They were better than American Gangster and Graduation, I'll give them that. I personally preferred Da Drought 3. But I do think that the inclusion of both was almost exclusively because they had to be there, they had to be mentioned, rather than their own team feeling they were more deserving than a number of other records. There were numerous albums evidently more acclaimed by their people, such as Sunset Rubdown's, Frog Eyes', Nina Nastasia's and indeed the two I've already mentioned, but which were ultimately dispensable. On the other hand, albums they liked but never really loved like Icky Thump and The Flying Club Cup got on (Dizzee Rascal's very low showing on the list I feel is an ode to their own recognition that they overrated this not so wonderful record tremendously when it first appeared). It feels as if they had to put out a list that was as typical in some respects as it could possibly be. They snubbed the very lesser-heard material that they're supposed, by reputation/definition, to be championing. And I would love to know why.

Some here mentioned Cross and Favourite Worst Nightmare. I reckon FWN was in some ways underrated simply out of dislike, raw hatred even, for the hype surrounding Arctic Monkeys. It's not a masterpiece by any standards, but my own feelings on it are that it's a marked improvement on their first.

Cross, though, I thought was fantastic!

Yeah it's what people call a token album. Pitchfork (the magazine in question) likes mostly shit rap (they actually rate 50 cent pretty high) so I don't think anyone should be taking their rap listing too seriously and suggest whats on there is credible or deserving.

What was wrong with Sunset Rubdown's album? I thought it was better than Shut Up I Am Dreaming and certainly better than anything Wolf Parade did and both were amazing.
Pitchfork would never rate the Stripes too high if they could avoid it, it's too mainstream for them. Pitchfork is hardly a magazine that should be taken seriously, they care more about being "indie" than being credible. I think it's the best site for music news but it's opinion and reviews are pretty disposable.

I don't really think they did that all, the lesser known material pitchfork champions like Panda Bear for instance becomes huge in the indie scene. I remember before Person Pitch came out Young Prayer was an album known by people into indie-folk and Animal Collective fanboys after pitchfork raved about Person Pitch Panda Bear was everywhere. Now I wouldn't credit them solely for his success but if pitchfork had slammed the release or just ignored it I don't think it would Panda Bear would be anywhere near as popular as he is. Pitchfork's list was extremely predictable and not surprisingly in the least bit. It was exactly what I expected from them.

Oh no, absolutely, I thought Krug's albums were great. My point was, so did Pitchfork (they rated it pretty high), but they didn't even put Random Spirit Lover in their top 50 and instead included numerous more "mainstream" popular albums (like the Stripes, Beirut and so forth) that they didn't like too much and rated significantly lower in the reviews. The same thing happened with Blitzen Trapper's Wild Mountain Nation, Nastasia's You Follow Me and Frog Eyes' Tears of the Valedictorian, all loved by Pitchfork reviewers yet not even given mention in the final list. They snubbed more obscure acts that they themselves loved in favour of albums like Icky Thump which made the list, and I find that strange.

Far as the Pitchfork Top 10, even 20 goes, I agree it was predictable in all ways. But the failure to include some pretty awesome (though obscure) albums in the list at all was peculiar.

Agreed. Although I love Sound of Silver, I didn't think it was the best album of the year.... I think it's rather ungrateful to deem an album overrated. There's obviously no accounting for taste, for instance, I thought Kala was absolute rubbish that never should have left the demo scene, you and a few others appear to like it....a lot...I assume it's the same with the likes of Animal Collective (which I didn't care for), Panda Bear (which I thought was great)...add Liars (average to me, yet people seem to come over their last two albums), The National's Boxer (sorry, ain't no way in hell it's better than Aligator), Sally Shapiro (which released some forgettable italo disco yet it made it to Pitchfork's top 50), Dirty Projectors (cannot stand the vocals, but I guess they're odd enough to catch the eye of hyper indie asses), Black Lips and King Khan and the Shrines...(both average and forgettable garage rock)...yet, correct me if I'm wrong, Arctic Monkeys and The Shins do not appear on the list even though, objectively (or as far music can be objectively assessed), they are better albums than the last couple of mentioned. So a couple of those like minded people get jobs at the most prominent music magazines, and you get a hype machine...whatever. I'm thankful they're out there bringing the new music to our attention, we can take it from there...;)

I have to disagree with you. There are tons of NIN fans who hate YZ.

I think thats one of the reasons why I love NIN. He seems to lose and gain fans with each record he does. You know the fans he picked up with WITH TEETH heard YEAR ZERO and were like, "WTF is this techno garbage?"

There are even non-NIN fans who hate YZ. I'm one of them. However, I would go as far as to say that God Given is comedic genius and made me laugh for hours (was it supposed to do that? :-s)

To adidasss...I agree that Arctic's album was considerably better than Black Lips' Good Bad Not Evil; it was a decent record and I believe most people who gave it an honest try tend to agree, and reckon the only reason many mags snubbed it was merely out of determination to not be sucked into the AM hype machine.

I read a review of that somewhere where they said it was just a Kylie Minogue album for people who think they're too cool to listen to Kylie Minogue.
I thought that was spot on.

:laughing: Yeah, that sounds about right. I'm not saying she's bad, I think I've listened to the album 3-4 times, but to rank it above Les Savy Fav, The White Stripes or Beirut is beyond ludicrous...

I was more on about the hardcore NIN fans, on a forum I used to post on everyone was all for bummin' YZ.

The Best Album of The Year -

The Good The Bad and The Queen - The Good The Bad and The Queen