Best Ever Albums

Re: BEAMAs 2014

Anonymous — Fri, 2 Jan 2015 06:09:56 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 01/02/2015 11:09

Im still waiting for that BOOM CLAP banner, toots

Re: BEAMAs 2014

Anonymous — Fri, 2 Jan 2015 05:50:21 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 01/02/2015 10:50

So a lot of the posts I would have responded to have been excellently covered so thanks to y'all for that.

Because of the BEUA and the BEA end of year album list we're going to hold off a bit so we don;t overload everyone. Probably later in the month we'll open up first round voting.

Re: BEAMAs 2014

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Dec 2014 09:06:29 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 12/29/2014 14:06

Skinny wrote:

Also, I personally think the Pazz & Jop influenced idea should be kept separate from the BEAMAs. It's not as though people aren't going to take part in both.

Agreed. I'll try to post a thread for it in the next few days.

loveless wrote:

As far as the points system is concerned, at this point I'm not sure if the Pazz & Jop idea is doable on the site we use for survey making without making it too messy.

No worries, I'll do the vote tallies by hand (or with a script).

Re: BEAMAs 2014

19loveless91 — Mon, 29 Dec 2014 06:40:04 GMT

Author: 19loveless91

Posted: 12/29/2014 11:40

Yeah the problem with adding more categories is what I mentioned before and what Skinny mentions - most of them won't attract enough voters to reach a clear consensus (metal category as it is had less voters than most other categories in previous years, I can imagine what will happen if we split it to subgenres), and I can't see how many people will want to fill out a ballot with so many categories. Those of you who submitted the ballots last year know how long it already takes. This is why I'm also still in favour of keeping country and folk together. Because I think the nominees will end up being stylistically similar enough, and I'm not sure country alone will have many votes.

So I'm personally in favour of keeping it broad. I also wouldn't mind either ambient or classical categories, but I'm not sure we'll have enough votes here. So for the time being I think instrumental, and I suppose avant-garde category (even if I'm not a fan of it) should cover for those albums.

Instrumental music category is maybe named a bit awkwardly, but means music without vocals. I.e. electronic music fits here too. Maybe it's not necessary (and it's not a genre category either), but in general this is the space for nominating all the drone/ambient, modern classical, film scores, etc.

As far as the points system is concerned, at this point I'm not sure if the Pazz & Jop idea is doable on the site we use for survey making without making it too messy. Otherwise I personally don't really mind either.

Re: BEAMAs 2014

Skinny — Mon, 29 Dec 2014 05:23:50 GMT

Author: Skinny

Posted: 12/29/2014 10:23

Actually, I pretty much like all the categories as they are, although Best Instrumental category seems a bit strange (are we talking instrumental rock music, or just music without vocals?). I like the negative categories because they're harmless fun, and I like the avant-garde category because it manages to cover music that fails to get mentioned elsewhere (even if it might be awkwardly named).

As for splitting up the Metal category, I'm not necessarily against the idea but it would be difficult to argue we should have more specific subgenre categories for Metal and not for, say, Electronic music, which is just as broad an umbrella term, or Rock music. And then where do we stop? Do we have separate categories for Mainstream Country and Outlaw Country? For East Coast Hip-Hop and West Coast Hip-Hop? Modal Jazz and Smooth Jazz and Post-Bop and Jazz Fusion? I just find it impossible to argue that Metal should be split up whilst Electronic music is fine, when the latter covers at least as wide a variety of musical styles. Splitting up the core genres would lead to a multitude of unnecessarily specific categories, many of which would likely garner very few votes. (As Squishy pointed out, Metal has hardly been voted on enthusiastically in the past compared to other categories, and is it really wise to split it up and risk even fewer people voting or getting involved?)

As for newly suggested categories, I'd have no problem with a Classical category, but would be worried that it wouldn't attract very many votes (that said, it's got to be worth a try). As for Ambient, I think that gets covered by Avant-Garde, though I wouldn't be against a name change (if a suitable name could be found - Experimental, perhaps?). Can't really see a need for a Punk/Garage Rock category, as it just seems a little too specific a category, which runs the risk of having less involvement in itself, and also begins the argument that I alluded to in my previous paragraph (i.e. where do we stop with subgenres?).

Also, I personally think the Pazz & Jop influenced idea should be kept separate from the BEAMAs. It's not as though people aren't going to take part in both.

Re: BEAMAs 2014

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Dec 2014 03:04:50 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 12/29/2014 08:04

how about ....

Best Ambient Album
Best Punk/Garage Rock Album

Re: BEAMAs 2014

mickilennial — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 23:28:45 GMT

Author: mickilennial

Posted: 12/29/2014 04:28

dividesbyzero wrote:

YAY BEAMAS. I'm actually pretty ok with the current setup. I'd like to see a classical category though

Yeah, it'd be neat to see extensions of more fields.

Re: BEAMAs 2014

SquishypuffDave — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 23:27:16 GMT

Author: SquishypuffDave

Posted: 12/29/2014 04:27

In the past there has been a shortage of votes in the metal category, so that's one possible reason to keep it broad.

Re: BEAMAs 2014

Anonymous — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 23:24:55 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 12/29/2014 04:24

YAY BEAMAS. I'm actually pretty ok with the current setup. I'd like to see a classical category though

Re: BEAMAs 2014

mickilennial — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 23:06:16 GMT

Author: mickilennial

Posted: 12/29/2014 04:06

Quote:

WORST ALBUM OF THE YEAR
WORST SONG OF THE YEAR

Still think these are pointless non-discussion troll categories that serve no purpose.

RockyRaccoon wrote:

I think the negative categories are virtually useless and do little more than foster divisiveness. But if they're kept I l'm not gonna make a big deal of it, I don't feel that strongly about it.

Also, I love that we do a best metal album, but that's so broad, would it be conceivable to break that up a little? I'm not saying into a million sub-genres, but maybe split it up like "best black metal album" or "best death metal album" or whatever. Just a thought.

^

Also, could maybe diversify by keeping it to the cores as suggested but could also still diversify through simplifications (ie: extreme metal, melodic metal, etc) but that might be unfair to other genres in the BEMAs.

Re: BEAMAs 2014

RockyRaccoon — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 22:20:25 GMT

Author: RockyRaccoon

Posted: 12/29/2014 03:20

I think the negative categories are virtually useless and do little more than foster divisiveness. But if they're kept I l'm not gonna make a big deal of it, I don't feel that strongly about it.

Also, I love that we do a best metal album, but that's so broad, would it be conceivable to break that up a little? I'm not saying into a million sub-genres, but maybe split it up like "best black metal album" or "best death metal album" or whatever. Just a thought.

Re: BEAMAs 2014

Antonio-Pedro — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 17:29:04 GMT

Author: Antonio-Pedro

Posted: 12/28/2014 22:29

*grabs booklet*

*grabs glasses*
*looks slightly*

ok...

Bad poetry...check
BEUA...check

.... BEAMAS.... wait what...??? *blinks heavily* yayayayay!

hyped for this year's one 😜

check

Re: BEAMAs 2014

Anonymous — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 16:36:35 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 12/28/2014 21:36

19loveless91 wrote:

I need to see what can be done with the survey making site that Jhereko uses. It would probably mean less work for us actually if it's doable.
Question I have here is - is 10 albums enough? While I think last year's 50 is a bit excessive, I still think most of us will have trouble narrowing it down to just 10.

25? I don't feel too strongly either way.

Re: BEAMAs 2014

19loveless91 — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 16:03:56 GMT

Author: 19loveless91

Posted: 12/28/2014 21:03

sp4cetiger wrote:

I think we should do the BEAMAs as usual and use mecca's suggestion for the end-of-year list:

Norman Bates wrote:

19loveless91 wrote:

:

BLUES/JAZZ ALBUM/SONG

Not so sure about blending those...

Norman Bates wrote:

19loveless91 wrote:

COUNTRY/FOLK ALBUM/SONG

...or even those, even if I see it more happening.

Both of these categories were introduced last year.
Blues/jazz in an effort to try and get more votes for the category. IIRC all nominees ended up being jazz albums anyway, so maybe we should revert back to just "JAZZ".

I think we should keep folk/country as it is though. I know they're not the same, but the issue here is having enough categories so that all albums fit somewhere, yet not too many categories, so it stays "manageable" both for voters and people counting votes. And I think folk and country nominees are still stylistically similar enough to warrant one category. There's probably a bigger difference among the albums that get nominated in indie/alter or electronic categories.
For example, last year the nominees in this category were Laura Marling, Kacey Musgraves, Bill Callahan, Torres and Neko Case, whereas the indie/alter category had Julia Holter, Vampire Weekend, MBV, and electronic category had Daft Punk vs Jon Hopkins vs Darkside...

Norman Bates wrote:

19loveless91 wrote:

AVANT-GARDE ALBUM/SONG

This is meaningless to me.

Yeah, I don't know what to do with this one... The idea (I think) was to find a space for albums that kind of couldn't fit anywhere else. Those that were too "weird" for indie/alter, or any drone/ambient albums. But it's hard to define, so that's why we ended up with people nominating Black Panties. Anyway, last year we had a few users defending the category, if nobody steps forward this year, we might have to do without it 🤔

Re: BEAMAs 2014

Anonymous — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 15:36:42 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 12/28/2014 20:36

^^^

Blus/Jazz

I agree with Norman. Blues & Jazz should not be combined. They're completely different.

Country/Folk

same as above but less strong.

Negative categories

keep 'em.

Re: BEAMAs 2014

Norman Bates — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 15:07:49 GMT

Author: Norman Bates

Posted: 12/28/2014 20:07

Jokes aside, a few answers.

19loveless91 wrote:

BLUES/JAZZ ALBUM/SONG

Not so sure about blending those...

19loveless91 wrote:

COUNTRY/FOLK ALBUM/SONG

...or even those, even if I see it more happening.

19loveless91 wrote:

AVANT-GARDE ALBUM/SONG

This is meaningless to me.

19loveless91 wrote:

- *Lifetime achievement award will be scrapped now, with benpaco doing the Hall of fame thing.

Agreed.

19loveless91 wrote:

- How do you feel about the negative categories, such as most overrated album, worst album/song? Do we need to continue with this?

Let's continue, they're fun.

19loveless91 wrote:

- Should we go keep the avant-garde category? It is kind of hard to define. Last year the winner was Virgins by Tim Hecker, who beat, um... Black Panties by R. Kelly among others.

Sorry, already answered this. No.

19loveless91 wrote:

- Some of the categories had very few votes last year, and even had to be scrapped. Is it sensible to keep the categories for: Best instrumental song, best jazz/blues song?

Part of what interested me lately (say, the last two years) is what it means to play jazz today. I'd keep it. Of course the risk is that FlyLo wins it by a landslide, but hey, it's an interesting jazz album.
[/quote]

Re: BEAMAs 2014

Norman Bates — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 14:59:00 GMT

Author: Norman Bates

Posted: 12/28/2014 19:59

19loveless91 wrote:

Loving this already

Re: BEAMAs 2014

Anonymous — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 14:54:14 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 12/28/2014 19:54

Kudos, friend. I can't wait to see what you have to do and what happens! bam!

Re: BEAMAs 2014

Anonymous — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 14:49:35 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 12/28/2014 19:49

alelsupreme wrote:

I support keeping the negative categories.

Re: BEAMAs 2014

Anonymous — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 14:23:30 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 12/28/2014 19:23

alelsupreme wrote:

I support keeping the negative categories.

Second.