Musical random chat - Music - Forums : Best Ever Albums

revolver94
professional dilettante

Gender: Male
Age: 29
Location: DC suburb

its obviously very popular not to discriminate between different kinds of music right now based on genre and subgenre, which is of course a good thing, rockism is bad

however -- i think it is important to realize that this doesn't mean that "every genre is inherently equal," or that you're equally likely to find good music in any genre. some musical movements may attract more talent at different periods of time.

i dont think this is a "huge" problem (certainly im unaware right now as i havent really been on the site much lately) but there have definitely been some instances here of "poptimism gone wild" when it really seems like people wanted to find meaning where there was none for the sake of eclecticism.
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baystateoftheart
Neil Young as a butternut squash

Age: 29
Location: Massachusetts

revolver94 wrote:

its obviously very popular not to discriminate between different kinds of music right now based on genre and subgenre, which is of course a good thing, rockism is bad

however -- i think it is important to realize that this doesn't mean that "every genre is inherently equal," or that you're equally likely to find good music in any genre. some musical movements may attract more talent at different periods of time.

i dont think this is a "huge" problem (certainly im unaware right now as i havent really been on the site much lately) but there have definitely been some instances here of "poptimism gone wild" when it really seems like people wanted to find meaning where there was none for the sake of eclecticism.

Ok I'll bite. What is one good example of "poptimism gone wild" on BEA?

On the flip side, it's not hard at all to find evidence of rockism throughout the site *cough* overall chart *cough*.
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revolver94
professional dilettante

Gender: Male
Age: 29
Location: DC suburb

baystateoftheart wrote:

revolver94 wrote:

its obviously very popular not to discriminate between different kinds of music right now based on genre and subgenre, which is of course a good thing, rockism is bad

however -- i think it is important to realize that this doesn't mean that "every genre is inherently equal," or that you're equally likely to find good music in any genre. some musical movements may attract more talent at different periods of time.

i dont think this is a "huge" problem (certainly im unaware right now as i havent really been on the site much lately) but there have definitely been some instances here of "poptimism gone wild" when it really seems like people wanted to find meaning where there was none for the sake of eclecticism.

Ok I'll bite. What is one good example of "poptimism gone wild" on BEA?

On the flip side, it's not hard at all to find evidence of rockism throughout the site *cough* overall chart *cough*.

im thinking of one user who used to be active on here like a couple of years ago tbh lol. i think i was always a bit bitter at how far he was able to take the poptimism thing, when i felt like i was trying to make it my thing too, but in retrospect he went a bit too far. i dont want to say in case he's still around secretly Razz

other than him i cant think of anyone too much right now. maybe the obsession w kitty pryde lol... jk i was into her too. maybe its something more that i anticipate happening in the near future?? not on BEA but everywhere?

because yeah we're pretty rockist here like u say lol
_________________
My top songs of the 2010s
and
Spotify link

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Repo
BeA Sunflower

Location: Forest Park

babyBlueSedan wrote:

Romanelli wrote:

RANT:

It needs to be made against the law to make an album of any kind and call your first track "Intro". Lame and ridiculously overdone and completely unimaginative. Be a little creative and make some kind of effort to not be like everyone else.

RANT OVER.

So is it better or worse for a song to be called Opening Intro?

Worse! That just means they have even more intros planned for the rest of the album! Rolling Eyes

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

babyBlueSedan wrote:

Romanelli wrote:

RANT:

It needs to be made against the law to make an album of any kind and call your first track "Intro". Lame and ridiculously overdone and completely unimaginative. Be a little creative and make some kind of effort to not be like everyone else.

RANT OVER.

So is it better or worse for a song to be called Opening Intro?

AND it has 7 songs called intro on a single album. I know nothing about the album, but maybe he was so pissed at everything having an intro he was making fun of it by calling it intro.

I thought about this... like what if a band had every 1st song called intro... and then you are like, hey you know that song by Tom Waits called intro... and if you know this record, I guess you ask which one... Laughing

Ok, maybe I had a long day, but that was FUNNY.

Applerill
Autistic Princess <3

Gender: Female
Age: 30
Location: Chicago

I dunno, I've definitely waned in my confidence in poptimism over the past year or so (mostly after the election showed the dangers and fallacies of populism in general), but I still stand firm with the validity of all genres being valuable not just as a basic platitude, but almost as a logical proof. Simply put, genres are made when there is a sufficient audience for a sound, but they also create what could be thought of as a measuring stick for determining these releases. Therefore, if music releases are held to the standards of their genres, then the only way those genres can universally be fruitless is if they completely fail to live up to the goals of themselves, and since these goals are normally implicitly created by initial releases in the genre, I can't think of a single example where this is the case.

(You can, of course, have moral complaints about these genre goals, citing things like misogyny or "simplicity" or "pretension", but unless you are going after actual social justice issues, you most likely will sound like a joyless sod. And even if you make connections to systemic issues in a scene, such as how pop music affects capitalism, this still seems fairly anti musical)

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

Applerill wrote:

I dunno, I've definitely waned in my confidence in poptimism over the past year or so (mostly after the election showed the dangers and fallacies of populism in general), but I still stand firm with the validity of all genres being valuable not just as a basic platitude, but almost as a logical proof. Simply put, genres are made when there is a sufficient audience for a sound, but they also create what could be thought of as a measuring stick for determining these releases. Therefore, if music releases are held to the standards of their genres, then the only way those genres can universally be fruitless is if they completely fail to live up to the goals of themselves, and since these goals are normally implicitly created by initial releases in the genre, I can't think of a single example where this is the case.

(You can, of course, have moral complaints about these genre goals, citing things like misogyny or "simplicity" or "pretension", but unless you are going after actual social justice issues, you most likely will sound like a joyless sod. And even if you make connections to systemic issues in a scene, such as how pop music affects capitalism, this still seems fairly anti musical)

I like a lot of what you are saying here. I am curious about how you arrived at connecting poptimism and populism (other than the obvious I suppose).

Applerill
Autistic Princess <3

Gender: Female
Age: 30
Location: Chicago

sethmadsen wrote:

Applerill wrote:

I dunno, I've definitely waned in my confidence in poptimism over the past year or so (mostly after the election showed the dangers and fallacies of populism in general), but I still stand firm with the validity of all genres being valuable not just as a basic platitude, but almost as a logical proof. Simply put, genres are made when there is a sufficient audience for a sound, but they also create what could be thought of as a measuring stick for determining these releases. Therefore, if music releases are held to the standards of their genres, then the only way those genres can universally be fruitless is if they completely fail to live up to the goals of themselves, and since these goals are normally implicitly created by initial releases in the genre, I can't think of a single example where this is the case.

(You can, of course, have moral complaints about these genre goals, citing things like misogyny or "simplicity" or "pretension", but unless you are going after actual social justice issues, you most likely will sound like a joyless sod. And even if you make connections to systemic issues in a scene, such as how pop music affects capitalism, this still seems fairly anti musical)

I like a lot of what you are saying here. I am curious about how you arrived at connecting poptimism and populism (other than the obvious I suppose).

Well, you can definitely make the argument that it's just a way of upholding neoliberal power structures (where popularity is the measurement of success, as in "50 million Elvis fans can't be wrong"). This is why I thought it was important to focus on commercial and critical failures as well; as I realized when talking to digital activist and philosopher Astra Taylor last week at the Siskel Film Center, I used to use "poptimism' as shorthand for "aesthetic democracy", but just as democracy is so often misinterpreted, poptimism was so often used to just pacify the top earners.

Anyway, I now realize that I misunderstood what Revolver was saying; he wasn't saying that there were bad genres, just that there were some better than others. I still feel like this argument is unproductive at best, though: Perhaps there's a reason why "progressive metal" is a punchline to almost every cool queer music nerd I know (I'm definitely not a huge fan), but I honestly don't know how to measure it as explicitly a failure when it's just as likely that I'm not accepting it the right way like so many (white, male, and nerdy) fans in the nineties and oughts did, and I still can think of several releases I absolutely loved in it. Much more importantly, though, when I think about all the genres I love (from bubblegum bass to Inuit vocal games to footwork and even post-punk), it doesn't take a long time going through my friends genre charts on RYM before getting bored (this is, of course, assuming that there is such thing as "good" and "bad" music, since that would definitely be a prerequisite to accepting Revolver's argument). Maybe there's some negligible difference in quantity of releases people love, but I think this has much more to do with how successful the genre is in marketing itself, which would mean that heralding post-punk above a tiny genre like crunkcore or turbofolk seems like the opposite of progressive.

Simply put, ranking how "good" genres are compared to each other honestly doesn't seem any more useful to me than debating whether The Beatles or Radiohead deserve to be #1. In fact, I've only felt more and more this way in the past year as I've been reading all these Red Bull Music Academy articles, because when you see how vast all these scenes are beyond your knowledge, and how so many artists we don't think about much are considered legends in that scene, it seems all the more childish to dismiss these worlds just because they "don't have as many classics" as post-punk or something.

Superunknown

Gender: Male

Hi there,

As a pretty big fan of rock music, especially hardrock/grunge, I would like to know what artists/albums you whould recommend me to listen to. I would like to start with thanking you, because it seems to get a really long message.

What I find important in music are the following three things: emotion, creativity/artistry and heavyness.

This are my favourite albums:

1. Nirvana - In Utero (Top tracks: Frances Farmer, Heart-Shaped-Box, Dumb, Pennyroyal Tea, All Apologies, Scentless Apprentice, ...). In my opinion, this doesn't have a single mediocre or bad track on it. So much emotion and heavyness, yet very artistical. It almost can't get any better. Or maybe... it would be better if Aneurysm & You Know You're Right were included.

2. Shared second place:
* Pearl Jam - Ten (Top tracks: Even Flow, Porch, Garden)
* Radiohead - OK Computer (Has my fav ever track on it as far as I know: Paranoid Android. Not to mention the last track, The Tourist.)
* Nirvana - Nevermind (But already seems to get too poppy in my experience)

Subsequently, this are my other favourite grunge bands.
This bands really make some great art, Scott and Chris really are among my favourite singers.
* Stone Temple Pilots - Core (fav tracks: Creep and Plush, I guess)
* Stone Temple Pilots - Purple (Silvergun Superman and Vasoline)
* Stone Temple Pilots - 3rd en 4th album: Tiny Music (...) and No. 4
* Soundgarden - Superunknown (The Day I Tried To Live, Head Down, Superunknown)
* Soundgarden - Down on the Upside (Pretty Noose)
(I personally can't compare this bands to Alice in Chains, which now seems obvious to recommend. I just totally don't like AIC music as much as STP's or Soundgarden's)

And some albums that aren't that much grunge:
* All the albums by Rammstein. (I would say, maybe that's just my favorite band, considering their bizarre creativity which is also well seen in their live shows and videoclips. Plus, so much emotion and heavyness in their music)
* Pixies - Doolittle (No. 13 Baby, Monkey Gone to Heaven, Debaser)
* Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream (Cherub Rock, Quiet, Today, Soma)
* System of a Down - Toxicity
* All the other albums by SOAD
* Radiohead - The Bends
* Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool
* Green Day - American Idiot
* Linkin Park - first 2 albums
* Audioslave - Self titled + Revelations
* My Bloody Valentine - Loveless

Other tracks that I consider as wonderful, apart from the albums they're on:
* Pearl Jam - Hail, Hail
* Radiohead - 2+2=5; You and Whose Army?
* Arcade Fire - Reflektor
* Smashing Pumpkins - An Ode To No One; Thru The Eyes of Ruby; Ava Adore; The Everlasting Gaze
* RATM - Guerilla Radio
* Green Day - Restless Heart Syndrome
* Muse - Map of the Problematique; Butterflies & Hurricanes; Micro Cuts; Muscle Museum; Sunburn
* Foo Fighters - All My Life; Erase/Replace; Headwires; I Should've Known; The Neverending Sigh

As you can see, it doesn't get any older than the 90's. I haven't taken my time yet to listen out all of this classic artists, such as Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd. I actually don't know where to start. I really want to get a band/artist, which usually means I literally go through their whole discography. But sure they have some songs I like. But I didn't fall for it as much as for grunge or other 90's rock music.

Once again, thanks very much! I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

Skinny
birdman_handrub.gif

Superunknown wrote:

Hi there,

As a pretty big fan of rock music, especially hardrock/grunge, I would like to know what artists/albums you whould recommend me to listen to. I would like to start with thanking you, because it seems to get a really long message.

What I find important in music are the following three things: emotion, creativity/artistry and heavyness.

This are my favourite albums:

1. Nirvana - In Utero (Top tracks: Frances Farmer, Heart-Shaped-Box, Dumb, Pennyroyal Tea, All Apologies, Scentless Apprentice, ...). In my opinion, this doesn't have a single mediocre or bad track on it. So much emotion and heavyness, yet very artistical. It almost can't get any better. Or maybe... it would be better if Aneurysm & You Know You're Right were included.

2. Shared second place:
* Pearl Jam - Ten (Top tracks: Even Flow, Porch, Garden)
* Radiohead - OK Computer (Has my fav ever track on it as far as I know: Paranoid Android. Not to mention the last track, The Tourist.)
* Nirvana - Nevermind (But already seems to get too poppy in my experience)

Subsequently, this are my other favourite grunge bands.
This bands really make some great art, Scott and Chris really are among my favourite singers.
* Stone Temple Pilots - Core (fav tracks: Creep and Plush, I guess)
* Stone Temple Pilots - Purple (Silvergun Superman and Vasoline)
* Stone Temple Pilots - 3rd en 4th album: Tiny Music (...) and No. 4
* Soundgarden - Superunknown (The Day I Tried To Live, Head Down, Superunknown)
* Soundgarden - Down on the Upside (Pretty Noose)
(I personally can't compare this bands to Alice in Chains, which now seems obvious to recommend. I just totally don't like AIC music as much as STP's or Soundgarden's)

And some albums that aren't that much grunge:
* All the albums by Rammstein. (I would say, maybe that's just my favorite band, considering their bizarre creativity which is also well seen in their live shows and videoclips. Plus, so much emotion and heavyness in their music)
* Pixies - Doolittle (No. 13 Baby, Monkey Gone to Heaven, Debaser)
* Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream (Cherub Rock, Quiet, Today, Soma)
* System of a Down - Toxicity
* All the other albums by SOAD
* Radiohead - The Bends
* Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool
* Green Day - American Idiot
* Linkin Park - first 2 albums
* Audioslave - Self titled + Revelations
* My Bloody Valentine - Loveless

Other tracks that I consider as wonderful, apart from the albums they're on:
* Pearl Jam - Hail, Hail
* Radiohead - 2+2=5; You and Whose Army?
* Arcade Fire - Reflektor
* Smashing Pumpkins - An Ode To No One; Thru The Eyes of Ruby; Ava Adore; The Everlasting Gaze
* RATM - Guerilla Radio
* Green Day - Restless Heart Syndrome
* Muse - Map of the Problematique; Butterflies & Hurricanes; Micro Cuts; Muscle Museum; Sunburn
* Foo Fighters - All My Life; Erase/Replace; Headwires; I Should've Known; The Neverending Sigh

As you can see, it doesn't get any older than the 90's. I haven't taken my time yet to listen out all of this classic artists, such as Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd. I actually don't know where to start. I really want to get a band/artist, which usually means I literally go through their whole discography. But sure they have some songs I like. But I didn't fall for it as much as for grunge or other 90's rock music.

Once again, thanks very much! I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

Your tastes aren't really mine, but maybe try:

Album - Generic Flipper by Flipper

Lysol by Melvins
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