Whoa. Weird to see this list back. I don't get it. It seems like you're knocking Bowie and the Beach Boys for not sounding like Captain Beefheart. Isn't it sufficient to say you disagree with 99% of all greatest albums lists (as everyone else does?)
Surely after Week 3 you can't rank the Lions as worse than the Browns anymore? The Browns have one offensive touchdown in more than half a season worth of games - and that one touchdown came in garbage time. The Lions have the #1 draft pick, quite possibly the best WR in the league in Calvin Johnson (this guy would be as big as Fitzgerald if he played for a better team), a decent runningback, and a few okay defensive players - as for the Browns, I can't really name one guy on that team who's above average. And you have to throw the Rams and the Raiders into this discussion too. Despite losing 19 straight I would much rather be a Lions fan than any of those teams.
YESSSS glad to see you picked the Saints to win...they are most definitely underrated, I mean this team is unstoppable!! After Week 2 I'd move the Pats and the Packers down a few slots, and the Colts maybe up a few. Also no way the Rams are better than THREE WHOLE NFL TEAMS.
I'm not entirely sure what it is you disagree with here. I agree that all three members were very talented. They were probably the most entertaining of all the 70's prog groups. They did lack a certain resonance; with a few exceptions like "Barbarian" and "From the Beginning", they were basically all flash. Emerson is a musical virtuoso, but I don't think he knows WHY certain pieces are emotionally resonant or why certain movements of a concerto are placed where they are. You can see this in his own concerto - all the pieces are there, but I never got a sense of WHY...you know, why the quiet part here, because other composers do it that way? It's no wonder he did so many covers! That said he did get it right a few times! I still think ELP is a great group. Flawed, but great. You could argue the flaws are what made them so entertaining (which is probably true). Thanks for writing!
I miss their older stuff too, but they did release four albums that rated 4 1/2 stars plus on my scale. There aren't many other artists who could do that...Eno, Can maybe...it's a short list. I think that modern day TMBG is pretty good still, but I don't know if they're as concerned with making great albums as they used to be. If you cobble together the best stuff of the last 10 years - not just from the six albums they've released, but also the EPs, the podcasts, the TMBG Unlimited stuff, the Venue Songs - there's another 4-5 albums worth of great material there. I try to listen to all the podcasts and it's clear they're still excited about music. Thanks for writing!
Great list!! I don't really disagree with anybody here (and it's great to see Gallardo make the list as he's my personal favorite). However if it's a "best-to-worst" list I would say that Ichiro, Haren, and Greinke should be higher. Greinke and Haren are currently the two best pitchers in the league and Ichiro is an all-around teriffic player. It's just sad the teams they are on are not real contenders (although the Mariners look surprisingly good this year)
About Boston - good call. There are a lot of huge albums that are very safe, very 'corporate'-sounding, but also very well-written and addictive. Other examples would be The Cars s/t, Thriller, and Sports by Huey Lewis and the News (although just about everyone would disagree with me on that one!!)
Very nice! I was a huge fan of Orbital in high school (got into them just as the Altogether was coming out). Snivilisation is my favorite right now although sometimes it's really hard to decide. Now I realize that I am missing a bunch of singles from the early period. I agree that there was a huge leap from the Green album to the Brown one...impressive it happened in one year, but I think that Green was more or less a collection of singles and wasn't really an album proper the way their future ones were (case in point all the different tracklistings, including remixes and live tracks). I still cannot figure out why they made "Belfast" the opener instead of "Chime". Seems so obvious to me...
By the way, if you like the "Belfast" or "Halycon"-type tracks, try to look up "Niji" by Denki Groove. They are Japan-based and therefore tough to find, but this is easily their most famous track, and a few American DJs put out comps or DJ mix albums with it. It was definitely inspired by Orbital, but IMO ranks right up there with the best of them.
I really like the re-design. Thanks a lot for putting in the time. This looks a lot more dynamic and flexible.
I do have a few questions though:
How do you get more than one line break in an article? For the review pages I do I really don't like the "big wall of text" look so I try to space it out from album to album, but even if I hit enter 4 times after each paragraph they are spaced the same when you view the article. Is this HTML based now?
What is the new alphabetical ordering on your content page? On the old site, characters like "_" came first, now they are last. Is there anything that goes before "a"?
This is mostly for my own use, so I know when it's time to pick up the pace, and (hopefully) when it's time to revisit a few albums and see if my opinion changes.
Thanks a lot! TMBG are one of those bands that I got into big at least three different times in my life, and every time I've heard their albums in different ways. I realize that I'm probably alone on my position on their debut, and it's tough to describe why I'd desert island that disc over the others. I'm working on an explanation...
How does the Sparks demo compare to the rest of their albums?
Whoa. Weird to see this list back. I don't get it. It seems like you're knocking Bowie and the Beach Boys for not sounding like Captain Beefheart. Isn't it sufficient to say you disagree with 99% of all greatest albums lists (as everyone else does?)
Surely after Week 3 you can't rank the Lions as worse than the Browns anymore? The Browns have one offensive touchdown in more than half a season worth of games - and that one touchdown came in garbage time. The Lions have the #1 draft pick, quite possibly the best WR in the league in Calvin Johnson (this guy would be as big as Fitzgerald if he played for a better team), a decent runningback, and a few okay defensive players - as for the Browns, I can't really name one guy on that team who's above average. And you have to throw the Rams and the Raiders into this discussion too. Despite losing 19 straight I would much rather be a Lions fan than any of those teams.
Does LeBron alone put Cleveland at number 8?
YESSSS glad to see you picked the Saints to win...they are most definitely underrated, I mean this team is unstoppable!! After Week 2 I'd move the Pats and the Packers down a few slots, and the Colts maybe up a few. Also no way the Rams are better than THREE WHOLE NFL TEAMS.
It's now done...check it out :)
I'm not entirely sure what it is you disagree with here. I agree that all three members were very talented. They were probably the most entertaining of all the 70's prog groups. They did lack a certain resonance; with a few exceptions like "Barbarian" and "From the Beginning", they were basically all flash. Emerson is a musical virtuoso, but I don't think he knows WHY certain pieces are emotionally resonant or why certain movements of a concerto are placed where they are. You can see this in his own concerto - all the pieces are there, but I never got a sense of WHY...you know, why the quiet part here, because other composers do it that way? It's no wonder he did so many covers! That said he did get it right a few times! I still think ELP is a great group. Flawed, but great. You could argue the flaws are what made them so entertaining (which is probably true). Thanks for writing!
I miss their older stuff too, but they did release four albums that rated 4 1/2 stars plus on my scale. There aren't many other artists who could do that...Eno, Can maybe...it's a short list. I think that modern day TMBG is pretty good still, but I don't know if they're as concerned with making great albums as they used to be. If you cobble together the best stuff of the last 10 years - not just from the six albums they've released, but also the EPs, the podcasts, the TMBG Unlimited stuff, the Venue Songs - there's another 4-5 albums worth of great material there. I try to listen to all the podcasts and it's clear they're still excited about music. Thanks for writing!
Great list!! I don't really disagree with anybody here (and it's great to see Gallardo make the list as he's my personal favorite). However if it's a "best-to-worst" list I would say that Ichiro, Haren, and Greinke should be higher. Greinke and Haren are currently the two best pitchers in the league and Ichiro is an all-around teriffic player. It's just sad the teams they are on are not real contenders (although the Mariners look surprisingly good this year)
About Boston - good call. There are a lot of huge albums that are very safe, very 'corporate'-sounding, but also very well-written and addictive. Other examples would be The Cars s/t, Thriller, and Sports by Huey Lewis and the News (although just about everyone would disagree with me on that one!!)
Very nice! I was a huge fan of Orbital in high school (got into them just as the Altogether was coming out). Snivilisation is my favorite right now although sometimes it's really hard to decide. Now I realize that I am missing a bunch of singles from the early period. I agree that there was a huge leap from the Green album to the Brown one...impressive it happened in one year, but I think that Green was more or less a collection of singles and wasn't really an album proper the way their future ones were (case in point all the different tracklistings, including remixes and live tracks). I still cannot figure out why they made "Belfast" the opener instead of "Chime". Seems so obvious to me...
By the way, if you like the "Belfast" or "Halycon"-type tracks, try to look up "Niji" by Denki Groove. They are Japan-based and therefore tough to find, but this is easily their most famous track, and a few American DJs put out comps or DJ mix albums with it. It was definitely inspired by Orbital, but IMO ranks right up there with the best of them.
do you mean the
tag?
(this point may look really stupid)
I really like the re-design. Thanks a lot for putting in the time. This looks a lot more dynamic and flexible.
I do have a few questions though:
How do you get more than one line break in an article? For the review pages I do I really don't like the "big wall of text" look so I try to space it out from album to album, but even if I hit enter 4 times after each paragraph they are spaced the same when you view the article. Is this HTML based now?
What is the new alphabetical ordering on your content page? On the old site, characters like "_" came first, now they are last. Is there anything that goes before "a"?
This is mostly for my own use, so I know when it's time to pick up the pace, and (hopefully) when it's time to revisit a few albums and see if my opinion changes.
Thanks a lot! TMBG are one of those bands that I got into big at least three different times in my life, and every time I've heard their albums in different ways. I realize that I'm probably alone on my position on their debut, and it's tough to describe why I'd desert island that disc over the others. I'm working on an explanation...