarky celeb.
@Lucas Jensen: Would you be happier with “Brothersport” subbed in for “My Girls?” I was pretty sure one of the two of those was going to be in the Top 20. And I correctly called about half of the rest of the 20, although I thought the requisite Arcade Fire track would be “Neighborhood #3″ and the Radiohead track “There There” for some odd reason. Is it crazy that I just about completely forgot about the existence of “Crazy?”
@SonofaVondruke: “Crazy” got too big and then shrank in retrospect. I feel like this happened to “Irreplaceable.”
Being ticketed for fame by VH1 instead of MTV is kiss-of-death worthy, it seems.
@Alfred B Sure: But what does “pop” even mean anymore? Isn’t that just as troubled and muddy a term as “indie?” Does “pop” mean popular/played all the time on mainstream radio? I think that Annie track would definitely fit the definition of “pop” meaning accessible, well-crafted, even sugary sweet short songs, but I don’t think millions of people are familiar with that song.
@Alfred B Sure: @Sonof: Is “pop” maybe just “accessible”? Not even mainstream, just facile?
And (and this is the Alex Turner/Arctics fanboy in me): Where are THEY?
@SonofaVondruke: Brothersport is godawful. No, I don’t think they have a single song that can play with the big boys (Bois?) in the top 20.
@SonofaVondruke: For the purposes of this discussion, I think that pop refers to that music that Pitchfork doesn’t normally cover, and if so only in lists and the like (so something like the “mainstream” definition that you suggested above), while indie refers to that which is Pitchfork’s bread and butter, stuff that it less well known, even if it musically falls into the category that we would call pop (ie. Annie). I’m aware that they’re hugely nebulous terms, but I think they can carry a bit more meaning within this context. I was essentially using the terms as shorthand, for lack of better options.
Nothing to say except that “Bombs Over Baghdad” is the right choice for #1.
What I wrote last night:
” ‘All My Friends’ is way too high and The Arcade Fire shouldn’t even fucking be here, why do they insist on turning this party into bland existential dread over wintering.”
I am way more put off by their placement than Animal Collective’s, though if Pitchfork had replaced “My Girls” with “Peacebone” I’d pretty much give it up to them.
Or if, as some people here have very sanely said, “1 Thing” was in the top 10, where it should be.
I don’t get Animal Collective at all. They fall in with a couple other groups and albums that Pitchfork throws love on every year. I started to notice this with Fiery Furnaces “Blueberry Boat” a few years ago. Big rating, but barely listenable. Same with the third Liars record. It started to feel like a joke. Animal Collective is the most astonishing, since I’ve yet to hear anything by them that makes me think it is either a good song or even interesting. It’s a little like “The Emperor has no clothes”. I got a little bit of that from the write ups from the Animal Collective performance at Lollapalooza, where they reportedly played bleeps and bloops with no decernable form for about an hour. Everyone was sad. Also check their bit on Letterman, where Dave is clearly unimpressed when he comes down for his walk on handshake.
In regards to the rest of the list, Outkast and LCD Soundsystem are a pretty sharp 1, 2.
for some reason, it seemed important to make a graph of this:
http://sciencevsromance.net/post/168339432/now-thats-what-i-call-music-pitchfork-names
Well, I completely agree with #1. And I hate it. I hate agreeing with anything Pitchfork says ever, but… fuck. “B.O.B.” might not be my favorite song of the decade (though it’s definitely up there), but I would say that it’s the best.
@sciencevsromance: i appreciate the graphical representation, but “one more time” was number 27 on pitchfork’s original 2000-2004 poll.
also: i can’t be the only one who thinks that “losing my edge” is a better song than “someone great” (by a hair) and “all my friends” (by a mile), can i?
I for one am shocked by the low placement of “Crazy,” which despite my love for “B.O.B.” and hatred for 2006 I think is an irrefutable Song Of Decade front-runner. I mean:
- huge, influential hit, check.
- covered by countless people/infector of Zeitgeist, check.
- multi-genre by nature, like all of this decade’s best music, check.
(it’s pop, alt, R&B/hiphop, even slightly indie in origin)
- borne of mashup culture (first sanctioned project of DangerMouse), check.
- Internet sensation first, before mainstream caught on, check.
- critically acclaimed, massive check (dominated 06 Idolator Pop and P&J polls).
- generation-defining lyric that sums up decade — especially this bloody decade, major check (admittedly, “B.O.B.” has this, too).
- still catchy/brilliant/moving, big check, but maybe I’m alone there.
Here are my thoughts, some in response to comments posted so far. This is going to be long.
1. Irreplaceable was wack. I have absolutely no problem with it being as low as it is, and certainly think Toxic should be well, well above it.
2. I’m guessing that “1 Thing” had to fall because it was just too damn similar to Crazy In Love, and there really only should be one so high on the list. Crazy came first, and was better anyway.
3. I’m actually a little surprised Crazy In Love scored so high, but don’t really mind. Surprised “My Love” scored so much (relatively) lower.
4. I’ve always thought “Digital Love” was much better than “One More Time,” but I’m happy to see either in the top 10, and glad that both scored so well.
5. Would have loved Wolf Parade “I’ll believe in anything” or Futureheads “hounds of love” to have cracked the top 20 or maybe even top 10, but damn there is a lot of music I loved this decade.
6. I love Basement Jaxx’s “Romeo” so putting it in the top 50 was a must.
7. “fell in love with a girl” down at 58? No way, this was at least top 20 material for me. One of my favorite rock songs ever.
8. “since u been gone” would have liked this to be in the top 10.
9. Quite frankly, I don’t even like listening to “Crazy” anymore and haven’t for quite a while. I would have dropped it further. I doubt you’re alone in thinking it is still catchy/etc. Chris, but I really just don’t see myself listening to it.
10. Maybe there was only room for one missy song in the upper chart as well. I’ve always thought “get ur freak on” was spectacular on a hundred different levels.
11. BOB is absolutely deserving of the top spot. I can’t think of any song more powerful and any song I’ve really loved more than this. Just LAST NIGHT, I was at a super high energy show and Matt & Kim had the crowd going nuts, and immediately when their set ended, BOB came on. It was like an explosion.
For what it’s worth, my extremely rough cut of a top something-or-so would include: BOB, Get Ur Freak On, Since U been gone, digital love, maps, fell in love with a girl, I’ll believe in anything, gimme more (seriously!), big pimpin, everything in its right place, 99 problems, hey ya, staring at the sun, romeo, hounds of love, and grindin. The order totally breaks down after my top 2, and I’m probably missing about 10-20 other songs I’d want to put in my top 10 too, but it’s a start.
oh, and I forgot that Kanye’s “gold digger” and “through the wire” need to be high, higher than flashing lights, which I would also put somewhere in the top 20-50.
crap, and I forgot Broken Social Scene’s “anthems for a seventeen year-old girl” and modest mouse’s “float on” and spoon’s “paper tiger” - all of which are top 20 if not top 10 for me. “the way we get by” and “the underdog” can be up somewhere high (top 20-50) too.
one minute man is the best missy song of this decade - there, i said it.
@Bruno the Fishing Dog: oh, holy crap, aside from “get ur freak on” you are totally right. I forgot about that. More top 20 material for my, uh, list.
In response to Maura’s thought: “Note also that the Top 10 of 2000-2004 ended at No. 14 on the big list, while the back end of the decade petered out at No. 28; if “Ignition (Remix)” (No. 19 on the big list) had come out in 2005, it would have placed just behind “Blind” and rendered the Top 10 even more pop-centric. Your theories for why this might be the case are welcome!”
Well, I think it may be this: When listing favorite songs, we might initially be inclined to load the list toward current favorites, because they are more recent. But when attempting to make a list with GRAVITY, with LONGEVITY, we (Pitchfork) may be afraid to make big claims about more recent songs because we (they) aren’t sure about their lasting place in the great music canon. So we (they) will tend to make more picks based on our perspective of slightly-older songs. These are the tried-and-true, ones which we KNOW have staying power. And the ones that have fallen (”work it,” “heartbeat,” “hey ya” on pitchfork’s list) are ones that haven’t shown that same staying power (at least in pitchfork’s opinion).
And in my opinion, pitchfork has maybe proven this by even screwing up their picks from the 2005-2009 set. No animal collective song should be in the top 10, and as much as I like LCD soundsystem, I think pitchfork will be the only people still listing those songs as among the absolute best of the decade when they review the 00’s ten years from now. (I may take some sh!t for that opinion, though.)
Another thought on Beyonce’s “Crazy in love” - did everyone really love this that much? I mean, *I* did, but I didn’t think it had the sweep that pitchfork seems to think. That number 4 of the decade ranking is more shocking to me the more I think about it. I also have a feeling that, for better or for worse, ten years from now “single ladies” will be much bigger than “crazy in love” when people are making lists about top songs of this decade.
As you can
This list is unusually myopic - even for pitchfork. Sure, the top 50 or so might be about what you’d expect (I get that you guys are outraged, but are you really surprised to find out that pitchfork loves Animal Collective?). But as you god down from 50 things just start looking like people were naming songs off the tops of their heads.
The Jay Reatard song they chose is a prime example - “Always Wanting More”. It was one of the better songs off his most recent singles comp, I guess, but with the whole decade to choose from wouldn’t you go with “My Shadow” or his brilliant Go-Betweens cover “Don’t Let Him Come Back”? I guess not.
I’m not even going to pretend that Pitchfork is the place I should be looking for stuff like My Chemical Romance or Fall Out Boy or Linkin Park’s “In the End”, but there are some pretty grave omissions even if you limit yourself to their narrow confines of Indie rock and mainstream R&B/hip-hop. Was the consensus seriously that “Where Do You Run To” by the Vivian Girls truly deserves a place on this list while Papas Fritas’ “Way You Walk” doesn’t?
Are they pretending they never liked Nelly Furtado? “Maneater”, “Promiscuous” and “Say It Right” all still sound pretty damn good to me.
Could we have eliminated maybe one of the 10 (!) songs that are by or feature Jay-Z to make room for stuff like Mouse on Mars’ “Wipe That Sound” or tATu’s “All The Things She Said”? I love Jay-Z, but…
After their recent “Pitchfork 500″ book, some songs are in the odd position of being hailed as one of the 500 greatest songs of the past 30 years, but nowhere to be found in the 500 greatest of the last 10. I guess they didn’t want to repeat themselves too much.