Project 1: Notes 1

I'm sure I've seen all the Pitchfork lists before, years ago, but the details have slipped my mind, and so I want to keep the list as much a secret as possible while I work through it. It keeps it exciting as I'm not quite sure what's coming next and I get to try and guess what's ahead. It also helps it feel more like ten albums at a time, as if it was more obvious that there were "these one hundred albums" ahead it would just be an insurmountable task. On the article though, there is a comment as to what didn't make the cut:

Among the casualties this time out were: Bruce Springsteen, Bob Marley, Patti Smith, Sticky Fingers , Ornette Coleman, Pere Ubu, Van Morrison, Black Sabbath, "Heroes" , Chic, Queen, Nina Simone, New York Dolls, The Jam, Frank Zappa, Transformer , Curtis Mayfield, The Police, The Damned, Aretha Franklin, Tonight's the Night , The Kinks, Tom Waits, Elton John, Yes, Janis Joplin, Station to Station , Willie Nelson, Cheap Trick, AC/DC, Grateful Dead, Alice Coltrane, Paris 1919 , The Upsetters, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Cecil Taylor, Amon Düül II, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway , Augustus Pablo, Human League, Chi-Lites, Captain Beefheart, No New York , Magazine, The Slits, The B-52's, Durutti Column, Burning Spear, Tangerine Dream, Gene Clark, Françoise Hardy, Magma, Kimono My House , The Adverts, Manuel Göttsching and/or Ash Ra Tempel, Lee Hazlewood, and all of Brazil, including Caetano Veloso.

Thoughts on this. Very surprised to see that Patti Smith didn't make the cut. Horses would definitely show up on my list were I to make it now. As would Sticky Fingers and Pere Ubu - The Modern Dance and Dub Housing are the only ones I've played, and I played The Modern Dance extensively. Springsteen and Marley I've heard only the usual line-up of singles. Morrison I'm surprised nothing has made the list. I had to check and make sure Astral Weeks was pre-70's as the omission of that would be just unforgivable, but there is surely still good 70's material. Perhaps a sign of how he seems to have slipped (wrongly) from the canon. Sabbath again I know only the singles and can't say whether their albums stand up. Lack of "Heroes" and Station to Station surprising, though I rate other Bowies higher and he is sure to be on the list multiple times. Same goes for Transformer: can't let Bowie dominate, though his presence over the decade is huge. Low and Ziggy must be on it, at least. No Dolls is a surprise. Zappa, I love his 60's work but can't name a truly great album from the 70's. Paris 1919 and whatever Beefheart album (Clear Spot most likely) got the nod probably don't quite merit a list like this, though great in their own right. Others I either don't know enough to comment or have nothing to say on their omission.

Can anything be learned from this list of the overlooked? For a start, it will be interesting to see how well the list accommodates the always-mythical year zero of punk. It always worked differently in the US from in the UK, and it was easier to trace connections from antebellum music to the punks, but still there is a line drawn somewhere around about 1976. Divorced from the rhetoric of the times, this line was in great part an invention, but something happened certainly. There is clearly something different going on with Magazine and The Slits than there is with Genesis. Retrospectively, it is easier to trace connections from art-rock and prog rock, through glam and krautrock giving us electronica that later birthed disco, with a counter-narrative of a return to basics surfacing in the punk movement, and a kind of culmination of these in post-punk and the fragmentation of music thereafter. If the list follows that story, then Bowie will have a huge presence and Low gets to do well, as a sort of Rosetta Stone for the decade. More traditionalist Rock 'n' Roll of the period will be pushed aside though, perhaps explaining the lack of Springsteen. Probably no Tom Petty either. I'm guessing that the general fall-out of the 60's generation (Beatles solo albums, Morrison, the Band) will be written out of the story as well.

It may also be interesting to imagine who would have made the list in, say, 1975 (so as to avoid here the revisionism of the punk movement). Genesis' star has certainly fallen, and Yes haven't made it either. King Crimson will certainly pop up as the acceptable face of prog. It is obviously a rock-centred list, but other genres will be included. Disco albums? Further reggae and electronica? Certainly the latter. The differences between a hypothetical UK-based list and this list are another matter entirely. It will be fascinating to see anyway.

Project 1: Pitchfork Top 100 Albums of the Seventies

The plan is to listen all 100 of Pitchfork's Top 100 Albums of the Seventies. All albums will be listened to, including albums I have listened to previously. I will listen to them all at least once; the aim being to listen to them multiple times but I will not penalise myself if a. I'm already familiar with them or b. I play them once and just have no interest in playing them again. Albums will be listened to in sets of 10 and I will not look ahead to see what is coming.

Of the first ten (100-90), I have listened to three and am familiar with other material by the artist of another three. Of the other four, one has been high on my to-listen list for quite some time with two of the others on my "vague aspirations to listen to possibly someday" list. I'll be honest and say I had no intention really to listen to one of them at all, but have no problem at all checking it out. I only hope that the rest of the list falls into place quite as nicely as this group does.

The reason for doing this? Immediate inspiration: hearing Coconut by Harry Nilsson used on the soundtrack of Alan Wake, being inspired to check out Nilsson Schmilsson and noticing its inclusion on the aforementioned list.