MFR

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Pitchfork's #1 Albums From 2000-2008, A Case Study

The impact of Pitchfork's opinion is amazing. There will always be a top dog when it comes to independent music criticism, but with that place of influence and power comes great responsibility. MFR can say that Frightened Rabbit is our favorite record of the year in hopes of supporting the artist we love from 2008 as best we can: by giving them mad props and a slight tip from the brim of our collective pork-pie hat.

But P4K can seriously launch a band from obscurity to a household name, we've all seen it. When Fleet Foxes landed on top of the pile this year, it sealed their fate for the next five to ten years (hopefully more) as an artist who will never escape a conversation about the who's-who in indie music. Looking ahead, I see the Foxes landing major-label backing (if they haven't already) and hitting a level of fame synonymous with the likes of Interpol and Arcade Fire. This is an amazing achievement considering we're talking about a band who 18-months ago was just a small band of good-looking duders.

Beyond that, I wanted to explore whether or not this P4K influence has always been felt. Granted, 12 Rods -- who may be P4K's favorite band -- are not huge, but they never made it on top of the almighty year-end list. Looking back, since 2000, I'd say that P4K is batting a five for nine in terms of choosing the band that deserves the top and will remain there. The four I question are the Microphones, The Rapture, Sufjan Stevens, the Knife; I do not believe that they didn't deserve it (I own and love all of these records), but none of these four are currently seeing the amazing success that Radiohead, Interpol, Arcade Fire, Panda Bear (success seen also in Animal Collective) and Fleet Foxes are experiencing. Therefore, the question I ask is this: why are five of these nine bands seemingly winning?

Is it the decisions that were made after finding themselves on top of the list in regards to management and musical direction that sets them apart, or is it simply because P4K picked a band that was the expected or unexpected indie pick?

Let's talk about this a bit more, but here are the #1 picks from Pitchfork's Top Album Lists of the last eight years.

2000: Radiohead - "Kid A"