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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Voted for 41 of these, going on gut reaction really – there’s nothing on this list I actively dislike to be honest
1. Let It Bleed – I’ve tried and tried with this one but despite some great moments (Monkey Man, Gimme Shelter) it just feels lacking compared to the Stones albums released either side of it. It’s frustrating because I can’t quite put my finger on why.
2. Nevermind – I’ve mentioned it before but this was a big record for me, about a year after it came out. Sgt. Pepper would be the next one.
3. Live At The Apollo – this lay largely unlistened to for a long time but I had a breakthrough with it sometime last year.
My answers even five years ago would have been very different I think – I had an aversion to overtly bluesy british rock ’til my mid-’20s.
I read the Lennon interview at the time (1970-’71?) but think it came way too late to make a difference in regard to Beatles canon. Also I don’t remember what Lennon said about his own music except that he was thinking of “I’m A Loser” and “Nowhere Man” being the beginning of where he started to think deeper (unless it was somewhere else he said that). But what I mean by “way too late” is that the idea that the late ’60s improved on the early ’60s was embedded in the culture even before the late ’60s – i.e., the late ’60s embodied pre-existing ideas of Meaningfulness and Quality (as Meltzer subsequently labeled/derided the ideas).
But also I’d say that the semi-opposition to Meaning and Quality was in rock criticism from its early and mid ’60s get-go. I say “semi-opposition” in that I doubt that anyone who wasn’t simply reactionary (and no rock critics were) wasn’t excited by the prospect of rock ‘n’ roll blowing beyond its appointed cultural place as entertainment. And Meltzer of course wasn’t against things being meaningful or the making of value judgments. A part of the problem was that Meaning and Quality became niches that rock was boxing itself into. (Not that this is necessarily right, but it’s still a good though too simple way of trying to organize in my mind what was going wrong in the late ’60s and subsequently.)
Overall I’m distrustful of any narrative that shows one side of an ongoing tension or conflict superseding in time another side of the ongoing tension/conflict, even if that story does seem like the truth as it’s occurring. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t tell a good story, just that the story has to acknowledge that all notions of Meaning and Quality are running simultaneously and contain each other. Which is to say that, while showbiz notions of Meaning and Quality may dominate the British mags in the early ’60s (I don’t know, not having seen them), showbiz notions contain art and romanticized folk notions of Meaning and Quality as well, even if those notions seem to challenge the showbiz. But that doesn’t mean that, e.g., it’s not useful to point out that in ’60s Britain the emerging rock critics would have been overthrowing showbiz notions while plumping for the art and romanticized folk notions, whereas in North America the emerging rockcrits were both plumping for and at odds with art and romanticized folk notions, and were more willing to see some value in the showbiz, since they had to deal with the showbiz less. But my guess is that the Brits are closer to the Americans than that story suggests, that they (e.g., Cohn, for instance) are wrestling plenty with the art and folkie notions but they also have to wrestle with entrenched showbiz notions in the mags more than the U.S. critics do, who are coming up in Sing Out! and Esquire and the Voice and the Saturday Review and the New Yorker and the New York Times Arts And Leisure section and, later, Rolling Stone and Fusion and Creem – places where art and folk are more likely than showbiz to be exalted (though Fusion and Creem are also challenging the exalting) – but not particularly in Billboard or Variety.
But I think that the most interesting story is the disjunction between critic and fan. It’s the ’60s fan by and large who’s going for art and folkie Meaning and Quality and trying to impose it on the critic who’s somewhat challenging M&Q. Punk starts with critics at odds with their readers and musicians spitting on their audience and only slowly do the readers/fans take this as a model for spitting back.
I actually meant that Lennon’s judgements helped establish what got counted as its acceptable precursors and what got ignored — so the effect was less on what Beatles music mattered, but on what got to be sketched as the dawn of rock’n'roll, and what didn’t.
And yes, this would have been an effect on Rolling Stone readers rather than writers. (Beatles LPs already supply a critical assessment of their precursors, via the range of cover versions and the styles they synthesised, but the sources aren’t self-evident — they need someone authoritative name them…)
(But this is me remembering my own long-ago claim much more clearly than what was going on the interview I was making claims about…)
(Hmmm. Not so sure about that last sentence of mine in regard to early Stones shows, where the riots inspired by the band had the possibility of turning on the band, at least that’s the story I’ve heard and that one or two bits of YouTube evidence might confirm.)
The thing I’d add to “Quality and Meaning” as elements to be suspicious of, is Craft: as in musicianly technique, what it should be and could be and mustn’t be — because the other two don’t quite cover it, and I think this was something at issue from the early 60s, with writers as semi-bystanders in the contest.
Craft – to be suspicious of and to not denigrate too much. I get the feeling that the Modern Lovers and the Dolls and the Ramones and the Sex Pistols are a critical vortex here, in that they seemed to be trashing standard notions of competence while also being quite admiring of early ’60s craftsmen (Greenwich-Barry-Spector and the lot) whom rock overthrew. And this tension has not gone away, old craft, anti-craft, countercraft.
American Idol/X Factor are plenty interesting here in that they place a huge emphasis on craft, are rethinking the past in interesting ways (Neil Diamond is potentially canon, Sir Andrew is potentially canon, Heart is potentially canon, Mariah is a goddess), but they’re also seeped in the romanticism of the rock era, are praising performers for knowing who they are on the one hand while urging them to take risks on the other. Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood both assured their supremacy in their respective years by walking way out of their expected range and nailing it, Kelly doing Betty Hutton and Carrie doing Heart. Stoner Jason Castro made it into the final four while resolutely (or irresolutely or whatever) delivering something but not totally getting it together, and I think he was admired for this. And there’s Kara DioGuardi on the judges panel embodying all these tensions, Ms. Businesswoman and Ms. Wild Romantic.
The fans just voted off the competent jazz singer Lily Scott and the raw but potentially very good Alex Lambert, both votes making me unhappy.
Album that pleased me by being unexpectedly on the list up-top: Marquee Moon.
Albums that I am surprised aren’t on it: Daydream Nation; This Year’s Model.
the craft aspect actually popped into my head when i remembered that the young mr jagger had written a provocative letter to some jazz publication in 1963 arguing for R&B against jazz, and complaining about how jazz writers and clubs looked down on R&B
(the term “progressive” in prog rock was as far as i know first used by jazz critics to write about a particular trend in jazz: “progressive jazz” meant stan kenton, pretty much…: but in the early days of UK psychedelia, some of the club blues bands who were mixing in other stuff called themselves “progressive blues”) (“progressive” kind of meant, “has to chops also to play classical runs” — or if you were a bluesman, jazz runs)
No one actually likes Daydream Nation, they just think they do.
My canon odyssey is progressing nicely. I’m a little surprised by quite how much ambiguous memory-charge the Joshua Tree has for me, since I don’t think I listened to it more than once or twice at the time: I guess it was so current at school that I just absorbed it.
Pilgrim @ 105: Re “Piper at the Gates of Dawn” scoring so highly in 1974 – it should be remembered that Syd Barrett/(very) early Pink Floyd had a big enough following even in 1974 to have kept a Barrett fanzine/appreciation society going since the start of the 1970s.
And no “Hounds of Love” (or any other Kate Bush), Steely Dan (even the 1988 NME list had Donald Fagen’s “The Nightfly”!).
Also no Frank Sinatra (yes I know he’s not rock but nor is Miles Davis, or Public Enemy for that matter)as he definitely made albums as they came to be known.And if token jazz or rap why no token pre-rock/non-rock?
Finally the regular inclusion of certain non-album artists compilations in these lists (usually 50s rock n roll or 60s soul)always smacked of a desperate and extremely misguided attempt to include everything when such lists were most definitely not all-inclusive).In fact these inclusions could be seen as fatally undermining the whole concept from the word go.
re137 Thanks Andy, I wasn’t aware of that. As a young Floyd fan hooked by DSOTM i was completely unaware of Syd’s place in the band’s history ( and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t alone) so Nick Kent’s article was a revelation to me. I remember buying A Nice Pair – a cut-price package of the two Floyd albums and being initially quite perplexed by the quirkier Syd tracks.
I don’t know if Frank or Mark can shed any light on the impact of Nuggets – a project compiled by Lenny Kaye – (later) of the Patti Smith Group – as both the act of a fan and as a challenge to the canon.
i remember a very funny and evil nme review by julie burchill of — presumably — easter, in which she said PS had a wardrobe full of the skins of famous dead rockstars, and that she liked nothing better put them on and preen around in them
Pilgrim at 137: I should have added that it was called “Terrapin” (after one of his solo tracks) and for a time thee were extracts from old editions on the net – I remember reading them once a few years ago – unfortunately I don’t know if they’re still there.
Something I just posted on Frank’s lj apropos of a few things, including this mammoth conversation – I hate the way the canon monopolises the conversation and the critical space even when there’s a healthy dose of scepticism. I don’t just think most of these albums are bad, I think the list as a whole is very, very boring, and find myself resenting it even more for making Tom plough through it when there are SO MANY better, more worthwhile, more interesting albums he could be ploughing through! The best way to overthrow the canon, once the initial argument against it has been made, is surely to IGNORE it and talk about the stuff that gets overlooked because of its squatting, overbearing presence…
Every sentence written about the Doors or Bob sodding Dylan or U2 (why anything ever needs to be said about U2 apart from the occasional demand for Bono to cunt off I have no idea) is one less sentence devoted to the acres of music which haven’t had half the sentences they deserve yet…
The U2 was worthwhile! It gave me a big unexpected memory-rush and it gave me a good angle on them when they come up on Popular. Otherwise all I’ve listened to so far are records I listen to quite regularly anyway, and the Velvet Underground and Nico, which was worth returning to.
I mean, the reason I’m doing it is that most of these supposedly overbearing squatting inescapable things have BEEN SUCCESSFULLY ESCAPED by me for years.
In a similar vein, I spent a happy hour or so with The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan and Highway 61 Revisited on Saturday night while doing the shopping; that wasn’t time I would have otherwise spent listening to new music, just a podcast or some such. And to me this was new music. Thanks, swanstep – Freewheelin’ was an excellent entry point. I felt that half the stuff I’ve listened to over the past decade had prepared me for it, and that I finally got what all the fuss was about. Highway 61, on the other hand, reminded me of that long-ago evening of Bob overdose that put me off for so long; the band sounded too raucous, and his voice had changed – I couldn’t help half-thinking “Judas!”. But I’m prepared to give it time, and to try the other ’60s albums and beyond, in a way that I never thought I would be.
Indeed I think I mentioned in my post @41 that I needed to reappraise my choices, as much of what I ticked I hadn’t heard in ages.
I think Lex, you made a choice to disregard the canon. That is of course your choice, but in order to reinforce your own system of what is “value” and what isn’t, then you would need some kind of personal canon. The artists/albums/singles/gigs you have gained the most pleasure from, make for a framework for how you appreciate what new discovery comes your way.
At the beginning of this (on the Starship thread), I mistrusted the canon for maybe similar reasons to you, but for perhaps the wrong reasons as Tom and Marcello pointed out to me (strange how Marcello is absent from this thread, but he may have his own reasons for not contributing I guess).
What I’ve read since has been somewhat of an education, and busted a few myths along the way.
Re: #140, I certainly have similar reservations about the canon represented here even if my relationship with it is different to yours – I love many of these albums, yet they make up only a fraction of what I like or want from pop music. I suppose in that respect I’d like to see the canon expanded to the point where it becomes meaningless, i.e. Ziggy Stardust has a place but it should be among a list of 2,000 great albums, not one of 50. I expect I’m not alone in this respect and most Popular commenters could name plenty of lesser-known favourites they love as much as the records they’ve ticked here.
In the meantime, though, I grudgingly accept that the canon is here (for now, not necessarily to stay – I’ve witnessed the stock of various ‘classic’ bands rise and fall over the years and the conversation re: Jefferson Airplane on the ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’ thread underlines this) but I dislike the way it’s approached. My problem with the endless Uncut/Q articles on Dylan or The Beatles is that they almost never add anything to the conversation – after all there’s no real reason why people shouldn’t have fresh perspectives on these records and I’ve enjoyed Marcello’s albums blog precisely for this reason; it’s to his eternal credit that he’s able to write interestingly about something as ubiquitous and frequently discussed as Sgt. Pepper.
However I’m optimistic that things might change (they have to!), that a broader spectrum of tastes and viewpoints could end up being represented in these lists/debates/discussions and the field become wider as a result – Popular is quite heartening in this respect, to be honest!
Perhaps the best way of looking at the canon is as a collection of works which broke new ground, which in one way or another are outstanding milestones in the field.
Consider for a moment the world of film, which has a firm canon going somewhat further back in time than the canon of recorded popular music. I would have no doubt that films like Birth of a Nation or Triumph des Willens have an important part in such a canon. They are undoubtedly works of genius and they undoubtedly went to places nobody had gone before, but they are not pleasant to watch. (Actually I might substitute Intolerance for BOAN but even that’s heavy going). And then the canon inevitably sets up targets to be shot at; not least Citizen Kane which I’ve often heard called cold and soulless although it’s a film I never tire of, if only for one line that gets me every time (“Sure we’re speaking Jedediah: you’re fired”). Conversely there are lots of films I love that don’t really have a place in the canon.
So, on this basis Trout Mask Replica is certainly worthy of a canonical place. I’m happy I have it in my collection and I even like it and appreciate its wit, but I don’t think I’ve listened to it all the way through more than a handful of times and it’s very hard for me to love.
I think the idea of a group of breakthrough works that define a subsequently stable field of interest is entirely coherent and sustainable, and also makes more sense of the sense of time-lockedness — but what it also presumably entails is a “countercanon” of works ostensibly within said field, which actually break OUT of it, and go on to help define a rival field (or more likely fields). It also explains the sense of frustration and irritation, when people working in the rival (later) fields find they’re being hemmed in by the prerequisites of the wrong canon; judged in the wrong field. This is what Jagger was angrily arguing in the early 60s; what Andypandy is arguing re the late 80s; what the Lex is arguing now.
The notion that the cardinality of such a group of breakthrough works will always be divisible by ten — or indeed five — is highly unsustainable.
@144 yeah of course I have a personal canon – everyone does! and the existence of those should render these tired, meaningless rock-crit canons completely redundant. I’m not saying that the individual albums here should be verboten from discussion but the list as a whole should be – it’s incredibly frustrating to see THIS get ~150 responses when there’s so much music out there that’s worthy of this level of discussion that hasn’t begun to be talked about as much. Like, people seem all too willing to talk about the canon and the countercanon and the metacanon from every possible direction even when they don’t profess any particular affection for either the concept or the albums within it, but when you try to talk about actual specific stuff outside it the only response is ~tumbleweeds~.
Come on Lex, metaconversation almost always beats out subject-oriented conversation in terms of wordage! It’s not a good thing necessarily but it’s a thing.
It’s always been the case though – most people tend to only read reviews of artists or songs they’ve already heard, so getting those people to go the extra step and *talk* about music can be a frustrating task unless they know it inside-out.