Why evaluate records on any basis beside sales figures?

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The Invisible Hand is neutral and arbitrary. Any other way of evaluation is corrupted by mystification, elitism, simple factual errors, other subjective factors. Any critical method ever devised belongs with astrology, whereas Soundscan's media IS it's message, perfectly closed system. Sure it's only one way to judge things but easier to have just one criteria than infinite! It would also be beneficial for human evolution, consigning the concept of individual expression to the trash-heap of other atavistic ideas. The consumers and producers of non-commercial music would fall out of favour at being revealed as the profesional misfits and incipient demagogues they imagine themselves to be, and hopefully re-educated in a caring and modern environment to rid them of their anti-social solipsistic tendencies

― dave q, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

So what if there's only 3 multinationals in the world selling all the records? Even better efficiency! The only reason people are against globalisation is that they suspect correctly that when it happens the standards of living around the world are going to be a little bit more equalized, which of course means the Western standard going WAYYY down. I.E. Global communism! The free ride for the West is over and anybody who's against it is just being selfish, someone who would sacrifice 9/10 of the world just for an endless supply of KitKats

― dave q, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

So if I burn an a bunch of songs that I've written onto a CD (hence an 'album') and sell it to anyone I know who wants it, it is obviously many times worse than the latest Britney Spears album?

― Andrew, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Actually Alex - yes. See, contrary to PC orthodoxy, brands are good because their raison d'etre is to guarantee quality. If your CDRs aren't 'branded' by a record conglomerate then you're outside the system and thus outside the parameters of 'quality'. Hope that clears things up!

― dave q, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Sorry - I meant 'Andrew' of course. Britney has been selected by a collective R&D brain trust in association with a collective promotional apparatus. How can one individual be presumptious enough to argue with the collective wisdom and experience of the record industry? They've spent many years and dollars figuring out what people want, and if the majority of people want something then it must be good!

― dave q, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

It's more fun to have a multiplicity of perspectives than be constrained by just one and I like having blood on my hands. It's slippery and I can make really cool looking handprints in my bathroom.

― Alex ALEX DAMN YOU in SF, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

who's alex? what fools these mortals be! don't you see the ultimate plan of the mega-corps is to reduce all music to a single oscillating tone pumped into yr head 24/7 at a cost of $109.99 per minute. (and I only had to sacrifice my first-born for my endless supply of KitKats)

― gilgamesh, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

We are all ALEX and soon we will come together to form a giant mechalex (aka Voltralex) and crush this puny consumerist planet!!!!

― Alex in SF (the LEFT foot), Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

sorry I started posting before real al came to reclaim his name. and I've been making some mighty nice woodblock bloodprints m'self. I am not wanting to be assimilated = industry collective not ready for me.

― gilgamesh, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

If everyone had equal access to all music, then sales would be the best way to evaluate music. The charts would look pretty similar I'll bet.

― Mark, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

More people want it = it's better. Therefore Jean-Marie Le Pen better than Lionel Jospin. Glad we sorted that one out.

― doctorboab, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

But in a way, the market decides who has access to music to, so it all works out

― dave q, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Important to realise that what is most popular - say, in terms of political candidates - is actually what is collectively 'better'. This is all due to the subjectivity of the term 'better' and the concept of 'goodness'.

― Andrew, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"The Invisible Hand is neutral and arbitrary."

No it isn't.

― Ben Williams, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

how many brazen hussies units have been shifted btw?

― mark s, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Not sure, I got a royalty statement for £2.80

― dave q, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Where can I buy Brazen Hussies?

― Dr. C, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

So what if there's only 3 multinationals in the world selling all the records? Even better efficiency!
So while we're at it, why not get rid of all Chinese Food, Mexican Food, Indian Food and Italian Food. We could all eat oatmeal 4 times a day. Our multinational megalocorporate technofeudalist overlords would find that much more effecient than having to grow a multitude of different crops. We could all just live off of oatmeal.
LET ZEM EAT OATMEAL sez the new Marie Antionette!

― Lord Custos 2.0 beta, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I suspect that rice is more common than oatmeal.

― Sterling Clover, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Mmm... rice.

― Sterling Clover, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Sales figures as aesthetic arbiter = math rock!

― briania, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Sterling:
Rice = Tasty
Oatmeal != Tasty

― Lord Custos 2.0 beta, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Rice = tasty with vegetables, and with the brown left on. The major commercial concerns would have you polish your rice until it's white and gleaming, and virtually without any taste at all. White rice is v. pop! Brown rice is v. misfit!

― Sean Carruthers, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

is uncle ben soul?

― mark s, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Using sales to judge music, to judge art? That is absolutely antithetical to everything I've been taught... that the fickle whims of the record buying public are the criteria upon which we base our judgements? I scoff at this. No, the only way to know if something is truly good or not is how often you hear it on TV... on Ally McBeal, on car commericials (Blur should put a "Whoo Hoo!" in every song they do), on TRL, etc. That is how we'll decide quality, you cretins.

― Andy, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Maybe Uncle Ben = nu-soul? Rice-a-roni = nu-metal.

― Sean Carruthers, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Brown rice is hippie garbage.

― Kris, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

So how do the companies decide who to sign and which of their cuts to put out as singles and how do the radio stations or DJs choose which to play? There are loads of decisions made on some basis or other BEFORE sales figures can exist, so this is not enough.

― Martin Skidmore, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Brown rice is delicious if one doesn't bring a lot of boring ideas about hippies to the table.

― John Darnielle, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I agree completely. The sales figure used should be highest auction price, not quantity. Death to all musical Keane paintings!

― Curt, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Am I the only person here who likes oatmeal, goddamnit?

― Ally, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm sorry, short-grain brown rice is the best. it takes a little longer to cook but it's worth it. I have focus-grouped this.

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I like oatmeal too, esp with a bit of brown sugar, but apparently the superiority of brown rice (notably short-grain) has now been PROVEN BY SCIENCE.

― Sean Carruthers, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Brown rice may or may not be delicious but check the sales figures.

― Kris, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Dat's the whole point though: white rice sells by the truckload, thus = pop!

― Sean Carruthers, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The sales figures in my household show 90% brown short-grain rice to 10% converted white. If I could get figures for my neighborhood they would skew yellow, I believe.

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Do you live near a Monsanto factory?

― Kris, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

No, Brooklyn.

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

sorry, that should be YES, Brooklyn.

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Why evaluate records on any basis beside sales figures?

That's actually a paradox, isn't it? "Sales figures" = sum of people's evaluations (of whether the record is good enough to buy); thus evaluation must exist in the absence of sales figures if new music is to exist. It would be non-paradoxical only if humanity spent the rest of time listening only to the top-selling record thus far.

So there you go, question answered BY SCIENCE, end of thread.

― nabisco%%, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

In my local Tesco's brown rice is cheaper - 49p a kilo with a current two for one deal on an own brand range. White rice starts at 53p per kilo and yet there are seven (!!!) different brands offering this less fibrous more economically unsound product. The 21st century has spawned a generation of financially reckless colon- endangering fools, and are so concerned with the supposed purity (artificial obviously) of their cereal necessities they will forsake all other considerations that would normally become a factor in a rice dilema.

Somewhere here there's a point about the relationship between music and consumerism. People hear a record through it being endorsed by various other companies, and its glossy production scrubbed free of all natural 'impurities' without regard for subsequent overall quality or vlaue that is transmitted to the consumer. I've had too many drinks

― Barnaby, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Sales figures are *not* the sum of people's evaluations. It's only after you buy a record that you realize you hate it (if you in fact hate it).

― Clarke B., Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Then you resell it and flood the market with it. Besides, you liked it when you bought it, regardless of if you heard it or not.

― Sterling Clover, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

But I think nabisco's basic point is that *someone* has to make a decision to buy a record for some reason other than sales; otherwise, no new album could ever sell a single copy.

― o. nate, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Personally, I think nabisco is trying to divert attention away from the fact that Nabisco is now part of Kraft, and that this multiconglomerate owns the Minute Rice brand, surely the whitest of white rice evah!

― Sean Carruthers, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

You know, I am like so sick of people having to make fun of my given name by talking about crackers and stuff. You don't think I realize it's a corporation? Well maybe that corporation should have considered that it's a very common name where I'm from.

― nabisco%%, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Ah, thought it was a handle, not a name, and of course no offense was intended. (Just re-read the Introduce Yrself thread now, and I guess I wasn't paying attention earlier.)

― Sean Carruthers, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

why "the trash-heap of OTHER atavistic ideas"?

― mark s, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh, NO NO NO: I didn't realize Ned had OUTED me over there. I was just messing with you. I'm not named Nabisco, thank God, although it was one of the top three brand names irritating kids called me in middle school (right behind Mitsubishi and Nissan).

It so happens that hustiN (backwards) is not a common name anyway.

― nabisco%%, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm glad I came back here, lest anyone cross-reference with "Introduce Yourself" and start thinking Nabisco is a common name in Ethiopia. Oh the horror.

― nabisco%%, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

... And so we all existed on a diet of brown rice simply boiled in unsalted water, we all wore without comment our off-brown hessian overalls, and we all patiently and calmly listened to the voice of The Man Who Is Our Large Sibling each morning as he uttered to us our instructions and motivations for the new day. Then we each peddled our gearless, colourless utilitarian bicycles to our places of work, and undertook our alloted socially beneficial occupations, begining each day at 8am and ending work at 6pm. Each evening we would meet up in small groups to which we had been assigned, and we would darn socks, sew new hessian overalls, and listen to the barely-audible rumblings and intonations of Sealion Dion, H & Claire, Charlotte Church and Pan Pipe Moods. And we soon forgot that our every move was watched by the inescapable telescreens posited about us to observe and control. And we were happy.

Until...

One day, someone found some salt in an old cupboard that they had forgotten about, and added it to the simple plain water in which they boiled their nutritious brown rice. And they opened their eyes wider than they had done for many years as they savoured the long-forgotten and exquisite bitterness. Then, another day, some weeks later, someone found an aromtic plant growing in the communal garden, fresh and invigorating... Mint... And they used this with their rice too. And people kept discovering different things which they could add to their rice, until one day someone discovered an old abandoned warehouse, and forced their way through the rusted padlock. Inside, once the long-undisturbed dust had settled, boxes were revealed. Boxes full of records. Rooting through the boxes, they discovered records called wonderous, dangerous names, like What's Going On, Loveless, Geogaddi, Fear Of A Black Planet... Spying an old music- box in the corner of the warehouse, they tentatively chose a record to play first. Turning on the music-box at the wall, and making sure the lights upon the box began to glow, they turned the volume dial clockwise with shivering, excited fingers, and placed a record called Surfer Rosa...

Half an hour later, shaken and sweating, feeling their very souls beginning to stir once again after so long motionless, a quiet voice finally spoke...

"Sisters, brothers, I ain't never eating no plain brown rice again."

― Nick Southall, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Well I guess that clears that up, then. I feel a bit less mortified and a bit more foolish. Which is, I suppose, better overall.

― Sean Carruthers, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Anyway, in answer to the question...

Because otherwise music journalism / discussion / evaluation etcetera would be pretty fucking dull.

― Nick Southall, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

It so happens that hustiN (backwards) is not a common name anyway.

Yes but backwards it's Justin in phoenetic spanish!

― Kris, Tuesday, 7 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

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