My Decade in Music So Far: Ian Cohen

This week, Pitchfork shared lists featuring the best albums and tracks of the decade so far. We asked Pitchfork writers and editors to share a favorite song and album that didn't make the list, along with a music highlight and their personal Top 10s or 20s. Check back for more installments of My Decade in Music So Far.

Das Racist: Sit Down, Man [self-released]

Yeah, the Hotelier and Joyce Manor are ranked higher, but if you want to hear me yap even more about how egregiously they're being overlooked and underrated by self-described "indie rock" fans, here's my Twitter handle - @en_cohen. We'll meet every three hours or so, bring a snack.

But I suppose it'd be more worthwhile to discuss a record whose exclusion is disappointing because I felt it actually had a shot. I'll admit that I haven't bought a CD since 2006 and you can't even own a physical copy of Sit Down, Man anyway. Yet, this was the album that most provided the closest thing to a '90s-style listening experience for me in the new decade. Kool A.D.'s line "Saw the cover of the tape, figured it's pretty wack/ Later on, eventually admitted that it's pretty crack" summed up my feelings towards Shut Up, Dude and by the time I'd come around to its erratic charms (such as the metadata error that resulted in "Fake Patois"), the announcement of Sit Down, Man had me doing the virtual equivalent of sleeping outside the Sam Goody...i.e., refreshing the Mishka website every half hour or so. To the point where I was furious—fucking livid—about how it wasn't available by the time I had to go to work. It recalled that fateful Monday when I learned Tuesday was the industry "street date", having implored that poor Coconuts clerk to just sell me a copy of Primus' Tales from the Punchbowl when they clearly had it in stock behind the counter (that guy was looking out for me, that record was ass).

And when I finally did get that download with all of its annoying, lowercase stylization and full-credit tags, I did the virtual equivalent of burning CDs for my friends so we could all discuss it in real time—i.e., having about five different Gchat and AIM windows open at any given time, more or less just quoting lyrics to people who had even the most vague interest. Underrated in the game like Mark Ruffalo! These rappers wack as the movie Wackness! Which is the worst movie I ever paid money to see! All that smart shit that's actually stupid and vice versa. Most of us weren't on Twitter yet, so the idea that someone could revere DipSet and revile Dinesh DiSouza in the span of thirty seconds or so felt like tremendous validation—it wasn't joke rap or conscious rap, these were real, coherent songs with hooks and such and production from guys who worked on Drake and DMX albums. A friend of mine called it the "Cohencyclopedia" and it was borderline frightening to hear something that so ostensibly lived in my brain, right down to the fact that it resented me in a not-so subtle way.

Unfortunately, Das Racist's collective output since has made it pretty clear that, while they're likely to do something special in the future, it probably won't be in hip-hop. And perhaps that hurt its cause in the voting process; I'm disappointed because its exclusion means it's weirdly underrated now. Yet, for the fact that it was beholden to no trend and never saw its influence result in watered-down imitations, it sounds fresher to me than most of the admittedly great hip-hop records that did make this list. As much as I love Flockaveli and Finally Rich and Pluto, it just makes me remember what it was like to go to the gym in their respective years. While compiling my ballot, I gave Sit Down, Man another spin, and we were embarking upon the Shittiest August Ever; religious conflicts, class conflicts, race conflicts, otherness, the police, the military—you fucking name it, it's all out there making you feel like shit. And last Sunday, feeling completely fucking helpless, I said fuck it and watched Step Brothers to get my mind off everything and missed Das Racist more than ever. If anyone could write about that stuff while slipping in a Jay Nixon slant rhyme with "Catalina Wine Mixer," it's them and only them.

The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die: "Picture of a Tree That Doesn't Look Okay" [Topshelf]

If you're one of the poor souls who's still itching to expose the nefarious intentions of "indie" publications covering emo, I'm just gonna spell it out for you so you can stop making an ass out of yourself saying anyone ever has or ever will rep it just to be "cool"—1) from 2003-2010, most everything described as "emo" sounded nothing like indie rock. 2) In 2011, most of the bands you read about now were still figuring things out—compare any of their 2011-2012 debuts to their sophomore albums and you'll see what I mean. 3) Most of the labels and other entities responsible for their promotion on a mass scale were still figuring things out. 4) Just about everyone who writes about this stuff was still figuring things out and weren't in the same position. In 2013, none of those things were true anymore. That's it. Got it?

Well, we can also take into account that energy, strident hooks, raw emotion, a desire to interact with a younger, more enthusiastic fanbase and an actual DIY aesthetic had no place in "indie rock" anymore—there's maybe five punk records on our list, tops, and is Tame Impala the hardest rock band in the Top 20? That's a huge void and The World is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die seemed like the first band big enough to fill it. For one thing, their erratic output never resulted in an LP, so prior to 2013, there was still mystery as to what they'd be capable of putting together. A post on Topshelf's Tumblr fretted over the leak of Whenever, If Ever, which usually only happens with huge releases—but something special was afoot with this record, validated by its frankly startling appearance on the Billboard 200. And more than that, the name could be worn like a badge of honor—fuck yeah, that's the name, as if it's more embarrassing than the all-caps stylization. Same with the vocals, same with the song titles—this was "indie rock" in its purest form, but it was also, clearly in the lineage of music that had been written out of indie rock's history.

"Picture of a Tree That Doesn't Look Okay" is not my favorite song from this scene—Everyone Everywhere's "I Feel Exhausted" ranked a little higher, the Hotelier's "An Introduction to the Album" did as well. But if I'm going to pick a four-minute time capsule that explains why this happened and how, it's this one. This felt like the first time fans and writers from different mindsets and cities seemed to find each other, put together a little huddle and say, "This is the one, right?" In retrospect, "Picture of a Tree That Doesn't Look Okay" does seem like a signature song not only for TWIABP, but for their entire scene as well, even the song's progression is symbolic—it starts out a little fidgety and slow, kinda insular ("do you think the landlord's pissed?"). But at a certain point, everything clicks and the band accumulates confidence in perpetual motion—they're not going to be ignored, they're shooting for something bigger than the basement and they want everyone to join in. When I reviewed Whenever, If Ever, I assumed its relative lack of attention would prevent it from achieving the sort of legendary status now granted to Fevers and Mirrors and Funeral. My only hope is that when the full decade list comes around, there are some younger Pitchfork writers telling my I sold it way short.

Musical Highlight of the Last Five Years: Has anyone given more and asked less than Lil B? I can't imagine this decade without him, not when the BasedGod was responsible for a magical, life-affirming moment every couple of months—seeing the YouTube for "Look Like Jesus" and sending it to my coworkers who just sloughed it off and probably watched some Funny or Die video instead. Not gonna lie, watching my dog wag its tail to the video for "30 Thousand 100 Million" got me through a really low period of my life. "Swag Jerry Rice" got me through a particularly wonderful period of my life. I live-Tweeted his announcement at Coachella that his new album would be called I'm Gay, and it's the closest thing I've had to a real "scoop" in my journalistic career. Ah, the brief period where NFL players would do the cooking dance as a touchdown celebration. He's the first musician that ever caused me to get dumped, at least for two days—the culprit was a #based iTunes playlist that included songs such as "Suck My Dick Hoe" and "Violate That Bitch", and to be fair, trying to explain that they weren't self-explanatory probably made things worse. Oh, and "FUUUUUUCK KEVIN DURANT".

Thing is, none of these are really full songs or albums, i.e., the very things that we made these lists to quantify. Truth be told, his Pretty Boy Millionaires split with Soulja Boy is the only mixtape of his I've listened to in full more than once. I have zero Lil B songs on my iPod because they sound like shit on anything besides a computer. Hell, I don't even listen to the entirety of most Lil B songs I like. The second verse of "Justin Bieber" doesn't really take us anywhere new, does it?

Putting together these lists is fun and also obviously selfish—we aspire to present not just our favorite songs, but artists that mattered. And my concern was that some bored kid in a college library in 2019 would look at this list, trying to get a sense of what it was like to be a discerning music consumer in the first part of the decade and miss out on Lil B completely. So when my colleagues managed to put "Wonton Soup" at #168, it almost made up for the fact that they collectively think there are 28 albums in the past decade that are better than Celebration Rock. Almost.

Favorite Albums of 2010-2014:

1. Japandroids: Celebration Rock
2. Kanye West: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
3. Drake: Take Care
4. Kendrick Lamar: good kid, m.A.A.d city
5. The Hotelier: Home, Like NoPlace Is There
6. Sun Kil Moon: Benji
7. Titus Andronicus: The Monitor
8. Tame Impala: Lonerism
9. Kanye West: Yeezus
10. Joyce Manor: Never Hungover Again
11. Deafheaven: Sunbather
12. M83: Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
13. Cloud Nothings: Attack on Memory
14. Das Racist: Sit Down, Man
15. How to Dress Well: "What Is This Heart?"
16. How to Dress Well: Love Remains
17. The War on Drugs: Lost in the Dream
18. The National: High Violet
19. The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die: Whenever, If Ever
20. These New Puritans: Hidden

Favorite Tracks of 2010-2014:

1. Japandroids: "Fire's Highway"
2. Japandroids: "The House That Heaven Built"
3. The Hotelier: "An Introduction to the Album"
4. Japandroids: "Adrenaline Nightshift"
5. Abe Vigoda: "Crush"
6. Japandroids: "Younger Us"
7. Kanye West: "POWER" [ft. Dwele]
8. Japandroids: "Continuous Thunder"
9. Crash of Rhinos: "Opener"
10. Soulja Boy: "Zan With That Lean"
11. The 1975: "Sex"
12. Deafheaven: "Dreamhouse"
13. Autre Ne Veut: "Play by Play"
14. M83: "Steve McQueen"
15. Future: "Same Damn Time"
16. Bombay Bicycle Club: "Lights Out, Words Gone"
17. Everyone Everywhere: "I Feel Exhausted"
18. Cloud Nothings: "I'm Not Part of Me"
19. Kendrick Lamar: "Bitch, Don't Kill My Vibe"
20. Beach Slang: "Filthy Luck"