The Friday Fun Canon Discussion And Monster Poll
People in the Popular comments boxes are talking about “the canon”. I’m always quite curious as to which bits of the canon have ‘taken’ with a broadly pop-positive audience such as we have here. So here’s a poll, very easy to fill in, just say which of the Top 50 albums OF ALL TIME EVER you love. You can interpret how strong an attachment you want “love” to be, of course.
The list of albums is from Acclaimed Music, a kind of ‘metacanon’ which lists the top 3000 albums.
To make it more interesting, answer these questions in the comments box:
1. What’s the WORST record on this list?
2. Which of the records you ticked did you love first?
3. Which of them did you start to love most recently?
Poll below the cut.
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Hmm…Dylan. The thing is I can appreciate Dylan for his music and the decision he made to go electric, so as not to be stifled in a museum of his own creation, but I still can’t “love” his music. Even a mature me finds it all a bit…samey. Maybe that’s the point. Concentrate on the poetry of his lyrics. Let the music wash over you. I just don’t feel it. Maybe I should be a prime target for some Kogan too.
Both of them are of course writing songs — and making music — that’s all about the allure of the seriously resistable: hence perhaps being able to flip their FOES so sharply
Gaga would be the modern equivalent :)
@46, @48, many thanks. I nabbed a cheap copy of Kogan on Amazon just now, and will read it with interest. Right, definitely going to make this a project now! (@47 notwithstanding ;)
Hey, I loved me some Bob when he was in the Wilburys, after all.
The Doors at the bottom? Shame on you!
I can’t say which is the worst because there are some, even up there in the top ten, that I have never heard of.
I’m always surprised to see Exile on Main Street riding high in these things because it came out when the Stones were well past their sell-by date (they may be still going but they’ve been pretty rank for decades now)
And where, might I ask, is Tapestry? Still the biggest -selling album by a female performer I believe. And nothing from Leonard Cohen? Songs of Love and Hate at least, sure ly?
Worst: The Doors
Loved first: Sgt. Pepper’s
Loved most recently: Abbey Road
I ticked 30, possibly being a bit generous on a handful, but not too many. I am very disappointed to see James Brown doing so badly.
WORST: A hard call between the Beatles, the Doors and Radiohead.
EARLIEST LOVE: Ziggy Stardust, when it came out. Yes I am old.
MOST RECENT LOVE: Probably the oldest album on there, Kind of Blue. I’ve owned it for years, but I think I’ve played it more regularly in the last five years than I used to, and probably more still in the last year or so.
Anyway, to answer the questions from what I know:
The worst in the list tat I know would have to be Never Mind The Bollocks: as I’ve said before it is the beginning of the deification of the thick and untalented.
The one I learned to love earliest would be Rubber Soul of course.
The one I came to most recently, oddly enough, would be Astral Weeks. Which I’ve only investigated in the last couple of years.
I’m now going to play the entire Doors canon in order so blot out the idea that I keep company with people so lacking in appreciation that they hate them!
Ticked quite lot in a lazy ‘Oh yeah, I used to love that’ sort of way, and then went back and eliminated half on the basis of ‘Seriously, do I still love it now?’
Worst — sorry, I have never been able to take to Beatles albums; growing up, I hated all the snobbery about them and have never had the tolerance to try.
Earliest would have been Ziggy when it came out, but it didn’t make the ‘still love it now’ cut. Which leaves Horses probably.
Most recent — so many here I haven’t heard; I find my cut-off is late 80s, so that would probably be Prince.
I’m shocked to see the distain for the Doors; that’s one of the few ‘love-at-first-listen’ albums that still makes the cut. It is what I did, and all I did, when I was at university.
Not really shocked at dislike for The Doors – Morrison is a tough dude to like and liking him seems to come with plenty of cultural baggage. More surprised at the low Hendrix votes – maybe people don’t return to the actual albums very much, while admiring the man?
I like the Doors a lot but really not the first LP: Strange Days, Waiting for the Sun and LA Woman are all way better… (Name three other canonic rockbands w/o a bass player)
Also: RIDE THE SNAKE!
Also also: “In 2009, Manzarek collaborated with “Weird Al” Yankovic, playing keyboards on the single “Craigslist” which is a style parody of the Doors”
Yeah, my dislike for the Doors is almost entirely because of Morrison’s collosal d1ckishness. I have no problems with the music, even liking a fair bit of stuff that obv. draws quite heaviliy on their sound, but his persona is so, so annoying.
I’m surprised at how low Hendrix is polling too. I didn’t vote for them myself but, you know, they are bloody good (though, again, I’d have gone with ‘Axis: Bold As Love’ instead)
Isn’t Off The Wall considered more ‘classic’ than Thriller, by the way?
I’m guessing that ‘Live At The Apollo’ is the least-listened to of the 50, rather than unloved by those who know it.
Glossing over the fact that I missed The Queen is Dead off because I haven’t got my glasses on – I think I ticked about 21, presuming it was acceptable to use a little poetic licence around “love”. I mean “really like, would recommend, enjoy playing”. The secret truth about a lot of famously good albums is that they’re really good.
I’m finding it quite hard to say which one I loved most recently because it just seems like they all just…happened at the same time, when I was about 13-15. I remember very few of them coming out, and I’m 28 – which tells you a lot about a) how regularly the canon is updated and b) how this stuff functions quite nicely as a Tricolore course in rock that gets the fundamentals out of the way so you can dig a little deeper later. (Or if you’re my dad c) how no one has made any good music since 1978). Anyway, I think I was in my 20s when I found how good Born to Run was, so that was probably last over the finish line.
I’m quite interested in the anti-canon. By which I don’t mean the good stuff which we know isn’t quite canon but we’re quite used to hearing people defend, reading dissertations about how it is equally worthy &c &c (this frequently means pop, hip hop and dance, doesn’t it?). So, not the Bee Gees, Abba, Fleetwood Mac, Hall & Oates, Girls Aloud, Pet Shop Boys – these things are probably quite well represented in the secret second canon, you know the one what secret Illuminati tastemakers in that London like. Rather, I mean things that it’s just *not okay to like*. I mean the true underclass, the unrescuably unhip. Alanis Morissette. Tori Amos. I don’t like this stuff either, but I hate the fact that I wince when people say they do. Hardly the behaviour of an enlightened equal opportunities pop kid. But I do wince. I wonder if it would be possible to make a list of the “anti-canon”. Or even just think of a better name for it.
I love “Graceland” though.
Swings and roundabouts.
Worst – “Josh Tree” – Bono was a twat by then
“Forever Changes” – as discussed in previous post.
Earliest – “Abbey Road” – still my favourite Beatles LP
“Marquee Moon” – probably still my favourite from the list
Most Recent – “Horses” – only really listened to it after I heard “Twelve” and before her recent tour.
As with most of us, I could happily add another fifty better albums, amny of which I would consider “canon”, but I appreciate the list needs to be finite.
65 – it only got 2/5 on Allmusic.com:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_at_the_Apollo_%28Hall_&_Oates_album%29
(sorry)
@51 One of the things I love best about Dylan is sorta the sameiness. He has long, long epic songs that start up, and feel like they have been going *forever*, and will keep going forever, and when the world ends Dylan will still be singing it, and it still won’t quite make sense, and this is a good thing. I think Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands is my favourite example of this manner of song, and its placement at the end of Blonde on Blonde is one of the biggest reasons I love that album so much.
@68 – Zing!
@58 Rosie – never mind, some of us will be doing the same with U2 and Radiohead.
I was going to save this for #616 or #668, but I keep wanting to thrust a copy of this into the hands of every U2 hater here. The “pompous”, “arrogant” Bono really isn’t the true Paul Hewson, and Flanagan shows why – and I say that as someone who used to believe it, even though I liked much of their music. Flanagan accompanied them around the world during their Achtung Baby/Zoorapa phase, and the result is like a backstage pass and travelogue combined; I would even venture that you don’t have to be a U2 fan to enjoy it. I’ve never made it through Eamon Dunphy’s 1980s band bio, but U2 at the End of the World was a real page-turner.
#70 – Radiohead? Not on Popular’s turf.
I’m actually not a total U2 hater – the singles off the Joshua Tree and Unforgettable Fire albums do a particular thing really well.
I ticked about 25, and I like a fair few more.
WORST for me (of those I’ve heard) is probably The Joshua Tree — then again, I don’t hate it, just don’t really think it deserves to be there.
The Talking Heads (Remain in Light) is probably the one I loved first, due to my stepfather playing their stuff all the time. Bob Dylan is the one I’ve got into most recently, or actually Born to Run, probably, as these are the kinds of canonical touchstones that people often mention and which I have spent most of my life not really paying attention to.
I am also surprised @66 suggesting that Tori Amos might be anti-canon. I’ve never even for a moment considered that liking her music is “wrong” by anyone’s standards (though I concede she has a fair few loopy fans)! Boys for Pele is one of my favourite albums.
i’ve heard less than half of these and found most of them “B- wouldn’t listen again unless pressed” at best. only a couple i need, and a couple i’d rather never hear
@71 Not Popular, no, but in terms of this canon poll, Radiohead fans reprazent. (Although The Bends > OK Computer < Kid A, with In Rainbows fighting it out in there too.)
I'm conflicted about most U2 albums; all their '80s albums are half great (or less than half in a couple of cases) and half just okay for me, which means that none rank as mighty landmarks (although in this context I figured expressing love for The Joshua Tree was fair). Achtung Baby was 11/12ths great for me, and the remaining 1/12th was great in its single remix, so it wins big time; Zooropa was a close second; and every album since is back to their earlier strike rate.
The “anti-canon” could be just as contentious as the Canon. For here, we are moving away from broad(ish) consensus into the murky waters of subjectivity. Even considering the criteria for anti-canon could raise some fierce debate. Do we base it on sales over negative critical response? What to exclude? If the Canon is rock-centric, do we take pop, hip-hop and dance and exclude C&W, metal and other less fashionable genre from where the anti-canon may supply more examples? (Ah, yes but if the album is good/bad (?) enough and meets the anti-canon criteria, then it won’t matter will it?)
Or if there is a metacanon of 3000 albums from which you can benchmark say, 100 as regularly the best, there must be 100×3000 anti-metacanon. Who would have the patience to sift through that lot?