The Smiley Smile Message Board

Boy, I have quite the bone to pick with these guys....Why did they have to include all genres in the list....how about one for country, one for rock n roll, one for jazz and so forth.......Allright, they did make 3 good choices in their top ten (Be my Baby, God Only Knows, Wouldn't it be nice).....But most of the list is nothing but hipster posing......I bet they were creaming their jeans just thinking about how cool it was to completely snub any Mccartney compositions. Hey Jude, Let it be, Here , There, and Everywhere, Penny Lane and Yesterday are nowhere to be found on the list. There was one track by Elvis....and that was at no. 84 .....Also, nowhere to be found were Dion Dimucci, the Drifters, Lesley Gore, The Temptations........Also there are 4 tracks by the shangri-las on the list......Four Tracks?!?!?....Okay I like Leader of the Pack as much as anyone but.....Is it really the 20th greatest song of the 60's?.....Better than Suspicous Minds? Mrs. Robinson? Hey Jude? My Girl?......Hey, they have every right to their own taste.......But I don't think They just love that music........they do it to provoke, and to be different. Wow, your'e so damn hip........They must be right......they included a Charles Mingus track on the list......Ooooo, they like jazz.......they must know what they're talking about.....

Because that's a fucking lot of songs?


Um, its Pitchfork. What would you expect?

Regardless, no list ever pleases anyone except maybe whoever created it. I am amazed at how frequently everyone gets all worked up about things that I guarantee the staff itself didn't agree on. How could the world population all say, "oh, yes, perfect"? It's not important. It only exists to 1) make people read, 2) start some debate, 3) impress readers with writers' knowledge, and 4) turn people on to what the writers like.

How can you say with a straight face that California Girls is not one of the best songs of the 60's......I know I'm on to something here.....I know where these guys are coming from.....I guess it would feel cool to not like the beatles..especially if you like rock n roll....it would make you feel smart, and unique......but I can't.....I like their music too much...

I didn't (say I didn't rank Ca Girls). Their staff did. And it doesn't matter. People can legitimately disagree and it isn't a big deal, and people don't have to get all upset and call names the way they always seem to do. Those writers are just coming from a difference place. It doesn't matter.

I know lists are usually poppycock.....But this one especially irked me......I've never had qualms with any other list(even if I didn't agree with them)......Simply Put, I feel they were deliberately omitting great music to appear credible.....I don't even know why I continued reading it if it pissed me off so much......Oh well....

Sorry, I wasn't accusing you of not like CG's......I just didnt read your reply

Now you're making sense.

Oh, no problem and no offense taken at all.

I'd always heard bad things about pitchfork....now I know firsthand.....Never again....

There's a lot of music of various genres there, though, which is nice. But their writers are generally pretty pompous and the "hipper-than-thou" thing is almost overwhelming. But what single source is good? Rolling Stone has been a joke for almost as long as I can remember, Mojo is a bit too retro for my taste, anyway. Allmusic doesn't cut through clutter, just reviews it all. And every blog on earth covers something from a particular point of view. I try to take in a lot of it, keep in mind their biases and just listen and make up my own mind.

Luther, you're always undercutting my spiteful enthusiasm.

It's a bad habit.

A "200 best songs of the 60's" list that doesn't include "Good Vibrations" in its top 5 shouldn't even be discussed :P

Kudos to Pitchfork for including many Shangri-Las songs, though.

200 songs and not ONE of them is Bull Sessions with Big Daddy :o

Whoever compiled this list is clearly trying to seem cool by not including such an obvious classic.

actually.....all those shangri-las records are pretty darn good.

From the Onion (theonion.com). (For anyone who may not know--is there anyone who doesn't know?--the Onion is a very funny satirical paper, and in recent years, website. So don't take this literally.) Reminded me of this thread.

Pitchfork Gives Music 6.8
September 10, 2007 | Issue 43•37

CHICAGO—Music, a mode of creative expression consisting of sound and silence expressed through time, was given a 6.8 out of 10 rating in an review published Monday on Pitchfork Media, a well-known music-criticism website.
According to the review, authored by Pitchfork editor in chief Ryan Schreiber, the popular medium that predates the written word shows promise but nonetheless "leaves the listener wanting more."

"Music's first offering, an eclectic, disparate, but mostly functional compendium of influences from 5000 B.C. to present day, hints that this trend's time may not only have fully arrived, but is already on the wane," Schreiber wrote. "If music has any chance of keeping our interest, it's going to have to move beyond the same palatable but predictable notes, meters, melodies, tonalities, atonalities, timbres, and harmonies."

Schreiber's semi-favorable review, which begins in earnest after a six-paragraph preamble comprising a long list of baroquely rendered, seemingly unrelated anecdotes peppered with obscure references, summarizes music as a "solid but uninspired effort."

"Coming in at an exhausting 7,000 years long, music is weighed down by a few too many mid- tempo tunes, most notably 'Liebesträume No. 3 in A flat' by Franz Liszt and 'Closing Time' by '90s alt-rock group Semisonic," Schreiber wrote. "In the end, though music can be brilliant at times, the whole medium comes off as derivative of Pavement."

While Schreiber concedes that music is still "trying to find its aesthetic," he also claims the form has not yet lived up to the lavish praise heaped on it by pop culture journalist Chuck Klosterman and 19th-century French romantic composer and critic Hector Berlioz, among others.

Schreiber concludes his critique by calling on music to develop a more cohesive sound in its future releases.

"We can only hope that [music] will begin to grow with its fans over the next few millennia," Schreiber said. "If it can stick to what it does well, namely the song 'Peg' by Steely Dan, and Tuvan throat singing, then a sophomore effort will indeed be something to get excited about."

The review has split the music community, with many decrying Pitchfork's lukewarm reception of music as a contrarian move designed to propel the publication's tastemaker status.

"It's elitism for the sake of elitism," said Rolling Stone senior editor David Fricke, who refuted Pitchfork's middling rating, describing the entire art form as "transcendent." "I've been listening to music for over 30 years, and it's consistently some of the best stuff out there."

Despite music's defenders, the Pitchfork review has made a deep impression on the thousands of music fans who slavishly follow the website's advice when it comes to enjoying things.

"Music used to be great, but let's be honest, it's a 6.8 now at best," said Los Angeles resident Lowell Radler, 23, who admitted that he just looked at the rating rather than reading the whole review. "I seriously might never listen to music again."

Still, most analysts agreed that the impact of Pitchfork's scathing review of music will be dampened by the 2.4 rating it received from Pitchfork staff writer Dave Maher just moments after the initial critique was published online. Maher termed Schreiber's assessment of music "overwrought, masturbatory posturing intended to make insecure hipsters feel as if they're part of some imagined elite beau monde."