I've come to realize that I need to reevaluate all of the Pitchfork-hyped indie rock albums of the 00s era. Clearly a lot of indie rock albums once considered sacred have not held up, and a main reason is that Pitchfork had a tremendously outsize influence on tastemaking during this period.
>what indie rock albums would you say hold up even to this day, and deserve their seminal status?
>what albums were only popular due to astroturfing?
The Indie Rock Canon
Henry Powell
Jordan Rogers
Pitchfork has always been about rating albums on how trendy and marketable they are its not just 00s indie.
Joseph Perez
Illinois still holds up to this day and is easily my favorite indie album.
Dunno if it'd be indie rock specifically, but when I heard indie I think of that one.
Also Emergency & I is pretty good
Matthew Williams
Yellow House and Veckatimest are both excellent and Grizzly Bear in general deserve their status as critical darlings (last album kinda sucked though)
Vampire Weekend and Bon Iver have always been trash
Funeral is the only good Arcade Fire album but it's probably one of the 10 most important albums of the decade so they get a pass
Jeremiah Sanchez
still a 10/10
Luis Barnes
>grizzly bear good, vamp weekend bad
talk about splitting hairs
Jacob Miller
Indie rock is just a dumb 2000s fad no different from hair metal in the 80s or disco in the 70s.
Christian Reed
The ultimate miss from p4k, prove me wrong
Justin Anderson
This album is so great, I'm glad it's become a cult classic
I don't know user, they're pretty different to my ears. VW is way more pop oriented
Jayden Bennett
I don't think MGMT ever got a BNM for any of their releases
Leo Taylor
*blocks your path*
Mason Miller
Destroyers Rubies
The Noise Made By People
You In Reverse (Built to Spill)
Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone?
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Microcastle
Camden Ross
Funeral + The Suburbs still hold up completely
I'd say a lot of The Shins early stuff does as well but I see your point
Charles Bell
The first 3 New Pornographers albums
You Forgot It in People by Broken Social Scene
Thomas Flores
this
Asher Young
Grizzly Bear is absolute trash. Vampire Weekend actually has good music. You’re right about Bon Iver, so 1/3.
Adam White
Destroyer - Streethawk
The majority of the artists ITT do have at least one or two albums that hold up. Most of them also make trash these days though so I don’t think they can be redeemed easily.
Benjamin Roberts
The one you posted and Fleet Foxes' debut, maybe The Glow Pt 2 but it's definitely overrated and nowhere near as good as Mount Eerie
Can't think of much else apart from that. Some of AnCo's stuff if it counts as indie rock.
Carter Barnes
It seems there has been a backlash against the National and Wilco recently, their stuff is pleasant to listen to, but feels really uneventful.
Alexander Nelson
I have a soft spot for 90’s indie, and these should be in any list concerning it.
1. Perfect From Now On - Built to Spill
2. The Lonesome Crowded West - Modest Mouse
3. Emergency & I - The Dismemberment Plan
4. In The Aeroplane Over The Sea - Neutral Milk Hotel
5. WhatFunLifeWas - Bedhead
6. Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain - Pavement
7. Bee Thousand - Guided By Voices
8. I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One - Yo La Tengo
9. Icky Mettle - Archers of Loaf
10. Bandwagonesque - Teenage Fanclub
11. Seamokeys - The Wedding Present
12. Good Morning Spider - Sparklehorse
13. 69 Love Songs - The Magnetic Fields
14. Music from the Unrealized Film Script: Dusk at Cubist Castle - The Olivia Tremor Control
15. The White Birch - Codeine
Dylan Reed
I think Peter Bjorn And John deserve special reappraisal given they were unfortunate enough to be latched onto as the poster boys of indie hipsterdom in the second half of the 00s. Their first two albums in particular are a smashing blend of 60s/70s influences and lo-fi 90s garage rock.
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Their later albums include an experimental quasi-instrumental album called Seaside Rock that is one of my favourite albums to get stoned to on a chill summer night, and brief explorations with electronic percussion and unusual textures on Living Thing before returning to simple, gritty rock and roll on their sixth album.
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Levi Miller
In short, a whole lot more to them than that one fucking whistling song.
Oliver Moore
In 10 years everybody will think of those as classics again. Music is cyclical, because the evolution of taste is always done through a collective commentary on the previous generation and previous trends. What now seems corny and tired will become good to the fresh ears of the future. Art is useless.
Wyatt Martinez
Maximo Park deserve to be rated higher than most of their contemporaries in retrospect, especially their most recent few albums, they're still maintaining a cogent identity and sound long after their contemporaries have gone pop or dropped off the map e.g. Bloc Party, Kaiser Chiefs
Luis Davis
yeah you forgot the theme song to 2 broke girls
Joshua Adams
you and this strange opinion again. you are greatly overvaluing pitchforks influence on music during that time.
Anthony Rivera
Mclusky - Mclusky Do Dallas is the album from that period that holds up the most. It is the best album of the decade. Future Of The Left is good, but this is the best Andy Falkous album.
Adult. - Resuscitation and Anxiety Always are the two best electronic albums of the 00s. They got lumped in with the 80s nostalgia crap from around that time like Fischerspooner, but Adult. did it better and they changed from album to album, not always for the best (I sorta dig their PiL-influenced album Gimme Trouble but god damn is it abrasive). They're a band I got into around that time that I wish Yea Forums talked about more.
Spoon holds up. Girls Can Tell and Kill The Moonlight are the best, and overall they're pretty consistently good.
The New Pornographers first two albums are great front to back. Their "mature" sound on subsequent albums makes them less effortlessly enjoyable, but there are great songs peppered throughout.
Broadcast - Haha Sound is a great album I'd recommend to anybody. I'm one of the people who thinks Tender Buttons is even better but it's an acquired taste, since they didn't have that awesome drumming anymore.
Manitoba/Caribou is pretty great. Up In Flames and Andorra are the best. The Milk Of Human Kindness is perfectly fine but nothing on it particularly grabs me.