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

Wombi

dividesbyzero wrote:

Does that answer your question(s)?

as well as a near impossible question to answer could be, yes Mr. Green

thank you for taking the time for a thoughtful response.

sp4cetiger

You've been an outspoken advocate of Joni Mitchell on the forums, so your #2 should surprise few:

The Hissing Of Summer Lawns by Joni Mitchell

In your notes, you go as far as to say,

Quote:

The Hissing of Summer Lawns exists outside of the realm of normal classification or judgment.

Wow. Your chart gives a lot of analysis of her career, but could you say a bit more about what Joni's music means to you personally? Also, rank her studio albums for us.

Puncture Repair

I think there are very few other charts that deserve the title of being the top rated overall chart on the website. The amount of time and consideration that has been put into this chart is stunning, the chart really does feel crafted rather than merely pieced together. The comments are both charmingly personable and deeply personal - the sheer devotion to each album makes the chart really feel like every choice here is extremely cherished, with no attempt to hide any personal preference. I love how albums like Summer Lawns sit next to some far more universally popular choices like Pink Moon, it's a great balance of feeling familiar as well as being a source for discovering some lesser known music.

And while I certainly think the comments are what help divides's chart really stand out, the albums here are equally as important. They not only have a consistent theme of being a little bit left of field (I have no doubt most of the picks here are great for an out of body experience) which helps gives the whole chart a clear and defined mood, but also the choices are varied enough to keep everything from feeling too stale, jumping from folk to jazz to ambient and so on. I should use this chart more often for recs, really.

Big up to dividesbyzero, charts like these are what BEA is all about.

Mies

Puncture Repair wrote:

I think there are very few other charts that deserve the title of being the top rated overall chart on the website. The amount of time and consideration that has been put into this chart is stunning, the chart really does feel crafted rather than merely pieced together. The comments are both charmingly personable and deeply personal - the sheer devotion to each album makes the chart really feel like every choice here is extremely cherished, with no attempt to hide any personal preference. I love how albums like Summer Lawns sit next to some far more universally popular choices like Pink Moon, it's a great balance of feeling familiar as well as being a source for discovering some lesser known music.

And while I certainly think the comments are what help divides's chart really stand out, the albums here are equally as important. They not only have a consistent theme of being a little bit left of field (I have no doubt most of the picks here are great for an out of body experience) which helps gives the whole chart a clear and defined mood, but also the choices are varied enough to keep everything from feeling too stale, jumping from folk to jazz to ambient and so on. I should use this chart more often for recs, really.

Big up to dividesbyzero, charts like these are what BEA is all about.

This.

Also, I love how you, dbz, are always kind and wonderfully calmful and you are very very cultured about music but yet never behave like a snob or anything, and that's rare. Any music passionated should be like that.

Skinny
birdman_handrub.gif

I can't speak highly enough of Gabe, one of the best users on the site, he's a fountain of recommendations, regularly offers up intriguing and insightful comments on a massive variety of music, he has that rare ability to actually articulate why he likes something (it's fucking difficult), and he's just a really nice person to boot. His chart displays all of those qualities I've just mentioned and more - it's a passionate and personal work that I often find myself going back to. I feel like I could sit and discuss the ins and outs of these picks (and their notes) for hours, but I guess my first question would be;

Why Blonde on Blonde over other Dylan albums?
_________________
2021 in full effect. Come drop me some recs. Y'all know what I like.

Mies

Skinny wrote:

Why Blonde on Blonde over other Dylan albums?

In a previous note, there was written: because it's very long and that means more Dylan. Laughing

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sp4cetiger wrote:

Your chart gives a lot of analysis of her career, but could you say a bit more about what Joni's music means to you personally?

Joni is very close to my heart. I grew up with her music, (she was a favorite of my mother's, and if I am to believe her stories, "Court and Spark" was playing in my crib). That said, there are many (many) artists who have been with me for nearly as long but of whom I've only tired over time. Joni's career carries a sonic versatility from album to album that has allowed me to connect to her music in all kinds of new ways as I matured. The melodic orchestrations and sublime self-harmonizing of Court and Spark appealed to me as a small child, and as I began to understand more of the ins and outs of the art of putting words next to other words to make something truly meaningful, her poetry hit me full on. "One minute she's so happy, then she's crying on someone's knee, saying 'laughing and crying, you know it's the same release'". I don't generally talk about personal stuff to any great extent on BEA, but I've grown up subject to varying degrees of mental and emotional instability for as long as I can remember, and the deeply personal nature of Joni's lyrics and music (which has it's own abstract way of connecting to me just as much as her poetry) even if being personal uniquely to her still related to me by the nature of her emotional suffering and storytelling containing a universality such that I felt (as cliche as this sounds) that she really was singing to me directly. I was hospitalized for the first time when I was 10, and Hejira was my #1 comfort through all of that. "Then your life becomes a travelogue, of picture post card charms"; she helped me see life as a collection of all of our experiences and how those add up to equal the person we are at the present; I no longer resented that first terrifying stay at the hospital and allowed it to contribute to my still developing character in the best way I knew how. As resistant as I was initially, that hospital stay really did help me deal with a lot of problems, but I don't think I would've been able to put down that initial resistance without Joni's encouragement.

Fast forward a few years and I'm a Joni fanboy through-and-through, with each album providing something entirely new on an emotional spectrum that few other artists could purvey even once, let alone do so with an entirely unique approach with each album. Listening to Joni's confessional masterpiece Blue I became more comfortable sharing my own experiences with my friends and family; she may have been going through life struggles entirely different than my own, but I still found camaraderie within her lyrics.

As I continued to mature and how I looked at music as an art form evolved in accordance, where her lyrics had always been my main focus, I really started to truly appreciate what she did with music. When I really listened and tried to absorb each nuance... these albums had been with me for so long that I think I took for granted just how intricate her arrangements were, how unique her guitar playing, and really how she could get as creative as she wanted without ever alienating the listener. As she grew more and more compositionallly complex and varied her music never became any less personal. The Hissing of Summer Lawns, and album which I had heard innumerable times throughout my life, finally struck me much in the same way it does today. "In France they Kiss on Mainstreet" was jazzy, clever, and just pure fun, providing the perfect entry point into an extremely varied album traversing across a massive plane of emotion. Her voice became haunting over the African rhythms and moog synth excursions of "The Jungle Line", she became as intimate as ever with the borderline minimalist nature of "Shadows and Light", "Don't Interrupt the Sorrow" was one of my greatest companions through my latter formative years. She moved forward with complexity and jazz influences as her career progressed, but I still hold that Hejira and especially summer lawns is where she hit a perfect balance between the earnest expression of her early albums and the intricate jazzy composition of her late 70s work. Don Juan's Reckless Daughter came next; ridiculously underrated. Paprika Plains might be my favorite Joni song. It took an eternity for Don Juan's to hit me on the same emotional level as all of the previously mentioned Joni works, but once it did, it did so all at once. It was actually in my #2 slot for a little while (as was Hejira, and honestly I would be happy with any of those three sitting there). Growing up through a very turbulent childhood, and later coming to realize that music had landed itself at the center of my personal universe and had become an integral part of how I perceive/experience basically everything, Joni was my closest friend through all of it, and my affection for her and her art hasn't lessened since.

sp4cetiger wrote:

Also, rank her studio albums for us.

Sure :)

I'll get to the rest of your lovely questions in a bit. <3 you guys

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Puncture Repair wrote:

I think there are very few other charts that deserve the title of being the top rated overall chart on the website. The amount of time and consideration that has been put into this chart is stunning, the chart really does feel crafted rather than merely pieced together. The comments are both charmingly personable and deeply personal - the sheer devotion to each album makes the chart really feel like every choice here is extremely cherished, with no attempt to hide any personal preference. I love how albums like Summer Lawns sit next to some far more universally popular choices like Pink Moon, it's a great balance of feeling familiar as well as being a source for discovering some lesser known music.

And while I certainly think the comments are what help divides's chart really stand out, the albums here are equally as important. They not only have a consistent theme of being a little bit left of field (I have no doubt most of the picks here are great for an out of body experience) which helps gives the whole chart a clear and defined mood, but also the choices are varied enough to keep everything from feeling too stale, jumping from folk to jazz to ambient and so on. I should use this chart more often for recs, really.

Big up to dividesbyzero, charts like these are what BEA is all about.

Mies wrote:

I love how you, dbz, are always kind and wonderfully calmful and you are very very cultured about music but yet never behave like a snob or anything, and that's rare. Any music passionated should be like that.

Skinny wrote:

I can't speak highly enough of Gabe, one of the best users on the site, he's a fountain of recommendations, regularly offers up intriguing and insightful comments on a massive variety of music, he has that rare ability to actually articulate why he likes something (it's fucking difficult), and he's just a really nice person to boot. His chart displays all of those qualities I've just mentioned and more - it's a passionate and personal work that I often find myself going back to. I feel like I could sit and discuss the ins and outs of these picks (and their notes) for hours

This all seriously means a lot to me. People like all of you that make BEA a paradise of musical discussion with well-spoken friendly faces to whom I can always relate. You're the reason BEA is basically my favorite place on the internet and I really do consider you guys friends. Thanks a lot everyone

Skinny wrote:

Why Blonde on Blonde over other Dylan albums?

Ah this is a tough one. It's comparatively easy to articulate my love for Dylan or any of my favorite albums of his, but to express that love for one album as it compares to others that I enjoy very nearly as much is considerably more difficult. I feel like even though every Dylan album is distinctly "Dylan", and there are a great many lyrical and musical elements that remain more or less consistent from album to album, every Dylan album is a completely individual experience, which makes the comparing of any of my favorites of his again even more difficult. Mies pointed out I did reference the length of the album, which honestly was more of a joke than anything seeing as I couldn't really think of why I had come to prefer Blonde on Blonde at the time of placing it on my chart, but it is worth mentioning that I do feel Blonde on Blonde is the ultimate double album in that (and I feel like I'm in the minority here) it really doesn't falter even given its length. I don't think it's nearly as unbalanced or inconsistent as I've heard people say, and it possesses enough variety and a wide enough spectrum of musical moods such that it never boasts it's length, and never grows tiring or grating (at least to me), which I do believe is remarkable for an album as long running as it is. As for the actual content, ah where to start... it's like it succeeds at the near impossible task of matching a wild eclecticism with just total cohesion of sound. Each song has Dylan approaching musical/lyrical composition from an entirely different place, ranging from the heartfelt to the comedic, but still maintaining threads of lyrical and musical familiarity that hold everything together as one cohesive piece rather than just a collection of disjointed stories and vignettes. Moving from the expressive balladering of "Visions of Johanna" to the satirical comedy of "Leopard skin pillbox hat", eventually landing at a culmination of everything that I love about Dylan (Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands); it's a symphony of paradoxes, balancing the poetic with the absurd, cynicism with feeling, surrealism and clarity, the dazzlingly complex and the beautifully simple. Every major Dylan album that I enjoy maintains any number of these (and more) elements to varying degrees, but to me, Blonde on Blonde just finds Dylan at the perfect balance of all of these disparate elements such that they come together with a cohesion that binds the whole extremely ambitious endeavor together into one of the only 70+ minute albums that almost feels too short. I dunno, as of now it's my favorite, but really Dylan could do almost no wrong in the 60s (and mid-70s to a slightly less consistent extent), and honestly I'd be perfectly fine with any number of his wonders on my chart, (all of which are very dear to me)

sp4cetiger

dividesbyzero wrote:

Joni is very close to my heart... [more beautiful prose]

Fascinating read, thanks for sharing that dbz. On a somewhat related note, I see that you're doing the "1 album per artist" rule. Which artists would be making multiple appearances in a pure favorites chart?

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sp4cetiger wrote:

Fascinating read, thanks for sharing that dbz.

Happy to share. Thanks for reading Smile

sp4cetiger wrote:

I see that you're doing the "1 album per artist" rule. Which artists would be making multiple appearances in a pure favorites chart?

hm... wellm Joni obviously. Basinski would likely show up again with Melancholia, Have One On Me would most certainly make an appearance as my favorite album of the 10s so far. I'd throw Geogaddi in there somewhere. More Eno (specially music for airports), more Dylan, Blut Aus Nord's The Work Which Transforms God, more Stars of the Lid, more Amon Tobin, more Neil Young, significantly more Coltrane, more John Zorn (including The Alchemist, which is currently my #1 of 2014), Swans' Children of God... this list could go on for awhile... more Can, Velvet Underground, Lookaftering, maybe another Oval album... It gets a little more complicate looking at my classical recordings seeing as I would not only include more compositions by composers that otherwise make one appearance, but I would probably have multiple interpretations/performances of the same piece -I adore Tashi Quartet's interpretation of Quatuor Pour La Fin Du Temps nearly as much as I do the one on my chart, also I'd probably also have the other recording of Luciano Berio's Sinfonia that I reference in the note for the one currently on my chart. I just really feel the 1 album per artist thing is a far more cohesive reflection of my opinions on music as a whole. Though if anyone's interested I've dismantled this rule for my decade and year charts, (though I generally don't include classical (other than contemporary compositions) on said charts because I like to keep decade/year charts a little more zeitgeist-y, i.e. reflective of the decade/year in question)