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I enjoy listening to it but this is actually true.

Exactly. None of it is offensively bad. I will never have to turn her music off or switch away from it. But it is just so mediocre. The way I see it is it's made for department store playlists. But the fact that she has so many fans with cult like behavior and her albums make the top albums anywhere is just so confusing.
 
Music tastes are inherently subjective. There’s really no way to be objective unless you start only looking at technicals like ‘fastest rap verse’, ‘longest guitar solo’, ‘most albums sold’ which rather ignores the point of music in the first place which is to stir emotion and bring enjoyment. You don’t have to agree with the list, that’s perfectly fine. But it doesn’t make sense to pretend you have some definitive list that is objectively better because that’s not possible.
Taste and preference are inherently subjective, that has little to do with what I said.

Technical feats and skill are not subjective and there is certainly a plethora of metrics for which data already exists such as albums/songs sold, tracks streamed/downloaded, concert attendance, radio plays, etc. The kind of metrics that are generally used to create said lists - true top albums.

Critics have been rating/ranking artists for ages - typically with at least some objective metrics, Apple's version just appears so much more subjective than predecessors when it plainly states "independent of streaming statistics".

There's no pretending here, it's not just possible, it's guaranteed there are lists more objective than this.
 
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If you like a certain kind of sound!

Not for me. I can't really bear to listen to that kind of music.
 
The average year of release for each ten breaks down as follows:

91-100: 2004
81-90: 1990
71-80: 1997
61-70: 1990
51-60: 1989
41-50: 1988
31-40: 1989
21-30: 1984
20-11:1986
10-1: 1995

I'm a bit surprised at the leap forward in the average age of the music of the top 10.
If I’m following this correctly does that mean there aren’t many albums from the 60s or 70s on the list?
 
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Watching how vitriolic people are getting over a subjective list has been more entertaining than I thought.

Also even funnier is people acting like this list shouldn't be considered objective/pointing out it's subjective as if that's new information. Have you even been listening? They started every episode saying it's subjective and they expect you to disagree with picks and that's part of the fun.

Some of you really need to log off and get a grip. It's just a fun little project. Your music taste isn't invalidated because your favorite artist didn't rank higher, and it's embarrassing to try to invalidate an artist you don't like because they ranked higher. How are some of y'all even adults?
 
Taste and preference are inherently subjective, that has little to do with what I said.

Technical feats and skill are not subjective
Yes, that's what I said...

and there is certainly a plethora of metrics for which data already exists such as albums/songs sold, tracks streamed/downloaded, concert attendance, radio plays, etc. The kind of metrics that are generally used to create said lists - true top albums.
This is a list of 'best' albums, whatever 'best' means to the creators. It's not a list of best-selling albums. There's a wiki article for that if such a sterile analysis is what you seek.


Critics have been rating/ranking artists for ages - typically with at least some objective metrics, Apple's version just appears so much more subjective than predecessors when it plainly states "independent of streaming statistics".
Again, how good an album is comes down to subjective preference and taste. This will vary from person to person and curator to curator.

There's no pretending here, it's not just possible, it's guaranteed there are lists more objective than this.
Sure, like the list of best-selling albums above. That's indeed very objective.
 
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Taste and preference are inherently subjective, that has little to do with what I said.

Technical feats and skill are not subjective and there is certainly a plethora of metrics for which data already exists such as albums/songs sold, tracks streamed/downloaded, concert attendance, radio plays, etc. The kind of metrics that are generally used to create said lists - true top albums.

Critics have been rating/ranking artists for ages - typically with at least some objective metrics, Apple's version just appears so much more subjective than predecessors when it plainly states "independent of streaming statistics".

There's no pretending here, it's not just possible, it's guaranteed there are lists more objective than this.

I disagree that there is anything qualitatively objective about music. To say "tracks sold" is an objective measure of the quality of music is simply incoherent. If 10 people love an album and 1 person hates it, the only objective thing you can say is 10 people loved that album and 1 person hated it. But that can't say anything qualitative about the music. So if you want a list that simply lists number of sales, OK. But again, this won't and can't say anything qualitative about the music.

Any list about music is wholly subjective; even choosing "tracks sold" is a subjective metric.
 
This is embarrassing calling this a "modern evaluation" or in other words a subjective selection process involving a biased group of people without objective data.

I can't imagine what would go wrong when making a best album list without using objective metrics.

Few things in life are more subjective than the perception of music. So there really is ZERO objective data that can be applied to a list like this. “Best” is an absolutely subjective descriptor of a kind of art that is itself absolutely subjective.
 
If I’m following this correctly does that mean there aren’t many albums from the 60s or 70s on the list?
No, there were. That's just the average year of release for each 10. So like the average of 1992 and 1976 would be 1984. I personally expected it to trend older as we got closer to 1, but it did not.
 
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Terrible list. No "Dark Side of the Moon", "Yellow Brick Road". Abbey Road isn't even the best Beatles album IMHO.
 
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oh god, yall just unleashed the forum demons in a way I don’t even think the Pride bands do 🤣🤣🤣

well then! why not throw in my two cents. this tracks for what seems like a passion project out of a music streaming platform that’s always tried to curate a little bit of everything—which means everyone is gonna say it’s BS that one album didn’t make the final 10. [edited to add this in] it’s a cool little thing they made and I don’t ascribe much importance to it. I found that my music tastes got much more in line with what I actually like when I stopped reading album reviews and letting them subconsciously affect me.

also, sorry to make anyone here feel old: as a zoomer, I can let you know firsthand this is incredibly well-curated to their tastes. their only f—up, if that’s what they were really going for (which it seems like they were), was not putting MBDTF by Kanye at #1—but I can also see why a company like Apple would not want to give a man with his reputation the #1 spot 😂☠️
 
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No, there were. That's just the average year of release for each 10. So like the average of 1992 and 1976 would be 1984. I personally expected it to trend older as we got closer to 1, but it did not.
Ah got it. Math was never my best subject. :)
 
I love classical, but for the most part it is not album based, rather composer based.

Composer based, orchestra based, conductor based, performer based, record label based, instrument based, time period based…

That’s why Apple Music Classical exists. The field of orchestral and “serious” (as opposed to pop) music is VAST. The way fans consume genres within that huge swath are far more varied than pop.
 
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I disagree that there is anything qualitatively objective about music. To say "tracks sold" is an objective measure of the quality of music is simply incoherent. If 10 people love an album and 1 person hates it, the only objective thing you can say is 10 people loved that album and 1 person hated it. But that can't say anything qualitative about the music. So if you want a list that simply lists number of sales, OK. But again, this won't and can't say anything qualitative about the music.

Any list about music is wholly subjective; even choosing "tracks sold" is a subjective metric.
Where did I say tracks sold is an objective measure of quality of music? I just said it was an objective measure, which it is.

Any list about music is not wholly subjective, that is nonsense.
 
Few things in life are more subjective than the perception of music. So there really is ZERO objective data that can be applied to a list like this. “Best” is an absolutely subjective descriptor of a kind of art that is itself absolutely subjective.
My top 10 would have included Van Halen I. I’m sure most here would be like Who? What? Ick. 😂
 
Where did I say tracks sold is an objective measure of quality of music? I just said it was an objective measure, which it is.

Any list about music is not wholly subjective, that is nonsense.
Any list about music that tries to claim anything qualitative is wholly, 100%, subjective. Anything "objective" about a music list can only be quantitative.
 
lol people are taking this list too seriously. Stop clutching your pearls.

100%

If there’s a constant in life it’s that people will make lists. This is especially true of fans of things like movies, music and other entertainment media. There are literally thousands of lists similar to the one Apple published from every source imaginable. If you don’t dig Apple’s choices… find a better list. Simple. Apple doesn’t have a corner on determining the ranking of popular music albums.
 
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