Rawktumblr: "Important" records vs. "good" ones →
There seems to be some confusion about this A.V. Club piece. Here’s how I see it: certain records are able to make a broad splash on mass culture in terms of sonic influence, politics, style, etc., albums like Sgt. Pepper’s or Nevermind or OK Computer. Albums that try to push things forward….
Man, I am really not trying to fuck with a long Tumblr post, but a few things: I didn’t call or imply that the AV Club thing was “borderline sexist” (although, yeah dude, I think a lot of it is made up), and if you admit that artists can’t be as “Important” today as an act like The Beatles were and that the process might take 10 years, then what’s the point of the AV Club trying to pre-empt history based on (in my own opinion) their hastily constructed logic and criteria? There were albums this year that people “talked a lot about,” like Watch the Throne (as JakeC pointed out), w h o k i l l, Take Care, even freaking Goblin. Who decides what was better than something else in any given year? Metacritic? The Pazz & Jop voters? I really just don’t see the point in building up these albums as historical obelisks before the calendar has even changed to the next year, nor the point of “critical consensus” when it’s wielded like a cudgel and not a flashlight.
