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Best Albums of 2003, Scientifically
thdexter writes "Two guys statistically analyzed the best albums of 2003, from some thirty top-10 lists, giving value to how often an album was mentioned by editors and recording its mean place. White Stripes came out on top, with Outkast below. Full results are available on the site."
that the use of the word arbitrary twice in the article and the description of the "method" - "Not-Very-Scientific" which was also used as the article title (basically picking stuff at random) sheds a "few" question on this "survey" (don't think I could have used any more quotes). I would rather have another article on SCO or the RIAA.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
Lies, damn lies, and then there's statistics.
By looking at the list of results, I can tell you right away that by "best album" they don't necessarily mean "best music".
If the data that they start with is subjective than no amount of averaging will give objective results, just an average of subjective opinions.
If you have thirty top-ten lists, just treat each list like a ranked ballot. Should take about a millisecond to computer with most computers.
that was used as a part of my technical writing class (under the heading "How to lie with statistics"). "Some people use statistics like a drunk uses a lamp post. For support rather the illumination."
The dogcow says "Moof!"
Now come on the RIAA put out way more crap than that this year!
So when they say "best albums of the year" they actually mean "most admired by critics." Gotcha.
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
If pornography is the writing of harlots, what do you call their singing?
Who listens to the latest music anyways? It all sucks. I gave up on pop in 1995 and have never looked back. Besides, if you think about it, the latest music they play on the radio isn't necessarily good anyways. Fate will decide that. If you listen to classic rock and oldies, you are guaranteed the best music from that era. Instead, people who listen to what's on the radio now are merely guinea pigs for deciding what will become classic music. I have no patience for this and prefer to wait for this all to get sorted out. I guess that's why this list could be useful, but I think I'll wait for it all to get consolidated into a best of 2003 CD for 10 bucks :)
Watched a movie with no sound-track?
Went to a strip club with no music?
All would be pretty lame without tunes....
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
This is all the data they used:
http://www.rocketjump.org/top2003.txt
For all the thousands of albums released this year, this list only includes not even a hundred, the vast majority of it pop or rap music, and a little bit of soporific alt-rock. They even call it a "A Not-Very-Scientific Analysis". Attempts at objective criticism are bad enough, but this is a joke. Whoever submitted it is probably trying to DoS this guy's personal webpage via slashdotting.
It's a crime there was no mention of the releases from Vital Remains, Black Dahlia Murder, Wehrewolf, Destroyer 666, Iron Maiden, Blut Aus Nord, Aborym, or Iced Earth.
One week of the year? Every week of the year? Which chart? Not exactly what Id call a proper survey although the basic idea is a good one.
I do have to wonder though, surely with the charts being based on airplay and sales they must get mentioned every time they are played soo I would expect high listed songs to be mentioned more hence increase their mean? Does this survey seem a little biased to anyone else?
It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.
"giving value to how often an album was mentioned by editors and recording its mean place."
So, it's not the best albums of 2003, but the most popular. Isn't the article title pretty misleading in that case? The linked page doesn't even say it's the "best" albums, it just says "top". So, really, this is just a statistically accurate Top 20 chart.
Slashdot: when news breaks, we give you the pieces.
Early on in their FAQ they claim:
...
Historically, what is pleasing to the human ear has not changed since man began writing music. What has changed are styles, performances, the instruments used and the way music is produced and recorded, but a compelling melody is still compelling
Okay, so far, so good; it sounds like they're saying "good music is good music, and here's a tool for telling whether something is good or not." I'm still skeptical at this point, but it's certainly an interesting idea, and one worthy of study.
But then they completely lose me with this one:
A high score means that a song is mathematically similar to recent hit songs and a low score means it is dissimilar. These scores have meaning when it comes to success potential in today's market but is not meant to mean a song is good or bad. For example, when tested for today's market some really great classic hits from the 60's 70's and 80's score very low and would most likely not become hits today with their original production or chord progression. That does not mean that they are not good songs and it is quite possible that if produced more in line with today's sounds they could score much higher.
IOW, our algorithm says music is good if it sounds like everything else people think is good right now, and if it's different from current Top 40, it's crap.
They make a high-flown reference to the 36 Plots and other serious attempts at artistic analysis, but that's not what they're actually doing. I do believe that good music is good music, good stories are good stories, etc. I can at least consider seriously the hypothesis that all good art has certain qualities in common, and that by analyzing those qualities we can evaluate a new work's chance of lasting success. But the idea that musicians (or writers, or whatever) can keep pumping out stuff exactly like What's Hot Now and be guaranteed a blockbuster is just stupid.
I know! Those cords are the same ones God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai.
'There are lies, damn lies and statistics'
;)
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
Iron Maiden
...and they want their band back. They'd also like you to return the satanic props and hair care products when you're done, too.
Thanks!
And he wears really old hand-me-down shirts too!
Your disinterest in music has been recorded and logged.
Our music rehabilition officers have been dispatched and will arrive very shortly.
With regards,
The RIAA
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
Let's see if I can find a way to summarize the year's best music to my ears...
:: this is by far the best soundtrack ever produced for this film. Mixing jazz, pure psychedelia, and even throwing in a Art Ensemble of Chicago cover, this album ties everything that is meaningful about the psychedelic experience into a beautiful package. A must listen.
#1 : Do Make Say Think's Winter Hymn, Country Hymn, Secret Hymn. Amazing production, and a very contemporary look on the merging between what dark jazz promised with a certain hopefulness that lingers long after the album is over.
#2 : Howard Hello's Don't Drink His Blood - Deceptive in its pop simplicity, but with this dark streak. Again, mostly instrumental but with highly processed singing in places that borders on sinister. A real sleeper on the radar.
#3 : The Cinematic Orchestra's Man With a Movie Camera
#4 The Microphones' Mount Eerie -- In addition to the wonderful vinyl pressing, with hand-stitched sewn sleeve, this album is a complete trip through the forces of nature and man's place within it. Deep and meditative, good for listening once every two months or so when you are ready to confront your closet.
There were dozens of other great releases this year, but those were the ones I was most thankful for.
On the reprint front, we were given a brilliant repackaging of the Soft Machine's BBC Radio Volume 1. Fantastic music from this forgotten band, at their very best.
d. Taylor Singletary,
reality technician techra.el
So these guys basically admit just everything is arbitrary with numbers pulled out of their asses, and still manage to get on the front page of /.
Genius. Pure f'ing genius ;^)
I'd say that in the absolute sense yes, this was not the year's best music. As far as the mainstream goes though, I'd say that this list is very good for top 40 (I assume its all top 40, I don't listen to any radio). Anyway, for better music reviews and more underground music, http://www.pitchforkmedia.com can't be beat.
Photos.
That list looks pretty good. Mabey I didn't read enough into the links on the site, but I wonder where they got those list that they analyzed. It doesn't look like your usual, pop-music pushing fare. There are some good, and - gasp - original artists on there.
The White Stripes and The Strokes deserve their accolades, what with being the poster boys for the garage sound. Radiohead is, of course, always welcome in a top albums list. Blur was a welcome surprise, as I never heard much attention given to the album. Mabey I was asleep.
The real original artists on the list, however, are The Rapture and The Postal Service. Both have this techno rock blend going on that is great to hear in an era where most music sounds good. Definately buy both albums if you haven't. The Postal Service was a collaberation between two guys who sent tapes back and forth in the mail to create the album. One of them was the singer in Death Cab for Cutie. From what I heard, it was just sort of a fun side project never inteded for release, but they ended up liking the sound so they put out the record.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
I think I bought only 3 CDs that were released last year. Bad year for new music, a great year for filling up on older stuff.
They simply quantified references to certain artists/titles within a small batch of source material and then declared it to be a top-10 list. What would be a more accurate description of their list would be "most often referenced albums in music editorials". Trying to quantitatively rate music based upon the analysed opinions of the music press is pointless. Music itself is a very intimate and personal medium, experienced differently by all listeners. Trying to rate a particular albums's ability to reach its listeners requires a much deeper understanding of psychology than is currently possible. That being said, the top-10 list has value in that it's quite good at showing what is en-vogue at present. Atleast, in the opinion of the music media. Then again, my favorite music is sugary JPOP and trance as found in Dance Dance Revolution, so I won't venture an opinion as to the music selected by the list :)
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
Modded a troll due to the link in the post. Same old a$$holes!
Metacritic.com compiles up to 30 reviews for a particular video game / movie / CD and averages the review score. Here are to true top albums of 2003 as rated by nearly everybody: http://metacritic.com/music/bests/2003.shtml
Note that the list does change as more reviews come in. This list actually has good music like The Shins or The Notwist.
There wasn't an artist on that list that i would pay a dollar to listen to. If the RIAA and the music industry expects to make money, they need to sign up bands that do something new.
Instead we get these manufactured bands and their over-produced images. I miss my Wumpscut and Lycia.
Who is listening to this stuff anyways? Outkast? I mean, come on!
Der Tod ist der einzige Weg hier raus!
When I listened to the radio, listening to the end of year top 100 was fun because it allowed me to reminisce through the year. Of course, I would then go to my albums and listen to the songs I really thought were good. I always thought it was sad that some people equated the top 100 with a genuine mark of universal quality.
BTW, I think the music listed is probably a representative sample of the best popular music of the last year. The simplicity of method makes the case study interesting.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
...SCO is the most important company in the world, releasing the highest # of press releases. You'd think they have nothing better to do.
The next "popularity" measurement, will that be getting the most crappy pages indexed by google? Just for the numbers I mean, 1 of 294,242,345,353 hits... oh this band must be really good and popular, right?
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It least from my perspective, it shows that there is an inverse relationship between quality of an album and the quantity that sells (or is downloaded). F'rinstance, the only album on the list I remotely liked was Damien Rice's O, which was near to the bottom. The rest was largely crap.
waming: wandering off topic
Back in the old days when a disk drive could tip over and kill somebody, music was actually good. This was because record companies took a fundamentally different strategy to marketing. It used to be that they would hire a talented artist, and give them total creative control. This was particularly true w/ the Warner-Reprise label. Often, an artist would just develop a cult following, or they wouldn't become huge until their second or third album, after they've matured and produced something of real quality. This way, good artists managed to have long distiguished careers and produced truly good music. This is why many popular bands from the 60s, 70s had such long careers and produced hits over spans of 10+ years (e.g. Rolling Stones, Springsteen, etc.).
Today, however, the business model for the record industry is to find some no-talent but good looking putzes and hype them to death on their first album so that they make money before they get older and unattractive and people stop buying their album. There is no long term revenue in this plan, but it doesn't matter, because they can always hire younger artists and repeat as necessary to keep up their cash flow. When that doesn't work, they can start suing people for downloading songs.
That's just my 4/25 of a bit.
"You put 'em on stage and you have 'em undress
Some angel whore who can learn a guitar lick
Hey hey, that's what I call music."
-- Thomas Petty
Unknown host pong.
What's the deal with the White Stripes? I've heard their music--am I just missing the joke?
Pop has always sucked. Popular equals lowest common denominator. At least in the 90's radio offered some options. None of the cool music of the 80's (A generally shabby decade) was ever played on the radio, and could only be bought at the most obscure of record stores. At least the distribution is better, but the common popular stuff is still crap. Music never sucks and the radio will always suck.
Now that's funny!
'Pop' isn't just 'what's in the charts'. Believe it or not, there's a lot of unpopular pop music. Music doesn't have to be popular to be pop music, it just has to be in the popular style. There's a lot of good 'pop' music, that isn't bubble-gum pop, twee over-produced crap, or Britney Spears diva-esque stuff. It's sad to see people throw out whole genres because of the stigma they attach to them.
There are so many people who'll say 'I love all music, except country', or 'I love all music, except pop', and they're missing out on a lot of music they'd probably actually like simply because they're labellers ('I don't like foreigners, children, black people..' etc.)
I think Hussein is more like Michael Jackson's Invincible (2001) -- overproduced and overhyped, and even though a hit in some places, still turns out to be a fiasco.
Hell is not other people; it is yourself. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
Using a method like this, you can't possibly divine the quality of a product (an album in this case). You might be able to obtain some information on popularity, but as we know, nothing is more unrelated than how much the public likes a thing and how good the thing really is.
we discovered a new way to think.
~jeff
"All this excellent music and yet low sales? You must be downloading it. Raise that levy!"
It's actually a good list. I see a lot of flames, but really, how many of them bought 50 Cent's album? Despite what some posters here will say, mainstream doesn't automatically mean bad, and this is a pretty good list of the best mainstream albums. (Although Dizzee Rascal? They must looked at a lot of UK articles.)
I can only see a couple (of the ones I heard) that are really bad choices. And I'll bet that R. Kelly's only on there because the whole molesting deal.
As far as I've been able to gather, the "White Stripes" are a band taking pride in the fact that they're pretty "anti-technology". Their whole thing is about not using any electronic/synthetic instruments, and going back to the basics.
As many other bands have commented though, in the end, it just gives them a "fake" sound - like everything they do pretends to have been recorded 30 years earlier than it was, but isn't quite right.
I'm sure lots of people think their sound is simply "refreshing" - since it stands in pretty stark contrast to the other music played on the radio stations that play their genre of music. But to me, they're not really doing anything redeeming.
I'm sorry but the "all music sucks today" argument is really total non-sense. I do agree that most of the commercial radio compete hard on the same level of lameness, but this does not mean there is no radio worth listening to. Here in Switzerland, we have a national radio that sounds really independent (trashy, fun, weird) and plays quite listenable songs.
This being said, radio is not the only way to listen to music, and hearing crappy music on the radio doesn't mean that all contemporary music sucks. Download stuff (legally if possible), check magazines or websites, and you will certainly find stuff you like.
I am somewhat nostalgic of classic rock groups (Pink Floyd, ah..), but I can still enjoy the new genius of our generation (Radiohead, Beck, Cornelius, Air and the likes).
It's just a matter of agreeing to switch off that crappy radio station and check out new stuff.
theefer
"taking note of occurancy of albums"
The mere fact that there's anything from 50 Cent on that list, esp. not on the bottom of the list, prompted this reaction in the IRC channel I regular:
Beware, those who would normally not read the article anyways: Your mental and physical well-being could very well depend on your not viewing the list.
"We invented personal computing." - Bill Gates
No mention of the musical genra that was in the competition. To me, its obvious anything that won an award on a tv program covering anyplace in popular music field was excluded.
In other words, the basic premise of the list is flawed and therefore useless.
--
Cheers, Gene
I always thought that the average of independent guesses produces a surprisingly precise guess (assuming n is high enough). Sorry I couldn't find a better link
How the hell did this get on slashdot? At least it mentions The Postal Service's album.
This is a couple of peoples who colected statistics of most sold albums/etc. I don't see why it means it's the best. It's all a question about advertisement, luck, and so on.
There are many great and unknown bands around the world that is very popular other places. I could use myself as good example.
I listen a lot to a band called Blind Guardian. This band has a relatively big popularity, especially in Europe. With a majority of the fans based in Europe, it could also be left out in the statistics, as I guess it's based upon a majority of american statistics.
As a bottom line: These statistics are no good for any normal person, since everyone has their own taste for music.
Yeah, if you applied the same algorithm to, say, technology companies mentioned on Slashdot, I'd think you'd find that SCO is #1...
True story.
Best album in 2003 was my family photo album.
I am sorry, but the music industry is beyond rescue. When there are songs people don't even bother kazaa-ing for free, you know the industry is dissolving to hell.
Does anyone have a link to the site that supposedly can tell a hit based on a computer analysis of it?
It'd be interesting to see how well the list tallies up with the data produced by the supposed "hit analysis".
Sunday you're Thinking Different, Monday you're a huge tool, paying too much and waiting to think like everyone else.
You know, you could also go to the nearest used cloths shop and pick up all of the best styles from the 60s and 70s while avoiding any fads. You'd even save money!
True story.
Don't forget The Last Emperor's Music, Magic, Myth. Awesome hip-hop CD.
True story.
Statistics are only truly useful in quantum physics and propaganda.
fire
Barry Lamar Bonds? Who he? (Ed.) ((c) Private Eye)
Surely you mean, "Have you ever gone to a strip club with no music?"
and he frightens little boys
You mean, "Your uninterest in music has been recorded and logged." Disinterest means impartiality or objectivity; that is, you are disinterested (don't have a special interest) in a subject and can thus judge it impartially. Uninterest means lack of interest; you don't give a fuck.
..that is the gayest sounding music ive ever eard in my life
..is the example you'd use if you were talking about movies.
Although nothing will ever beat John Travolta's ode to L.Ron Hubbard.
View the proof right here.
At best, The White Stripes deserve the Most Overhyped Band award for this year, and nothing more.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
I have to say it once and forever:
No offence, and probably my own band (sig) is even worse, but the White Stripes are the most overrated band EVER!!!
(and appreciate one of them)
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I wish there was some way to draw some attention to Blind Guardian's music.
So much better, in my view, than the plethora of common market-as-you-go albums out there.
I will EASILY throw out an entire genre of music if I hate 99.9 percent of the songs that I've heard in that genre. Sure, there may be a few songs from that genre/style that didn't suck, but they usually find their way to me through friends. Why the hell would I sit through nine thousand crappy sounds to get to the 50 I might like? That would be work. I can remember trying to explain this to a friends once and coming up with this analogy:
"If I never liked Less Than Jake, why the hell would I like 5000 bands that sound exactly like Less Than Jake?"
It's exactly how I feel about this current wave of what I call "Korn Biscuit". Roaring. I can't stand the roaring into the microphone. And the same damn themes and fake angst all over again. Are there standout exceptions? You betcha. And they find their way to me through friends. Whatever by Godsmack comes to mind. But I can't stand most of that style of music. We all can't be these perfect open-minded human beings that give every single song a fair shot. Most of us simply turn the channel within the first 3 seconds of hearing something that we are probably going to hate. For me that's roaring or twang. There is so much music out there to choose from, why should I care what someone else listens too.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
Go ahead, nothing to see here. If you really want to listen to some great garage music with a bit of a brain try listening to Rilo-Kiley
(No , really do! They are great and original. Try to catch them live too!).
They are my favourite band at the moment. WhiteStripes are so overrated it hurts.
Is Dance of Death good? I have most of the Maiden catalog up to Seventh Son of a Seventh Son and then Brave New World and Rock in Rio but am running a bit low on cash so I'm wondering if the new Maiden album is worth buying right now. I'm so glad Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith returned to Maiden because now they are good again.
I'm running out of room for all my CDs (I've got 10 spaces left in my 220 disc binder and only 70 slots left on my one month old 150 disc rack [it is the second one, my other 150 is full]). It's like having my own radio station except it doesn't play crap.
HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!
that scientifically Led Zeppelin 4 is the best album of all time. Therefore the best album every year. But White Stripes are pretty good. Even Jimmy Page likes them.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
...and they're all out of... ah, forget it.
Mod parent up. Blind Guardian is a very unique sounding, in my view. If you can picture a metal version of Evanescence with no female vocalist and epic lyrics, I think you'd scratch the surface of this band's approach.
Leave it. I can't believe thay made it after Brave New World. It's like following up Led Zeppelin IV with the new Limp Plezquit.
LISTER: Holly, why Rimmer's hologram? Why did you have to bring Rimmer's hologram back? He was the most unpopular man on board this ship. I mean, he even had to organise his own surprise birthday parties. ...
HOLLY: (Voice only) And who should I have brought back, then?
LISTER: Anyone. Chen. Petersen. I mean, Hermann Gerring would have
been more of a laugh than Rimmer. I mean, OK, he was a drug-crazed
transvestite, but at least we could have gone dancing!
HOLLY: (On monitor screen) I brought Rimmer back because he's the best
person to keep you sane.
LISTER: What about Kristine Kochanski? You could have brought Kristine
back.
HOLLY: In your entire life, your shared conversations with her totalled
173 words.
LISTER: So?
HOLLY: In terms of wordage, you actually had a better relationship with
your rubber plant.
LISTER: I know, but *Rimmer*?!
HOLLY: He's the person you knew best. Over 14 million words in all.
LISTER: Holly, 7 million of those were me telling him to smeg off, and
the other 7 million were him putting me on report for telling him to
smeg off.
HOLLY: Jean Paul Sartre said hell was being locked forever in a room with
your friends.
LISTER: Holly, all his mates were French.
Its a bit like Dickinson's solo work - its not bad at all. Overall, i rate it a little higher than Brave New World.
Using the same techniques, I could claim that Windows ME is the best operating system, based on the number of mentions it recieved around the web. Then again all of the mentions would be from tech support forums...
The Stone Age did not end for lack of stones, and when the oil age ends it will not be for lack of oil. --Bjorn Lomberg
I like it.
The 5 worst of the year..
"All pop-punk bands" the 4th worst.
Metalica as most disapointing.
The Good news that pantara (shameless metalica wannabes) is finaly gone.
just goes to show how innacurate this "survey" is... best album of the year isn't even listed.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/thelostskeleton ofcadavra/index.html
R. Kelly - Chocolate Factory
:|
I guess it was calculating child molesting
No, not really. All musical tastes are 100% subjective. By definition, it's not even possible for there to be objective criteria for the quality of music. It pisses me off when stupid mother fuckers claim that music A is "better" than music B, when what they *mean* is that they like music A better than music B.
I understand that the story referenced in the article is just someone's little joke. Reading it shows that he's not taking it seriously, so don't think I'm attacking him. Who I'm attacking are the assholes whose idea of music criticism consists of saying "That album sucks." They can't elaborate on it; they can't tell you what it is they don't like about it. And they think that not only does it suck, but it's not even conceivable that someone could like it.
I know a guy who -- honestly and truly -- believes that not only can music be objectively better or worse than other music, but that he is the only person in the world who can accurately determine the quality of music. If you tell him you like music that he doesn't like, he will tell you that you are wrong. He won't accept that you just have different tastes; he will try to prove to you (with logic that is so insanely twisted that it is literally unprintable) that you do not actually like that music, you're just deluding yourself. He does this with movies, too.
And another goddamn thing: People who claim that all music these days is crap compared to "the old days" are always and invariably full of shit. When pushed, they'll admit that there's a few things they like these days, but that the majority of what's released is just complete and total shit. And no matter how thoroughly you PROVE to them that the ratio of good music to shit music released has been constant forever (this is true for all artistic endeavours: movies, music, books, art, video games, etc.), they always insist that everything was better back in the day. They'll just ignore you when you show them all the absolute crap that was released back at the same time as their favorite stuff.
*huff puff* Okay, I'm done now.
</rant>
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
The crackpipe truely overfloweths at your house.
While I think the original post makes a good point, it should be noted that other traditionally "scientific" studies also use fairly arbitrary measures.
... all the tools are there to adopt different choices and see how the results change.
Take the case of (new) drug-testing: the statistical tests used are often arbitrary, both in the chosen significance level and the statistic itself. The former is well discussed (why is 5% or 1% necessarily the proper cut-off point for rejecting a null hypothesis) but the latter receives much less attention. Many of these statistics have known distributional properties only under assumptions that are either unverfiable or, worse, not bothered to be verfied by the researcher. I have seen statistics conducted on results from experiments where the underlying phenomena can only take positive values yet the researcher assumes it is governed by a Normal distribution (whose support is the entire real line)
Lastly, I think the researchers on the top 2004 recordings should be commended for following the spirit of science. They clearly explain their objective, the data they used, and their chosen method of analysis. Their work can be replicated from what they publish on their website. This is something that cannot be said of many experiments conducted in the finest university/industry labs by Ph.D. researchers! Truly in the spirit of scientific discovery, if one has problems with their "arbitrary choice"
[ That said, I wish the researchers had spent a bit more time explaining the motivation underlying some of their "arbitrary" choices. ]
And no matter how thoroughly you PROVE to them that the ratio of good music to shit music released has been constant forever (this is true for all artistic endeavours: movies, music, books, art, video games, etc.), they always insist that everything was better back in the day. They'll just ignore you when you show them all the absolute crap that was released back at the same time as their favorite stuff.
I don't agree.
It's a lot easier today to get something published. It's harder to get into the elite publications (meaning "established" not necessarily better) than it was before because of the sheer numbers of submissions. This, however, is balanced by the many more venues to rant and rave.
Movies are cheaper to make now than 20 years ago. Cheaper means that more people have access. It's an almost identical situation to when computers (notably the first Macs) and a laser printer allowed just about anyone to churn out newsletters and small publications. Before the DTP revolution you had to pay a print shop lots of money and spend lots of time in front of a cutting board to get a single page ready. The problem was that many of these new computer owners knew very little about graphic design so the pages, despite have some very good resolution and technical cleanliness, looked like total garbage. It wasn't until more designers started using computers (and many scoffed at the idea of a computer replacing xacto knives and rubber cement) that many publications began to look good again.
Nowadays, many more people are making music, slapping together movies on their PCs and Macs, making websites, etc..
The funny thing is, as far as music is concerned, we have less choice on the airwaves than we did twenty years ago. Playlists are generated on a national scale now. Gone are many of the local DJs and amateur hours. And the problem of broadcasting for the majority is that you cannot play niche music because you'll alienate a large portion of your listeners. Instead the three or four broadcast megacorps choose music that will alienate the fewest, rather than pushing what will be liked by the most. A subtle difference, but important.
But yes, you are right in that it comes down to taste. My wife enjoys Creed but I can't stand them. They sound boring (to me), their lyrics seem juvenile (to me), the lead singer is a worse egomaniac than even Bono from U2 (IMHO, and I like U2's music).
Local music is different, of course. There are still amateur bands and many nationally signed bands that sound great. I just think it's harder to find them now than it was ten years ago.
what exactly?
. co.uk/biog.htmt tp://www.dio.net/e x.htmlg eesin.com/
How about something MEANINGFUL? Like which bands/groups/mucisians have been recording for 10 years or longer. Maybe, then we might start to think about how they did it? Was it Image, Marketing, stats from a country with incredibly poor taste and lack of exposure to any semblance of choice? Was it religion, politics or spin. Was it the artwork or were they actually good musicians???
The following cool people are acknowledged as being great rock musicians and have been recording for over 30 years or more. Some are nearly 60 years old, yet they are still COOL!
Judas Priest,
Ronnie James Dio,
Ozzy Osbourne (ignore his duo with Kelly - a duo with Lulu might have been interesting),
30 years ago you had to be able to sing or play music, now you just need to be half naked with tits or half faggot with a coke habit to get a bloody award!!!
We're receding right back to the bloody stone age...And piercing - whats all that about? Where are the electrodes? Forked tongues and faces like pin cushions? And why do non-Americans sing with American accents??? Can't anyone be original!
Good stuff:
http://www.judaspriest.com/
http://virtualrock
http://www.ronniejamesdio.com/
h
http://www.screamforme.com/ind
http://www.tednugent.com/
http://www.ron
http://www.nazarethdirect.co.uk/
Time for a beer, (REAL ALE!!!).
"My soapbox runneth over". (Me)
My hyperlinks aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
My friend worked for Wendy's for a while and managed to steal their training video, which is rife with music videos for such Billboard hits as "Got To Serve The Drinks" and "Hot Drinks". Unintentionally hilarious, I say!
The parent poster (me) is 21 years old. I can't relate to the music of "my" era at all. That debunks a lot of what has been said below.
Blind Guardian isn't bad -- but when it comes to power metal, the real masters are Gamma Ray.
Second hand clothes are the latest fashion; didn't you know? Shopping malls are soooo last year! Ta-ta!
Oh, man, I couldn't disagree with you more. Bruce Dickinson's Skunkworks, Accident Of Birth, and The Chemical Wedding (the last two of which Adrian Smith also participated on) completely trounce anything Maiden's done since Seventh Son, if not before. Smith's Welcome To The World album with Psycho Motel is also great.
Reunited Maiden is certainly better than Blaze-era Maiden (then again, what isn't?), but it can't hold a candle to Bruce & Adrian's later solo work, IMO.
Way, way, way off topic, but that's by FAR the funniest comment of the year.
Of course, the year is exactly 20 hours old at this point, but, damn.
Oh, and White Stripes suck.
I haven't heard any of the their solo work so I don't know how good it is. I'll take your word for it and try to purchase one of the solo albums next time I go music shopping (hmmm...maybe I should pre-order the next Iced Earth album and order some other stuff too). Still, new Maiden is better than 90s Maiden. Not as good as 80s Maiden, but better than nothing (at least Brave New World was).
Maybe Queensryche will stop sucking too!
HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!
The BCS For the Recording Industry.
is definitely Matt Nathanson's Beneath These Fireworks.
(I'll give Outkast originality, but it doesn't mean that they are any good. and don't get me started on the White Stripes. ugh.)
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Accident Of Birth is closest to the Maiden sound, so you might want to start there. The Chemical Wedding is a bit meatier, though, and it's also interesting because they restrung their guitars with bass strings on the low end to get a super-downtuned sound.
Skunkworks and Psycho Motel's Welcome To The World have more modern rock elements in them, but they're great if that sort of thing doesn't turn you off.
> Maybe Queensryche will stop sucking too!
Now that Kelly Gray's gone, that might actually be possible...
That will make MY day.
I will check out the other bands on your list I don't know...
Thanks!
Alwyn W Turner has compiled a list of the top 30 albums of the year, every year since 1990, as a poll of polls from magazines and newspapers like Uncut, Q, Mojo, the NME, Time Out, the Sunday Telegraph and the Sunday Times etc.
People seem to be arguing about how accurate these results are, but how about opinions about the actual music on the list, and whether or not you think it's worthwhile?
As for me, here are the albums off their list that I already own and think are great:
The White Stripes - Elephant (Dear Detroit, please don't send Jack White to jail for that fight, so that he can make more music like this)
Outkast - Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
Radiohead - Hail to the Thief
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever to Tell
The Strokes - Room On Fire
50 Cent - Get Rich or Die Tryin'
The Postal Service - Give Up (And don't forget their great remix on that last Flaming Lips EP)
The Rapture - Echoes
Jay-Z - The Black Album
Blur - Think Tank
Albums I don't yet have, but am interested in:
Missy Elliott - This Is Not a Test!
The Darkness - Permission to Land
Albums I have absolutely no interest in:
Rufus Wainwright - Want One (Last album was weak)
R. Kelly - Chocolate Factory (You have to be kidding me)
Please subscribe to see the more insightful version of th
... if not by checking which bits are more POPular???
Just terribly curious....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
A few bands on their I like. I really enjoyed the White Stripes album and I don't think their label is part of the RIAA, at least last I checked, so it is safe to buy.
this is the most important sig ever! In your face 446154!
I don't think that there was always a constant ratio of good to bad books published. There was a time when the Bible was one of the few books you vould get your hands on. So, if you lived around that time, the ratio was pretty badly scewed (or goodly scewed, depending on your viewpoint).
The same is probably true of different generes. Unless you think that the first instance of any genre is always average, then you cannot support the claim that there was always the same ratio of good to bad.
Finally, there were probably always a lot of potential writers/movie makers/musicians that were bad. But, with increases in technology, the skill level and capital investment to create your own book/movie/web site/album has decreased. Hence, the ratio has probably went more towards there being more bad published artists over time.
But this is probably good overall, as this might lead to some kind of evolutionary leap in art. Like for every zillion lame independent film directors, there is going to be one Alfred Hitchcock who gets a shot at changing their art forever.
At least I hope that's how it works out. I'm tired of Britney Spears and the Boy band of the week.
Randy
Randy.Flood@RHCE2B.COM
Albums on this list I own:
None
Albums on this list I will own:
None
Songs from these albums I will download:
None
Interest in supporting the RIAA: Less than zero.
:wumpscut: didn't do anything that skinny puppy didn't do 10 years earlier and 10x better.
.. besides BE OBESE and REFUSE TO TOUR.
"Haha sound" by Broadcast. And if you wander over to the newly-opened Bleep.com, you can help yourself to lots of lovely DRM-free MP3s.
Here's the album.