1.
One afternoon during my freshman year at film school, a classmate asked me (as we all did back then) to shout out my favorite movie. His eyeballs almost literally popped when I told him it was Reality Bites. Yeah, you know, the Winona Ryder Ethan Hawke Ben Stiller movie where they dance to "My Sharona" in the gas station. He looked as though he might need a tank of oxygen. When I asked him the same question, he quickly answered Citizen Kane. "No," I groaned, "I don't mean what you think is the greatest film of all time—I mean, what's your favorite? Your personal favorite?" I don't think he understood the question.
2.
As you might have heard, earlier this month, the prestigious Sight & Sound list of the greatest films of all time crowned a new champion, recognizing Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 masterpiece Vertigo as top dog instead of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, as it had for approximately the last three thousand years. What does any of that have to do with Radiohead's 1997 third album? Or Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band? Or any other time-honored classics you simply can't not include on any musical Best Of list without sacrificing credibility?
Well… it all just kind of… blows, really.
Earlier this week, our friends over at Pitchfork finally published their year-in-the-making The People's List, an ostensibly comprehensive list of the 200 greatest albums in Pitchfork history (1996-2011) as voted on by Pitchfork readers and then broken down into ludicrously uninteresting sub-lists organized by location, gender, age, genre, etc. In a move that surprised absolutely no one, Radiohead's more-than-OK masterwork topped the list, followed interestingly enough by their own Kid A and 198 other albums we've been unceasingly conditioned to believe are, always will be and always were Great (with a capital G) more or less since their release. (It's worth noting, I think, that according to Pitchfork's Best Years For Music breakdown graph, the years 1996 through 1999 were a bit of a dry spell when it came to good music… whereas apparently 2007 and 2010 were positively swimming in classic albums. Who knew?)
3.
Pitchfork's The People's List isn't pointless because its 200 albums aren't rightful classics. It's pointless because we all know what's on it without even having to look. We know what's on it because there will never be a point in pop culture history when OK Computer ceases to be the most important album of our generation… or when Nirvana's Nevermind stops defining our older cousins' generation… or when Sgt. Pepper's stops being our parents' major contribution to humanity. Those albums will never stop being great. Everything is written in stone. This has all be pre-decided. Don't get me wrong, because I can already feel you doing it… I really love OK Computer. Of course I love it, who doesn't right? If it were my 200 Albums list, it would still be at the top, probably. But the fact that I love it is ultimately meaningless because, in the larger conversation, OK Computer is already great with or without my approval. My experience of listening to it and grappling with it and ultimately walking away from it has "meant"… in that big, broad, universal sort of way… well, nothing. So why am I so interested in a conversation I was never and will never be a part of?
Assigning greatness… deserved or otherwise… kills potential. It stifles the very notions of possibility that most of those albums inherently suggested and inspired in others. I mean, what's the point of recording a great album if the great album has already been written, right? Why write the next Great American Novel if Jonathan Franzen just did it last year? Etcetera. Maybe some unknown bar band in rural Oklahoma just recorded the undeniably greatest rock 'n' roll record of all time last month. Will we ever know about it? Will Pitchfork ever write about it? Maybe. Would any of us believe it? "How can it be, I thought OK Computer was already number one?" Maybe this is why Thom Yorke scowls every time an idiot journalist points out that Radiohead are more or less the most important band on the planet. Maybe we're all completely missing the point and just about always have?
We all love making Best Of lists… (see Editor's Note below)… almost as much as we all love reading and nitpicking them. In a way, they remind us that, at any given period in time, we all partook in the great universal experience that pop music provides. It's comforting to know that other people in faraway places felt the same way about Elephant and Yankee Hot Foxtrot that you did. But it's also a lie. In the end, no one hears OK Computer exactly the same way… no one experiences the exact same feelings when it comes on… no one remembers the exact same circumstances surrounding it. Meanwhile, when I listen to Rob Dougan's Furious Angels or Silverchair's Diorama and think, "Holy shit, this is the greatest album I've ever heard," am I wrong? Is Reality Bites even allowed to be my favorite movie of all time? Who picked these things for me? Why didn't I get to choose the greatest album of all time? When I put on my earbuds, aren't I the only one listening?
(Editor's Note: No matter what this idiot writes, says, does or doesn't make you believe, he is personally responsible for as many if not more Top 10 and Best Of lists as your average professional music geek. Therefore, whatever point he may or may not have, he is, ultimately, part of the problem and not the solution. Carry on.)
4.
Reality Bites isn't my favorite movie of all time anymore. Just like Citizen Kane isn't (at least according to Sight & Sound) the greatest film of all time anymore. Maybe Radiohead's OK Computer won't be our generation's album of choice forever, either. But in the meantime, endlessly over-recognizing it or any other perceived work of genius rather than just listening to it and engaging with it does no one and nothing any good. I can almost guarantee that the same individuals who'll proclaim the greatness of OK Computer or Kid A or Arcade Fire's Funeral until they're blue in the face will, when it comes down to it, put something else on the stereo more often than not. The easiest way to kill a great record is to call it great. No one hears Radiohead's third album anymore… they hear OK Computer the great and powerful. They hear an indispensable classic. If they don't, they're suddenly members of a minority of idiots who just simply don't "get it." When what we're told we're supposed to hear starts overtaking what we actually hear… even if they're more or less the same thing… haven't we really done something wrong here? Is there any way back?
5.
I don't want to accuse Pitchfork of single-handedly killing the Best Of list. I feel like maybe it's been on its last legs for a while now. Maybe the real reason I find The People's List so devastatingly disappointing is because, well, nothing in it surprises me. Nothing challenges me, nothing infuriates me, nothing inspires me. It's as though Pitchfork's list is a looking glass through which I'm aghast to discover that my generation's entire well of thought and creativity and potential has already been sucked dry. Is it even worth the effort to listen to music and like what I like if history will ultimately prove me right or wrong about it?
Is it even humanly possible, in this world of Top 10 Lists and Best Albums Of The Blah Blah Blah features to genuinely dislike OK Computer without being a postured douchebag? You know… that guy? Is it even really worth being anyone or doing anything at all if it's really up to society to decide whether I've accomplished anything of worth or value? Should I just sleep on the couch all day and eat Fruity Pebbles and watch old episodes of 120 Minutes and not bother giving a damn about the pop culture apocalypse blasting and booming all around me? Should I stop changing my socks? Stop petting my cat? Start caring about The Real World?
Maybe instead, I'll just calm down, stop rambling and just go listen to OK Computer, even though I already know what will happen when I do because it's the same thing that happens every time I hear it. I'll think, "Wow, this just may be the single greatest album recorded between the years 1996 and 2011!" Yeah. Maybe. But maybe not, too.
Follow on Ology: Brett Warner | MusicOlogy
Follow on Twitter: @Erasurehead | @Music_Ologists
Comments (2)