Best Ever Albums

Re: The Perfect Ten

HoldenM — Tue, 17 Sep 2013 00:41:40 GMT

Author: HoldenM

Posted: 09/17/2013 04:41

Giving an album 100 and saying that an album is perfect are two very different things to me. For the former, it mostly comes down to the fact that, for me, once an album reaches a certain threshold, it simply gets a 100. I've rated around forty-two albums a one-hundred, but none of them are "perfect." They simply amount to the kind of experience that is so potent to me, and so meaningful, that they can only be measured by the highest numeric value I can give.

The latter idea is another story. I honestly don't believe in "the perfect album." Even my top album has two or three songs that I don't just absolutely love. Each album that I have listened to ever has one song that I could complain about, at least a little. The closest there will ever be to a perfect album for me, at least as far as I can tell, is Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon. If some songs were just a little bit stronger, then it would be my favorite album, and it would be a perfect album. Yet, it lacks just a little bit of transcendence for me to fully embrace it as the platinum or diamond standard for all recorded music. To me, there are perfect songs can exist independent and in context with a given work, and still come off as nothing short of marvelous. Yet, there's just not an album where there are all of these perfect songs that play off of one another perfectly. Sometimes albums are good enough as wholes that the inferior pieces can be overlooked, and even appreciated for their part on whatever record they're found. Yet, they're still lesser works that hold back a construction.

Re: The Perfect Ten

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 18:17:27 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 09/16/2013 22:17

It's best they are given to whatever. Gets complicated otherwise.

Re: The Perfect Ten

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 16:23:34 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 09/16/2013 20:23

For me, the criteria might be this (this is the first time I've ever looked into it):

All songs must be at least 75 or 80.
The flow must be brilliant.
The lyrics must not be overly repetitive on any song.
The production must not be underproduced or overproduced. A little bit of either is fine, but not to an extreme.
There must be a few 90-100 songs.
The album must be versatile in styles of the albums main genre.

This is a guess.

Re: The Perfect Ten

andy_hunter — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 16:19:09 GMT

Author: andy_hunter

Posted: 09/16/2013 20:19

I have five albums rated 100/100. For me, the criteria for a perfect score is completely ineffable. There's just a certain quality to them which lets you know they are perfect.

However, the fact that I have a clear idea of how to rank each of these "perfect" albums contradicts the idea of perfection or suggests that some are more perfect than others.

So to answer your question; I don't know.

Re: The Perfect Ten

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 15:28:55 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 09/16/2013 19:28

SquishypuffDave wrote:

I don't like the idea of a "perfect" score because it's subtractive in nature. I don't want an upper limit to my enjoyment of something. Why should the goal be for an album to be merely "flawless"? I'm more interested in what it contains than what it lacks. There are plenty of albums I consider flawless, and I enjoy some of them significantly more than others.

This is a good point, but there are a few reasons this doesn't bother me. First, the rating system is discrete, so "100" is actually a rounding up of any rating between 97.5 and 100. Second, the rating system forces us to choose over a finite range, when in reality the upper limit on our possible enjoyment of an album is probably *much* higher than the enjoyment we've actually experienced from even our favorite albums. Maybe it's even infinite (whatever that would mean).

To get nerdy, I actually imagine the relationship between enjoyment and rating is something like this:

enjoyment = 100 / (100 - rating) - 1

That way, a true one hundred would produce infinite pleasure, meaning that there's no actual upper limit on enjoyment. This also means that the difference between a 95 and 90 is much bigger than the difference between, for example, 60 and 55.

Really, though, enjoyment isn't a one-dimensional thing. I rate both Highway 61 and ITAOS as 100, but they each contributed completely different things to my life experience. The main reason that "perfect" ratings don't bother me is that I know the next time I rate an album 100, it will have given me something completely unique and it won't really matter how its rating compares to the other albums I rated 100.

Re: The Perfect Ten

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 15:12:36 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 09/16/2013 19:12

Necharsian wrote:

Do people have albums that they could listen to at any time of day, regardless of mood? I just dont get how people can have like 7 "perfect" albums and actually differentiate them from the 95s and 90s.

For me, the 100s have more to do with their sum contribution to my life than how much I enjoy them at any given time. Otherwise, I agree, my choice of album to listen to depends greatly on my mood.

Re: The Perfect Ten

Necharsian — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 14:47:43 GMT

Author: Necharsian

Posted: 09/16/2013 18:47

My rating system is so flawed and stupid. Something that I rate an "8" could easily be a "10" on a different day and vice versa. I donno, there are a lot of albums that I havent heard yet that Im sure are 10s for me and its pretty fun to search for em.

Do people have albums that they could listen to at any time of day, regardless of mood? I just dont get how people can have like 7 "perfect" albums and actually differentiate them from the 95s and 90s.

Re: The Perfect Ten

meccalecca — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 12:35:04 GMT

Author: meccalecca

Posted: 09/16/2013 16:35

SquishypuffDave wrote:

I agree. but can something be both flawed and perfect? What is a flaw? In terms of music, both are subjective by nature, so what one perceives as perfection is rarely perceived by all as perfection anyway. The shitty lo-fi production on Daniel Johnston and Guided By Voices is perfect to me, and yet horribly flawed in the eyes of most.

Re: The Perfect Ten

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 12:24:33 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 09/16/2013 16:24

SquishypuffDave wrote:

Too much this

Re: The Perfect Ten

meccalecca — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 12:09:00 GMT

Author: meccalecca

Posted: 09/16/2013 16:09

Perfect albums are the ones that completely change your life. it's not a science. there is no equation. once you hear them, you can't imagine your life without them.

Re: The Perfect Ten

Listmeister — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 10:05:06 GMT

Author: Listmeister

Posted: 09/16/2013 14:05

sp4cetiger wrote:

It's really the opposite for me. I find the idea of rating someone else's favorite albums very unsettling. I do it because that's how the site functions, but I don't think it really means anything.

Rating albums, however, I think about more carefully. An album with a 100 has had a very special impact on my life. That doesn't mean it will have the same impact on someone else, but the rating is, if nothing else, meaningful to me.

I don't know how to rate charts either. I have a couple of criteria, variety in the top 20 (having the same band over and over causes a low score. I'd probably rate my own chart pretty low for that reason.) Good notes on the entries rates I high score for me. For instance, lethalnezzle did this thing where he put negative reviews in front of all his favorite albums. I admire that kind of courage, and I gave him a high score.

I only give out high scores to charts. If I'm going to give a chart a low score, I just don't rate it.

Re: The Perfect Ten

SquishypuffDave — Sun, 15 Sep 2013 23:07:45 GMT

Author: SquishypuffDave

Posted: 09/16/2013 03:07

I don't like the idea of a "perfect" score because it's subtractive in nature. I don't want an upper limit to my enjoyment of something. Why should the goal be for an album to be merely "flawless"? I'm more interested in what it contains than what it lacks. There are plenty of albums I consider flawless, and I enjoy some of them significantly more than others.

Re: The Perfect Ten

Anonymous — Sun, 15 Sep 2013 16:43:18 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 09/15/2013 20:43

I've given nine albums a perfect ten. These are:

London Calling
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
The Suburbs
Animals
A Creature I Don't Know
Hospice
Stop Making Sense
Strange Days
Actor

I've also given a perfect ten to a few compilation albums (two for Talking Heads and one for Bruce Springsteen), and also gave a perfect ten to my band's album, just cause I'm a dork.

Re: The Perfect Ten

junodog4 — Sun, 15 Sep 2013 16:22:29 GMT

Author: junodog4

Posted: 09/15/2013 20:22

ShaneSpear wrote:

None.

I prefer to long for the perfect album that may never come.

I like this attitude...

Re: The Perfect Ten

Anonymous — Sun, 15 Sep 2013 13:25:58 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 09/15/2013 17:25

On my chart ITAOTS to Rumours, which is 26.

Re: The Perfect Ten

Facetious — Sun, 15 Sep 2013 12:45:26 GMT

Author: Facetious

Posted: 09/15/2013 16:45

TMR, my top album, is almost 9.8/10. It's maddening, but I haven't found a single album that's 10/10, not even rounded off from my 'one decimal point' ratings.

Re: The Perfect Ten

Anonymous — Sun, 15 Sep 2013 11:11:04 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 09/15/2013 15:11

Cymro2011 wrote:

But I am serious when it comes to rating charts.

Re: The Perfect Ten

Cymro2011 — Sun, 15 Sep 2013 10:31:09 GMT

Author: Cymro2011

Posted: 09/15/2013 14:31

tekin wrote:

My ratings here are mostly functional (for myself, so don't try to understand them) so I don't think that much about them. I give 100s very easily and don't take it seriously (because it's not serious, one might say). Numbers and (enjoyment of) music are not correlatives IMO; this whole business of rating (Scaruffi, p4k, others, us here) is mostly for fun and passing the time and stuff like that and doesn't say anything substantial (if anything) about the music.

But I am serious when it comes to rating charts.

Re: The Perfect Ten

Anonymous — Sun, 15 Sep 2013 10:28:24 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 09/15/2013 14:28

tekin wrote:

Re: The Perfect Ten

Anonymous — Sun, 15 Sep 2013 10:16:13 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 09/15/2013 14:16

My ratings here are mostly functional (for myself, so don't try to understand them) so I don't think that much about them. I give 100s very easily and don't take it seriously (because it's not serious, one might say). Numbers and (enjoyment of) music are not correlatives IMO; this whole business of rating (Scaruffi, p4k, others, us here) is mostly for fun and passing the time and stuff like that and doesn't say anything substantial (if anything) about the music.