It's hard for me to think of Stan as a 'serious' song. I take it as "I'm SO awesome that this guy murder-suicides his girlfriend just cause I snubbed him!" Not only that, he gets to be the good guy in the song by actually writing back at the end. Stan is quite possibly the most narcissistic song I've ever heard, and one of the most blatant examples of marketing by shock value. Not only that he gets associative credit for throwing in a verse from a one hit wonder's one hit.
Maybe I should just save the rant for bracketology.
I would probably put Idioteque decently high on my own list, but I'd put Everything In It's Right Place higher. I think Idioteque gets a little bit overrated because it was the first song a lot of people heard on it, and thus the one that caused people to either get on or off the experimental Radiohead bandwagon.
It's definitely way too early to judge the 00's as a strong or weak decade. The music hasn't had nearly enough time to sit with us yet. I'd probably put it above the 90's overall. The 00's might be the worst mainstream decade, but way too much of the big 90's indie stuff is just buzzy mumbling lo-fi.
No Machine Gun?
"Rebellion (Lies)" is my favorite, but I agree on "Wake Up" and I also love "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)." That song just ebbs and flows, and builds and builds and BUILDS, in such an anthemic way, until it ends with that final crashing chord ... then a few seconds of sustain ... then ANOTHER crash. FUNERAL was playing while I was in a Borders the other night, and even though I had finished my business and was actually in kind of a rush to get home, when "Power Out" came on I simply couldn't leave until it was over. It would have felt ... disrespectful.
By the way, has everyone seen the amazing trailer for Spike Jonze's adaptation of WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE that uses "Wake Up" as its backing music? Oh, man.
Well, because of that discussion on Rebellion Lies I have tried to find "the song I like the most among all the songs i consider the less good in an album".
And Rebellion Lies is definitely one of my favourite, proving that Funeral is a no filler album to me.
However I think I prefer Amity from XO, Na na na from Silent Shout, It could be Sweet from Dummy, Time to Get Away from Sound of Silver.
And it is a tie with Hang On To Yourself from Ziggy Stardust (and very close call with The Righteous and the Wicked on Blood Sugar Sex Magik).
Strangely enough all those song beats those from my top 2 albums !
Dark horse for best album from the 'Fork: Silent Shout. They drool all over it whenever they get the chance, and I think they'll go a little outside the box with albums after going (basically) chalk with B.O.B. and All My Friends.
I maybe alone in this but I think Funeral has a ton of filler compared to some of the better albums of this decade. It has some of the greatest songs of the decade, but beyond the top 4 or so, it kind of pales in comparison to a few other albums. Just my opinion.
As for the pitchfork top 10 albums:
01. Radiohead- Kid A
02. Animal Collective- Merriweather Post Pavillion
03. Jay-Z- The Blueprint
04. Interpol- Turn on the Bright Lights
05. LCD Soundsystem- Sound of Silver
06. OutKast- StanKonia
07. Sigur Ros- Agaetis Byrjun
08. Sufjan Stevens- Illinios
09. The Knife- The Silent Shout
10. Fleet Foxes- Fleet Foxes
Even if you dont think as highly of funeral as others, you cant deny the fact that it will be in the top 10, if not top 5, if not #1. Funeral was a huge album not just for Arcade Fire, but for Pitchfork as well Pitchfork started showing there muscle as a music pusher when funeral was released. Im sure they played an important part in funerals success. Pitchfork is one of the few music sites that actually have some weight, a good pitchfork review oftens means alot of extra money in sales. They wont deny their love for it when the time comes.
1)Radiohead - Kid A
2)Arcade Fire - Funeral
3)Panda Bear - Person Pitch
4)TV on The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain
5)LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
6)Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion
7)Sufjan Stevens - Illinios
8)Radiohead - Amnesiac
9)Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
10)Outkast - Stankonia
I really havent the slightest clue. But I'm sure my top 3 picks will reign high on pitchforks list.
I don't think it's a BAD album. It's probably in my top 20 of the decade, just not my top 20 of all time like some people.
Pitchfork ranked it #45 on it's top albums of the first half of the 00s. That leads me to believe it'll be more in the 70-75 range.
It'll definitely make a lot of top 10 lists, but I don't think Pitchfork's will be one of them.
Funeral was what, 3 months old when that first list came out? They've gone back and declared it a masterpiece many times over. The album will T5. I actually think that pitchfork is going to spice things up a bit with albums. They're big on sensationalism, and what would be more sensational than Kid A, "the last great album", being dethroned from its roost? Following the pitchformula I think we might be working with something like
1. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
2. Arcade Fire - Funeral
3. Radiohead - Kid A
Of course the spots are volatile, but I have a feeling SOS is getting it's due.
SR
There were many albums from 2004 that were ranked higher than Funeral on the top of 00-04. Among them
Animal Collective- Sung Tongs
Madvillain- Madvillainy
Dvendra Banhardt- Rejoicing in the Hands
Fiery Furnaces- Blueberry Boat
Pitchfork is probably going to want to buck many mainstream indie stereotypes. Going down the top 5 from acclaimedmusic's 00s list...
01. The Strokes- Is This It- Will probably be about 25-30. They've always liked this guardedly.
02. The White Stripes- Elephant- Won't be listed. They've never liked this album.
03. Franz Ferdinand- S/T- Probably about 130-140. Pitchfork has always been very modest about this album.
04. Arcade Fire- Funeral- 40 at the highest, 80 at the lowest. I don't expect this to tear up the list.
05. Wilco- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot- In the top 20, but no higher than 10.
so the 1,2,3,4, and 5, will probably be 25, not listed, 100-something, 50-60, and 15-20. That's the way Pitchfork does things.
Check the dates. The 04 eoy list (wich funeral topped) came after the 00-04 list. It served as the correction.
I agree about Is This It and YHF though. They'll get props, but neither can probably T10.
Edit: If they weren't big fans of Funeral, than I highly doubt Neibhrohood #1 (Tunnels) would have made T10 of their songs list.
Funeral was by far the youngest album on the 00-04 lists. In fact many publications hadnt heard the album until the following year. PItchfork employees had barely digested funeral when they made that list. Its inclusion on the list, to me, speaks very highly of its merit. They new it was special and they forced it into a list that perhaps they shouldnt have made so early.
Pitchfork should have waited longer for this eod list. Albums like Embryonic could be amazing and deserve high praise.
I agree about Is This It and YHF though. They'll get props, but neither can probably T10.
Edit: If they weren't big fans of Funeral, than I highly doubt Neibhrohood #1 (Tunnels) would have made T10 of their songs list.
No, the decade list was the correction.
http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/5934-top-50-albums-of-2004/ posted December 31, 2004.
http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/5956-the-top-100-albums-of-2000-04-part-one/ posted February 7th, 2005.
Who knows, maybe they've changed their tune, but Funeral definitely dropped percipitously in just 2 months.
I've learned not to get my hopes up with pitchfork. If something is too classic, they'll cut it down to size a bit on their decade end list. Nevermind at #6 of the 90s, Sign o The Times in the 40s of the 80s, and Exile on Main Street at #11 of the 70s, are all signs of pitchfork's taste making.
Quite frankly, the only album currently in AM's top 10 that will make PF's top 10 is Kid A. That said, I don't even think Elephant (which won't make the list) will be really negatively impacted by it, much less albums like YHF and Funeral (which will make the list, just not in top 10 spots.)