RANT-These Catalogs Are a PAIN to Rank! (w/Martin Popoff)
Вставка
- Опубліковано 10 вер 2024
- Join Pete Pardo & Martin Popoff for a discussion of bands whose catalogs are really difficult to rank, for a variety of reasons.
💰Donate via Ko-Fi: ko-fi.com/pete...
👕Order your SoT merch: www.t8cloth.co...
🤩 Get your Cameo video: www.cameo.com/...
🖥 Visit our website: www.seaoftranq...
the middle period of Fleetwood Mac is overlooked by many but as Pete says there is some superb material. The track Hypnotized is my favourite Mac track.
The Bob Welch era is my fave (although numbers-wise I own A LOT of earlier Green material & post-Welch FM pop). To me Kiln House is FM's most overlooked classic
From English Rose / Then Play On through Heroes Are Hard To Find .1968 thru 1974 . Their best musicial moments. I M H O . I saw them 14 times , 1968 / 77 . Always a good night of music .
Bare Trees contender for most underrated album ever.
Hypnotized is great. RIP Bob Welch
Great show guys. The Thin Lizzy ranking video Pete did a few years ago with Butch is one of my favourite ever SoT videos. Watching Butch in pain trying to rank his favourites was hilarious. You could tell it was killing him having to it😂 Believe me... I felt your pain Butch!!!
Can’t have a Friday without Popoff and Pardo!
Tangerine Dream is impossible to rank because of the sheer amount of releases.
For me, the catalogue of Steve Hackett has always been a tough one to rank mainly because he's made so many albums not to mention put out tons of live releases from and they're all so different from each other as he's dabbled in so many styles of music from prog to blues to classical to name a few. Out of all of the Genesis members, Hackett is definitely the most prolific musician.
There are two reasons I enjoy ranking videos on Sea of Tranquility and a few other channels. In no order they are: not knowing a catalogue and wanting to become familiar with it enough to know where to start or where to go next; and because I like the hosts and I want to hear what *they* think. I can't speak for all Sea of Tranquility listeners by any means, but I for one don't give a toss about how many copies an album sold -- I just want to know what you guys think, specifically, because I've gotten used to your style and approach and the way you describe music vibes with me in some way. I'm about to do my own first ranking programme, and one thing I think I've figured out is -- not to overthink it, and just go 100% by the way I feel. If that means the really popular album is ranked low, well, so be it. Popularity is down to luck as often as it is down to quality anyway, and with bands that have large catalogues, the fact that we all think differently helps to make it more interesting.
You've got it 100% right man!
Agree! Best selling doesn't necessarily mean BEST.
For me, Steely Dan is a tough one. It usually comes down to the last one I listened to as best. How can you rank a catalog full of perfect albums.
1) Countdown, Pretzel, Aja
2) Royal Scam, Katy Lied, Thrill
3) Gaucho
4) the other ones
@@h.m.7218 I wouldn`t disagree with that ranking, especially 3 and 4.
@@h.m.7218 That but reverse order. Except AJA, greatest HiFi LP ever.
@@h.m.7218for me, i could shorten that to
1) the first 7
2) the last 2
@@DrWrapperband My choice for 'perfect' album. Back in the day we also used to use Gaucho to test out/demo new audio gear
With Motorhead the early stuff is kind of the foundation of not only the Motorhead sound but the fusion of punk and metal, the basis for trash, the heavier and faster stuff at the time, groundbreaking stuff. Also the fact that you need all those albums on vinyl make'em even more spectacular. That doesn´t happens with the later stuff. From 1990's on it becomes a CD collection, but even if those 90's or 2000's Motorhead albums are good or better than the earlier stuf in the 90's you have things like Ministry, Fear Factory, The Prodigy, or grindcore on the other hand, more extreme stuff so Motorhead becomes almost an "oldies" band. Also 22 albums is too much to digest.
I don't think it was mentioned in this episode, but last year or so SOT did a Prince ranking video, and I feel like that must have been very difficult. The guy has so many albums in so many different styles. But I learned a lot from that video. literally the only full album I'd previously listened to was Purple Rain. Now I'm a big fan of N.E.W.S., Rainbo Children, Musicology and a few others, all thanks to that video.
Emancipation and Crystal Ball are the best!
Perhaps it would serve well to rank some bands albums by era, lineup, or decades in certain cases. Frank Zappa could be broken up by general players, Mothers albums, or by decade for example. You could rank a band by eras of sound, like Heep you could break them up by their early stuff vs their Abomanog era stuff for example. Tom Waits you could divide him perfectly by Rain Dogs which signaled a huge shift in sound for him going forward
Todd Rundgren is my favorite artist. Here's how I rank his 20 something albums :
1) A Wizard/A True Star
2) Healing, Todd, Initiation, Todd Rundgren's Utopia
3) Ballad, Something, Hermit, Nearly Human, Liars,
4) TEPTAE, White Knight, Space Force
5) Faithful, Arena, A Cappella, Runt, NWO, Individualist, Up Against it, Repro, State, Global, Second Wind
6) Twist, Johnson, OLY
Steely Dan :
1) Countdown, Pretzel, Aja
2) Royal Scam, Katy Lied, Thrill
3) Gaucho
4) the other ones
I didn't realize I stressed you guys so much doing the Motorhead show lol. Great chat guys. Cheers
It was Motorhead that stressed us out! LOL
Nö Sleep, 'til Yöu've Ranked all thöse Albums! I'm going to have to check out that show - being British I love it when you guys talk Motörhead!
You guys make some very good points. Certainly Fleetwood Mac are incredibly hard to rank as they were at least three different bands. I love the Peter Green and early Danny Kirwan era the best. But it was the most recent stuff I heard. I'm not a huge fan of the Buckingham Nicks era, though I do like that stuff. After Buckingham left I stopped caring. The Bob Welsh era is really under rated.
I agree that’s it’s really tough to rank bands that have specific eras and each era is very different than the others but still have great albums in each.
Bands like Rush, Purple & Yes really epitomize that. I like all of each band's periods/albums but many don't & only focus on the 'classic' period of each band
Alice Cooper was not a solo act. The Alice Cooper band disbanded, and Alice Cooper went off on his own as a clean break, new chapter, and new band - the old chapter/band the Alice Cooper band was closed for business prior to Welcome to my Nightmare. Just like deep purple and rainbow, sabbath and ozzy, van Halen and David Lee roth are two different bands. Now those folks all went back to their original bands later - but that is a different discussion and potential topic "players that went off on their own and then went back to their original band - or something like that
cant compare the band to the solo the solo has so many losers
One of the big differences between the Alice Cooper band and Alice Cooper solo acts was the guitar department. Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner had great synergy and they added a unique dynamic during the post-band days.
Wagner once said his favorite Cooper album was Zipper Catches Skin, interestingly enough. And I would say, that if Alice had any 'wilderness years' they were rather the '70s solo years with Ezrin where there's no specific style but a mix of varieté and rock, more than those later so-called 'blackout' years that were actually heavier rocking compared to anything on those Ezrin produced classics. I love the Ezrin era too but the early 80's had a harder rock edge even punk-like in spots and new wave-ish so overall I don't get the dislike of those albums, if anything they're more defined and not at all 'blackout' seeming to me.
Because pre pandemic I was stuck with my old music collection, then the pandemic triggered me into finding and catching up with bands I’d never listened to, in the last 4 years I’ve discovered bands with large catalogues. Dream Theater, amongst others Savatage. I used SOT rankings to discover these bands and decide where to start. Because I was discovering these catalogues with no history I found my rankings very different to Pete’s. Not just that I’ve found my rankings of these catalogues are still constantly shifting.
Having no history makes the ranking even harder.
Great discussion ! Just touching on Martin's 1st example : I think that Motorhead continued to be Motorhead as long as Lemmy was there. His voice, his bass, his lyrics, his attitude - that's what made them the band they were. With him gone, no (real) Motorhead.
This brings up another show of like to see from you guys and that's a show ranking your top 5 latter years albums from bands that had a first round of success. Please!😊
Hmmmm...I kind of think we did something very similar already, where we talked about bands who have had amazing later period runs and some of our favorite albums among them. Not sure exactly what we called it, but we did it.
You guys rock, keep up the good work!
Would like to watch that episode. Any clues?
Check the Oddball Album Shoes playlist.
Just seen the 'Embrace our music legends' episode. Excellent! That certainly fits into this category. Maybe there is another one out there too. I'll keep looking.
Joe Satriani is one I find hard to rank. Very prolific with a new albums every second to third year. I love his music. It isn't very easy to rank though.. The albums are often long, instrumental and titles that can be difficult to remember. His latest "The Elephants of Mars (2022)" is a really good one people should give a spinn.
With a Gary Moore ranking.. I would like to squeeze in his work with Thin Lizzy and Colosseum II but as many of us know.. His work with Thin Lizzy was very on and off. "Nightlife" could hardly rank as a Gary Moore album. Colosseum II shows his progressive side that only a few other tracks do. I think he was great at playing the blues but the albums started to lose personality. Gary Moore tried to change it up but a part from a song here or there. The albums never caught my attention.
AEROSMITH - because anything after Permanent Vacation is unlistenable IMO!
You got further than I did. I drew the line after Rock in a Hard Place.
@@gaznathemoon1128 I see what you did there! But Get a Grip! These guys have Nine Lives, their career didn't just go Up In Smoke with them taking a Permanent Vacation after RIAHP. Other stuff Rocks too...
@@wolf1977 Nice comeback wolf!!!:)
@@wolf1977 👍
I suppose it depends where you came in, I think Pump is a good album then the deterioration began.
My notable mentions are:
- Anekdoten and Pain of Salvation - two modern prog bands that have different, but equally great albums. All six Anekdoten albums are shared first for me. Similar situation with PoS - I can drop two Road Salt albums and Falling Home, but every other album is excellent.
- Peter Hammill - his discography is not only huge, but very varied. You have his prog albums, experimental albums, acoustic albums, in some albums he does punk, in others dabbles with electronics, throws some concept albums in, even rock operas... just a pool of almost everything (well, maybe no hip-hop... yet). And some line-up situations complicate the case even further, for example, the whole Van der Graaf Generator plays on his album (like The Silent Corner And The Empty Stage) or vice versa, when VdGG album is mostly Hammill's solo effort (like The Aerosol Grey Machine).
- Manfred Mann solo / Manfred Mann Chapter Three / Manfred Mann's Earth Band / Manfred Mann's Plains Music - similar situation to Michael Schenker that was mentioned on the show. Different projects, they might be even different stylistically, but Manfred Mann by himself is a really strong unifying element here. You might rank MMEB, but it almost feels unfair to leave those two great Chapter Three albums unmentioned.
As a channel that’s started ranking catalogs. I feel this in my soul. While we title worst to best to help with that A word that UA-cam doesn’t like us to say. We always try to say least favorite to favorite. Always try to tell people with negative comments that music is subjective. You can disagree all you want. It won’t change anyone’s opinion. But it may make them go back and listen and think hey, maybe this isn’t as bad as I thought. I’m finding that myself with the Hagar years of Van Halen as we speak. Music tastes change as we get older I’ve found. Love the channel, Pete.
I find that my opinion about certain music does change over time but honestly not that much (so far - this is about 48 years in)...What you're mentioning is that I think the terms "best" & "favorite" are many times used interchangeably - even when that's not always obvious. Those who take a best/worst comment too seriously (when it conflicts with their own opinion of the music) can get upset over that but it's really not worth losing sleep over. As you say musical taste is totally subjective & these are opinions, something those folks need to keep in mind. It's OK to disagree & argue over those opinions but really not worth getting worked up over...😎
@@wolf1977 bingo!
23:58 "MSG - Monosodium Glutamate!" 🤣 Martin said what I've thought every time I've seen that acronym!
I love album ranking shows. Maybe it is not a popular opinion but I think the most honest ranking of my favourite albums and bands is the Spotify statistics at the end of the year. I surely played the last Queensryche album more than 10 times this year. This means it is for now my number one. That's how easy rankings can be.Statistics don't lie. Still buy cds and vinyls, but only to have them in the collection.
Neil Diamond. He had great early stuff, several live albums, a few Christmas albums, later mediocre stuff, movie songs, many hits collections, etc. hard to rank.
Tree rant to start off the show - love it!
I understand what you guys are saying about the Motorhead catalogue being difficult. I think though, and this could apply to many of the others (fleetwood, lizzy), I really think it's more down to who was in the band at any given time. While a lot can be said about how nostalgia factors into things, I myself didnt' get into motorhead much till the late 90s, even early 2000s. The reason many people love the old Motorhead is that Fast Eddie and Philthy Ahimal Taylor were in the band. The newer albums are not the older stuff done better, they are different, because of Campbell, Dee, etc. While it may not seem as significant as, say, an idea like Van Halen being a band without eddie (obviously impossible), the guitarist, the drummer -- those guys in Motorhead make a huge difference. As soon as a new member joins a band, we, the listeners, can tell; something fundamental in music changes. it isn't necessarily better or worse than what the previous guys provide, but it's different, and we might not like it as much, or we might like it more, depending on our perspective. Each person brings their own style, technique, songwriting, experience, to a band. And that's also why I like the Green and Welch eras of Fleetwood best....
The human condition includes changing our mind about an album's ranking. Musical preference evolves as we hear new music because the new music changes the aggregate. Life's experiences and aging also impact this. I only hope that Martin still believes Sabotage is still his favorite album of all time. 🙂
Pete, regarding the subject of re-rankings, I would be interested in seeing some re-rankings, not just to have you rank the same albums again, but to maybe do a ranking you did by yourself the first time with an additional person or a panel the second time. That adds another element to the proceedings. Just a thought.
I agree with your point Pete. I’ll take Maiden as an example. I’m 36. I got into Maiden at 15 years old. I prefer Powerslave and Somewhere in Time over Killers, Debut, Piece of Mind and Number of the Beast. Which to most people who grew up with them from the beginning would be sacrilege. But since I had no prior history with them I digested it like that.
I have trouble with Budgie... Every album has lots of gems but usually there were busts as well. I think EVERY Budgie album is very good, but none of them is as great they could be..
Popoff and Pardo are at it again (thought personally a bit late to the episode) with a rant about why and how certain catalogues present challenges in their rankings. Another interesting discussion. Unless distinct objective criteria can be agreed to for everyone for a ranking, it would seem every catalogue is a challenge. Pete's discussion of The Kinks ranking episode highlights some of this. Biases that one brings to the table include geographic, chronologic, personal musical instrument ability, when you found the catalogue, general musical preferences, etc. etc. This is similar across even those genres outside the SoT ballpark such as why my preference for Tchaikovsky's Adante Cantible is the one performed by Eugene Ormandy & The Phildelphia Orchestra. But, in any event, another fascinating discussion by Martin and Pete which included the 'pressures' if any caused by their positions in the music community they inhabit. Thanks again, gents. There ya go!
It's difficult to compare albums by bands like Whitesnake, Genesis and The Scorpions whose sound changed over the years.
Ranking albums is a slippery slope to time wasted.
Ranking albums is fun.
I just finished up a series on Armored Saint and man, ranking those 8 studio albums was very difficult for me as the catalogue is so consistent. When I did a W.A.S.P. series, ranking those is also difficult because the early albums are always going to be favorites because for most people, that's all they know. But, for me, Last Command And Electric Circus ranked lower because I enjoy the rest of the catalogue so much more. I grew with the band and the more mature thinking stuff was more appealing to me. And heavier.
Nice show guys. Agree with you about Thin Lizzy, Fleetwood Mac, Uriah Heep & Kinks catalogue. I also follow the Tastes Like Music channel and they did a ranking of all Kinks album some months ago. And it was interesting because those three quite young guys was mostly familiar with the arena rock era of Kinks since before but all three had Lola Versus powerman and the moneygoround from 1970 as their top Kinks album.
I think someone mentioned Aerosmith already but they're a tough one also. My favourite of theirs is Perm Vacation from '87 which i know will make some old-school Aerosmith fans bristle. But i also need to acknowledge that PV had huge contributions from designated hit-makers Jim Vallance and Desmond Child, something that didn't exist a decade previous, so yeah, long catalogs are often complicated ... 😮
I think it's a good album but...nothing touches Rocks (for me anyway). One of THE classic 70's rock albums
Ahh Jeff you're breaking my heart lol. PV is fun but the guy above me is on the money Rocks is the cookie. Nobody's fault, Combination and that closer... wow.
Hey no problem guys, I like 70s Aerosmith too. For me, a tie between Rocks and Attic, can't miss either way 🎉
If we use better production as a criteria as technology improves it would mean more recent albums by bands will always be towards the top.
I personally have no fault with Motorheads ‘classic albums’ production. It sounds great to my ears.
I think the albums hardest to rank are from the bands you enjoy the most. Another aspect would be bands with major member changes. For me its Danzig. I would rank Danzig II number one which would be common for many fans. However, I might rank Blackacidevil at 5 or 6 which most fans wouldn't even consider doing.
I absolutely love Martin. But. He doesn't seem to understand. A writer only has so many great songs in him. Plus, the first albums took so much time to create their best songs. Also, almost every great rock song was written by a man under 30. Look at the Beatles-Pink Floyd. Why I'm not totally sure. a lot of it probably has to do with the drive of trying to make it. Human nature once you make it the other distractions. And mostly the young brain is superior. I hate to admit it being 53.
This whole thing is a great debate and show idea.
Pantera always irks me. Every ranking starts with "let's get the 80's albums out of the way", and those are my favorite - I don't like the 90's stuff at all. As for Motorhead, I'm a relatively young listener, but I still largely prefer the classic era. The NWOBHM flavour is just too compelling. The newer stuff is a bit too "cold" sounding, even though I generally enjoy it.
The answer is very simple SAXON the band has 23 studio albums and all if I had to rate on scale of 0 to10 all 23 of these are in the range of 7-10
I shall always prefer those early '80s raw classics that did end for me with Crusader, then a long stretch of so-so releases until more recent inspired years. I get the criticism of the modern robot production sound that some seem to swoon by, to me too it's slick and lifeless it actually distracts me from the songs when you hear similar loud sounding impressions. I never felt it with analog recordings they were all very different, give me that over what's perceived as audio perfection these days - I want audio 'imperfection'. And why not, a band like Saxon today won't be on mainstream TV or radio anyway (occasionally they were way back, believe it or not) so why is the 'smooth as a baby's ass' sound expected from everybody now, that I don't get. So, is newer material really better than the classics in my opinion sadly no but I understand that musicians won't give up playing or even writing. Incidentally, I feel this too about the visual sameness of newer movies give me everything say pre-2004 over any recent fluff stuff.
A bands early material is what made the band, later material and line up changes can effect the bands popularity. Iron Maiden for example had 3 singers Paul, Bruce and Blaze, then back to Bruce.Most people including myself prefer the 80's material. I am 49 yrs. old. Some one younger coming to the band for the first time say in 2020, will see the band differently than I do.
The most Punk Rock Motorhead songs were the Larry Wallis recordings, and the early Live album
I’m pretty sure you did the Fleetwood Mac album ranking by yourself and you did the top 10 songs of Fleetwood Mac with Jeff Young.
Well, you appear to be correct! That was a few years and few thousand videos ago!
Why would one care what other people think regarding how you rank albums? It is all subjective and there are no correct answers. I enjoy hearing why someone ranks one album higher than others. People getting mad or upset about how you rank albums just need to chill out and just enjoy the discussion.
Paul Weller. Jam, Style Council, and solo albums are all very different.
Frank Zappa is the first catalog that comes to mind. There are so many albums to rank.
Great discussion! I enjoyed it a lot.
I agree with Martin’s sentiment on being difficult to narrow down Thin Lizzy’s top album. I personally struggle to choose between Vagabonds, Fighting, Jailbreak, Bad Reputation, Black Rose, and Chinatown. That’s half their studio catalog that I consider to be worthy of the number one spot! I can’t think of a single other band with that ratio of amazing studio albums to total output
RUSH is another band close to that ratio. Rush's first nine albums are amazing to me. They're all good. eight of those albums have the same lineup.
I can never pick a top Led Zeppelin album either
Favorite sot show 👍 . Thanks brothers 💪
Buckethead. Good luck with that.
You ain't kidding with that one! Wowza!! Great musician!!!!
His 423rd album just edges out his 600th for number one!
Indeed - also incredibly versatile! If not counting the myriad Dead live albums (most 'unofficial') then I'd say he's got the most actual releases of anyone I can think of. I have maybe 75 or so but that's not even scratching the surface. You used to be able to buy all of his Pikes as one packaged download...
I rank AC⚡DC by Bon era vs. Brian era. But if you force me to combine them the top 2 or 3 are Brian Johnson albums
@@davidmitchell6873 I really like the 80s albums the best. And I'm an old man who normally prefers 60s and 70s hard rock.
I'd pick Highway to Hell as number one and Back In Black as number two.
@@davidmitchell6873 Yeah all their albums are solid any era.
@@Darrylizer1my favorite Bon album is....Let There Be Rock. It's probably my 3rd favorite album overall.
@@davidmitchell6873 all the Bon albums are good/great. My second favorite Bon album is.....Powerage.
If someone is interested to listen to the True Metal Motorhead albums, that have no Punk elements. Another Perfect Day, and Bomber were both pretty straight ahead Traditional Metal albums
it's funny about Chicago, but I don't know *anyone* who likes their later albums (and I mean 80s onward basically). I hear that they're immensely popular somehow but whenever I hear people talk about Chicago it's always because of their jazzy material. I'm pretty sure that's why most people like them. They want to hear horns and cool jamming and killer guitarwork, not smaltzy saccharine ballads. Does anyone even care that much about the vocals in Chicago?
Ahh love Friday’s. These guys are the best
Martin's comments gave me an idea for a new show: "What if the band lineup hadn't changed?" (or has that been done already?)
What Pete says about The Kinks is the way I feel about the Maiden catalogue. I'm like "Fear Of The Dark" is your favorite Maiden album?
On my channel Ive been going through and reviewing Mercyful Fate's discography, and am eventually going to do a ranking. Man oh man it is hard as all get out!! Its tough to put some of the post reunion albums over some of those classics and vice versa. Such a challenge, but very fun to do! 😄
Fantastic show guys great topic
Excellent show guys Life in the funhouse
Y’all should do an experiment.
You need ten or so individuals who have just left the Amish/Mennonite/or similar culture who are musically gifted (can sing, etc) but who have never hear any of these artists.
Then, have them listen to all the Fleetwood Mac albums and have them ranked. Then proceed with the other artists on your lists.
….and please for the mercy of all that is Holy, do not subject them to Chicago until last…and no Chicago after the first ten Chicago albums.
I'm not sure about the idea that younger people these days discovering Motorhead and/or Saxon would automatically prefer the newer versions because they sound bigger, more 'together' or generally more modern. People can either put the older stuff in context or even fetishize that older, vintage sound - there are many newer retro metal bands who are dedicated to replicating scrappy 70s and 80s productions. Then there is the Hellhammer/early Bathory era and everything that followed that...
The older thrash or metal bands are mainly the ones trying to sound as perfect as possible, and in my opinion, becoming more airless and production-line, with their protooling, quantizing, triggers etc. I think people value the charm of the older albums. That's not even taking into account the quality of the songwriting and the premium placed on historical context - i.e. all people are aware of the groundbreaking nature of Black Sabbath's debut or Motorhead's Overkill, or those early 80s Saxon albums and that in itself is a huge selling point, without caring one jot about how ancient they might sound.
If one wanted to be a real nasty killjoy, one could argue that all these classic bands peaked 40 years ago take each and every one of them and their best stuff is now that old. Classics for a reason, writers will always have their prime time. Ozzy, Motorhead, Saxon, Kiss, Priest, Maiden, Cooper, Sabbath, et al. None of them ever surpassed their '83 or '84 outputs, that's when it all 'ended'...roughly speaking of course and nasty put, I know.
To me The Moody Blues are tough to rate because I genuinely love all of their studio albums. What I hate in most of the ranking videos on UA-cam is that it's just assumed that the first seven album (or "core seven", a fan term I've grown to hate) will automatically take the top 7 spots. But my #1 of all time is "Long Distance Voyager" from '81. And I would also have a couple of the other 80s era albums and 1999's "Strange Times" in some of those top slots. The first 7 albums thing for The Moodies is like the Fleetwood Mac "Rumors" thing you describe, where it is just instantly assumed to be #1. In both cases it's pretty insulting to the rest of a veteran band's catalog.
Theoretically, you can rank anything against anything, so long as you apply the same criteria to the items you are ranking.
And, as I used to build simple strategic business tools in Excel many years ago, I have banged together a weighted ranking tool, if it's of any use to you.
At the simplest, you could score each song on the album you are assessing according to how much you like it. You might then weight your scores as to how long each song is, given that the listener will be listening a lot longer to a ten minute song than a two minute one. If you want to be precise on this weighting, you put the number of seconds each song lasts into the weighting; or you could just do lengths in categories: an under 3 minute song has a 25 weighting, 3-5 gets a 50 weighting, 6-10 gets 75, and over ten gets 100. You then go through a scoring for each album and end up with a percentage score for each - this album scores 75%, this one scores 40% - then you rank order them.
Or you could develop 20-25 criteria for what makes for a great album in your view: quality of vocals, guitar work, bass work, drumming etc.; strength of songwriting; quality of production; appeal of the cover art; etc. (you get the gist). If you are ranking 25 albums, this would take you a while.
Anyway, with this system, it wouldn't matter what period of a band the album is from, or even which band it is. You could score each album of, say, Uriah Heep and Black Sabbath in the same ranking (which I think would be quite a fun show).
Anyway, if this would be of use to you, I'll send it over (for free, obviously). It won't solve the problem of any changes in taste you may go through, but it will allow you to rate any album whatsoever according to your current taste.
Rock:
Van Halen (first 6)
Rush (I enjoy the Synth era)
Thin Lizzy (Same reason as in the video)
Aerosmith (Because I also like Pump and Done with Mirrors)
Metal:
Bolt Thrower
Savatage
Death
Priest (because there's 5 tied for #1)
Dokken
Bathory
Hey Pete! Speaking of album rankings, I'm pretty sure you've never done a King Diamond album ranking episode. You've done a Top 10 songs, and a Mercyful Fate album ranking, but no King Diamond album show. Hope you do one some day. Cheers!
I plan to at some point! I'm just missing a large chunk of the latter part of the discography.
Good episode + agree with real kinks' fan-base (uk). Regarding solo vs. band, depends on artist name save Coop who obviously left band after disappointing muscle. Every new album post-1974 = solo. Wikipedia usually gets it right by stating what each release is (band, colloboration or solo).
Have some more for you:
Ian Gillan
Alice Cooper (mentioned)
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard
David Byrne
Neil Young
Jon Anderson
I'm pretty interested in a re ranking Pete. 😂 However maybe you could make it different by mixing in the live albums with the studio albums
Now and Zen and Manic Nirvana rank pretty high for me.
Ps ,...... Van Halen catalog is brutal to rank . DLR era and Van hagar era are two different bands . I dont even count the hagar albums ( pop rock crap ) .
There are a ton of albums which I dislike which were huge sellers with a huge fan base. If I am a making a list of albums, the list will be in the order I say because it is my list Just because an album is popular doesn't mean it is great in my opinion. Your lists can differ from mine and the debate that will ensue is the fun part for me.
Yes and Genesis, and now the Moodies are in that camp as well.
Gary Moore: Pete forgot to mention Colosseum II (fusion) which I know he likes too. Also not mentioned was G Force - imho that should have been a bigger success and still an album I play a lot. Also, after starting with Blues albums, both Darkdays In Paradise and A Different Beat are departures from blues, I like both (but not everyone does). The later Scars album reverted to a 3-piece band, much heavier in style.
Agree Peter on Gary Moore brilliant guitarist the blues stuff after a while got a little too much
Allow me to add to the chorus of Do the Kate Bush Ranking!
Jailbreak is Thin Lizzy's best album on paper, although my favorite is Thunder and Lightning.
Great show Pete & Martin, I loved the topic.
what about a Led Zeppelin 8 studio albums vs. Black Sabbath first 8 studio albums?
I agree with Pardo on Alice Cooper for the most part. I do like the two Psych albums, especially the second one and I really like DaDa and I do have the later years Classicks best of but most of my Alice Cooper listening is the '71
- '74 prime Alice Cooper Band era.
To weigh in on Plant, I think that the first one - Pictures At Eleven is easily the best, because no other Plant release has no filler on it. OK, a couple tracks are stronger than the others and a couple are a bit weaker, but I think the overall strength is there.
Another difficult one is Lou Reed, your not really ranking albums as you are ranking periods of his life. His work is so personal his albums brim with honesty and are an absolute snapshot of his current condition.
Its modern Motorhead. They evolved alot in sound and production. The transition albums are Orgasmatron and Rick N Roll I guess.
The Fleetwood Mac catalog is very different eras. Hard to do a ranking over all those different periods.
I would say bands or artists with difficult album catalogs to rank would be The Rolling Stones, Yes, Neil Young, and Frank Zappa.
Nightlife is my favorite Thin Lizzy album. I don't think it's their best but, it holds a special place for me because of where I was in my life when I discovered it and Thin Lizzy. I really like everything from Nightlife on about the same. They're all great cover to cover for the most part. There's only a few songs separating their best from their worst on my list. Try UFO's catalog for instance. I love almost every album they ever put out. I enjoy the UK Connection's model of, 2 favorites, 2 least favorites, and a wild card. It allows for the expression of your personal (sometimes ever changing) opinion without the stigmatism of a perceived slight towards the "sober" objective pick for their best album. MSG is a nightmare to rank!
I must admit, I was yelling at the screen during the recent Barclay James Harvest album ranking when most of their 80s & 90s Polydor era albums were not even mentioned. I consider some of those to be among the band's best work ever, especially 1993's "Caught In the Light". Rankings are so subjective. And the more albums a band has the harder to becomes to be objective.
Ranking Zappa is always a challenge, do you do them all, not likely. Best 10 or 20? Best live? Best live backing tracks, with major overdubs? Yeah. Quite honestly i am waiting for someone to do a top 10 posthumous albums.
Pete, you should ‘rank’ the post Terry Kath Chicago albums for next year’s April 1st SOT prank. You could talk about how you were previously wrong and have seen the light and you now view these albums as superior to the 70’s material.
Impossible for me to rank Toto's albums. The quality of their records are very close to each other in my opinion
I got into the Allman Brothers as a teen in the mid-late 80s. They were broken up and out of business. I found a bunch of their records at a shop for 25 cents each!! The records were Win, Lose, or Draw, Enlightened Rogues, Reach For The Sky, and Brothers of The Road. They were all new to me and I had no idea I wasn't supposed to like them. I had no bias. So if I were ranking the albums some of those might be higher than any "real" fan would rank them. And I've heard that from people. Even though I have seen them dozens of times, have probably a thousand live recordings, and have visited Macon, GA and their museum twice I'm not a real fan because I love From The Madness Of The West. Screw those people. Rank them as you like them. The whole point is to start a conversation, is it not? A little engagement and discussion? People take it too seriously. Art is subjective. They need to get over it.
If you consider “The Best” in other areas, for example cars, is the best seller really the “best” or are there better quality cars that are more expensive and therefore unlikely to be best sellers?
Sure same with music (maybe even more so) - it's almost totally subjective as to what your definition of "best" is. Popularity/sales is just one aspect. Many use the term "best" when they really mean "favorite"
The Moody Blues 1967-1972 era is my favorite and I just don't get their 1980s works.
King Crimson is incredibly difficult to rate as they were at least six distinctly different bands and the sheer number of live releases makes their catalog almost impenetrable. They must have well over 100 live releases from all eras of the band, yikes!
And I have most of them. Rate them? Fuggedaboutit.
Wow this was tough.
Great topic.
Always like Simon and Stephen doing rankings especially when they don't choose the obvious ones 😂lol.
As we all do the biggest seller is not always the best.
One band you will never rank is The Residents. Over a hundred albums. You either love them or hate them.
Wait, Pete ranks Master Of Reality as his #1 over Vol. 4 now? Interesting.... it's a neck and neck race for me
The poor sound on MoR takes it down for me, overall I like Vol. 4 better.
Pete Pardo Plus Popoff Progressive Podcast... fax!!!
i jumped intoAlice Cooper all at once too, but i did also grow up with Trash & Hey Stoopid so the late 80sAliceis my jam
Bad Religion
Green Day
The Rolling Stones
The Kinks
Saxon
Judas Priest
Motorhead
Megadeth
Alice Cooper
The Moody Blues (classic era)
The Stones is easy for me (the Taylor albums). The Kinks is tough!
And I know Diver Down I'm my head isn't the best VH album. But In my heart it is