Obsessive fans' favourite VS music fans' favourite

On sales the Black Album (or whatever they're calling it now) would have to be the public's choice, but I think most long time fans would go for Master of Puppets.

It's a common penomena with bands who are percieved to 'sell out'

And it's true. Dang.

But the obsessive's precious, self-righteous how-dare-he reaction to Nick Cave's Kylie duet goes beyond amusing straight to absolutely hilarious.

If there's a theme here, it's that X band's breakthrough big selling album seems to come directly after the album "true" fans consider to be the best, cf Pulp's His'n'Hers and Different Class, Blur's Modern Life Is Rubbish and Parklife, and probably many more I can't pin down right now.

i was thinking about The Who - most of the public seem to be terribly obsessed with Tommy, though their 'true fans' usually either point to Sings My Generation or Sell Out as the kicker.

Well alright, maybe I was projecting a little there! My point was that, to my eyes at least, a disproportionate number of bands hit what could be seen as "proper" paydirt at least one, and sometimes two, albums after fans would like them to have done. The Prodigy are another one - The Fat Of The Land brought them to a whole new level thanks to the inclusion of "Firestarter" (and arguably the superior "Breathe"), but discerning fans put Jilted way above it.

one phenomenon that no-one's commented upon yet is when a particular artist has had a long career with a number of different stylistic changes throughout the course of that career. the most obvious such artists (to me, at least) would be David Bowie, Frank Zappa, Brian Eno (including his Roxy Music days), Prince, the differences between Joy Division and New Order. on a smaller scale, i guess you could also throw in Neil Young (the folkie vs. the noisy rocker), the Cure (from Wire-y sounding pop to gothy-sounding pop to whatever the heck one would call their schtick nowadays), Talking Heads ...

What seems to unite all of them, however, is a dismissal of stuff like Sheik Yerbouti, Joe's Garage, Apostrophe and his eighties stuff.

in that case, yes, it's partly a case of wilfful obscurism, that the rarer something is, the cooler it is, and therefore better. but it goes deeper than that.

obsessive fans will often pick the work that they feel is most most representative of the "true ultimate distilled vision of the band's artistic selfhood". the general public will generally pick the most accessible work, the work that is most representative of a more generalised acceptance of what "music" or (sorry) "good music in general" should sound like.

unfortunately, this often means that obsessive fans will pick the most extreme example, and general fans will pick the most bland example of the artist in question's work.

this is SO true with a band like the DW's, where the difference between their most popular singles and the material that i feel is representative of THEM is so pronounced. knowing them, knowing what they listen to, i see them as the band that makes music like rave-up and neitszche and be-in, not neceessarily the band that made last junkie and boho, almost by accident.

Also, if I had to be a Zappa fan, I'd be a Mothers person. And yet, I kind of like Sheik Yerbouti. Take that, different-kinds-of-Zappa-obsessives!

-- obsessive (khm) fans cherishing 'Ram' and 'McCartney II' and 'Band On The Run'
whereas the public-at-large evidently laps up ANY ol' crap that Macca throws up as his "new" record

i.e. Led Zep- Stairway, Soundgarden- Black Hole Sun, New Order- Blue Monday etc.

My gut feeling is that it's more of a reactionary attitude from 'true fans' who don't so much like that 'pop rubbish' and that the 'drones don't really get it' sort of attitude.

Radio stations sometimes of their own intiative play tracks from albums without having record companies promote the songs to radio ("stepping out"), hence the musical and radio genres AOR -- Album Oriented Rock or Album Orientd Radio.

it also states that stairway wz never a single, which i kind of took to imply these others were (i wz circumspect because it's the 1992 edition and i tht it wz possible it had been a us single since then w/o me noticing)

(ps i just emailed j-lu with that Natal Information)

What years are those charts from? If the boast was qualified by being no UK singles only, I am sorely disappointed and need to know. Or perhaps my memory is fuzzy and I am bigging up their artistic integrity in my mind.

When it comes to 100 Flowers, people are all "One Hundred Years of Pulchritude," when really it's the self-titled album that rules the roost.

You nutty man. Wherein the Urinals in this equation?

Ned, do you like Definitely Maybe? I do.

Lurv it.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~liden/plant_disc3.html

yes, I think that might be the case.

Sorry, the 100+ Captain Beefheart obsessives we surveyed said "UH-UH!" http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~bgwaters/firepartyfavourites.html

Revive.

So this is basically the theme for our next record club; you're favourite album by an artist that isn't the general consensus pick. I'm struggling a bit. I might go for Debut by Bjork, as Post and Homogenic seem to get the major share of love these days. Or maybe Protection by Massive Attack.

So yeah, talk about this some more. Make some suggestions.

Your not you're. Uergh.

Must be lots of these.

The Beatles – consensus pick Sgt Pepper, fan pick Revolver or The White Album
Simon & Garfunkel – consensus pick Bridge Over Troubled Water, fan pick Bookends
The Velvet Underground – consensus pick 1st album, fan pick 2nd or 3rd album
Led Zeppelin – consensus pick IV, fan pick, dunno, maybe Physical Graffiti?
Dire Straits – consensus pick Brothers in Arms, fan pick Love Over Gold
Fleetwood Mac – consensus pick Rumours, fan pick Tusk

Neil Young – consensus pick Harvest, fan pick Tonight's The Night or On The Beach

david bowie : consensus pick ziggy, fan pick lodger
madness : consenus pick 'one step beyond', fan pick 'rise and fall'
elo : consensus pick 'out of the blue', fan pick eldorado

Miles Davis:
casual fans - Kind of Blue
obsessives - In A Silent Way, perhaps