NewCC0005: Pink Floyd
- Dark SIde of the Moon (73): *****
- Wish You Were Here (75): *****
- The Wall (79): *****
- The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (67): **** 1/2
- Meddle (71): ****
- Relics (71): ****
- Animals (77): *** 1/2
- Is There Anybody out There? The Wall: Live 1980 - 1981 (00): *** 1/2
- Works (83): ***
- The Division Bell (94): ***
- Ummagumma (69): ***
- The Final Cut (83): ***
- A Saucerful of Secrets (68): ** 1/2
- Tonite Lets All Make Love in London (68): ** 1/2
- Atom Heart Mother (70): ** 1/2
- Delicate Sound of Thunder (88): ** 1/2
- Pulse (95): ** 1/2
- A Momentary Lapse of Reason (87): **
- More (69): * 1/2
- Obscured by Clouds (72): * 1/2
- A Collection of Great Dance Songs (81): * 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
Piper at the Gates of Dawn seems to have taken a slight spill from the previous CC. Let me ask you a question: do you attribute changes from the last CC to the new one (Beatles, Floyd, Stones) to the time lapse or to a reduced/more selective choice of critics? Just wondering...
Johnny Waco
I'm using the same group of critics. Any difference is probably either due to a shift in critical opinion over time (which, in some cases, may be more than just a year; see my post under the Beatles), or could be due to the conversion from a strict number system to a star system. I had to make a few difficult choices on how to average the opinions, and this time out I may have been a little more strict with these decisions (rounding down instead of up, etc.) than before.
Probably mostly the first reason with a little of the second mixed in. In the case of Pipers, the critics have definitely cooled a bit toward this album.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Let me amend this a bit. I forgot that a few months before undertaking these updates, I did indeed pare away a few critics who seemed to be entirely too easy on albums from the list, and I did add two tougher critics. Having done this a few months before actually starting this, I honestly forgot. So, while I doubt this really made a huge difference (about five critics got the boot, and about two were brought on board, which is a small number compared to the total mass of critics I use), a little of the variance may well be the result of this shifting about. I do believe the factors I cited above are probably more to blame, however.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs