"What's your favourite album?"

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Drawing heavily on that discussion we had on Poptimists a week or two ago, here's my latest Pitchfork column. I wanted something straightforward after last month's reaction-free one (which I'm still quite pleased with) and I appear instead to have accessed my inner Nick Hornby.

Comments

[koganbot]

the act of choosing them signifies a kind of allegiance to something. Ah, but what?

I can't say I've figured out my answer.

The album that I could feel unfettered allegiance to has never been made. It would have the fierce and desperate warm sounds of freestyle, the density of r&b, the rhythmic unsettledness and uncertainty of On The Corner, the heart and poetry of the Dolls, the passion of the Shangri-Las, the vulnerability of the early Wailers, the sketchiness and openness of ________ (can't think of a great one here, yet), the unrelenting critical mind of the Stones. I don't think it's possible to combine those things, and a mixtape that combined these bands isn't what I mean. I mean songs that did all this at once.

But favorites often confute allegiance. Read my comments on my 2007 Idolator ballot.