2003CC: Steve Miller
- Greatest Hits 1974-1978 (78): *****
- Fly Like an Eagle (76): *****
- The Best of 1968-1973 (90): **** 1/2
- Children of the Future (68): ****
- Book of Dreams (77): *** 1/2
- Sailor (68): *** 1/2
- Brave New World (69): *** 1/2
- Number 5 (70): ***
- Anthology (72): ***
- Steve Miller Band [Box Set] (94): ***
- Your Saving Grace (69): ** 1/2
- Born 2B Blue (88): ** 1/2
- The Joker (73): **
- Living in the USA (73): **
- Abracadabra (82): **
- Living in the 20th Century (87): **
- Wide River (93): **
- Circle of Love (81): * 1/2
- Italian X-Rays (84): * 1/2
- Steve Miller Band: Live! (83): *
- Rock Love (71): 1/2
This is a new entry in an up-dated series I'm calling the New Critical Consensus. Several people have requested updates of the older series, and since critical opinions shift, I am revamping the entire system. I am averaging the opinions of several excellent music critics to produce a list of each artist's albums. Rather than using a number system, which was perhaps a bit clunky, I will now be using a five-star system. The albums will be listed in a recommended purchasing order, so new fans will have an idea of where the best place to start buying an artist's work is.
These are not my opinions, although, since I have chosen the critics used (and I'm using many), my taste will perhaps seep through a bit.
Terribly nerdy, I know, but maybe this will help people only now beginning to dabble into certain artists' bodies of work.
Scale:
***** - Masterpiece
**** 1/2 - Classic
**** - Great
*** 1/2 - Good
*** - Above Average
** 1/2 - Average
** - Below Average
* 1/2 - Bad
* - Terrible
1/2 - One of the worst albums ever
My first experience with Steve Miller Band came the other day. My uncle was playing Living in the USA in the car, and I liked it quite a bit. But jeez, that's only a 2-star album. I'll probably *love* a five-star album. OK, now I'll have to keep Miller in mind. Man, my journey into great music is loads of fun, but sometimes it seems like I have so many directions to go in that I can never finish.
Well, that's probably a great sign that Miller is a man for you!
The older I get, I find the awareness of possible near-limitless expansions of my musical (and other) tastes quite invigorating, even if that same awareness frustrates me (and especially my pocketbook) at time! Us humans have created so much great art!
It is too sad that most people allow their taste to largely freeze around the twenty or twenty-five year old mark, in my experience. When young, they are stimulated by encounters with something new, but older, they complain it simply ain't as good (read: the same) as the art in their heydays.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Well, jeez, I really hope that doesn't happen to me. Then again, I have an advantage on those other twenty-five-year-olds: I think that most of the art in my heyday sucks. Just a part of my anachronistic nostalgia, for the good old days of Elvis, Dylan, and the Beatles (not to mention Hitchcock, Cary Grant, and the Marx Brothers), which just happened to occur before I was born.
AJ, I suspect you have nothing to fear. :)
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs