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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | "Stewart Mason" <craigtorso@verizon.net> |
| Subject | Re: Top 20 of 2004 poll update |
| Date | Thu, 6 Jan 2005 16:41:57 -0500 |
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From: <jchasin@nyc.rr.com>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: David Bash <bashpop@earthlink.net>
>> Which brings me to a question, which I think I've asked on this
>> list a few
>> years ago: when people rank their albums, do they rank albums that
>> are
>> consistently good, but don't have any or many great tracks, above
>> thosealbums that have a few great tracks, but several that aren't
>> very good?
>
> I've stopped trying to adhere to the pretext or conceit that I can
>objectively rate the quality of releases. Instead, my personal
>rankings
>are based on two things: how important the record was to me in the
>year (basically, how often did I play it; was there a 2-month period
>when
>I left it in the CD player?); and, how likely am I to continue
>listening to it
>5, even 10 years from now.
I don't use the latter criteria so much, because I'm primarily
interested in how things hit me right *now* instead of their
historical importance (mentally casting back to the stuff I was
listening to obsessively in early 1995, Stereolab is the only band I
can think of that's still way high on my personal playlist), but the
former is my main gauge as well. The handy-dandy playcount feature on
iTunes shows that my most-played 2004 tracks are almost all from
Nellie McKay's GET AWAY FROM ME, which is certainly my #1 album of the
year. However, the highest non-Nellie track of the year is "Me and
Giuliani Down By the Schoolyard" by !!!, but I doubt that their album
LOUDEN UP NOW would be likely to make it into a Top 10 list, because
frankly, that's far and away the best song on the album, which is
otherwise kinda dull in exactly the same way that full albums by A
Certain Ratio were kinda dull -- this must just be a style of music
that's best on 12" singles.
S
NP: "Me and Giuliani Down By the Schoolyard" -- !!! (this really *is*
a fantastic single...)
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