Time Magazine's Top 100 Albums

(put another way: what would possess you to reasd 20,000 words by someone whose writing you weren't enjoying EVEN IF THEIR TASTE EXACTLY MATCHED YOURS) (the exactness match wd probbly put me off anything in the overlap, if i actually disliked their writing)

x-post

for a while i pursued mild fatwas against both on ilx but to no effect :(

bits and scraps.
bits and scraps.
bits and scraps.
bits and scraps.
bits and scraps.
bits and scraps.
bits and scraps.
bits and scraps.

*sob*

But, then consider who they are aiming for: on the list of "what should have made the list, Dark Side of the Moon and Appetite for Destruction are far outpolling any of the other "honorable mentions." I'm not making an argument against the list (because lists like this are stupid, especially during No List November) just saying that the scope is limited and must ever be so.

x-post: yeah, exactly, polyphonic. It's like a law that they have to include those but no others that shaped music in many genres. So many of those on the list are--pleasant, maybe even pleasing but far from any importance or immortality.

1) A popular benchmark for experimental bop/fusion/crossover
2) Sold a whole ton of copies
3) Hugely amazing record, pretty much

But yeah, I'd like it if Silver Cycles or Rip, Rig and Panic or The Shape of Jazz to Come showed up on one of these every so often.

(xp times a whole lot)

We were waiting to hear it from Al Azhar

*runs away*

Uh what list doesn't?

It isn't really very surprising that it does, though, which is probably why no one had bothered to make this thread until I was real bored.

But I heard it in Starbucks once so it's not Miles' best work

Milestones is probably the closest stylistically in his catalogue and thats a very different recording - as great as it is, it misses that transcendent quality that lets KoB rock the coffeeshops (not a bad thing)

that's just to deflect any 'this list isn't political enough' talk from the readers. these guys must KNOW that's a ridculous choice to make in the context of GREEN, AUTOMATIC... etc

I don't think it's really all that different stylistically than Sketches of Spain or Porgy & Bess or a number of his releases from that period.

Wow, that is infuriating.

I mostly meant Miles's playing, but yeah, that's true.

*joking

Well, given that argument, couldn't you say that SoS is also "pretty singular in Miles ouvre, jazz as a whole and music generally"? Each of his records of that era features elements that makes it unique and noteworthy.

I thought that spot was sheld Time Out... Which, despite being very good, never makes these lists, maybe because it's considered too white these days.

I think the reason Coltrane and Miles are the jazz musicians most admired by rock fans is because they sort of fit in to the rockist ideal image of an auteur: strong, rebellious bandleaders who went against the grain and carved their own image. Someone like Herbie Hancock won't make these lists because - even though he's released albums just as good as and just as popular as the big three - he's considered too populist, too much of a trend-follower rather than trend-setter. Bird and Monk and Satchmo, on the other hand, won't don't get there probably because they made their biggest before the album era, i.e. when time began for rock fans.

just not true for jazz -- or lots of other reaches of pop -- so once you choose "best x albs" (why always A HUNDRED!?) then you def skew the choices away from all kinds

the two donna summer 12"s are better than anything coltrane REM did at any length -- but obv summer is never going to get into a "top 100 albs" :(

or, uh, what Mark said.

putting "mingus ah um" into a top 100 rock albs wd not even be THAT contrarian! (well ok yes it would)

Bitches Brew though is notable for several reasons. Davis/Macero forced Columbia to break the artificial 16-to-20 minutes per LP side limit. While, In A Silent Way was also tape-splice manipulated to achieve the final result, the editing work on Bitches Brew took many of the stock phrases and performances of the then transitioning band and shaped them into a final product that then became something considerably different than the live band performed--although the parts were still identifiable when played live.

The orchestration of the band provided even more of a leap toward a jazz/rock crossover than other work that had been building for years in jazz; not the bastard that would become "fusion" but a symbiotic mix.

So, yeah, BB is significant in the field of popular music, I think.

But so is The Shape of Jazz or This is Our Music (OC); Pithecanthropus Erectus (Mingus); or Brilliant Corners (TM). So, yeah, it gets trite that the three anointed are the ones that always appear, but I never lose any sleep over it. I just put on some tunes that I want to hear, and let them list whatever the heck they want to.

Which is all to say that this extremely conservative list is very typical of him.

Jazz and REM madness seconded (hi dere CHRONIC TOWN and LIFES RICH PAGEANT), but what's the point...

That's what I thought too when I first got it, because there's only two immediately catchy songs on it. But the more I've listened to it, the more lovely details I've found. For example, Paul Desmond's solo on "Strange Meadow Lark" is one of the most beautiful ever.

!!!

If you want to rank albums, rank albums. If you want to rank songs, rank songs rather than compilations.

OTMFM.

similiarly picking Johnny Cash over Merle Haggard as yr token country artists is bizarre. again the pop crossover factor must determine inclusion, as JC recorded w/Dylan and hosted a TV show while MH was ostensibly "proud to be an Okie from Muskogee."

An album:
a phonograph record or set of records containing several musical selections, a complete play, opera, etc.:

Seems a Best Of would also fall under that, no?

plus it's wicked. my honest favourite of theirs

this is very extremely obvious: world plz copy thx

y'know "IRL" people change their minds about things. heaven forbid you wake up someday and decide you like Mountain's Nantucket Sleighride better than Sgt Pepper.

plus it's wicked. my honest favourite of theirs

-- Charlie Howard (charlieflie...), November 16th, 2006."

This argument is odd, too. Their first 3 albums went platinum. It's not like they were toiling in obscurity. Stankonia was, I guess, when Soccer Moms caught on.

-- m coleman (writeco...), November 16th, 2006."

Well, if your high school taught John Hawkes or something instead of the Scarlet Letter, then I guess not.

"OTMFM."

well duh. that's why people who don't listen to jazz like it. i got no problem with the non-jazzfan love for stuff like that. they are good and accessible and memorable and all that. these lists can be churned out by bots now. it's kinda silly.

exactly.

ramon, you make a good point re. outkast

Seems a Best Of would also fall under that, no?

An album should be treated as a cohesive work of art, where all of the tracks work as a whole. For this to work properly, the album has to be written and recorded at the same time, not during various different stages of the artist's carreer.

Popular music at its best is BIG art, just like classical music is, and shouldn't be treated otherwise.

Because he was a great singles artist, and these people chose to include compilations, not only proper studio albums.

Had they kept to the latter, like British listmakers usually do, there would have been no Elvis at all.

writes screenplays, esp. w/his pal Scorsese

How is it disingenuous? Why even indicate decades if it's not going to point to what was new in each decade? (Not that it has to do that, but then just make one big list.) What practical value does it have to group these CDs by when they were released (when you are going to included collections of much older music--and not even like newly uncovered garage gems or something, but collections of work by major artists)?

Whenever I play "Mingus Ah-Up" for a novice, they say, "This sounds like the break music on Saturday Night Live. Hal Wilner is the reason his star fell.

Sinatra rocked more

Should have had "Sings For Only The Lonely" in there rather than "In The Wee Small Hours" though.