jericsmith.com
Slaughtering
the Sacred Cows:
An Abbreviated Look at the Most Over-Rated Records Ever
© 2005, J. Eric Smith
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So here's a thought
for sequel to "Best
of the Blockbusters" . . . instead of looking at the best of the
commercially popular records (which are expected to be bad), how about trying
identify the worst of the critically acclaimed records (which are expected to
be good)? I get tired of reading "[Your Magazine Name Here]'s List of
the 100 Greatest Records Ever" . . . and having them almost always
contain the same records, over and over again. There have to be some clunkers
in there, right? Some things that critics rave about, but haven't listened to
in years, and aren't really as good as they remember? I kinda
like the "Slaughtering the Sacred Cows" concept . . . I think I
will do some web research, look at several different "Top 100"
lists and come up with a combined Top 64, the general consensus critical faves, and go from there. How's that sound?
Very interesting. I
started grabbing some of those "Top 100 Albums of All Time Lists"
that you can find zillions of online and in print. After scanning only four
of them, I already had 78 albums that had appeared on more than one list. Two
of the lists I used were from the Here are the Top 64
Sacred Cows by such a metric, from highest to lowest scoring in my poll of
polls: 1. The Clash, 2. The Beach Boys, Pet
Sounds 3. The Beatles, Revolver
4. The Rolling
Stones, Exile on 5. Nirvana, Nevermind 6. Bob Dylan, Highway
61 Revisited 7. Bob Dylan, Blood
on the Tracks 8. The Beatles, The
Beatles (White Album) 9. The Beatles, 10. The Velvet
Underground, The Velvet Underground and Nico
11. Bob Dylan, Blonde
on Blonde 12. The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Are You Experienced? 13. The Beatles, Sgt.
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band 14. The Beatles, Rubber
Soul 15. Love, Forever
Changes 16. Marvin Gaye, What's
Going On? 17. Van Morrison, Astral
Weeks 18. The Doors, The
Doors 19. Jimi Hendrix, Electric Ladyland
20. Television, Marquee
Moon 21. Bruce
Springsteen, Born to Run 22. The Band, The
Band 23. David Bowie, The
Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from
Mars 24. The Sex Pistols,
Never Mind the Bollocks, It's the Sex Pistols 25. The Rolling
Stones, Let It Bleed 26. Public Enemy, It
Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back 27. Patti Smith, Horses
28. Led Zeppelin, Led
Zeppelin IV (Zoso) 29. Joni Mitchell, Blue
30. The Who, Who's
Next 31. James Brown, Live
at the Apollo 32. 33. Stevie Wonder, Innervisions
34. U2, Joshua
Tree 35. The Rolling
Stones, Beggars Banquet 36. Miles Davis, Kind
of Blue 37. Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, Trout Mask Replica 38. Joy Division, Closer
39. Michael Jackson,
Thriller 40. Ramones, Ramones 41. The Smiths, The
Queen is Dead 42. Elvis Presley, The
Sun Sessions 43. R.E.M., Automatic
for the People 44. Pink Floyd, Dark
Side of the Moon 45. The Stooges, Fun
House 46. Otis Redding, Otis
Blue 47. Fleetwood Mac, Rumours 48. Kraftwerk, Trans 49. Prince, Sign
o' the Times 50. David Bowie, Hunky
Dory 51. The Rolling
Stones, Sticky Fingers 52. Pixies, Doolittle
53. Sly and the
Family Stone, There's a Riot Goin' On 54. The Clash, The
Clash 55. U2, Achtung Baby 56. Bob Dylan, Bringing
It All Back Home 57. Led Zeppelin, Led
Zeppelin II 58. Prince and the
Revolution, Purple Rain 59. Nirvana, In Utero 60. Guns n' Roses, Appetite
for Destruction 61. Pink Floyd, The
Wall 62. Bruce
Springsteen, Darkness on the Edge 63. Smashing
Pumpkins, Siamese Dream 64. Joy Division, Unknown
Pleasures My quick reaction?
There's not a surprise on that list, and it's astounding how quickly critical
orthodoxy on these records is achieved by quickly culling four disparate
lists from four different perspectives. We have been told that these records
are Sacred Cows for so long that we (a) vote for them, even if we've never
heard them, or (b) don't express surprise or indignation when other people
vote for them. So, uh, that's a start, right there. I'm not sure how
I'll proceed. I want to mull that unsurprising list for a spell, first. Still More
Slaughtering of the Sacred Cows So after looking at
that list, I'm not sure that a tournament style contest is the best thing to
do with it. I think there's a (maybe) more interesting analysis in looking at
the Critical Orthodoxy of Sacred Cows vs. Actual Commercial Appeal. Think about it: in
just about any other human endeavor, if something is judged worthy by
the judges who count, other people will want to enjoy and share in that
thing's worthiness. So if, say, Marquee Moon by Television is judged
to be such a high quality cultural icon, why haven't very many people
(relatively speaking) actually bought it during the almost 30 years it has
been available? More to the point:
of the 64 Sacred Cow albums, only 13 of them were in the 64 records assessed
in the Best of the Blockbusters list. About 20%. Why is this correllation not greater? Why do critics tend to downplay
commercially successful records and lift up commercially obscure ones? Do we
think we're smarter than the hoi polloi? That we have better taste than the
public at large? I began gathering
data last night to graph a correlation between placement on the Sacred Cows
list and total certified Slaughtering the
Sacred Cows (Continued) Okay, so I came up
with the list of 64 Sacred Cow records yesterday, a sort of survey of surveys
to pick the albums that critics are most apt to gush over. Today, I looked up
all of their certification information on RIAA's
website, which is based on I then plotted the
critical rankings against the sales rankings, adjusting certification on
multi-disc sets to reflect number of packages sold, since that's how buyers
buy them. (Example: If Pink Floyd's The Wall is certified 22 times
platinum by RIAA, it only sold 11 million copies of the album, since the
album contains two discs, which is how RIAA calculates its certifications.
But no one just buys disc two of The Wall, do they?) At the mid-point of
the graph would be the place where "critical votes" (ranking in the
Sacred Cow list) and "commercial votes" (sales of the record) would
be equal, identifying records where the critical and commercial respect given
the record is about fairly proportioned. Given my pretty unscientific
methods, let's allow a 50% margin of error around that mid-point, and say
those are the fairly assessed records, where the voices of the critics, more
or less, equate to the voices of the people. How many of the 64
records fell into that expansive +/- 50% range? Only eight of them. These,
then, are the eight Sacred Cow albums that have the best correlation between
critical and commercial acclaim, ranked from leaning a little bit towards
critically over-respected (The White Album), to a leaning a little bit
towards critically under-respected (The Joshua Tree). The Beatles, The
Beatles (White Album) Nirvana, Nevermind R.E.M., Automatic
for the People The Beatles, Sgt.
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band The Rolling Stones,
Sticky Fingers The Beatles, Joy Division, Unknown
Pleasures U2, Joshua Tree There were 12 of the
64 Sacred Cow albums that fell on the side of the graph indicating that
critics don't respect them as much as maybe they should; if we assume that
the people's voices matter, these albums should be a little more loved by the
critics. They are ranked in order from most under-rated (Appetite for
Destruction) at the top, down to something approaching fairly assessed at
the bottom (Zep IV). Guns n' Roses, Appetite
for Destruction Smashing Pumpkins, Siamese
Dream Prince and the
Revolution, Purple Rain Led Zeppelin, Led
Zeppelin II Fleetwood Mac, Rumours Michael Jackson, Thriller
Bruce Springsteen, Darkness
on the Edge of Town Pink Floyd, The
Wall Nirvana, In Utero U2, Achtung Baby Pink Floyd, Dark
Side of the Moon Led Zeppelin, Led
Zeppelin IV (Zoso) Now . . . for the
fun part. The other 44 records fell on the side of the curve indicating that
critics are valuing them more than the record buying public as a whole does.
This would be the over-rated list, the list of records that critics moon and
sing about repeatedly, but which still don't interest the general
public to buy them with any sort of regularity. They are ranked from
most-over-rated at the top, to just a little over-rated at the bottom. In
order, the Most Over-Rated Sacred Cows: 1. The Velvet
Underground, The Velvet Underground and Nico
2. Love, Forever
Changes 3. Television, Marquee
Moon 4. Patti Smith, Horses
5. James Brown, Live
at the Apollo 6. Stevie Wonder, Innervisions
7. Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, Trout Mask Replica 8. Joy Division, Closer
9. Ramones, Ramones 10. Marvin Gaye, What's
Going On? 11. Van Morrison, Astral
Weeks 12. David Bowie, The
Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders
from Mars 13. The Stooges, Fun
House 14. Otis Redding, Otis
Blue 15. Kraftwerk, Trans 16. The Clash, 17. The Beach Boys, Pet
Sounds 18. David Bowie, Hunky
Dory 19. Bob Dylan, Highway
61 Revisited 20. Bob Dylan, Blonde
on Blonde 21. The Smiths, The
Queen is Dead 22. Elvis Presley, The
Sun Sessions 23. Jimi Hendrix, Electric Ladyland
24. The Band, The
Band 25. The Sex Pistols,
Never Mind the Bollocks, It’s the Sex Pistols 26. The Rolling
Stones, Exile on 27. Public Enemy, It
Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back 28. Joni Mitchell, Blue
29. 30. Prince, Sign
o' the Times 31. The Rolling
Stones, Beggars Banquet 32. Bob Dylan, Blood
on the Tracks 33. Pixies, Doolittle
34. The Clash, The
Clash 35. The Rolling
Stones, Let It Bleed 36. The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Are You Experienced? 37. The Beatles, Revolver
38. Sly and the
Family Stone, There's a Riot Goin' On 39. The Doors, The
Doors 40. The Who, Who's
Next 41. Miles Davis, Kind
of Blue 42. Bob Dylan, Bringing
It All Back Home 43. The Beatles, Rubber
Soul 44. Bruce
Springsteen, Born to Run Now . . . as I
always do when I go through a semi-formal analysis like this, I step back and
look and say "Does that make any sense, at a gut level?" And
I think I have to conclude that, yes, it does make sense, on a macro level. Let's look at the
most over-rated sacred cow: The Velvet Underground and Nico.
This record is 40 years old. Countless thousands of critics and cultural
observers over the years have cited is as the turning point for modern/indie rock music. People have had four decades to heed
those sorts of high praise and buy the album . . . but they haven't.
Two generations have grown to maturity since that record came out, reading
about its magnificence, without ever (collectively) being inspired to go out
and buy a copy to hear what the critics are going on about. Does that make it
over-rated? I think it does, by some definition of the phrase. I mean, if
nothing else, it means that the importance given to it by critics is not
shared by the general record buying populace, and if the general record
buying populace does not share the critics' views at all, after 40
years, then what does that say about the importance of the critics
themselves? Hmmm . . . food for thought. Letting the
Sacred Cows Out of the Barn On another online
message/bulletin board I frequent, someone made the observation
that over-ratedness is more a function of critical
praise divided by musical quality than it is a function of critical praise
divided by commercial sales success. He was correct.
Those most over-rated sacred cows below represent not a dichotomy between
musical quality and critical praise (because, for the most part, they really
are very good albums), but instead a dichotomy of how much commercial weight
the critics' opinions carry. In other words: The Velvet Underground and Nico is the album that the general listening public
just most doesn't want to buy, no matter how often critics tell the people
they should. It is the record with the greatest commercial resistance ever. That's
probably the best way to describe it. And given that fact,
I'm having a hard time getting excited about doing a week long essay parsing
these 64 albums down to a most-over-rated sacred cow, since the choices are
going to be such fine lines, such dancing on the knife's edge, that I can't
see myself reaching a well-argued decision that will satisfy me (or you)
anymore than just looking at the list and picking some now would. In the other
contests, I was generally surprised where I came out, and the process made me
think differently about certain records and bands as I went. I can't see the
process of comparing and contrasting these records in great detail changing
anything I feel right now . . . since, to my mind, the very clear winner of
the most-over-rated record title on that list of 64 albums (in terms of
critical praise divided by musical quality) is Horses by Patti Smith.
I find that record to be just flat out bad, no matter what my critical breathren and sistren have to
say about it. Flat. Out. Bad. Other observations
on the list . . . I think Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys is a fine
album, but one which has grown a cult devotion that far outstrips its actual
musical accomplishment. I think it has become the record that critics select
to honor Brian Wilson's career as a whole, the symbol of everything he did
and was and does, the one without all the cars and surfboards on it.
Nirvana's Nevermind is, likewise, a fine
album that's grown an out-of-proportion cult over the years as well. Suicide
will do that. See the Joy Division entries (Closer and Unknown
Pleasures) for confirmation. Not to mention Nirvana's own In Utero. I like all five of the records listed in this
paragraph (the Joy Division ones especially), but think they get a bit more
love than they earn. Other albums that I
personally, actively dislike on the list of 64 are Television's Marquee
Moon, Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run (I can at least get through Darkness
On the Edge of Town), Van Morrison's Astral Weeks and the Pixies Doolittle.
I appreciate the importance and accomplishment of the Bob Dylan albums, but I
never have any desire to listen to them again. And I just don't get the
appeal of Radiohead's OK Computer, although
I don't dislike it particularly. Other than that,
though, I pretty much like or love just about every other album on the list,
and consider them to be worthy of the kudos heaped upon them over the years.
So I can't see the fun in parsing the list and knocking off a bunch of cool
things to end up with a final four that would (and should) almost certainly
include four of the following five albums Horses, Marquee Moon, Born to
Run, Astral Weeks and Doolittle. But, hey, want a
winner? How about a little round robin action: Marquee Moon (2 points) is a better album
than Horses (0 points) Born to Run (1 point) ties Horses (1
point) Astral Weeks (2 points) is a better album
than Horses (0 points) Doolittle (2 points) is a better album
than Horses (0 points) Marquee Moon (2 points) is a better album
than Born to Run (0 points) Marquee Moon (1 point) ties Astral Weeks
(1 point) Marquee Moon (2 points) is a better album
than Doolittle (0 points) Born to Run (1 point) ties Astral Weeks
(1 point) Born to Run (2 points) is a better album
than Doolittle (0 points) Astral Weeks (2 points) is a better album
than Doolittle (0 points) Total Points: Marquee Moon by Television: 7 points Astral Weeks by Van Morrison: 6 points Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen: 4 points Doolittle by the Pixies: 2 points Horses by Patti Smith: 1 point. And, so, see, we end
with Horses at the bottom of the pile doing it short form, which is
where we end up doing it long form as well, and I can't see typing 10,000
words to get to such a logical (in my mind) conclusion as to the most over-rated
critical sacred cow record of all time. Flat out bad is flat out bad . . .
and that's Horses. So let's just leave it at that, shall we, and let
the other sacred cows run the free range, happy (if bloated) and care free .
. . because, actually, someone suggested something to me that I actually like
better and can get more excited about: a Progressive Rock (or
"prog") contest of some sort, a parsing of the genre, records and
bands that I actually love more than just about any others. Records that I know
a whole heck of a lot about (too much, probably), and have passionate
feelings for. Bands that excite me. Watch this space, as I will probably
frame this contest soon and see where it takes us. You've seen me geek here
before, but I can guarantee you that nothing brings out the deepest,
darkest geek in me than prog. You've
been warned. Musical Dissections by J. Eric Smith: |