Best Ever Albums

Re: Aversion to Newer Music

jhuik — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 09:03:49 GMT

Author: jhuik

Posted: 01/31/2015 14:03

Great thread, is all I have to say. This just might summarise and include every issue around the question, "what makes an album one of the *best ever*." Okay, so that's not all I have to say... the problem is that there is a non-stop accumulation of music and you can only listen to one thing at a time (and there is only so much time to listen to music). All of the music being put out now (probably, what 50 albums a day around the world? who knows) gets piled onto the umpteen million that have been produced in history.

No one can seriously judge that an album released last year is definitely superior to, say, Frank Sinatra's Wee Small Hours. Yet, we all do just that or something like that, certain -- or at least of the opinion -- that an album released last year is superior to all of the thousands of great, groundbreaking, consistent albums released throughout album-producing history.

It's the never-ending discussion of primacy vs. recency but it's a good one. Great start from HoldenM, and some great posts from sp4cetiger and TannerVHalv.

Re: Aversion to Newer Music

SquishypuffDave — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 05:54:34 GMT

Author: SquishypuffDave

Posted: 01/31/2015 10:54

Romanelli wrote:

An added advantage to not being in a big hurry about new music...when I get to the music that's current right now, the really bad stuff (which, I guarantee will be represented on Best Ever charts here years from now) will be already weeded out, so I don't have to waste my time on it. Just like you don't have to waste your time on things like Allman & Woman, Men Without Hats, I'm In You by Peter Frampton, etc.

I feel like what gets weeded out over time is all the divisive niche music, leaving behind the albums that have a broader appeal, and this is probably why I have way more new music on my overall chart. My favourite album of the 2010s probably isn't going to be well-remembered a few decades from now. My potential favourite album of the 70s is probably one I'm never going to discover.

Re: Aversion to Newer Music

Skinny — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 12:19:35 GMT

Author: Skinny

Posted: 01/28/2015 17:19

All truly great music was, bizarrely, made during a single afternoon in the February of 1996.

Re: Aversion to Newer Music

goeie-oko — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 12:17:24 GMT

Author: goeie-oko

Posted: 01/28/2015 17:17

Manigoldo90 wrote:

I'm one of those who had always thinked that older music was much better... until I placed a 2011 album as my favourite. Good music still exsists, it is only more difficult to find, because I think that in the past mainstream albums could be also good, today it isn't so.

Yes, I think this brings up a good point, that so called "good music" has strayed further and further away from the mainstream in recent years. I wonder why this is the case, maybe because of the record companies sucking the creativity out of a lot of pop music?

Re: Aversion to Newer Music

Manigoldo90 — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 08:00:57 GMT

Author: Manigoldo90

Posted: 01/28/2015 13:00

I'm one of those who had always thinked that older music was much better... until I placed a 2011 album as my favourite. Good music still exsists, it is only more difficult to find, because I think that in the past mainstream albums could be also good, today it isn't so.

Re: Aversion to Newer Music

SleepDealer — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 07:36:46 GMT

Author: SleepDealer

Posted: 01/28/2015 12:36

I'm cautious about putting newer music in my best overall chart, simply because I'm well aware that it takes me time to decide whether something has the staying power and distinctiveness to join the ranks of great albums that have already stood the test of time. The newer releases in my chart are more often (but not always) the ones more likely to change as I update it.

Generally speaking, I find it hard to compare classic albums from the 60s and 70s (for example) with those from the last 10-20 years, let alone the last 1 or 2 years. Many of the great old releases would probably not be great if they were released today, since they'd be considered derivative of older concepts, styles and sounds. At the same time, new music starts at a disadvantage since it is unable to evoke 'classic quality' - i.e the patina of memories and cultural scenarios from the past that can only be built up over time.

Ultimately the deciding criterion for me is the personal significance of a record, and after a handful of really important albums, the ranking and rating process becomes a bit arbitrary.

Re: Aversion to Newer Music

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 15:01:39 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 01/27/2015 20:01

craola wrote:

I disagree, but even conceding your point, I think all things should weigh in new music's favor.

Say quality IS diminishing. For it to be diminishing as much as was implied (2 albums from 2010 match 2 albums from 1970 in quality), we're looking at a factor of 18.25 (4,000 to 75,000). Statistically, I would have to listen to 18.25 times as many albums from 2010 to chart something as I would to 1970. That's a ridiculous argument.

I guess it all depends on how many of the very best musicians ended up making a recording in the '60s and '70s. I can only talk from personal experience, but I haven't found that there's a vast difference in the number of my favorite records from one decade to the next, despite the huge increase in the number of records released with time. I think this is because the very best usually found a way (or their friends/fans found a way) to get their music out there, despite the expense and difficulty of doing so.

If we're just talking about charts, though, the point I made in response to Necharsian is also relevant:

Quote:

I think publications are hesitant to declare albums "great" without a large time baseline. That's not necessarily a bias so much as a chart philosophy. Personally, I think Rolling Stone goes way overboard in favoring older albums, but it is far closer to normal in this regard than BEA is.

That's why when people say that BEA has a bias towards new music, I'm hesitant to disagree. In twenty years, I have little doubt that lists like Rolling Stone will have a much higher fraction of albums from 2010-2014 than they do now, but that doesn't necessarily mean they were wrong to wait before blasting trumpets for acclaimed albums from the last few years.

So even if, in the long run, there is an increase in the number of classics from the last decade or two, I'm not convinced that the average BEA chartmaker has a great handle on what those are going to be.

The caveat to all of this is that I don't even believe that quality is a simple, one-dimensional or objectively quantifiable thing, so I think that "bias" in a chart can only be measured relatively. Relative to most "best ever" albums charts, BEA is very biased towards newer music (especially outside the top 100). Relative to your own personal standard for quality... well, that's pretty much up to you.

Re: Aversion to Newer Music

craola — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 14:12:13 GMT

Author: craola

Posted: 01/27/2015 19:12

sp4cetiger wrote:

I agree that it's foolish to think the decades should balance, but quality per record released surely is declining. It's a lot cheaper to record and release music nowadays, so the bar has been lowered substantially. The plus side is that you can now hear more brilliantly weird music that the major record labels wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole. The negative is that there's a lot more junk to sift through.

Re: Aversion to Newer Music

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 13:56:54 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 01/27/2015 18:56

craola wrote:

In 1970, 4,000 albums were released worldwide.
In 2010, 40,000 albums were released in the US alone.

I think it's foolish to think that the decades should balance out. It's not like quality-per-capita is depreciating.

Re: Aversion to Newer Music

craola — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 13:48:30 GMT

Author: craola

Posted: 01/27/2015 18:48

TannerVHalv wrote:

The way I see it, even though I have a definite tendency to favor modern music, the quality of music is probably neither going up, nor down. In my opinion, music really started to get good in about 1965 and is still great today. Since it's 2015, that means we now have gone through 50 years of great music. Which means the distribution on the BEA overall top 100 chart should look something close to this if no time periods were favored over any others...

'65-'69, 10 albums
'70-'79, 20 albums
'80-'89, 20 albums
'90-'99, 20 albums
'00-'09, 20 albums
'10-'14, 10 albums

The problem with this is that it doesn't account for increased production. There's a significantly larger sample size now than there was in 1970.

I don't know the actual numbers, so I'll make some up for illustration.

In 1970, 4,000 albums were released worldwide.
In 2010, 40,000 albums were released in the US alone.

I think it's foolish to think that the decades should balance out. It's not like quality-per-capita is depreciating.

*Edit:
1970: 4,000 in US http://books.google.com/books?id=42Wb1D...mp;f=false
2010: 75,000 in US http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/n...-from-2009

Re: Aversion to Newer Music

CA Dreamin — Mon, 26 Jan 2015 09:30:46 GMT

Author: CA Dreamin

Posted: 01/26/2015 14:30

TannerVHalv wrote:

So, based solely on the top 100, BEA has no bias towards post 2000's music. If anything, the bias leans, as it usually does, towards the sixties and seventies. So I agree with the first post on this thread, that people seem to be reluctant to give credit to modern albums until they've been out for several years.

Another reason could be that it takes a few years for an album to build such a large fanbase. Not everybody rushes to listen to new music as soon as it's released.

Re: Aversion to Newer Music

Anonymous — Sat, 24 Jan 2015 20:02:20 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 01/25/2015 01:02

Newer albums do look better on a chart. I like what TannerVHalv said

Re: Aversion to Newer Music

FlorianJones — Sat, 24 Jan 2015 17:22:34 GMT

Author: FlorianJones

Posted: 01/24/2015 22:22

The way I see it, even though I have a definite tendency to favor modern music, the quality of music is probably neither going up, nor down. In my opinion, music really started to get good in about 1965 and is still great today. Since it's 2015, that means we now have gone through 50 years of great music. Which means the distribution on the BEA overall top 100 chart should look something close to this if no time periods were favored over any others...

'65-'69, 10 albums
'70-'79, 20 albums
'80-'89, 20 albums
'90-'99, 20 albums
'00-'09, 20 albums
'10-'14, 10 albums

BEA's top 100 actually looks like this (it only adds up to 99 here, because I didn't include Kind of Blue from '59)...

65-69, 20 albums
70-79, 26 albums
80-89, 14 albums
90-99, 21 albums
00-09, 16 albums
10-14, 2 albums

So, based solely on the top 100, BEA has no bias towards post 2000's music. If anything, the bias leans, as it usually does, towards the sixties and seventies. So I agree with the first post on this thread, that people seem to be reluctant to give credit to modern albums until they've been out for several years.

Re: Aversion to Newer Music

edubs — Fri, 8 Aug 2014 21:25:03 GMT

Author: edubs

Posted: 08/09/2014 01:25

sp4cetiger wrote:

A few thoughts on this:

- The 2010s make up 11% of the BEA overall. Considering we're not even halfway through the decade, that's quite a lot.
- Compared to other "greatest albums" lists, new music is dramatically overrepresented on the BEA overall. Here's the year distribution of the top 500 on BEA compared to Rolling Stone:

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

- There are a wide range of chart philosophies for BEA users, some of which give weight to factors like historical importance and influence. This would put new music at a distinct disadvantage in some charts.
- Defago's reason.

This is an interesting graph.
I think there are probably several factors potentially causing this "effect":
- years ago there was less music available - harder to get a recording contract/far less record labels - less genres of music and less access to music from around the world everywhere else in the world. One of the effects of so many genres is that you more albums available of each genre and that creates a lot more choices and albums likely to get ranked by someone who likes a particular genre. Back when rock was pop the choices were more limited.
- people on the site probably have some degree of motivation to be different/find new music/etc. - so they add new stuff they find to their charts to be different and to see if others pick up on it. Also - nobody wants to rank music they are listening too frequently as being lesser than the music of decades ago - what fun is there is thinking music has peaked or gone down the crapper?
- Rolling Stone magazine is old school and slow to branch out in different directions. Practically any album put out by a vintage artist any more gets over-rated by RS. I guess they don't like to poke fun at the octogenarians?

Re: Aversion to Newer Music

Necharsian — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 18:43:59 GMT

Author: Necharsian

Posted: 06/23/2014 22:43

sp4cetiger wrote:

It's not just Rolling Stone, though, overall acclaim definitely takes time to build up. I think publications are hesitant to declare albums "great" without a large time baseline. That's not necessarily a bias so much as a chart philosophy. Personally, I think Rolling Stone goes way overboard in favoring older albums, but it is far closer to normal in this regard than BEA is.

That's why when people say that BEA has a bias towards new music, I'm hesitant to disagree. In twenty years, I have little doubt that lists like Rolling Stone will have a much higher fraction of albums from 2010-2014 than they do now, but that doesn't necessarily mean they were wrong to wait before blasting trumpets for acclaimed albums from the last few years.

Yeah true. I guess i should have added a caveat about the norm being excuding newer albums. It depends on what an individual deems excessive, but if having half as many albums from 2000s as 1970s on an overall chart is "new bias" then where does it end? One album from 2010 on the overall chart could be a new music bias.

To me it's not that BEA has a bias towards new music, but less of a bias towards old music (and yet i still think the overall chart here is very pre1980-centric).

Re: Aversion to Newer Music

Anonymous — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 18:30:30 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 06/23/2014 22:30

Necharsian wrote:

Even comparing RS500 and BEA500 from ~1963 on, the trend line is steadily going down for RS while BEA's would be more horizontal (but still trending down). So i guess if youre comparing BEA's overall chart to a list that is quite obviously biased against albums post-2000, then yeah BEA is biased towards them. But that's a poor conclusion to make imo.

Re: Aversion to Newer Music

Necharsian — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 18:16:30 GMT

Author: Necharsian

Posted: 06/23/2014 22:16

sp4cetiger wrote:

Okay, so you were responding specifically to one of the points I gave in my first post... I didn't get that cause you didn't quote me. :P

Haha well i wasnt responding directly to you. Some posts on the last page were talking about there being a huge bias for new music and using your stat, which i dont think is very accurate.

Even comparing RS500 and BEA500 from ~1963 on, the trend line is steadily going down for RS while BEA's would be more horizontal (but still trending down). So i guess if youre comparing BEA's overall chart to a list that is quite obviously biased against albums post-2000, then yeah BEA is biased towards them. But that's a poor conclusion to make imo.

Re: Aversion to Newer Music

Anonymous — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 17:50:11 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 06/23/2014 21:50

Necharsian wrote:

Okay, so you were responding specifically to one of the points I gave in my first post... I didn't get that cause you didn't quote me. 😜

I actually agree with you -- I don't think there's any strong evidence for a bias in either direction, for or against new music, in the overall. You're right that the stat I gave is meaningless in isolation, but I didn't give it in isolation. I showed the distribution for the top 500 as well. The BEA overall undoubtedly favors new music in comparison to other greatest albums charts (like Rolling Stone), but it's difficult to tell if this is due to a recency bias in BEA or just the fact that overall acclaim hasn't caught up yet.

Of course, for this question to have any meaning, we have to assume there is either an objective or aggregate subjective "truth" to use as a basis for comparison... and that's a whole nother can of worms.

Re: Aversion to Newer Music

Necharsian — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 17:34:58 GMT

Author: Necharsian

Posted: 06/23/2014 21:34

sp4cetiger wrote:

Okay, then I guess I'm missing your larger point, at least in the context of the original post. While I agree that the database probably has more 2010s albums than 1970s albums (on a per year basis), I don't see how this tells us anything about a bias for or against new music on overall charts.

My point is that even though 11% of the overall chart is from the 2010s, most of that comes from decade and year charts. So looking at that isolated stat doesnt really tell anything about the bias on the overall chart (because not every album is equal). Adding a new album from 2014 to my year chart doesnt affect anything on the overall chart except add a new data point to the very end.

And that is shown on the 2010s being 6% of the overall top 500. Thats basically half of what it represents overall, which tells me that as you go farther down the charts towards rank 15,000+, that's where the bulk of the 2010s albums will be. So i think the "new music bias" is overexaggerated as its all backloaded on to the chart.

Re: Aversion to Newer Music

Anonymous — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 17:14:38 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 06/23/2014 21:14

Necharsian wrote:

Well I meant quantity. So youre adding new albums for your 2014 chart and theyre getting like 10 overall points even if theyre on 15 year charts. So youve got a bunch of albums that are mostly on year charts, but not even close to being top 1000 or 5000 but rather basically just being tacked on to the end. So the point total will always be skewed to overall. If youve got one person putting Modern Vampires at #1 on their overall, how many decade charts would it have to be on to match those points? a lot.

Okay, then I guess I'm missing your larger point, at least in the context of the original post. While I agree that the database probably has more 2010s albums than 1970s albums (on a per year basis) because of year and decade charts, I don't see how this tells us anything about a bias for or against new music on overall charts.