historically acclaimed versus personally resonant - Music

latenighttv

Gender: Male

lethalnezzle wrote:

Oh I get you. You mean like Bob Dylan's voice, or experiments like 'Revolution 9'?

I had been thinking more in terms of bands / artists with much smaller discographies. What's your own take on why some great albums get lost over time?

rayword45

Gender: Male
Age: 26

Dingerbell wrote:

Whenever I find an album I like that Rolling Stone hasn't included in their top 500 albums I immediately cast it aside, and never listen to it again.

I'm guessing the newest album you've listened to multiple times is Abbey Road?

Guest

ihh2013 wrote:

I had been thinking more in terms of bands / artists with much smaller discographies. What's your own take on why some great albums get lost over time?

There are endless variables. It could be anything from the record company's refusal or inability to properly back the record, the artist's own issues (illness that prevents touring or promotion), the fact that a record just doesn't seem to fit a certain zeitgeist, the fact that the artist in question is totally unknown, certain tastemakers either praising or criticising it, society's own rather poisonous pre-existing ideas about what constitutes "great art" and what constitutes "disposable crap", etcetera etcetera. Pretty much everything except the music can be a reason for a "great" album getting lost over time. Any record has the potential to be a "classic" (i.e. a record that becomes canonical and gets pulled into a cycle of being a record that is discussed widely and passed from generation to generation), it just depends on whether the outside factors all work in its favour. We live in a society that puts more value and import on the songs of The Beatles and Bob Dylan than it does on the songs of Herman's Hermits and Donovan, but in another lifetime the roles could be have been reversed. 'Sunshine Superman' could be seen as a piece of musical genius that puts 'Like a Rolling Stone' to shame. I'd say the promotion and critical praise a record receives is far more influential in deciding whether or not said album becomes a "classic" than the music is. An album can be appraised and reappraised and re-reappraised endlessly, and they often are, yet the music itself never changes.

latenighttv

Gender: Male

lethalnezzle wrote:

There are endless variables. It could be anything from the record company's refusal or inability to properly back the record, the artist's own issues (illness that prevents touring or promotion), the fact that a record just doesn't seem to fit a certain zeitgeist, the fact that the artist in question is totally unknown, certain tastemakers either praising or criticising it, society's own rather poisonous pre-existing ideas about what constitutes "great art" and what constitutes "disposable crap", etcetera etcetera. Pretty much everything except the music can be a reason for a "great" album getting lost over time. Any record has the potential to be a "classic" (i.e. a record that becomes canonical and gets pulled into a cycle of being a record that is discussed widely and passed from generation to generation), it just depends on whether the outside factors all work in its favour. We live in a society that puts more value and import on the songs of The Beatles and Bob Dylan than it does on the songs of Herman's Hermits and Donovan, but in another lifetime the roles could be have been reversed. 'Sunshine Superman' could be seen as a piece of musical genius that puts 'Like a Rolling Stone' to shame. I'd say the promotion and critical praise a record receives is far more influential in deciding whether or not said album becomes a "classic" than the music is. An album can be appraised and reappraised and re-reappraised endlessly, and they often are, yet the music itself never changes.

Agree that there are any number of non-musical reasons why it can happen. I suppose of late, rightly or wrongly, I had given some thought to whether there might be any shared characteristics (weaknesses, flaws or whatever) between some of these albums in a musical sense that damage their ability to remain 'recommendable' as time goes on.

It definitely seems to be true in general that what was acclaimed / popular 'then' is still acclaimed / popular 'now', but many albums do enjoy widespread acclaim upon release, only to quickly become obscure in spite of this.

junodog4
Future Grumpy Old Man

Gender: Male
Location: Calgary

Thanks guys - an interesting and civil discussion at the same time. I'll try to remember this next time a discussion about Jay-Z, Queen, or gay marriage gets derailed.
_________________
Finnegan was super bad-ass.

Guest

rayword45 wrote:

I'm guessing the newest album you've listened to multiple times is Abbey Road?

He was joking.