Pitchfork's '200 Best Albums of the 1980s'

version

Well-known member
definitely you know you're always going to wind up with Illmatic or its equivalent for time/genre

like 100% I know a list like this'll have Zen Arcade and Double Nickels On the Dime, in the top third or so but not top 20, close to each other, and referenced in each others' blurbs

Yeah, I love those albums but I don't know what else can be said about them at this point. I'd like to see people throw in some remixes, EPs, singles, mixes, demos and unreleased stuff too. You're neglecting a wealth of material by sticking to albums.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Interesting to see how the yankee canon changes.

Mark Stewart and Cabaret Voltaire are OUT!

Psychic TV and Nurse With Wound are IN! That’s reissue vinyl for you.

I can’t be arsed going through it all again but the gradual increase in reggae and hip hop is surely a good but safe thing. It not being in one long list is rubbish.

Janet Jackson in the top ten does feel a bit like overcompensating for past sins tho.

Surprised there wasn’t more black metal precursors in there, whatever the heck they would be. Venom and Bathory? Rudimentary Peni?

Crass would definitely be in there if it was as a Quietus list. And Kings of the Wild Frontier. And Torment and Torreros. And Nail by Foetus. And Coughing Up Fire.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
more black metal precursors
They did have Celtic Frost but Bathory is a big absence. the rest besides Venom are too kvlt underground & also often not in English which for this list was apparently a significant barrier.

Rudi P didn't have ought to do w/black metal but you'd think if any peace punk band would make it they would, being weird and outsider arty. Death Church is a great LP anyway.

not surprised by no anarchopunk tho. too sincere, hippieish, not lumpenprole enough for canonical aesthete list.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
random other thoughts that I missed yesterday

no Discharge, a headscratching omission from any 80s list. esp as they were massively influential on a ton of listed records.

also no Napalm Death. I guess Scum doesn't pull votes from this kinda crowd like abrasive free jazz by old dudes. still a touchstone 80s record.

only goth is The Cure (OK I guess) and Joy Division which isn't really goth. like Floodland could get a shout.

given the DFA/LCD thing kinda surprising there's no mutant disco. no no wave even. just Tom Tom Club (who tbf are dope) to represent all that.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
I never got into Adam + the Ants. do the dumb clothes obscure something good? I know there's supposed to the whole Burundi beat thing or whatever.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
I mean I get no crowdsourced list will have anyone's individual faves idk it's just such a boring list

so many respectable modern classical records. all the guitar records you expect (they got the wrong Spacemen 3 LP but whatever).

good safe choices is the perfect way to describe the rap selections.

and so on.

just the header is about diversity and you're like shit maybe it'll be an interesting list combined w/PFork typically v high for music journalism production values. but no.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
here is what I'd call an interesting list

top 100 disco 12", expansively (as one should) defining "disco"

I don't agree with all of it, and they almost definitely went too far privileging obscurities over stone-cold canonical anthems, but still, they went for it

it inspires discussion in a good way. it likely has shit you've never heard, no matter who you are. it brings more breadth to one genre than this list does to an entire decade.

this is definitely too much time to put into thinking about a Pitchfork list or any music list but shit I'm a music head like yall lists are kinda what we do
 

version

Well-known member
I was surprised that they didn't include Mission of Burma, any Fall albums other than This Nation's Saving Grace or anything from The Associates. They all seem pretty nailed on for a Pitchfork list, plus there are at least two 80s Fall albums which are as good as, if not better than, TNSG.
 

martin

----
Seems a breath of fresh air NOT having 'Hex Enduction Hour' on there, tbh. Still think 'Wonderful & Frightening..' and 'Bend Sinister' always get unfairly overlooked in favour of TNSG.

Ditto Scientist...that 'Vampires' album is OK but never understood why it overshadows everything else he did around that period?

Adam & The Ants were cool and the first 4th Bathory albums are the be-all and end-all of black metal, in my not so humble opinion.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
it is weird too what postpunk did/didn't make it

like nothing funk/avant-funk - no Gang of Four, 23 Skidoo, James Chance, etc ad infinitum

and on funk I cannot overstate how crazy it is to have zero boogie, 80s funk, etc besides Prince and one Patrice Rushen LP

ya like disco it was really a 12" genre but still - Zapp, Mtume, Midnight Star - shit we ain't talking about obscurities
 

version

Well-known member
Seems a breath of fresh air NOT having 'Hex Enduction Hour' on there, tbh. Still think 'Wonderful & Frightening..' and 'Bend Sinister' always get unfairly overlooked in favour of TNSG.

I'd have liked to have seen Perverted by Language on there over both Hex and TNSG; Wonderful & Frightening... and Grotesque are decent too.
 

droid

Well-known member
One insane entry is Virginia Astley's From Gardens Where We Feel Secure. Dunno how that got in there. There'd be room for a Ninjaman Lp without it.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
They did have Celtic Frost but Bathory is a big absence. the rest besides Venom are too kvlt underground & also often not in English which for this list was apparently a significant barrier.

Rudi P didn't have ought to do w/black metal but you'd think if any peace punk band would make it they would, being weird and outsider arty. Death Church is a great LP anyway.

not surprised by no anarchopunk tho. too sincere, hippieish, not lumpenprole enough for canonical aesthete list.

because proles like good music.
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
I never got into Adam + the Ants. do the dumb clothes obscure something good? I know there's supposed to the whole Burundi beat thing or whatever.

Dirk Wears White Sox (and all the accompanying stuff on youtube that wasn't released) is/are great punk/post punk/new wave fun, Kings of the Wild Frontier is a great album and Prince Charming is hands down the weirdest song to ever get to Number One and the weirdest album to ever get to Number One.
 

firefinga

Well-known member
I've really never understood the appeal of SY. Like you, found that album quite stunningly boring.

They were THE music critics darlings in the 80s and 90s weren't they? And didn't they also - kinda - started out in the US-hardcore movement, but were more artsy outsider-types?
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
didn't they also - kinda - started out in the US-hardcore movement
no not at all. adjacent to the early NYHC scene maybe but they were no wave proto noise rock types always. also older - early 20s - than the v teenager hxc scene.

they were on SST for awhile but that was after SST had moved on from hardcore

now I'm sure Moore or Gordon could give you an exquisitely curated list of early-mid 80s U.S. hardcore, just like they could free jazz or any other cool scene

but they were never hardcore to begin with the way Minutemen or Husker Du were
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
proles like good music
sometimes. their taste isn't any better or worse than overeducated whatever aesthete critics. it's just different.

talking more critical taste in prole-coded music, what it does and doesn't include.

i.e. dumb metal but not dumb hardcore (instead, artier smarter hardcore) for whatever reason. roots, not dancehall.

I don't have a sweeping theorem of it but I know when I see it you know.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
From Gardens Where We Feel Secure is a good record btw. top anything list idk but I like it and I'm no big fan of English pastoralism in general.

the problem isn't really with a single LP anyway so much as having 15-20 (at least) modern classical, ambient etc records and all the aforementioned omissions.
 
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