Best Albums of the Decade: A Roundup of Critic Lists

Paul, you've not only missed the point of this list, you've missed the point of musical taste in general, i.e. that it's subjective. Every critic/publication listed what were, and this is the key part, /in their opinion/ the top ten albums of the decade. The publications that didn't list, as you put it, more commercial albums obviously didn't consider them to be among the best ten of the decade qualitatively. It's as simple as that. All you're doing is bashing these critics because their (entirely subjective) taste, unsurprisingly, differs from yours.

The first 2 albums at least I agree with, though maybe I'd have switched them round. Kid A was like nothing else before, and incredibly beautiful, though it took a lot of getting used to. Arcade Fire was patently incredible, I know of very few albums where every single song is brilliant in itself.

I'll have to check out my gaps in that list some time.

I think Paul has a little too much free time to be writing such lengthy rants. If this is wrong then what is the best of the decade?

Teh Boss, what don't I understand? That Metacritic panders to a few and buries the truth in the fine print? It's true, I missed in the Best Albums and Artists of the Decade description where they said they mainly focus on Indie and Alternative and only have about 700 out of the year's 20,000 albums in their database. What a representative sampling! The point is that they weren't honest and didn't call the lists what they are. The "Best Indie and Alternative" lists. Why not? Are they ashamed to say that? If they had done that - and dropped the facade that the only reason they even index the major publications is to make them look more inclusive and, supposedly, more legitimate - they wouldn't have received nearly as much criticism as they did. Again, why try to pull the wool over people's eyes? There's plenty of mainstream sources they could have accessed if they REALLY wanted to do a comprehensive survey. The truth is that they slapped something together that they knew would appeal to their marketing target and put a phony title on it, pretending it was comprehensive.

As I said, in that other article, it's really surprising how lazy and deceptive they are on music, when they produced a best and worst movie list of the decade that was impressively exhaustive and thorough. Maybe they need to put the same emphasis on hiring music editors as they do movie editors.

As to my importance, Teh Peon, I'm sure when you wrote that you called up the stairs from your basement apartment to tell Mom how you really burned some guy on line. Then your Dad called down, "You're 30 years old, when are you going to get a job and move out?", and Mom called down, "and a girlfriend?", and you whined "Parents" and went back to your video games. I don't want to get into a flame war, but you should be prepared to take shots if you're going to give them, instead of engaging in intelligent debate.

But, I guess, one of us really understands what's going on and one of us doesn't. (BTW, I've done a little work in the media and have seen this all before.)

Paul, I don't think you understand just what it is Metacritic does. Also, I don't think you understand how extremely unimportant you are.

This breakdown just illustrates my criticism over in the "top albums and artists of the decade" section. Metacritic isn't trying to cover the whole range of music. It's just trying to appeal to a particular fad. In this case, the indie/alternative crowd, which is just a subset of the music scene, no matter how many time critics bleat it's "the music of the future". Look at the sources. Many of these critical lists are from incredibly narrow sources. (And thanks Han for the embarrassing revelation that Metacritic may have ignored Rhapsody's main list and posted the Alternative list instead.) For example, many of these lists remind me of the pre Michael Jackson days of MTV, where RWB was a crime. RWB? Recording While Black. Compare those clique lists to the lists from main stream sources, like EW and Rolling Stone. Heck, EW even gave props to the Dixie Chicks. You couldn't get some of these "pander to little, unpopular, white, pimply faced punks who think they're artistic and 'special' " sources to do that if you pointed a gun to their heads. (I mean, jeez, the UK Times even sited Britney Spears!?! Ridiculous, but it at least takes some courage.)

In other words, for these other fraudulent "sources", there can not possibly be any ground breaking or extremely satisfying happenings in music unless it's part of the hallowed "alternative" music scene, instead of the EVILLLLLL commercial music industry. (Not to mention the apparent impossibly of any worthwhile albums in, say, jazz or classical.) What a howl! As if everybody in the huge "Indie/Alternative" industry did it all for free. ROTFL! Yeah, right! It's all "monopoly money". And all of them live in lofts in NYC and not mansions in LA. LOL!

The sad truth is that real mavericks are rare. Kids who say they're rejecting the mainstream and being "unique" are often just joining a smaller clique to get back at the larger clique who rejected them. They're still sheep. It's just a smaller flock. It's a shame Metacritic doesn't have the courage to buck this crowd, and instead panders to it. Sheep!

Like I said in your best music of the decade "list", when you decide to do a REAL list, please let us know.

Meh...

Arcade Fire - Funeral is the Greatest album of all time. and Radiohead deserved that spot SOOOOO much.