Poptimists Album Science #2

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

This is about Proving By Science how good an album really is. The first album to be rated was Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' and it scored 63.75 out of a possible 90 giving it a very respectable 71%. So we now know for sure, conclusively, without doubt, that 71% of 'Thriller' as an album is good, or 7 out of 10 if you will - and this seems about right (even tho the urge in the past may have to been to hail the album as a true classic, it transpires that is not quite the case and that it is a handful of particularly excellent singles that have afforded it this status). A satisfying moment for the Poptimists Science Team now follows...

Now, if you please, join me in rating the following tracks from the Pet Shop Boys' 'Please' album out of ten:

[Poll #852054]



If you've not heard the song before or need a reminder there are several ways you can remedy this. if you have iTunes you can search for the album on there and listen to the 30 second clips - or you can use Amazon and other sites in a similar way. If the song was released as a single you may well find the video on YouTube.

If you've not heard the song and can't hear it you could either not mark it (if you dislike the artist generally) or give it a 5 for balance if you do like the artist generally (seems fair to me all in all).

Don't worry too much about the position of the song in the tracklist and it's relation to what comes before and after it - unless you think that sort of thing affects your response to a track significantly (but I don't think this need happen).

Comments

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

there must be a story about why 2/0 was never released

[yuxonomei.livejournal.com]

Two Divided by Zero is a little weak for an opener, they should have opened with Suburbia or Tonight is forever. That said, Please is a cracking first album for the Eighties and coupled with Disco, is the soundtrack to the early Eighties. However, I'm biased.

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

2/0 is teh ace!

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

Yes, one of my v fave PSB songs ever! I gave it and "I Want a Lover" 10s.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

I never heard the non-singles until now! 'Two Divided By Zero' appears to be the best one. 'Side 2' of the album seems a lot weaker than the first half but nonetheless I didn't mark any track lower than a 6.

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

Very is a much better album.

Surely a handful of great tracks is enough to make an album a classic (re Thriller)?

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

I'm become of the persuasion that it doesn't/shouldn't which is part of what this experiment is about, to see how people's attitudes to album evaluation work and how adaptable they are.

What's bugging me is the question of why an album should be considered classic merely on the strength of it's singles and whether that is really enough. After all we can say the singles are classic so no need to think of the album in the same way just because it contains all those singles in one convenient package, though it's obviously good that you pay a relatievly good price to get all those singles compared to buying each single individually. But that's about the merits of an album as a product rather than an artistic endeavour.

Also presumably all 'classic' albums don't exist on the same plane, and some are 'more classic' than others. Is that just because they have MORE good songs on them, or something else?

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I know what you're saying, Steve, but I have doubts that the methodology you are employing will clearly answer these questions. Also 71% is a very very good result with this system. I'll be surprised if other LPs do significantly better.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

They answer them quite clearly (or at least satisfyingly) for me personally! Although on a personal level, I appear to rate several albums higher than 'Thriller' (but then surely we all would - voting together tho it is indeed a good score).

I may have to do an Indie version of this poll ft. 'OK Computer', 'The Holy Bible' and 'The Queen Is Dead'.

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

Isn't part of the problem with Thriller that most of the tracks were singles, which biases it somewhat. Although I suppose you could equally argue that the fact there were so many tracks worthy of being singles in the first place is one of the things that make it so good. What would be good to see would be if there are any albums where the non-singles rate as high or higher than the singles, which for me would validate your methodology.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

But a mark of exactly 50% would imply that noone has actually heard the album!

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

i have never tried ranking the psb albums! i'm not sure i could differentiate between my love of very, please, behaviour and very. i loved them all at the time they came out, and now with distance, i still love them immensely and the only difference i can detect between them is my own age at the time. as such very ranks slightly lower because 17 yr old me was even more devoted than 24 yr old me.

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

"please, actually, behaviour and very!"

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I don't have this album either!

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

you have the next one...

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

please don't do the holy bible

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

LOL. I'll have to go home and listen to this before I can participate in this org fun -- I haven't heard half of these tracks, I think.

[koganbot]

Have never heard this alb.

Albums evaluations in general: Great songs enriched by a whole bunch of other songs (whether good ones or not) surely beats a whole bunch of good songs. Album with a mood or character is better than album with no mood or character (provided that one likes the particular mood and character), even if latter has more high-rated songs.

Etc.

So methodology is rub.

But I can't think of another methodology that would produce poll fun, so methodology is not rub.

Issue definitively and for all time not decided on this old thread.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

'Album with a mood or character is better than album with no mood or character (provided that one likes the particular mood and character), even if latter has more high-rated songs.'

This is a 'greater than the sum of it's parts' argument applied to albums that I don't really believe in anymore. Obv. mood and character running through an album are good but if some songs aren't reflecting that well enough then why bother with the album as opposed to just the parts you do think do the job best.

Incidentally this is much harder with films I think, where you may have many great scenes or elements (e.g. effects, cinematography) within a film that is regarded as bad overall because other elements are deemed more important (characterisation, script, plot) and it's not as easy to separate the parts you like (even tho DVDs thankfull have chapters!). I'm v into these parallels btw.

Maybe it's just because we're dealing with 'Pop' and it's true what they say, that 'The Immaculate Collection' would always be better conceptually and potentially than an actual Madonna album...this isn't necessarily about trying to disprove that tho, more just to see if albums regarded as classic really are or in what senses they are/aren't.

I think this methodology is useful in rating an album because it ought to demonstrate how much we listen or would want to listen to the songs on any given album. What could be more important than that?