Yeah...I could be more disciplined about this.  Since I find the whole
prospect a bit slippery at best (the idea of ranking my faves), I guess
I let the subjectiveness really settle in. I agree with you David that
there's a noticeable drop off towards the latter half of the Sleep
Station CD, but I'm ok with putting on a CD and pulling it out when it
loses my interest. So maybe I fall into your category of folks who can
fall in love over a few great songs, since I mentally and concretely
just don't don't consider those other tracks much.  I guess since I'm a
statistician this might a be a question of average versus maximum, or at
least a mean weighted by maximum. Damn, how did I end up there.

On the other hand, you'll always be the better reviewer - cuz though I
might not bother to play the last several tracks and let them interfere
with my grand experience, I would have been a better reviewer to have
mentioned that drop off :). 

Bash's Best-of Lists Rule!!!!

-craig

-----Original Message-----
From: audities-owner@smoe.org [mailto:audities-owner@smoe.org] On Behalf
Of David Bash
Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2005 12:51 PM
To: Audities
Subject: Re: Top 20 of 2004 poll update



Yeah, I had the Sleep Station CD (which Jeff had recommended I check
out) at around #75 on my list, but thought perhaps it should rank higher
so I gave it another listen.  I absolutely love the first few songs
dearly, but after that virtually everything else bored me to the point
where, if I wasn't trying to rank it, I would have taken it off after
the seventh track.  I guess this is why I'd "subjectively" had it at #75
even though I loved the first song.  At any rate, because of the way I
felt about the latter tracks, I ended up removing it from my list
altogether.  For me, if there's something about an album that compells
me to take it out of the CD player well before it's over, it's an
indication that I shouldn't have it in my Top 100.

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
those albums that have a few great tracks, but several that aren't very
good?  I guess this is akin to the age-old debate in ranking baseball
players of "who should rank higher, a player who had a few amazing years
but the rest of their career they were somewhat ordinary, or a player
who was consistently very good, but not necessarily great in any year?".
I tend to rate things by what "feels right", but when I look over my
lists I tend to see "consistent" albums rank higher than inconsistent
albums with some great tracks.  Of course, when albums have many great
tracks and the rest of them are good, they end up in the Top 10.  :-)
--
Pop Rules!!!!!
Take Care,
David