Top 100 albums...

yeah, haha.

I guess you either have to go with a) snooty panelists b) what the public say c) what the sales records say

maybe we should do option d) - what zerogain think!

 

Ah but is option D really that different from option A? I think the number of sales is factored in, I meant thats not the only thing you go on and shouldn't really count for that much.

 

He knows it all off by heart! The man knows all!!!

 

Then lets vote him Zerogain president (to begin with). :kneel:

 

My point about sales was that Thrills and Pills has sold better recently due to Bez's new found celeb status and of course Rowetta. This had renewed interest in the Happy Mondays.

If nobody has heared of the album then its never going to get votes no matter how shockingly great it is. I suspect a lot of young 13-15 years ofl have been buying Happy Mondays records because of Bez so voted for it.

As usual its not surprising to see so much Oasis in there or the Beatles.

I was slightly disapointed that Technique wasn't in the top 100 but looking at it objectivly I don't think it is really one of the top 100 albums of all time.

 

Only surprising in so far as the Fabs are Uberlords of the Pop Galaxy and Oasis a bunch of talentless Manc chancers.

 

Quite

-- Ian

 

The Beatles I can see the appeal of, its not my personal taste in music but I can see their talent. Oasis on the other hand I don't really get, to me when I listen to the Smiths I really get the lyrics and it means a lot to me, the only Oasis lyric that means anything to me is

I buy my records from Mr Sifter, I only cross the road when the lights are on red

Or somthing like that, he's talking about Fog Lane in East Didsbury, there is a record shop there called Sifter's Records. This is the shop they were refering to in the lyrics. I have bought some records there myself.

With the Smith's it means a lot me partly because in some ways I had similier problems to Morrissey, and partly becuase I know all the places he mentions. I've been past the cemetry gates 1000's of times, I have been past the Holy Name church loads of times, I've been past the Iron Bridge 1000's of times, although I have never kissed there and got sore lips as a result.

 

And why no Parliament? "Mothership Connection" influenced the whole of the electro and hip-hop movements!
And no jazz, apart from the obvious Coltrane and Holliday offerings?
And as for 100 best albums, I would have thought best meant "most influential, as in influencing most other music rather than causing 13 year old girls to wet their pants?
Sales, schmales!!!
And White Stripes ahead of the Sex Pistols, with Oasis ahead of both?
Just shows that most folks like music to be simple ear candy

 

and I just realised ... No Kraftwerk !!!!

Now that's all wrong. Dido ... better than Man Machine or Autobahn or Radioactivity or Trans .... That don't taste right!!

 

Kraftwerk were on the list, quite low down though. There was some quite nice footage of them on the programme. Bizarrely, Air were much higher up the rankings, the irony of that is pretty obvious.

-- Ian

 

and I just realised ... I need new glasses !!!!

 

OK Computer is, in terms of overall long-term satisfaction, sophistication and downright quality of musical composition, streets ahead of virtually everything else in the 'pop' domain, by which I simply mean "not jazz or classical". IMO it's the single 'pop' album that everyone - even classical die-hards - should at least have a passing familiarity with.

I think it's interesting how people tend to mix the notions of 'historically significant' and 'great'; as far as I'm concerned, simply being groundbreaking or influential isn't enough in itself to justify the description 'great', though of course some things are influential because of their 'greatness'. On a similar note there were a lot of things in the programme which were lauded for the political awareness or whatever of their lyrics; Bob Marley was doubtless politically very significant for all sorts of reasons, and Dylan's lyrics have a folksy and very evocative zeitgeist quality, but the actual music of both is pretty thin, uninspired stuff.

 

It's not a bad record by any means, in fact it's a good one, but more sophisticated than, oh I don't know, virtually anything by Captain Beefheart? Or Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys? Or The Beatles' Abbey Road or Rubber Soul? Or any of Faust's first four records? Or Scott Walker? Or (contd. p. 94)

Great pop music is not, primarily, about sophistication or quality of composition anyway, its greatness lies in its connection with experience, its immediacy, its insouciance, its wit. I'd put, to pull an example out of the hat, the Happy Mondays ahead of Radiohead for that reason.

-- Ian

 

I missed the TV programme... can anybody tell me what is so great about 'Pet Sounds'?

 

Pet Sounds, The Beatles, what I've heard by Captain Beefheart, yes, certainly. Faust and Scott Walker I'm afraid I'm not familiar with, but - for obvious reasons - I have tried quite a few times to find something that I'd rate alongside Radiohead at their best and have always been very disappointed so far

Except perhaps for those listeners approaching from a very predominantly classical training and music experience (which I think is in some ways a harder way to do it than the other way around), or those who have developed a comparable approach through some other means. In any case I think most people can identify with 'quality of composition' even if they don't necessarily know the jargon to express why.

Sophistication doesn't preclude any of those things though. For me and my ears, all those things you talk about - the 'connection with experience' and so forth - need to come from the music, the actual melody, harmony, rhythm, structure and texture, rather than simply being an evocative or witty lyric tacked onto the same old music-by-numbers which IMO and IME constitutes an awful lot of what people consider 'great'.