03 December 2009 — Best of the Decade
If you read music blogs at all (and if you don't, why are you reading this?) you've probably read at least a couple best-of-decade lists. It's always an entertainment mix of affirmation and frustration reading them, or is that just me? For me, I either get unnecessarily happy when I see a favoured album on the list; disappointed when one doesn't get included; and a little bit embarrassed when an album I've never listened to gets described as some sort of era-defining cultural artefact. It's all a bit silly, of course, but that's how it goes.
I suspect that the main purpose of a best-of list is to serve as a kind of manifesto for the publication. If we look at Pitchfork's top 20 of the decade, this seems fairly accurate: it's largely made up of successful indie-rock acts, with a smattering of hip hop and dance. There's no metal or country, let alone jazz, classical or "world" music, which isn't surprising, but these genres aren't mentioned as being deliberately excluded. The list isn't simply constructing a history but a future as well: it's making a statement about the kind of music that Pitchfork deems to be interesting and worthy of comment.
In fact, this is probably the list's most important function, as I'm not really sure what else to do with it. The other day I read through the list with the intention of seeing if there were any albums I hand't listened to which maybe deserved some attention. However, it wasn't as helpful as I expected (or at least hoped). Of the 20, I already owned ten of them, so, other than reminding me how much I want The Avalanches to release a new album, those weren't much help as a shopping guide. Of the remaining ten, there were a couple that I knew I wanted to buy. The first was Spoon's Kill The Moonlight. As readers of this blog might know, I'm a bit of a fan of Spoon, but I'd never gotten around to buying any album other than their most recent Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga – Kill The Moonlight was an obvious choice for an album purchase, and I wasn't disappointed. Ghostface Killah's Supreme Clientele fit into this mould too: I love Fishscale and his work both with the Wu-Tang Clan and on Raekwon's Cuban Linx albums, so this was a nice reminder to get Supreme Clientele (and I think I'll bypass his most recent effort for now).
Other than that, however, I have some conflicting feelings. The problem is, I can't really think of a good reason to start getting into, say, The Strokes, at this point of my life, rather than bands who are slightly more current. And this holds for a lot of the albums in the list that I already own as well. I'm not denying that White Blood Cells is a good album, but it wouldn't be something I'd excitedly give someone now. Even Kid A, deservedly ranked as the best album of the decade (not that there aren't other, equally deserving albums) isn't necessarily something I'd recommend above Radiohead's more recent In Rainbows.
I guess my main problem is that these albums are too recent. In saying that, I don't mean that we need some sort of distance in order to work out what should rank in the canon – quite the opposite. Rather, to me, the albums that are coming out now that are showing the influences of ten years ago sound better than their parents, but, at the same time, I doubt I'll have the same feeling in ten years. This could be partly because I'm one of the few people you'll hear constantly saying "I prefer their new stuff". Classics are great, and we'll always have them, but on a day-to-day basis, I'd rather listen to what musicians are coming up with now, than what they were doing ten or twenty years ago.