Outkast’s “Bombs Over Baghdad” is the greatest song of the past decade. That is, according to a recent list published by Pitchfork (the highly revered near-Bible of music websites) which details their top 500 songs of the noughties.
Unsurprisingly, the list adheres to the website’s customary focus on an eclectic range of artists. Accordingly, everyone from Kelly Clarkson to Jimmy Eat World makes an appearance, in a move likely to appease pop purists and indie aficionados alike.
In general, the top 10 is difficult to dispute, with its inclusion of a number of no-brainers (‘Crazy in Love’, ‘All My Friends’, ‘Get Ur Freak On’ et al). Nonetheless, further down on the list lies the occasional wtf moment.
The Rapture’s extraordinarily overrated ‘House of Jealous Lovers’ places as high as 16, while someone at Pitchfork clearly slept with a member of The Walkmen (a dire, meat and potatoes indie band if ever there was one), given that the band manage to secure a place in the top 20.
However, it is the veneration of Outkast’s song which is most baffling of all. Notwithstanding its status as a highly enjoyable, skilfully rapped and reasonably well-produced offering from the Atlanta Georgia duo, Pitchfork’s hyperbolic sentiments are patently overwrought. “The future-shocked ferocity of ‘B.O.B.’ is something that just cannot be duplicated,” they fawn.
And as indicated by the aforementioned proclamation, their reasoning for affording it such acclaim seems to be mainly due to its prescience. The song was released prior to September 11th and the Iraq war and thus, Pitchfork regarded it as a telling foreshadowing of the endless egregious acts which were set to occur throughout the decade.
While this insight may make a highly intriguing essay on pop culture and its relationship with the world of politics, it does not necessarily warrant ‘Bombs Over Baghdad’ being labelled as the greatest song of the noughties.
Moreover, some of the writer’s fanciful interpretations are practically comical. The refrain of the gospel group which features in the chorus apparently symbolises the imminent arrival of “a presidential administration of warmongering evangelicals”.
Such lazy and absurd theories have no place on a site that is often capable of eliciting astute opinions on its subject matter and which The New York Times recently described as the best online source for music criticism.
Indeed, its decision regarding ‘B.O.B.’ makes a mockery of the concept of music reviewing. Instead of judging the song on its own terms, the website has opted to attach pseudo-grandeur to its playful pronouncements.
They ignore the majority of music fans’ opinion that ‘B.O.B. ’ is not even Outkast’s best song – it peaked at a paltry number 69 in the US charts and performed similarly unspectacularly in Britain and Ireland. Furthermore, it falls someway short of both the poppy brilliance of ‘Ms Jackson’ and the beguiling innovation intrinsic to ‘Hey Ya’.
The decision adds weight to the theories of critics who deride the website for supposedly exhibiting a pretentious attitude which they mainly perceive in its relentless intellectualisation of pop music.
Ultimately, Pitchfork appears to have committed the primary journalistic faux-pas. They have neglected accuracy for the purposes of a great story, namely – the eerie resonance which ‘B.O.B.’ has apparently acquired amid this decade of war and destruction.
Yet a crucial, underlying question remains unanswered. In 50 years time, will people be listening to ‘B.O.B’ ahead of ‘Crazy in Love’? I suspect not.
- PAUL FENNESSY
