On the top records of the decade: I imagine that it'll look like this:
1. Funeral
2. Kid A
3. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Silent Shout may be in the top three, and although Sound of Silver has two of the very best songs of the decade, it will probably not make it as an album. The above selections are albums like Loveless was an album, or Pet Sounds or Aeroplane over the Sea.
On Pitchfork bashing: Pitchfork is conprised of neurotic, self-loathing and supercilious triflers. It is nonetheless the best rock music publication available. I encountered Pitchfork maybe around 2006--as it happens, I found their ratings to be spot-on and their reviews interesting and often well written (though sometimes over-wrought, as the joke goes). Now this was before I had any idea what a "hipster" was. I was introduced to that term and lifestyle when I transferred to an elite liberal arts college a year later. Essentially, my tastes and those of the Pitchfork reviewers corresponded remarkably--not because I was in a hip scene or even knew they existed or wanted to be identified with something (I was pretty much poor, alone, and midwestern, and had no audience to perform for anyway), but because I found something in this music (I suppose I'm thinking here of their top albums of the nineties especially). Yes, Pitchfork has become a monster, and has helped create some really hideous people. But they're still my most trusted review site. There's lots of great stuff that they don't review at all, and lots of stuff that they rate 7.x because it's aquired taste-type stuff (japanese underground psychedelic rock, for example, or some sorts of metal), but frankly if they rate something 9.x you can bet it's a fine album worthy of purchase. I don't trust any other publication with my money.
