« More Syd | Home | Live Pavement »

July 18, 2006

On Ranking Music

"ryan adams" commenting on stereogum:

nobody is "better" than anybody else. records arent baseball cards where one is in better condition so its better. they are not fucking speed trial. people aare not erunning laps up and down a tennis court. its not football. its not sports. nobody wins and loses. bright eyes is conor. i am me. starship is starship. its ridiculous to think you could compare and contrast a painter with another or writer or musician. its just pointless.

Mark Hemingway writing in "Big Takeover":

Then let’s not talk about Blender magazine’s infatuation with lists. By the time you get to the “The 25 Biggest Wusses In Rock” you’re scraping the barrel. And VH1 is practically the Channel of Lists.

I’m not foursquare against combining lists and music by any means. Making lists is an easy point of reference and arguing music’s relative merits is fun. But it would be nice every once in while to enjoy music for its own sake. I can barely listen to any new music without immediately trying to contextualize it. I have no doubt that my voracious consumption of music journalism is a large part of this conditioned response.

Posted by timothompson at July 18, 2006 01:59 PM