Ethan Predicts Pitchfork: The Verdict is In

I did pretty damn good people!


Ethan's predictions for Pitchfork's Top 12: (from earlier)

12. Deerhoof-Friend Opportunity
11. Jens Lekman-Night Falls on Kortedala
10. Burial-Untrue
9. Caribou-Andorra
8. Dan Deacon-Spiderman of the Rings
7. Battles-Mirrored
6. Radiohead-In Rainbows
5. Animal Collective-Strawberry Jam
4. M.I.A.-Kala
3. Kanye West-Graduation
2. Panda Bear-Person Pitch
1. Deerhunter-Cryptograms


Actual Pitchfork Top 12 + my commentary:

12. No Age-Weirdo Rippers (not on my list. I haven't heard this record, but I saw them live randomly at SXSW and was ridiculously unimpressed. Loud and stupid, but too hipster self-concious to be the kind of loud and stupid band that I like. This gets the 12 spot as the industry pick of the year, and yes, I'm sure they will have a "monster 2008." Also, again, I haven't heard this record, so maybe its good, but out of a loud rock duo, I almost don't care if your record is good if you suck live.)

11. Jens Lekman-Night Falls on Kortedala (got it! booyah! Fun record, with good parts to it, but no grand statement. Incredibly competant to the point where its way past competant. Totally an 11.)

10. Burial-Untrue (got it again! booyah! This record had the 10 slot written all over it. Released late in the year, sort of a weird genre thing going on.)

9. The Field-From Here We Go Sublime (Didn't get this one. Should have. Pforks didn't want to be over the Kompakt thing yet (I think they are OK with being over it now) and Ryan Jones had mentioned this album as a winner to me. The combo should have let me know it was lower half of the top 10 material.)

8. Battles-In Mirrors (-1 from my guess. Sometimes a band makes it cause they've got "the sound". These guys had "the sound". It sounded futuristic, because they used chaos pads in math rock along with other traditionally heavier math rock guitar pedals. I saw them live and thought it was OK. A little bit of wanky overload as far as guys playing keyboard and guitar at the same time, but thats a personality thing. My main gripe is a total over-reliance on the upbeat. Every fucking song. That second track, which is their best one IMO, works the best becaues it sticks the accented upbeat on the high hat so its less pronounced/in your face obvious /eventually monotonous. This was my pick for "Record I was into for a couple days but then over" of the year)

7. Spoon-Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (not on my list. I guess I forgot that every Spoon album makes it into the Pfork Top 10. I think I forgot because I forgot about this album. Pfork loves to call Spoon a slow burn band or whatever, but the slow burn was always in the simplicity. What I heard of this record did away with too much of the structural simplicity to get that effect, IMO. I didn't listen to it that much, but sorry, "Underdog" is no "The Way We Get By" or "I Turned My Camera On" or "Small Stakes" or even "Sister Jack." There is no hit on this record, and Spoon is the type of band where if there is not a hit on their record, the record probably isnt that good. This band is over, and shame on Pfork for figuring it out one album late (they will figure it out by the next one. Hindsight is telling me "I Turned My Camera On" will be the last great song Spoon ever writes. I would compare it to "Start Me Up" by The Rolling Stones, which came out in '81))

6. Animal Collective-Strawberry Jam (+1...I didn't listen to this record, but something was telling me this one was a 6, which was the other reason I felt weird moving the Radiohead album down. If I had stuck with my guns I probably would have gotten both of those on the money.)

5. Of Montreal-Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? (not on my list. This record sucks. It collapses under its own weight. I saw it live and it sucked live too for the same reasons, minus the costumes, which werent as cool as when I saw Gwar. Although "Satanic Panic In the Attic" is the only one I love straight through, Until this record I could always count on liking a few of the tracks on any given Of Montreal album. That said, I think I will end up liking their next one.)

4. Radiohead-In Rainbows (-2...Originally on my list I had this in the 4 slot and I think Shane got me to change it by suggesting "really, you think they will have it all the way up there?" Pfork gave HTTT a 9.3 and the 4 slot in '04 and the way they treat Radiohead, there was no reason to think after they gave In Rainbows a 9.3 they wouldn't give it the 4 slot also. This would have likely fixed the AC pick too. I really liked this record the first few times I heard it, but I need to go back and listen to it more to figure out my real feelings on it. Luckily, I've got 9 more days in Hawaii ahead of me, I'm sure I'll find some time to do that.)

3. M.I.A.-Kala (+1. Didn't listen to this record. Heard tracks at parties and coffee shops and they seemed good, but M.I.A. has never really been my thing. I think I would like her if I met her though.)

2. LCD Soundsystem-Sound of Silver (not listed, though it was #5 on my list culled strictly from Pfork BNM. I am surprised they stuck it up all the way this far. Its a great album that I was really really into the first 3 days it came out. That said, I think some of the For example, the Steve Reich comparison is obvious, but when you actually listen to that track (with the piano at the beginning...track 5 i think), its more fake Steve Reich than real Steve Reich. Now, I'm sure James Murphy knows the difference, and he was tripping out with the volume as much as with the pattern, but it was something I found not as cool as at first on repeated listens. Still, I dig this record alot.)

1. Panda Bear-Person Pitch (+1 --- I'm comfortable with this pick as the number 1...and wasn't too far off. This record is cool and seems to be a good fit to be Pforks numero uno.)

Conclusion: I guessed 6 of the top 12 to within one spot, and 7 of the top 12 to within 2 spots. The other 5 I missed completely, but still not bad. I'm not sure why I didn't stick LCD in there somewhere, though if I had, it probably wouldnt have been as far up as 2 and would have thrown my list off a bit further. In hindsight, I should have been able to guess that Caribou wouldn't have made Pforks top 12, it reaked of 20-30, but I really dug that record and was listening to it when I made the list, so there you go. In many ways, its similar to the LCD Soundsystem record, the way they approach the tracks---where each one has an idea with a tie to a direct artist or idea of sorts (Steve Reich, Arthur Russell, heavy psych, Brian Wilson) but at the end of the day, every track sounds like LCD (well, DFA) or Caribou (the ever present double drumming).


More about the other misses.
The Deerhunter record is amazing. It was my number 1. I had reservations on guessing it as the pfork number one, because they couldn't look past the hype (insert ironic observation here) to see an actually great record. This record came out in February or something and there was just too much time and too much going on for it not to end up suffering from backlash. If this record had been released 2 months ago, I think it would have made number 1. They are great live, too.

Re: Kanye's record. I haven't listened to it, and I didn't like the "Harder, Faster, Better, Stronger" track, so maybe guessing 3 on this one was preventable, but hey, the cover art sold me.

Dan Deacon-I didn't really listen to this record and what I heard I didn't like. Also I saw him live and wasn't that into it. So why guess him to have written Pforks 8th best record of the year? Becaues of the Pfork hard on for "epicness" which is defined as "I-V-I-V-I-V-I-V" at a slow and epic pace.

Deerhoof-I could have been able to guess that this one would fall between 15-25 (i think it was 32 or something). It has a quality about it where you are over it, (like all their records) but if you go back to it not having listened to it in a while I think it is a logical extention for a maturation of this band, and I mean that as a compliment. The trick is what they do after this record.