Best Ever Albums

Re: Do albums tend to get worse towards the end?

CA Dreamin — Sun, 18 Jan 2015 12:41:40 GMT

Author: CA Dreamin

Posted: 01/18/2015 17:41

JasonZaia wrote:

I find this depends on the length of the album. It may not be the quality of music that dies down, just your interest in the music over an extended period of time. In my experience with music, the average length of an album is around 40 minutes. Many albums these days however, tend to go over this standard, sometimes reaching as long as 50 to 55 minutes. This of course doesn't include double, or even triple albums - those require a whole other level of attention. But getting back to my point. Albums that are around the 30 - 35 minute range, I tend to play more-so on repeat (that is, if they're good, of course). However, there are the occasional albums above the 40 minute standard that I keep on repeat, some even above 50. So really, all in all, it does mainly depend on the quality of each track, but the length of the album CAN be a huge deal breaker with some.

This thread looked familiar, and I saw I wrote something on it last summer. I said albums get weaker towards the end from a combination of artists intentionally front-loading and listener fatigue. But you're totally right that listener fatigue goes hand-in-hand with length. Sometimes if I'm in the mood to listen to something new, but I see the album is 65 minutes, I might say to myself 'some other day,' and then look for a shorter album. Or I might listen to only half of it, the other half later. So, length isn't a deal-breaker for me, but it does make me hesitant/procrastinate. And it is def a deal-breaker for others.

But I disagree that it depends on the quality of each track. Some late-album tracks are incredible, but there's a good chance they're slower songs. And slower songs fatigue many listeners. Thus, a listener may not realize a late-album gem at first.

Re: Do albums tend to get worse towards the end?

SquishypuffDave — Sun, 18 Jan 2015 04:50:59 GMT

Author: SquishypuffDave

Posted: 01/18/2015 09:50

Honestly I think each of my top 10 are pretty much consistent overall. Although I do lean towards disc one of Aphex Twin's SAWII.

Re: Do albums tend to get worse towards the end?

Infinity183 — Sun, 18 Jan 2015 04:46:33 GMT

Author: Infinity183

Posted: 01/18/2015 09:46

I'll do all the albums in my top 10:

1. Songs in the Key of Life - Really a tie with the first half. Although the second side has "Joy Inside My Tears" (the album's only track, out of 17, that I don't consider a perfect masterpiece), it also contains a lot of the album's greatest numbers ("Isn't She Lovely?," "If It's Magic," "As").

2. Aja - First half is better. Black Cow and the title are pretty much my two favorite Steely Dan songs ever, although "Home at Last" and "Josie" are both great, too.

3. Born to Run - Pretty much a tie, though with slightly more weight to the second side. The first half has the absolutely epic "Thunder Road" and personal favorites of mine "10th Avenue Freeze-Out" and "Backstreets," but the latter half has both "Born to Run" (my favorite song of all time) and "Jungeland."

4. Purple Rain - This is a flawless album from start to finish. Every single track gets a 10/10, so neither side has any obvious advantage over the other.

5. Innervisions - This album is also pretty much perfect all the way through, though I'm inclined to give the top honor to side one because of "Living for the City."

6. Blonde on Blonde - The second part certainly has its moments ("Most Likely You'll Go Your Way," "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands"), but it's the first section that contains "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35," "Visions of Johanna," "I Want You," and the rest of the album's best tracks.

7. Kind of Blue - Another album that's too consistent for either side to stand out obviously over the other, but the beginning contains "So What."

8. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - Part 2 has "A Day in the Life" and "When I'm Sixty-Four," but the rest of the album's most exciting numbers come off of part 1.

9. The Stranger - This is a hard one. Although I like the last two tracks more than most, it's on the first side that you have the title track, "Just the Way You Are," and of course "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant." Still, "Vienna" and "She's Always a Woman" are both wonderful, too.

10. Paranoid - Side 1, definitely. "War Pigs," "Paranoid," and "Iron Man" are all concentrated towards the beginning, even though side 2 is still great.

In retrospect, while most of my choices remain consistently strong throughout their entire course, none of them actually significantly improve as they near their end. It's not often that an album saves all of its best material for the end, and my own analysis does nothing to refute that.

Re: Do albums tend to get worse towards the end?

LAF2 — Sat, 17 Jan 2015 20:39:04 GMT

Author: LAF2

Posted: 01/18/2015 01:39

Double post.

Re: Do albums tend to get worse towards the end?

LAF2 — Sat, 17 Jan 2015 20:38:51 GMT

Author: LAF2

Posted: 01/18/2015 01:38

I'll do an analysis on my top 10.

1. Velvet Underground and Nico: Pretty much even. Perhaps a slight tip of the hat to side one.
2. Dark Side: For BEA, side two destroys side one. For me, it's about even. I'm actually feeling side one right now.
3. Sgt. Pepper: I see side one as very cohesive psychedelia, with side two being very experimental. Still, side one narrowly.
4. In the Court of the Crimson King: A five song album cannot be properly split into halves, so throw this one out.
5. OK Computer: Side one is a good bit better to me. Mych like Sgt. Pepper, side one is more cohesive, and side two more experimental.
6. Led Zeppelin IV: Most would quickly jump to side one. I think it's really close, but side one gets it.
7. The Doors: Side one by a small margin.
8. Is This It: Slight nod to the second half.
9. London Calling: First half by a mile.
10. Daydream Nation: Side one by a little, but side two has some of my favorite songs.

I am a very patient listener and don't see attention span causing these results. Most bands tend to stack their better songs on the first half, and then close with one or two of the very best to create optimal listening experience.

Re: Do albums tend to get worse towards the end?

JOSweetHeart — Sat, 17 Jan 2015 20:11:57 GMT

Author: JOSweetHeart

Posted: 01/18/2015 01:11

To me, the albums that have been released so far by my most favorite singer James Otto only get better with each passing song. My most favorite from each is actually at the end or near the end.

Days Of Our Lives- "Never Say Good Bye" (the last song)
Sunset Man- "Dam* Right" (the 10th song of 11)
Shake What God Gave Ya!- "Lets Just Let Go" (the 10th song of 12)

God bless you and James always!!! 😄 😄 😄

Holly

Re: Do albums tend to get worse towards the end?

JasonZaia — Sat, 17 Jan 2015 18:47:47 GMT

Author: JasonZaia

Posted: 01/17/2015 23:47

I find this depends on the length of the album. It may not be the quality of music that dies down, just your interest in the music over an extended period of time. In my experience with music, the average length of an album is around 40 minutes. Many albums these days however, tend to go over this standard, sometimes reaching as long as 50 to 55 minutes. This of course doesn't include double, or even triple albums - those require a whole other level of attention. But getting back to my point. Albums that are around the 30 - 35 minute range, I tend to play more-so on repeat (that is, if they're good, of course). However, there are the occasional albums above the 40 minute standard that I keep on repeat, some even above 50. So really, all in all, it does mainly depend on the quality of each track, but the length of the album CAN be a huge deal breaker with some.

Re: Do albums tend to get worse towards the end?

TracyJacks — Sat, 26 Jul 2014 14:04:58 GMT

Author: TracyJacks

Posted: 07/26/2014 18:04

benpaco wrote:

1 Marketing. If you have a song as the first track on an album, it's the first a person hears. They associate that as being the song of the album then, especially when the best song is placed first and it's blared on the radio nonstop. It's the "best" so it must be the best.

2 Lack of attention span. This is more sales than quality, but sales at least partially dictate what we end up hearing. I have friends who I don't think have ever finished a full album. They'll start one and just get bored and leave around track 4 or 5. Therefore, it's the first half of the album that they remember, as it's the only bit they could remember.

3 Marketing based on lack of attention span. You want your album to sell, right? If "albums are dead", as some of claimed, and people really are abandoning albums before they're done, you want to make sure they hear the best stuff first, the guff can come after. So you order the album in such a way that guff will come later so that the album, or more specifically the singles off the first half of the album, sell well.

Anyone else have thoughts on this?

Basically I agree with you this. I was thinking about it many times that on pop oriented albums the singles tend to be on the first half of the album and often followed by each other.
that your first point, Marketing can be said about not only pop oriented albums but in general about many other genres as well.
Your first point is right but it can be said about albums from many other genres as well. Album openers have to be strong songs - if an album opens with a weak song, then even if the following 2-3 songs are better, it may sound disappointing overall. When an album starts with a very good song, then it can kick in so much that even the 2nd or 3rd song is weaker, and then the quality gets constantly better again, I don't care too much about the weaker songs.

Your second & third point also can be said about pop albums. I just don't understand why they release full albums when they could also make EPs consisting only the singles 🤣

Regarding the question of the thread, my experiences are that both the first and the last couple of songs of my favourite albums are often equally good. But when it comes to which halves of an album is better, then I'd say the first is often better than the second half. I sometimes split albums to three parts. When an album has about 12 songs, then the first 4 songs are the beginning, the songs between 5-9 is the middle part and the last about 3 songs is the end of an album. The songs I like the least are often before the ending part, so I would say between 6-8 places. It means that it makes the second half of the album weaker than the first half. This is also maybe because in the middle of the album there is almost never the strongest song of the album. So it makes the second half weaker than the first, where it is often the first 2 or 3 songs are amongst the best songs of an album.

Anyway I often love the 3rd song of an album. I don't know why, it just happens to be often one of my favourites of an album.

Re: Do albums tend to get worse towards the end?

Anonymous — Sat, 26 Jul 2014 13:47:52 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 07/26/2014 17:47

Kiki wrote:

My initial reaction to this thread was thinking "What on earth are you talking about you silly boy!" It wouldn't have been a nice thing to say plus I hadn't really thought about it. Spacetiger wonderful. Let's see. I'll do the Manic Street Preachers albums first.
(rest of your post)

Wow, that's very accurate. Maybe I could do with King Crimson. Don't have too time now, though.

Re: Do albums tend to get worse towards the end?

Defago — Sat, 26 Jul 2014 12:08:40 GMT

Author: Defago

Posted: 07/26/2014 16:08

Ooh, ooh! Analyze the heterocedasticity of albums according to their rating! I'm thinking there's a relation between the mean and variance - average score and album consistency.

Re: Do albums tend to get worse towards the end?

Anonymous — Sat, 26 Jul 2014 08:53:41 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 07/26/2014 12:53

NickVolos wrote:

I don't see the purpose of applying science (logic in general) to (over)analyze the position of tracks on a music medium... 🤡 Take for instance a generally-accepted great album: how are the bad tracks distributed? There are none. Or the reverse case: a generally-accepted "bad" album: the bad tracks are everywhere. And what lies in between? varied opinions as to what tracks are better than others...

In my mind, there is never anything wrong with trying to better understand the world. The point here is not to try to label tracks as "good" or "bad" in any objective sense, but to look for patterns in the way people experience music, as well as to think about how that might apply to our own experiences.

The topic heading shouldn't be taken too seriously, btw (tongue-in-cheek).

Re: Do albums tend to get worse towards the end?

NickVolos — Sat, 26 Jul 2014 06:43:58 GMT

Author: NickVolos

Posted: 07/26/2014 10:43

I don't see the purpose of applying science (logic in general) to (over)analyze the position of tracks on a music medium... 🤡 Take for instance a generally-accepted great album: how are the bad tracks distributed? There are none. Or the reverse case: a generally-accepted "bad" album: the bad tracks are everywhere. And what lies in between? varied opinions as to what tracks are better than others...

Re: Do albums tend to get worse towards the end?

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 19:34:03 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 07/25/2014 23:34

My initial reaction to this thread was thinking "What on earth are you talking about you silly boy!" It wouldn't have been a nice thing to say plus I hadn't really thought about it. Spacetiger wonderful. Let's see. I'll do the Manic Street Preachers albums first. I know them best so I can see how it relates:

Generation Terrorists - Worse towards end

My favorite songs are all in the first 7. Motorcycle Emptiness, Nat west, You Love Us, Little Baby Nothing and Slash N Burn. This album starts off incredible. Once Stay Beautiful comes on the album becomes a wasteland of some of the Manic Street Preachers most forgettable songs. Only when Methadone Pretty and Condemned to Rock 'n' Roll the quality comes back again.

Gold Against The Soul - FAR WORSE towards end

Album starts with Sleepflower the forgotten Manic Street Preachers gem, From Despair To Where which is one of the best Manic Street Preachers singles ever and the mighty 'La Tristesse Durera (Scream to a Sigh)'. From then one the album completely falls off the tracks. If it wasn't for Roses in the Hospital the second half would have been a disastor. 'Nostalgic Pushead' and 'Symphony of Tourette' appear on the album only because... they make silly noises? There are so much gimmicks in them? At the time the Manic Street Preachers were recording songs like Patrick Bateman, Hibernation and Are Mothers Saints (the best Manic Street Preachers B-Side by the way) . This album gets far worse towards end.

The Holy Bible - Consistent throughout

No one song stands out above the others here. Perhaps Faster does a little and that is all the way on track 9. Yes, White America and Abortion put the majority of Gold Soul to shame right away but then there is She is Suffering and Revol not long after, two of the weakest singles Manic Street Preachers have released and two of the three weaket songs on the album. Near the end there is a run of Faster, This Is Yesterday and Die In The Summertime while the final song doesn't drop the ball. Most of the others are consistently great.

Everything Must Go - Consistent throughout

Without a single weak song on the album it is inevitable. All 4 singles are great although only one appears towards the end. The Girl Who Wanted to Be God, Interiors (Song for Willem de Kooning), Further Away just about manage to keep up with the earlier songs. I mean... songs like 'Enola/Alone' how can you compete? While the album is great towards the end, the first songs are just so excellent this could have easily been a worse towards the end album. I can't do that though so... it goes down as Consisty throughout.

This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours - Worse towards end

Nobody Loved You and Black Dog on My Shoulder can't save this album being a top heavy one. It's like... all the stadium songs are at the start. If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next and You Stole the Sun from My Heart stand far above songs like Born A Girl and Be Natural. If they had been replaced with the incredible choices of Prologue to History, Montana/Autumn/78 and Black Holes for the Young this would have been a consistent stadium filling pop rock album. However by making those changes the whole soul of the album would disappear. There is something so very unusual about songs like I'm Not Working, Be Natural and S.Y.M.M., all of which have some earned their place on the highest selling Manic Street Preachers album. Towards the end you get some of the most unique songs they have put on their studio albums... The start however has some of their best songs they have put to album.

Know Your Enemy - Absolutely no idea/ Incomprensible

One of the best Manic Street Preachers songs ever recorded comes in at number 4. From 'So Why So Sad' to 'Miss Europa Disco Dancer' is one of the best runs in... well all of the their albums. This album is completely ridiculous. Still... could fall into the same problem as Everything Must Go because of the fantastic songs near the start. 'My Guernica' is wonderful, 'The Convalescent' is charming, 'Epicentre' is the most underrated Manic song ever and the last two... well there are too many great songs on this album. I can't punish this album in anyway. It's amazing the thing even exists.

Lifeblood - Inconsistent throughout

Know Your Enemy was not Manic Street Preachers spreading themselves to thin, this was. More than 30 songs recorded for this (some not even released as B-Sides) and amongst them was 'Failure Bound' and mean... just what? 'The Love Of Richard Nixon was the lead single for goodness sake! 1985 and Solitude Sometimes Is are the best and one is the first song and the other track 10. 'Fragments and Cardiff Afterlife appear on the two final songs and may just push this album into stronger towards the end territory! Although the strong points and weak points do pop up regardless of their place on the track list. I mean... oh god I've put on Failure Bound 3 times on repeat as I wrote this paragraph... It's just... what... why am I doing this...

Send Away The Tigers - Worse towards end

Apart from Underdogs, which was a Manic Street Public Relations Disastor, the two greatest songs on the album appear right at the start. 'Send Away The Tigers' and Your Love Alone' are wonderful additions to Manic Manic songs. While hard to fault 'Winterlovers' 'Bodybags' and 'Pasty' can't compete with the singles. This album is fairly easy one to do. Send Away The Tigers is also the most essential album Manic Street Preachers have ever released. Without it Manic Street Preachers today would be as popular as Doctor Who today if the 2005 series or anything afterwards had been filmed. It's the debut album of Manic Street Preachers 2.0.

Journal For Plague Lovers - Consistent throughout

It's The Holy Bible with the screws tightened. The strength of the album isn't some killer single, a great first half or incredible run of final songs (although Williams Last Words is one of the best ever Manic Street Preachers songs) instead it is the fact it flys by so easily. It's great pretty much consistently throughout and while not having a song in my top 20 Manic Street Preachers songs apart from 'Williams Last Words' there is no bad egg on the album. Perhaps Marlon J.D. may be the only slip in quality although at least 7 albums by Manic Street Preachers have droped the ball way harder than that on at least one song. 'Peeled Apples', ' Virginia State Epileptic Colony', 'Jackie' and 'All Is Vanity'. So much to like here.

Postcards from a Young Man - Worse towards end

The first three songs are three of the best ever singles Manic Street Preachers have ever recorded. If every song was as excellent as '(It's Not War) Just the End of Love', 'Postcards from a Young Man' and 'Some Kind of Nothingness' this album would have been the best Manic Street Preachers album by far. Everything Must Go and The Holy Bible might as well have gone home. 'Some Kind of Nothingness' might be the most passionate song ever by a group of guys in their 40s, far from being young men. It has a fire only heard on some of the best Manic Street Preachers songs. The rest however... this album is a perfect case for getting worse towards end. ''Don't Be Evil' is even one of the worse songs to end up on a studio album by them and could have easily been replaced with one of the many wonderful B-Sides (oh did I mention Send Away The Tigers had some amazing B-Sides? Should have said that) and tracks like 'A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun' and 'All We Make Is Entertainment' don't take the album anywhere near the great heights of the begining.

Rewind The Film - Consistent throughout

Could easily make a case for it being worse towards the end though. While 'Show Me The Wonder' and 'Rewind The Film' are absolute charming additions to the Manic Music Library, the next best song is the start of half two. 'Anthem for a Lost Cause' sets the mood to a rather... different half. Like This Is My Tooth, this album gets stranger the longer it goes on and before you know it... BAM... '3 Ways to See Despair' is playing. 'Running Out of Fantasy' and 'Manorbier' brings a great character to the album while a song like 'Builder of Routines' may be catchy yet feels like a bridge to the next track rather than one on its own. 'Manorbier' is also the song I wanted on a Manic Street Preachers album since I first heard 'The Vorticists' which is easily one of the most magical moments Manics might have ever made. The second half brings too much greatness to the table. Consistent from start to finish.

Well thats that. Going through the Manic Street Preachers albums, spacetiger does come up with a good point. No albums I can say the second half is better apart from maybe Lifeblood while polished albums such as Gold Against The Soul and Postcard From A Young Man, despite having the Manic Street Preachers best singles, completely falter towards the end.

I may do favorites in general next. This has been fun 😄

Re: Do albums tend to get worse towards the end?

AlexZangari — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 19:24:44 GMT

Author: AlexZangari

Posted: 07/25/2014 23:24

Skinny wrote:

I'm pretty sure we can all agree that speaking for others is a silly thing to do.

Sorry? 😕

Re: Do albums tend to get worse towards the end?

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 14:07:47 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 07/25/2014 18:07

sp4cetiger wrote:

This actually suggests an interesting experiment -- which are the albums with the biggest discrepancy between their individual track ratings and their overall album rating? More in a bit...

So, the difference between album ratings and average track ratings turned out to be pretty interesting. First of all, if I look at an average over the top 500, I find that the mean track rating is about 2 points higher than the album rating. However, the further I go up the charts, the more the album rating gets larger relative to the mean track rating, up to the top 10 where the albums are rated 2.5 points higher than the mean of the tracks within.

Now for the outliers. The album with the biggest positive difference between its rating and mean of its tracks is...

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

The Beatles (The White Album) by The Beatles

In retrospect, this isn't a big shock, since the album is notoriously scattered. Here are the remaining albums with more than a three-point positive difference between album and mean track rating:

2. Dark Side of the Moon (Pink Floyd)
3. Revolver (The Beatles)
4. Abbey Road (The Beatles)
5. Sgt. Pepper (The Beatles)
28. Exile on Main Street (The Rolling Stones)
81. Illinois (Sufjan Stevens)
414. Time Out (Dave Brubeck Quartet)

On the other end, there were a lot of albums with big negative differences between the album rating and the mean of the tracks. Here are the albums with more than an eight-point negative difference between the album and mean track rating:

168. Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends (Coldplay)
285. Sigh No More (Mumford and Sons)
287. The King of Limbs (Radiohead)
296. X&Y (Coldplay)
326. Bat Out of Hell (Meatloaf)
331. The Resistance (Muse)
388. The Black Parade (My Chemical Romance)
420. Hybrid Theory (Linkin Park)
480. Live Through This (Hole)
493. Hysteria (Def Leppard)

That's quite a chunk of uncoolness. I suspect what's happening here is that the people who strongly dislike the album are unlikely to go through and rate it track by track, so the track ratings will tend to be more positive. It's interesting to see King of Limbs in there, though.

Oh, and the one with the biggest negative difference, at -12 points, is a true JMan classic...

Bat Out of Hell by Meat Loaf

Re: Do albums tend to get worse towards the end?

denmarkman — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 13:20:51 GMT

Author: denmarkman

Posted: 07/25/2014 17:20

Skinny wrote:

I'm pretty sure we can all agree that speaking for others is a silly thing to do.

Speak for yourself.

Re: Do albums tend to get worse towards the end?

migglemo — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 13:19:03 GMT

Author: migglemo

Posted: 07/25/2014 17:19

I feel as though Nick Cave's Boatman's Call is weighted toward the beginning. Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms first three songs were all hits, then the rest not. Bowie's Low is strange because the first side is all pleasant pop, the second half abstraction. Part of the beginning bias is probably a matter of perception. We probably remember what we first encounter better. I know I often have time to start listening to albums, but sometimes can't finish them. Also, artists want to make a good first impression.

Re: Do albums tend to get worse towards the end?

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 12:52:17 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 07/25/2014 16:52

My friend always joked around (or perhaps not, his jokes related to mockery were always stated with such conviction) about how all good albums have the best song as the 2nd track. To be completely fair, it's not always a true statement, but, for me, the rule can be applied quite often.

Re: Do albums tend to get worse towards the end?

Skinny — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 12:41:27 GMT

Author: Skinny

Posted: 07/25/2014 16:41

AlexZangari wrote:

I'm pretty sure we can all agree the first half is better by a small margin, but only because it is one of the most godly killer track streaks in music history.

I'm pretty sure we can all agree that speaking for others is a silly thing to do.

Re: Do albums tend to get worse towards the end?

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 12:35:36 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 07/25/2014 16:35

satiemaniac wrote:

Unless I am listening to a pop album, I enjoy things as unified wholes (even if this tends to be a marketing schtick or plain revisionism in some cases - more on that when I'm articulating using a brain that isn't running on Warheads candies, McDonald's fries, too much soda, and at 4:13am). Thus, rating individual songs requires me to temporarily lift something out of a context, and that seems counter to my way of appreciating music.

I agree with this to an extent, but I think most of the albums in the BEA top 500 sit somewhere on a spectrum between pure pop and album-oriented "art" (for lack of a better term). I think the vast majority of them were made to function both as albums and as collections of individual songs. Still, it's a good point. If we look at OK Computer, "Fitter Happier" has an anomalously low rating, almost 15 points below the album average. It functions very poorly as a standalone track, yet I would say that it's crucial for reinforcing the mood and tone of the album.

This actually suggests an interesting experiment -- which are the albums with the biggest discrepancy between their individual track ratings and their overall album rating? More in a bit...