Pitchfork may have done a good job of including dance music in their top 200 tracks of the 1990s, but a certain someone was conspicuously absent. Have you ever heard of a recording artist named Garth Brooks? How about Shania Twain? Must I even mention Britney Spears?
I really loved their picks, but they struck me as the return of rockism. I feel that the “r” word, like Voldemort, has been whispered in certain circles in the past year or so about Pitchfork. This list confirmed that suspicion for me. Is it wrong to like popular music again? Should we just pretend that we could always live in an indie bubble and never be concerned with the likes of, say, Sugar Ray?
What I’d love to see Pitchfork come back and do next week is reveal their staff lists, or give us a best of the rest. As I wrote last night, the ’90s in retrospect were a wonderfully eclectic decade. Garth Brooks, gangsta rap, Guns N’ Roses, and grunge? Yes, please! I know it’s difficult to be perfectly inclusive, but you might think it’d be acceptable to at least genuflect to some of the best-selling artists of that decade.
As someone who went to a junior high and high school dances in the ’90s, it’s hard to imagine anyone omitting this gem.
Isn’t that the point of Pitchfork, though? Not to throw the “c” word around, but they’ve done a wonderful job of curating a list of what made the ’90s so amazing. If we wanted a list of what was most popular in the ’90s, we could just check the Billboard charts or Soundscan or something, right?
Well, here’s the thing: in my time as a critic, I watched Pitchfork work
very hard to accommodate the greater world of popular music into their
coverage. It’s part of what’s known as the “poptimist” movement within
critical circles, and after some consideration, seemed to me to be a better
way to cover music. I mean, how can you ignore huge swathes of pop art?
More importantly, you could check the charts, but you’d miss out on how
critics locate those pieces of worth within the context of the decade
they’re covering. I’m not asking them to tongue bathe Puff Daddy, but can we
at least give 200 words to Mariah Carey?
How does one define “pieces of worth”? By their lasting influence? I personally don’t find much merit in the music of Carey, Twain, or Brooks, and the last thing Metallica did that was any good was And Justice For All… . Maybe all the votes for Mariah were split amongst her 37 inescapable hits from the decade.
I just feel like any list claiming to be the top 200 should endeavor to include artists people actually listened to en masse. I also love when good writers uncork on the familiar.