ned's list is still up innit?
― the Sonic Youths of suck (Drugs A. Money), Tuesday, 4 January 2011 17:50 (thirteen years ago) link
IT'S ALIVE!
― the Sonic Youths of suck (Drugs A. Money), Tuesday, 4 January 2011 17:51 (thirteen years ago) link
Then I guess ilxor must have committed seppuku. Zombie ilxor sure posts a lot.
― EZ Snappin, Tuesday, 4 January 2011 17:54 (thirteen years ago) link
gonna restrain myself from even searching for a lolzombie.gif in reply
― ilxor this could be a standout thread for you imo (ilxor), Tuesday, 4 January 2011 17:56 (thirteen years ago) link
LOL
Ozzy’s top 10 albums of 2010:
1. Ozzy Osbourne – Scream2. Black Label Society – Order of the Black3. Motorhead – The World is Yours4. Slash – Slash5. Halford – Made of Metal6. Korn – III: Remember Who You Are7. Pantera – Cowboys from Hell (Reissue)8. Lamb of God – Hourglass Box Set9. Firewind – Days of Defiance10. AC/DC – Iron Man 2
― Shakey Moe Szyslak (Algerian Goalkeeper), Tuesday, 4 January 2011 18:05 (thirteen years ago) link
Metal Hammer Top 50 Albums of 2010
1.) Iron Maiden - The Final Frontier2.) Alter Bridge - III <--------------------- WTF3.) Deftones- Diamond Eyes4.) Killing Joke - Absolute Dissent5.) Airbourne - No Guts. No Glory.6.) Triptykon - Eparistera Daimones7.) Slash - Slash8.) Cathedral - The Guessing Game9.) Parkway Drive - Deep Blue10.) Cancer Bats - Bears, Mayors, Straps & Bones11.) Ihsahn - After12.) Bring Me The Horizon - There Is A Hell, Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is A Heaven, Let's Keep It A Secret.13.) Avenged Sevenfold - Nightmare14.) The Dillenger Escape Plan - Option Paralysis15.) Anathema - We're Here Because We're Here16.) Black Country Communion - Black Country Communion17.) Swans - Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky18.) High On Fire - Snakes For The Divine19.) Electric Wizard - Black Masses20.) Fear Factory - Mechanize21.) Rob Zombie - Hillbilly Deluxe 222.) Kvelertak - Kvelertak23.) Letlive - Fake History24.) Black Label Society - Order Of The Black25.) Dimmu Borgir - Abrahadabra26.) Accept - Blood Of The Nations27.) Burzum - Belus28.) Grand Magus - Hammer Of The North29.) Volbeat - Beyond Hell/Above Heaven30.) Coheed And Cambria - Year Of The Black Rainbow31.) Your Demise - The Kids We Used To Be32.) Enslaved - Axioma Ethica Oudini33.) Scorpions - Sting In The Tail34.) Lower Than Atlantis - Far Q35.) Black Breath - Heavy Breathing36.) 36 Crazyfists - Collisions And Castaways37.) The Sword - Warp Riders38.) Monster Magnet - Mastermind39.) Ufomammut - Eve40.) Kylesa - Spiral Shadow41.) Stone Sour - Audio Secrecy42.) Whitechapel - A New Era Of Corruption43.) Serj Tankian - Imperfect Harmonies44.) Soulfly - Omen45.) Christopher Amott - Follow Your Heart46.) Armored Saint - La Raza47.) Ozzy Osbourne - Scream48.) Watain - Lawless Darkness49.) Korn - III50.) Ghost - Opus Eponymous
― Shakey Moe Szyslak (Algerian Goalkeeper), Tuesday, 4 January 2011 18:08 (thirteen years ago) link
I hate metal hammer - their logo is "defenders of the faith". in the 90s they wanted to drop the "metal" part from their name. Disgusting magazine.
― Shakey Moe Szyslak (Algerian Goalkeeper), Tuesday, 4 January 2011 18:52 (thirteen years ago) link
Hah I just saw that Ozzy list. His favorite album was his own... its cute, I'd accuse him of megalomania but he was probably just like "welp, I gotta be honest - I liked me own a whole bunch..." -- he's like a little kid. I bet if Zach Wylde had put out a solo album he'd have put that at the top out of deference, instead of having BLS at #2.
― no pop, no style -- all simply (Viceroy), Tuesday, 4 January 2011 18:58 (thirteen years ago) link
I'd say Ozzy had fuck all to do with it and Sharon chose it..
― Shakey Moe Szyslak (Algerian Goalkeeper), Tuesday, 4 January 2011 19:01 (thirteen years ago) link
glad to see the Alter Bridge getting some love!
― markers, Tuesday, 4 January 2011 19:13 (thirteen years ago) link
Liar
― Shakey Moe Szyslak (Algerian Goalkeeper), Tuesday, 4 January 2011 19:13 (thirteen years ago) link
Next you will be saying you like their parent band Creed.
― Shakey Moe Szyslak (Algerian Goalkeeper), Tuesday, 4 January 2011 19:14 (thirteen years ago) link
ILX did agree that Creed was better than Owl City...
― no pop, no style -- all simply (Viceroy), Tuesday, 4 January 2011 19:20 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah but ilx also said both were better than markers.
― Shakey Moe Szyslak (Algerian Goalkeeper), Tuesday, 4 January 2011 19:21 (thirteen years ago) link
decapitation is also better than being drawn and quartered but that doesn't mean I'm particularly eager to get my head chopped off
― Indolence Mission (DJP), Tuesday, 4 January 2011 19:21 (thirteen years ago) link
:)
― t**t, Tuesday, 4 January 2011 19:40 (thirteen years ago) link
i don't think anything chuck has been saying is surprising or mysterious, but it does seem to confirm that long lists are not likely to be very meaningful past a certain point. and i agree with dan that there's something potentially, vaguely misleading about the manner of presenting lists like that, though obviously it's pretty innocuous.
but if the sorts of things chuck is saying hold generally, then what exactly is supposed to be the benefit of a critic listening to a lot of records, like fastnbulbous was saying upthread? simply that they get noticed? if the average record on a year-end roundup like that is basically there because the critic heard it two or three times and thought it was more notable than another 200-500 that didn't get listed, it doesn't seem like that extra bit of notice affects what the critic is capable of giving to the people who read her, that much.
what i'm interested in is the idea that a critic would do better to listen to a LOT of records (so many that other, professional critics here are going: o_O) than to listen more closely or repeatedly or thoughtfully to fewer records. (i'm not saying the people who are in favor of listening in bulk are ruling out the latter, just that it seems obvious that they couldn't have as much attention to spare on fewer records.) i was asking about how mega-lists work because it seems like that's the main thing critics who listen in bulk have to show for their labor.
― j., Tuesday, 4 January 2011 20:40 (thirteen years ago) link
Well, they'd have a much wider context in which to judge and compare and contast other records, for one thing. They'd learn things. And they'd satisfy their curiosity, which I hope is endless, because otherwise why are they even bothering? Different strokes, again, this just seems obvious to me. I'm still waiting for somebody to explain what's to be gained with listening to individual albums scores and scores of times, long after they've outworn their welcome, and you don't especially want to hear them again. Don't you have enough work to do already? I sure do. What exactly are you hoping to learn from them, that you don't already know after a few listens? I really don't get that. Sure, there are exceptions once in a blue moon that warrant that sort of obsessiveness. But otherwise, talk about turning something fun into drudgery. Sounds like the life of a monk.
― xhuxk, Tuesday, 4 January 2011 20:55 (thirteen years ago) link
lol, just to continue to be the completely contradictory/inconsistent person that I am, ^^^ OTM
(although yeah I do go down the rabbit hole with albums, but that's largely because I'm not reviewing them)
― Indolence Mission (DJP), Tuesday, 4 January 2011 20:57 (thirteen years ago) link
most ppl live with records for a long time, either trying to like it, or if they instantly do, until they know every word and every noise, & i think most critics try to emulate that experience in as much as a deadline allows
― zvookster, Tuesday, 4 January 2011 21:01 (thirteen years ago) link
I would say those albums I've lived with all this time are ones that I barely touch now. I don't need to, really. Andrew Eldritch of the Sisters of Mercy was once asked to do a Desert Island Discs or equivalent for Q Magazine back in 1993; he provided it, but noted that he had barely listened to any of them in years. Paraphrasing his comment: "All I have to do is look at the spines of the sleeves and everything comes back about it and where I was in life." Strikes me as very sound -- I do have a couple of general fallback albums (and Loveless isn't one of them) but that's about it.
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 4 January 2011 21:06 (thirteen years ago) link
I do have a couple of general fallback albums (and Loveless isn't one of them)
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/614gKUDWmUL._SL500_AA300_.jpg
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51iajO15O4L._SL500_AA300_.jpg
― ilxor this could be a standout thread for you imo (ilxor), Tuesday, 4 January 2011 21:40 (thirteen years ago) link
Har
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 4 January 2011 21:42 (thirteen years ago) link
Didn't you sell every one of your cds?
― Shakey Moe Szyslak (Algerian Goalkeeper), Tuesday, 4 January 2011 21:46 (thirteen years ago) link
Sold quite a few but the bulk are earmarked as a donation for my old radio station's archives.
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 4 January 2011 21:47 (thirteen years ago) link
when do they leave the raggettstacks and join the... radiostacks? :/
― ilxor this could be a standout thread for you imo (ilxor), Tuesday, 4 January 2011 21:52 (thirteen years ago) link
(wonder if it's more like "raggettpiles" at this point?)
― ilxor this could be a standout thread for you imo (ilxor), Tuesday, 4 January 2011 21:53 (thirteen years ago) link
I assumed he meant in his will.
― Shakey Moe Szyslak (Algerian Goalkeeper), Tuesday, 4 January 2011 21:54 (thirteen years ago) link
Oh lord no. I don't want to have to move these things again, for one thing.
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 4 January 2011 21:56 (thirteen years ago) link
raggettplies
― tears of a self-clowning oven (The Reverend), Tuesday, 4 January 2011 22:01 (thirteen years ago) link
so that's what the RIP means
― the Sonic Youths of suck (Drugs A. Money), Tuesday, 4 January 2011 23:00 (thirteen years ago) link
i'm slowly making my way through ned's 90's list
― flopson, Tuesday, 4 January 2011 23:41 (thirteen years ago) link
I wasn't actually saying that listening to less albums scores of times is the way to be a good critic, I was saying it's fallacious to argue or imply that listening to hundreds of albums is some kind of qualifier for being a good critic, when it's a strategy that has it's own limitations, and there are other strategies which have their own advantages.
Basically this goes back to fastnbulbuous' attempt to divorce being a music critic (which he associates with listening to as much music as possible) from being a good writer.
Being a good critic is about being able to respond to music, to hear and draw out nuances, ideas, connections, possibilities an distinctions, and then communicate these to the reader in a manner that is both pleasurable in itself and also makes the experience of music more rewarding.
Listening to as much music as possible helps, but lord knows there's many critics who do this and remain incapable of talking insightfully about any of it. It's not just listening that counts, but the application of the critical process I spelt out above, a large part of which requires (a) allowing your critical ideas and categories to be transformed and developed by the music you're listening to; and then (b) working out what those mutations mean for your ideas about music generally, how they impact on all your ideas about the music you've heard before.
This requires talking, with other people of course but also with yourself as you listen to music. It also necessitates a certain amount of muse-following, allowing yourself to drift in certain directions as the music you listen to inspires ideas that demand testing against other music.
Obviously you can't do this with just a handful of records - there's not enough nutrients to allow your ideas to develop - but go too far in the other direction and you can get diminishing returns as well, your critical energy spread too thinly across too many records, which is why so many super voracious critics end up writing about all but their favourite or most interesting releases in the format "this is vaguely comparable to but not as good as another record i already have and which I'd rather be listening to".
But then my thoughts on this are largely shaped by having a fifty hour working week.
― Tim F, Wednesday, 5 January 2011 00:27 (thirteen years ago) link
I'm still waiting for somebody to explain what's to be gained with listening to individual albums scores and scores of times, long after they've outworn their welcome, and you don't especially want to hear them again. Don't you have enough work to do already? I sure do. What exactly are you hoping to learn from them, that you don't already know after a few listens? I really don't get that. Sure, there are exceptions once in a blue moon that warrant that sort of obsessiveness. But otherwise, talk about turning something fun into drudgery. Sounds like the life of a monk.
no one is saying critics should listen to records once they don't want to. i'm asking what the relative value is to trying to 'meet' (to use the 'worn our their welcome' metaphor) orders of magnitude more 'people' without ever spending enough time with them to see if they're worth sticking with: the exceptions.
isn't one of a critic's jobs to look for those exceptions?
how is the critic supposed to know if they are exceptions, without spending more time with them?
i think this is good:
― j., Wednesday, 5 January 2011 00:33 (thirteen years ago) link
i don't think there's a hard-and-fast one-size-fits-all rule to how many times one "needs" to hear an album, and it's a critic's job to articulate what the case is for each particular one. let's be real, some albums we could all get an adequate handle on after listening once, and others it might take years.
quantity of listens isn't as important as being aware of how your circumstances/mood are affecting your listening imo, there's nothing more offputting than having to force yourself to listen to something over and over again rather than being able to put it on as and when the mood takes you.
― lex diamonds (lex pretend), Wednesday, 5 January 2011 00:39 (thirteen years ago) link
well emulate that experience could mean listen three times over the course of one week i guess, but the mood and circumstance is part of why living with a record a bit is a good idea
― zvookster, Wednesday, 5 January 2011 00:58 (thirteen years ago) link
let's be real, some albums we could all get an adequate handle on after listening once, and others it might take years.
― lex diamonds (lex pretend), Tuesday, January 4, 2011 4:39 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark
i don't believe that this is very often true. the things that provokes a strong response on one listen tend to be those that push our buttons, interacting with our deep-set biases and prejudices more than our critical faculties, prompting an instantaneous but shallow "I LOVE THIS!" or "I HATE THIS!" response. i think you have to listen past this kind of knee-jerk immediate reaction to get a truly adequate handle on most music.
― carles marx (contenderizer), Wednesday, 5 January 2011 01:06 (thirteen years ago) link
I think distinguishing between "deep-set biases and prejudices" and "critical faculties" is usually a false dichotomy, and I don't believe in "trying" to like something. I do believe in trying to figure out how the music works, in giving it a chance, no matter what it is. But if I like it, I like it, and my job is to explain why; if I don't, ditto. And though records have been known to grow (or shrink) on me over the course of weeks, months, years (happens all the time, actually), I usually have a pretty good idea of how much I'll like something (i.e., how good it is, in my terms anyway) after ust a listen or two. On the other hand, I've also advocated "living with albums" (before I put them in a year-end top 10, say) a few times on this thread. And I agree with pretty much everything Tim F says until the "diminishing returns" claim at the end of his spiel. I just don't understand how hearing more music, can, in and of itself, make you a worse critic. Which isn't to say that all critics who listen to hundreds of albums a year are good, when it comes to actually writing about the stuff. But some people can actually walk and chew gum at the same time.
― xhuxk, Wednesday, 5 January 2011 01:28 (thirteen years ago) link
Of course, it doesn't hurt to constantly try to challenge your biases, or at least have self-knowledge about why they're there. But in the end, they're something you learn to live with. And you're allowed to explain and analyze them in your writing, too.
― xhuxk, Wednesday, 5 January 2011 01:30 (thirteen years ago) link
Or I should say that part of my job is explaining why I like something, or don't. But a much bigger part is just explaining what the music does. Though that includes explaining where and how and why it works, and where and how and why it doesn't. So it's not like that's unrelated to my tastes (which include my biases), either.
― xhuxk, Wednesday, 5 January 2011 01:40 (thirteen years ago) link
I just don't understand how hearing more music, can, in and of itself, make you a worse critic. Which isn't to say that all critics who listen to hundreds of albums a year are good, when it comes to actually writing about the stuff. But some people can actually walk and chew gum at the same time.
Well by "diminishing returns" I didn't mean it makes you a worse critic, I meant that the value of listening to each additional album diminishes the more albums you listen to - it doesn't strike me as controversial to suggest that there's a larger difference between listening to 10 albums and 20 albums than there is between listening to 150 albums and 200 albums.
The diversity of music (not just in sounds or genres but in effects, strategies, functions etc) is of course a very long piece of string, but even if critics can walk and chew gum simultaneously, they can only walk so fast and chew so many pieces of gum. The diversity doesn't just exist between pieces of music but also within them, and I think the process of interrogation required to draw this out (or more prosaically, "living with" the music) requires time and effort, at least if you actually intend to say something interesting about the music. Like, I think there's a difference between "getting" an album on first listen and having something to communicate that any other critic couldn't communicate just as easily - unless the "getting" is just the application of your instinctive biases. And I agree chuck that biases are inevitable and even necessary, but unless there is some effort spent in drawing those biases out in novel and illuminating ways one's writing gets pretty repetitive pretty quickly.
Again, though, a lot of my thoughts on this come from having only approx 1.5 hours max of listening time available to me per day, such that if I actually set out to hear 200 albums my average number of listens to any given album would be less than 3 (and that's assuming I listened to no older music). And, as well, full time work doesn't just take away listening time, it takes away the amount of creative energy necessary to really engage with music.
Which doesn't mean that i want to be all Hornby-esque and advocate listening as comfort food, but that I don't see what is the problem with thinking a bit more strategically about the importance of listening to every critically rated album versus other things that might make me a better thinker/writer/critic.
Though I suspect no-one's gonna rush to disagree with that last point and at at this stage of the conversation we're really just defending and promoting our own various approaches to same task.
― Tim F, Wednesday, 5 January 2011 02:00 (thirteen years ago) link
some effort spent in drawing those biases out in novel and illuminating ways
Pretty sure I've exerted some effort in this direction over the past 30 years. (Whether it's been successful or not is for readers to decide. But though my writing gets accused of a lot of things, sounding like every other critic is usually not one of them.)
listening to every critically rated album
And I've never advocated this, either. (I sure don't do it myself -- I've never heard the vast majority of albums listed on this thread!) And as I also said above, some of my favorite critics barely hear any new albums at all. So again (again) different strokes.
― xhuxk, Wednesday, 5 January 2011 02:15 (thirteen years ago) link
Chuck it should go without saying that you are a special freak who falls outside of all the things i'm talking about pretty much entirely.
― Tim F, Wednesday, 5 January 2011 02:30 (thirteen years ago) link
I listen to albums so much that I stopped writing about them. ITS THE PERFECT CRIME
― T Bone Streep (Cave17Matt), Wednesday, 5 January 2011 06:56 (thirteen years ago) link
I think distinguishing between "deep-set biases and prejudices" and "critical faculties" is usually a false dichotomy, and I don't believe in "trying" to like something. I do believe in trying to figure out how the music works, in giving it a chance, no matter what it is. But if I like it, I like it, and my job is to explain why; if I don't, ditto.
― xhuxk, Tuesday, January 4, 2011 5:28 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark
yeah, i agree. wasn't trying to suggest that careful listening will or should reverse the knee-jerk impressions of one's "deep-set biases and prejudices," but i do think that what we get on the first pass is almost always superficial (if just as often generally accurate). that said, i don't think that the barrier i set between those superficial biases/prejudices and deeper critical thinking creates an entirely false dichotomy. the former come easy, while the latter take time and care to fully develop. it's easy to go into screed/hosanna mode based on initial impressions, and that isn't necessarily wrong, but i find that the eventual peace i reach with most of the music i spend any serious time with is more measured, less dramatic. true even of what i love & hate most intensely.
― carles marx (contenderizer), Wednesday, 5 January 2011 09:11 (thirteen years ago) link
I think the difference between bias and interesting critical analysis is mainly explication or "working out".
Like a straightforward maths problem some musical puzzles can be solved almost instantaneously (during your first listen), while some require more working out, false starts, thinking around your reaction.
Good music writing usually involves (even if unwittingly) a search for interesting puzzles.
― Tim F, Wednesday, 5 January 2011 10:33 (thirteen years ago) link
i kind of disagree with that - it reduces criticism to "analysis" and makes it seem like solving an algebra problem. i've never approached music writing with anything like a "strategy" beforehand - it's a mix of the intuitive/emotional and more contextual joining-the-dots.
― lex diamonds (lex pretend), Wednesday, 5 January 2011 10:38 (thirteen years ago) link
haha "like an algebra problem" which is exactly what you said anyway. HUGE turn-off! do not want to solve algebra problems, do not want anyone to think i should be.
eh, it's more like filtration than algebra. or culinary reduction. getting to the essence of things takes time, though sure, it's not always worth the bother. some cores are best left unplumbed.
― carles marx (contenderizer), Wednesday, 5 January 2011 11:05 (thirteen years ago) link
An algebra of emotions though. Why do I feel the way I feel when I listen to this music? What does it mean? I can't imagine not being interested in the answer to that.
― Tim F, Wednesday, 5 January 2011 12:13 (thirteen years ago) link