Greatest Albums of All Time (Rock & Jazz) - Music Diaries

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

Carl21 wrote:

I think I got enough ideas about what is in my mind, but I still wonder how is it possible to keep track with this criteria as some works get bigger in size or longer in time, esp TV series that tend to expand over hours and hours of cinematic work, how am I gonna compare that to a movie that lasts 3 hours at best? Sounds Like it's more applicable to easy to review and come back to works of art like music albums and short movies, but as the work expands two hours, like most TV Shows, but most importantly Opera and specifically Wagner's opera that can extend over 4 hours, sometimes surpasses 10 hours of music, or extends on a huge space like The Sistine Chapel or Garden of Earthly delights, I think many people will get hesitant to revisit it and hence a lot might be missed if I'm correct.

I'm kind of convinced now that emotions, specifically, might be one essential leading factor behind most people's choices in art or their definition of greatness, whether consciously or unconsciously, so probably I'll be trying to make a similar get-into list for a certain small field of art, probably eastern music of a certain region (India or Middle East), that isn't very popular on the internet and few is available about its best works. I won't be trying to do a detailed comparison unless I have 5 years of experience, but just an initial effort and later compare how far I went between year one and year five. My main concern is that how much this detailed analysis, multiple revisions and historical study will differ from the public opinion, since I see how Scaruffi's, a detailed study, version of Rock history is very different from that of the public and pretty much still unsupported or refused.

Also, I wonder what do I need to include in a review about a certain work of art? Is it a brief get-into explanation or more elaborate details about each specific part, which could be spoiling the fun of personally discovering these elements. I mean there are lots of words to poetically praise something, but is that the goal of a review or is it just about saying this is great based on x criteria and the careful assimilation of it according to the criteria will lead to the same opinion? Eastern music isn't scholarly studied, or not widely, and it is more of a folk phenomenon, so how is it possible to balance the review between the artist's own vision and his version of a public sense of beauty compared to the public opinion and their assumptions about his art that is supposed to be about them as well?

RE: I think I got enough ideas about what is in my mind, but I still wonder how is it possible to keep track with this criteria as some works get bigger in size or longer in time, esp TV series that tend to expand over hours and hours of cinematic work, how am I gonna compare that to a movie that lasts 3 hours at best? Sounds Like it's more applicable to easy to review and come back to works of art like music albums and short movies, but as the work expands two hours, like most TV Shows, but most importantly Opera and specifically Wagner's opera that can extend over 4 hours, sometimes surpasses 10 hours of music, or extends on a huge space like The Sistine Chapel or Garden of Earthly delights, I think many people will get hesitant to revisit it and hence a lot might be missed if I'm correct.

Yes, I would agree it gets tougher in those circumstances. This is the gist of why I came up with "ratings by halves". This sort of assessment makes it easier to break a work down into two parts (or more, if one wanted) and then combine those two ratings into a single rating. This is especially useful in comparing two works that might be separated by only 0.1 (or other close calls) because it can get very challenging to keep in mind the discrepancy, but if one has tracked the rating by parts, it can be easier to determine the differential.

There are extreme examples, like Wagner's Ring that you allude to, where someone would probably want to break it down into 4 parts, or maybe more (such as by Act), and listen to those separately, and then try and work out a combined ratings. Or, Tristan, roughly 4 hours, where one might break it down into the 3 acts, or by two hour parts.

HOWEVER even without thinking with this (ratings by halves, or smaller parts), one is still basing the overall rating on the whole work: its overall extent AND consistency of emotion/concept/creativity. And, much more important than "ratings by halves" is one's overall sense of this, which is and can be developed by experience. As one makes his list and works out the ratings and rankings, across an aligned scale, and keeps fine tuning them over time, one tends to get very adept at "what" the impact/significance (palpable, cognitive, impact and significance, sensation thereof) "feels" like (consistency and overall), and so on across the ratings. That sensation is a "measurable" (one might call) wavelength, a conscious, cognitive mental phenomena that occurs as impacted by and, overall, once one 'gets' a great work. So even though the works are all very different, that sensation or awe one experiences will be comparable across a variety of works. This, of course, assumes one is attentively going through the work in order to 'procure' the expressed emotional engagement, conceptual engagement and creative expression (expressed/expression: meaning primarily [first, of seniority], coming from the work, conveyed through the work, expressed by the work [etc] before one clarifies one's reaction and value judgment).

But yes, even then, the most challenging aspect is comparing the most different works. The three toughest in my opinion are comparing those that widely different in terms of time/space, or widely different in terms of variety of content versus one where there is lack thereof (such as a minimalist or abstract work versus a very expressive one: like, say, Eno's Music for Airports vs Vampire Rodent's Lullaby Land, or an Ernst painting like Entire City versus a Bosch or Bruegel painting ... Etc ... ). And the third, comparing across art forms, especially between one that has more of a spatial orientation [like paintings] to one that has more of a time/pace orientation [like music or film]. When all of these are combined in a comparison, it can be most challenging. But this is something, like said in the above paragraph, that one gets better and better at with experience, through the act of learning one's scale, the differences between ratings (which also means, the difference between qualitative consistencies and degrees that make up those ratings).

You'll notice that on my main Classical list, I still have asterisks around most of the opera selections, meaning that those ratings are very tentative and far less "official" than the others ... still to be determined (but I added them just to give some estimates because I didn't want to exclude the great works of opera any longer when it will probably be 5 more years before they could truly be more "official").

I'm kind of convinced now that emotions, specifically, might be one essential leading factor behind most people's choices in art or their definition of greatness, whether consciously or unconsciously, so probably I'll be trying to make a similar get-into list for a certain small field of art, probably eastern music of a certain region (India or Middle East), that isn't very popular on the internet and few is available about its best works. I won't be trying to do a detailed comparison unless I have 5 years of experience, but just an initial effort and later compare how far I went between year one and year five. My main concern is that how much this detailed analysis, multiple revisions and historical study will differ from the public opinion, since I see how Scaruffi's, a detailed study, version of Rock history is very different from that of the public and pretty much still unsupported or refused.

Go for it. Looking forward to what you come up with!

Very few people have even attempted to evaluate all the major art forms like Scaruffi has, or even one of them as thoroughly, least of all the average public. So his experience, perspective, vantage point is far different, then say, the average Beatles fan (to use his most famous foe) or, especially, the average Adele or Rhianna or Beyonce fan (and the like) that make up a much greater majority of "public opinion" than you will if you go on a similar journey. So it's a sector of opinion that isn't comparable in terms of how each side is thinking with the art form(s), the expansive perspective someone like Scaruffi has, and how "public opinion" isn't (usually) even aware of what exists to be compared to, and even where the "public" IS aware of such other works, hasn't (usually) made any effort to assimilate them. So I consider most counter arguments not very valuable unless one has done so (increasingly valuable to the degree one has done so). That doesn't mean I consider such counter opinions OBJECTIVELY invalid in the fullest sense; more so that I consider that they probably have more validity within that person's field of experience, but not in Scaruffi's or any one that has truly taken up an art form or more in a more thorough sense than the average "public opinion" music or movie fan. So it's not a differing opinion I personally care about -- or at least I don't except in some cases where I am pressed or challenged or asked about it.

Even among serious art evaluations (historically and modern) I'm not even sure a serious critical evaluation exists that rates Classical works (I don't mean the recordings, but the works themselves) and Paintings/Visual art. As much as I consider these the best critics/art historians in any art form, even among them there is virtually no delineation or differential made between degrees (from say, 7/10 to 10/10) from 'great' to 'all time masterpiece' to '10/10', so much of what you'll find there (less so with Classical music) is where all of those degrees are called masterpieces. Which is fine and I would even agree with that from a certain angle, but isn't particularly useful when making a much more detailed evaluation across a more exact scale. If you were to ask them which is more impactful, profound, significant to experience the expression of: the whole of a 10/10 (let's say Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel would be a more generally agreed example than most) or a great 7/10 like, say, maybe one of his late sculptures. When trying to grasp or reckon with the expression and impact of each as a whole, which is more impactful, more profound as a whole, more powerful, more significant? ...You could probably get a different response... Otherwise, both will usually be called among the masterpieces of Michelangelo, but it can also be helpful to make that distinction (one could say something similar with Classical critics/historians about, say, Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata vs his 9th Symphony. There is a vast difference in profundity, impact, emotional/conceptual and creativity expression, between them which one even perceives on an intuitive level but should also be experienced in a more detailed, palpable sense, and a differential can be drawn on a ratings scale).

Also, I wonder what do I need to include in a review about a certain work of art? Is it a brief get-into explanation or more elaborate details about each specific part, which could be spoiling the fun of personally discovering these elements. I mean there are lots of words to poetically praise something, but is that the goal of a review or is it just about saying this is great based on x criteria and the careful assimilation of it according to the criteria will lead to the same opinion? Eastern music isn't scholarly studied, or not widely, and it is more of a folk phenomenon, so how is it possible to balance the review between the artist's own vision and his version of a public sense of beauty compared to the public opinion and their assumptions about his art that is supposed to be about them as well?

I sometimes wonder about whether I should spoil the discovery process or not, or how far I should go with this, what balance I should strike in a public analysis or reply. In the end, it probably makes little, if any, difference with the great works. Not a perfect analogy, but I would propose that it's probably matters about as much as if one knows the plot of a great Orson Welles or Hitchcock film if one is consciously aware of the expressive and creative genius on display which is usually very unique to that artist/work. THAT aspect will hold up and remain impactful and compelling and unique/creative no matter how many revisits (because that is what is truly and permanently valuable; the main plot, themes, content, are known after the first go round, but the expressiveness of and creative genius driving them is a well that doesn't run dry in the great, most distinct and impressive works).

In terms of the review, I think if one mainly stays within those three major factors (emotional, conceptual, creative) one should be fine. If one wants to add personal anecdotes or poetics outside of that, I don't see the big deal, so long as those main factors are the crux.

One's view is balanced by one's experience across the art forms, and especially the history of the art form under question (how much does it stand out from it, how much did it develop/advance that genre or art form, how expressive and creative was the work in relation to it, etc). Public opinion is rarely, if ever, so balanced, so I wouldn't worry about it as an evaluative factor.
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Last edited by AfterHours on 10/15/2021 00:55; edited 2 times in total

Rhyner
soft silly music is meaningful magical

Gender: Male
Age: 36
Location: Utah

Carl21 wrote:

Also, I wonder what do I need to include in a review about a certain work of art? Is it a brief get-into explanation or more elaborate details about each specific part, which could be spoiling the fun of personally discovering these elements.

AfterHours wrote:

I sometimes wonder about whether I should spoil the discovery process or not, or how far I should go with this, what balance I should strike in a public analysis or reply. In the end, it probably makes little, if any, difference with the great works. Not a perfect analogy, but I would propose that it's probably matters about as much as if one knows the plot of a great Orson Welles or Hitchcock film if one is consciously aware of the expressive and creative genius on display which is usually very unique to that artist/work. THAT aspect will hold up and remain impactful and compelling and unique/creative no matter how many revisits (because that is what is truly and permanently valuable; the main plot, themes, content, are known after the first go round, but the expressiveness of and creative genius driving them is a well that doesn't run dry in the great, most distinct and impressive works).

I couldn't agree more that great works of art, far from being spoiled, are actually better appreciated by knowing as much as possible about them, whether that be before experiencing them or at really any point during the assimilation journey. It's only inferior works (such as, to take a bafflingly popular contemporary example, Marvel movies) that are "spoiled" in such a way, but only because they actually come pre-spoiled due to their blandness, lack of inspiration, etc., and really the only thing they have going for them is their cheap and ultimately hollow showmanship. So I vote for the elaborate explanation. At worst you'd be providing insights that could help add to the reader's toolkit for decoding future works. You can't spoil the discovery process for all of art, there's just too much out there.

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

Rhyner wrote:

Carl21 wrote:

Also, I wonder what do I need to include in a review about a certain work of art? Is it a brief get-into explanation or more elaborate details about each specific part, which could be spoiling the fun of personally discovering these elements.

AfterHours wrote:

I sometimes wonder about whether I should spoil the discovery process or not, or how far I should go with this, what balance I should strike in a public analysis or reply. In the end, it probably makes little, if any, difference with the great works. Not a perfect analogy, but I would propose that it's probably matters about as much as if one knows the plot of a great Orson Welles or Hitchcock film if one is consciously aware of the expressive and creative genius on display which is usually very unique to that artist/work. THAT aspect will hold up and remain impactful and compelling and unique/creative no matter how many revisits (because that is what is truly and permanently valuable; the main plot, themes, content, are known after the first go round, but the expressiveness of and creative genius driving them is a well that doesn't run dry in the great, most distinct and impressive works).

I couldn't agree more that great works of art, far from being spoiled, are actually better appreciated by knowing as much as possible about them, whether that be before experiencing them or at really any point during the assimilation journey. It's only inferior works (such as, to take a bafflingly popular contemporary example, Marvel movies) that are "spoiled" in such a way, but only because they actually come pre-spoiled due to their blandness, lack of inspiration, etc., and really the only thing they have going for them is their cheap and ultimately hollow showmanship. So I vote for the elaborate explanation. At worst you'd be providing insights that could help add to the reader's toolkit for decoding future works. You can't spoil the discovery process for all of art, there's just too much out there.

No doubt Rhyner! The trailers alone make me roll my eyes. Very low form of art, virtually no individuality (which is a near-synonym for creativity, which is a near-synonym for "art"). Scorsese's recent comments were correct (basically an amusement park ride, hardly a cinematic art).

On the more positive cinema side, I am very intrigued by Coen's Tragedy of Macbeth and the recent Todd Haynes Velvet Underground doc.
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Carl21

Gender: Male
Age: 26

Nah, I've never seen yet a discrimination between the degrees of masterpieces in any art form. Most of the time, esp in Cinema, all masterpieces are given 90% or higher, so probably most people aren't used to this concept of discrimination since they don't give all their time to compare works. This sounds more like of a professional detailed evaluation than the usual experience of art in any person's life, so I don't mind calling any great work a masterpiece aside from the degree and I've seen that multiple times on Scaruffi's website, when even Sgt. Pepper and The Queen is Dead are considered masterpieces despite not being on the same level on the other 9 masterpieces.

I don't think I'll try this very detailed numerical evaluation myself since this seems to be very time consuming and probably requires a lot of familiarity and various revisions and comparisons between the works of a genre or an art form and probably won't happen before 5 years of experience in that field, so I'll just use words rather than numbers, and the word "Masterpiece" will be used for any great work and later discrimination between these masterpieces, will start to show as the difference, if there was one, becomes palpable with more and more visits.

Yet, I wonder how much actual difference will be between a 7 and a 8, is it very huge or just a simple difference, probably a track or two? I think between 7 and 9, the difference seems obvious with just a bit of familiarity, and yes I agree that for Beethoven, for instance, Symphony no. 1 isn't the same as, say, Symphony no. 9 even though both are def masterpieces, but between Symphony no. 9 and Symphony no. 5, that doesn't seem obvious and in many lists of Classical music, I see Symphony no. 5 before 9, so that's something to think about.

Carl21

Gender: Male
Age: 26

Rhyner wrote:

Carl21 wrote:

Also, I wonder what do I need to include in a review about a certain work of art? Is it a brief get-into explanation or more elaborate details about each specific part, which could be spoiling the fun of personally discovering these elements.

AfterHours wrote:

I sometimes wonder about whether I should spoil the discovery process or not, or how far I should go with this, what balance I should strike in a public analysis or reply. In the end, it probably makes little, if any, difference with the great works. Not a perfect analogy, but I would propose that it's probably matters about as much as if one knows the plot of a great Orson Welles or Hitchcock film if one is consciously aware of the expressive and creative genius on display which is usually very unique to that artist/work. THAT aspect will hold up and remain impactful and compelling and unique/creative no matter how many revisits (because that is what is truly and permanently valuable; the main plot, themes, content, are known after the first go round, but the expressiveness of and creative genius driving them is a well that doesn't run dry in the great, most distinct and impressive works).

I couldn't agree more that great works of art, far from being spoiled, are actually better appreciated by knowing as much as possible about them, whether that be before experiencing them or at really any point during the assimilation journey. It's only inferior works (such as, to take a bafflingly popular contemporary example, Marvel movies) that are "spoiled" in such a way, but only because they actually come pre-spoiled due to their blandness, lack of inspiration, etc., and really the only thing they have going for them is their cheap and ultimately hollow showmanship. So I vote for the elaborate explanation. At worst you'd be providing insights that could help add to the reader's toolkit for decoding future works. You can't spoil the discovery process for all of art, there's just too much out there.

So it's more about the gist of the work or the most standing part after the entertaining part is finished. I'm probably intrigued to find ways to explain what makes a certain work of art stand the test of time and repetitive revisions of it, but most of the time I end explaining how technically innovative it was compared to its peers or how it revolutionized or invented a genre in a way that no one managed to repeat, so you won't find similar works.

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

Carl21 wrote:

Nah, I've never seen yet a discrimination between the degrees of masterpieces in any art form. Most of the time, esp in Cinema, all masterpieces are given 90% or higher, so probably most people aren't used to this concept of discrimination since they don't give all their time to compare works. This sounds more like of a professional detailed evaluation than the usual experience of art in any person's life, so I don't mind calling any great work a masterpiece aside from the degree and I've seen that multiple times on Scaruffi's website, when even Sgt. Pepper and The Queen is Dead are considered masterpieces despite not being on the same level on the other 9 masterpieces.

I don't think I'll try this very detailed numerical evaluation myself since this seems to be very time consuming and probably requires a lot of familiarity and various revisions and comparisons between the works of a genre or an art form and probably won't happen before 5 years of experience in that field, so I'll just use words rather than numbers, and the word "Masterpiece" will be used for any great work and later discrimination between these masterpieces, will start to show as the difference, if there was one, becomes palpable with more and more visits.

Yet, I wonder how much actual difference will be between a 7 and a 8, is it very huge or just a simple difference, probably a track or two? I think between 7 and 9, the difference seems obvious with just a bit of familiarity, and yes I agree that for Beethoven, for instance, Symphony no. 1 isn't the same as, say, Symphony no. 9 even though both are def masterpieces, but between Symphony no. 9 and Symphony no. 5, that doesn't seem obvious and in many lists of Classical music, I see Symphony no. 5 before 9, so that's something to think about.

Re: how much actual difference will be between a 7 and 8, huge or just a track or two?

It took a long time to figure out with precision (or as precise as one can be with this sort of thing) but my current conclusion is that the quality (accumulated consistency and degree of emotion/concept/creativity; palpable impact and profundity) doubles every 1.4 increase in rating from 5.1 to 9.5/10. It widens below 5 (negatively) and widens from 9.5 up, increasingly positive, as a seemingly "infinite" quality/impact/profundity draws closer and is reached (or seems so). To the point that the fullest 10/10 is a doubling of a 9.3/10 ...and maybe higher... (That seems to be the exact point when a work seems to be too overwhelming/profound to be "calculable"; even one 9.3 will approach this to a great degree, but a doubling of this has an exceedingly immeasurable, virtually infinite quality, seemingly above "quality", beyond conception, or alike determinations). This is also, interestingly, the exact point when the 1.4-doubling has, itself, doubled (0.7-doubling).

But the main answer for most ratings above "historically mediocre" (5/10), is that quality is positively doubling every 1.4 increase. I sometimes think it's every 1.5, but either way, the 1.4 figure should apply well along the scale in one's own determinations, and should align most ratings very accurately. Save the minor point that the simplified "math" itself is not meant as the most perfect representation. A more advanced math would be more accurate, so what I've provided is likely slightly off in the interest of simplicity and ease of application. And 9.5+ and below-5, and especially below-2.5, are all still partially theoretical, difficult to conclude at this point ... Though again, probably are close enough for a basis of workability.
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Carl21

Gender: Male
Age: 26

Sounds fair, but doesn't sound easy to figure out yet. I mean double every 1.4 sounds too much! Never expected such a huge difference. This is why I need to do a more thorough comparison between several works with different ratings, so I can get myself to a more balanced evaluation system. If I rate music the way I do know, I think I'll be throwing 8s and 9s like it's no one's business, when most of the time they could be 7.5 or 7. I remember back when I always thought of "Arcade Fire - Funeral" and "Prince - Purple Rain" as the best pop albums ever and I was shocked they were only 7/10 for Scarf, thought he was gon upgrade them one day, but never happened. I still think they're both astonishing though.

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

Carl21 wrote:

Sounds fair, but doesn't sound easy to figure out yet. I mean double every 1.4 sounds too much! Never expected such a huge difference. This is why I need to do a more thorough comparison between several works with different ratings, so I can get myself to a more balanced evaluation system. If I rate music the way I do know, I think I'll be throwing 8s and 9s like it's no one's business, when most of the time they could be 7.5 or 7. I remember back when I always thought of "Arcade Fire - Funeral" and "Prince - Purple Rain" as the best pop albums ever and I was shocked they were only 7/10 for Scarf, thought he was gon upgrade them one day, but never happened. I still think they're both astonishing though.

RE: Not easy to figure out ... It was done through many, many comparisons in each art form.

RE: Never expected such a huge difference ... Because they're ranked and rated with this in mind (or at least I've done my best; doesn't mean I've 100% perfected this or ever will), this should be able to be verified by testing the works I've listed and, with those you're familiar enough with, checking it out for yourself. Obviously, I don't mean that you'll automatically agree with me on all of them. Just that you should be able to see the logic, especially with those you agree with most closely, but will probably even be able to see logic in a majority of those you don't agree so much on. Meaning: pick a 9.0/10 (or 8.0 ... or 7.8 ... or 7.5 -- any of them) and you should (imo) find that its halves will average out to the "ratings by halves" totals I've given (which will average out to the 1.4 differential).

So, if you pick, say a 7.8/10, you will find the halves should average out to 6.4/10 each (6.4 is 1.4 below 7.8 and 1.4 = double) ... maybe one half is 7.0 on its own and the other one is 5.8, but either way it should average out to 6.4. And you can listen to some 6.4 rated albums to verify that they accumulate into a very similar degree of impact (choosing a similar album or genre will make this clearer) as one half of a 7.8. Now, the 7.8 is, infact, doing this at twice the efficiency and overall degree (often, roughly, per unit of time as well), so it's not just two 6.4s, but twice the proficiency, and no matter what, twice the overall accumulation of expressed emotional/conceptual engagement and creativity.

Note that the above tests will only work smoothly/perfectly with comparing albums that are well aligned emotionally/conceptually/creatively from start to finish. Which is the case for the vast majority of the selections so shouldn't be hard to find. Contrary example that would NOT work would be an album like the previously mentioned Ummagumma, which has halves that might be as high as 8 and 7, which would be 7.5 average so +1.4 "should end up being" around 8.9/10 combined, but is far from this because its halves are virtually two separate, misaligned "albums" (within the album) that don't add much or hardly any quality to each other, so pretty much ends up as an avg between the two instead of an accumulation/combination of them. Anyway, most albums are concept albums or at least emotionally/conceptually and developmentally consistent so this isn't something that has to be worried about too much, especially while one is getting used to the ratings...

Overall, one is just looking at the overall impact the work has and that is the real comparison. Looking at it "by halves" can just help verify this, or double check and fine tune one's accuracy at all points of the scale.

So also what I'm sort of getting at: is that the "doubled-every-1.4" was "discovered" because it was found to be true up and down the whole scale (or at least perfectly aligned from 5.0-9.5). If that gets misaligned then it potentially shifts the whole scale too, so it was important to figure this out to ensure all ratings were well aligned both numerically and in "meaning". By "meaning" I mean, if one knows what a 7.5 is (and is familiar with that level of impact/profundity) one knows what is required to arrive at an 8.9 if this is doubled, and vice versa. And so on, up and down the scale. So this also means ones ratings, if aligned in such a way, will take on much more meaning, because they are building off of each other and a list, reflecting this, will tend to have a strong logic to it between its various ratings.

RE: throwing 8s and 9s around like nobody's business... This is common. ALL of my lists started off MUCH more "generous" with ratings. Then they eventually spread out, and the "gap" between what once was a 9 and 10, became more like 7 through 9, with very little above that instead of several, after I truly experienced the very best historical works (which consequently causes a paradigm shift in one's thinking as to what has been accomplished with art and just how astonishing and profound some works are, which makes previous examples seem much less in comparison to what one once thought). It is a very common tendency to assume the best works one has experienced are "all 9s, 9.5s and 10s", because one is only comparing to what one knows (so far).

For instance, my Paintings list that I am working on pretty exclusively at the moment: most of the selections that are currently 7.3+ were 8.8+ in its very earliest incarnation years ago. And then, as I went through art history more and more and really worked out the very highest works in more nuanced evaluations and comparisons (plus did a better comparison to high rated works I was already very familiar with in Film and Music), I fine tuned my relative accuracy more and more (I hope! Still lots of work to do...).

This brings about another point I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned, but I think is essential if one wants to build an accurate list. And that is: to do one's best to never hang on to "nostalgic" ratings once they no longer apply. By which I mean, if one finds a work one has loved for a long time now seeming less impressive after discovering superior works, don't fear losing what might be a certain "nostalgia" one may have had towards it at one time (this can be more common with albums/works that were formative towards one's discovery of an art). And another point that can go hand in hand with this: do one's best to not ever be afraid at being "wrong" even if the shift is very sudden. Some might not believe me, but it is very true that if I suddenly found the Beatles to be epochal geniuses on the order of Mozart (or something) -- like they are often rated -- I would not hesitate to upgrade their ratings, even despite arguing against this idea for so many years and despite the fact this would suddenly make me "eat crow" or "look wrong after all this time". That's an extreme example, but the gist of what I mean.
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AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

Speaking of the "nostalgia" point above, The Beatles were my main gateway artist (and are many peoples' gateway artist) into "best of all time" lists one finds from various publications and on the internet, when as a teenager, I started severing more from "current trend-pop culture" loves as a kid (Michael Jackson, Madonna, etc). They're very easy to get into and can give one a little taste of greater works and avenues rock took so make a good entry point. Radiohead was another major one, around the same time. Might seem ironic now, but these were my two favorite rock artists for about 5 years, and I've listened to their albums hundreds of times for the most part. Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, Abbey Road, Rubber Soul, The White Album and A Hard Days Night, were all in my top 20 or so at one point. As well as OK Computer, The Bends, and a little later, Kid A. So I'm just saying this because it might seem an ironic and amusing anecdote but also, because it was certainly a shift for me, when I locked into albums like, say, Astral Weeks a little bit later and started discovering there was more to Rock than I thought.
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Carl21

Gender: Male
Age: 26

AfterHours wrote:

Speaking of the "nostalgia" point above, The Beatles were my main gateway artist (and are many peoples' gateway artist) into "best of all time" lists one finds from various publications and on the internet, when as a teenager, I started severing more from "current trend-pop culture" loves as a kid (Michael Jackson, Madonna, etc). They're very easy to get into and can give one a little taste of greater works and avenues rock took so make a good entry point. Radiohead was another major one, around the same time. Might seem ironic now, but these were my two favorite rock artists for about 5 years, and I've listened to their albums hundreds of times for the most part. Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, Abbey Road, Rubber Soul, The White Album and A Hard Days Night, were all in my top 20 or so at one point. As well as OK Computer, The Bends, and a little later, Kid A. So I'm just saying this because it might seem an ironic and amusing anecdote but also, because it was certainly a shift for me, when I locked into albums like, say, Astral Weeks a little bit later and started discovering there was more to Rock than I thought.

I don't think I build a relation with the artists themselves, but rather with certain topics that grab my attention like explicit sexuality, eroticism, satire, sometimes Nostalgia and existential crisis. I don't really care about love and relationships cuz that sounds like 90% of pop music topics and it gets boring when 90% of artists are talking about the same thing, sometimes the same way, again and again. I mostly prefer happy/optimistic music, despite how rare it is to find profound happy/optimistic works of art; dunno why most artists are pessimistic!

That being said do you have an idea why certain artists have this ability to make their music so emotional and awe-inspiring while others don't, despite being as talented and sometimes even more skilled. Do they make these works out of blue without even knowing they will be like this or do they just follow their passion? Do they say, ok, let me just make a great album that will be remembered for years after my death or does it come naturally? I'm becoming interested in this topic.

If I'm to start writing music, how am I gonna make it affect people or set a certain mood when I don't really have an inspiration? Tbh I never went thru very happy or sad events in my life that worth writing something about. I'm learning the relationship between pitch change and emotional effect, but putting that into practice and turning it into something meaningful sounds almost impossible! It's easy to write a good melody with a good beat, but making it mean something is very hard when you have nothing in mind to talk about.