Pitchfork: Staff Lists: The Top 200 Tracks of the 1990s: 20-01

Made a playlist of the tracks I had (62). Lots of the less cool stuff, and none of the hip-hop. The funny thing is a few of these I only had on cassette and had to replace via itunes.

As with any list there's a lot of stuff that sounds old and dated, and other stuff that sounds fresh like it came out this week. There's stuff I bought on cassingles back in the day, and stuff I only discovered years later in the OOs. The oldest tracks are very emotional to me and evoke memories. The later stuff I can take with a grain of salt and appreciate intellectually. There's also a subset of music that has never left my CD player or MP3 player and therefore just sounds like another day.

192. Harvey Danger "Flagpole Sitta"
189. The Sundays "Here's Where the Story Ends"
184. The Cure "A Letter to Elise"
183. Mercury Rev "Holes"
175. Stone Temple Pilots "Interstate Love Song"
169. Suede "We Are the Pigs"
168. Alice in Chains "Would?"
152. Jane's Addiction "Stop!"
151. Green Day "Longview"
150. Fatboy Slim "Praise You"
149. Matthew Sweet "Girlfriend"
146. Julee Cruise "Falling"
140. Guns N' Roses "November Rain"
138. The Lemonheads "It's a Shame About Ray"
137. Pet Shop Boys "Being Boring"
128. Supergrass "Caught By the Fuzz"
125. Spacehog "In the Meantime"
124. James "Laid"
118. Morrissey "Now My Heart Is Full"
113. Cornershop "Brimful of Asha"
111. The La's "There She Goes"
106. New Radicals "You Get What You Give"
105. Happy Mondays "Kinky Afro"
98. Elastica "Stutter"
87. Liz Phair "Fuck and Run"
85. Air "All I Need"
74. Wilco "Via Chicago"
72. R.E.M. "Nightswimming"
70. Boards of Canada "Roygbiv"
68. Saint Etienne "Avenue"
66. The Cardigans "Lovefool"
59. Deee-Lite "Groove Is in the Heart"
54. Portishead "Glory Box"
52. The Stone Roses "I Wanna Be Adored"
50. Oasis "Live Forever"
43. The Chemical Brothers [ft. Noel Gallagher] "Setting Sun"
40. The Orb "Little Fluffy Clouds"
39. Beastie Boys "Sabotage"
37. Sinead O'Connor "Nothing Compares 2 U"
36. Guided by Voices "Game of Pricks"
34. New Order "Regret"
32. Bonnie "Prince" Billy "I See a Darkness"
31. Underworld "Born Slippy .NUXX"
29. The Verve "Bitter Sweet Symphony"
26. Blur "Girls & Boys"
24. Built to Spill "Car"
23. Spiritualized "Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space"
22. The Breeders "Cannonball"
21. The Smashing Pumpkins "1979"
19. Mazzy Star "Fade Into You"
18. Daft Punk "Da Funk"
17. Belle and Sebastian "The State I Am In"
15. Depeche Mode "Enjoy the Silence"
13. Nirvana "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
11. Bjork "Hyperballad"
10. Weezer "Say It Ain't So"
9. Beck "Loser"
7. Neutral Milk Hotel "Holland, 1945"
6. My Bloody Valentine "Only Shallow"
4. Radiohead "Paranoid Android"
2. Pulp "Common People"
1. Pavement "Gold Soundz"

List of New Wave bands and artists - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Good to know.

The List is the Origin of Culture

Umberto Eco:

The list is the origin of culture. It's part of the history of art and literature. What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible. It also wants to create order -- not always, but often. And how, as a human being, does one face infinity? How does one attempt to grasp the incomprehensible? Through lists, through catalogs, through collections in museums and through encyclopedias and dictionaries. There is an allure to enumerating how many women Don Giovanni slept with: It was 2,063, at least according to Mozart's librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte. We also have completely practical lists -- the shopping list, the will, the menu -- that are also cultural achievements in their own right.

Pitchfork's Epic Listmaking Arrgggh

I'm not exactly sure what the point of Pitchfork's best of the 00's lists are, but there is something a little oppressive and totalitarian about it. Just in case you're worried that you might have had an independent thought in the last 10 years, Pitchfork is here to ensure that you know that there were only 500 songs worth listening to, ranked in order of something or other. Radiohead (#24) is very good, but not as very good as Kelly Clarkson (#21). Morrissey (#181) is marginally good, but Britney Spears (#141) is marginally good-er. It's all epically meaningless. And what's the point if "Hey Ya" turns out to be the best song of the decade (my pick, "Such Great Heights" by the Postal Service flared out at #89)? What's been proved? Get your own iPod and press shuffle. You'll probably get an equally meaningful set of results.