Which album deserves to reach / leave the BEA top 100 ? - Music

Yann

Gender: Male
Location: France

boyd94 wrote:

You're going to have to do better than that. As others are pointing out, plenty of major jazz artists aren't in the top 100. Is BEA racist?

Bjork's music doesn't lend itself to a wide audience. I don't think it's any more sinister than that.

And plenty of classical music is not in the top 100 either. So no racism involved. Different genres. Not a reason, I know, but these kind of charts sites are traditionaly more focused on pop/rock. Yet with Bjork or PJ Harvey, this is rock/pop. The word misogyny is too strong ? Ok, let's say there is more male artists than female artists (but why ?), and in consequence that we men (a majority here) are more accustomed to male voice. Smile

janetjakcson

Age: 21

Definitely Rhythm Nation by Janet. It's a great album and her work has been kind of forgotten since 2004

Graeme2

Gender: Male
Location: The Upside Down

Yann wrote:

boyd94 wrote:

You're going to have to do better than that. As others are pointing out, plenty of major jazz artists aren't in the top 100. Is BEA racist?

Bjork's music doesn't lend itself to a wide audience. I don't think it's any more sinister than that.

And plenty of classical music is not in the top 100 either. So no racism involved. Different genres. Not a reason, I know, but these kind of charts sites are traditionaly more focused on pop/rock. Yet with Bjork or PJ Harvey, this is rock/pop. The word misogyny is too strong ? Ok, let's say there is more male artists than female artists (but why ?), and in consequence that we men (a majority here) are more accustomed to male voice. Smile

Might be a lot to do with the music press, who down the years are always trying to tell you about the next great white band who are nearly always a bunch of young blokes playing some form of rock pop indie. Definitely more focused in that direction. Certainly what I was reading in the early 90s was. Things like NME. Things are getting better hopefully. As I've got older I've expanded my palette and the things I'd look to first when I was younger (the new hip white male indie band) are probably at the back of the queue and I'd probably rather listen to bjork, jazz, metal, folk, hip hop or Ethiopian funk prog jazz. Over arctic monkeys or the new arcade fire. Most of the prolific users on here are pretty cool and have diverse charts/tastes. Anyways, I admit to not giving bjork enough time myself over the years as I was never massive on her first, but that was a mistake. Just looked at my overall and there's a shocking lack of females! Embarassed

Yann

Gender: Male
Location: France

rkm wrote:

I've been thinking further on this.

Some problematic things:
- Not everyone has heard all of the albums
- Without having heard all of the significant albums, how can any individual make informed judgements on "the greatest"?
- Humans tend to prefer things they've heard many times
- For many years (less so now) the music biz establishment controlled what people heard, over and over
- Western patriarchal culture has favoured a predominantly western white and male bias
- How has that bias effected the range of music we've been exposed to in our lifetimes?
- Many music fans are only interested in music as it has occurred in their lifetime, and aren't interested in digging into the past, which disadvantages older albums and favours newer albums.

Me as a case study. I like jazz, even play it to a certain degree. My exposure to jazz has mainly been through my own effort. Geographically, there is no jazz scene where I live, there is no jazz on the radio or other casual method of discovery. So, here I am a self-confessed jazz fan, 44 years old, and the first time I heard Mingus' "Black Saint & the Sinner Lady" was this year. I bought it immediately. It's incredible. But had I heard it first when I was 16, I'm sure it would hold a more significant place in my life by now than it currently does. This is how an album like that sits at 150, when it could be top 10 if certain biases were taken into account.

I'm not saying there is a better method of tallying the albums than there currently is, but it would certainly be interesting to apply an algorithm to the top 1000 to adjust for femaleness, blackness, non-western-ness, and age.

Interesting comment, rkm, but I'm not sure of your last sentence: such algorithm would be positive discrimination Surprised

+ after all, it's normal that westerners listen traditionnally to the music they happened to create (wich does not prevent exoticism, especially in the process of creation)

souplipton

Gender: Male
Location: Toronto

Yann wrote:

Graeme2 wrote:

Yann wrote:

craola wrote:

the arctic monkeys have more top 100 albums here than bjork does.

defend that coherently and convince me that's in any way ok.

It's pure and simple misogyny

Of course there is no other reason in the world. Maybe it's because people are racist toward people from Iceland? Maybe it's because she is too old and not young and looking fit? Or maybe, just maybe, crazy as it may seem, the arctic monkeys music is liked by a greater number of people because it is far more accessible and they happen to be a massive act and thats the reason. Maybe its a mixture of all of that to some extent. I'd take most of what bjork has recorded over most of AM by the way. Such and such should be higher in the chart but they are gay so that's the reason, such and such is Chinese and that's the reason they aren't higher in the chart. Most of my charts are male, US/UK, white, heterosexual dominant. Only one conclusion to draw from that eh.

If you will, but in the case of Bjork (and other major female artists), it's mainly unwitting misogyny

I know I'm late to the conversation, but here's my two cents on the Bjork stuff. Bjork produces music that I'd describe as mostly being based in electronics, which is something that doesn't get a ton of love on BEA. Bjork is ranked #60 on the Top-Ranked artists chart for BEA, and only 3 artists rated above Bjork have Electronic or Electronica listed as a genre on the artist's Wikipedia page (which I will admit is not a great proxy for which genre of music an artist makes, but I'm still going to roll with it). Those 3 artists are Radiohead, David Bowie, and Sufjan Stevens (for Stevens, electronica is the 8th and final genre listed for him). So according to BEA, Bjork is the fourth best electronic/electronica artist. So I'd be hesitant to say that the main bias against her is her gender, and not her genre. This is a site where Boards of Canada is the 182nd ranked artist (highest album is ranked 261), Aphex Twin is the 168th ranked artist (highest album is ranked 298), New Order is the 137th ranked artist (highest album is ranked 305), Kraftwerk is the 136th ranked artist (highest album is ranked 271), Massive Attack is the 111th ranked artist (highest album is ranked 154), Daft Punk is the 100th ranked artist (highest album is ranked 147), and Depeche Mode is the 87th ranked artist (highest album is ranked 136, 5 spots ahead of Homogenic). Bjork outranks most of the greatest electronic artists of all-time. This is not to say that her gender has nothing to do with her not having any albums in the top 100, but that it's role is probably secondary to the fact that she produces primarily electronic music.

Graeme2

Gender: Male
Location: The Upside Down

souplipton wrote:

Yann wrote:

Graeme2 wrote:

Yann wrote:

[quote="craola" ]the arctic monkeys have more top 100 albums here than bjork does.

defend that coherently and convince me that's in any way ok.

It's pure and simple misogyny

Of course there is no other reason in the world. Maybe it's because people are racist toward people from Iceland? Maybe it's because she is too old and not young and looking fit? Or maybe, just maybe, crazy as it may seem, the arctic monkeys music is liked by a greater number of people because it is far more accessible and they happen to be a massive act and thats the reason. Maybe its a mixture of all of that to some extent. I'd take most of what bjork has recorded over most of AM by the way. Such and such should be higher in the chart but they are gay so that's the reason, such and such is Chinese and that's the reason they aren't higher in the chart. Most of my charts are male, US/UK, white, heterosexual dominant. Only one conclusion to draw from that eh.

If you will, but in the case of Bjork (and other major female artists), it's mainly unwitting misogyny

I know I'm late to the conversation, but here's my two cents on the Bjork stuff. Bjork produces music that I'd describe as mostly being based in electronics, which is something that doesn't get a ton of love on BEA. Bjork is ranked #60 on the Top-Ranked artists chart for BEA, and only 3 artists rated above Bjork have Electronic or Electronica listed as a genre on the artist's Wikipedia page (which I will admit is not a great proxy for which genre of music an artist makes, but I'm still going to roll with it). Those 3 artists are Radiohead, David Bowie, and Sufjan Stevens (for Stevens, electronica is the 8th and final genre listed for him). So according to BEA, Bjork is the fourth best electronic/electronica artist. So I'd be hesitant to say that the main bias against her is her gender, and not her genre. This is a site where Boards of Canada is the 182nd ranked artist (highest album is ranked 261), Aphex Twin is the 168th ranked artist (highest album is ranked 298), New Order is the 137th ranked artist (highest album is ranked 305), Kraftwerk is the 136th ranked artist (highest album is ranked 271), Massive Attack is the 111th ranked artist (highest album is ranked 154), Daft Punk is the 100th ranked artist (highest album is ranked 147), and Depeche Mode is the 87th ranked artist (highest album is ranked 136, 5 spots ahead of Homogenic). Bjork outranks most of the greatest electronic artists of all-time. This is not to say that her gender has nothing to do with her not having any albums in the top 100, but that it's role is probably secondary to the fact that she produces primarily electronic music.[/quote]

Yep, good stuff. And the stand out thing here is Kraftwerk is only at 136. Now THAT is absurd. I draw the same conclusion here as you as to why, others may say its because they are German.