AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Nick
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by Nick »

That Pitchfork quote perfectly sums up why I love Paul's Boutique. Sad to see the album tumble!
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notbrianeno
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by notbrianeno »

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#190. Sufjan Stevens | Carrie & Lowell (2015)
# of Voters: 25 | Score: 1007.180
Rank in 2014: N/A
AM 3000 Rank: #165
Top Fans: JWinton (#6), BleuPanda (#33), VeganValentine (#53), Spiderpig (#59), ChrisK (#61), Andyd1010 (#89), JohnnyBGoode (#100)
in this album i am peering into sufjan's soul and heart, and he forces me to peer into mine. he endlessly repeats "we're all gonna die" to soothe his mind, and in doing so, the comforting nihilism of the world enters my veins. he sings "there's blood on that blade, fuck me i'm falling apart" to tell the truth, and i feel like someone out in the universe understands me - i am not so alone. he cries out "all of me wants all of you" and sees a lost lover (or maybe his mother? who knows) in the distance, and i see the boy in massachusetts while i am on a train on long island. i see sufjan stripped to his core, and i too am stripped bare.
--otterborealis, RYM

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#189. Vampire Weekend | Vampire Weekend (2008)
# of Voters: 22 | Score: 1018.462
Rank in 2014: #199
AM 3000 Rank: #334
Top Fans: VanillaFire1000 (#15), LuvulongTIM (#24), Toni (#26), Andyd1010 (#46), Slick (#61), M24 (#76), JWinton (#82), Nick (#94), PlasticRam (#94), Nassim (#99)
This isn’t necessarily a breath of fresh air, so much as it is a stretch of mental nirvana. What this quartet has managed to do is turn indie-pop into a cultural hegemony of both quality and allure. There’s angst, but not the typical sob-fest saved for records of late. These eleven songs represent a sunny day, where broken televisions, birthday cakes, and Rimbaud can all co-exist without bloodshed.
--Michael Roffman, Consequence of Sound

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#188. Nick Drake | Five Leaves Left (1969)
# of Voters: 25 | Score: 1020.455
Rank in 2014: #146
AM 3000 Rank: #162
Top Fans: Nassim (#22), Nicolas (#24), SJner (#33), Georgie (#46), Listyguy (#90), Acroamor (#92)
Nick snuck odd time signatures and guitar tunings into his songs in such a way they didn't draw attention to themselves. He also brought a knowledge and understanding of Blake, the Romantic poets, and Zen Buddhism to his lyrics. Some suggest his vocal phrasing comes from exposure to the great Brazilian singers as well as the great jazz instrumentalists. If I had to use one word to state his greatest strength, though, it would be taste -- he knew what to explore when he heard something special, be it from his mother, Bert Jansch, or Donovan, and then, how to make it his own.
--quietrebel, RYM

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#187. Charles Mingus | The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (1963)
# of Voters: 19 | Score: 1025.279
Rank in 2014: #212
AM 3000 Rank: #489
Top Fans: Panam (#1), Jackson (#3), SonofSamIAm (#3), Babydoll (#11), NotBrianEno (#86), DocBrown (#94)
Elegant, restrained, and deeply ominous, The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady isn't just a crowning achievement in jazz music, it also ranks with Chinatown, Touch of Evil, and The Maltese Falcon as one of the greatest noirs.
--nathanten, RYM

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#186. Green Day | American Idiot (2004)
# of Voters: 21 | Score: 1026.446
Rank in 2014: #294
AM 3000 Rank: #464
Top Fans: ProsecutorGodot (#3), Karla (#5), M24 (#9), Andyd1010 (#12), Renan (#15), Whuntva (#26), Dexter (#50), PlasticRam (#61)
Whether American Idiot’s sudden revival of ambitious, melodic radio-rock was just a last hurrah or a legitimate revival, we can’t deny the fact that it shoved rock music back onto pop radio for at least 5 or 6 years, and regardless of whether it did anything long-term (rock has been sorely absent in radio since 2009), it’s an impressive feat.
--Gallifrey, RYM

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#185. The Knife | Silent Shout (2006)
# of Voters: 19 | Score: 1032.387
Rank in 2014: #110
AM 3000 Rank: #266
Top Fans: Nassim (#6), NotBrianEno (#8), Jirin (#10), BleuPanda (#15), ProsecutorGodot (#34), OrdinaryPerson (#39), DepecheMode (#48), GucciLittlePiggy (#71), Michel (#73), LuvulongTIM (#88)
What Silent Shout does with remarkable success, like Radiohead’s Kid A or Grandaddy’s The Sophtware Slump, is foreground the cold-blooded calculation of its technological origin while still capturing emotions that are recognizably and powerfully human. With Olof composing melodic hooks that play over stuttering, often unpredictable dance beats and basslines and with Karin’s tinny vocals multi-tracked and distorted in extreme directions on each song, The Knife takes the kind of musical risks on Silent Shout that simply aren’t possible with traditional instruments. The result is an album of catchy dance music that conveys an atmosphere of dread.
--Jonathan Keefe, Slant

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#184. Rage Against the Machine | Rage Against the Machine (1992)
# of Voters: 21 | Score: 1038.098
Rank in 2014: #315
AM 3000 Rank: #173
Top Fans: Spiritualized (#13), Nassim (#24), Victor.Marianoo77 (#25), Ordinary Person (#29), Schaefer.tk (#62), BleuPanda (#76), Dudumb (#86), Slick (#92)
Rage Against the Machine's 1992 debut is a grenade that keeps exploding; among Nineties albums, only Nevermind and The Chronic rival it for cultural impact. Rage made hip-hop-tinged funk metal the new rebel music, taking over the alienation beat from grunge slackers and making Marxist sloganeering seem badass.
--Nick Catucci, Rolling Stone

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#183. Elliott Smith | Either / Or (1997)
# of Voters: 22 | Score: 1038.707
Rank in 2014: #138
AM 3000 Rank: #295
Top Fans: Nassim (#2), JohnnyBGoode (#10), DaveC (#21), Harold (#25), Listyguy (#39), EmilienDelRey (#42), Chambord (#46)
I think what made Elliott Smith's music so special wasn't just his talent, ear for wonderful chord progressions, melody, his ability to write lyrics but the fact that his music came from an incredibly honest, genuine place. There's absolutely nothing fake or forced about it, you feel like you're listening to music that he deeply cares about. For that reason, Either/Or is the most heartfelt and sincere music I've ever listened to. Elliott Smith really does break my heart, and makes me feel something no other artist can make me feel, even though a lot of sad singer/songwriters have a similar effect on me - there's something different about what Elliott does to me, it gives me a unique feeling and that's probably because he was a unique person and artist.
--TheCunningStunt, RYM

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#182. Gorillaz | Demon Days (2005)
# of Voters: 21 | Score: 1039.516
Rank in 2014: #198
AM 3000 Rank: #705
Top Fans: Maschine_Man (#11), Romain (#16), OrdinaryPerson (#24), Felipinho (#33), Moonbeam (#36), Renan (#47), Nassim (#47), Whuntva (#54), Slick (#75)
Amid the dextrous conjunctions of styles - Feel Good Inc switches between folksy indie strum and grimy bass rumble - the album positively leaks melodies. There are gorgeous tunes hiding everywhere, buried in echoing backing vocals and icy synthesised refrains, lurking beneath MF Doom's rapping on November Has Come. Indeed, for someone usually painted as an overweening egomaniac, Albarn seems perfectly capable of playing second fiddle to his guest stars, letting Roots Manuva take a star turn on All Alone, ceding DARE to the unlikely partnership of Shaun Ryder and Neneh Cherry.
--Alexis Petridis, The Guardian

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#181. Jimi Hendrix Experience | Axis: Bold As Love (1967)
# of Voters: 24 | Score: 1044.906
Rank in 2014: #298
AM 3000 Rank: #197
Top Fans: Listyguy (#9), RickyMathias (#29), Nico (#59), GabeBasso (#74), RockyRaccoon (#76), Profeta (#94), Slick (#96)
Wisely retaining manager Chas Chandler to produce the album and Eddie Kramer as engineer, Hendrix stretched further musically than the first album, but even more so as a songwriter. He was still quite capable of coming up with spacy rockers like "You Got Me Floating," "Up from the Skies," and "Little Miss Lover," radio-ready to follow on the commercial heels of "Foxey Lady" and "Purple Haze." But the beautiful, wistful ballads "Little Wing," "Castles Made of Sand," "One Rainy Wish," and the title track set closer show remarkable growth and depth as a tunesmith, harnessing Curtis Mayfield soul guitar to Dylanesque lyrical imagery and Fuzz Face hyperactivity to produce yet another side to his grand psychedelic musical vision.
--Cub Koda, Allmusic
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Listyguy
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by Listyguy »

It's a shame Elliott Smith fell as far as he did...but Jimi Hendrix gaining 120 places helps heal that pain.
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

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#180. Pulp | Different Class (1995)
# of Voters: 25 | Score: 1045.824
Rank in 2014: #129
AM 3000 Rank: #136
Top Fans: LuvulongTIM (#15), Schaefer.tk (#34), DaveC (#39), Harold (#45), JohnnyBGoode (#71), ChrisK (#85), M24 (#89), Nick (#96), Spiderpig (#97)
The liner notes of the CD booklet pick up this theme: “Please understand. We don’t want no trouble. We just want the right to be different. That’s all.” The tone of “Mis-Shapes,” though, is not plaintive and pleading but strident and defiant, ascending through superiority complex (“We'll use the one thing we've got more of, that's our minds”) to a triumphant fantasy of vindication and victory: “Brothers, sisters, can't you see?/The future's owned by you and me...They think they've got us beat/But revenge is going to be so sweet.”
--Simon Reynolds, Pitchfork

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#179. The Stooges | Fun House (1970)
# of Voters: 23 | Score: 1046.338
Rank in 2014: #99
AM 3000 Rank: #98
Top Fans: BangJan (#19), Jackson (#39), SonofSamIAm (#73), Antonius (#77), Spiderpig (#77), LiveInPhoenix (#81), Harold (#88), Nick (#98)
Shunned by the public at the time of its release, ‘Fun House’ nevertheless went on to become hugely influential, with bands from Television to The Red Hot Chilli Peppers to The Strokes all taking something from The Stooges’ brief but rich legacy. But, 32 years on, no band has even come close to replicating the heady, chaotic abandon of this album. A head trip to listen to, as another Motor City native might put it.
--Jon Smith, Drowned in Sound

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#178. Derek and the Dominos | Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (1970)
# of Voters: 21 | Score: 1054.622
Rank in 2014: #233
AM 3000 Rank: #82
Top Fans: RedAnt (#4), RockyRaccoon (#19), Georgie (#32), Bruno (#42), LiveInPhoenix (#58), GabeBasso (#66), Henry (#73), Nico (#82), Dexter (#95)
By 1970, Eric Clapton had fallen desperately — and, at that point, unrequitedly — in love with the wife of his best friend, George Harrison. As if to shroud his emotions in secrecy, Clapton transformed himself into Derek, and Pattie Boyd Harrison became Layla, a name Clapton borrowed from "The Story of Layla and Majnun," by the Persian poet Nizami. Drugs and alcohol exacerbated the raw emotions churning inside the guitarist. Keyboardist Bobby Whitlock provided a terse summary of the sessions' psychotropic menu: "Cocaine and heroin, that's all —and Johnnie Walker.
The result? A masterpiece. The epic "Bell Bottom Blues" feels as if it's going to shatter from the heat of its romantic agony. "Do you want to see me crawl across the floor to you?" Clapton sings. "Do you want to hear me beg you to take me back?" The playing on the album, too, teeters on the edge of chaos but never tips. Clapton and the then relatively unknown second lead guitarist, Duane Allman, swirl in the whirlwind of each other's wild gifts on the title track and on a ravaging version of Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing." Meanwhile, on "Keep On Growing" and "Anyday," Clapton and Whitlock share vocals in raggedy emulation of the American soul duo Sam and Dave. Best known for his blues-playing and pop songs, Clapton rocks harder on those tracks than he's done before or since.
--Anthony DeCurtis, Rolling Stone

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#177. Pixies | Surfer Rosa (1988)
# of Voters: 22 | Score: 1058.401
Rank in 2014: #109
AM 3000 Rank: #99
Top Fans: Spiderpig (#18), Toni (#19), Harold (#33), Jirin (#37), DaveC (#61), Spiritualized (#72), BleuPanda (#77), Maschine_Man (#97)
A wild and intense beginning, and it's all one mad shredded Buñuelian nightmare from there, to rock and roll art what Un Chien Andalou was to avant-garde cinema. Songs of twisted psychosexual longing and college-age art school disenchantment. Black Francis is a mastermind of a brilliant filth, with songs like "Cactus" expressing unsettling fetishistic sentiments - 'sitting here on a cement floor, just wishing that I had just something you wore, run outside in the desert heat, make your dress all wet and send it to me' - and others like "Broken Face" detailing a list of violent disfigurements.
--jshopa, RYM

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#176. Radiohead | A Moon Shaped Pool (2016)
# of Voters: 24 | Score: 1083.808
Rank in 2014: N/A
AM 3000 Rank: N/A
Top Fans: GucciLittlePiggy (#30), JohnnyBGoode (#37), RickyMatthias (#37), GabeBasso (#46), Spiderpig (#60), ChrisK (#73)
In the past, Thom Yorke has sharply peppered his lyrics with everyday cliches to suggest a mind consumed by meaningless data, but on the new album, he largely moves beyond cynicism. He is now considering simpler truths in a heretofore-unexplored register: wonder and amazement. “This goes beyond me, beyond you,” he sings on “Daydreaming.” “We are just happy to serve you.” There is no concealed razor under Yorke’s tongue as he offers this thought, or in the pearly music that surrounds him. It sounds for all the world like the most cloistered and isolated soul in modern rock music opening up and admitting a helplessness far more personal than he’s ever dared. Yorke has flirted with surrender before, and on A Moon Shaped Pool, that submission feels nearly complete.
--Jayson Greene, Pitchfork

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#175. Bruce Springsteen | Nebraska (1982)
# of Voters: 26 | Score: 1087.351
Rank in 2014: #151
AM 3000 Rank: #135
Top Fans: Antonius (#11), Nicolas (#29), GabeBasso (#45), Gillingham (#49), Karla (#53), RedAnt (#60), BangJan (#66), SJner (#99)
Nebraska comes as a shock, a violent, acid-etched portrait of a wounded America that fuels its machinery by consuming its people's dreams. It is a portrait painted with old tools: a few acoustic guitars, a four-track cassette deck, a vocabulary derived from the plain-spoken folk music of Woody Guthrie and the dark hillbilly laments of Hank Williams. The style is steadfastly, defiantly out-of-date, the singing flat and honest, the music stark, deliberate and unadorned.
--Steve Pond, Rolling Stone

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#174. U2 | War (1983)
# of Voters: 26 | Score: 1090.317
Rank in 2014: #123
AM 3000 Rank: #305
Top Fans: Listyguy (#12), LiveInPhoenix (#14), GabeBasso (#43), GucciLittlePiggy (#82), Honorio (#84), Nico (#90), BonnieLaurel (#96)
Opening with the ominous, fiery protest of "Sunday Bloody Sunday," War immediately announces itself as U2's most focused and hardest-rocking album to date. Blowing away the fuzzy, sonic indulgences of October with propulsive, martial rhythms and shards of guitar, War bristles with anger, despair, and above all, passion. Previously, Bono's attempts at messages came across as grandstanding, but his vision becomes remarkably clear on this record, as his anthems ("New Year's Day," "40," "Seconds") are balanced by effective, surprisingly emotional love songs ("Two Hearts Beat as One"), which are just as desperate and pleading as his protests.
--Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Allmusic

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#173. Creedence Clearwater Revival | Cosmo's Factory (1970)
# of Voters: 23 | Score: 1092.236
Rank in 2014: #126
AM 3000 Rank: #181
Top Fans: SJner (#8), Gillingham (#8), Listyguy (#36), Acroamor (#39), Nicolas (#42), Michel (#59), Andyd1010 (#59), RockyRaccoon (#78)
Apart from prolific writing, Fogerty's ability to consistently churn out good stuff is largely due to his penchant for rehearsing the band five days a week in a converted warehouse in Berkeley's industrial section. It's doubtless because of this that drummer Doug "Cosmo" Clifford refers to the group's studio as the factory. The emphasis is not on modern derivatives but on authentic reproductions of, for example, Roy Orbison's vintage "Ooby Dooby." On "My Baby Left Me" the early-Elvis echo-chamber effect and the old Scotty Moore riffs on lead guitar reveal a considerable amount of careful study of the original. Both cuts hold up very well as straight rockabilly.
--John Grissim, Rolling Stone

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#172. Stevie Wonder | Talking Book (1972)
# of Voters: 25 | Score: 1095.408
Rank in 2014: #166
AM 3000 Rank: #150
Top Fans: Henry (#13), BryanBehar (#21), Slucs (#22), Dexter (#61), RockyRaccoon (#75), Georgie (#81), Romain (#84), Bruno (#96)
But as a total control of sheer sounds - instruments, tones, pitches, timbres, interplay of same - this might be his best, and as a smooth soul-funk record that moves along with specific sonic colorings and shadings, Talking Book is basically without peer. To get hyperbolic for a second, though necessarily so, I'll just go ahead and say that it's simply one of the most gorgeous sounding albums I've ever heard. And yes, it's better than Innervisions.
--LimedIBagels, RYM

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#171. The Smashing Pumpkins | Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (1995)
# of Voters: 24 | Score: 1096.888
Rank in 2014: #220
AM 3000 Rank: #273
Top Fans: JWinton (#16), Dudumb (#16), Dexter (#40), NotBrianEno (#76), Harold (#89), Nick (#89), VanillaFire1000 (#97)
Mellon Collie's remarkable breadth is the best indication of Corgan's ability to let loose. You could pick five songs at random and still end up with a diverse batch of singles that would make a case for Smashing Pumpkins being the most stylistically malleable multi-platinum act of the 90s. Maybe it wouldn't sell as many copies, but picture an alternate universe where heavy rotation met the joyous, mechanized grind of "Love", "In the Arms of Sleep"'s unabashed antiquated romanticism, the Prince-like electro-ballad "Beautiful", "Muzzle"'s stadium-status affirmations, or the throttling metal of "Bodies".
--Ian Cohen, Pitchfork
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nicolas
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by nicolas »

Happy to see there's still some classic rock masterpieces in a forum that has always been a bit indie-oriented. (Cosmo's Factory, Nebraska, Talking Book). Those albums lost some ground compared to 2014, but maybe it"s because the voters are younger (and that there are albums from the last 3 years ahead too).
As always, Radiohead is a bit over rated. Moon Shaped Pool is good,but all-time top 200 ? Honestly, I don't think so. BUt I don't blame the voters; count the number of Springsteen or Brel albums in my top 200, and you'll say the same. Except that here the passion bias is collective and not individual.
What I like the most in this list is the variety of styles and years.
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Rocky Raccoon
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by Rocky Raccoon »

nicolas wrote:Happy to see there's still some classic rock masterpieces in a forum that has always been a bit indie-oriented. (Cosmo's Factory, Nebraska, Talking Book).
Also Layla
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by StevieFan13 »

Rocky Raccoon wrote:
nicolas wrote:Happy to see there's still some classic rock masterpieces in a forum that has always been a bit indie-oriented. (Cosmo's Factory, Nebraska, Talking Book).
Also Layla
Layla finished higher than I expected! I'm happy though. Good stuff.
Music is a world within itself, with a language we all understand - Sir Duke (1976)
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

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#170. Arcade Fire | Neon Bible (2007)
# of Voters: 24 | Score: 1097.076
Rank in 2014: #165
AM 3000 Rank: #450
Top Fans: Andyd1010 (#15), Maschine_Man (#16), Spiderpig (#25), DaveC (#40), JohnnyBGoode (#48), JWinton (#49), SJner (#79)
Fitting Neon Bible's more worldly concerns, the Arcade Fire have streamlined the raw, large sound of Funeral into something that achieves the same magnitudinous scale through more economical means. Propelled by inventive guitar work and Jeremy Gara's steady drums, the group pares back anything that might curb the controlled forward thrust of songs like "Black Mirror", "Keep the Car Running", or "The Well and the Lighthouse". These songs don't erupt, but gradually crescendo and intensify. Unlike the cathartic Funeral, Neon Bible operates on spring-loaded tension and measured release. As such, it could strike some listeners as a disappointing follow-up, but the record's mix of newfound discipline and passion will likely imbue it with a long shelf-life.--Stephen A. Deusner, Pitchfork

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#169. Daft Punk | Random Access Memories (2013)
# of Voters: 25 | Score: 1102.572
Rank in 2014: #152
AM 3000 Rank: #384
Top Fans: Renan (#18), PlasticRam (#21), GucciLittlePiggy (#41), Listyguy (#47), Nick (#47), Honorio (#51), JohnnyBGoode (#54), Toni (#79), ProsecutorGodot (#79)
There's a point on "Doin' It Right," the penultimate track on Daft Punk's "Random Access Memories," where the album's utter lack of post-modern ambitions smacks the listener in the face. "Everybody will be dancing and be feeling all right!" the French electronic duo coo as the bass snaps into place, and soon, Animal Collective singer Panda Bear leaps into the fray to declare, "If you lose your way tonight, that's how you know the magic's right!" These are lines that complement each other in their un-ironic absurdity: blindingly optimistic and staggeringly direct, the phrases overlap and cut into each other in the hopes of making any dead-eyed sourpuss to turn that frown upside down.
--Jason Lipshutz, Billboard

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#168. The Smiths | The Smiths (1984)
# of Voters: 26 | Score: 1104.385
Rank in 2014: #176
AM 3000 Rank: #167
Top Fans: BryanBehar (#16), Victor.Marianoo77 (#30), Michel (#48), GucciLittlePiggy (#69), JohnnyBGoode (#88), JWinton (#100)
It really is a freak of a debut album, and that pretty much makes it a classic by default - not just because it's so unusual, but because The Smiths were a classic band and this is their classic sound. It's hit-and-miss, moreso than any of their other albums, but "Reel Around the Fountain", "Hand in Glove", "What Difference Does it Make?", and "Suffer Little Children" (and "This Charming Man" if you have one of the re-issues that includes it) all deserve to be included on any Smiths retrospective worth its salt. That's enough for this record to deserve its place in every indie fan's collection - a place it already has, of course.
--Iai, RYM

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#167. Franz Ferdinand | Franz Ferdinand (2004)
# of Voters: 26 | Score: 1107.019
Rank in 2014: #200
AM 3000 Rank: #198
Top Fans: LuvulongTIM (#39), JohnnyBGoode (#50), Moonbeam (#56), Romain (#59), BleuPanda (#59), Panam (#87), Spiderpig (#98)
Not content to kickstart their career on an album laden mostly with potential, the Glaswegians have banged out a celebratory LP with lyrics bearing surprising satire, wit, and unabashed romance. On the upcoming single, "Dark of the Matinee", Alexander Kapranos positions himself as a bitter cynic who eventually gives in to fame (though it may be, as the title suggests, in the dimmer regions of the spotlight) after being charmed by an attractive optimist, and, one would imagine, the unapologetic funk of the track itself. By the last verse, Kapranos imagines himself smiling wide, sitting with Abba-loving AM talk show host Terry Wogan. With their meteoric rise, Franz Ferdinand could very well be within a year of it. They're poised to be the next Duran Duran or the next Pulp. Or they could be the next Menswear. In any case, it will be a spectacle.
--Brent DiCrescenzo, Pitchfork

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#166. Pavement | Slanted and Enchanted (1992)
# of Voters: 21 | Score: 1109.807
Rank in 2014: #115
AM 3000 Rank: #119
Top Fans: Brad (#8), StevieFan13 (#19), Chambord (#21), DepecheMode (#30), BryanBehar (#43), JohnnyBGoode (#43), GucciLittlePiggy (#61), RockyRaccoon (#66), Michel (#97)
On first listening to the album you'd be forgiven for thinking it was a demo, home-recorded on Portastudio using cheap cassette tape. And it would be an assumption not a million miles wide of the truth. The album was actually recorded at the home-studio of ex-hippy and Pavement drummer Gary Young and done so with little equipment or experience and on a very tight budget. Though this might not sound particularly appealing at first, specifically to the auto-tuned ears of some readers, this is one of those many aspects of Slanted and Enchanted that makes it so magical. The lo-fi production gives the listener an affinity with the band because knowing that the songs are not indebted to a producer's signature sound or vision, or sullied by over-production provides one with a more precise sense of what it was like recording this album, an impression almost of what it would have felt like to have been there at the time.
--Jim Keoghan, TheQuietus

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#165. Nick Drake | Pink Moon (1972)
# of Voters: 22 | Score: 1110.278
Rank in 2014: #153
AM 3000 Rank: #293
Top Fans: Chambord (#12), Acroamor (#13), EmilienDelRey (#20), Bangjan (#26), SonofSamIAm (#43), Listyguy (#48), Panam (#69), SJner (#74), Jackson (#78), Jirin (#79)
One of the greatest “dark night of the soul” albums in the history of pop music, Pink Moon is astonishingly short, 28 and a half minutes, to be exact, and is one of the most musically stripped-down and emotionally naked albums ever recorded. Just Drake’s acoustic guitar, his entrancing, velvety voice, and some foreboding, gutwrenching lyrics that only hint at his state of mind at the time. That blend of simple, honest beauty with a hint of dread is perfectly exemplified on the album’s title track which serves as the opener. Over his gentle, yet insistently strummed guitar and minimal, plaintive piano notes (that tiny bit of piano was the only overdub on the entire album), Drake lays all his cards on the table, singing, “Saw it written and I saw it say/Pink moon is on its way/And none of you stand so tall/Pink moon gonna get ye all.”
--Adrien Begrand, Popmatters

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#164. Michael Jackson | Bad (1987)
# of Voters: 21 | Score: 1111.738
Rank in 2014: #308
AM 3000 Rank: #823
Top Fans: Renan (#3), BonnieLaurel (#4), Felipinho (#11), Bruno (#29), Nico (#30), Karla (#36), RedAnt (#62), Moonbeam (#78), JohnnyBGoode (#79), Profeta (#92)
The parts when Bad truly comes alive, however, are the times when Jackson pushes himself outside his comfort zone, taking true risks with his sound, which—in this case—means going darker, edgier. “Dirty Diana” is a perfect example of this, one-upping his riotous Eddie Van Halen collaboration with “Beat It” by delivering a true-blooded hard rock song, full of moody synths and feisty electric guitar solos (courtesy of Billy Idol’s go-to axe-man Steve Stevens). It’s also a song that goes back to the philosophy that some fans share about Jackson: he writes best when he writes paranoid. This song, about a persistent groupie, has Jackson giving us one of his darkest-ever character studies, but it’s the album’s closing tune, “Leave Me Alone”, that proves to be one his all-time greats. Although not initially included in Bad‘s official vinyl track listing (something that was changed upon each subsequent release of the album, which is actually a very welcome move as it proves to be a more fitting closer than “Smooth Criminal”), this rant about the pressures of fame and dealing with paparazzi sounds unlike anything else Jackson had recorded to this point: the popping guitar sounds had been heard before, but this song wasn’t exactly a dance song, not exactly a pop number, and the multi-tiered chorus assuredly wasn’t rock either. It’s a bit of an introverted tale, but also one of the rare times where Jackson actually lashes out at someone, and it’s fascinating to see this side of his personality. (Also, his singing in tandem with the wheezing synths on the bridge? Delightful.)
--Evan Sawdey, Popmatters

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#163. Massive Attack | Blue Lines (1991)
# of Voters: 27 | Score: 1115.217
Rank in 2014: #120
AM 3000 Rank: #38
Top Fans: OrdinaryPerson (#46), Spiderpig (#48), Jirin (#72), Antonius (#88), Nick (#97)
Listening to Massive Attack's debut album, Blue Lines, 21 years after its initial release is like reading an old William Gibson novel that describes the then-near future, which is now the present, with unsettling precision. Nearly every song offers a sound currently in use in music's taste-making leading edge. Robert "3D" Del Naja's chopped-up vocals on the album-opening "Safe From Harm" sound freakishly like the chorus to Kanye et al's "Mercy" (even if Ye actually lifted it from DJ Screw, who was developing his idiosyncratic style 5,000 miles away from Bristol, England at almost the exact same time Massive were recording Blue Lines). The chunky, palm-muted guitar riff on "One Love" is almost identical to the one on "Ahh Shit" from Jeremih's brilliant Late Nights with Jeremih. The subzero space-reggae beat to "Five Man Army" could easily be a highlight of any number of fashionable rappers' mixtapes.
--Miles Raymer, Pitchfork

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#162. Radiohead | Amnesiac (2001)
# of Voters: 25 | Score: 1117.492
Rank in 2014: #276
AM 3000 Rank: #425
Top Fans: Spiderpig (#20), DepecheMode (#31), GucciLittlePiggy (#54), Gillingham (#56), DaveC (#64), GabeBasso (#72), Profeta (#85)
Yorke summed it up best when he said that "Kid A was all in the distance. The fires were all going on the other side of the hill. With Amnesiac, you're actually in the forest while the fire's happening." These are not the B-sides. Amnesiac has its own B-sides, a brilliant set of songs in their own right. These are the flip-sides. It is a more jarring listening experience. Where Kid A was seamless, Amnesiac's seam is displayed right there on the front cover; a slab of red that's flayed at the end. It's jagged, brutal and hellish. It's great art.
--Mrmungbean, RYM

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#161. Weezer | Weezer (The Blue Album) (1994)
# of Voters: 23 | Score: 1118.860
Rank in 2014: #299
AM 3000 Rank: #298
Top Fans: Andyd1010 (#8), JasonBob4567 (#22), Acroamor (#23), BryanBehar (#30), Spiritualized (#36), DocBrown (#43), PlasticRam (#66), Dudumb (#69), Dexter (#69), Bootsy (#93)
Although the group wears its influences on its sleeve, Weezer pulls it together in a strikingly original fashion, thanks to Cuomo's urgent melodicism, a fondness for heavy, heavy guitars, a sly sense of humor, and damaged vulnerability, all driven home at a maximum volume. While contemporaries like Pavement were willfully, even gleefully obscure, and skewed toward a more selective audience, Weezer's insecurities were laid bare, and the band's pop culture obsessions tended to be universal, not exclusive. Plus, Cuomo wrote killer hooks and had a band that rocked hard -- albeit in an uptight, nerdy fashion -- winding up with direct, immediate music that connects on more than one level. It's both clever and vulnerable, but those sensibilities are hidden beneath the loud guitars and catchy hooks.
--Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Allmusic
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by StevieFan13 »

Love seeing Weezer jump!
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by Bruno »

"Bad" is from 1987.

Great top 200 so far!
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by luvulongTIM »

:x
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by Jackson »

nicolas wrote:Happy to see there's still some classic rock masterpieces in a forum that has always been a bit indie-oriented. (Cosmo's Factory, Nebraska, Talking Book). Those albums lost some ground compared to 2014, but maybe it"s because the voters are younger (and that there are albums from the last 3 years ahead too).
Really? This isn't a new trend on this forum, but classic rock and mainstream alternative are gaining at the expense of everything else (look at the massive falls for Fun House and Surfer Rosa in that last section).
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by prosecutorgodot »

The Blue Album is so good! even though I got into it pretty recently.
Surprised it jumped so high tho.
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by veganvalentine »

I never got into the album myself, but I'm surprised to see Blue Lines fall so low. I wonder how many AM Top 100 albums actually appeared on a majority of lists.
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by notbrianeno »

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#160. Radiohead | Hail to the Thief (2003)
# of Voters: 24 | Score: 1130.668
Rank in 2014: #230
AM 3000 Rank: #512
Top Fans: DepecheMode (#13), Michel (#35), OrdinaryPerson (#38), GucciLittlePiggy (#50), Chambord (#52), GabeBasso (#68), Bootsy (#78), Slick (#99)
Hail to the Thief is such a masterful collision of the two dominant personalities of Radiohead that it's easily the most difficult album of theirs to get into, even more than Amnesiac. Some of the songs are so droll and minute in pursuit of a greater overall mood that listeners could easily be pushed away, while the laptop trickery jittering along under many of the songs may prove too useless or casual for people hoping to discover a straight up rock record. But as time as passed and Hail to the Thief's place in Radiohead's path has solidified itself, I'd like to think people that fell into those categories found ways to get over it.
--Nodima, RYM

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#159. PJ Harvey | To Bring You My Love (1995)
# of Voters: 23 | Score: 1135.680
Rank in 2014: #88
AM 3000 Rank: #204
Top Fans: JWinton (#14), RockyRaccoon (#24), Jackson (#28), NotBrianEno (#64), Honorio (#66), Gillingham (#78), BonnieLaurel (#83), Michel (#89)
On To Bring You My Love, she’s singing about transcending — about moving beyond physical concerns, finding the place where love and desire turn mystical. There are moments where the you can feel the physical impact of her full-blooded wail on her voice: the avenging-angel roars on “Long Snake Moan,” the sex-yelps on “The Dancer.” More often, though, she sounds like a being out of time. That title track, which opens the album, starts out with silence, its rotating guitar figure emerging and getting louder and louder. Harvey sings the same words again and again, first in a monotonal mutter and building to a fevered howl: “I’ve lain with the devil / Cursed God above / Forsaken heaven / To bring you my love.” Every lyric on the album comes with that same mythic weight. And she doesn’t just sing those words. She makes you believe them.
--Tom Breihan, Stereogum

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#158. OutKast | Stankonia (2000)
# of Voters: 23 | Score: 1136.830
Rank in 2014: #148
AM 3000 Rank: #126
Top Fans: StevieFan13 (#5), Whuntva (#38), GucciLittlePiggy (#43), BryanBehar (#48), RockyRaccoon (#49), Nick (#71), BleuPanda (#78), OrdinaryPerson (#80), Slick (#82)
By the time the dust settled, Stankonia stood tall as one of the most revered rap albums of 2000 by critics, eventually landing at 359 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It kicked in the door for Southern rap’s now understood dominance as more albums from Southern artists have gone gold or platinum. What Big Boi and Dre perfected here, they carried over to their 2003, Grammy-winning double album, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. That’s what Stankonia laid the groundwork for. Not to mention it confirmed that OutKast was the undisputed greatest duo in hip-hop.

And still cooler than Freddie Jackson sippin’ a milkshake in a snowstorm.
--Brandon Caldwell, Complex

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#157. Green Day | Dookie (1994)
# of Voters: 23 | Score: 1141.436
Rank in 2014: #384
AM 3000 Rank: #319
Top Fans: ProsecutorGodot (#1), StevieFan13 (#6), Karla (#26), Dexter (#39), BryanBehar (#63), Andyd1010 (#77), Dudumb (#80), Whuntva (#82), Acroamor (#96), Bruno (#99), M24 (#99), Nico (#100)
What set Dookie apart from the grunge rock bellowers of its day was Armstrong’s voice, foggy and vaguely unplaceable. “I’m an American guy faking an English accent faking an American accent,” he teased at the time. Though Armstrong’s tone was bratty, his phrasing had that lackadaisical quality that left room for listeners to fill in their own interpretations. On Dookie, Armstrong channeled a lifetime of songcraft obsession into buzzing, hook-crammed tracks that acted like they didn’t give a shit—fashionably then, but also appealingly for the 12-year-old spirit within us all. Maybe they worked so well because, on a compositional and emotional level, they were actually gravely serious. Sometimes singing about the serious stuff in your life—desire, anxiety, identity—feels a lot more weightless done against the backdrop of a dogshit-bombarded illustration of your hometown by East Bay punk fixture Richie Bucher.
--Marc hogan, Pitchfork

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#156. Amy Winehouse | Back to Black (2006)
# of Voters: 25 | Score: 1147.741
Rank in 2014: #316
AM 3000 Rank: #127
Top Fans: RickyMathias (#25), Maschine_Man (#54), BonnieLaurel (#61), Babydoll (#72), Dexter (#76), Nico (#79), Andyramone1234 (#80), ProsecutorGodot (#91), Profeta (#99)
Winehouse would fully realize her talent as a lyricist on Back to Black. I understand disliking Winehouse's music, voice, fashion or public image, but I do not understand disliking her lyrics. Winehouse's lyrics on Back to Black are raw and elegiac. Joanna Lumley described Absolutely Fabulous writer Jennifer Saunders as being a "vacuum for ideas. She's just always taking things in." The same could be applied to Winehouse. The greatest strength Winehouse possessed as a lyricist was her ability to capture the ambiance of a moment, setting or feeling with only a few words. She described familiar settings- a bedroom, a kitchen, a bathroom- and used them as background for tales of treachery, dejection and vulnerability. Her use of surroundings well-known to everyone makes the the emotions she's conveying seem more personal and comprehensible to the listener. The public image of Winehouse as a drunkard and druggie, often barely coherent and occasionally violent- is sharply contrasted with the contemplative and downhearted woman found in her lyrics.
--palahniuk, RYM

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#155. Pavement | Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain (1994)
# of Voters: 23 | Score: 1152.076
Rank in 2014: #103
AM 3000 Rank: #203
Top Fans: Chambord (#5), Brad (#14), GucciLittlePiggy (#23), BryanBehar (#51), ChrisK (#45), JohnnyBGoode (#49), Nassim (#53), Acroamor (#55), Nick (#85)
"Silence Kit" kicks it off, with a vocal melody lifted straight from Buddy Holly's "Everyday" amidst a fuzzy, wreckless, heart-rendingly sincere yet typically obtuse sonic and lyrical fabric. Crooked Rain is Slanted and Enchanted's sweeter, geekier and probably smarter little brother, too naive, or maybe just too lazy, to bother concealing his big awkward heart under layers of noise and distance. By the time "Gold Soundz" strums you into a quivering mess of raw emotion, you are already piqued to have a breakdown, or a breakthrough, though you cannot properly explain why. The album winds down with the epic ode to all forms of exhaustion. "Filmore Jive" is the dreamer's plea to retreat from the over-stimulating act of spinning in circles, with the final word of the song left unspoken, just like so much else that came before. After all, we need secrets.
--unearth, RYM

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#154. Blur | Parklife (1994)
# of Voters: 25 | Score: 1153.772
Rank in 2014: #131
AM 3000 Rank: #144
Top Fans: Toni (#1), ChrisK (#27), Romain (#31), Nick (#55), GabeBasso (#59), Slick (#60), JohnnyBGoode (#78), Listyguy (#82), Honorio (#91), GucciLittlePiggy (#95)
they realize their cheeky ambition: to reassert all the style and wit, boy bonding and stardom aspiration that originally made British rock so dazzling. Producer Stephen Street (Morrissey) lends a glossy finish to songs encyclopedic in their reference points (the Walker Brothers and Gary Numan, mod and glam memories, dole-queue reality). Parklife melds effects-heavy '60s guitars and cheesy New Wave synths into a joyful, highly musical noise. From perfect car-radio fare ("Girls and Boys," "London Loves") to breathtaking ballads ("To the End," "End of the Century"), this is explosive pop.
--Paul Evans, Rolling Stone

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#153. Sly & the Family Stone | There's A Riot Goin' On (1971)
# of Voters: 28 | Score: 1154.855
Rank in 2014: #93
AM 3000 Rank: #58
Top Fans: Antonius (#7), Nico (#46), Slucs (#47), Bruno (#49), ChrisK (#58), SonofSamIam (#61), Listyguy (#73), Dexter (#83), RockyRaccoon (#87), OrdinaryPerson (#98)
Everything about this record keeps your mind racing, wondering why what you're hearing is working at all. Particularly interesting is the use of drum machines on a funk record, which sounds sacrilegious until you actually hear "Spaced Cowboy". Sly's deconstructing his own game here, throwing a middle finger in his fans' faces while imploring them to recognize his frustration and channel it into something more positive for themselves. Few albums carry as much weight politically and culturally. But even beyond that, much of the stuff here still sounds contemporary, and that's nearly reason enough to give this album high praise. But because it is so human, that's the real cause for celebration here. Disliking There's a Riot Goin' On on any grounds other than the lack of a funky soul just seems disingenuous to the human condition.
--Nodima, RYM

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#152. Portishead | Third (2008)
# of Voters: 24 | Score: 1158.430
Rank in 2014: #159
AM 3000 Rank: #220
Top Fans: DepecheMode (#6), Chambord (#42), Gillingham (#43), SweepstakesRon (#49), NotBrianEno (#65), Spiderpig (#72), DaveC (#75)
It’s like reuniting with an old friend after years of estrangement: At first, the friend appears completely changed, but even if their hair is a different color, or their weight has drastically fluctuated, you still instantly recognize their eyes, and the more time you spend with them, the more you see those subtle but familiar movements, gestures, and expressions, now informed by a new decade’s worth of life. Though the banshee and the coquette have been toned down or banished altogether, respectively, Gibbons is as exquisitely morose as ever: She’s “fallen through changes,” she tells us on “Silence,” the album’s opening track, and she’s still “tormented,” “wounded,” and “afraid.” The next song, “Hunter,” is like some twisted zombie prom dance from 50 years ago, which, let’s face it, has always been Portishead’s modus operandi. There’s enough on Third (spaghetti-western guitars, organs, barking effects) to sate those who pine for the late ‘90s, but gone is the turntable scratching, ostensibly deemed too much of a relic from that decade; in its place are more electronic flourishes, like the cyclic synth-bass loop that softens the second half of “The Rip,” a song which is proof positive that Goldfrapp would never exist without Portishead.
--Sal Cinquemani, Slant
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#151. The Avalanches | Since I Left You (2000)
# of Voters: 25 | Score: 1161.521
Rank in 2014: #154
AM 3000 Rank: #317
Top Fans: Jackson (#2), Toni (#10), Acroamor (#14), Nick (#31), Gillingham (#32), Maschine_Man (#50), M24 (#59), OrdinaryPerson (#75), Jeff (#78), VanillaFire (#86)
With not gaps between its 18 tracks, just a relentless party groove, Since I Left You is so madly glad, it’s demented. But it’s not all nonstop rhapsodic. There are exquisite bittersweet tints to tracks like “Etoh,” lending the record a sense of heart-bursting euphoria shadowed by the intimation that all things must pass. But as its title hints, Since I Left You’s underlying, unspoken concept is about unburdening yourself of such foreboding feelings — shedding the dead weight of personal history and floating off to some exotic Elsewhere (“You can book a flight tonight” goes one sample, which could refer to taking a vacation or a drug). Gravity, in every sense, is abandoned. Go with their flow.
--Simon Reynolds, Spin
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by StevieFan13 »

Great finishes for Green Day!
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by Depeche Mode »

Huh, Third really should have been my number...three :D
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by notbrianeno »

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#150. Kraftwerk | Trans-Europa Express (1977)
# of Voters: 26 | Score: 1164.482
Rank in 2014: #92
AM 3000 Rank: #104
Top Fans: BleuPanda (#7), Antonius (#32), Schaefer.tk (#41), ProsecutorGodot (#62), OrdinaryPerson (#83)
This mechanical symphony could not be produced nowadays despite or rather due to all our technical facilities. It is still surprising how they squeezed those primitive beat-boxes and pre-digital toys provoking a mental lash with indelible consequences, actual reference for industrial rock, techno and even rap. And they did it through that cold, martial beauty, typically German.
--laranra, RYM

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#149. Depeche Mode | Violator (1990)
# of Voters: 24 | Score: 1167.104
Rank in 2014: #121
AM 3000 Rank: #349
Top Fans: Slick (#14), Spiritualized (#20), Moonbeam (#20), GucciLittlePiggy (#48), Dexter (#66), Listyguy (#68), Jirin (#85), Honorio (#92), ChrisK (#94), JWinton (#99)
The reason Depeche Mode’s Violator is a quintessential benchmark of pop, rock and electronic music is because it marries dance, goth-rock and synth-pop with good ol’ fashioned Motown funk and rock n’ roll so seamlessly. In fact, it could be said that Depeche Mode’s Violator violated the standard definition of popular music itself. The album wasn’t far off from the post-punk modern rock of Black Celebration and the poperatic Music for the Masses, but it was slicker and more accessible than the band’s previous efforts, thanks in part to keyboardist Alan Wilder’s ornate arrangements and Flood’s opulent production. The album’s lead single, “Personal Jesus,” a cynical jab at organized religion and televangelism, mixes a grinding bassline and industrial march beat with a bluesy guitar riff and multiple vocal overdubs. It was the unlikeliest of pop hits.
--Sal Cinquemani, Slant

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#148. Björk | Debut (1993)
# of Voters: 22 | Score: 1167.394
Rank in 2014: #82
AM 3000 Rank: #132
Top Fans: Honorio (#16), BonnieLaurel (#27), DaveC (#29), OrdinaryPerson (#35), Schaefer.tk (#47), Maschine_man (#47), Dexter (#85), Moonbeam (#88), ProsecutorGodot (#97)
The very first electronica album that I really loved, cause it supposed a brand new use of the voice in a predominantly instrumental style or dominated by soul divas. And the voice of Björk is possibly the most unique in pop history, balancing perfectly the confidence and the vulnerability, the virtuosity and the spontaneity, the craft and the extravagance.
--Honorio, RYM

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#147. Ramones | Ramones (1976)
# of Voters: 26 | Score: 1167.959
Rank in 2014: #116
AM 3000 Rank: #35
Top Fans: Jackson (#26), Nico (#65), Bruno (#65), BleuPanda (#69), Nick (#74), Karla (#78), RockyRaccoon (#80), BryanBehar (#82), SJner (#85), Dexter (#93)
With the three-chord assault of "Blitzkrieg Bop," The Ramones begins at a blinding speed and never once over the course of its 14 songs does it let up. The Ramones is all about speed, hooks, stupidity, and simplicity. The songs are imaginative reductions of early rock & roll, girl group pop, and surf rock. Not only is the music boiled down to its essentials, but the Ramones offer a twisted, comical take on pop culture with their lyrics, whether it's the horror schlock of "I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement," the gleeful violence of "Beat on the Brat," or the maniacal stupidity of "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue." And the cover of Chris Montez's "Let's Dance" isn't a throwaway -- with its single-minded beat and lyrics, it encapsulates everything the group loves about pre-Beatles rock & roll. They don't alter the structure, or the intent, of the song, they simply make it louder and faster. And that's the key to all of the Ramones' music -- it's simple rock & roll, played simply, loud, and very, very fast.
--Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Allmusic

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#146. The Flaming Lips | The Soft Bulletin (1999)
# of Voters: 21 | Score: 1173.682
Rank in 2014: #81
AM 3000 Rank: #134
Top Fans: Zombeels (#6), Schaefer.tk (#26), Jackson (#30), SonofSamIAm (#33), Spiderpig (#39), ChrisK (#44), DaveC (#51), Nick (#64), Toni (#65), LuvulongTIM (#67), VanillaFire1000 (#83), Harold (#96), Romain (#97), JWinton (#98)
The Soft Bulletin takes us back to a time long ago when your own breathing would drown out the sound of the world around you and then quickly shuffles us light years away to the sound of planets ending for eternity (a sound so loud that it would damage the human ear). As told from the Lips site, it's an album not in response to influences or "enemies" but just sound; It seems incredibly dull and simple but has such a thing really been done before? Not the sound of a 21th century Beatles or lush orchestrations from 16th century Vienna played for the King of Pluto, but the sound of life ending and life beginning almost simultaneously. It's Pet Sounds alright, but a Pet Sounds that is not knee deep in waves of harmony and emotion but knee deep in waves of sonic dissonance and existentialism.
--lonely_panda, RYM

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#145. The Flaming Lips | Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002)
# of Voters: 29 | Score: 1175.375
Rank in 2014: #108
AM 3000 Rank: #250
Top Fans: Jirin (#26), Honorio (#28), RockyRaccoon (#41), VanillaFire1000 (#58), LuvulongTIM (#59), Nick (#60), OrdinaryPerson (#62), Spiderpig (#62), DaveC (#68), ChrisK (#75), DocBrown (#80)
there is a soulful, flowing grace about this album that can be compared to milestones such as "astral weeks", "pet sounds" and "what's going on", but the vision is none other than the flaming lips'. the fusion of electronic textures and pure pop melodies has been done before but never in such a masterful way. each second of music is its own little universe just waiting for one to get lost in.
--unearth, RYM

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#144. Tom Waits | Swordfishtrombones (1983)
# of Voters: 25 | Score: 1178.069
Rank in 2014: #85
AM 3000 Rank: #125
Top Fans: Antonius (#2), Honorio (#6), Gillingham (#9), Acroamor (#49), Bootsy (#63), SJner (#67), NotBrianEno (#73)
Swordfishtrombones is not an influential album in the strictest sense. It did little to expand the aural palettes of popular music, it triggered no major movement to speak of, and if anything lost Tom Waits a sizeable chunk of his own dedicated (if rather dull) following. However, it’s also a near perfect masterpiece; a 40-minute magical realist portrait of the human condition, and a missive from a sonically parallel universe. Its most lasting impact has most certainly been on Waits himself, for whom it represents both the high point and fulcrum of his entire career. The songs, instrumentals and monologues that lie therein paint a Brueghelian picture of an underground world of misfits and freaks, massively darker and more compelling than the jazz cafes of his previous work. If Small Change sounded like Woody Allen’s Annie Hall, then Swordfishtrombones is Tod Browning’s Freaks (which also, and far more literally, inspired the album’s iconic mutant cover art by Michael A. Russ).
--Tristan Bath, TheQuietus

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#143. The Beatles | A Hard Day's Night (1964)
# of Voters: 26 | Score: 1195.621
Rank in 2014: #215
AM 3000 Rank: #190
Top Fans: LiveInPhoenix (#25), RockyRaccoon (#46), Rickymathias (#48), BryanBehar (#52), GabeBasso (#64), Brad (#74), PlasticRam (#78), Miguel (#95)
But the dominant sound of the album is the Beatles in full cry as a pop band-- with no rock'n'roll covers to remind you of their roots you're free to take the group's new sound purely on its own modernist terms: The chord choices whose audacity surprised a listening Bob Dylan, the steamroller power of the harmonies, the gleaming sound of George Harrison's new Rickenbacker alongside the confident Northern blasts of harmonica, and a band and producer grown more than comfortable with each other. There's detail aplenty here-- and the remasters make it easy to hunt for-- but A Hard Day's Night is perhaps the band's most straightforward album: You notice the catchiness first, and you can wonder how they got it later.
--Tom Ewing, Pitchfork

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#142. Interpol | Turn on the Bright Lights (2002)
# of Voters: 22 | Score: 1200.843
Rank in 2014: #173
AM 3000 Rank: #243
Top Fans: JWinton (#4), Chambord (#14), Acroamor (#17), NotBrianEno (#25), DaveC (#30), GucciLittlePiggy (#45), Michel (#47), Andyd1010 (#61), DepecheMode (#67), ChrisK (#71), BleuPanda (#92)
Interpol’s 2002 debut, Turn On the Bright Lights, became more rewarding the more you listened to it. It gradually revealed layer after layer of wit and guitar angularity – courtesy of the tremendously talented Daniel Kessler – that exceeded initial comparisons to Joy Division and The Psychedelic Furs. The band assumed the role of observer, viewing its collective life with disconnection when delivering tales of the past. And all the time, the music came on like a funereal R.E.M., the tone suggestive of souls having spent time enough with unpleasant encounters.
--Ian Wade, BBC

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#141. The Band | The Band (1969)
# of Voters: 24 | Score: 1208.183
Rank in 2014: #163
AM 3000 Rank: #51
Top Fans: M24 (#11), Toni (#25), OrdinaryPerson (#34), RockyRaccoon (#43), RickyMathias (#46), Harold (#54), Dexter (#80), Nico (#86), Georgie (#95)
In a way, it seems to me that the use of the drums in this band typifies how their music in constructed. The drums are not used solely to keep time nor solely to underscore a line or emphasize a rhythm. Rather the drums are used as sound, as punctuation, as the spine for the whole skeleton of the song. Levon uses wooden drums and tunes the bass so that it gets a crunchy, not a zappy sound, as Robbie explains it, which is like a punch in the stomach. You hear the drums if you listen for them, but, like the bass, you feel them all the time. That is how the music is made, out of the flesh and blood of human beings and part of their flesh and blood and its humanity sings to you, music that you feel you know. It has the sound of familiarity in every new line because it is ringing changes on the basic truths of life, you have been there before, and like the truths of life itself, it nourishes you. As the old pitchman used to say, "it's good for what ails you and it gives you what you haven't got."
--Ralph J. Gleason, Rolling Stone
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by Listyguy »

Wait...Help! outranked A Hard Day's Night (unless I completely missed the former go by)? That's...interesting...
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by BleuPanda »

Yoshimi over Soft Bulletin? That's a big surprise.
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by Harold »

Listyguy wrote:Wait...Help! outranked A Hard Day's Night (unless I completely missed the former go by)? That's...interesting...
It outranked its predecessor on the 2014 poll, too, so it's not that surprising. I completely agree with the usual consensus that A Hard Day's Night is by far the better album, but they're both in the top 150 so I'm not complaining.
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by bootsy »

The Flaming Lips

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Nice.
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by prosecutorgodot »

Listyguy wrote:Wait...Help! outranked A Hard Day's Night (unless I completely missed the former go by)? That's...interesting...
A Hard Day's Night is more consistent in sound, but Help! has those enduring pop hits, like "Yesterday" and the title track. Just my guess. Also, it's probably not by much, because I'm thinking that Help! will be in the next batch.
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by Chambord »

notbrianeno wrote:
#168. The Smiths | The Smiths (1984)
Top Fans: Chambord (#16)
Hi, I'm not a Top Fan of this album. It's #212 in my list.
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by notbrianeno »

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#140. Fleet Foxes | Fleet Foxes (2008)
# of Voters: 27 | Score: 1209.714
Rank in 2014: #107
AM 3000 Rank: #270
Top Fans: Nicolas (#13), DaveC (#16), JWinton (#44), VanillaFire1000 (#50), Toni (#66), Gillingham (#95)
Fleet Foxes is by turns charming, beguiling, mature, child like, gently surprising and all-embracing. Like a winter evening in the pub spent sat by an open fire with a close friend, it allows you to forget how cold and bitter the outside world is and when your friend gives you a manly hug when you depart, you realise it's left you with not only a physical feeling of warmth, but an emotional one as well.
--p_q, RYM

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#139. The National | High Violet (2010)
# of Voters: 21 | Score: 1212.099
Rank in 2014: #134
AM 3000 Rank: #453
Top Fans: GucciLittlePiggy (#14), Antonius (#25), DocBrown (#25), Gillingham (#26), Andyd1010 (#27), DaveC (#31), ChrisK (#35), Jirin (#40), NotBrianEno (#46), JohnnyBGoode (#58), JWinton (#73), M24 (#98)
In between patches of obtuse imagery, singer Matt Berninger sounds increasingly self-destructive. The record's upbeat numbers don't cheer him up so much as commiserate with him. All of this makes High Violet a dark affair, even for a band with a reputation for sad-bastard melodrama. The National have never sounded triumphant, but they can still be reassuring, with Berninger's lyrics acting as salves for our own neuroses. Six drinks in, tired of your coworkers, wishing you could just go home and laugh at sitcoms with someone? Maybe get laid? The National's got your back.
--Andrew Gaerig, Pitchfork

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#138. Belle and Sebastian | If You're Feeling Sinister (1996)
# of Voters: 26 | Score: 1216.470
Rank in 2014: #136
AM 3000 Rank: #228
Top Fans: LuvulongTIM (#3), VanillaFire1000 (#7), GucciLittlePiggy (#26), Honorio (#27), Spiderpig (#34), JohnnyBGoode (#38), Panam (#71), JWinton (#83), ChrisK (#92), Schaefer.tk (#96)
Murdoch's lyrics read like the elliptical character sketches and confessions of a cynical, soft-voiced bedsit romantic, part peeping tom, part choirboy. On If You're Feeling Sinister, we meet his most vivid assortment of oddballs, from the disgruntled old gent in Me and the Major, a man – not unlike his narrator – perennially adrift from the times who "remembers all the punks and the hippies too, and he remembers Roxy Music in '72", to the title track's Hilary, a girl "into S&M and bible studies" whom her sleazy vicar took aside and "gave her confirmation". Get Me Away from Here, I'm Dying could almost address how Belle and Sebastian swam defiantly against the laddish tide of Britpop. "You could either be successful or be us," Murdoch sings, "with our winning smiles … with our catchy tunes."
--Malcolm Jack, The Guardian

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#137. Guns N' Roses | Appetite for Destruction (1987)
# of Voters: 22 | Score: 1219.147
Rank in 2014: #164
AM 3000 Rank: #60
Top Fans: Dexter (#3), Whuntva (#15), Slick (#18), Karla (#24), Bruno (#25), Listyguy (#30), Profeta (#30), RockyRaccoon (#81), Andyramone1234 (#87), ProsecutorGodot (#92), M24 (#97), BryanBehar (#97)
While they were at odds with the prevalent glam metal stylings of bands like Mötley Crüe (with whom they toured) or Bon Jovi, the band themselves - all cowboy boots, bandanas and leather - hardly broke the mould. Yet they traded on a dynamic that balanced them between the lifestyle they portrayed and the no-nonsense kick-ass aesthetic of their sound. Punk metal was born. And let's make no bones about it: this band could play. Steven Adler's drums sound huge, while Slash's riffs had yet to descend into cliché, his snarling Les Paul force-fed through a growling wah-wah. Axl Rose's cartoon squeal of indignation was the perfect summation of the band's philosophy of good times to be had living on the 'edge'. Appetite... never lets up. Never had hedonism sounded so good.
--Dennis O'Dell, BBC

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#136. Prince | 1999 (1982)
# of Voters: 24 | Score: 1220.952
Rank in 2014: #143
AM 3000 Rank: #233
Top Fans: Moonbeam (#1), Romain (#10), Slucs (#12), RickyMathias (#14), Bootsy (#19), RockyRaccoon (#70), Listyguy (#71), NotBrianEno (#72), EmilienDelRey (#87)
1999 is also arguably Prince's most minimalist work, employing few instruments in the mix, yet it propagates a dense fog of funk that sounds both sparse and forebodingly full. Prince pushed himself to his creative limit with this album and the outtakes most associated with it, incorporating inexplicable gurgling sounds, an elephant roar, soldier footsteps and city noises into the mix and they perfectly fit within the framework of the music, almost sounding as if they were intentionally recorded for the sole purpose of inclusion on this album. While the template was in place with Dirty Mind and Controversy, Prince's creativity and confidence allowed him to foster a particular sound for 1999, and this ice-cold amethyst funk that would go on to influence a lot of music in the ensuing years.
--Moonbeam, RYM

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#135. The Replacements | Let It Be (1984)
# of Voters: 23 | Score: 1227.441
Rank in 2014: #97
AM 3000 Rank: #207
Top Fans: Harold (#12), Jirin (#28), BryanBehar (#28), GucciLittlePiggy (#40), VanillaFire1000 (#49), JWinton (#53), Nassim (#72), RedAnt (#73), Brad (#81), Listyguy (#83), Nick (#90), Bootsy (#98)
Why then do we continue to care so much about a record written and recorded by a band that did just about all they could have done to sabotage themselves—and not just once, but repeatedly? Unlike so many other late-blooming cult hits that earn their acclaim by way of their own ignominy, Let It Be stands today based on the merit its material. Unrelenting in its emotional sincerity, imaginative in its song construction, and confident in it delivery, it has become the musical shorthand for the angst-ridden experience of adolescence for many.
--Corbin Reiff, AVClub

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#134. Neil Young | Harvest (1972)
# of Voters: 27 | Score: 1231.232
Rank in 2014: #125
AM 3000 Rank: #89
Top Fans: Nicolas (#18), Miguel (#27), Slucs (#43), RedAnt (#49), VeganValentine (#60), Nico (#95), Bruno (#98), SJner (#98)
Now don’t be mistaken, Harvest was by no means the jumping off point for Young; the guy had already reached major success with Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, and three solo albums; Neil Young, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, and After The Goldrush. But unlike the aforementioned works, Harvest sees Young reaching certain maturity as a songwriter; a maturity that would be noticed by the masses and place Young directly in the limelight (even if the limelight was exactly where he didn’t want to be).
--Adam lalama, Noisey

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#133. The Beatles | Help! (1965)
# of Voters: 26 | Score: 1232.537
Rank in 2014: #203
AM 3000 Rank: #561
Top Fans: Andyd1010 (#36), SweepstakesRon (#55), Brad (#61), GabeBasso (#62), VanillaFire1000 (#80)
All this is put into the service of some of the band's best pop songs. The title track, for instance, where Lennon's as confused and angry as he was on "I'm a Loser", but now the music doesn't follow suit-- its briskness blanks his pleas, and his bandmates sound more mocking than sympathetic. Paul gets similar finger-wagging backing on "The Night Before", a wonderfully jaunty song about being dumped after a one-night stand. "You're Gonna Lose That Girl" is another song happy to marry beauty to venom-- its words an explicit threat, its harmonies an example of the seemingly effortless loveliness that makes people go gooey and mystical when the Beatles are mentioned.
--Tom Ewing, Pitchfork

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#132. PJ Harvey | Let England Shake (2011)
# of Voters: 28 | Score: 1241.723
Rank in 2014: #135
AM 3000 Rank: #202
Top Fans: Gillingham (#14), Whuntva (#30), GucciLittlePiggy (#37), Jirin (#38), ChrisK (#43), JohnnyBGoode (#44), Toni (#51), LuvulongTIM (#58), Andyd1010 (#78)
In fact, listeners used to Harvey in full-on, bug-eyed Dorset avenger mode might be slightly taken aback by Let England Shake. Not because of the preponderance of gorgeous tunes – if, in the past, Harvey has been guilty of making records one admires for their bloody-mindedness rather than enjoys for their songs, she's also proved herself capable of turning on the melodic charm at will. It's more a matter of tone. The music sounds muted, misty and ambiguous, which seems to fit with Harvey's vision of England: "The damp grey filthiness of ages, fog rolling down behind the mountains and on the graveyards and dead sea captains," she sings on The Last Living Rose.
--Alexis Petridis, The Guardian

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#131. Daft Punk | Discovery (2001)
# of Voters: 27 | Score: 1257.446
Rank in 2014: #132
AM 3000 Rank: #206
Top Fans: Renan (#11), VanillaFire1000 (#24), Schaefer.tk (#39), BleuPanda (#53), OrdinaryPerson (#63), Nick (#70), Nico (#74), Acroamor (#89), Jackson (#90), Panam (#94)
Though "Aerodynamic" and "Superheroes" have a bit of the driving acid minimalism associated with Homework, here Daft Punk is more taken with the glammier, poppier sound of Eurodisco and late R&B. Abusing their pitch-bend and vocoder effects as though they were going out of style (about 15 years too late, come to think of it), the duo loops nearly everything they can get their sequencers on -- divas, vocoders, synth-guitars, electric piano -- and conjures a sound worthy of bygone electro-pop technicians from Giorgio Moroder to Todd Rundgren to Steve Miller. Daft Punk are such stellar, meticulous producers that they make any sound work, even superficially dated ones like spastic early-'80s electro/R&B ("Short Circuit") or faux-orchestral synthesizer baroque ("Veridis Quo").
--John Bush, Allmusic
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by Nassim »

The AM ranking of The Replacements' Let It Be is incorrect !
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by Moonbeam »

Placement for 1999 over the years:

2005: 193
2008: 118
2009: 143
2011: 200
2014: 143
2017: 136

It's held up pretty well over the years despite so many new albums competing for top spots and an increase in participation. One day, one day, may it crack the hallowed top 100. :happy-partydance:

I can rest easy now for the rest of the poll. Loving the rollout. NBE, you have done us all proud!
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by panam »

It's funny to see how positions of the albums from the last part haven't changed too much in three years.
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by Jackson »

The terrible performance of punk in this poll continues with the Ramones falling 30 spots (and I'm surprised again to see myself as the biggest fan--none of the 70 voters had this in their top 25?).

Back to back Flaming Lips is fun, but I'm really surprised to see The Soft Bulletin out of the top 100.
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by andyd1010 »

Jackson wrote:The terrible performance of punk in this poll continues...
Personally I've had a hard time getting into most of these punk albums. It seems like the main appeal is that they're simple with high energy, but a lot of them come across as sloppy to me. I guess that's kind of the point? There are plenty of other bands with punk influences that I love from from the 90s and 2000s (blink-182 probably being the best example) that don't get taken too seriously, but I feel that a lot of them have much stronger melodies and hooks.

When a band just jams simple tunes that aren't that catchy, with shouted off-tune vocals, I don't really buy that the energy and rebellious attitude is enough to make them into all-time classic albums. Now, some of them - especially the big hits by the Ramones - are pretty catchy and fun, but my sentiment still holds for most of their album tracks and a lot of the other punk albums that have fared poorly here. As we have seen a rise for mainstream albums with more melodic appeal, I would guess that other people share a similar feeling.
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by Chris K. »

andyd1010 wrote:
Jackson wrote:The terrible performance of punk in this poll continues...
Personally I've had a hard time getting into most of these punk albums. It seems like the main appeal is that they're simple with high energy, but a lot of them come across as sloppy to me.
I guess I'm curious who you're referring to. I certainly wouldn't describe the debuts from Wire, Gang of Four or The Clash as sloppy. Wire and Gang of Four especially had an artful precision about them.
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by andyd1010 »

Chris K. wrote:
andyd1010 wrote:
Jackson wrote:The terrible performance of punk in this poll continues...
Personally I've had a hard time getting into most of these punk albums. It seems like the main appeal is that they're simple with high energy, but a lot of them come across as sloppy to me.
I guess I'm curious who you're referring to. I certainly wouldn't describe the debuts from Wire, Gang of Four or The Clash as sloppy. Wire and Gang of Four especially had an artful precision about them.
I listened through all three of those albums in the last few months and none of the tracks stood out to me, so I just relistened to a few each, and my opinion hasn't changed. There are hardly any melodies at all. An occasional shout to let out some emotion is fine - I think The Clash do a great job of that for most of London Calling, mixed in with memorable choruses, basslines and melodies. There are almost no memorable riffs in these albums, so the music just drives along at a fast pace, but it doesn't hold my interest. I see how the rhythms are often tight and precise, but I still don't find them appealing... I'll use blink-182 as an example again - a lot of their songs have a unique drum pattern that catches my interest in the first 2 seconds of the song. Other songs of theirs draw me in immediately with the opening guitar riff or bassline. But I'm never drawn in to any of the songs on the albums you mentioned. Maybe 'sloppy' isn't the right word, but the genre isn't exactly known for its virtuoso instrumentalists or frontmen who could win any singing competitions. That's fine in and of itself - Bob Dylan wouldn't, and Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen and Win Butler probably wouldn't win any either... but those four have sung so many powerful and engaging songs, whereas I feel that most of these punk songs combine mediocre vocals with forgettable melodies, and that keeps most of them out of my lists. I'm probably missing something, and I haven't done extensive research on why these albums are so acclaimed, but that was my experience listening to them.
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by DaveC »

Well, firstly "London Calling" isn't a punk album (although I admit it is usually categorised as such). Just to add fuel to the fire. I voted for The Clash, The Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks, The Gang of Four, Wire, Stiff Little Fingers, and The Jam (again not really Punk). But only one genuine US punk act (The Gun Club). I wonder if Punk's poor showing is partly down to a trans Atlantic taste discrepancy.
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by andyd1010 »

DaveC wrote:Well, firstly "London Calling" isn't a punk album (although I admit it is usually categorised as such). Just to add fuel to the fire. I voted for The Clash, The Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks, The Gang of Four, Wire, Stiff Little Fingers, and The Jam (again not really Punk). But only one genuine US punk act (The Gun Club). I wonder if Punk's poor showing is partly down to a trans Atlantic taste discrepancy.
You might be on to something there. I really enjoy London Calling and All Mod Cons, and I like a couple of songs by The Gun Club (though I don't like any of those artists as much as the critics). But I have not gotten anything out of the other albums, and I guarantee the vast majority of people I know have never heard of any of them besides The Clash and The Sex Pistols... An alarming number of people around here haven't even heard of those two.
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by StevieFan13 »

andyd1010 wrote:
DaveC wrote:Well, firstly "London Calling" isn't a punk album (although I admit it is usually categorised as such). Just to add fuel to the fire. I voted for The Clash, The Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks, The Gang of Four, Wire, Stiff Little Fingers, and The Jam (again not really Punk). But only one genuine US punk act (The Gun Club). I wonder if Punk's poor showing is partly down to a trans Atlantic taste discrepancy.
You might be on to something there. I really enjoy London Calling and All Mod Cons, and I like a couple of songs by The Gun Club (though I don't like any of those artists as much as the critics). But I have not gotten anything out of the other albums, and I guarantee the vast majority of people I know have never heard of any of them besides The Clash and The Sex Pistols... An alarming number of people around here haven't even heard of those two.
I've always thought of London Calling as part punk, part kind of its own thing (like the Jam or Husker Du). Having been raised on both British and American punk (hell, the list I made was about half punk, including the entire top 3 if you count the Velvet Underground), I'd hate to see its presence fade here. It's exciting, un-pretentious music.
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by Jirin »

Lots of tumbles for hard rock and gruff singers. Stooges, Tom Waits, Pixies. Big shift in voting population, I guess. Hopefully Rain Dogs manages to stay top 100.
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by notbrianeno »

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#130. Brian Eno | Another Green World (1975)
# of Voters: 25 | Score: 1257.848
Rank in 2014: #114
AM 3000 Rank: #271
Top Fans: BangJan (#11), ChrisK (#20), SweepstakesRon (#23), onofSamIAm (#34), NotBrianEno (#38), EmilienDelRey (#40), Jackson (#41), Gillingham (#68), SJner (#68), Harold (#72), Antonius (#100)
As a child, Eno had designed houses, blueprints, sketches for fantastical and improbable places, filled with labyrinths and secret passageways. Trees grew through the middle of rooms, streams ran indoors. *Another Green World *captures those rooms in sound. Instead of linear, narrative structures that move from A to B to C to convey development, songs like “The Big Ship” start on A and linger, accumulating countermelodies, magnifying themes, staying the same and yet revealing new sides with every turn. The effect is like seeing a two-dimensional image rise off the page and then slowly fall again.
--Mike Powell, Pitchfork

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#129. Neil Young | Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (1969)
# of Voters: 29 | Score: 1259.001
Rank in 2014: #80
AM 3000 Rank: #229
Top Fans: DocBrown (#18), Chambord (#20), SJner (#21), LiveinPhoenix (#42), Acroamor (#45), VeganValentine (#99)
The beginning of his fruitful collaboration with Crazy Horse, this brings to the fore the distinctive guitar sound of Neil Young, the fireworks that were only hinted at (previously given free rein on his self-titled debut's epic "Cortez the Killer") before are on vibrant display all over this album. Not only do we get the chugging, legendary hard rock standard "Cinnamon Girl" (a slim tease at three minutes), there are also a pair of extended guitar pieces in "Down by the River" and "Cowgirl in the Sand", both written in a fever dream state, pulling together murderous desire and references to The Wizard of Oz into a landmark guitar cacophony.
--jshopa, RYM

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#128. Joy Division | Unknown Pleasures (1979)
# of Voters: 25 | Score: 1265.380
Rank in 2014: #87
AM 3000 Rank: #61
Top Fans: SJner (#7), Dudumb (#19), BleuPanda (#37), Nick (#45), ChrisK (#55), Toni (#56), Listyguy (#58), Romain (#61), Michel (#83)
The band, notably switching out punk-rock’s amplifier distortion for a nice coat of studio reverb, wound up playing with the silence between notes just as much as the notes they actually played, often drawing attention to the negative space in their own sparse recordings. Though Hannett would occasionally throw in a keyboard trill or sound effect (most notably the sound of breaking glass in a few places), it was this near-minimalist soundscape that ultimately set up Ian Curtis to speak-sing his vision of a dark, uncompromising dystopia. Coming off more as a sci-fi writer than a pop tunesmith, Curtis’ lyrical style was far too advanced for someone in his early 20s. He was fascinated by an Orwellian style of societal decay, the loss of human identity in the “big-picture” of things.
--Evan Sawdey, Popmatters

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#127. Animal Collective | Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009)
# of Voters: 27 | Score: 1268.407
Rank in 2014: #209
AM 3000 Rank: #196
Top Fans: JasonBob4567 (#15), Spiderpig (#33), Toni (#35), DepecheMode (#44), NotBrianEno (#56), Nick (#66), Jirin (#82), BleuPanda (#83), JWinton (#84), OrdinaryPerson (#89), ChrisK (#99)
This is maybe the most meticulously crafted album I've ever listened to. Every single sound on this is unlike anything else I've heard. It's not like it's a bunch of live instruments or stock synths and drum machines. Instead, it's like every single millisecond of sound has been treated with all of these effects so that it just sounds completely otherworldly. You can tell the budget was high here, and you can tell AnCo accomplished everything they wanted to here. It's so detailed, so labored over; there's no way they just settled for OK for one split second here. And the writing is by far the strongest they've ever done. These are all legitimately catchy but still incredibly unpredictable pop songs with fucking dense harmonies.
--JasonBob4567, RYM

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#126. De La Soul | 3 Feet High & Rising (1989)
# of Voters: 26 | Score: 1269.273
Rank in 2014: #157
AM 3000 Rank: #76
Top Fans: EmilienDelRey (#9), OrdinaryPerson (#22), JohnnyBGoode (#26), Honorio (#57), Schaefer.tk (#58), SonofSamIAm (#66), Antonius (#83)
Hailing from Long Island, group members Posdnuos, Trugoy the Dove and Maseo met in high school and went on to impress local producer Prince Paul— a member of Stetsasonic— who circulated their demo tape and got them buzzing in the rap industry scene. They landed a deal with Tommy Boy Records, and with Prince Paul behind the boards, convened in Brooklyn's Calliope Studios to work on "3 Feet High and Rising." A veritable how-to guide on hip-hop sampling, the album would plumb dozens of genres for its sonic palette— rock, jazz, funk, etc.— and spawn classic cuts like "Me, Myself and I" and "Buddy" (the original and remix). If hip-hop was in need of a something different, "3 Feet High and Rising" was definitely it for it was playful, thoughtful, worldly and comedic. Moreover, it was a brash introduction of the D.A.I.S.Y. age. De La Soul's way of letting everyone know that rap's free-thinking set was finally here.
--Paul Cantor, Billboard

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#125. Curtis Mayfield | Superfly (1972)
# of Voters: 25 | Score: 1281.897
Rank in 2014: #145
AM 3000 Rank: #182
Top Fans: SonofSamIAm (#11), Panam (#22), Bootsy (#32), Toni (#33), Georgie (#39), Nico (#42), Nicolas (#43), Romain (#72), ProsecutorGodot (#76), Jackson (#77), Babydoll (#82), Dexter (#94), Bruno (#100)
"Little Child Runnin' Wild" sets the tone of the whole record — episodic, tragic, hungry and telling tales of psychic misery. The story is that the coke dealer wants to split the scene, leave it clean and is all pent up with conflicts of values. Mayfield's soothing falsetto purr transforms into an anxious cry during climactic moments in the song/stories — he is a tremendous vocal actor: "Pusherman," "Freddie's Dead" and "Eddie You Should Know Better" are crawling with tension; "Nothing On Me" and "Super Fly" are triumphant and wailing, and "Give Me Your Love" is fine accompaniment for the slippery bathtub-fuck scene that makes the whole picture worthwhile for many of its patrons. The moral is that ol' Super Fly is still badass stuff even if the cops are behind it, and also that this record is currently selling as well as good coke and deserves to do so.
--Bob Donat, Rolling Stone

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#124. Nirvana | MTV Unplugged in New York (1994)
# of Voters: 29 | Score: 1291.111
Rank in 2014: #242
AM 3000 Rank: #311
Top Fans: Victor.Marianoo77 (#32), Panam (#36), ProsecutorGodot (#43), OrdinaryPerson (#44), Dexter (#51), Slick (#65), DaveC (#93)
the music Nirvana played that night was nearly as coiled up as their electric numbers. Cobain’s voice wheezed out as if through a tightly clamped throat, and the arrangements, starting with his own scruffy guitar plunking, were as rough-hewn as country blues. On record, the combined effect is ! hypnotic: The slowed-down ”About a Girl,” a yearning garage-band rocker from Bleach, sounds more urgent than the original, and the rendition of Leadbelly’s ”Where Did You Sleep Last Night” is terrifying, especially when Cobain’s voice leaps from a dazed murmur to a phlegmy, mesmerizing screech in the last verse. Beyond inducing a sense of loss for Cobain himself, Unplugged elicits a feeling of musical loss, too: The delicacy and intimacy of these acoustic rearrangements hint at where Nirvana (or at least Cobain, who was said to be frustrated with the limitations of the band) could have gone.
--David Brown, EW

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#123. Arctic Monkeys | Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not (2006)
# of Voters: 25 | Score: 1293.783
Rank in 2014: #223
AM 3000 Rank: #146
Top Fans: M24 (#28), Nassim (#40), Victor.Marianoo77 (#44), Toni (#49), BryanBehar (#60), GucciLittlePiggy (#66), JWinton (#69), Romain (#75), BleuPanda (#75), DaveC (#77), GabeBasso (#80), LuvulongTIM (#83), Chambord (#93)
It’s those lyrics that set the Monkeys apart from their contemporaries. Turner effortlessly describes scenarios that everyone can identify with – a taxi ride home, pretentious bands who pretend to be from New York, arguments with a girlfriend – and manages to make every line sound pithy, funny, poignant and immensely quotable.
--John Murphy, MusicOMH

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#122. Vampire Weekend | Modern Vampires of the City (2013)
# of Voters: 26 | Score: 1297.399
Rank in 2014: #171
AM 3000 Rank: #246
Top Fans: Andyd1010 (#14), ChrisK (#38), GucciLittlePiggy (#39), Nick (#46), BleuPanda (#47), JWinton (#55), M24 (#55), Acroamor (#68), Harold (#73), DocBrown (#77), NotBrianEno (#90)
Melodic gifts are here in abundance: but the palette used to explore them has been vastly enhanced, Ezra Koenig’s vocals rich, varied and, at times, transcendental.
Having described this record as “darker and more organic”, it’s certainly true that Vampire Weekend has found a sonic subtlety that suits them.
Songs take unexpected diversions: the charging rhythm of ‘Worship You’, for example, is wonderfully offset by a distorted, intense and giddy solo, which slowly collapses into a multi-tracked wash of soaring vocals.
--Gareth James, Clash

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#121. David Bowie | Station to Station (1976)
# of Voters: 25 | Score: 1301.277
Rank in 2014: #137
AM 3000 Rank: #284
Top Fans: Babydoll (#3), SweepstakesRon (#15), SJner (#31), Profeta (#41), GabeBassso (#44), JWinton (#47), Romain (#51), Listyguy (#65), BangJan (#67), Maschine_man (#74), Moonbeam (#82)
Station to Station finds Bowie expressing his weariness while the party was still rages on around him; even in the midst of his "Golden Years", he's yearning to "run for the shadows." In essence, the album is a cry for help from the champagne room: On the hymn-like piano-ballad "Word on a Wing", the career chameleon decries this "age of grand illusion" (tellingly, this LP's Thin White Duke persona would be the last character Bowie introduced), while the title track's momentous prog-disco suite-- with references to Aleister Crowley and Kabbalism-- charts a course from spiritual void toward ecstatic religious reawakening. "It's not the side effects of the cocaine," Bowie declares as the song hits its funky, 4/4 stride, "I'm thinking that it must be love." Rarely have delusions been rendered with such grandeur.
--Stuart Berman, Pitchfork
Nick
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by Nick »

That's a brutally low finish for Unknown Pleasures :/

Makes me pretty worried for some of the remaining punk albums (looking at you, Television!)
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by StevieFan13 »

Nick wrote:That's a brutally low finish for Unknown Pleasures :/

Makes me pretty worried for some of the remaining punk albums (looking at you, Television!)
Punk, I don't know, but I've got a good feeling about new wave at least (Queen is Dead hasn't shown up yet).
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by Chris K. »

StevieFan13 wrote:
Nick wrote:Makes me pretty worried for some of the remaining punk albums (looking at you, Television!)
Punk, I don't know, but I've got a good feeling about new wave at least (Queen is Dead hasn't shown up yet).
I'm pretty worried about Television too. It's dropped at least slightly every poll. That I can handle, but a big drop would be a heart breaker for me. The Queen Is Dead is a pretty consistent top 20-er so I'm pretty hopeful there (both albums are in my top 15).
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by andyramones1234 »

Ramones well positioned up, if we consider we are talking about music in general, all styles, all artists, all periods. Proud.
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by veganvalentine »

I understand why many of you bemoan the low showing for punk and post-punk, but for me nearly all of the AM Top 100 albums that have dropped out so far are the ones that I don't enjoy very much.

Also, if I'm not mistaken, Andyramone1234 was the person who voted exclusively for metal, punk, and hard rock albums, so it's nice to see one of their choices (Appetite for Destruction) finally make the top 500.

Regarding Marquee Moon, I can still see it doing fairly well. Most punk albums don't appeal to me very much, but I like Marquee Moon because it's more like prog punk, as bizarre as that terms sounds. Actually, I think bands that blend prog and indie/punk aesthetics (like The Mars Volta and The Dear Hunter) usually sound pretty interesting.
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by Listyguy »

Man, we're seeing a lot of albums from the 80-100 range in 2014 falling off, so there will be a lot of newcomers to the top 100.

But losing Unknown Pleasures at this stage is BRUTAL.
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by Jirin »

Clearly, there has been a shift in voting population to value good pitch more and to value mood and raw energy less.
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by veganvalentine »

Jirin wrote:Clearly, there has been a shift in voting population to value good pitch more and to value mood and raw energy less.
I tend to agree with you, but do you care to elaborate on your definition of "good pitch" more?
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by Jackson »

andyd1010 wrote:
DaveC wrote:Well, firstly "London Calling" isn't a punk album (although I admit it is usually categorised as such). Just to add fuel to the fire. I voted for The Clash, The Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks, The Gang of Four, Wire, Stiff Little Fingers, and The Jam (again not really Punk). But only one genuine US punk act (The Gun Club). I wonder if Punk's poor showing is partly down to a trans Atlantic taste discrepancy.
You might be on to something there. I really enjoy London Calling and All Mod Cons, and I like a couple of songs by The Gun Club (though I don't like any of those artists as much as the critics). But I have not gotten anything out of the other albums, and I guarantee the vast majority of people I know have never heard of any of them besides The Clash and The Sex Pistols... An alarming number of people around here haven't even heard of those two.
Here are the punk or punk-influenced albums I voted for in my top 200. I'd recommend digging in on the catchier side first, which may be more to your liking (stuff like the Undertones, the Buzzcocks, and McLusky). While some of them may be more difficult, these albums have some of the best energy, most inspired performances, and most interesting riffs in all of rock music, so I can't see how you would dismiss punk as a whole genre.

5 | Pixies | Doolittle
17 | The Clash | London Calling
26 | Ramones | Ramones
27 | Fucked Up | David Comes To Life
32 | Hüsker Dü | Zen Arcade
39 | The Stooges | Fun House
40 | The Gun Club | Fire of Love
51 | Sleater-Kinney | One Beat
53 | Wire | Pink Flag
60 | Minutemen | Double Nickels on the Dime
85 | McLusky | McLusky Do Dallas
103 | The Stooges | Raw Power
140 | Television | Marquee Moon
143 | Wire | Chairs Missing
154 | Fugazi | The Argument
163 | Gang of Four | Entertainment!
165 | Wipers | Youth of America
174 | The Undertones | The Undertones
175 | Buzzcocks | Singles Going Steady
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by Harold »

veganvalentine wrote:
Jirin wrote:Clearly, there has been a shift in voting population to value good pitch more and to value mood and raw energy less.
I tend to agree with you, but do you care to elaborate on your definition of "good pitch" more?
I'm partial to the split-fingered fastball, myself.
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by Jirin »

veganvalentine wrote:
Jirin wrote:Clearly, there has been a shift in voting population to value good pitch more and to value mood and raw energy less.
I tend to agree with you, but do you care to elaborate on your definition of "good pitch" more?
People whose voice lands exactly on the notes. :)
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by Listyguy »

Harold wrote:
veganvalentine wrote:
Jirin wrote:Clearly, there has been a shift in voting population to value good pitch more and to value mood and raw energy less.
I tend to agree with you, but do you care to elaborate on your definition of "good pitch" more?
I'm partial to the split-fingered fastball, myself.
I enjoyed this joke probably a little too much.
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Re: AMF Favorite Albums of All-Time -- RESULTS

Post by Brad »

Harold wrote:
veganvalentine wrote:
Jirin wrote:Clearly, there has been a shift in voting population to value good pitch more and to value mood and raw energy less.
I tend to agree with you, but do you care to elaborate on your definition of "good pitch" more?
I'm partial to the split-fingered fastball, myself.
How 'bout a filthy slider?
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