Top 10+ Music, Movies, and Visual Art of the Week (2025) - Music Diaries

AfterHours

Gender: Male

Location: The Zone

theredkrayola wrote:

Also, AfterHours - you rate Private Dancer 7.2/10. Is it getting points deducted for having no original compositions? What score would you have given if she had written the songs herself? On that note, does Safe as Milk get a deduction due to the fact that Beefheart hired a “professional songwriter” to “polish” some of the songs?

I’ve gone every where from 6.5-7.2 (and on occasion wondered if it’s slightly above that) with Private Dancer. I should probably revisit her earlier material and come back to it (including rate her earlier material).

Doubtful any difference, unless this made it palpably more personal (more conviction, etc) to have written them herself (which can definitely be a factor) but in this case she is very invested and immersed in the material and it is clearly quite personal. Even a cover like Help (note: it’s the 10 track international edition I’m ranking) …is completely transformed so hardly matters (because it’s only vaguely derivative of the original).

No deduction for Safe as Milk. Obviously if an album were a bunch of covers, this is going to lend it a bit less creativity and originality than otherwise and the songs are likely to have a hard time fully transcending that Deja vu even when the renditions are very good. But if there’s simply a different writer than the performer that isn’t necessarily a big deal except that it certainly can be one where the material is derivative and lacks individuality, lacks creativity, etc — one can usually hear that the artist is more or less going through the motions or at least didn’t put that much of themselves into it and is relying on a team of producers (or whoever) and rehashing vocal, emotional, thematic cliches to make their millions (instead of a work that is truly from the heart, their actual thoughts, their actual emotions, their actual unique POV, etc).
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AfterHours

Gender: Male

Location: The Zone

Added track ratings for Taylor Swifts Red and changed album rating.

Like many 5s (or so) it drops off a cliff after a top loaded first half. Or maybe I just get tired of listening to her… I’ll probably try the second half alone (without listening to the first 8 tracks) in the near future, to make sure it’s not my patience running thin. Either way the second half is undoubtedly a drop in quality (otherwise that wouldn’t happen in the first place), but again, sometimes my appreciation for her work can grow some with a bit more familiarity (think this is only my 3rd or 4th listen ever of Red, and each one has been a year or more apart)

In an obvious segue from that album, I added ratings for The Doors Strange Days as well.

I downgraded VUs Loaded, a number of the tracks and the overall rating a little.

None of these are “final” — especially Loaded and Red because I don’t get around to these all that often — but all 3 should give a good idea at least…

Oh yeah, I also updated VU 3rd album. Probably close to “final”, maybe needs one more revisit to be sure…

I do intend to complete new ratings for VU and Nico and The Doors s/t soon. Also, I would like to do the same for Fun House and Stooges s/t and see if I can add clarity to “which is better” (or just show how close they really are?).
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Facetious

Gender: Male

Age: 26

Location: Somewhere you've never been

AfterHours wrote:

Added track ratings for Taylor Swifts Red and changed album rating.

Like many 5s (or so) it drops off a cliff after a top loaded first half. Or maybe I just get tired of listening to her… I’ll probably try the second half alone (without listening to the first 8 tracks) in the near future, to make sure it’s not my patience running thin. Either way the second half is undoubtedly a drop in quality (otherwise that wouldn’t happen in the first place), but again, sometimes my appreciation for her work can grow some with a bit more familiarity (think this is only my 3rd or 4th listen ever of Red, and each one has been a year or more apart)

Having relistened to most of Red and 1989 recently myself, I'm not sure what makes tracks like Treacherous, Holy Ground, Sad Beautiful Tragic, Starlight, Begin Again much worse than the majority of 1989 (not to mention Speak Now or even Same Trailer Different Park)? It seems like the perfect middle ground between 1989's pop and the more personal country of Speak Now.

I don't agree fully with this review (ultimately Red, like 1989, is good but can't rise above a 6.5 for me), but it seems to me a decent defense of Red overall: https://rateyourmusic.com/music-review/LimedIBagels/taylor-swift/red/48657095

Also, possible upgrade for Fun House? Side B alone should be enough to push it into 7.8+ territory.

AfterHours

Gender: Male

Location: The Zone

Facetious wrote:

AfterHours wrote:

Added track ratings for Taylor Swifts Red and changed album rating.

Like many 5s (or so) it drops off a cliff after a top loaded first half. Or maybe I just get tired of listening to her… I’ll probably try the second half alone (without listening to the first 8 tracks) in the near future, to make sure it’s not my patience running thin. Either way the second half is undoubtedly a drop in quality (otherwise that wouldn’t happen in the first place), but again, sometimes my appreciation for her work can grow some with a bit more familiarity (think this is only my 3rd or 4th listen ever of Red, and each one has been a year or more apart)

Having relistened to most of Red and 1989 recently myself, I'm not sure what makes tracks like Treacherous, Holy Ground, Sad Beautiful Tragic, Starlight, Begin Again much worse than the majority of 1989 (not to mention Speak Now or even Same Trailer Different Park)? It seems like the perfect middle ground between 1989's pop and the more personal country of Speak Now.

I don't agree fully with this review (ultimately Red, like 1989, is good but can't rise above a 6.5 for me), but it seems to me a decent defense of Red overall: https://rateyourmusic.com/music-review/LimedIBagels/taylor-swift/red/48657095

Also, possible upgrade for Fun House? Side B alone should be enough to push it into 7.8+ territory.

On Red 2nd half, Sad Beautiful Tragic is the one I would probably agree holds up and which I also gave an upgrade from already this half’s best track at 4.8, now up to around 5.1-5.3. The rest sounds as trivial as ever but I’ll probably revisit it one or maybe two more times this round of listening just to be sure.

1989 is (relatively) transcendent because of melodic invention and surprising and (at its best) almost or sometimes even electrifying rhythmic dexterity where there is almost always an unusual twist or turn (of phrase, chorus, etc) suddenly interrupting or developing from itself into a new climax or unexpected conclusion and/or “call and response” back upon itself or energetically triggering from itself (including the background or underlying layers of instrumentation, and including the backing vocals, Swift doubles). Its underlying instrumentation/effects often hides a layer of emotion (such as anxiety and contemplative quandary about her choices and place in life), the erratic developments and multi voiced layers and the spontaneity, the spur of the moment rhythmic jolt of its proceedings often add a restless anxiety about relationships the whole of which is the summa of her career (it explodes all her never ending concerns in this area — what practically every song in her career is about — in a sort of summa or culmination, the height of her invention while also its best songs are dynamic coalescences of her excitement, anxieties, quandaries, etc, at once, instead of a “single” emotion or subject or mood per song; but now, anxious and restless all at once, therefore inevitably it is also a revealing “fresco” on her effusive personality and both the anxieties and enthusiasms and colorful life of her superstardom — don’t get me wrong, it’s not an achievement on the order of a College Dropout or a My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, but nevertheless it is pretty impressive for such an inherently trivial and very mainstream oriented artist with seemingly little artistic ambition beyond an endless reservoir of catchy melodies, the endless relationship confessional for all to understand and yearn for, the ambition of massive fame and fortune). Red doesn’t approach hardly any of this except we sort of see lesser versions of it in songs like I Knew You Were Trouble and We Are Never Getting Back Together. Red’s second half is almost all trivial songs that tend to create a mild and (more or less) single, trivial, mood or emotion wherein Swift’s insight or emotion or psyche is presented as an assumed, compelling fact just on the basis she is singing melodically and some conviction backed by vaguely interesting instrumentation and some mild shifts in genre (wherein her vocals usually require more than these tracks have to offer in order to make the subject emotionally interesting, compelling) about relationships/teen-young adult-heartbreak (which perhaps this is significant for her fan base that probably considers each expression of loss or nostalgic longing equivalent to Beethoven’s 32nd Piano Sonata; j/k, I’m exaggerating a little bit but you get the idea… in other words, this level of emotional substance is completely unremarkable and has and is expressed by practically any like artist that has ever lived…) … however, it’s without the effort, material and development making it so (like 1989, where there is substantially more creativity, melodic, compositional, rhythmic invention).

Re: Fun House 7.8 … it’s long been on the verge, very possibly. I’ll probably double check it once more.
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Last edited by AfterHours on 03/16/2025 20:46; edited 3 times in total

AfterHours

Gender: Male

Location: The Zone

@Facetious…

Don’t look now but I’m starting to upgrade 1989’s tracks even more…

(Which will likely mean the album too)

Also, just in case it was missed, I included (below Red) the 10 min version of All Too Well as her highest rated track (still tentatively rated)
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AfterHours

Gender: Male

Location: The Zone

Facetious wrote:

I don't agree fully with this review (ultimately Red, like 1989, is good but can't rise above a 6.5 for me), but it seems to me a decent defense of Red overall: https://rateyourmusic.com/music-review/LimedIBagels/taylor-swift/red/48657095

Thanks - definitely well written. I skimmed the review for now, and it tries to convince that Red is some sort of masterpiece. Unfortunately the claims should come with a clear caveat along the lines “compared to top 40 mainstream” (which is loaded with 3s and 4s and I would agree Red stands out in ways next to those, and I would call a “masterpiece” against 3s and 3.5s and a leap from her own 4s). It is completely normal for better mainstream artists (for instance Swifts own 1989) and (slightly or partially) outside of such for artists to accomplish both melodic and personal attachment/expression in their work (has this person listened to, I don’t know, Blacklisted by Neko Case for a country (alt country) example, or Lorde’s Pure Heroine for a matured teen-ish (alt) synth-dance-pop example?). Decades ago, Bruce Springsteen accomplished this sort of thing constantly, at a much more impressive level in all regards, though not “teen music” or “for teen girls as its main draw” it was nevertheless expressive of the longings and troubles of the youth, and burgeoning adults, of the 50s-80s… every melodic-oriented album on “just” the 7s of my list is way more impressive, emotionally substantial, etc (whether the aforementioned Lorde or Blacklisted, or Same Trailer Different Park, or Sunset Tree, or Damn the Torpedoes, or Rumours or Picaresque or Pet Sounds or Abbey Rd or whatever…). Even a 6.5 like Bright Eyes alt country (and quite melodic) I’m Wide Awake Its Morning or Ryan Adam’s Heartbreaker is a profound life changing masterpiece in comparison… Regardless I do like the effort and thorough explanation, details, in the review. I’ll check it out in more specifics along my next listen. It could help speed up some more appreciation for some of the tracks that I may be being a little too impatient to give a touch more attention to (I’m generally pretty good about avoiding this but it can and does happen at times, hence the importance of revisits, discussion, etc).
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theredkrayola

Can you post a link to the Strange Days ratings?

AfterHours

Gender: Male

Location: The Zone

theredkrayola wrote:

Can you post a link to the Strange Days ratings?

Not “final”…

Doors etc: https://www.besteveralbums.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=725575#725575
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theredkrayola

I feel similarly re: Strange Days. I’m not sure about Dirt being the weakest song on the first two Stooges albums, though. It has a Venus In Furs-like darkness and intensity (even though Venus is obviously superior).

Do you recall any standout tracks from Imaginal Disk (i doubt you remember, but if so, i’d be curious)

DelBocaVista

theredkrayola wrote:

I feel similarly re: Strange Days. I’m not sure about Dirt being the weakest song on the first two Stooges albums, though. It has a Venus In Furs-like darkness and intensity (even though Venus is obviously superior).

Do you recall any standout tracks from Imaginal Disk (i doubt you remember, but if so, i’d be curious)

Dirt is based on the MC5's cover of "Born Under A Bad Sign": https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cNemqbXqnQY&pp=ygUZbWM1IGJvcm4gdW5kZXIgYSBiYWQgc2lnbtIHCQlRC QGHKiGM7w%3D%3D