To "rock fans", what is meant to be the canonical, everyone can agree on, album of the decade?

I asked a bunch of rock fans this question and the best answer I got was "Origin of Symetry", which has to be wrong.

― Ringtone bisexual bible shower (The stickman from the hilarious xkcd comics), Monday, 16 February 2009 19:32 (3 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

This is probably right.

although, true, it's spelled wrong...

these huge landscape-altering records become fewer and farther between

dunno about that. i think music people are more balkanized, so they're less aware of how the landcape outside their niche is being altered. think there have been tons of big, game-changing records in the 00s. maybe not so many big rock records though...

electrodrizzly most white folks/indie heads i know tend to get is gorillaz + teh postal service

― harry s tfuman

but, see, that shit is EXACTLY what i meant by "electrodribble" in the 1st place. plus kid a, and yoshimi battles the pink, and whatever beck record, and looper, and (more distantly) all that gross indie dance shit everybody loves to hate.

80s "rock" - Appetite for Destruction, The Joshua Tree or (gulp) Money For Nothing

It's called Brothers in Arms, idiot. 'Born in the USA' is the right answer for the 80s anyway

Drugs A. Money, I wonder if you are misunderstanding what I mean by "rockism," a term I'm already regretting bringing up. The "overall critical canon" -- as exemplified by the Rolling Stone 500-best albums list -- is, for all intents and purposes, a rockist canon. The very impulse to canonize is, as you yourself suggest upthread, a rockist one. Rockists could find something to like about both Nirvana and Alice in Chains, since both bands "kept it real" to some degree. But I'd argue that the ones who would champion Alice in Chains alongside Nirvana are a minority group within the larger rockist community.

Let's look at it this way. Albums that wind up being canonized by Rolling Stone are typically praised by both critics and fans: rarely will you find an album on the list that hasn't done decent sales, unless it has some great mythology behind it or is considered extremely influential. Nevermind is the rare album that critics loved, fans bought by the millions, and it was seen as a milestone in the lineage of rock history. Its place in the "overall critical canon" is thus secure. Dirt, while a very good record that had multi-platinum sales at the time, simply didn't have the same degree of critical support. And while you can make a good argument that it was wildly influential -- plenty of grunge and post-grunge bands borrowed from the Alice in Chains template -- the album's reputation after its initial mainstream success lay mostly among these Average Rock Dudes we've been talking about. 35-year-olds are still putting "Rooster" on the jukebox, but 19-year-olds aren't buying it like they are old Nirvana records.

Appetite & Joshua TRee, yep... I'm trying to think of things that did hueg numbers, made lots of top ten lists but like, even little kids were totally in to.

xxxxpost Daniel ESQ's list looks pretty good

(and buy top 10 lists, i mean P&J and the like, not just Spin and RS)

35-year-olds are still putting "Rooster" on the jukebox, but 19-year-olds aren't buying it like they are old Nirvana records.

^^also v. important

HYSTERIA?...SLIPPERY WHEN WET???????

Bruce Springsteen, Born In The USA; Guns and Roses, Appetite for Destruction; U2, The Joshua Tree; Police, Synchronicity; Van Halen, 1984; Bon Jovi, Slippery When Wet; or Def Leppard, Pyromania

this this this this this. some of that is THE CANON, some of it ain't, but it's a big part of how we remember the 80s. plus speaking in tongues, freedom of choice, plus the other stuff i said before, etc.

overlooks THE CANON though, and the way we set up weird moats between the "important" and the not.

i'm not convinced kids are buying old nirvana records...besides that jay i agree with yr post...what does rockism mean though?

hahah well, he had me up through 1984

yeah contenderizer but isnt the canon were talking about pretty much a 90s narrative...? like the SST stuff thats canon (which is what I assume what youre talking about) that we like could pretty much be seen as prequels to Nevermind, does it really have anything to do with the 80s itself?

35-year-olds are still putting "Rooster" on the jukebox, but 19-year-olds aren't buying it like they are old Nirvana records.

― jaymc

is this totally true though? nevermind has become an evergreen classic, selling and selling and selling, like how dark side of the moon hung around the top 100 album charts for over a decade, but i'm not sure that dirt has been cast into the dustbins of h. rather, i think it's become a popular & well-respected cult album (oxymoron alert) among heavy-seeking rockist types -- a strain whose visibility & numbers have risen significantly over the last decade.

HYSTERIA?...SLIPPERY WHEN WET???????

Yeah, I stand by this. I grew up in the 80s (in fact, today's my 41st birthday, making me nostalgic and . . . a little sad, actually), and it's hard to overstate the popular impact of these discs. I can't stand Bon Jovi, FWIW, but Slippery When Wet was a big deal to a lot of kids, and the group seemed to hit that spot between rock-macho and boyish-looks that made them popular with a lot of high school and college girls (other bands did this, too, but Bon Jovi was a big success with a long track record of charting hits). And Pyromania was an even bigger hit, and I think has gained stature among critics in the years since it was released. Hysteria is a sort-of good album, but as someone said upthread, it was "the follow-up."

i dunno, i think pyromania was big, but hysteria sold way more and was HUGE for like 4 years...there's only like 2 or 3 songs off that album that weren't singles

80s stuff was very relevant to the 80s, but only if you were there ;)

i mean, "the canon" is an old narrative, though an everchanging one. a lot of the push-pull in the 80s had to do with how all this new shit (punk, post-punk, new wave, hardcore, hair metal, synthpop, prince & MJ) related to then well established 60s/70s rolling stone "rock importance" canon.

that last to drugz

True. It's still always been "the follow-up" to me.

(xp to Matt)

i'm not convinced kids are buying old nirvana records

Well, kids aren't buying anything anymore, to be fair.

hysteria is good-call 80s record, but mentioning it seems wilfully perverse, given that this whole discussion is framed by the canon, thus critical respect, myths regarding artistic quality & importance, etc.

master of puppets

what i'm saying though is inside the 00s as we still are, at least you & I can agree that Kid A is the most significant album, and we prolley coul have said the same thing for Nevermind IN the 90s (though--oddly overlooked on this thread--there are prolley at least 5 albums that are considered more relevant nowadays) but could a lot of the 80s canonical choices be consider all that important IN the 80s, not knowing that Nirvana, Grunge, shoegazer, everything that happened not two years later would drastically change the game?

also, weirdly i've been listening to hysteria a lot lately and to me it's sort of the one place where almost all the trends of the 80s sort of merge into one....hair metal, really produced pop, drum machines, samplers, guitar solos, clean Police style guitar arpegios, crazy vocal harmonies...

it's sort of the reverse of something like avril i mentioned upthread...sort of a hard rock record with pop signifiers

i remember reading in Mojo once that their stated goal was to make the "Thriller of heavy metal" which seems like the ultimate 80s goal.

oh master of puppets is a good point...lol nevermind etc.

00's sucks sucks sucks as far as rock goes. sucks.

hysteria is good-call 80s record, but mentioning it seems wilfully perverse, given that this whole discussion is framed by the canon, thus critical respect, myths regarding artistic quality & importance, etc.

granted I didn't pay all that much attention to reviews when this came out but I have memories of all of the ones I did see being 5-star jizzfests

mak(ing) the "Thriller of heavy metal" (was) like the ultimate 80s goal.

That or having more ménage à trois with mother/daughter combinations than any other hair-metal band.

80s canonical choices be consider all that important IN the 80s, not knowing that Nirvana, Grunge, shoegazer, everything that happened not two years later would drastically change the game?

i see what you mean. no, and yes. 80s were a different era in a lot of ways. in one really important way: development of an indie rock subculture before it became obvious that it was a farm league system. records like damaged, zen arcade, daydream nation, psychocandy, the perfect prescription & c. were regarded as instant-canon classics pretty much from the day of release, but only by critics and within a relatively small circle of "hipster" fans. i suspect that they'd still be held in high regard, even w/out the influence they cast on the likes of MBV & nirvana (though, you know, if things were different, they'd be different).

I have memories of all of the ones I did see being 5-star jizzfests

― HI DERE

i have memories of a LOT of people taking the piss, esp more rockist/hipster types. plus it's not like the succeeding decades have done a lot to burnish the rep. i think it's mostly remembered as a kitschy fun party record, beloved of strippers and people who appreciate irony

http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/207338/review/12285422/hysteria

xxxp to contenderizer right...zen arcade, surfer rosa, daydream nation...they're the blessed black wings, and blood inside, and burned mind of their day...

records like damaged, zen arcade, daydream nation, psychocandy, the perfect prescription & c. were regarded as instant-canon classics pretty much from the day of release, but only by critics and within a relatively small circle of "hipster" fans.

this (my words) probably much more true in the US than the UK. pop press (NME/MM) seemed hugely influential in the UK and went apeshit over this stuff. the massive, seemingly unbridgeable gulf between indie-mainstream was more a US thing

xp hey strippers like all kind of music...

what's the oddest song you've seen a stripper dance to?

that's an after-the-fact review from 2006, Dan. i doubt that RS dug it at the time.

here's Xgau's review from back in the day, tho:

Hysteria [Mercury, 1987]
You know about the music, and if you don't think you'll like it you won't: impeccable pop metal of no discernible content, it will inspire active interest only in AOR programmers and the several million addicts of the genre. In short, it's product--but as product, significant, because it's product for the CD age. Stuck with over an hour of material after four years (after all, could twelve songs be any shorter?), they elected to put it all on one disc because as technocrats they instinctively conceive for formats that can accommodate an hour of music: cassettes, which now outsell vinyl discs, and CDs, which outdollar them. The cassette sound is a little too dim, as commercial cassette sound usually is, and though I sometimes find myself preferring the depth of the vinyl once I've turned my amp up to six or seven, the clarity of the CD gets more and more decisive as the needle approaches the outgroove. I mean, I have trouble perceiving these guys as human beings under ideal circumstances. Not docked a notch because at least they didn't pad it into a double. C

lol @ slamming a record by saying it will inspire interest in "only several million people"

i dunno, are "addicts" people?

yeah, i remember reading hysteria reviews in RS, spin, voice (?), bunch of other places. reception was mixed, at best.

edit: pretty much like that xgau bit. catchy, but fake, "sold out", empty. rockist value differentiators very much in play

Well, fwiw, I seem to remember that RS gave Nevermind just 3-stars upon its release.

"Servicable catchy rock" was basically the review.

Well, fwiw, I seem to remember that RS gave Nevermind just 3-stars upon its release.

― Daniel, Esq.

i.e., in-the-moment RS reviews as a poor guide to what will eventually end in the RS canon

the perfect prescription & c. were regarded as instant-canon classics pretty much from the day of release

probably much more true in the US than the UK

Uh, not for those two albums (whatever they are.) And fwiw, U.S. critics hardly went ga-ga over Damaged when it came out either. Mostly, they ignored it.

"of no discernible content" is the part that always kills me.

xxp

Uh, not for those two albums (whatever they are.) And fwiw, U.S. critics hardly went ga-ga over Damaged when it came out either. Mostly, they ignored it.

― xhuxk

think i may have been a little unclear there, xhuxk. my point was that the albums i mentioned were regarded as instant-canon classic within their indie underworlds. that in the US at the time, the divide between indie and mainstream seemed much larger than it did in the UK. so indie-crit sanctification in many cases took time creeping up into the mainstream (or into the long-memory indie semi-mainstream, anyway). damaged and spacemen 3's perfect prescrip being examples.

This question is totally flawed.. "rock fans" has yet to be defined in this thread as it can mean 1 of 100 things. Make the question less vague and you may find your answer.

Origin Of Symmetry might be a good answer for U.K. residents and anglophiles.

why don't we try to define what rock fans does not mean, in the purpose of this thread first?

trying to define "rock fans" is probably a losing game. different fans define the genre differently. what emerges from all those conflicting definitions is some kind of vague, blurry ghost that can't really be pinned down, but exists nonetheless. we've gotta work with the uncertainty.

changed my mind. its without doubt fever to tell.