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.

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

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.

- 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.

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?

http://sciencevsromance.net/post/168339432/now-thats-what-i-call-music-pitchfork-names

In regards to the rest of the list, Outkast and LCD Soundsystem are a pretty sharp 1, 2.

” ‘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.

Being ticketed for fame by VH1 instead of MTV is kiss-of-death worthy, it seems.