[Puncture Repair]

I used to have a very comfortable top then that didn't even budge, everything else neatly laid out in perfect order of my preference. That was probably a year ago now, but listening to more and more music I'm starting to have a really hard time defining what I enjoy about an album, what determines whether an album is of more worth than another album.

There are so many albums that mean a great deal to me I simply can't compare them anymore, there's 50 albums on my chart that are some of the greatest music I've ever heard. It seems unfair ranking them in such a way, because the lower down a chart, the less likely it'll be seen by another user - and your chart is what defines you.

I've been fluctuating lately between making my chart public and private because I'm having trouble making my chart something I'd be happy for other people to see, and whether seeing it at all would be remotely worthwhile (there's only so often you can see Revolver in a top 10). I'm also toying with the idea of making my chart limited to just 20-50 entries, to avoid the hassle of dealing with so many albums lower down the line.

It's hard to describe, but I feel like my overall chart has become an art and no longer a science. Has anyone found this?

[alelsupreme]

I know exactly how you feel, outside of the very top I have no idea how to organize my top 40.

[Guest]

Yeah, mine is kind of just a mess...I feel the same way...Maybe limiting your entries would help!

[drakonium]

I'm kinda relax with the order of the albums on my chart. I mean, if I were to do an extremely serious order, I'd have to re-listen to everything and some albums would probably be higher and others lower. I don't really care. They're here, that's all. And they are in a sufficiently correct order so that one album from the third page is really superior to any album from the ninth page.

The more you listen to music, the less likely you'll be satisfied with your chart; that's normal. Don't take this too seriously. Just put them so that in average, you like the 50th less than the 40th, but I don't think it's worth bothering too much with this. If an album is on your chart, you necessarily love it, and I actually don't care that much to know if you love it more or less than that other album from your chart. You see what I mean?

As for the fact that people may not read your chart until the end : well, if people like it, they WILL read all the pages. If they don't, that's because they were bored, and in this case, it's not really important that someone who didn't like your chart didn't read it in its entirety.

I don't know if I made my point clear, but anyway, I'll reduce it to this : don't take charts too seriously. It's OK. It's just a music site. We're here to have fun and discover new things, not to show everyone how interesting our tastes are (don't get me wrong, I'm not implying that's what you're doing at all xD).

[Happymeal]

Agreed, to be honest, I wouldn't call it frustrating in a sense, just a big load of confusion.

Starting out, my chart had some albums that would have probably been criticized greatly had I kept them (Golden Earring, Billy Idol, and etc.). Those albums I still like a lot, but I made room for other albums and more and more came. My goal for my chart isn't really about displaying my favorite albums. Well, it is to some degree. All the albums on my chart are some of my favorite albums, they're definitely at least top 200 material for me, but the thing is that I can't figure out how to rank them. All these albums have around the same rating and same feeling of where to place them so what I decided is to put albums I feel best represent my tastes and really deserve some spotlight for others to discover.

While that might not sound like the most honest approach, a chart is what you want it to be, not what anyone else says. The point of a chart is not to list the 100 greatest albums you have ever heard (despite the title of the chart), but rather to create something you feel comfortable with. The point of a chart is whatever you might want it to be. At least, that's my opinion. Of course, there comes albums where even though I feel they've been all over the place, they still deserve a high ranking spot (e.g Dark Side of the moon, Moon and antarctic, and etc.) because of how much I like them. In the end, my chart isn't exactly my favorite albums in a ranking of how much I prefer them, it's a ranking of some of my favorite I feel best represent the variety I listen to.

[Evandar]

[Patman360]

I can relate to this, until recently I reckoned my top 20 would be hard to break into and was nearly set in stone, next thing I knew I revamped the whole thing, I tend to change stuff every few days depending on how I feel after relistening to something, usually 1 or 2 albums enter/leave the chart also.

I actually think it's a good reflection of this site though, just earlier today I removed the Smashing Pumpkins album Mellon Collie off my chart, this was an album that has been on my chart since the day I arrived here, while it was never up at the very top, I still couldn't have pictured it leaving, this to me indicates that BEA has helped me discover many more albums which I now love and I'm grateful for this.
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2023
2022

[joshtraina]

I don't even have a top 100 because I can't think of 50 albums I love... and I've heard nearly 450-650 albums in my life.

[Guest]

[ButterThumbz]