Pitchfork top 200 albums of the 2000s thread of IMPACT>QUALITY

[TakingBackSunday]

yep

[MyNameIsMethodis]

You forgot Hysteria

[Robo]

That's a bad example.  Linkin Park is pattern-based down to a formula, which is a problem with their reliance on a gimmick.  Muse has just been recreating Paranoid Android for the last decade, but they're not formulaic in how they go about doing it (lyrics aside).  To their credit, lately they've been switching it up a bit, which is nice even if the results haven't been any good.

[CajoleJuice]

I wish I could be bothered to argue for Muse, but their new album killed any chance for that.

[Robo]

That's a bad example.  Linkin Park is pattern-based down to a formula, which is a problem with their reliance on a gimmick.  Muse has just been recreating Paranoid Android for the last decade, but they're not formulaic in how they go about doing it (lyrics aside).  To their credit, lately they've been switching it up a bit, which is nice even if the results haven't been any good.

The only Muse song with a structure remotely similar to Paranoid Android is Citizen Erased, and the chord palettes are nothing alike.

That's not what I was getting at.

[CajoleJuice]

I agree, but I also don't give a shit about Pitchfork. And it's not like this is a surprise. They don't exact give glowing reviews to Muse albums.

[Phoenix Dark]

Still waiting for one example of great Muse songwriting. Perhaps I was being too outrageous with the LK comparison. But even their best songs still sound like run of the mill hard rock songs

[CajoleJuice]

I saw them on the same tour, GS. So awesome. I went with 6 other people to MSG, and they all loved it too -- even the couple of people who had never really listened to them before.

[CajoleJuice]

I remember that version of Sunburn. I was only really disappointed about no Citizen Erased.

[Positive Touch]

get a room, you two

[Trent Dole]

The new Muse record sounds a lot like Queen. A lot. To the point where there's no reason to listen to it when you can just listen to an actual Queen record.

[Phoenix Dark]

Still waiting for one example of great Muse songwriting. Perhaps I was being too outrageous with the LK comparison. But even their best songs still sound like run of the mill hard rock songs

What do you consider good songwriting? If you're talking about lyrics and poetic, Bob Dylan stuff with a strong message, then no, they aren't good songwriters. But they're brilliant instrumentally on OoS. And I'm not talking about boring Malmsteen-esque shredding; what I'm saying that the stuff they play on their instruments sounds really fucking good (to me). The riffs are intricate and hard-rocking, and they sound original. The different sections of the songs all work really well together. The melodies are good.

But you know, I could just be biased since I saw them live in 2007 and they completely blew me away.

A band that has nice songwriting without having particularly complex instrumental work is Nirvana. Cobain wasn't nearly as good of a guitarist as Cantrell, Cornell, Thayil, etc but he wrote better songs.

Jack White is a good song writer imo

[TakingBackSunday]

Jack White

[Mr. Gundam]

Pains of being Pure at Heart
The XX  
Bat for Lashes

That's my pitchfork friendly list for the year

The XX album is fantastic.

Yet again, Cohen rocks.