I don't think it's the numbers themselves that matter, but the ranking. As with Afterhours, I think the ranking comes first and then the different ranks are assigned (arbitrary?) numbers.
For example, he thinks that Trout Mask Replica is the rock album which best fulfills his criteria for great art, followed by Rock Bottom, followed by Faust. So he gives those a 9.5. Then he thinks the list takes a significant enough drop in quality, so the next one, VU & Nico, only gets a 9. Then after the 42nd album, the list is no longer "masterful". VU & Nico could have easily been given a 9.5, but the takeaway from the list would be that he puts it in 4th place and, therefore, thinks it's not as masterful as Faust, regardless of the specific number.
In his opinion, White Light/White Heat is less impressive than VU and Nico on the whole, despite the fact that over a third of it is Sister Ray.
That just goes to show that he thinks the rest of the album is not masterful enough - doesn't seem contradictory. The title track is described as bringing one of their styles to perfection, while The Gift, Lady Godiva's Operation, and I Heard Her Call My Name are described in glowing terms, but to a lesser degree, and Here She Comes Now is just "mildy disquieting".
About Beethoven - I think that Scaruffi (and Afterhours) is interested in the emotional intensity of music and so chooses to compare music on that ground while ignoring stylistic differences. When I hear Sister Ray, rather than hearing a "proto-industrial jam" (per se), I just hear a tremendous outpouring of emotion. It almost sounds like this track is a living, breathing snake. It sounds like the musicians are possessed and that the track is being forced upon them, like it were playing them rather than them playing it. If he felt the same way and also got that same impression from a Beethoven symphony (I'm not really familiar with classical music), I could see this comparison working.
I don't think we can really infer anything from the fact that a critic doesn't use the word "opinion" or "personal". I don't think it implies that the opinions are being portrayed as facts. Just like when I was in high school English class and we'd have to write "personal essays", but were told never to start the sentences with "I think" because it was implied.
The thing about Bowie is that he usually comes across as being a phony provocateur: His music is provocative, but seemingly only to draw attention and publicity to himself. And his provocations seem calculated to be the kind that people would like anyway. The man was/is a marketing genius. And if 'intent' behind his provocations doesn't really matter to you...what might matter to some here is just that other artists had already carried on the same provocations at a deeper and more innovative level. But yeah, he's a great melodicist and a great combiner of pop/avant garde (One of the best in the whole family tree of Velvet Underground-influenced styles).
Aha - but even if something has never been done before, what should matter is: what that thing actually is, how it affects the way the music sounds/feels and whether that sound/feel is interesting to listen to. Otherwise we're just talking about how maybe the mere *fact* that something is done is interesting (something you can gather from reading about it rather than listening).
To many of us, all of the interesting musicological aspects of the early Beatles' music (such as are explained in the Pollack link, and I've read the whole thing) don't really amount to much. "Newness/Originality" does not inherently create great art: afterall, many would see the same "new" thing as just a "new" kind of trivial-sounding music.
To many of us, it was Blonde on Blonde which was the first full bleown artistic statement in rock . And, to many of us by, the end of their career, the Beatles made two more or less valid artistic statements (Sgt. Pepper's, abbey road), which compared to others, were not major contributors to this renaisance.
I know that some aspects of the Beatles music was original. I also know that Dylan and the Byrds agreed (and I know those quotes).
I'm just saying that aspects of originality-in-and-of-itself is not what I see (and others see) as making great art. To me, regardless of the Beatles' occasional interesting chord changes, Blonde on Blonde was the first true artistic triumph in rock.
It's totally alright that you're criteria includes "sounding good" while being interesting. But keep in mind that a lot of us here don't associate for "sounding good" in the tradiational sense of the phrase with artistic achievement, so we're not impressed by that distinction.
And it makes no sense to say that sounding like no one else does not mean innovation. Those concepts mean the exact same thing.
Also, regardless if what you think of the validity of "sounding like no else" or "innovation" to begin with (whether or not they mean the same thing), it makes no sense at all to say that Beefheart's music didn't/wasn't.
And while we can all acknowledge that the Beatles too were innovative in some ways (and that they have several songs which were unique and even more that were completely different than anything which bands such as the Kinks, Who, and Byrds ever tried)... it's all a matter of degree.
I think the discussions about "influence" really have no place here, by the way. This thread is about great artistic achievements - and influence on others is not a measure of this kind of achievement.
AfterHours isn't interested in "beautiful melody". And all that stuff about voicings and chord progressions and (supposed) innovations doesn't matter to him because that stuff is all just "on paper". What matters to him is not the technical make-up of music, but how it all actually sounds as a result (not just the make-up itself as it stands on paper). More important than that to him would be how that resulting sound "feels" (because innovation isn't totally valuable in and of itself).
Also, it shouldn't matter at all if it's "what everyone is doing now": that doesn't make it necessarily good so it's not really a worthwhile point - and while we're at it the garage rock revival in particular is not Beatle-like at all (not that that's all you said of course, because you mention others).
In evolutionary terms, through 1979, how about something like this...
40'S
Jump Blues --> R&B
50's
R&B -> Rock and roll--> rockabilly --> pop-rock and instrumental rock
R&B--> Gospel-influenced vocal pop/R&B hybrid --> Doowop and Soul
R&B--> New Orleans R&B
60s
R&B/Doowop --> Girl Group --> Phil Spector --> Baroque Pop
instrumental rock --> surf rock/surf pop
R&B/Rock and roll/instrumental rock --> frat rock
Soul --> Motown/Stax/Atlantic/New Orleans R&B --> early Funk
Early Funk/Psychedelic Soul --> modern funk
Rockabilly/R&B/Doowop/Soul/pop/skiffle --> Merseybeat
R&B/Rock and roll/Chicago Blues--> British R&B--> Blues-rock
British R&B/American Soul --> Mod
Mod/Merseybeat/British R&B/Blues-rock/Frat rock --> Garage rock
Merseybeat/Blues-rock + Folk --> Folk-rock
Folk-rock/Blues-rock/Mod --> Psychedelic rock/raga rock/avant-rock
Psychedelic rock jam --> Acid Rock
Psychedelic rock/pop --> Psych pop
Psychedelic rock/Garage rock --> garage-psych
Psychedelic rock/Blues-rock --> psychedelic
Blues-rock --> Hard Rock --> Heavy Metal
Psychelic/Soul --> Psychedelic soul
Folk-rock --> singer-songwriter
Folk-rock --> Country rock and roots rock
Psychedelic rock/Baroque Pop --> Symphonic rock
Avant rock/Psychedelic rock/Symphonic Rock --> Progressive Rock --> Jazz-rock
Progressive rock/Jazz-rock/Psychedelic rock/Avant-rock/ --> Canterbury and Krautrock/Kosmiche Music
70's
Country rock --> roots rock
Merseybeat/Mod/Folk-rock/Hard rock --> Power Pop
Rock and roll/Progressive rock/Avant-rock --> Glam rock
Canterbury --> RIO
Heavy Metal --> British Metal --> NWOBHM --> Speed Metal
British Metal/Glam --> Pop-metal
Garage rock/Garage-psych/psychedelic/avant-rock --> New Wave
Garage-rock/Glam rock --> Punk
New Wave/Punk/Avant-rock --> No Wave --> Noise-rock
Punk/garage rock --> Garage punk
Avant-rock (Kraut Rock) --> Industrial --> Industrial Dance
Funk --> Disco
New Wave/Krautrock/Disco --> post-punk --> Goth
R&B/Rock and roll/Rockabilly -- Pub rock
Pub rock/Punk --> British Oi --> American Hardcore
What I'm getting at is that I'm not really interested in whether an actual Indian instrument was used. I care about what the music sounds like, regardless of the means.
By the same token, a mellotron's value is it's flute-like timbre. I'm not really interested in what exactly the source of the sound was or whether the source could be definted as "electronic" or not.
I'll stop as well except to say Zappa's music was equally as "electronic" if not moreso. And to say the Byrds orVU did not use the classical indian drone in a rock context is just about the most innacurate statement in this whole thread.
That's the thing, I'm just not interested in these musicological details. All these methods/processes techniques, song-structure concepts, chords, and whatnot are interesting to me only when the contribute to making the music sound interesting to me. And even then, it's the resulting sound rather than these details that I care about.
I know they used drone in 1964. But not in a way that, to me, allowed for a profound and deep listening experience. Same goes for their use of classical indian drones (of which they weren't the first). And I just feel that the Varese/Schaeffer/Stockhausen-esque sound-collage format was done much more creatively by Zappa and especially the Fugs.
This is a mischaracterization of what I said (wher'd you read me say I'm not a musician by the way?).
Of course Tomorrow Never Knows and Love You To have rock elements. I never said otherwise. I just said they lean more toward the avant-garde (the former) and the Raga/Indian Classical style (the latter). This is such a small point though, when it's more interesting to talk about the artistic merit of the songs.
Perhaps you can call Tomorrow Never Knows an experimental peice that sounds somewhat like the Velvet Underground's minimalist drone-rock concert style with Fugs and Frank Zappa-like sound collage interludes of a Byrdsy psychedelic character.
The way I see it, the song presents those three elements in a less interesting way than in their original models (not that they were using them as models intentionally), in a way not compensated by the uniqueness in mixing them all.
I don't think it's the numbers themselves that matter, but the ranking. As with Afterhours, I think the ranking comes first and then the different ranks are assigned (arbitrary?) numbers.
For example, he thinks that Trout Mask Replica is the rock album which best fulfills his criteria for great art, followed by Rock Bottom, followed by Faust. So he gives those a 9.5. Then he thinks the list takes a significant enough drop in quality, so the next one, VU & Nico, only gets a 9. Then after the 42nd album, the list is no longer "masterful". VU & Nico could have easily been given a 9.5, but the takeaway from the list would be that he puts it in 4th place and, therefore, thinks it's not as masterful as Faust, regardless of the specific number.
In his opinion, White Light/White Heat is less impressive than VU and Nico on the whole, despite the fact that over a third of it is Sister Ray.
That just goes to show that he thinks the rest of the album is not masterful enough - doesn't seem contradictory. The title track is described as bringing one of their styles to perfection, while The Gift, Lady Godiva's Operation, and I Heard Her Call My Name are described in glowing terms, but to a lesser degree, and Here She Comes Now is just "mildy disquieting".
About Beethoven - I think that Scaruffi (and Afterhours) is interested in the emotional intensity of music and so chooses to compare music on that ground while ignoring stylistic differences. When I hear Sister Ray, rather than hearing a "proto-industrial jam" (per se), I just hear a tremendous outpouring of emotion. It almost sounds like this track is a living, breathing snake. It sounds like the musicians are possessed and that the track is being forced upon them, like it were playing them rather than them playing it. If he felt the same way and also got that same impression from a Beethoven symphony (I'm not really familiar with classical music), I could see this comparison working.
I don't think we can really infer anything from the fact that a critic doesn't use the word "opinion" or "personal". I don't think it implies that the opinions are being portrayed as facts. Just like when I was in high school English class and we'd have to write "personal essays", but were told never to start the sentences with "I think" because it was implied.
How about Neil Young's "Thrasher", about why he left CSN.(http://www.thrasherswheat.org/fot/thrasher.htm)
Or something by the Talking Heads such as Life During Wartime
The thing about Bowie is that he usually comes across as being a phony provocateur: His music is provocative, but seemingly only to draw attention and publicity to himself. And his provocations seem calculated to be the kind that people would like anyway. The man was/is a marketing genius. And if 'intent' behind his provocations doesn't really matter to you...what might matter to some here is just that other artists had already carried on the same provocations at a deeper and more innovative level. But yeah, he's a great melodicist and a great combiner of pop/avant garde (One of the best in the whole family tree of Velvet Underground-influenced styles).
See? It's just a difference of opinion. What's the big deal.
Aha - but even if something has never been done before, what should matter is: what that thing actually is, how it affects the way the music sounds/feels and whether that sound/feel is interesting to listen to. Otherwise we're just talking about how maybe the mere *fact* that something is done is interesting (something you can gather from reading about it rather than listening).
To many of us, all of the interesting musicological aspects of the early Beatles' music (such as are explained in the Pollack link, and I've read the whole thing) don't really amount to much. "Newness/Originality" does not inherently create great art: afterall, many would see the same "new" thing as just a "new" kind of trivial-sounding music.
To many of us, it was Blonde on Blonde which was the first full bleown artistic statement in rock . And, to many of us by, the end of their career, the Beatles made two more or less valid artistic statements (Sgt. Pepper's, abbey road), which compared to others, were not major contributors to this renaisance.
Once again man...you're misintrepreting my post.
I know that some aspects of the Beatles music was original. I also know that Dylan and the Byrds agreed (and I know those quotes).
I'm just saying that aspects of originality-in-and-of-itself is not what I see (and others see) as making great art. To me, regardless of the Beatles' occasional interesting chord changes, Blonde on Blonde was the first true artistic triumph in rock.
It's totally alright that you're criteria includes "sounding good" while being interesting. But keep in mind that a lot of us here don't associate for "sounding good" in the tradiational sense of the phrase with artistic achievement, so we're not impressed by that distinction.
And it makes no sense to say that sounding like no one else does not mean innovation. Those concepts mean the exact same thing.
Also, regardless if what you think of the validity of "sounding like no else" or "innovation" to begin with (whether or not they mean the same thing), it makes no sense at all to say that Beefheart's music didn't/wasn't.
And while we can all acknowledge that the Beatles too were innovative in some ways (and that they have several songs which were unique and even more that were completely different than anything which bands such as the Kinks, Who, and Byrds ever tried)... it's all a matter of degree.
I think the discussions about "influence" really have no place here, by the way. This thread is about great artistic achievements - and influence on others is not a measure of this kind of achievement.
AfterHours isn't interested in "beautiful melody". And all that stuff about voicings and chord progressions and (supposed) innovations doesn't matter to him because that stuff is all just "on paper". What matters to him is not the technical make-up of music, but how it all actually sounds as a result (not just the make-up itself as it stands on paper). More important than that to him would be how that resulting sound "feels" (because innovation isn't totally valuable in and of itself).
Also, it shouldn't matter at all if it's "what everyone is doing now": that doesn't make it necessarily good so it's not really a worthwhile point - and while we're at it the garage rock revival in particular is not Beatle-like at all (not that that's all you said of course, because you mention others).
In evolutionary terms, through 1979, how about something like this...
40'S
Jump Blues --> R&B
50's
R&B -> Rock and roll--> rockabilly --> pop-rock and instrumental rock
R&B--> Gospel-influenced vocal pop/R&B hybrid --> Doowop and Soul
R&B--> New Orleans R&B
60s
R&B/Doowop --> Girl Group --> Phil Spector --> Baroque Pop
instrumental rock --> surf rock/surf pop
R&B/Rock and roll/instrumental rock --> frat rock
Soul --> Motown/Stax/Atlantic/New Orleans R&B --> early Funk
Early Funk/Psychedelic Soul --> modern funk
Rockabilly/R&B/Doowop/Soul/pop/skiffle --> Merseybeat
R&B/Rock and roll/Chicago Blues--> British R&B--> Blues-rock
British R&B/American Soul --> Mod
Mod/Merseybeat/British R&B/Blues-rock/Frat rock --> Garage rock
Merseybeat/Blues-rock + Folk --> Folk-rock
Folk-rock/Blues-rock/Mod --> Psychedelic rock/raga rock/avant-rock
Psychedelic rock jam --> Acid Rock
Psychedelic rock/pop --> Psych pop
Psychedelic rock/Garage rock --> garage-psych
Psychedelic rock/Blues-rock --> psychedelic
Blues-rock --> Hard Rock --> Heavy Metal
Psychelic/Soul --> Psychedelic soul
Folk-rock --> singer-songwriter
Folk-rock --> Country rock and roots rock
Psychedelic rock/Baroque Pop --> Symphonic rock
Avant rock/Psychedelic rock/Symphonic Rock --> Progressive Rock --> Jazz-rock
Progressive rock/Jazz-rock/Psychedelic rock/Avant-rock/ --> Canterbury and Krautrock/Kosmiche Music
70's
Country rock --> roots rock
Merseybeat/Mod/Folk-rock/Hard rock --> Power Pop
Rock and roll/Progressive rock/Avant-rock --> Glam rock
Canterbury --> RIO
Heavy Metal --> British Metal --> NWOBHM --> Speed Metal
British Metal/Glam --> Pop-metal
Garage rock/Garage-psych/psychedelic/avant-rock --> New Wave
Garage-rock/Glam rock --> Punk
New Wave/Punk/Avant-rock --> No Wave --> Noise-rock
Punk/garage rock --> Garage punk
Avant-rock (Kraut Rock) --> Industrial --> Industrial Dance
Funk --> Disco
New Wave/Krautrock/Disco --> post-punk --> Goth
R&B/Rock and roll/Rockabilly -- Pub rock
Pub rock/Punk --> British Oi --> American Hardcore
What I'm getting at is that I'm not really interested in whether an actual Indian instrument was used. I care about what the music sounds like, regardless of the means.
By the same token, a mellotron's value is it's flute-like timbre. I'm not really interested in what exactly the source of the sound was or whether the source could be definted as "electronic" or not.
Aw come on...Gene missing? That's not cool.
I'll stop as well except to say Zappa's music was equally as "electronic" if not moreso. And to say the Byrds orVU did not use the classical indian drone in a rock context is just about the most innacurate statement in this whole thread.
That's the thing, I'm just not interested in these musicological details. All these methods/processes techniques, song-structure concepts, chords, and whatnot are interesting to me only when the contribute to making the music sound interesting to me. And even then, it's the resulting sound rather than these details that I care about.
I know they used drone in 1964. But not in a way that, to me, allowed for a profound and deep listening experience. Same goes for their use of classical indian drones (of which they weren't the first). And I just feel that the Varese/Schaeffer/Stockhausen-esque sound-collage format was done much more creatively by Zappa and especially the Fugs.
This is a mischaracterization of what I said (wher'd you read me say I'm not a musician by the way?).
Of course Tomorrow Never Knows and Love You To have rock elements. I never said otherwise. I just said they lean more toward the avant-garde (the former) and the Raga/Indian Classical style (the latter). This is such a small point though, when it's more interesting to talk about the artistic merit of the songs.
Perhaps you can call Tomorrow Never Knows an experimental peice that sounds somewhat like the Velvet Underground's minimalist drone-rock concert style with Fugs and Frank Zappa-like sound collage interludes of a Byrdsy psychedelic character.
The way I see it, the song presents those three elements in a less interesting way than in their original models (not that they were using them as models intentionally), in a way not compensated by the uniqueness in mixing them all.