The Problem With Music Today Part I: Lists

Hello everyone,

For the rest of this week and perhaps into the next, I will be discussing the terrible things wrong with the world of music. Most of these issues are widely known already but few understand them and even worse are those who don't even consider the issues at hand. Those unfamiliar with the sorry state of music are the same folks who probably have the most god awful taste in music and are presently wearing a flat brimmed Oakland A's cap with their Bring Me The Horizon t-shirt.

Today's post will be the first in a series I have aptly titled "The Problem With Music Today". Today's first installment of the series will focus on lists, to be specific, lists that pertain to the top, best, worst, 'most' etc. albums of any given year, century, decade, hour, minute, etc.

My friend Max made me aware of AVClub.com's god awful list called 'The Decade's Best Metal' and holy shit, it has to be one of the worst lists of anything I have ever seen.

Check it out HERE

Not only does this list omit some of the most important releases of the past 10 years, it's clearly presented by a person who hasn't gone any further than the very surface that heavy music offers. The albums in the list are obvious choices. Avclub's list is indicative to the fact that most folks can't even get beyond what is popular in order to make some very educational selections. The result is a very accessible list, one that is non threatening to the ways of familiarity. Where's the thrill in that?

Decibel made their top 40 albums of 2009 list which is found in their January issue, the list is below:

1. Baroness - The Blue Record
2. Converge - Axe To Fall
3. Coalesce - Ox
4. Napalm Death - Time Waits No Slave
5. Cobalt - Gin
6. Kylesa - Static Tensions
7. Slayer - World Painted Blood
8. Tombs - Winter Hours
9. Marduk - Wormwood
10. Isis - Wavering Radiant
11. Immortal - All Shall Fall
12. Agoraphobic Nosebleed - Agorapocalypse
13. Obscura - Cosmogenesis
14. Magrudergrind - S/T
15. Nile - Those Whom The Gods Detest
16. YOB - The Great Cessation
17. Mastodon - Crack The Skye
18. Paradise Lost - Fath Divides Us,Death Unites Us
19. The Atlas Moth - A Glorified Piece Of Blue Sky
20. Asphyx - Death...The Brutal Way
21. Altar Of Plauges - White Tomb
22. Mournful Congregation - The June Frost
23. Funeral Mist - Maranatha
24. The Gates Of Slumber - Hymns Of Blood And Thunder
25. Burnt By The Sun - Heart Of Darkness
26. City Of Ships - Look What God Did To Us
27. Goatwhore - Carving Out The Eyes Of God
28. Gaza - He Is Never Coming Back
29. Katatonia - Night Is The New Day
30. Keelhaul - Keelhaul's Triumphannt Return To Obscurity
31. The Red Chord - Fed Through The Teeth Machine
32. Brutal Truth - Evolution Through Revolution
33. Krallice - Dimensional Bleedthrough
34. Culted - Below The Thunders Of The Upper Deep
35. Goes Cube - Another Day Has Passed
36. Suffocation - Blood Oath
37. Javelina - Beasts Among Sheep
38. Municipal Waste - Massive Aggressor
39. Millions - Gather Scatter
40. Funebrarum - The Sleep Of Morbid Dreams

Now, I could go on and on exclaiming "Are you kidding me?! Baroness #1? How the hell did band X make the list? Why isn't band Y on here?" but that would be a waste of energy. One must remember the basis on which these lists are decided on which is that of opinion and in this case, the collective opinion of the entire editorial staff. Who knows how many people at the Decibel HQ didn't agree on more than half the ones listed above.

Don't get me wrong, Decibel is by far the best music periodical out there and I defy you to find a better one. Everything from the writing style and album critiques, to their in depth interviews and Hall of Fame articles, this magazine does its very best to inform you of music you should damn well know. The simple mistake the magazine commits is the one all periodicals make sooner or later.

Every time a magazine or website breaks out a "Top --" list, I get scared about how angry I will get. I have learned to control my anger over the years because how does one go about gathering such a number of albums that sums up to 40, why not 38? or 72? On top of that, after deciding that there's an amount of releases so notable that they constitute making a list 40 long, you then need to see how those albums rank in number order.

This is a task I myself set out to do, in the end I still had about half a dozen releases that I considered to be noteworthy of list status but I had run out of room because my list already reached 40. Before I could ponder their place amongst the list, if they had one, I needed to rank the 40 I picked in the order of "how much did I like this release? Did I like it as number 32? Or did I like it enough to be 25?" This is where things become messy and the result is an intangible dilemma.

After about 20 releases I began to just throw shit in any old order. Since I couldn't have ties throughout the damn thing, it was then a matter of placement. Where would each album fit in the list? Was I comfortable with the position designated? Who would be first was actually easy for me, who would be last? Well? Who would be last? Being in last place usually sucks, but hey! It's better to make the list than not be on it at all, right?

If an album was good enough to just make the list at #40, which equates to "able to make on it on there, for the sake of being on there" then what's to say about the number of releases that I liked equally as much as number 40 but simply couldn't be on the list because of a number constraint. Certainly those releases were very much enjoyable, in a passing way though and they didn't have as much of an impact as the others. So I guess, in that sense, they were unworthy of list status. I could have gone back and rethought the whole damn thing.

The final solution would be easier, just make the list bigger to compensate for the fact that nothing deserves to be left out, and if that's true, then why did I bother numbering them? Even if I chose to do away with numbers, then there's still the matter of the list still being just that and anyone could say "Hey how come this album isn't on your list?", this is a gripe that will persist if you have a list of albums and a title saying "Top" or "Best" or "Worst".

I believe most of you remember VH1's "The 100 Greatest Heavy Rock Bands" segment. That list was also a giant bag of vomit that attempted to rank each band in regards to how important their place in music is. Usually this is in direct relation to one thing: How many albums the act sold. Furthermore, the list began to read as a hype machine for the overrated and I believe it would be Led Zeppelin that took #1, meanwhile AC/DC, a band that hasn't been good since Bon Scott died was number 4 and Metallica, who hasn't done anything worthy since 1989 made it as number 5.

The same thing applies for the underground as it does for the mainstream; popularity of an act, no matter how overrated, will result in the band trumping the list.

So remember, lists are bullshit.