Hi everyone, Anthony Fantano here, internet's busiest music nerd, and welcome to another fun ranking video where I am going to go over, interestingly enough, and rank every single music project, album, what have you, that got a 10 out of 10 or a 10.0 rating on the infamous and polarizing music publication Pitchfork Media dot net.

I thought this would be a fun thing to do because you guys seem to like the rankings and the tier lists on this channel, but also, recently, I got a hold of the literal memoir of Mr. Ryan Schreiber himself, which is actually not set to come out until December, but I've already read it cover to cover.

I have a lot to say about the book, honestly. However, I'm not going to dive into all of my thoughts on it until its actual release.

In the meantime, I thought it could be fun to do a ranking of all of their 10 out of 10 albums, especially since now, after having read this, I have maybe at least a little bit more insight into what went into the decision making behind these ratings.

Because I'm not simply going to be ranking these albums based upon what I perceive to be the quality level according to my taste, but also taking into account whether or not I think the literal endorsement of these records on this level is worth it or interesting.

Okay, so with that, we have the tier list over here.

And I want to say from the outset, upon release, they've only seen fit to give perfect ratings to 11 projects, which, that is not a lot of albums. Which I'm just framing to say, like, they've been reviewing music and criticizing music for much longer than I have and have shown to be much more sparing with their perfect 10.0 ratings than even I am with the 10.

However, this is a philosophy I totally sympathize with. I don't really feel like, as a critic, you should be giving out 10s like candy. They are a special occasion. They are for records that you personally feel like are landmark moments creatively, as well as culturally. But I will say, in the case of Pitchfork, I do feel like one tends to influence them, these days, a little bit more than the other. And that does bug me a little bit personally, but we're going to get into exactly that with this list right here.

Let's start.

Okay, let's get into the first 10 out of 10, which I know some people watching this are going to be like, "What the hell is this?" That would be the Walt Mink record El Producto. Now, I will say in defense of this 10 out of 10, for a little bit of background here, Pitchfork, when giving perfect scores back in the day before the site was even called Pitchfork, really was only working on the metric of, "is this a skipless album? Does this album, according to us, have no songs whatsoever that we would even consider skipping?"

And also, a lot of the site's coverage at the time was like that of a local indie zine, but we're just kind of doing what they were doing online.

So when the site was first getting started, they weren't really thinking per se in terms of like, "oh, what are the biggest, most culturally relevant albums out there that we need to endorse and get behind to sort of build these hype cycles and so on and so forth?"

That would sort of be a voice and a mindset that would come much later in the site's history. And as a result of that, you have random early releases like this from the late '90s that you're giving a perfect score to, again, merely because, according to Ryan and company at the time, they had no skips.

Now, with that being said, um, I can get behind and admire Pitchfork gearing things more toward underground releases and local releases during the site's earliest days. But as far as no skips goes, I do not feel like Walt Mink's El Producto lives up to even that metric. I, in fact, would skip almost this entire thing. I feel like this is actually a pretty middling and uninteresting and unimpressive release on so many levels.

I mean, looking at a lot of Ryan's scores and writings over the years, you can tell that he has, like, a real passion for genres such as post-hardcore and emo, underground shades of indie rock, which Walt Mink most definitely exemplifies. However, there were way better releases and records at the time that this was dropping that sort of like reflect that style. To me, a lot of this record sounds like what you would get if They Might Be Giants came out with a post-hardcore album.

Meaning a post-hardcore album that doesn't sound very good and vocally is kind of annoying. So again, unfortunately, as much as I can get behind the idea of Pitchfork supporting some underground acts super early on, which is something that they still do to this day, I do not see the hubbub with this record. I'm going to put it in the D. Not liking this one very much.

Following this, we have the 12Rods, smaller project over here, it's like an EP, Gay?. Which this as well is very much sort of like on the you know, experimental indie post-hardcore side of things. And while I wouldn't say I'm in love with this one either and vocally do find it to be a little odd and grating, I think what 12Rods was getting at on this project is actually a lot more adventurous and interesting. There's some genuinely weird and left field and out there sort of like sounds and slow guitar passages and ideas that you typically wouldn't hear on records in this style.

Also, I would say what 12Rods was doing on here, as underwhelming as it is in some pockets for me, like, this record sounds the most like something that I feel like I would hear an underground band randomly doing today.

I mean, even if I'm not vibing with the idea of slapping this thing with a perfect 10.0 rating, what 12Rods, and Pitchfork, was doing here with the endorsement on some level felt at least like a little bit predictive with maybe, like, what you might hear some weird emo-adjacent Bandcamp bands doing these days with some of their releases. So I'm going to put this one over in C. I feel like it's a fine endorsement. It's palatable. It's acceptable. I can rock with it a little bit.

Okay, next we are moving on to a more familiar territory. That would be Radiohead's OK Computer. And yeah, I mean, look, I have famously said OK Computer is, like, my favorite Radiohead record, or at least the one that I feel like is their best, given the quality of the production, the songwriting, how sort of cutting edge it was for its time and how influential it proved to be down the road.

I feel like slapping this one with a 10 out of 10, it's not, like, the most exciting prospect in the world, but it's a totally sensible choice, I think, for a music site to make and the correct choice, looking back for Pitchfork, as big as Radiohead was at the time and as positive as the response was to this record at the record at the time. This album could have easily, like, become something that washed out with the sands of time completely and held no water, no influence whatsoever in the coming years. But Pitchfork very much made the right call in giving this a perfect 10 rating. I can put this in the A column. No, no issues, no qualms there, really.

Next, we have the record Bricolage from Amon Tobin. Legendary name ome in the IDM scene and in underground electronic music. And Pitchfork endorsed his debut full-length album with a perfect 10 out of 10 rating, which is a decision that I feel like I'm not really all that crazy about, honestly, given the time period that this record came out and given what I think a lot of people would say are much more interesting and just overall better and more adventurous albums that would drop immediately in the the aftermath of this record.

While I definitely appreciate the record's fusions of jazz and IDM, there were loads of different artists who had already sort of, like, combined these sounds in a myriad of interesting ways that to my ears required a lot more skill, a lot more jazz chops and production chops.

I mean, Squarepusher's Hard Normal Daddy dropped the same year as this, and his debut, which I like more than this record, dropped the prior year.

Not that you can't enjoy both or anybody else who was kind of bringing together IDM and jazz at the time.

Look, it's a likable record. And I could understand at the time that there might be some people who would be totally in the tank for this project.

And I'm not denying that it's enjoyable as well. But again, given the context it was born out of, I just have a hard time seeing how it could possibly be, like, the most perfect and exciting thing that's working with the ideas that it is specifically. So that's why I think I'm going to put it in the B row. I'm going to throw it over in B. It's fine. In fact, it's pretty good.

All right, let's move on to the next perfect 10 score that Pitchfork dropped. That would be The Soft Bulletin, Flaming Lips, which I will say, for the record, isn't even my favorite Flaming Lips project from this era. I do prefer Yoshimi to this album. But that doesn't mean, for its time period, that I am against the idea of having given this album a 10 out of 10.

I mean, at the time that this record dropped, I could totally see how music writers would freak out over the kind of extravagant, psychedelic, baroque, heavily arranged experience that the Flaming Lips were offering on this record.

It's very over the top. It's very fun. It's very inventive, but also borrowing very clearly from a lot of classic works and psychedelic rock and pop in the past.

Kind of reviving them in a really sort of futuristic and daring way. In my opinion, this is definitely one of the cooler 10 out of 10s that Pitchfork has given over the years.

Again, even if I do have other preferences in the Flaming Lips catalog. And there are moments where I do feel like the rawness and the nakedness of Wayne's voice, along with the heavy orchestrations, does lead to some of these songs feeling almost, like, really weird, trippy tunes and ballads that you would hear during an episode of The Muppet Show.

Still, I do mess with The Soft Bulletin. I do feel like The Soft Bulletin is a very enjoyable album and, frankly, a cool record to give a perfect score to. I'm going to throw this in the S just because the S is looking a little lonely right now, and this is the most positive I've been about one of the perfect scores.

Next in the list here, we have the 1999 album from Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, I See a Darkness. What many see to be a classic sort of on the underground singer-songwriter and indie folk circuit in the late 90s.

In fact, if it weren't for Pitchfork's endorsement of records like this and that burgeoning scene around the time in the late 90s and the early 2000s, I don't know if we would get a lot of the artists that we did or at least, the healthy audience sizes that many of them saw through the 2000s.

Because of that, figures like Will Oldham, I think, will, forever have like a legend status to him. With that being said, though, I do have my preferences and wouldn't call myself a Bonnie 'Prince' Billy guy by any stretch of the imagination, which is crazy to me considering how many artists I enjoy that share so much creatively, lyrically, aesthetically with Will and his music. I mean, I love Bill Callahan, for example, even his new record, which I enjoyed so much more than Will's latest.

And I think I enjoyed the Smog record that dropped the same year this album did a lot more too. So I mean, look, I would say I'm very much not rating this endorsement here based on preference or anything like that, because I think a lot of the instrumentation and the songs on this record are a little drab, though, I do acknowledge the fact that they very much live up to the title of the album and the clear emotional intent of it.

I would give it a B. I'm going to put it in the B, as much as there's going to be a lot of people that hate that.

After this, we have the legendary perfect rating for the Radiohead album, Kid A, a review that many, even Ryan himself in his memoir acknowledges kind of the rating and the review that really put the site on the map, gave them their biggest spike of traffic at the time and sort of solidified them as a, important and influential voice when it comes to criticism in the the online age.

While I very much sort of prefer a record like OK Computer to Kid A, I could see what Pitchfork was doing with this endorsement. Like, the album does have a very kind of futuristic experimental tone to it that I think is admirable, that I think is worthy of endorsement, even if like, there are some things about what it was doing that in retrospect are, like, a little bit pedestrian with respect to like, making a rock album with electronic elements worked in.

I feel like if you were more tuned in to some of Radiohead's influences on the electronic music side for this record, you wouldn't find some of what they were doing on this record to be as novel as it was portrayed by many publications, not just Pitchfork. But still, with that being said, I do feel like slapping this with a perfect score, at least from their perspective, was another sensible choice. I'm going to put this over in the A.

Okay, after this, we have Source Tags and Codes, Trail of Dead, or rather, ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, that's the band's entire name.

And it's kind of funny, for years, this score, the reasoning behind it kind of eluded me. Even going back to reading the review, there was such kind of a disconnect between how glowing the coverage of this album was on Pitchfork's site, and then you look at the fact that, like, almost nobody talks about this album these days.

And apparently, people didn't really talk about it all that much at the time that it came out, either. At least that's what I came to learn by reading this book.

Because yeah, apparently Pitchfork, after the Radiohead review and the hubbub that that stirred up being a perfect score and all, decided to kind of give this record a perfect score as well, kind of anticipating that it would elicit a similar reaction, and it didn't. This thing went up like a lead balloon.

Understandably so. I mean, I feel like what Trail of Dead is doing on this record almost kind of harkens back a little bit to the two first perfect scores that Ryan had given on the site, because they're very much kind of like operating in that post-hardcore sphere. But frankly, when it comes to that style of music, I feel like Trail of Dead, even at their best, kind of stunk. It's really not that good. It's really not that good at all. I even find some of the Fugazi comparisons that have been made with this record to be kind of borderline offensive.

The writing, the guitar work, the vocals are nowhere near as good, even if they actually are, literally, inspired by that band. Yeah, I've just always found Trail of Dead to make just very annoying, grating rock music that I just cannot get into at all.

And the perfect score on this, honestly, even from Pitchfork's perspective around this time, perplexes me. You can actually even look at the blurb for this album on their year-end list, because despite the fact that it was a perfect score, it landed underneath Turn on the Bright Lights, which did not get a perfect score the year that it dropped. And you could see in that blurb that there is like a bit of a buyer's remorse, like, 'oh, did we fuck up by giving this a perfect score?' And the answer is yes, you did, because this album is not good. It's not that good.

I would put this over in...I'm gonna put it in E, honestly. I'm putting it over in the E. Maybe in some ways it is a little bit better than Walt Mink over here. But I feel like with the experience that Pitchfork had at this point in the game, it should have been known, it should have been clear, that giving this a 10 out of 10 was a bad idea, and it was not gonna hit in the same way that Radiohead did.

After this, we have Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, a record that, on a personal level, I will say, is a little overrated. I do think Summer Teeth, by comparison, is a little bit more rockin' and enjoyable to listen to. But with that being said, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is a perfectly palatable, enjoyable sweet little album.

Also got a 10 out of 10 rating the same year that Trail of Dead did over here. And of course, again, Turn On The Bright Lights did not get a 10 out of 10. And yet, this record landed at number two underneath Interpol. I mean, Pitchfork's year-end lists have always been, sort of, culminated via everybody's opinion who worked on the site behind the scenes. So it's not all just, like, to the decision-making of one single person, of course.

With that being said, to me, it sort of takes the wind out of the sails of an album you're giving a perfect score to, and then you're kind of turning around and saying, "no, actually, this other album that's not quite perfect, that one's going above this one." Look, I've been in that position here and there as well on occasion. I believe there have been instances where I have put, Charli's self-titled 2019 album over Kids See Ghosts, for example.

So I mean, I get it. We're comparing great albums to great albums here. It's still a very enjoyable record, and I appreciate what Wilco was doing at this point in their career, taking the risks that they were with a darker and more mellow songwriting turn, which their label at the time really was not messing with, which caused them to have to break ties at the time, if I'm remembering correctly.

Perfectly fine endorsement. I think it's a sweet little album. Again, I would put Pitchfork's riding for this record over in B, even if it's not like, the best indie full album of the, the time period. Certainly, I think The Glow Pt. 2 is far more interesting, but what are you going to do?

Okay, following this, of course, we have The Big Mama: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Yes, the legendary 10.0 for Kanye's magnum opus.

However, yeah, I still don't really get it. Look, there's an extravagance and an opulence to this record that I most definitely understand people being drawn to, but I've also read in this book that if it were not for the fact that Pitchfork is so sparing with their 10 out of 10s, they would have also given Yeezus a 10. Which, at least from the perspective of Yeezus being more experimental and taking much more risks and being more adventurous, I could kind of get for a site like Pitchfork. I could see that album getting a 10 out of 10 in terms of its ethos.

This album, I can't quite see, especially with some of the deep cuts being as doo-doo as they are. And honestly, I think the record has grown at least a little bit more boring over the years, in my opinion, even if there are still moments that get a rise out of people and are definitely classics, undeniably, like "Runaway."

Yeah, I'm going to throw this over in the C. I don't really find it to be that interesting of a 10 out of 10 endorsement.

And then finally, we have the latest 10 out of 10 that Pitchfork has given, and that is their perfect review for Fiona Apple's Fetch the Bolt Cutters, an album that I certainly have been lambasted for reviewing positively, but not too positively.

Yeah, honestly, I still, to this day, don't think the album is anywhere near perfect, and I do think it is one of her weaker records. However, I could see how some people would be riding for this at, like, a 10 out of 10 level.

On the songwriting front, you absolutely should be sort of like, preferring When the Pawn... or even Idler Wheel over this project. But, with that being said, the rawness with which Fiona approaches some subject matters lyrically on this record, combined with the very kind of unique DIY at-home rickety production, does make it a very unique experience and listen in her catalog.

And if those things are really kind of, like, scratching certain areas in your brain, then maybe this is a perfect album to you. Maybe this is your Fiona Apple 10 out of 10. I do think Pitchfork sort of bought into the excitement around the fact that it had been so long since the last Fiona record a little bit. And were maybe a little bit more flattering towards some of those production choices than I certainly was because while they do make this a unique listen in her catalog, in the grander scheme of things, do they make for a great sonic experience? Not really.

But again, I do see the appeal. Of course, I see the appeal because I did give the album a mostly positive review. It's not like the record has no merits to it whatsoever. And even a weak Fiona Apple album is a pretty great one by most metrics, anyway.

I feel like, I feel like I could put this over in the B row as far as a perfect 10 out of 10 endorsement. But yeah, there you go.

Seems I'm kind of mostly in agreement with a lot of Pitchfork's endorsements over the years, even the records in the B column, which I wouldn't personally give a 10 out of 10. I wouldn't necessarily protest aggressively.

If you mess with those records that hard, totally fine. Definitely not without merit. But everything below that I'm kind of hitting with at least a little bit of a raised eyebrow.

What's more disturbing is all the albums that they could have given a 10 out of 10 to, but didn't. But maybe that's another video.

But yeah, those are my thoughts on all of these 10s.