Pitchfork’s ‘100 Greatest Rap Albums of All Time’ Might Be the Worst Rap List in History

Whether intentional or not, “The most trusted voice in music” trolled every person who clicked on the list.

(Envato)

Anybody with even a hint of listicle pedigree knows that the proper way to look at a list is to go straight to the title to see what the list is about, go straight to No. 1 to see if they either got it right or zagged but there’s an argument, scan the top 10 for things that make you go hmmmm, and if that feels off, you then find all of the things wrong with it. Pitchfork’s just released “100 Greatest Rap Albums of All Time,” a list that most any respectable music outlet has attempted at least once, is so dumbfounding in so many places that I almost think this list was a joke.

If it’s not a joke, Pitchfork should go ahead and retire from the list-making industry and stick to album reviews that read like they’re written by people who don’t actually listen to hip-hop.

So let’s just start with the first thing you see after the introduction, because it caught me so off guard that I immediately didn’t even need to see the top 10 because I knew this list was trash from “Hello.”

Snoop Doggy Dogg’s “Doggystyle” is the No. 100-ranked album on this list. To quote a good friend and fellow hip-hop nerd, there aren’t 100 albums better in ANY genre than “Doggystyle.” While the misogyny and nihilism and all the absolutely terrible things Snoop and co. did to the community and women throughout the album are indefensible, problematic, horrible (take your pick), if we’re just ranking it musically and by importance, “Doggystyle” is at least in the top 20, arguably in the top 10. My guess is that for most people who have enough actual hip-hop knowledge and life experience, this album would at least cause arguments. Placing it at 100, though?

Here are the 10 albums IMMEDIATELY in front of it. At 99, Duwap Kaine “Underdog”—bruh; (98) Foxy Brown “Broken Silence,” an album that got middling reviews upon its release in 2001 and nobody’s spoken about since; (97) Keith LeBlanc’s “Major Malfunction,” and no, you have no idea what this 1986 album sounds like and there’s no reason to go listen now, shouts out to Keith LeBlanc, but its not better than “Doggystyle.” You know what, I could probably literally do this for 80 albums on this list.

So, “Doggystyle” at 100 is literally the most egregious thing on this list. But let’s keep going.