The JC Top 100 Albums Of All Time! : 1) Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd

Floyd had more albums on my list than any other band, and this was my number 2 overall (number 1 out of the Floyd's). I like both the Syd and non-Syd eras, but nothing had the impact on me that this album did. The Wall was the first I heard by them, and I always loved the musicianship of WYSH, but this hit me like a hammer to the head, and I still think Interstellar Overdrive, Astronomy Domine and Bike are 3 of the best songs ever.

 

93) Odelay - Beck
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Devils Haircut
Hotwax
Lord Only Knows
The New Pollution
Derelict
Novacane
Jack-Ass
Where It's At
Minus
Sissyneck
Readymade
High 5 (Rock the Catskills)
Ramshackle

I love this album. I've been lucky enough to see Beck live twice. he's one of my favorite performers... and he's damn sexy too.

 

Where It's At kicks ass... dunno anything else.

 

Odelay is indeed a very choice album, although as far as Beck goes I would place it well behind Sea Change and just a tad behind Guero.

 

Guero is very "meh" for me, but I adore Sea Change and Mutations.

Stereopathic Soul Manure is also great, in a stripped down, pure kind of way.

 

Astronomy Domine is the only song I've heard off Piper and it didn't impress me too much. I placed The Division Bell on my list because not only do I prefer the post-Syd Floyd - I prefer the post-Waters Floyd as well.

 

You fail to tell me, whether you're 'ballparking' or 'counting,' why exactly the hell the bpm counts for crap.

I stand corrected again; I wasn't aware one defined genres based on such details as what illegal drugs the audience had taken.

I'm aware of the ecstatic tradition of dance. I'm also aware that the word 'trance' means several things.

As with most flat statements (which I am prone to make; sorry), my remark about genres being created to reference emotional response is not true across the board. However, some were; blues, gospel, r&b, rock & roll.

 

So yeah.... that Beck. He's pretty cool right?

 

Are you guys getting a divorce?

 

It totally changes the way your body relates to the music on the dancefloor.

Oh, absolutely. Certain genres are directly named after the drugs they're associated with (stoner metal, psychedelic rock). Others aren't named as directly, but the relationship is still there (e.g. the relationship between heroin and bebop). There's a relationship between, say, the music of Paul Oakenfold and MDMA that's every bit as important as the relationship between the music of Jimi Hendrix and LSD, or Irish folk music and alcohol, or something comparable.

In a musical context, it means one specific thing. The reason genre tags are important is that it keeps vocabulary consistent, so everyone knows what everyone else is talking about. If I say "hip-hop" as opposed to "rock," people know what I mean. If I call the Kinks "hip-hop" on the grounds that it makes me want to hop around my room, people would have every reason to find that ... frustrating.

That's why they were named what they were named, but the music grouped under those labels was not grouped together because it invoked the same emotional response, but because it was stylistically similar and came from the same background. Blues songs tend to have a melancholy sensibility about them, but they also use similar instrumentation and song structure, and come from the same historical roots. Other songs that have a similar sense of melancholy about them but use different sorts of instruments or structures are not classified as "blues."

* Because there's more great music out there, music that I'm going to be passionate about and have a strong connection to, then we will ever have time or opportunity to listen to in our lifetimes, and we need a way to sort through it to find the things we really like.

* Because appreciation tends to deepen the more you understand the depth of its history and its connections to other forms of music, and you need to have labels to talk about things like that coherently. If Ken Burns had made a documentary called A Bunch of Music I Like as opposed to Jazz, it wouldn't have the necessary sense of focus to shed any light on the subject. If you like Massive Attack, you can find out that they're trip-hop, and that trip-hop really blossomed in the Bristol scene of the mid-90s, and that can lead you (as an example) to figure out who influenced the Bristol trip-hop scene, which will both tip you off to new music you might like and also deepen your appreciation of where the music you like came from and what made it new and different.

* Because it helps people talk about the music they like, which makes it easier for good music to spread. If you say to someone "I really like a lot of music from genre X," they can say "More like subgenre Y or subgenre Z?" and you can say "Subgenre Z," and they can say "Well, then, I think you might really like Group ABC. I have their new CD and I will let you borrow it to see if you do." This is much easier to do when people are able to describe their taste with commonly-agreed-upon vocabulary.

* Because it helps people gather together to enjoy music they like. If you are new in a cit

 

Okay...

...folktronica?

 

Suprisingly good list. Usually JC-lists are embarrasing but this has still to show bad judgement. Blade Runner stinks without the movie, but hey that's what soundtracks are for.

 

I won't do a point by point response to diz' post above; to those who are worried, no, we aren't getting a divorce. We hope to continue to live under the same roof only with no emotionanl connection. You know, for the kids.

I'll admit diz' remarks have gone in a different way than I anticipated; my own approach to art criticism is deeply insular and deeply given to subjectivism, to the degree that I even denigrate the artist's own intentions below the interpretation I might personally attach to a work of art. I think objectivism is a fairy tale and we might as well just embrace subjectivism as all we have and run it all the way to the end of the field, if you get my drift.

However, both here, and in a PM I've just read from him, he raises the issue of communal experience and how it is only truly communal when it can be spoken of in particular language. This is something I hadn't particularly thought of since I believe in such an insular mode of criticism.

I have to admit, he's got a serious point here (yes, I'm giving points to the person I'm arguing with; this is why I love the Amp as opposed to the JCC ).

I will say, when I talk about music at random, I'm not talking about shelling out cash; I have a library card and I use it; just at the moment, I have some sixty albums on order, chosen more or less randomly from the library catalog. I find the library to be a great way to cast a wide net so to speak without breaking the bank.

I still fail to understand the need to create an absolutely encylopedic range of genres; 'early folktronica' for instance . . . I have to say, I literally laughed out loud over that one. I'll let it stand on it's own feet or lack there of, but it strikes me to be about as obfuscating as saying you have no idea. The problem with this kind of specificity is that it is obfuscating to those not in the loop. You tell me Odelay is 'early folktronic,' thus I understand it. If you simply threw the term at me with no context of what album you might be applying it to or if I hadn't heard Odelay, I have to admit I'd be at sea, as I think most people you would meet on the street would be.

What these kind of ultra-specific genre labels do, it seems to me, is create more division. You're talking about music, yes, but in a language so specific that a large majority of people aren't going to have a clue. Better, I think, when talking about Odelay to simply say it's a mix of electronic, hip hop, country, folk, jazz, blues and hard rock. It isn't as pithy but I think more people would understand what I'm trying to say.

To a certain degree I believe in genre labels in the communal sense, I guess; I just think that ultra-ultra specific genre labels actually defeat their own purpose by actually fracturing musical community and making communication more difficult, not less.

Again, your opinion is valid and I even give up several points to you. But on the level of labels like 'early folktronica,' I think we cross a line into something too obfuscating and even too, dare I say this, elitist for it to serve the purpose you claim it does.

And, yes, Odelay is awesome.

 

92) XO - Elliott Smith
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Sweet Adeline
Tomorrow Tomorrow
Waltz #2 (XO)
Baby Britain
Pitseleh
Independence Day
Bled White
Waltz #1
Amity
Oh Well, Okay
Bottle Up and Explode!
A Question Mark
Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands (So it's set to House footage... but hey.. it fits. I love this song, and didn't want to leave it with no link).
I Didn't Understand

I think it's pretty well known that I'm a large fan of Elliott Smith. This is probably my favorite album of his.. tied with Basement on a hill though. I regret that I never got a chance to see Elliott Smith perform live. He had such a beautiful voice, and special style. It's tragic that his life was cut so short.

 

The only Elliot Smith I know is a cover of the Beatles' "Because".

 

You should check him out, Tim. He was a huge Beatles fan, and you can definitely hear their influence in his music. He's awesome.

 

He was also from Portland... I think.

 

Texas originally, I think, but he lived in Portland for many years.

 

The only stuff of his I've heard are the songs Good Will Hunting, which I really loved. I'll have to pick up something once on iTunes.

 

Yeah I've heard the Good Will Hunting songs too. I tell you, I want the complete score from Danny Elfman for that film.

 

Backing up to Pipers -- an OK Pink Floyd album, but far from their best. Hopefully if this made this list, we'll see many more of their albums before the thread is done.

Can't comment on the other albums.

 

There is a release of Elfman's score for the movie; it's not as great as Elfman can get, but it's worth it just to hear him doing something different, you know? Elfman and acoustic guitars; the world just went mad.

The Elliot Smith songs off Good Will Hunting are all I know as well; that was enough to make me literally break down and cry when I read in the paper that he had died. Tragic.

 

I prefer Either/Or to XO, mainly cos i tend to prefer his bleak folksiness to his Beatley power poppiness.

 

91) Led Zeppelin (Zeppelin I) - Led Zeppelin
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Good Times Bad Times
Babe I'm Gonna Leave You
You Shook Me
Dazed and Confused
Your Time Is Gonna Come
Black Mountain Side
Communication Breakdown
I Can't Quit You Baby
How Many More Times

All hail "Dazed and Confused"!
~ Sanctimoniously

What an amazing debut album!

 

Great ****ing album. Certainly one of the greatest debut albums ever.