Greatest Albums of All Time (Rock & Jazz)

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AfterHours



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  • #461
  • Posted: 10/22/2021 19:01
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Carl21 wrote:
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.


Re: love and relationships ... I agree this is a well worn concept/theme. There is a very wide gap with how it's conceived and expressed between, say, The Beatles' I Want to Hold Your Hand (or any of their love songs) and, say, the depth, creativity and poetry of Van Morrison's Astral Weeks. One gives you an (often superficially) excitable or sympathetic notion of the experience, usually towards the end of being as catchy/melodic as possible (and towards a much more limited end of really expressing said emotions/concepts). One conveys this too (between excitable The Way Young Lovers Do and the more sympathetic, devastated, painful and impressionistic elongated tracks) but does so with far more emotional intimacy and investment, and in a far more experiential and deepened way. Don't even get me started on current pop...

Re: why certain artists have this ability to make their music so emotional and awe-inspiring ... May sound redundant, but it comes down to the 3 major factors on my criteria page. The greatest artists understand and pay a highly purposeful and aligned conveyance of those. The very greatest tend to have extremely high IQ's from which to demonstrate this even further (if even only a very high IQ within their art form) and are so purposeful and inspired that they transcend previous efforts, and in terms of creativity, tend to have an innate desire to change the course of their genre/art's history, a strong purpose to advance it forward with epochal works that have minimal derivation. Dante changed the course of poetry/literature for all time, the father of the Italian language (literally developed the language itself through his work), not to mention the massive influence his depictions of hell, purgatory, heaven would have on the conceptions that followed. Beethoven very consciously advanced every major genre he touched. Michelangelo completely shattered all previous notions of what a work of art could be, the emotional power and superhuman ambition one could express, advancing fresco far beyond previous attempts, advancing the architecture of his time, advanced the emotional expression and psychological detail and figurative complexity of sculpture far beyond previous attempts, advanced the notion of the artist expressing himself directly through his work (along with Leonardo, but much more prolifically and more explicitly and ambitiously personal) well beyond previous allowances (from the Church, in the service of God, cultural norms) besides (possibly) literature/poetry ... The Velvet Underground pretty much invented modern alternative/independent/art rock, by far the most influential band of all time, laying the blue print for several significant genres and sub-genres that followed peaking between the 70s-90s. John Coltrane ... Orson Welles, etc.

"It will be observed that as expressed emotional engagement, expressed conceptual engagement, and expressed creativity are applied congruently, they tend to combine into a greater sense of significance, producing DEPTH.

An ideal statement of depth could be described as follows:

Emotional or conceptual content expressed with the utmost engagement and creativity, thus an effect so singular and substantial as to permanently distinguish itself."

Re: something in mind to express ... Many artists of history have used their greatest convictions and devotions as an avenue for expression, even when not explicitly about their personal lives (especially true before Beethoven/the 1800s). I would advise considering what motivates/inspires you the most and working it out from there. Naturally, even if not explicitly personal, this would be most likely to generate and express emotional engagement, the determination to be creative, and so on.
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Carl21



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  • #462
  • Posted: 10/23/2021 07:15
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Well, maybe just wanting to express something and be artistic will direct you in the path or maybe it's just about going with how it feels, I dunno. The whole idea about affecting people with something you made and connecting with them is interesting, but today there doesn't seem to be a place for people doing such thing as it used to be. It's all Hip-hop, EDM and few light-hearted acoustic guitar songs; people don't seem to be accepting different concepts in music like atonality, microtonality, cacophony, polyrhythmicity, noise or anything that is not melodic, even though back in the day there was a place for all that in pop music. Yet, I'm encouraged by people I see sharing their "different" music (despite not making a penny out of it), it just feels nice.
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Carl21



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  • #463
  • Posted: 11/05/2021 13:06
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Thru my revisit to world music, I've encountered a problem with some works (mainly songs) that tend to repeat some parts of it twice and sometimes even multiple times, so the song that should last 10-20 min, actually lasts 40 min (applies a lot in classic Arabic songs). However, without this repetition, the shortened version feels incomplete and even incoherent! It seems like the song is meant to be played, repeated that way. So how should it be rated in your opinion? Should I treat it as the shortened version or the complete version?
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AfterHours



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

  • #464
  • Posted: 11/05/2021 18:31
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Carl21 wrote:
Thru my revisit to world music, I've encountered a problem with some works (mainly songs) that tend to repeat some parts of it twice and sometimes even multiple times, so the song that should last 10-20 min, actually lasts 40 min (applies a lot in classic Arabic songs). However, without this repetition, the shortened version feels incomplete and even incoherent! It seems like the song is meant to be played, repeated that way. So how should it be rated in your opinion? Should I treat it as the shortened version or the complete version?


I would go with the complete version, unless maybe if the shortened version is the "official" version. But, by "complete", it sounds like you mean that the longer versions are also the "official" ones.

In terms of rating, if lengthening the song provides a purposeful development (by "purposeful" I mean more "serves a useful purpose emotionally/conceptually/creatively" than determining how "intentional" it was, even though both usually go hand in hand) ...then it will tend to increase the rating compared to if it wasn't extended. Obviously, this will increase proportional to how successful the development is; if said development barely served a purpose and provides little qualitative accumulation over too long a period, then it could very well lower the overall rating or at best keep the rating at a stand still ... but some music, particularly that of the more contemplative or trance-like variety, can be enhanced by repetition.
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Carl21



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  • #465
  • Posted: 11/06/2021 07:59
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AfterHours wrote:
I would go with the complete version, unless maybe if the shortened version is the "official" version. But, by "complete", it sounds like you mean that the longer versions are also the "official" ones.

In terms of rating, if lengthening the song provides a purposeful development (by "purposeful" I mean more "serves a useful purpose emotionally/conceptually/creatively" than determining how "intentional" it was, even though both usually go hand in hand) ...then it will tend to increase the rating compared to if it wasn't extended. Obviously, this will increase proportional to how successful the development is; if said development barely served a purpose and provides little qualitative accumulation over too long a period, then it could very well lower the overall rating or at best keep the rating at a stand still ... but some music, particularly that of the more contemplative or trance-like variety, can be enhanced by repetition.


The official versions are recorded live performances, so I'm assuming this repetition is for the sake of extending the concert. Repetition regarding verses that make each part of the song sounds necessary and intentional, but the repetition of a whole part is just performing it again as if you choose to repeat a song in an album, which, I think, is optional. However, regarding the short versions, there are few official ones, but they seem to be poorly cut from live performances, so they don't feel coherent. Many songs don't have official short versions, so this is something hypothetically exists.
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AfterHours



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

  • #466
  • Posted: 11/06/2021 19:00
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Carl21 wrote:
AfterHours wrote:
I would go with the complete version, unless maybe if the shortened version is the "official" version. But, by "complete", it sounds like you mean that the longer versions are also the "official" ones.

In terms of rating, if lengthening the song provides a purposeful development (by "purposeful" I mean more "serves a useful purpose emotionally/conceptually/creatively" than determining how "intentional" it was, even though both usually go hand in hand) ...then it will tend to increase the rating compared to if it wasn't extended. Obviously, this will increase proportional to how successful the development is; if said development barely served a purpose and provides little qualitative accumulation over too long a period, then it could very well lower the overall rating or at best keep the rating at a stand still ... but some music, particularly that of the more contemplative or trance-like variety, can be enhanced by repetition.


The official versions are recorded live performances, so I'm assuming this repetition is for the sake of extending the concert. Repetition regarding verses that make each part of the song sounds necessary and intentional, but the repetition of a whole part is just performing it again as if you choose to repeat a song in an album, which, I think, is optional. However, regarding the short versions, there are few official ones, but they seem to be poorly cut from live performances, so they don't feel coherent. Many songs don't have official short versions, so this is something hypothetically exists.


Yeah, if it's basically a reprise or similar, I usually wouldn't include that as part of the "real" album, unless there was a clear intent that it is supposed to be part of it.

But also, if you're just listening to live performances, that's not really an area I get involved in, and none of my lists are representative of that as their focus, so maybe someone else is better suited to help dissect what should be included or not. Besides, usually there is an "official" work of art/release/album that the live performances are based on. In your case it sounds like those too are just poorly cut excerpts from the live ones, so I don't know man... Sounds like an annoying predicament to me (at least as far as a clear evaluation can be made; hopefully at least the music is worth it!)
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Carl21



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  • #467
  • Posted: 11/07/2021 14:12
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AfterHours wrote:
Carl21 wrote:
AfterHours wrote:
I would go with the complete version, unless maybe if the shortened version is the "official" version. But, by "complete", it sounds like you mean that the longer versions are also the "official" ones.

In terms of rating, if lengthening the song provides a purposeful development (by "purposeful" I mean more "serves a useful purpose emotionally/conceptually/creatively" than determining how "intentional" it was, even though both usually go hand in hand) ...then it will tend to increase the rating compared to if it wasn't extended. Obviously, this will increase proportional to how successful the development is; if said development barely served a purpose and provides little qualitative accumulation over too long a period, then it could very well lower the overall rating or at best keep the rating at a stand still ... but some music, particularly that of the more contemplative or trance-like variety, can be enhanced by repetition.


The official versions are recorded live performances, so I'm assuming this repetition is for the sake of extending the concert. Repetition regarding verses that make each part of the song sounds necessary and intentional, but the repetition of a whole part is just performing it again as if you choose to repeat a song in an album, which, I think, is optional. However, regarding the short versions, there are few official ones, but they seem to be poorly cut from live performances, so they don't feel coherent. Many songs don't have official short versions, so this is something hypothetically exists.


Yeah, if it's basically a reprise or similar, I usually wouldn't include that as part of the "real" album, unless there was a clear intent that it is supposed to be part of it.

But also, if you're just listening to live performances, that's not really an area I get involved in, and none of my lists are representative of that as their focus, so maybe someone else is better suited to help dissect what should be included or not. Besides, usually there is an "official" work of art/release/album that the live performances are based on. In your case it sounds like those too are just poorly cut excerpts from the live ones, so I don't know man... Sounds like an annoying predicament to me (at least as far as a clear evaluation can be made; hopefully at least the music is worth it!)


Nah, the official versions are the live versions. There were attempts at omitting the repeated parts to make the songs shorter and hence easier to listen to for those not able or not in the mood to listen to a non-stop performance for 40 min and longer. In practice, it only sounds logical that each verse should be repeated twice cuz the flow of the song feels interrupted if it was hurried the other way. It sounds tough from a rating point of view, but from a listening point of view, it's not a problem.

The issue is that some of the recording of Arabic music, esp before the 60s, were live performances, same thing with Indian classical music. These performances belong to the peak period for these styles of music, so they can't be ignored even if they're not fine recordings. It was only recently that world music musicians, including the old ones that are still alive, started recording in studios, nothing's changed, but they just played their improvised live performances in a studio instead of in front of an audience.
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AfterHours



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

  • #468
  • Posted: 11/07/2021 18:46
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Carl21 wrote:
AfterHours wrote:
Carl21 wrote:
AfterHours wrote:
I would go with the complete version, unless maybe if the shortened version is the "official" version. But, by "complete", it sounds like you mean that the longer versions are also the "official" ones.

In terms of rating, if lengthening the song provides a purposeful development (by "purposeful" I mean more "serves a useful purpose emotionally/conceptually/creatively" than determining how "intentional" it was, even though both usually go hand in hand) ...then it will tend to increase the rating compared to if it wasn't extended. Obviously, this will increase proportional to how successful the development is; if said development barely served a purpose and provides little qualitative accumulation over too long a period, then it could very well lower the overall rating or at best keep the rating at a stand still ... but some music, particularly that of the more contemplative or trance-like variety, can be enhanced by repetition.


The official versions are recorded live performances, so I'm assuming this repetition is for the sake of extending the concert. Repetition regarding verses that make each part of the song sounds necessary and intentional, but the repetition of a whole part is just performing it again as if you choose to repeat a song in an album, which, I think, is optional. However, regarding the short versions, there are few official ones, but they seem to be poorly cut from live performances, so they don't feel coherent. Many songs don't have official short versions, so this is something hypothetically exists.


Yeah, if it's basically a reprise or similar, I usually wouldn't include that as part of the "real" album, unless there was a clear intent that it is supposed to be part of it.

But also, if you're just listening to live performances, that's not really an area I get involved in, and none of my lists are representative of that as their focus, so maybe someone else is better suited to help dissect what should be included or not. Besides, usually there is an "official" work of art/release/album that the live performances are based on. In your case it sounds like those too are just poorly cut excerpts from the live ones, so I don't know man... Sounds like an annoying predicament to me (at least as far as a clear evaluation can be made; hopefully at least the music is worth it!)


Nah, the official versions are the live versions. There were attempts at omitting the repeated parts to make the songs shorter and hence easier to listen to for those not able or not in the mood to listen to a non-stop performance for 40 min and longer. In practice, it only sounds logical that each verse should be repeated twice cuz the flow of the song feels interrupted if it was hurried the other way. It sounds tough from a rating point of view, but from a listening point of view, it's not a problem.

The issue is that some of the recording of Arabic music, esp before the 60s, were live performances, same thing with Indian classical music. These performances belong to the peak period for these styles of music, so they can't be ignored even if they're not fine recordings. It was only recently that world music musicians, including the old ones that are still alive, started recording in studios, nothing's changed, but they just played their improvised live performances in a studio instead of in front of an audience.


Ah, makes sense and sounds like you have all the info you need. In terms of rating, in the end it is a matter of a balance between both the work's consistency and degree. This balance can be easily lost, especially in the mental exercise of trying to consider a work's overall impact (where it is easy to lose sight of how consistent it was too). I've found that it's roughly equal in importance to pay as much attention to this consistency (as it will always prove roughly equal in importance with "degree" or "extent" to the work's depth and durability, even if finding this out can take multiple revisits). In other words, anyone can say that Wagner's 13-14 hour Ring Cycle has the "most" expressed emotional, conceptual and creative engagement of any work ever, and perhaps that's true or at least a very legitimate argument could be made for it beyond most others, "so shouldn't it be #1?" (And I'm not necessarily arguing that it shouldn't...this is just an easy example for this point) But, what about when we combine this in import with CONSISTENCY (of expressed emotional, conceptual, creative engagement) as well. These given equal importance, does The Ring still provide the most potent accumulation of quality (emotion, concept, creativity) or is such somewhat more reserved for its climaxes but not as much "in between"? (even if by that I don't mean to claim that these parts of it are insubstantial as they do feature Wagner's multi faceted, often intertwined, genius with leitmotif) ...That's the sort of comparisons where it can get more meticulous: between a massive and extensive work like Wagner's Ring, and say, a relentless work - but relatively short and far less extensive - like The Doors' debut (that one might argue is more relentlessly consistent; a greater rapidity of potent/significant emotion, concept, creativity).

Only experience with evaluating and comparing many works tells the tale (imo). Of course, at or near the top, one finds the utmost potent combination between "consistency" and "degree" like obvious examples of Beethoven's 9th and Michelangelo's Sistine where both are exemplified to or near a maximum and with continuously purposeful development (or virtually).

But even with experience, these sort of comparisons (between a work like The Doors and Wagner's Ring) are probably the toughest sort of comparisons to make.
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Carl21



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  • #469
  • Posted: 11/09/2021 14:32
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Yesterday, I thought about it this way: Why don't we compare these "extended" songs (sometimes lasting over 10 verses with instrumental intro, outro and interludes) to a pop album. A pop album has a lot of repetition; from repeated choruses and verses to repeated melody. If we strip the album from its repeated parts, how much of the album would actually stay? Or let's say how meaningful would that shortened version of the album sound? It will def sound incoherent and hurried, just like the shortened versions of these songs.

Last edited by Carl21 on 11/09/2021 14:40; edited 1 time in total
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Carl21



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  • #470
  • Posted: 11/09/2021 14:39
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AfterHours wrote:
Carl21 wrote:
AfterHours wrote:
Carl21 wrote:
A fterHours wrote:
I would go with the complete version, unless maybe if the shortened version is the "official" version. But, by "complete", it sounds like you mean that the longer versions are also the "official" ones.

In terms of rating, if lengthening the song provides a purposeful development (by "purposeful" I mean more "serves a useful purpose emotionally/conceptually/creatively" than determining how "intentional" it was, even though both usually go hand in hand) ...then it will tend to increase the rating compared to if it wasn't extended. Obviously, this will increase proportional to how successful the development is; if said development barely served a purpose and provides little qualitative accumulation over too long a period, then it could very well lower the overall rating or at best keep the rating at a stand still ... but some music, particularly that of the more contemplative or trance-like variety, can be enhanced by repetition.


The official versions are recorded live performances, so I'm assuming this repetition is for the sake of extending the concert. Repetition regarding verses that make each part of the song sounds necessary and intentional, but the repetition of a whole part is just performing it again as if you choose to repeat a song in an album, which, I think, is optional. However, regarding the short versions, there are few official ones, but they seem to be poorly cut from live performances, so they don't feel coherent. Many songs don't have official short versions, so this is something hypothetically exists.


Yeah, if it's basically a reprise or similar, I usually wouldn't include that as part of the "real" album, unless there was a clear intent that it is supposed to be part of it.

But also, if you're just listening to live performances, that's not really an area I get involved in, and none of my lists are representative of that as their focus, so maybe someone else is better suited to help dissect what should be included or not. Besides, usually there is an "official" work of art/release/album that the live performances are based on. In your case it sounds like those too are just poorly cut excerpts from the live ones, so I don't know man... Sounds like an annoying predicament to me (at least as far as a clear evaluation can be made; hopefully at least the music is worth it!)


Nah, the official versions are the live versions. There were attempts at omitting the repeated parts to make the songs shorter and hence easier to listen to for those not able or not in the mood to listen to a non-stop performance for 40 min and longer. In practice, it only sounds logical that each verse should be repeated twice cuz the flow of the song feels interrupted if it was hurried the other way. It sounds tough from a rating point of view, but from a listening point of view, it's not a problem.

The issue is that some of the recording of Arabic music, esp before the 60s, were live performances, same thing with Indian classical music. These performances belong to the peak period for these styles of music, so they can't be ignored even if they're not fine recordings. It was only recently that world music musicians, including the old ones that are still alive, started recording in studios, nothing's changed, but they just played their improvised live performances in a studio instead of in front of an audience.


Ah, makes sense and sounds like you have all the info you need. In terms of rating, in the end it is a matter of a balance between both the work's consistency and degree. This balance can be easily lost, especially in the mental exercise of trying to consider a work's overall impact (where it is easy to lose sight of how consistent it was too). I've found that it's roughly equal in importance to pay as much attention to this consistency (as it will always prove roughly equal in importance with "degree" or "extent" to the work's depth and durability, even if finding this out can take multiple revisits). In other words, anyone can say that Wagner's 13-14 hour Ring Cycle has the "most" expressed emotional, conceptual and creative engagement of any work ever, and perhaps that's true or at least a very legitimate argument could be made for it beyond most others, "so shouldn't it be #1?" (And I'm not necessarily arguing that it shouldn't...this is just an easy example for this point) But, what about when we combine this in import with CONSISTENCY (of expressed emotional, conceptual, creative engagement) as well. These given equal importance, does The Ring still provide the most potent accumulation of quality (emotion, concept, creativity) or is such somewhat more reserved for its climaxes but not as much "in between"? (even if by that I don't mean to claim that these parts of it are insubstantial as they do feature Wagner's multi faceted, often intertwined, genius with leitmotif) ...That's the sort of comparisons where it can get more meticulous: between a massive and extensive work like Wagner's Ring, and say, a relentless work - but relatively short and far less extensive - like The Doors' debut (that one might argue is more relentlessly consistent; a greater rapidity of potent/significant emotion, concept, creativity).

Only experience with evaluating and comparing many works tells the tale (imo). Of course, at or near the top, one finds the utmost potent combination between "consistency" and "degree" like obvious examples of Beethoven's 9th and Michelangelo's Sistine where both are exemplified to or near a maximum and with continuously purposeful development (or virtually).

But even with experience, these sort of comparisons (between a work like The Doors and Wagner's Ring) are probably the toughest sort of comparisons to make.


I think you're referring to the idea about "efficiency" of style that we talked about earlier. I think it probably matters how emotionally condensed and consistent a certain work of art is, but the final result, compared to a longer/bigger work, will be the same except the first one achieved it quicker. So, it's up to debate whether this attribute should be part of the rating system or not.
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