Best Ever Albums

Re: Articles on Scaruffi from Perfect Sound Forever

YoungPunk — Sat, 12 May 2018 20:38:48 GMT

Author: YoungPunk

Posted: 05/13/2018 00:38

Tap wrote:

I don't think there's going to be any good posts from following that further, maybe just stop it there

Maybe you're right, the answers just seem so obvious to me lol, kinda like a trivial answer in science

Re: Articles on Scaruffi from Perfect Sound Forever

AAL2014 — Sat, 12 May 2018 20:05:05 GMT

Author: AAL2014

Posted: 05/13/2018 00:05

TheHutts wrote:

I agree with this so much.

Re: Articles on Scaruffi from Perfect Sound Forever

RoundTheBend — Fri, 11 May 2018 23:23:26 GMT

Author: RoundTheBend

Posted: 05/12/2018 03:23

Wow...

Anyway here's a skit about the greatest ever bus drivers:

Link

Re: Articles on Scaruffi from Perfect Sound Forever

Tap — Fri, 11 May 2018 22:23:19 GMT

Author: Tap

Posted: 05/12/2018 02:23

I don't think there's going to be any good posts from following that further, maybe just stop it there

Re: Articles on Scaruffi from Perfect Sound Forever

YoungPunk — Fri, 11 May 2018 22:18:58 GMT

Author: YoungPunk

Posted: 05/12/2018 02:18

sethmadsen wrote:

RE: no such thing as a great artist
Probably true.
Some mean more to cultural history than others.
Some mean more to personal taste.
Great is subjective.

RE: prove/disprove
I suppose it'd difficult to prove/disprove anything subjective?

Gay art (not art by gay people, but art that is objectively gay) is not great in my opinion, does that make Tchaikovsky an objectively bad artist? I want AfterHours to answer, he has some interesting stories...

Re: Articles on Scaruffi from Perfect Sound Forever

RoundTheBend — Fri, 11 May 2018 21:46:28 GMT

Author: RoundTheBend

Posted: 05/12/2018 01:46

RE: no such thing as a great artist
Probably true.
Some mean more to cultural history than others.
Some mean more to personal taste.
Great is subjective.

RE: prove/disprove
I suppose it'd difficult to prove/disprove anything subjective?

Re: Articles on Scaruffi from Perfect Sound Forever

YoungPunk — Fri, 11 May 2018 21:32:58 GMT

Author: YoungPunk

Posted: 05/12/2018 01:32

Do you think Tchaikovsky's music is gay?

Re: Articles on Scaruffi from Perfect Sound Forever

AfterHours — Fri, 11 May 2018 16:38:34 GMT

Author: AfterHours

Posted: 05/11/2018 20:38

I could care less if people like or dislike Scaruffi, but the Perfect Sound Forever article (ironically) makes several, demonstrably incorrect, judgmental inaccuracies of Scaruffi's "criterion/biases" (of which many refuting examples exist).

Re: Articles on Scaruffi from Perfect Sound Forever

YoungPunk — Fri, 11 May 2018 12:20:07 GMT

Author: YoungPunk

Posted: 05/11/2018 16:20

It just reminds of the worship of George Bernard Shaw as a music critic, and he didn't even understand music!

Re: Articles on Scaruffi from Perfect Sound Forever

travelful — Fri, 11 May 2018 11:29:01 GMT

Author: travelful

Posted: 05/11/2018 15:29

The only reason to ever read or listen to music reviews is to expose yourself to music you may not have known about otherwise. In my experience Fantano, Spectrum Pulse, RYM, BEA, and Pitchfork are more than enough for that. Scaruffi hardly ever talks about newer music at all (or anything, really) and never anything obscure enough for me to keep up with his limited reviews.

Re: Articles on Scaruffi from Perfect Sound Forever

cestuneblague — Fri, 11 May 2018 09:53:50 GMT

Author: cestuneblague

Posted: 05/11/2018 13:53

Re: Articles on Scaruffi from Perfect Sound Forever

manurock — Fri, 11 May 2018 09:35:58 GMT

Author: manurock

Posted: 05/11/2018 13:35

It is the second time I read this name on the webpage so I decided to look him up. Reading his album choices and comments, I don't tend to agree with his music taste so I just see him as another source of information on music, much less valuable to me than this webpage and its users or RYM, or even wikipedia.

Re: Articles on Scaruffi from Perfect Sound Forever

boyd94 — Fri, 11 May 2018 05:30:23 GMT

Author: boyd94

Posted: 05/11/2018 09:30

He's a great source for new albums and avenues of exploration. Pitchfork served the same purpose when I was 16.

I naturally tend to gravitate towards unique, sui generis voices so looking at his recommendations has intrigued and challenged me to a great degree. His influence on me is the extent to which I'm listening to the same stuff he did.

What people have to realise is that he's generally evaluating albums from the perspective of a cultural critic or historian. He probably "enjoys" a lot of his 8s more than some 8.5s. Sometimes I read his thoughts on a record and they don't sound as if they align with his numerical rating. That's because he's not playing the same game as most music critics.

For my own list (still under construction), I prefer to avoid constructing an exhibition of 'important' ideas. The listening experience remains paramount.

Re: Articles on Scaruffi from Perfect Sound Forever

YoungPunk — Fri, 11 May 2018 00:38:41 GMT

Author: YoungPunk

Posted: 05/11/2018 04:38

I mean I can get Brahms criticizing Mahler for example, as Brahms had musical accomplishments

Re: Articles on Scaruffi from Perfect Sound Forever

YoungPunk — Fri, 11 May 2018 00:37:23 GMT

Author: YoungPunk

Posted: 05/11/2018 04:37

What has Scaruffi ever accomplished in music? Isn't he a scientist at a university in scientific dark age Italy?

Re: Articles on Scaruffi from Perfect Sound Forever

Tap — Fri, 11 May 2018 00:03:48 GMT

Author: Tap

Posted: 05/11/2018 04:03

The format supremacy is pretty silly. I feel like a lot of this stuff is people being insecure and needing some kind of assurance to fight away FOMOphobia (the fear of even so much as experiencing the fear of missing out). Poptimism too, there's some good ideas but it just ends up being "I am right to listen to the most popular things because they are popular and the people who don't like it just are inauthentic and if they would just let themselves like it they totally would".

Re: Articles on Scaruffi from Perfect Sound Forever

RoundTheBend — Fri, 11 May 2018 00:00:14 GMT

Author: RoundTheBend

Posted: 05/11/2018 04:00

Thank God someone put that man in his place.

My favorite part:

Quote:

Barring that, it's all just so much snobbish condescension and pompous, unproven assertions.

Also of course other people were doing/did things The Beatles were doing - it's not like they invented everything. It's a theory called New Historicism. There's a web of influence and it nearly never is a single entity that did the thing and it's nearly impossible to prove firsts. I think sometimes it's falsely attributed they did it first, and what I think 90% of what people mean by that when they say that anyway is they were the first mainstream band or they were the first to make it popular and fail to say those qualifiers or aren't realizing that's what's really meant.

But of course to completely dismiss the achievements they did accomplish is completely and equally ignorant. I think people get hung up on the semantics and while those are important, I think they miss the big picture altogether. Just because somebody did it first doesn't mean they did it any good.

I think what's key is they were a pop group and synthesized all these amazing things into their music. They established this ever evolving growth of musicianship - constantly wanting to push boundaries (for pop music) and go new places... and most importantly they excelled at doing them all. It's a pity when that's not appreciated. Especially when a one off effort "debunks" them as any good. Consistency is just as important to the aspects of a great artist, to me anyway.

And to be clear, I'm including George Martin behind all of this because I think what he added to the synergy was just as important. It really was that synergy. It seems like efforts by George Martin, or any of the Ex-Beatles were nearly never as good. (Maybe only John's lyrics got better, imo).

Random unorganized thoughts over.

Re: Articles on Scaruffi from Perfect Sound Forever

TheHutts — Thu, 10 May 2018 23:22:48 GMT

Author: TheHutts

Posted: 05/11/2018 03:22

YoungPunk wrote:

Don't really know much about either, I usually don't trust anyone besides myself

I like to read lots about music - it's good to learn about new things. I think the best approach as a 21st century music fan with access to an overwhelming amount of music is to take recommendations from everywhere and form your own opinions.

I've been thinking a lot about poptimism, rockism, and Scaruffism (if that's a word) lately. In my late teens and early twenties, I was certainly a rockist, and insisted that all music needed to be meaningful, and concentrated on the canonical type albums you'd see in a Rolling Stone Top 100. It's been interesting seeing the rise of poptimism.

Re: Articles on Scaruffi from Perfect Sound Forever

YoungPunk — Thu, 10 May 2018 23:12:09 GMT

Author: YoungPunk

Posted: 05/11/2018 03:12

Don't really know much about either, I usually don't trust anyone besides myself

Re: Articles on Scaruffi from Perfect Sound Forever

TheHutts — Thu, 10 May 2018 23:11:37 GMT

Author: TheHutts

Posted: 05/11/2018 03:11

Tap wrote:

Quote:

This is a world in which ninety-five percent of music lovers are too stupid for their own good

This is something that's a little bit common and bothers me a lot. Like the idea that music is a thing that billions of people engage with but only a small portion of people are doing it right just seems so misanthropic.

On a website like this, too, we're kind of assuming that the album is the primary medium of music consumption, but for the majority of the population that's not true. We're kind of stuck in our little geeky world of album appreciation, while lots of people are into playlists and radio hits, and it doesn't mean we're better than them.