Reviews discussion

Epignosis wrote: You (and others) are missing my point. An album that is popular isn't necessarily influential, but for an album to be influential, it must be popular (i.e., it must be widely heard).  Otherwise, no one really hears it to be influenced by it. Edit- Although there certainly are exceptions...but Pink Floyd and King Crimson aren't exceptions.  They were heard by many many people.

Epignosis wrote: harmonium.ro wrote: Epignosis wrote: But I think you're missing my point.  These albums were only influential because they were popular.  Otherwise, I don't think artists at the time would be "influenced" (because they never would have heard them). I don't agree with that. Those albums were influential because they were highly creative. If not, all popular albums would be influential, but they aren't. It's not logical. Those fundamental albums were most of all highly creative and they got exposed not necessarily to large publics but to those who made them become influential: new artists seeking for new ideas on which to found their endeavors. For example, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band would still have been a hugely groundbreaking and influential album even if it wasn't sold to the public but only played to other musicians of the time such as Robert Fripp, Jim Morrison, Robert Plant, etc. However that album was also very, very good and the people loved it. Artists will always look very far when searching for ideas. They don't just look at what's popular. At least that how the few musicians I now are. You (and others) are missing my point. An album that is popular isn't necessarily influential, but for an album to be influential, it must be popular (i.e., it must be widely heard).  Otherwise, no one really hears it to be influenced by it. Edit- Although there certainly are exceptions...but Pink Floyd and King Crimson aren't exceptions.  They were heard by many many people.

You're wrong, I've addressed your point in the last part of my post. In order to develop I would say that an album isn't influential if it's popular with me and many other guys. "Influential" means it influenced something, right? Did it influence something in my case or in the case of many other guys? No, it influenced nothing. An album is influential if it influenced other people when doing their thing, like: writing new music, writing reviews and other forms of commentary which made a shift in general taste and in the orientation of musicians.

Robert, maybe you should use another word. I feel that "influential" isn't the word to translate your point. How about "important"?

Just imagine this dialogue:

- Dude, I just checked out this album The Other Side Of The Moon. It's awesome!
- ?
- Really, I like it a lot.
- I've never heard of it.
- I didn't know it either, but I read this review thing and I also made a poll about it on Facebook. It looked like that album is important, so I thought I should check it out. It rawked!

In this case I agree with you: some albums are important because they are popular, and this brings them to the attention of further new listeners. Michael Jackson's Thriller is an important album; it's importance lies there together with it's immense number of people owning it. I don't like what I've heard from this album but I admit it's important. However if I were to listen to it (which I never did) and review it, I wouldn't rate it higher because it is an important album. I would rate it higher, though, if I found out that it had innovative creative qualities which made it influential.


Edited by harmonium.ro - July 16 2009 at 19:16

^ Yeah it will just go round in circles debating semantics. I guess distribution numbers speak volumes also. I would still love to find a site you don't have to log in and register that would give estimates of units sold. Influential/Important could be partially measured thus...

Epignosis wrote: *sigh* Nevermind.

That's not nice to do!

To close this debate, let's all agree that many albums were influential long before they also became popular.

BTW I have a story about this. In my home country there was a dictatorship some time ago and western music was largely prohibited. But there was this wacko radio guy who managed to defy the regime and do the unthinkable. His name was Cornel Chiriac; his show was very well known especially between musicians, who were all listening his show because it was the only way to hear new music from the outside world. Coming back to the thread, the story says that a couple of weeks after Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released, the DJ got a copy of it through a personal connection (borrowed from the son of a high official person) and played it on the radio. It was like... boom! The impact on the local music scene was devastating. It was like today everybody was playing stuff from Cliff Richards & The Shadows or The Kinks (in the case of the more daring beat bands), and tomorrow they were all doing Beatles stuff, introducing brass sections, trying to do suites and all that jazz. Now there's a case of an album being influential before it became popular! Needless to say that the DJ was kicked out of service and soon had to run over the border due to the high degree of "attention" he was getting from the secret services. Out there he kept airing radio shows for his countrymen, which a few years later got him killed in circumstances still unclear to this day.


Edited by harmonium.ro - July 16 2009 at 19:43

harmonium.ro wrote: BTW I have a story about this. In my home country there was a dictatorship some time ago and western music was largely prohibited. But there was this wacko radio guy who managed to defy the regime and to the unthinkable. His name was Cornel Chiriac; his show was very well known especially between musicians, who were all listening his show because it was the only way to hear new music from the outside world. Coming back to the thread, the story says that a couple of weeks after Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released, the DJ got a copy of it through a personal connection (borrowed from the son of a high official person) and played it on the radio. It was like... boom! The impact on the local music scene was devastating. It was like today everybody was playing stuff from Cliff Richards & The Shadows or The Kinks (in the case of the more daring beat bands), and tomorrow they were all doing Beatles stuff, introducing brass sections, trying to do suites and all that jazz. Now there's a case of an album being influential before it became popular! Needless to say that the DJ was kicked out of service and soon had to run over the border due to the high degree of "attention" he was getting from the secret services. Out there he kept airing radio shows for his countrymen, which a few years later got him killed in circumstances still unclear to this day.

that's extraordinary, talk about dedication and sacrifice

Okay, sorry, Guido.  Putting my response here: point well taken, Tony. 

^which review/s are you reffering to?

^thanks for the link...will check it out.

I have a general question to ask.

Does the length of the reviews I write influence whether or not I will get "prog reviewer" status?

Thanks

-Joel