Pitchfork's Top 50 Albums Of 2003.
 

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/top/2003/

Discuss.

Wow, I hardly know any of those artists. I couldn't very well comment on the list I guess then. I do agree that Radiohead should be in the top 5.

Well, they put The Darkness in the top 50, which is pretty dumb.

I too have never heard of half of these bands, I think this must be one of these deliberately obscure indie music things.

Nice to see Sage Francis in at 19 though! :)

Buck 65's record should be on that list too

They should have put the Blood Brothers on there somewhere, jeez. They give it a better rating than the Strokes (#11) and then leave it off the top 50... lame.

Otherwise a decent list.

Wilco is my favorite band on there. Never quite got into the Rapture though.

Albums 32, 22, and number 4 are the only ones I own. No Belle and Sebastian on there so I'm obviously a little distraught, but Pitchfork knows their shit so it's not so bad.

"Check out how cool we are, finding the most obscure albums on earth and throwing them out as references left and right!"

This list smacks of the type pretention only a record store clerk with emo glasses and a Yo La Tengo shirt would be capable of.

*shrug*

They put on the list what they think is the best. There's no pretention there, just opinion.

As far as the references, they're meant for people familiar with the genre of the album they're using the reference in. If you don't get it, you're probably not meant to be reading the review.

Only bands I have heard of on that list are Outkast (22), Jay-Z(17), The Strokes (11), and Radiohead(4). 2003 was a dark year in music.

Of those 4, I can't comment on Jay-Z, I dislike Radiohead, though the album title is poignent, the Strokes are good, but don't actually kick ass, and Outkast, though not my kind of music in general, seems to have hit it right on this one.

Internet Top "N" lists are just a cry for help, though. Would that more of these folks would do it the old fashin way. I'd be happy to mail a bottle of sleeping pills to anyone who is pondering writing an internet best of list.

Yeah, it's all really related to what Pitchfork report on.

That Sufjan Stevens record is ok, but not caring about Michigan makes it kinda hard to care about that record....

I like a lot of the other choices though.

Pitchfork media is a jaded, pretentious, publication. They like to slam albums just to show how cool they are. That's why most of these albums are from unknown, they enjoy thinking they are above it all.

I agree with KWSN, just because you never heard of it doesn't mean that it isn't good. Maybe this should be a reference point for people that only listen to what is played on the radio and even worse any music that you could find on MTv. You got to get sick of the same crap that so many people get sucked into.

Weird. I thought I knew a shit ton about music, but I don't know a lot of those bands. Makes me feel lame.

I disagree with Tophat though, I thought 2003 was an awesome year for Music. TPS, Royksopp, The Flaming Lips, Radiohead, Strokes, Mars Volta, Grandaddy, and Guster all had awesome new cds. Maybe I just have mediocre tastes.

OR maybe I don't really give music a chance until it's been around for 5 or 10 years. Don't run your taste down because I am not down with it. I need to P2P some Mars Volta stuff at some point, maybe they are one of those bands I can like immediately.

no. contrary to what you believe they DO give popular albums good reviews sometimes. look at radiohead, just as an example.

they do not review popular music as often, no. i wouldn't either. it's not that i refuse to like all things popular, it's just simply that i do not LIKE the music that is getting the most airplay these days. face it, much of popular music has degenerated into a fashion show. if bands whose music i actually liked was popular i'd still like it. so would pitchfork.

besides, when people take a thing like this too seriously it makes more people want to read it and therefore sparks its popularity. so you're shooting yourself in the foot.

What? No Audioslave? That poll sucks!

Well, I'm happy. They have Ted Leo at 26 and The Shins at 7. Great albums.

Radiohead is incredibly overrated at 4, but I was expecting that. Downward slide since the good-but-not-quite-great Kid A.

Audioslave was released in 2002.

ok...

well i recognized maybe 10 or so albums there. this list gives me a good few months worth of downloading to do, though something tells me i'm not gonna find any of these albums at tower or borders. huzzah for prefuse73 for making top 10.

I knew exactly five artists on that list, and never heard a single snippet from any of those albums.

Of course, considering my musical tastes, that isn't too suprising.

wow, i only have 5 of those artists in my playlist, guess i have work to do this weekend.

i know 26... maybe that biases me a bit toward pitchfork but i sitll stand by what i've said.