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Apple Music Reveals Top 10 Albums of All Time
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Wouldn’t it make more sense to just pull data for most streams per album from Apple’s hoard of usage statistics?
I’m sure they consider that data to be a valuable company asset that they’re disinclined to share with anyone. Instead all they needed to do was replace the word “best” with the word “favorite” and the whole “problem” would go away.
Hence the term “modern albums”.
Maybe it’s a myth, but doesn’t change that Classics works just as well as an album as most pop music. Yes, pop music can be bought as albums, but they are typically created to be listened to individually, where Classical music is typically designed to be listened to as a concert (obviously not all classical, but symphonies, operas etc).
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It’s a Collection of TRACKS, not necessarily “singles”. My point is, an album like The Wall is conceived as a coherent experience. You should really listen to the whole thing, and you can’t hear it in random order.
The singles approach is not new, you can argue that was the standard before albums were even invented. My point is not that there is anything wrong with singles, my point is that you are not getting the right experience if not listening to The Wall as a whole, whereas with the latest single from Dua Lipa, or Wham’s Last Christmas, it doesn’t matter. It can be alone, on an album, or part of a 200 song playlist. Doesn’t take anything away.
Where in the world did I say that it was?? I just used it as an example.
Do double albums not count as albums? If anything, Der Ring Des Niebelungen is the mother of all albums. The Wall doesn’t fit on one CD either, yet most people would consider that an “album”.
The Wall actually fits better on streaming than any previous format, since it is designed to be circular.
The anecdote is about the 9th, not the 5th.
Hard disagree on pop being better suited. As you say, albums were invented as collections of singles. Most pop music was conceived as singles. That’s what pop music is suited for, singles. There is a reason that some of the most highly regarded albums ARE the concept albums, because they give a larger experience than simply a collection of singles. Making them more similar in concept to a symphony than to a pop single.
Anyway, my point is the list is biased, and is not in fact a reflection of “all time”, regardless of semantics. It’s all a pointless excersize anyway.
Wait, which is the album out of that list you think almost nobody has ever heard of?
I have't been asked, but Lauryn Hill and Frank Ocean come to my mind here.
I don't live in an English speaking country, and I've never even heard Frank Ocean's name before, nor his music. I also have never heard Kendrick Lamar's music, but I have seen the name.
The Fugees had some great songs, so I know who Lauryn Hill is, but I didn't like her solo music.
The Fugees had some great songs, so I know who Lauryn Hill is, but I didn't like her solo music.
Yes, Apple’s 100 Best Albums List Is Ridiculous and Exists Almost Expressly to Make You Mad
As long as it prompts you to stream something, Apple's 100 Greatest Albums list is fine with making you angry with its randomness and recency bias.
variety.com
I could post 10 more links of this list being lampooned.
Classical works are organized in a fundamentally different way.
A list created for the art of consuming music, and not listening to the art of music. The one thing about lists like these (or the lists by the guardians of ancient youth for that matter), is that no list like this will ever get it right. No one will ever have made the list Apple made on their own, and no one will ever agree to the entire list (unless in order to contradict such statement).
Music is art. Or Muzak. And everyone with a list will have their own, often based on their formative years within one decade or another. Any 2 identical lists are either a collaboration or a coincidence.
Music is art. Or Muzak. And everyone with a list will have their own, often based on their formative years within one decade or another. Any 2 identical lists are either a collaboration or a coincidence.
I mean Frank Ocean's album was massive at the time but you think people have never heard of Lauryn Hill?? Even my 78 year old mother is aware of her. She was in the Fugees, they and she was massive in the 90s.
I wouldn't have guessed in a million years that Tim Cook liked rap music so much as to put Lauryn Hill at the #1 spot!
As expected, WAY too much pop and WAY, WAY, WAY too much rap "music". The majority of this list just reinforces how much of a dark age we are in, from a musical perspective.
This list is almost as bad as Rolling Stones list of the top 250 guitarists of all time.
This list is almost as bad as Rolling Stones list of the top 250 guitarists of all time.
You’re furiously rationalizing but you’re still wrong. An album is a collection of songs. You can nit pick over the word “track” or “single” but that’s meaningless nonsense. The word “single” is short for single SONG. Just as the word “track” refers to a single SONG. So the album is absolutely suited to pop music.
Classical on the other hand is not composed of songs. The various segments of a classical or orchestral piece are integral with one another. The piece works as a whole, not as a collection of single songs.
And on concept albums in popular music, they are the exception. Consider The Who’s Tommy. It’s premised on being an OPERA. Opera is classical music. The concept album in pop is the EXCEPTION, not the rule.
So bottom line is still the same. You’re wrong.
Speaking of The Who, they're the biggest snub from my perspective. Quadrophenia is their best album in my opinion, but Who's Next is full of hits that make that album perfectly fit for a list like this.
Outside of The Beatles, who tower over everyone, Led Zeppelin is typically billed as the greatest rock band. For my money though, The Who is better. While concept albums typically contain songs that follow an underlying theme, Tommy took that format to an entirely new level and told a complete story. I'd take Tommy, Who's Next, and Quadrophenia over anything Led Zeppelin ever did.
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It makes me wonder where the list came from. Apple used to tout human curators. Not anymore. I think there’s a very high probability that this list is a reflection of iTunes sales more than anything else and it probably originates from software, not a human being.
On a more serious note, so is this just American/UK based musicians? No international music? I can probably name 20 albums from Latin American musicians that are worlds better than a lot of the junk they selected. Without knowing the criteria they used to make their selections it makes the whole list pretty confusing. Some seem to have been chosen purely due to current popularity, how can you choose anything that has only been out for a few years? There has to be at least a certain amount of time for stuff like this to be digested and all.
Of course it’s all subjective but clearly whoever put this together either has some bad taste, or shouldn’t be doing this sort of thing. Can I add my name to the list of people who don’t know who the hell Frank Ocean is? How can this guy be in the top ten of nobody has a clue who he even is? They really think his album is better than all the incredible music that’s been released in the last 60-70 years? Insanity. So I went to apples website and you can listen to the albums on the top 100, couldn’t even get more than 15 seconds into this Frank dude, absolutely horrid, no wonder nobody has heard of him! What a farce!
After thinking about it for awhile I came up with what should have been the #1 of all time. Just my opinion, but way way WAY better than Lauren Hill and a lot of the other stuff they chose.
1. Metallica - And Justice for All.
Selena should have also been in the top ten.
Of course it’s all subjective but clearly whoever put this together either has some bad taste, or shouldn’t be doing this sort of thing. Can I add my name to the list of people who don’t know who the hell Frank Ocean is? How can this guy be in the top ten of nobody has a clue who he even is? They really think his album is better than all the incredible music that’s been released in the last 60-70 years? Insanity. So I went to apples website and you can listen to the albums on the top 100, couldn’t even get more than 15 seconds into this Frank dude, absolutely horrid, no wonder nobody has heard of him! What a farce!
After thinking about it for awhile I came up with what should have been the #1 of all time. Just my opinion, but way way WAY better than Lauren Hill and a lot of the other stuff they chose.
1. Metallica - And Justice for All.
Selena should have also been in the top ten.