Someone tell me if I'm being too cynical or not giving them enough of a chance, but seriously Pitchfork, what the fuck? This is "some of the best and/or most innovative pop hits of the past three years"? I mean, yeah, it is, it's just a little suspect, like the Source making a "best of indie" list with, say, the White Stripes, Strokes, and Interpol on it. Does it strike anyone else as vaguely creepy that such a honky-centric website should spew out this list of mainly black artists, or white artists explicitly working in black genres (Eminem, Justin Timberlake, Bubba Sparxx)? Doesn't this just sort of seem like a list of the songs by black people white people have listened to recently? I know that indie kids can be really weird about their relationship with pop, but do they honestly need to be told about "What About Us" or "Shake Ya Ass" or "B.O.B."? Why not some of the deeper Jay-Z or Eminem cuts (I mean, "Without Me"? C'mon!) or some of the lesser-known pop gems? Well, I guess that'll come later.

It's just a bit weird, is all I'm saying. Like, "if there's one tremendous song on an otherwise crap album, should that song not have its moment of glory?" Yeah, I remember saying that.

All you really need to know, though, is in the entry on "Get Ur Freak On":

The track served as a huge wake-up call for me personally, too: unchallengeable proof that radio pop could rival even the most drugged-up Krautrockers in experimentation.

*sigh* We're valuing Missy Elliot by comparing her to Krautrock now?

I'm interested to hear what Matt Perpetua has to say about this, but he's on hiatus at present. On the other hand, that means I'll be posting one entry a day at Fluxblog this week. Go give a look.

(Incidentally, here's where a PF writer first mentioned this new use of WATW to me.)
posted by Mike B. at 10:09 AM 0 comments