Pitchfork is the music website that everyone reads but everyone pretends they don’t read. I don’t read it. I might be pretending. People seem to think that it’s the Rolling Stone of the Internet age. I disagree. I don’t think any magazine, traditional or non-, will ever have the kind of impact that Rolling Stone did in its heyday.

In the 60s & 70s, there were two kinds of people: hip and not hip. The hip stood in opposition to the not hip and vice versa. Rolling Stone (and Creem) brought the hip together. Maybe it was easier because there was not as much hip to discuss. Today, the various levels of hipness are just too disparate for any one magazine to collect. Hip people hate hip people and not hip people in equal measures.

But, I obviously wasn’t around in the 60s and 70s, so I can’t say for sure that my rose-colored view of history is correct. Probably, every time period is essentially the same, it just seems different to us because we are different. I’m sure there were plenty of people in the 60s who thought of the Beatles as mainstream bullshit.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to go to Pitchfork and see which albums received a perfect 10.0 on their rating system and which albums received a 0.0. You can do the same if you like. Here they are:

Albums receiving a perfect 10.0 from Pitchfork:

1. Bruce Springsteen: Born to Run–30th Anniversary Edition
2. Neutral Milk Hotel: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
3. DJ Shadow: Endtroducing… (deluxe edition)
4. Pavement: Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain–LA’s Desert Origins
5. The Clash: London Calling–25th Anniversary Edition
6. Boards of Canada: Music Has the Right to Children
7. James Brown: Live at the Apollo (expanded edition)
8. Various Artists: No Thanks!–The 70s Punk Rebellion
9. Glenn Branca: The Ascension
10. The Clash: The Essential Clash
11. Pavement: Slanted & Enchanted (Luxe & Reduxe)
12. Elvis Costello & the Attractions: This Year’s Model
13. Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
14. And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead: Source Tags and Codes
15. John Coltrane: The Olatunji Concert–The Last Live Recording
16. Bonnie “Prince” Billy: I See a Darkness
17. Flaming Lips: The Soft Bulletin
18. Miles Davis: Sketches of Spain
19. The Fall: This Nation’s Saving Grace
20. Iggy & the Stooges: Raw Power
21. Velvet Underground: Loaded
22. Miles Davis: Kind of Blue
23. 12 Rods: Gay?
24. Walt Mink: El Producto
25. Amon Tobin: Bricolage
26. The Who: Odds and Sods
27. Pink Floyd: Animals
28. Kiss: Alive!
29. Radiohead: OK Computer
30. Radiohead: Kid A

I’ve heard about 3/4 of these records and I would agree that a lot of them are great. It’s interesting to me how many of these are reissues of old albums. Which is, in my opinion, one of the fundamental problems with any kind of criticism: that it’s impossible to judge how a record/book/movie will stand up in history. It’s doubtful that, were Kiss: Alive! released today, Pitchfork would give it a 10.0. So what are you judging, exactly? Is it the music, or is it the object as a cultural benchmark? Discuss.

Here are the albums that Pitchfork rewarded with a perfect negative score of 0.0:

1. Travis Morrison: Travistan
2. Liz Phair: Liz Phair
3. Sonic Youth: NYC Ghosts and Flowers
4. Flaming Lips: Zaireeka
5. Francisco Lopez: Untitled #104
6. Kiss: Peter Criss solo
7. Kiss: Music from “The Elder”
8. Bachman-Turner Overdrive: Remastered Hits … the Best Of …
9. John Frusciante: Smile from the Streets You Hold

I have heard none of these albums, so I cannot comment. What’s their deal with Kiss, though? All right, I know they’re theatrical and fun and symbolic of something, but don’t they kind of just suck?