Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport
In the early summer of 2009 Pitchfork started to list its favourite tunes of the decade, and now we’re into the autumn numerous music magazines are feeding us with their lists of the decade’s best albums. It’s not just a couple of months too soon for such lists, but A COUPLE OF YEARS TOO SOON! I’m not naive, I know why they’re doing these lists now – it’s because there are so many such lists produced in the Web 2.0 age that they want to get theirs out before List Fatigue sets in among readers. But really…we haven’t even heard all the decade’s albums yet, never mind had time to fully digest them. Fuck Buttons have just released their fantastic second album Tarot Sport.  I’m not saying this is one of my favourite LPs of the decade, but neither am I saying that it isn’t. I won’t know how I properly feel about this album until the thrill of listening to it has worn off and I can look back on it subjectively.  And I won’t know how I feel about this decade’s music as a whole until the dust has settled and we’re well into the teenies or whatever the next 10 years becomes known as.
As much as I think the concept of a Best Albums Of All Time Made In The Western World! list is flawed, the compilers do usually at least have the courtesy to exclude anything released in the previous 2 or 3 years because of the above mentioned factors. And the same principles should be applied here. There should be a Music Critics’ Charter drawn up that states any editor will be flogged at dawn if their publication is seen printing a list of the Greatest Albums Of the Noughties before 2011.
Hi, I do agree with the general feeling here but the media world is about ‘Now’ reviewing the albums of this decade in two years time would gain little response on the newsstands I feel. However, without a doubt, the votes we are collecting on our own website would no doubt throw up different albums if we took the poll in 2012 (which we will do .. all being well!)
We are not closing our voting until 01 Jan 2010 (and will re-open it in 2012). For our site it is a bit of fun and it was great to go back and just listen to albums that had not been played for quite a while. Still we are not selling magazines I guess 🙂 Pete
Yes I see your point totally and that as individuals or as journalists everyone is to a certain degree reviewing the decade even if just in our own minds now so this sort of thing is very much of the zeitgeist. I suppose my point is that we have to admit to ourselves that the lists we make now for this decade will not be as accurate as the lists we do in a few years time once the dust has settled. I recall about 15 years ago NME running several weeks’ of features: Best albums of the 60s; Best albums of the 70s; Best albums of the 80s. And this certainly did help sell a lot of copies of NME at the time, yet this was well after the dust had settled on each decade. So if and when magazines/websites run a similar feature decade-by-decade in the future, that will be the time to really judge the noughties with objectivity…or do I mean subjectivity? I always get them mixed up!
I always reckon when magazines run ‘lists’ as articles they either have nothing
else to write about or are too lazy to find something 🙂
I guess I had better start listing to your radio station too!
Best wishes