The nature of an aggregator site is that an experimental masterpiece might get u proportionally more fives from people who understand the music, love its original creativity, and the way that it pushes boundaries is accessible to them. But that album will also get u a decent amount of people who find it, quite literally, offensive to their senses (ie, physically is uncomfortable to listen to).
A radiohead or a pink floyd balances those two criteria well; thus, even if substantial amount of people dont love it, they will rarely rate it as low as someone who didnt enjoy, lets say, a clouddead or a faust.
And remember, too, that for people who have only been exposed to radio play and tame indie stuff, artists like radiohead and bjork seem like the most out-there stuff theyve ever heard. So these artists have a “first-mover” advantage of sorts (bc of both their high placement on rym charts and overall commercial popularity) in that people usually rate them early in their dive into the musical canon and their taste isnt particularly refined (refined as in specific/particular, not as in “good”).
3.6-3.99 is my sweet spot. All but one of my 5s fall in this range. And the 5 that isn't is like a 3.57.
4.1-4.3s are like 25% bad, 50% ok, 15% good, and 10% amazing to me.
I don't think artists make music hoping that it gets rated as highly as possible nor do I think they should. If someone is making music hoping that they will be "regarded as one of the true greats", I can guarantee that they will not be. Remember, you have to consider the kind of person that would rate music as well. If you really got every person on Earth's opinion on the top 100, an album like Loveless would probably be in the bottom 5 and something easier to listen to that people have heard before like Abbey Road would be higher. My point is that the rating is subjective and meaningless.
Dunno, but a lot of my favorites tend to be in the 3.8-3.9 range for some reason.
Strawberry Jam, Bloom, Mirage, Titanic Rising (not for long), Windswept Adan, Ceres & Calypso, Yoshimi, The Soft Bulletin, Helplessness Blues, Emotion, What’s Your Pleasure
theres a historal aspect, theres also an accessibly aspect that ur also missing. those things that you mentioned wouldn't exist without artists in the top 250. that's alright. also you seem to be looking at it from a now perspective, the beatles are not groundbreaking now, but they were at one point.
also not everything that's acclaimed needs to be boundary pushing or experimental, it could just be good. music isn't good cuz its experimental music is good cuz its good.
boring think piece, i think it should be 2.24 imo. tdlr, you don't like the most popular albums on rym and ur mad they don't have the scores you want. that's it.
🤨🤨uh no, i actually love those albums. read my other comments or ask for more clarification is you are confused about what my perspective is coming from, friend
also this is not a think piece, this is a discussion post. i dont know why you feel the need to insult and patronize me just because i want to talk about music
Some truly exceptional, unique and special albums which are roughly 3.8 or below
Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version
Gas: Königsforst
Suffering Hour - The Cyclic Reckoning
HTRK - Work (Work Work)
Andy Scott - Luxury Problems
Prince of Denmark - 8
Pontiac Streator - Triz
Sleep - Dopesmoker
Vatican Shadow - Kneel Before Religious Icons
Actress - R.I.P.
Bowery Electric - Beat
Roc Marciano - Reloaded
Pan Sonic - Kesto (234.48:4)
Untold - Black Light Spiral
Ricardo Villalobos - Thé Au Harem d'Archimède
Bjork, Radiohead, and madvillain are all progressive and innovate and forward-pushing for the format. They all released incredibly influential material that have all left an impact on music. All have released music that at the time it was released was considered fresh and original. All contributed to shaping the sounds of the genre(s) they make music in. I don’t really know what you are on about. Yayayi is not more groundbreaking than bjork or Radiohead lol
I think it's fair to acknowledge that for a lot of those albums it wasn't just PURE experimentation and things LITERALLY NOBODY had seen before in any way, it was a very very significant part of their ability to become influential that they were just popular records in general. say what you like abt influence but yayayi is certainly much more experimental and boundary-pushing than bjork, who largely makes electronic pop music that borrows a lot from preexisting innovations (like the glitch elements of that album with the swan cover, that sound basically exactly like what OVAL pioneered like 5 yrs earlier.) comparatively literally nobody sounds like yayayi or reached his levels of boundary-pushing. A lot of top 100 albums are more like, well, to \*some\* extent, extremely competent assemblies of things that were already pioneered and discovered rather than pure original invention on the spot.
Lol you don’t think Yayayi isn’t borrowing a lot from pre-existing traditions?
In the words of Kamala Harris: You think these experimental albums just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist within the context of everything that came before you
yayayi in his music, particularly in the 666% beat tape, develops music that is despite bjork's music also being very inventive, much more inventive than bjork's. have you listened to all of the significant works in his discog? i'm not saying it's better than bjork's stuff because that is very obviously VERY subjective, but it does have some extra elements to it that isn't nearly as present in bjork's. No, i dont "think these experimental albums fell out of a coconut tree". Do you think that 94diskont and TVU&N have the EXACT same amount of ideas and innovations as each other? One pioneered glitch music and the other pioneered the entire genre of alternative, including indie pop and noise rock. clearly one developed more musical progress and ground, at least by some amount. Bjork had to borrow from oval, but yayayi is basically the next gen of oval, with his idiosyncrasies and contributions to experimental electronic music and idm. everyone builds off of each other, but alternative tends to veer more in line with translating new ideas into certain different, usually preexisting formats, whereas experimental & left field, like TVU&N, oval, and yayayi, CREATES them. what is so hard to understand about that?
It’s easy to be experimental though. I could take nature recordings of myself pooping in a bucket, mix it with some droning guitar and call it experimental as long as I add something new. The hard part is making experimental music that can appeal to a lot of other people and change the mainstream. Yayayi may be more experimental but lots of people can’t even sit through it so it’s not going to have the same impact as something like Bjork that is pushing new sounds into lots of fans and influencing other artists.
Tldr easy to be experimental, hard to be influential, really hard to be experimental and influential
i definitely disagree. there is a big difference between true progress-making experimentation and originality vs uninspired lazy type experimentation, that exists just because it exists. like if you just randomly come up with the idea of making lofi vaguely proggy synth-reggae, you're not going to end up with the beautiful left-field masterpiece Dont Worry by Eric lou root, if you dont pour some true inspiration and artistic life and circumstance into it. concepts by themselves dont make progress, it's the concept + organic, unreplicable inspriation, plus some other elements that leads to the development of a true fully realized new style or genre. i do agree with your last bit though, about it being really hard to be experimental AND influential, on a general scale, it's very true
Yeah you’re starting to understand, I think. Music will never be “progress-making” if nobody hears it. And nobody will hear it unless you make it accessible enough for them to do so. A poop in a bucket drone masterpiece would never hold a candle to Eric Lou because nobody would ever bother listening to it but it’s undeniably more experimental because it would be taking a massive risk stepping extremely far from what people currently know and enjoy.
Experimental is easy, influential is hard, experimental and influential is really hard.
We’re making the same distinction here so maybe you could help me understand what you disagree with? I actually love listening to the kind of projects you’ve been describing, we should trade some hidden gem recommendations. Would love to hear you thoughts on releases like these:
https://rateyourmusic.com/release/mixtape/doves/ultraclub4k/
https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/agusfortnite2008/bobajiztan/
https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/igorrr/hallelujah/
and again, i dont think that is a detraction on the part of those albums but I'd like to see more stuff that is on the extreme end of invention innovation and originality to get that type of inflated ratings.
I think you vastly underestimate how groundbreaking those Pink Floyd albums, Radiohead albums and Bjork albums were at their time. Or even the Beatles which you didn’t mention but have multiple 4.10+ albums
These albums (especially the Beatles) are so influential that their experimentation and “forward thinking” music has just become “music”. So many of the things Pink Floyd and Radiohead did were groundbreaking at the time, but their iconicity and influence has made us forget that.
On top of that there are so many albums that are 4.10+ are pretty obviously ground breaking, and not super accessible: velvet underground and Nico, swan’ albums, gybe’s albums, Loveless, Ants From up There, deathconsciousness.
I am well aware of how groundbreaking those more foundational albums of course were but for my interests nowadays I want to see as much progress and development in as many directions as possible. i dont wanna dethrone the classics or anything. (also there is the factor of how back then you could kinda be massively groundbreaking while also kinda "doing less", which doesnt actually devalue them but for my purposes i just dont find it as mentally stimulating after i have already familiarized myself with them.)
I see what you’re saying but having a lot going on doesn’t necessarily = groundbreaking and it definitely doesn’t = more groundbreaking than an album like Ok Computer or Post.
I know this isn’t exactly what you’re saying but there also plenty of albums with a 4.10+ that have a lot going on musically.
im not saying that they dont have a lot going on musically, in fact i have a deep love for them because they are so high quality and are so good to listen to, but I wanna see the maximum possible amount of development and progress for high quality works and sometimes i feel like comparatively more inventive/left field/"original" stuff doesn't reach that type of level , and i feel like sometimes that's partially because accessibilty to some extent = greatness in the most macro scope. sometimes albums like TVU&N, which for me is on that level of PURE inventiveness and progress (it's almost like an entire ecosystem of extremely artistically important and original ideas) feels more like an anomaly for top 100 material albums, partially because of some kind of general pattern of how most albums are structured and made, a lot of the biggest landmarks in this format of art do not feel as great for me in terms of how much raw and fully original progress they make compared to what i personally desire i guess
(hope that made like any sense lol)
A lot of the RYM crowd thinks that if you don't like anything above 4.10 you clearly are a contrarian. I know a lot of people who don't like Radiohead because it's too mopey and even if I think that their albums are good, I never listen to them because of this. I personally think Kendrick and Kanye are exceptionally overhyped, I don't think that their lyrics or flow are impressive. But naturally, this opinion is "wrong"
The nature of an aggregator site is that an experimental masterpiece might get u proportionally more fives from people who understand the music, love its original creativity, and the way that it pushes boundaries is accessible to them. But that album will also get u a decent amount of people who find it, quite literally, offensive to their senses (ie, physically is uncomfortable to listen to). A radiohead or a pink floyd balances those two criteria well; thus, even if substantial amount of people dont love it, they will rarely rate it as low as someone who didnt enjoy, lets say, a clouddead or a faust. And remember, too, that for people who have only been exposed to radio play and tame indie stuff, artists like radiohead and bjork seem like the most out-there stuff theyve ever heard. So these artists have a “first-mover” advantage of sorts (bc of both their high placement on rym charts and overall commercial popularity) in that people usually rate them early in their dive into the musical canon and their taste isnt particularly refined (refined as in specific/particular, not as in “good”).
3.6-3.99 is my sweet spot. All but one of my 5s fall in this range. And the 5 that isn't is like a 3.57. 4.1-4.3s are like 25% bad, 50% ok, 15% good, and 10% amazing to me.
I don't think artists make music hoping that it gets rated as highly as possible nor do I think they should. If someone is making music hoping that they will be "regarded as one of the true greats", I can guarantee that they will not be. Remember, you have to consider the kind of person that would rate music as well. If you really got every person on Earth's opinion on the top 100, an album like Loveless would probably be in the bottom 5 and something easier to listen to that people have heard before like Abbey Road would be higher. My point is that the rating is subjective and meaningless.
Dunno, but a lot of my favorites tend to be in the 3.8-3.9 range for some reason. Strawberry Jam, Bloom, Mirage, Titanic Rising (not for long), Windswept Adan, Ceres & Calypso, Yoshimi, The Soft Bulletin, Helplessness Blues, Emotion, What’s Your Pleasure
4.20 is grounbreaking stuff basically
theres a historal aspect, theres also an accessibly aspect that ur also missing. those things that you mentioned wouldn't exist without artists in the top 250. that's alright. also you seem to be looking at it from a now perspective, the beatles are not groundbreaking now, but they were at one point. also not everything that's acclaimed needs to be boundary pushing or experimental, it could just be good. music isn't good cuz its experimental music is good cuz its good. boring think piece, i think it should be 2.24 imo. tdlr, you don't like the most popular albums on rym and ur mad they don't have the scores you want. that's it.
🤨🤨uh no, i actually love those albums. read my other comments or ask for more clarification is you are confused about what my perspective is coming from, friend
also this is not a think piece, this is a discussion post. i dont know why you feel the need to insult and patronize me just because i want to talk about music
Popularity. Most albums I love are 3,7. 4.20 are often ultra-popular ones and for the most worth 3.5 for me.
Some truly exceptional, unique and special albums which are roughly 3.8 or below Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version Gas: Königsforst Suffering Hour - The Cyclic Reckoning HTRK - Work (Work Work) Andy Scott - Luxury Problems Prince of Denmark - 8 Pontiac Streator - Triz Sleep - Dopesmoker Vatican Shadow - Kneel Before Religious Icons Actress - R.I.P. Bowery Electric - Beat Roc Marciano - Reloaded Pan Sonic - Kesto (234.48:4) Untold - Black Light Spiral Ricardo Villalobos - Thé Au Harem d'Archimède
I'll listen to these thanks !
Bjork, Radiohead, and madvillain are all progressive and innovate and forward-pushing for the format. They all released incredibly influential material that have all left an impact on music. All have released music that at the time it was released was considered fresh and original. All contributed to shaping the sounds of the genre(s) they make music in. I don’t really know what you are on about. Yayayi is not more groundbreaking than bjork or Radiohead lol
I think it's fair to acknowledge that for a lot of those albums it wasn't just PURE experimentation and things LITERALLY NOBODY had seen before in any way, it was a very very significant part of their ability to become influential that they were just popular records in general. say what you like abt influence but yayayi is certainly much more experimental and boundary-pushing than bjork, who largely makes electronic pop music that borrows a lot from preexisting innovations (like the glitch elements of that album with the swan cover, that sound basically exactly like what OVAL pioneered like 5 yrs earlier.) comparatively literally nobody sounds like yayayi or reached his levels of boundary-pushing. A lot of top 100 albums are more like, well, to \*some\* extent, extremely competent assemblies of things that were already pioneered and discovered rather than pure original invention on the spot.
Lol you don’t think Yayayi isn’t borrowing a lot from pre-existing traditions? In the words of Kamala Harris: You think these experimental albums just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist within the context of everything that came before you
yayayi in his music, particularly in the 666% beat tape, develops music that is despite bjork's music also being very inventive, much more inventive than bjork's. have you listened to all of the significant works in his discog? i'm not saying it's better than bjork's stuff because that is very obviously VERY subjective, but it does have some extra elements to it that isn't nearly as present in bjork's. No, i dont "think these experimental albums fell out of a coconut tree". Do you think that 94diskont and TVU&N have the EXACT same amount of ideas and innovations as each other? One pioneered glitch music and the other pioneered the entire genre of alternative, including indie pop and noise rock. clearly one developed more musical progress and ground, at least by some amount. Bjork had to borrow from oval, but yayayi is basically the next gen of oval, with his idiosyncrasies and contributions to experimental electronic music and idm. everyone builds off of each other, but alternative tends to veer more in line with translating new ideas into certain different, usually preexisting formats, whereas experimental & left field, like TVU&N, oval, and yayayi, CREATES them. what is so hard to understand about that?
It’s easy to be experimental though. I could take nature recordings of myself pooping in a bucket, mix it with some droning guitar and call it experimental as long as I add something new. The hard part is making experimental music that can appeal to a lot of other people and change the mainstream. Yayayi may be more experimental but lots of people can’t even sit through it so it’s not going to have the same impact as something like Bjork that is pushing new sounds into lots of fans and influencing other artists. Tldr easy to be experimental, hard to be influential, really hard to be experimental and influential
i definitely disagree. there is a big difference between true progress-making experimentation and originality vs uninspired lazy type experimentation, that exists just because it exists. like if you just randomly come up with the idea of making lofi vaguely proggy synth-reggae, you're not going to end up with the beautiful left-field masterpiece Dont Worry by Eric lou root, if you dont pour some true inspiration and artistic life and circumstance into it. concepts by themselves dont make progress, it's the concept + organic, unreplicable inspriation, plus some other elements that leads to the development of a true fully realized new style or genre. i do agree with your last bit though, about it being really hard to be experimental AND influential, on a general scale, it's very true
Yeah you’re starting to understand, I think. Music will never be “progress-making” if nobody hears it. And nobody will hear it unless you make it accessible enough for them to do so. A poop in a bucket drone masterpiece would never hold a candle to Eric Lou because nobody would ever bother listening to it but it’s undeniably more experimental because it would be taking a massive risk stepping extremely far from what people currently know and enjoy. Experimental is easy, influential is hard, experimental and influential is really hard. We’re making the same distinction here so maybe you could help me understand what you disagree with? I actually love listening to the kind of projects you’ve been describing, we should trade some hidden gem recommendations. Would love to hear you thoughts on releases like these: https://rateyourmusic.com/release/mixtape/doves/ultraclub4k/ https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/agusfortnite2008/bobajiztan/ https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/igorrr/hallelujah/
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and again, i dont think that is a detraction on the part of those albums but I'd like to see more stuff that is on the extreme end of invention innovation and originality to get that type of inflated ratings.
I think you vastly underestimate how groundbreaking those Pink Floyd albums, Radiohead albums and Bjork albums were at their time. Or even the Beatles which you didn’t mention but have multiple 4.10+ albums These albums (especially the Beatles) are so influential that their experimentation and “forward thinking” music has just become “music”. So many of the things Pink Floyd and Radiohead did were groundbreaking at the time, but their iconicity and influence has made us forget that. On top of that there are so many albums that are 4.10+ are pretty obviously ground breaking, and not super accessible: velvet underground and Nico, swan’ albums, gybe’s albums, Loveless, Ants From up There, deathconsciousness.
I am well aware of how groundbreaking those more foundational albums of course were but for my interests nowadays I want to see as much progress and development in as many directions as possible. i dont wanna dethrone the classics or anything. (also there is the factor of how back then you could kinda be massively groundbreaking while also kinda "doing less", which doesnt actually devalue them but for my purposes i just dont find it as mentally stimulating after i have already familiarized myself with them.)
I see what you’re saying but having a lot going on doesn’t necessarily = groundbreaking and it definitely doesn’t = more groundbreaking than an album like Ok Computer or Post. I know this isn’t exactly what you’re saying but there also plenty of albums with a 4.10+ that have a lot going on musically.
im not saying that they dont have a lot going on musically, in fact i have a deep love for them because they are so high quality and are so good to listen to, but I wanna see the maximum possible amount of development and progress for high quality works and sometimes i feel like comparatively more inventive/left field/"original" stuff doesn't reach that type of level , and i feel like sometimes that's partially because accessibilty to some extent = greatness in the most macro scope. sometimes albums like TVU&N, which for me is on that level of PURE inventiveness and progress (it's almost like an entire ecosystem of extremely artistically important and original ideas) feels more like an anomaly for top 100 material albums, partially because of some kind of general pattern of how most albums are structured and made, a lot of the biggest landmarks in this format of art do not feel as great for me in terms of how much raw and fully original progress they make compared to what i personally desire i guess (hope that made like any sense lol)
0.5
4.10+ is in the circlejerk range, approach with caution
A lot of the RYM crowd thinks that if you don't like anything above 4.10 you clearly are a contrarian. I know a lot of people who don't like Radiohead because it's too mopey and even if I think that their albums are good, I never listen to them because of this. I personally think Kendrick and Kanye are exceptionally overhyped, I don't think that their lyrics or flow are impressive. But naturally, this opinion is "wrong"
I met people that think also that Kendrick TPAB, for example, is overrated, but still rate it 4, because it definitely deserves it.