Chart study #2: dividesbyzero - Music - Forums : Best Ever Albums

sp4cetiger

Here begins my study of dividesbyzero's Greatest Albums chart (link). As before, others are welcome to jump in with questions of their own.

This has been quite a change of pace -- listening to RepoMan's chart was like peeping on a city's worth of dysfunction from the shadows, while listening to dbz's chart is more like taking a hike through the mountains. I've enjoyed both a great deal, but the contrasts are striking. Modern classical music has a large presence, including in the #1 spot:

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

Olivier Messiaen: Quatuor Pour La Fin D... Barenboim

This piece was discussed in some detail in the +1500 tournament, so hopefully most of BEA is already familiar with the music. One comment in particular stuck out to me:

dividesbyzero wrote:

Even if Messiaen is my favorite music in the tourney (or, ever, for that matter), as lethal mentioned at some earlier, retrospectively, it does seem unfair and a little odd to have one of the most celebrated works of art of the 20th century competing in an albums contest.

Do you find it difficult to compare classical music to other genres and if so, why? Why did you feel it was unfair to compare it to the other albums in the tournament?

Last edited by sp4cetiger on 10/15/2014 02:38; edited 2 times in total

RockyRaccoon

Is it solipsistic in here or is it just me?

Gender: Male

Age: 34

Location: Maryland

Moderator

DBZ

I don't like The Disintegration Loops. I like ambient music, I've listened to The Disintegration Loops a few times and I just can't get into it.

Also Ys. Same feelings.

Help me see the light.
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Progressive Rock

Early Psychedelic Rock

Live Albums

RockyRaccoon

Is it solipsistic in here or is it just me?

Gender: Male

Age: 34

Location: Maryland

Moderator

It would also appear that you have "White Light/White Heat" as your favorite Velvet Underground album. What makes it better than, say, The Velvet Underground & Nico?
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Progressive Rock

Early Psychedelic Rock

Live Albums

benpaco

Who's gonna watch you die?

Age: 28

Location: Missouri

I gotta ask as someone who's a bigger Ah Um fan, why the Mingus pick of what is perhaps is best loved album? I've never felt why that was so special compared to his other works, if you have a thought on that. (Additionally I'm with Ben, I've never gotten Ys)
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satiemaniac

I'm interested in how you "standardize" (a harsher word than I intend) the ecstasy (or enjoyment or) derived from "art music" works, hip hop, rock, electronic, etc. This is a very open question that I couldn't answer well for my own chart, and I'm interested in your thoughts on chart-making in light of the vastly different approaches taken by these artists. To throw out random prompts and ideas, it seems your list doesn't rely much on pop - do you see some continuous current of artistic revelation and innovation in all these works? Is it purely sonic? Is it a gut thing (and if it is, do you mind rationalizing it the way a site that makes you rank 100 works insists you do for my pleasure? Razz

)?

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Gender: Female

Age: 40

Question: Have you heard the bootleg from 1997 at the liquid room in tokyo where Squarepusher just plays a bunch of songs off Hard Normal Daddy and Feed Me Weird Things off of a DAT tape while he plays bass guitar over top, just basically adding a whole other layer of stuff to everything? If so, do you think that tops the recorded version of Hard Normal Daddy, and if you could would you put it on the list over the album?

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Oh boy time to hyper-scrutinize my chart Razz

Sorry didn't even notice this thread had been put up till now. Lovely questions, all of which I will happily address soon. Though first:

secretdad wrote:

Question: Have you heard the bootleg from 1997 at the liquid room in tokyo where Squarepusher just plays a bunch of songs off Hard Normal Daddy and Feed Me Weird Things off of a DAT tape while he plays bass guitar over top, just basically adding a whole other layer of stuff to everything? If so, do you think that tops the recorded version of Hard Normal Daddy, and if you could would you put it on the list over the album?

I have not heard this but it sounds fucking beast. Definitely gonna give it a spin and based on your description it could very well supplant HND

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Gender: Female

Age: 40

Hmm actually looking back I may have overestimated how much hnd there is, its a good chunk but a pretty fair spread of material from the era gets represented, still very cool stuff tho.

Question for your chart, I think one of the things that makes this so successful is that although there is an eclectic nature to it, there's these different threads of similar releases that run through it that build a clear picture of musical concepts being valued and creating a distinct point of view in how they overlap. My question would be, is there any sort of thing in music that you really value in music but feel is underrepresented in the chart? Because it'd be understandable if not, that thing's got breadth, but I always find in this process that I can get close, but something always feels like it's missing.

Last edited by Tap on 10/15/2014 05:58; edited 1 time in total

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Alright here we go:

sp4cetiger wrote:

Do you find it difficult to compare classical music to other genres and if so, why? Why did you feel it was unfair to compare it to the other albums in the tournament?

The comment to which you are referring wasn't so much me implying that I found it unfair to compare classical to other genres, but rather that the point of the tournament (being that it was the 1500+ tournament) was designed essentially to shed light on and spread appreciation for underrated albums, and The Quartet for the End of Time, even if not sharing the chart omnipresence of many universally hailed classics, is anything but underrated. The piece is legendary and I threw it in a tournament in which (to me at least) it ended up feeling very out of place, not for its stylistic/compositional differences, but because of its legendary status (in comparison to some comparatively unknown albums). That said, there are albums and other works of music for which I find difficulty drawing comparison, but this isn't by any means a phenomenon unique to classical music.

RockyRaccoon wrote:

DBZ

I don't like The Disintegration Loops. I like ambient music, I've listened to The Disintegration Loops a few times and I just can't get into it.

Also Ys. Same feelings.

Help me see the light.

Strangely enough the two albums which you mention here affect me similarly in that they both manage to be immensely emotionally impactful via something more akin to mental/emotional subversion rather than any kind of immediacy. They both seep into my consciousness (albeit in entirely different ways) such that I can feel every nuance, and their respective effect on my own listening psyche, without necessarily being consciously aware that this is happening. I really can't quantity it, but it's something like rather than shouting "my god this is great" on first listen, one day I just looked up and realized how much this music means to me. I don't know how or when it happened. With Joanna it's a little easier to form reasonable conjecture: her untrained voice delicately bounces (seemingly in accordance with her sublime harp playing) across these fairytale landscapes that she paints with lyrics that make me swoon and give up on any attempt to approach Ys with any kind of purely analytical mindset, (though that doesn't really stop me from incessantly trying to do so). Disintegration Loops is a bit harder: this is gonna sound hoakey as fuck but in order to avoid some incessant amount of pretentious rambling I'll just say that they have a way of latching onto my mind; as the loops fall apart, I follow them through that slow deconstruction. Each loop really does feel like being born and living a full unique experience before fading into nothingness, and something about that is just utterly beautiful to me. I think Silver described The Disintegration Loops as the most life-affirming music, and I am inclined to agree.

idk something like that...

Satie and Ben I will get to you guys tomorrow but my sleep meds are starting to take hold (or rather, have long since take hold) and I'm already fearful that what I've already said will make no sense when I read it tomorrow morning, but oh well I guess I'll click submit and hope for the best Razz

Thanks for setting this up tiger!

IcctGraft

Sadly seroquel is the only thing that works for me.

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