A Peep Through A Spyglass: My Chart Building Diary - Music Diaries

baystateoftheart
Neil Young as a butternut squash

Age: 29
Location: Massachusetts

Spyglass wrote:

I really don't want to work on my 2020 chart yet because the best albums of the year are few in number and typically agreed on throughout the internet. I'm working hard to find a hidden gem in this mess of a kickstarter for a new decade but it's a challenge. It really is. My top 5 are practically going to be the top five of Rateyourmusic's 2020 chart, and that fucking sucks. It makes me look like a conformist, but it's my true opinion. This year just hasn't been that great, and my chart isn't going to look exciting at all. Tbh, I haven't been listening to a lot of 2020 albums because it's been so dull for a while.

I usually wait a while before starting to dig into the year's albums, which makes it more exciting for me, because there's never a dry spell that way. I have yet to listen to anything from 2020. I'll probably start within the next month.

And nothing wrong with having the same taste as the group sometimes. Genuine opinions are always better than performative non-conformity.
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Add me on RYM

Spyglass
Resident Metalhead

Gender: Male
Location: The red dot on the map

It kinda sucks that I'm the only one interested in "thematic" charts that center around personal feelings, philosophies, etc. Most of the custom charts are copy/pasted from magazines or ranking bands, and there aren't enough specialty charts either. I'm the only one with a straight up indie rock chart and it's not finished.

So I'm going to work on some specialty charts and go from there. A solo artists chart would be nice, but that's the kind of specialty that requires study and accuracy if it's going to match up with the rest of my charts (almost all of them, including my overall, are still in development). I think a slow atmosphere music chart might be easier to make since they're all easier to compare.

For now, I'm going to go through some sludge re-evaluation as practice for a slow and atmospheric music chart. Expect a lot of Neurosis.
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Do it yourself and let me play my music: https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=61802

Spyglass
Resident Metalhead

Gender: Male
Location: The red dot on the map

I've written a first draft for a death metal chart. It's missing a lot of classics right now, but I'll edit the chart as they come back to me. I'm also working through the entire discography of Defeated Sanity, who I just added to BEA.

https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=59739

At the same time I've issued a challenge to myself. Brutal death metal is a subgenre where the majority of acts involved oftentimes sing about gore, murder, rape, blasphemy, etc. But it's still possible to experience the genre without such things. Currently, my favorite brutal death metal act is Suffocation, and my favorite album therein in is Pierced from Within, which ironically doesn't bear the same level of violence and gore as the average brutal death album. I'll be creating a second chart today for brutal death metal, which doesn't yet exist on BEA. I urge someone more versed in it, however, to create a more comprehensive chart, because the neglect of absolute violence and blasphemy will lead to my chart's exclusion of Cryptopsy, Dying Fetus, and many other brutal death bands.
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Do it yourself and let me play my music: https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=61802

Spyglass
Resident Metalhead

Gender: Male
Location: The red dot on the map

I've finally perfected my power metal chart.

https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=58517

The countries of origin are tagged on each album. Power Metal might mostly but German, but its power ranges worldwide.
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Do it yourself and let me play my music: https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=61802

LedZep

Spyglass wrote:

I've written a first draft for a death metal chart. It's missing a lot of classics right now, but I'll edit the chart as they come back to me. I'm also working through the entire discography of Defeated Sanity, who I just added to BEA.

https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=59739

At the same time I've issued a challenge to myself. Brutal death metal is a subgenre where the majority of acts involved oftentimes sing about gore, murder, rape, blasphemy, etc. But it's still possible to experience the genre without such things. Currently, my favorite brutal death metal act is Suffocation, and my favorite album therein in is Pierced from Within, which ironically doesn't bear the same level of violence and gore as the average brutal death album. I'll be creating a second chart today for brutal death metal, which doesn't yet exist on BEA. I urge someone more versed in it, however, to create a more comprehensive chart, because the neglect of absolute violence and blasphemy will lead to my chart's exclusion of Cryptopsy, Dying Fetus, and many other brutal death bands.

This is excellent. Have you heard Insomnium's later releases? This one was universally praised, and rightly so

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Winter's Gate by Insomnium

Some others well worth mentioning:

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Communion by Septicflesh

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Covenant by Morbid Angel

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Necroticism: Descanting The Insalubrious by Carcass

Also a lot of hybrid bands like Opeth, Edge of Sanity, Amorphis, Swallow the Sun, Gojira, Mortician, Cattle Decap, Terrorizer (if you have Assuck, why not have more deathgrind Very Happy

) etc. Some of them may be pretty gory though, so you can skip them if that's not your thing
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Finally updated the overall chart

2020s
90s

Spyglass
Resident Metalhead

Gender: Male
Location: The red dot on the map

I haven't heard the new Insomnium yet, but I forgot to put Carcass up there. Unfortunately, the other two kind of push the anti-religious gimmick a bit far. Farther than Slayer, and if it's farther than them, it's a no-go. I'm sure they're awesome albums, though.
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Do it yourself and let me play my music: https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=61802

Last edited by Spyglass on 06/05/2020 00:07; edited 1 time in total

craola
crayon master

Location: pdx

Spyglass wrote:

It kinda sucks that I'm the only one interested in "thematic" charts that center around personal feelings, philosophies, etc. Most of the custom charts are copy/pasted from magazines or ranking bands, and there aren't enough specialty charts either. I'm the only one with a straight up indie rock chart and it's not finished.

be the change you wish to see. i just swung through your custom charts, and i quite like the lullaby and surrealism charts. anytime i try to chart around a feeling, i feel like i forget what the feelings mean. perhaps a mood is a better way of approaching it, though i suspect i'll run into the same issue.

as for straight up indie rock charts, i'm surprised if you're the only one that has one. there used to be a few, but i know i frequently publish a custom chart and later change it to private. i have something like 30 private charts currently.
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Spyglass
Resident Metalhead

Gender: Male
Location: The red dot on the map

For my next chart, I'm going to make a simple argument for some of the charts I've seen here, one that I recently started a thread on. The hair metal charts here are pretty good, but Van Halen and GNR were not poppy enough to be hair metal. THey had a few songs spread across their catalogues, and that's it.

In response to the common misconception, I've created a prototype hair metal chart. Please read the notes at the top.

https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=59797
_________________
Do it yourself and let me play my music: https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=61802

Spyglass
Resident Metalhead

Gender: Male
Location: The red dot on the map

I get pretty excited when I'm in the mood for 50's and 60's music, then I can get through a lot of it without quitting and actually gain some experience in that era. My early-60's year charts are bad bad bad. Les than ten albums, almost no reason to go. I'll be improving them while I'm in this mood, and for that I've got to finally get through the last of the Karajan Beethoven Symphonies and check out more jazz by early giants. It'll also help to discover more obscurities that haven't been added to the BEA database yet, like I just did with another Karajan album. I'm pretty sure my late-60's charts will be fine, but this gives me another excuse to get through more classical and jazz.

Check out Symphonien 8 & 9 (Finale). It's the last stages of the 9 Symphonies (with Symphony 9's presto going first for some reason), and it's brilliant. You can find it on any 9 Symphonien playlist, but make sure you listen to 9s Presto first to get the tracklist right!

https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?a=171684
_________________
Do it yourself and let me play my music: https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=61802

Spyglass
Resident Metalhead

Gender: Male
Location: The red dot on the map

My main chart is almost finished. I am very certain about the top 80 or so. I should have the last albums organized in a couple of days, and I'll continue writing my little stories and poems to go with each album. Some will be longer than others, but it all depends on the experiences I get from each release.
_________________
Do it yourself and let me play my music: https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=61802