Pygmalion (studio album) by Slowdive
Condition: Very Good
Condition: Very Good
Slowdive bestography
Pygmalion is ranked 4th best out of 9 albums by Slowdive on BestEverAlbums.com.
The best album by Slowdive is Souvlaki which is ranked number 116 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 12,322.
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Pygmalion track list
The tracks on this album have an average rating of 80 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).
Pygmalion rankings
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Pygmalion collection
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Pygmalion ratings
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Showing latest 5 ratings for this album. | Show all 215 ratings for this album.
Rating | Date updated | Member | Album ratings | Avg. album rating |
---|---|---|---|---|
03/15/2024 23:33 | RadioGraaah | 552 | 77/100 | |
02/25/2024 17:38 | Cargusbralem | 697 | 68/100 | |
02/04/2024 19:08 | asimpkins | 2,041 | 68/100 | |
01/01/2024 19:32 | Cheboygan74 | 1,154 | 51/100 | |
12/23/2023 14:15 | RadioBallet | 30 | 49/100 |
Rating metrics:
Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
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This album is rated in the top 4% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 76.7/100, a mean average of 76.1/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 76.9/100. The standard deviation for this album is 14.3.
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Pygmalion sounds like if they tried to expand the song Souvlaki Space Station to a full album. The result is quite pleasant and stellar.
It is difficult to make a comparison between this and Souvlaki. Souvlaki is a standard collection of great shoegaze songs, while the enigmatic Pygmalion focuses more on creating haunting, and very spacy soundscapes with an even denser reverb effect on everything most of the time. It's like a black hole swallowed Souvlaki (space station?) and here we are on another dimension, lost in Pygmalion. Luckily, the last couple of tracks offer us a ticket back home, just when we thought our oxygen tanks were depleted.
Anyway that's what I felt while listening to this album, and I'm giving it a 7 (good album).
This rating applies to the triple-disc version. Favourite tracks: Rutti, Crazy For You (both versions), Blue Skied An' Clear (both versions), Watch Me, Ambient Theme Part II.
I really didnt like this album when I first discovered shoegaze, and slowdive. Of course, this was also before I discovered Talk Talk, Eno, and Aphex Twin, who seem like the closest influences of this music. Upon beginning to listen to it for the first time in a few years, the Talk Talk similarity struck me most readily. The way that little drum machine shaker sound comes in, it feels like something right off of Laughing Stock. More towards the middle of the album, there is a certain SAW II influence at play for sure. And of course overarching is Eno, but more in approach than direct sound. It is still unmistakably Slowdive, but so much more. Or maybe more accurately, so much less...
Though the album is very good as a whole, a lot of the area from tracks 3-7 can feel a little dreary or meandering, in the way that bad ambient can be. Not to say that it is bad, it just isnt as good as the more structured first and last two tracks.
80/100 (Good)
While nearly all Slowdive fans adore the previous LP Souvlaki, this next album Pygmalion is where fans seem to find no easy middle ground. Pygmalion is either the fan's favorite or is (mistakenly) considered a totally failed album, such is its departure from the group's previous work. Their record label (Creation) delayed the record's release and promptly dumped the group from the roster immediately after finally releasing it. (For me it is my favorite.)
Whereas their previous work used dozens (hundreds?) of guitar effects pedals, there the effects are more often saved for experimental vocal treatments, particularly Rachel Goswell's. The record opens with a strummed guitar chord slowy unfolding into a ten-minute opus that feels like an orbit. And with each next song, the mood gets hazier and more out of focus, eventually the tide turns and wraps back into focus by the final song. You may drift in and out of your body or merge with your couch. What a masterpiece.
If you're coming off Souvlaki, Just For A Day or both, don't be expecting Pygmalion to keep its nose to the grindstone. This isn't so much a shoegaze album as it is a Post-Rock and an ambient one. Once you get past Crazy For You, the whole paradigm shifts and shit goes full Spiderland meets 80's Eno or Aphex Twin. If you're a lover of Ambient, Post-Rock and/or Shoegaze albums - just like me - you'll probably love this album. It acts as an almost frightening document to the year shoegaze was considered to be a dying art (the very same Pygmalion was released), as well as an brilliant example (if not an underrated one) of post-rock pre-F# A# Infinity.
In terms of Slwodive's body of work itself; I'd have to rank this in second place.
To me, this is so clearly Slowdive's masterpiece. It's potent, and has a timelessness to it. If I had heard this, and someone had told me it came out today, I could totally believe that. There are albums from ten years ago that don't hold up as well as this breezy, haunting collection of songs.
I bought this lp when it came out. I thought it was great but no one else wanted to know - glad it's been reappraised and now seen to be the masterpiece it always was.
Better than Souvlaki. And *that* album was pretty damn awesome as well.
Now, This is my favourite ambient album.
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