Like LCD Soundsystem’s ‘All My Friends’ last year, this is so far ahead of the pack it isn’t funny. Except it is. Andrew Van Wyngarden and Ben Goldwasser dream of their rock’n’roll future to come, and it’s all drugs and supermodels – are they as knee-deep in them now as they anticipated? Hell, probably.
‘Time To Pretend’ has an irresistible, kinetic energy. It’s a rolling stone, but it gathers moss, drums (the drums, the drums), synths, pure glee and giddy excitement. I suppose it has an ‘80s bent in its shiny, pumped-up production yet the excess is unfiltered ‘70s. They look like a pair of prog/hippie casualties to boot. The second half is one long spine-tingle and the hanging chords of the final bridge/chorus sound almost heroic – assuming there’s heroism in “The models will have children/We’ll get a divorce/Find some more models/Everything must run its course”. Naturally there is.
The album Oracular Spectacular is a bit Blue Oyster Cult for me; let’s just revel in a perfect single’s anticipation of living fast and dying young. The album prize can go to Vampire Weekend, with honours to TV On The Radio, Lykke Li and Coldplay (yes, Coldplay – I couldn’t believe it either).
As for Junior, she’s loved this from the moment she first heard the chirupping bleeps of the intro. Today she dances, rolls around the floor and bounds about in front of her sister – and her sister’s clapping. Bravo.
Jukebox Junior 
Pitchfolks 94th best track of 2007 that.
So what? Rerecorded, and released in the UK this year.
And on the other side of the coin, Pitchfork, well, y’know.
It was re-recorded in 2007 YOU BAD WHOPPER.
Don’t worry tho – Time and Rolling Stone have made the same error as you.
I didn’t say it was rerecorded in 2008. I said it was released in the UK in 2008. The comma separates the clauses. I couldn’t give a stuff what date they were in the studio, although I concede that Pitchfork’s shout was for the rerecorded version.
Simple qualification – get released as a UK single in 2008, get considered for this chart. Pitchfork do “tracks”, and yes, ‘Time To Pretend’ was a digital album track release in 2007. Every other publication – online or print – and it is pretty much every publication, this being rather a global favourite – has rated it one of their singles of 2008, presumably operating on the same semi-stringent rule.
Hope that clears things up.
ANYWAY, that chart was tough work. Anyone got any other comments? Not just ones trying to catch me out; although, you know, it’s a broad church.
Heh. Terrible grammar ‘lesson’. The comma separating the clauses has nothing to do with Pitchfolk’s rating it in 2007. The rerecording can only relate to a distinction to the track I referred to – which you then go on to concede there isn’t as it is one and the same.
ANYWAY….
It wasn’t meant to get you so chopsy. I ‘quite very very much enjoyed’ your chart. As MES would say.
The grammar is perfectly acceptable, old boy. Maybe a semicolon would have been stronger, but – Christ – let’s live life, eh? I’m the only one allowed to be supercilious around here. [emoticon]
The rerecording bluster is a red herring though, isn’t it? Your issue is this is a “2007 track” and I’m calling it a 2008 single release. Which it was. Nyer.
Jolly good. Glad you enjoyed it. Weren’t you hoping for a particular track?
oh yes.
To further quote the man ‘I was very disappointed. I felt let down. It was the governments fault. It was the fault. Of. The Government’
(thats you as a Gilbert & Sullivan panto inspector, natch).
Tease.