This is the last year of the decade. Obviously. Ultimately that does not mean a whole lot to anyone as it's just another new year that just happens to belong to a new decade. However, to the pop culuture and zeitgeist obsessed bands of people who make up the blogosphere, it's a huge time. Now that indie music stalwarts Pitchfork have announced their list of the best 500 tracks of the decade (topped by the irrefutably awesome trio of Outkast's "B.O.B." (my very first illegal download!), LCD Soundsystem's "All My Friends", and M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes") and Bill Simmons has started his EssGee Awards, anyone and everyone who is obsessed with music, movies, TV, books and all the rest is frantically coming up with what they're going to do themselves to celebrate the culmination of a pretty fantastic decade.
Of course, this is my announcement that between October and November I will be releasing my favorite albums, songs, comics, TV shows, and movies of the decade, hopefully developing a pretty comprehensive list that highlights who I am as a pop culture junkie. It should be pretty interesting and a fairly difficult list to compile (turns out that there were a lot of releases in this decade), but I will do it no less.
Look for Slices of Fried Gold: The Decades Ending lists coming very soon.
Slices of Fried Gold: The Decade Ending Edition
Times...well, they're a'changin'
For quite some time, I've pretty much hated Pitchfork Media. They love their snide reviews, digs at albums that may or may not deserve it, and seemingly, they live to be the ultimate musical elitists. In short, they stand for everything that's wrong with music, the polar opposite of equally wrong vapid pop stars and emo stars with swooping haircuts paired with too tight jeans.
Yet with every year I become a little more accepting of them as my tastes change. While I may disagree with their hatred of Anathallo and love of Black Kids, we do have a lot of incidental overlap. Today they released their "Top 100 Tracks of 2008" and it was a list which I looked at, scoffed, shook my head, and said "not bad Pitchfork. Not bad at all."
Why's that?
Unbelievably enough, the banes of my musical existence had two songs in their top 10 that are favorites of my own this year, not to mention three others which I really, really enjoy. Their list is loaded with tracks I quite like (or even adore in some situations).
It's just so weird, seeing their list and finding my favorite track this year (M83's "Kim and Jessie") and one of probably my top five favorites (Cut Copy's "Hearts on Fire") cohabiting their top 10. Aren't I supposed to hate everything Pitchfork has to offer?
I'm afraid to find out what is the truth - are they getting more mainstream, or am I getting more elitist?
Ugh.