Is an album's influence overvalued? - Music

Robert Anton Wilson
Epic Proghead

Gender: Male
Age: 56
Location: Inside

swedenman wrote:

... but in many cases the effect an album has on the music industry is just luck of the draw

This is like saying that the team that won just happened to have been lucky enough to score the most points. It may happen sometimes, being at the right place at the right moment, ... but when it happens over more than 40 years with millions and millions of people listening to an album like Sgt Pepper, Pet Sounds or DSOTM and saying it is among the best things they ever listened to ... that does not feel like luck anymore to me.

Guest

Robert Anton Wilson wrote:

swedenman wrote:

... influence. It's the only quality listed above that cannot be objectively evaluated quite literally on the day of an album's release.

I would disagree with that. Most of the albums that end up on the top of the charts are the kind of albums which at first listen you know you jus experienced something you never had before. When it is good it is good and you know it. If you need to examine technical proficency, flow, lyrical depth, blabla bli blabla bla before knowing it is a good album, then it can be a good dran top 100 album, but it is not top 10 of BEA list material... Sgt Pepper and Pet Sounds did not become influential in the 70s, they became influential upon release. Some albums are sometimes influential even before release.

You're talking about originality. It's different from influence. An album by definition cannot be influential the moment it's released because influential means it influenced someone, which it can't do until it's released.

Robert Anton Wilson wrote:

swedenman wrote:

The Who, Black Sabbath, and Led Zeppelin will always be considered legendary. Why? Well, some of them arguably score pretty high on the other criteria (particularly The Beatles), but had any of these artists not had the influence they had on the music industry, none of them would have the legendary status they have today.

This sentence makes no sense to me. Are you saying that if these bands would not be legendary then they would not be legendary. But they are legendary and that is why they are legendary. System of a Down may be quite excellent but thye are not legendary so that is why they are not a legend. The fact that some old bands are legendary does not prevent new bands that are the stuff of legen from becomig legend. Elvis becaime legendary in the 50s, the Beatles in the 60s, Led Zep in the 70s, U2 in the 80s, Radiohead in the 90s and so on ...

This point doesn't make any sense unless you're implying that "legendary" and "influential" are equivalent terms. I guess "legendary" is a subjective term, so if that's how you define it, fair enough, but that's not what I meant.

Robert Anton Wilson wrote:

swedenman wrote:

So why is it so damn important?

Because the gutsy "I never heard that" sometimes hits deeper than the intellectual "I've never heard it done that well". The grand era of classical music and opera composer is past so new classical album are usually evaluated based on the proficency of the conductor, the soloist, the orchsstra, the recording. Rock/pop music is still being composed as we go ... it is not yet a style of music where proficency wins over originality because it is still a music style where playing your own composition is the main medium instead of interpreting someons elses...

Once again, you're talking about originality. I think originality is incredibly important in evaluating an album. That's not what this thread is about.

Robert Anton Wilson wrote:

swedenman wrote:

Is this really fair?

The reason an album is at the top is because more people like it and put it at the top of their chart. Being in number one position does not mean an album is better per se, it means more people consider it is the best for them. It could be done differently but that is the way it is being done. The hope is that if so many people consider a given album to be their favorite it means something. What it means is up to you to interpret.

I agree, but that's not what I meant by "fair". I can understand why the more influential albums will end up toward the top of our overall charts, but what I'm asking is if it's really fair to let influence affect where we personally rank certain albums.

HigherThanTheSun

Gender: Male
Age: 33
Location: UK

In my opinion the best way to compile your list should be as follows;

Firstly, imagine you can only listen to one album between now and the day you die, what album would it be? Once you've had a long think about this, put that album in your number 1 slot.

Secondly, imagine you can only listen to two albums between know and the day you die, what two albums would you pick? Obviously your number 1 pick should stay the same, put the second album at number 2.

Repeat this process until you have filled up your list, simple.

Forget about trying to evaluate albums objectively or satisfying certain criteria, just pick the albums you love it's that simple. It's imposssible to eliminate our personal bias when making our lists so why bother trying? I know for sure my favourite album ever definitely isn't the pinnacle of music, a 'classic' or anywhere close to what a music critic would call a masterpiece, but I don't care because it's the album I love the most so it's top of my list.

After thousands of people have made lists it will be no surprise that certain albums will appear much more frequently than others and hey presto you have an all time list of the albums which people love the most. Let's stop acting like critics and journalists and just choose the albums we like best yeah?
_________________
Shut up mate you're boring!

Robert Anton Wilson
Epic Proghead

Gender: Male
Age: 56
Location: Inside

swedenman wrote:

An album by definition cannot be influential the moment it's released because influential means it influenced someone, which it can't do until it's released.

Albums are not made in a vacuum and suddenly released upon the world. Read the epic stories of the release of the albums Led Zep I and Truth by Jeff Beck and you will see that nearly every single track on either of these two albums was a response to one another. Or if you listen to bootlegs from bands like Pink Floyd you will see that the DSOTM was fully formed and played in public for a full year prior to its release, Animals was also palyed nearly in its entirety as early as 1973 (with different titles and lyrics mostly Raving and Drooling was the song Sheep and You Gotta Be Crazy was Dog). Do you really think the fans and budding musicians who were at those shows or who were circulating those bootlegs waited until the album`s release before they decided to ask for or mimick Dave Gilmour`s chops. Then there is the session musicians who play on famous album sessions and who go back home converted. Music is a dynamic art and artists influence one another constantly -while they play, while they record- when they meet on tours, at events, in the studio corridors ... Sure the fans cannot be influenced before they hear the album once but even then some singles are often released months prior to an album and then it is really not so much the fans that make music evolve, it is the players.

Robert Anton Wilson
Epic Proghead

Gender: Male
Age: 56
Location: Inside

swedenman wrote:

what I'm asking is if it's really fair to let influence affect where we personally rank certain albums.

Well if you mean like putting Sgt Pepper on your list because it "has" to be there because everybody else does so then i agree that the "usual suspect" are more likely to be included due to a crowd effect and that yes this is a little sad.

I know myself that I do learn a lot about a member by looking at his lists and seeing where that member put Sgt Pepper, Pet Sounds, OK Computer or Doolittle relative to one another. And I am more likely to be influenced to try the unknown albums from the chart of a member that positions these albums as I would rather than from another member. They do act as nice guiding beacons I find. Even their absence says a lot about a chart.

But your comment about the fairness of this mass effect sounds in my ear almost as if you were saying that "influence" is something an album is given and those who are bestowed this privilege then fare better. To me it is clear that influence is something earned by a record. Therefore benefitting from something you earned does not sound to me unfair in any way.

Guest

Robert Anton Wilson wrote:

swedenman wrote:

An album by definition cannot be influential the moment it's released because influential means it influenced someone, which it can't do until it's released.

Albums are not made in a vacuum and suddenly released upon the world. Read the epic stories of the release of the albums Led Zep I and Truth by Jeff Beck and you will see that nearly every single track on either of these two albums was a response to one another. Or if you listen to bootlegs from bands like Pink Floyd you will see that the DSOTM was fully formed and played in public for a full year prior to its release, Animals was also palyed nearly in its entirety as early as 1973 (with different titles and lyrics mostly Raving and Drooling was the song Sheep and You Gotta Be Crazy was Dog). Do you really think the fans and budding musicians who were at those shows or who were circulating those bootlegs waited until the album`s release before they decided to ask for or mimick Dave Gilmour`s chops. Then there is the session musicians who play on famous album sessions and who go back home converted. Music is a dynamic art and artists influence one another constantly -while they play, while they record- when they meet on tours, at events, in the studio corridors ... Sure the fans cannot be influenced before they hear the album once but even then some singles are often released months prior to an album and then it is really not so much the fans that make music evolve, it is the players.

Okay, you're taking it WAY too literally. When I say an album cannot be influential on the day of its release, I mean it cannot have a major influence on someone else's work until they've gotten a chance to hear it. Yes, of course music influences different people in different ways at different times, sometime even prior to its mainstream release, but the fact is that their is nothing fundamentally "influential" about music when it is first created. It's not until after it's been created that it can become "influential", which is all I'm saying.

Robert Anton Wilson wrote:

But your comment about the fairness of this mass effect sounds in my ear almost as if you were saying that "influence" is something an album is given and those who are bestowed this privilege then fare better. To me it is clear that influence is something earned by a record. Therefore benefitting from something you earned does not sound to me unfair in any way.

Well, I agree that influence is something a record earns, but, to me, whether or not it should benefit from the influence it's earned depends on why it earned it in the first place. For example, I personally don't think The Ramones deserve to be remembered as a legendary band just because they spawned generations of shitty punk bands, considering that their music is immature, boisterous, and unimaginative (just my opinion, no need to take up arms over that, folks). Do they deserve to be remembered as an important band? Absolutely. Does that make their albums good? No.