Pitchfork: Best Albums of the 80s

Virgo - no idea he did all this pre-snooker.

We used to make fun of my friend Louis at school, saying ‘Louis likes ra-ave!’ in a silly voice until he flipped.

We were idiots, and Louis was right. Always find it incredible how such deceptively simple music can be so evocative. Going thru life and in a vision are all time bangers. Sounds timeless. Fantastic.

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^ Absolutely this. If it was done as part of a ‘celebration of the 80s’ or some such feature then great, but just putting up a bunch of records in a ranked list with nothing to connect them apart from the fact they were released during the same ten year period is so pointless. I mean, does anyone really care that Soliloquy for Lilith is ranked above Private Dancer but below Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence ?

Not anti lists per se, and have discovered some great records through decent ones, but literally the only thing the this tells you is that Pitchfork’s editorial focus has switched from indie rock and post punk in 2002, to pop, r’n’b and hip-hop in 2018. Just a marketing exercise for them. It’s not about the music, maaaaaan.

All of that said, I note that Warny has now committed himself to listening to all 200 albums and posting about them here, so some good has come of this.

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What’s your point caller?

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Haha ok i still think thjs is shit music journalism though :smile:

My point is just that it’s strange to me to include an album at 2nd on a Best Albums list if the people making the list don’t actually love listening to the album on a regular basis.

yeah but likely everyone involved voted for it in some capacity, which would give it a high placing, and an album’s overall importance and contribution to music is a factor to be considered as a music critic, imo

well you said yourself it gets people in a discussion, so it’s definitely not shit journalism. Easy clicks, sure, but that is the name of the game unfortunately.

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It has people in a discussion about where an albim should numerically be placed which is dumb. I think lists like this serve to erase history by flattening it all out into one plane. It also ignores the way music is made and listened to- most people dig down into whatever scene/genre they’re into and listen for the development & dialogue between artists

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Whilst the newer list is probably more reflective of my tastes, it initially reads as less interesting than the 2002 list IMO. Obviously certain genres are better represented and it’s more reflective of wider opinion but there’s less to sink your teeth into isn’t there? Presumably many will have gone to Pitchfork to learn about more left field releases rather than see another list championing Thriller, Madonna etc. There’s less to distinguish this from a C4 best of the 80’s run down or Rolling Stone magazine etc.

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that’s people’s prerogative though, I agree arguing about placements is pointless, but that doesn’t mean everyone who reads them takes the placements particularly seriously.

I don’t think that’s strictly true or fair either, some of the reviews to make references to other albums or acts in the list, but also they only have a couple hundred words to work with. I’m 99% sure none of the p4k writing staff were around at the time to discuss as if it is a contemporary piece, so it can only be taken as historical opinion and fact, which is the whole point of looking at how a decade developed (I guess you could instead do it chronologically so the progress is more literal, but then it’s an entirely different and larger piece, i.e a book, if you want to also study each genre covered here within that). This is the easiest way to cover the broad range that they’ve managed here, personally I think it’s pretty cool that slightly more niche yet deserving choices like the Faith/Void split or Morbid Angel got in there but the only reason that’s happened is because lists like this allow for it.

p.s I also enjoy that they often didn’t choose the most obvious tracks to link to at the end of each entry for people to check out, though tbf they did with Faith/Void

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I think up until the top 25 or so there’s still quite a lot of interesting choices that wouldn’t always get picked up elsewhere but idk. Prince, Michael Jackson and Madonna are always going to rank highly, they fucking were the 80s

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Well there are definitely a few things on there that are 100% new to me.

I’ve already given the Nurse With Wound album a listen as they’ve always been one of those bands where I didn’t really know ‘where to start with’ and also the Scritti Pollitti - which I am now going to declare pretty much the most 80s pop album ever. And ace it is too.

Even if I don’t discover anything else from this list it seems to have served a purpose for me at least.

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Yeah I think the main thing now with these lists is just that they are claiming to be ‘The Best’ - giving the impression that someone could order 200 CDs and end up with a definitively eclectic but wonderful collection that they loved.

Maybe not so much in Pitchfork land but certainly most people reading a music mag or broadsheet or whatever will be reading it like that.

I think genre breakdowns make more sense or just pitching these overall lists as a sort of introduction to the major music movements and artists of the decade. Not as snappy that though is it.

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I haven’t looked at this beyond the top 10, but I when I was younger I used best of lists quite a lot to discover new things

might not be as useful now I’ve heard every album from the 80s, but I think they can be good

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I don’t see any real problem with trying to compile a group of albums in a bundled mess with order arbitrarily assigned to them, as it’ll presumably get some people reading it to look into listening to something they might not otherwise have got into.

I feel like the real target demographic for these kind of lists is people that don’t have a clue where to start with music from X period or whatever, without necessarily having to treat it as something majorly important and canonical. The NME did some best albums of all time list years ago (2002/3, maybe?), that put Doolittle at #2, and that got me into Pixies and a whole bunch of other bands when I wouldn’t have listened to them at all otherwise…

At least the best album of the 70s is really obvious.

(yes it’s Songs In The Key of Life)

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don’t think they’ve updated that one yet though so maybe they’ll change it to something like Frampton Comes Alive or Hotel California.

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can we all just agree that Stevie Wonder is great? :slight_smile:

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I don’t know how he manages to combine so many modes and themes so joyously and powerfully without ever losing steam. It’s got platonic love, romantic love, fatherly love, politics, nostalgia, all the melodies are top tier, it’s funky as hell, the production is tight and warm. It’s insanely virtuosic and also very pop and memorable.

Doubt there’s anything on the 80s list that could come close really

Seems reasonable

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