Channel 4's Top 100 Albums
Monday night's Channel 4 programme "The 100 Greatest Albums" seems to have been causing quite a bit of discussion, and most of it has served to annoy me for one reason or another.
A guy at work was complaining that the list contained too many modern albums, and should have been made up mainly of old classics. He especially lamented the fact that Radiohead were even in the chart at all, let alone at number one with 'OK Computer', claiming that Radiohead haven't been around long enough to warrant inclusion. He put all this down to the voters being primarily in their early twenties, with short memories that prevented the true greats being in the chart.
This attitude annoyed me greatly. Firstly, his opinion that there has been almost no great music since the seventies is at least as annoying as its counterpart that there was no great music before the eighties/nineties. I've met people with these attitudes, and they're both equally wrong. Furthermore, Radiohead have been around since 1992 and have made six albums, two of which are definitely contenders for a Top 100 list like this. Although there's plenty of bands that have lasted longer and made more albums, thirteen years and six albums is still an achievement. I agree that OK Computer shouldn't have been at number one, but I certainly don't agree with anyone who claims that Radiohead shouldn't have been in the chart at all.
The second annoyance was an elitist snob who I overheard in the music shop in Witney, pontificating about how abysmal the list was and how only about ten of the albums listed would make it into his list. Well, I guess it must have been totally wrong then, if it didn't match his own list bang-on.
There are three varieties of these Top 100 lists: [a] personal ones, [b] public-voted ones, and [c] those selected by music "experts", for example the music press.
Personal lists are just that - personal. I myself would include Nick Cave's "No More Shall We Part" in my top 100, possibly even my top 10, but I won't find many people agreeing with me. It's not generally even considered to be Nick Cave's best album, let alone to be a true classic, but nevertheless I think it is a fantastically literate, atmospheric and visual album, and I'll never tire of it. I recognise though that this is my personal opinion. It's entirely possible that Mr Elitist Snob has confused the programme's type of list (category [b]) with his own list (category [a]).
Public-voted lists, such as that of the programme, have their failings - firstly they tend to favour albums that are popular rather than true classic material, and they also tend to lean towards more recent albums since people can have short memories when it comes to these things. Examples in this case - Dido, Robbie Williams, and Alanis Morrissette. All of these were very popular, and sold in tremendous quantities, but I really don't think any of them can be considered true classics (with the possible exception of the Alanis Morrissette album). For me, one of the markers of a truely great album is that it changes what comes after it - however popular the Dido and Robbie Williams albums were, they didn't really do anything to change the state of music. This is why I can accept the Alanis Morrissette album being on the list - as the programme stated, it did a great deal to put women back on the pop/rock music map, and paved the way for people like Avril Lavigne. Whether this is a good thing is open to debate, but nevertheless the album had an impact that cannot be simply discounted. This is another reason why Radiohead deserved to be on the list - love them or hate them, both The Bends and OK Computer have had a major impact and influenced a huge number of people.
Finally, there's the selected-by-music-experts lists. These are a mixed bag - although on the plus side they tend to better reflect older albums from the sixties and seventies, they also have a tendency to include things like Captain Beefheart. Influential? Yes. Important? Yes. Listenable? Crikey, no. It's possible that Mr Elitist Snob was expecting the programme to be a list of this type.
As to my opinion of the list? To my mind there were some dubious items that should have either been far lower-placed or not even on the list at all (Dido, Robbie Williams, Coldplay, the Verve, George Michael), but I can understand how they managed to get in there. However, I was cheered by the inclusion of some albums that I feared might be overlooked - Patti Smith's 'Horses', the Pixies, Nick Drake's 'Five Leaves Left'. I did think that Bob Dylan was under-represented - I don't think 'Blood On The Tracks' is his best, so how it managed to be the only Dylan album on the list I'm not sure.
Anyway, rant over.
A guy at work was complaining that the list contained too many modern albums, and should have been made up mainly of old classics. He especially lamented the fact that Radiohead were even in the chart at all, let alone at number one with 'OK Computer', claiming that Radiohead haven't been around long enough to warrant inclusion. He put all this down to the voters being primarily in their early twenties, with short memories that prevented the true greats being in the chart.
This attitude annoyed me greatly. Firstly, his opinion that there has been almost no great music since the seventies is at least as annoying as its counterpart that there was no great music before the eighties/nineties. I've met people with these attitudes, and they're both equally wrong. Furthermore, Radiohead have been around since 1992 and have made six albums, two of which are definitely contenders for a Top 100 list like this. Although there's plenty of bands that have lasted longer and made more albums, thirteen years and six albums is still an achievement. I agree that OK Computer shouldn't have been at number one, but I certainly don't agree with anyone who claims that Radiohead shouldn't have been in the chart at all.
The second annoyance was an elitist snob who I overheard in the music shop in Witney, pontificating about how abysmal the list was and how only about ten of the albums listed would make it into his list. Well, I guess it must have been totally wrong then, if it didn't match his own list bang-on.
There are three varieties of these Top 100 lists: [a] personal ones, [b] public-voted ones, and [c] those selected by music "experts", for example the music press.
Personal lists are just that - personal. I myself would include Nick Cave's "No More Shall We Part" in my top 100, possibly even my top 10, but I won't find many people agreeing with me. It's not generally even considered to be Nick Cave's best album, let alone to be a true classic, but nevertheless I think it is a fantastically literate, atmospheric and visual album, and I'll never tire of it. I recognise though that this is my personal opinion. It's entirely possible that Mr Elitist Snob has confused the programme's type of list (category [b]) with his own list (category [a]).
Public-voted lists, such as that of the programme, have their failings - firstly they tend to favour albums that are popular rather than true classic material, and they also tend to lean towards more recent albums since people can have short memories when it comes to these things. Examples in this case - Dido, Robbie Williams, and Alanis Morrissette. All of these were very popular, and sold in tremendous quantities, but I really don't think any of them can be considered true classics (with the possible exception of the Alanis Morrissette album). For me, one of the markers of a truely great album is that it changes what comes after it - however popular the Dido and Robbie Williams albums were, they didn't really do anything to change the state of music. This is why I can accept the Alanis Morrissette album being on the list - as the programme stated, it did a great deal to put women back on the pop/rock music map, and paved the way for people like Avril Lavigne. Whether this is a good thing is open to debate, but nevertheless the album had an impact that cannot be simply discounted. This is another reason why Radiohead deserved to be on the list - love them or hate them, both The Bends and OK Computer have had a major impact and influenced a huge number of people.
Finally, there's the selected-by-music-experts lists. These are a mixed bag - although on the plus side they tend to better reflect older albums from the sixties and seventies, they also have a tendency to include things like Captain Beefheart. Influential? Yes. Important? Yes. Listenable? Crikey, no. It's possible that Mr Elitist Snob was expecting the programme to be a list of this type.
As to my opinion of the list? To my mind there were some dubious items that should have either been far lower-placed or not even on the list at all (Dido, Robbie Williams, Coldplay, the Verve, George Michael), but I can understand how they managed to get in there. However, I was cheered by the inclusion of some albums that I feared might be overlooked - Patti Smith's 'Horses', the Pixies, Nick Drake's 'Five Leaves Left'. I did think that Bob Dylan was under-represented - I don't think 'Blood On The Tracks' is his best, so how it managed to be the only Dylan album on the list I'm not sure.
Anyway, rant over.