Best Ever Albums

Re: What is your main way for ranking albums???

badseed — Sun, 1 Apr 2018 22:28:52 GMT

Author: badseed

Posted: 04/02/2018 02:28

bobbyb5 wrote:

But what makes the difference between a great Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell or Carole King record and a not great one? How well-crafted the songs were and how well-crafted the accompanying music was. And lyrics are really not much without good music to go along with it. You could listen to a great record over and over and over again, but would anyone ever read the lyrics printed on a piece of paper over and over and over again? Of course not. Does anyone take out the lyric sheet and read it every day in the same way that you take out a record and listen to it over and over?

The difference is how the songs make me feel. Like I said it does have some to do with arrangements. But the best records for those artists all have numerous memorable lines. Blonde on Blonde isn't one of my favorite albums because of the catchiness. It's because of Dylan's rarely matched knack for making me smile with individual lines. Stuff like "he's sure got a lot of gall, to be so useless and all, muttering small talk at the wall while I'm in the hall" and "your dancing child in his Chinese suit, he spoke to me, I took his flute, no I wasn't very cute to him, was I" could have been spoken over the sound of screeching chalkboards and it would still be fantastic.

Re: What is your main way for ranking albums???

RoundTheBend — Sun, 1 Apr 2018 21:14:41 GMT

Author: RoundTheBend

Posted: 04/02/2018 01:14

Another way to put it, scores and therefore ranks greatly decrease for great albums but are littered with filler, mediocre experiments, etc.

Re: What is your main way for ranking albums???

RichardSauce — Sun, 1 Apr 2018 20:50:38 GMT

Author: RichardSauce

Posted: 04/02/2018 00:50

When it comes to clicking on those little stars, that's mostly just how I personally feel/how much I enjoy the song or album.

When it comes to making a list, there's definitely a confluence of all the listed options, and honestly applied pretty unevenly, sometimes the cultural/genre importance of the record will weigh more, or the technical/musical/lyrical achievements, or a sense of "This has THE defining songs of this artist/period, even if the overall album is a bit weaker."

My baseline for qualification, however, will always be whether or not I enjoyed it. I'm just not going to put an album on one of my lists that I don't like, I wouldn't be being honest if I did.

Re: What is your main way for ranking albums???

YoungPunk — Sun, 1 Apr 2018 20:33:43 GMT

Author: YoungPunk

Posted: 04/02/2018 00:33

@Bobby

I'm actually starting to appreciate the musicality of artists like Bob Dylan recently, as I'm getting older (27)

Re: What is your main way for ranking albums???

bobbyb5 — Sun, 1 Apr 2018 19:47:56 GMT

Author: bobbyb5

Posted: 04/01/2018 23:47

badseed wrote:

Meh, the arrangements and melodies were good but rarely made the album. When I think singer-songwriter I think Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen and the like and without the emotion provided by the lyrics and delivery I don't think the albums would have been nearly as good. Not to say the style doesn't play a part but if "It's Too Late" and "You've Got a Friend" kept the background music but changed the lyrics to less relatable content I don't think Tapestry would be nearly as good. Surely more modern singer-songwriters like Sufjan Stevens have outstanding arrangements but that's more the exception than the rule, at least for my taste and experience. One person front and center with a microphone, acoustic guitar/piano, and maybe a harmonica is my general description of the genre.

Re: What is your main way for ranking albums???

badseed — Sun, 1 Apr 2018 19:26:48 GMT

Author: badseed

Posted: 04/01/2018 23:26

bobbyb5 wrote:

I would disagree a bit about singer-songwriter being all about lyrics and emotion. That may be the effect it has, but it was really about songcraft and composing. The good stuff anyway. What distinguishes great singer-songwriter records from lousy ones is how well-crafted the arrangements were and how good the melodies were. It's true it wasn't about technique or art, but craft.

Re: What is your main way for ranking albums???

bobbyb5 — Sun, 1 Apr 2018 19:09:03 GMT

Author: bobbyb5

Posted: 04/01/2018 23:09

badseed wrote:

It's like a strange combination of all of the above and none of the above. Lots and lots of jazz albums in particular are so artistically brilliant that if I was basing my chart on greatness alone nearly every jazz album I've heard would be on there. It's the ones that move me more so than the ones I enjoy the most, although enjoyment comes into play as well. Much like the films of Lars von Trier, I don't particularly enjoy Joni Mitchell's Blue or Sufjan Stevens' Carrie and Lowell but I still love them dearly because of the impact they have on me personally. I really don't care much about artistic merit when it comes to most mainstream rock music; it's usually more about how much I enjoy the tracks. But when choosing jazz and soul it's about technique and emotion while most folk and singer-songwriter stuff is more about the lyrics and emotion. Rap is about technique, lyrics, emotion and production. That's just the basic genres, not counting subgenres and sub-subgenres that all have their different ways of connecting with me as well. So I can't really even compare most of the stuff on my chart because they're all being judged by different standards. So like the one guy said earlier, it's all a bunch of bullshit.

Re: What is your main way for ranking albums???

badseed — Sun, 1 Apr 2018 18:55:49 GMT

Author: badseed

Posted: 04/01/2018 22:55

It's like a strange combination of all of the above and none of the above. Lots and lots of jazz albums in particular are so artistically brilliant that if I was basing my chart on greatness alone nearly every jazz album I've heard would be on there. It's the ones that move me more so than the ones I enjoy the most, although enjoyment comes into play as well. Much like the films of Lars von Trier, I don't particularly enjoy Joni Mitchell's Blue or Sufjan Stevens' Carrie and Lowell but I still love them dearly because of the impact they have on me personally. I really don't care much about artistic merit when it comes to most mainstream rock music; it's usually more about how much I enjoy the tracks. But when choosing jazz and soul it's about technique and emotion while most folk and singer-songwriter stuff is more about the lyrics and emotion. Rap is about technique, lyrics, emotion and production. That's just the basic genres, not counting subgenres and sub-subgenres that all have their different ways of connecting with me as well. So I can't really even compare most of the stuff on my chart because they're all being judged by different standards. So like the one guy said earlier, it's all a bunch of bullshit.

Re: What is your main way for ranking albums???

Anonymous — Sun, 1 Apr 2018 16:54:49 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 04/01/2018 20:54

rkm wrote:

My highest ranking albums are always those that are most personally significant to me, typically aligned with a significant life memory, issue or theme I was processing at the time. They have to be good, and have a significant number of good songs, and often have some kind of cohesion that make the whole greater than the sum of the parts, but I could care less if they are ground breaking or not, or if anyone likes them.

Right. Just about everything gets called groundbreaking nowadays. It's one of those words that gets thrown around so often that you wonder if people just use it as a way to pump up the value of what they like. As if to say "I'm not one of those people who just goes around liking the music everybody else likes, I only like things that are art." So little music is groundbreaking that if we only listened to music that is actually groundbreaking, we wouldn't have much to listen to.

Re: What is your main way for ranking albums???

Lowkey — Sun, 1 Apr 2018 15:30:58 GMT

Author: Lowkey

Posted: 04/01/2018 19:30

How much I enjoy it

That’s it

Re: What is your main way for ranking albums???

backhudson — Sun, 1 Apr 2018 15:03:20 GMT

Author: backhudson

Posted: 04/01/2018 19:03

I honestly feel like its a mixture of all these things. I think an album full of great songs that lacks cohesion might rank lower than one that has more of an artistic consistency and statement, but it really is just a blend of all these things.

Re: What is your main way for ranking albums???

Trendall — Sun, 1 Apr 2018 14:55:41 GMT

Author: Trendall

Posted: 04/01/2018 18:55

I've been doing it for years but I'm still not really sure.

Honestly

glynspsa — Sun, 1 Apr 2018 14:48:06 GMT

Author: glynspsa

Posted: 04/01/2018 18:48

My charts are sort of a combination of all of the above.

Re: What is your main way for ranking albums???

YoungPunk — Sun, 1 Apr 2018 14:40:25 GMT

Author: YoungPunk

Posted: 04/01/2018 18:40

@Fischman

I also thought enjoyment was a factor for me so abstain, but I realized I only enjoyed a lot of albums because of the art. Art is just so amazing!

Re: What is your main way for ranking albums???

Fischman — Sun, 1 Apr 2018 14:31:24 GMT

Author: Fischman

Posted: 04/01/2018 18:31

I had to go with abstain because I mix all those things, but I can't say I do so in the same proportions from one album to another. I will generally lean toward whatever stands out to me most on a given album.

Re: What is your main way for ranking albums???

YoungPunk — Sun, 1 Apr 2018 14:11:17 GMT

Author: YoungPunk

Posted: 04/01/2018 18:11

Looks like I am alone in artistic achievement 🙁 , but I know a lot about music as an art (music in particular, I know close to nothing about Michealangelo....can't even spell it right probably)

Re: What is your main way for ranking albums???

RoundTheBend — Sun, 1 Apr 2018 11:32:27 GMT

Author: RoundTheBend

Posted: 04/01/2018 15:32

While on this site, I've probably done all of those listed.

My latest efforts have been averages of the parts... so I suppose I'm doing it the "awesome track method". But what makes tracks awesome usually are a culmination of the other things you listed. The only thing I'm not doing anymore is "importance/significance/influential" because I think those are attributes I'm no longer interested for my charts.

Re: What is your main way for ranking albums???

Repo — Sun, 1 Apr 2018 09:53:19 GMT

Author: Repo

Posted: 04/01/2018 13:53

I feel it's life force.

Re: What is your main way for ranking albums???

travelful — Sun, 1 Apr 2018 09:34:45 GMT

Author: travelful

Posted: 04/01/2018 13:34

I think its a mixture consisting primarily of how much I enjoy it and artistic achievement.

Re: What is your main way for ranking albums???

Anonymous — Sun, 1 Apr 2018 08:44:29 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 04/01/2018 12:44

A mix of how frequently I listen to it and how much I enjoy it, which are tied together but if I've loved something for so long sometimes I need to listen to it less to conjure up the (memories of?) enjoyment. There's some element of how influential it is (/was (nostalgia)) to me in there as well; if an album opened up my head and/or ears, then it gets extra points.