Top artists debate

(Andrew wrote): This is a slightly longer list of my favorite musical artists: 1. Bob Dylan 2. Chet Baker 3. The Beatles [Paul/John/George/Ringo solo careers] 4. The Grateful Dead 5. The Rolling Stones 6. Van Morrison 7. Miles Davis 8. Jethro Tull 9. Eric Clapton 10. Santana 11. Lou Reed/The Velvet Underground 12. Richard Thompson 13. Dave Brubeck 14. David Bowie 15. Elvis Costello 16. Frank Zappa 17. John Zorn 18. Led Zeppelin [+Robert Plant solo career] 19. John Coltrane 20. Pat Metheny 21. Tom Waits 22. The Who 23. Jimi Hendrix 24. Bob Marley 25. Joni Mitchell Are you happy now ? Rather than paying lip service to artists I don't actually listen to, my favorite artists are those who are well-represented on my iPod (which I listen to all night every night) and whose albums I have collected by purchasing them on Amazon.com. While they might be very important artists in their own right, I don't consider Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone and Aretha Franklin to be "album artists" in the same way that my original, masculine-dominated list was. I am familiar with Ella Fitzgerald's "Jazz at Lincoln Center", produced by Norman Granz, which I like a lot; I used to own "After Hours" a great compilation of Nina Simone; and a girlfriend of mine once made me several Aretha Franklin recordings on cassette tape, which I liked. But at the same time, none of these female performers have developed careers which exhibit the artistic growth and development -- and most of all, experimentation -- that their male counterparts have shown, the exception being Joni Mitchell. I also have collected most of the CDs by Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams and Mary Chapin-Carpenter but I don't think there achievements put them in the top 25 either. Finally, I would venture to say that if you were to put together such a list it would in fact be tailored more in keeping with the qualms and niceties of political correctness that true artistic merit; as such, you cannot do this because 1) you do not have the music resources and 2) you do not have the time to listen to it. I have both, but not much more. ----------- (Ivar wrote): ok i can't resist -- here are the 20th/21st C popular musical artists who come to mind if i'm asked for my top 30. are these my favorites, the nearest my heart, the ones i listen to most, most admire, etc. etc.? there's some of that, but mostly these are people whose music i'd load up today if i were driving across the country and back. you'll see there are only 29 names -- i'm not sure who's missing. Thelonious Monk Beatles Andrew Hill Duke Ellington Steve Reich Brian Eno Caetano Veloso Aphex Twin Ali Farka Toure Miles Davis The Smiths James Brown Bjork Silvio Rodriguez Bruce Springsteen Bob Marley Tom Ze Tin Hat Minutemen Toots & the Maytals Wire Prince Underground Resistance (Drexciya etc.) Television Public Enemy Sam Cooke Mudhoney OutKast Led Zeppelin btw they're ordered according to the following formula (100 max points each dimension): (how excited i am to hear them) x (how great i think they are) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (how quickly i'll lose interest, with quicker being higher) so, for example, here are some calculations: Monk = 89x100/23 = 386.9 (wow!) Beatles = 86x100/26 = 330.8 Hill = 91x79/22 = 326.8 clearly i've put some thought into this! (now back to grading....) ----------- (Jacob wrote): Ivar, you left out Bob Dylan. What the hell? Don't make me come up there. Twenty Beatles + solo Bob Dylan Stevie Wonder Joni Mitchell Bruce Springsteen Stephen Sondheim Sly & the Family Stone Steely Dan The Band Outkast Paul Simon Chaka Khan Jackson Browne Ultramagnetic MCs/Kool Keith Donny Hathaway D'Angelo The Who/Pete Townshend Robert Johnson Led Zeppelin Earth Wind & Fire Baskin-Robbins List (goes to thirty-one) Charley Patton Bob Seger Marvin Gaye Barbra Streisand Patti LaBelle Gil Scott-Heron Neil Young Public Enemy Curtis Mayfield Digable Planets Fleetwood Mac ----------- (Tony wrote): Ok, I tremulously weigh in... There is barely a name to add here, except that repeat listenability is an important twist. Since I don't have the courage to build my own 20-30 artist list, especially in order!, I'll merely add some names I think for me are missing. The Clash Nirvana Pink Floyd Radiohead These others may not make a universal artist list, but they might make mine: Eccentric/obscure (come back to again) favorite artists Buena Vista Social Club Cubanismo! Devo Esquivel Future Sound of London, especially if we are talking whole albums Mercedes Sosa Red Snapper Sixto Rodriquez Since we're talking "artists" (thank you Andrew), and music we actually come back to (thank you Andrew, great criterion), I'll rush to note a lament for all those great one hit wonders that make up an embarrassingly big hunk of my near-to-my-heart, most-listened, come back to again-and-again list, though not necessarily of great, lifetime-achievement-type artists... These are especially listenable when I want a momentary boost of enthusiasm on the long road... the Sopranos opening song (Woke up This Morning), Gary Wright's, Dream Weaver, Simon and Garfunkel's, America; also some personal need for some Amy Whitehouse, Carole King, Eagles, Elton John (though he might make my top twenty artists, due to raw numbers), Eminem, Danger Mouse, Johnny Cash, Little Eva, Pink, Aerosmith... Thank you'all for the new recommends, names I'm not familiar with! Peace ======================================= JETHRO TULL TOP 20 ALBUMS 1. LIVING IN THE PAST 2. STAND UP 3. BENEFIT 4. AQUALUNG 5. ROOTS TO BRANCHES 6. CATFISH RISING 7. THE BROADSWORD AND THE BEAST 8. CREST OF A KNAVE 9. HEAVY HORSES 10. TOO OLD TO ROCK AND ROLL, TOO YOUNG TO DIE 11. SONGS FROM THE WOOD 12. BURSTING OUT 13. MINSTREL IN THE GALLERY 14. WARCHILD 15. HOMO ERRATICUS 16. THICK AS A BRICK 2 17. ROCK ISLAND 18. THIS WAS 19. NOTHING IS EASY: LIVE AT THE ISLE OF WIGHT 20. DIVINITIES Ivar's the Smart one, Jake's the Cute one, Tony is the Funny one and I am the Quiet one. ----------------------- Ivar's a dim one, Jake's a shy one, Tony is a dullard and I am the annoying one ! ----------------------- I have re-arranged the list of my favorite artists for your consideration: 1. Bob Dylan 2. Chet Baker 3. The Grateful Dead 4. The Rolling Stones 5. Van Morrison 6. Miles Davis 7. Jethro Tull 8. Eric Clapton 9. The Beatles [Paul/John/George/Ringo solo careers] 10. Santana 11. Lou Reed/The Velvet Underground 12. Richard Thompson 13. Dave Brubeck 14. David Bowie 15. Elvis Costello 16. Frank Zappa 17. John Zorn 18. Led Zeppelin [+Robert Plant solo career] 19. John Coltrane 20. Pat Metheny 21. Tom Waits 22. The Who 23. Jimi Hendrix 24. Bob Marley 25. Joni Mitchell ----------------------- No reaction, my half-educated friends ? Perhaps the following words by C.G. Jung will give you a clue as to the form of response my email from yesterday calls for: A SENSITIVE AND SOMEWHAT UNBALANCED PERSON, AS A NEUROTIC ALWAYS IS, WILL MEET WITH SPECIAL DIFFICULTIES AND PERHAPS WITH MORE UNUSUAL TASKS IN LIFE THAN A NORMAL INDIVIDUAL, WHO AS A RULE HAS ONLY TO FOLLOW THE WELL-WORN PATH OF AN ORDINARY EXISTENCE. FOR THE NEUROTIC THERE IS NO ESTABLISHED WAY OF LIFE, BECAUSE HIS AIMS AND TASKS ARE APT TO BE OF A HIGHLY INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER. HE TRIES TO GO THE MORE OR LESS UNCONTROLLED AND HALF-CONSCIOUS WAY OF NORMAL PEOPLE, NOT REALIZING THAT HIS OWN CRITICAL AND VERY DIFFERENT NATURE DEMANDS OF HIM MORE EFFORT THAN A NORMAL PERSON IS REQUIRED TO EXERT. THERE ARE NEUROTICS WHO HAVE SHOWN THEIR HEIGHTENED SENSITIVENESS AND THEIR RESISTANCE TO ADAPTATION IN THE VERY FIRST WEEKS OF LIFE, IN THE DIFFICULTY THEY HAVE IN TAKING THE MOTHER'S BREAST AND IN THEIR EXAGGERATED NERVOUS REACTIONS, ETC. FOR THIS PECULIARITY IN THE NEUROTIC PREDISPOSITION IT WILL ALWAYS BE IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND A PSYCHOLOGICAL AETIOLOGY, BECAUSE IT IS ANTERIOR TO ALL PSYCHOLOGY. THIS PREDISPOSITION--YOU CAN CALL IT "CONGENITAL SENSITIVENESS" OR WHAT YOU LIKE--IS THE CAUSE OF THE FIRST RESISTANCES TO ADAPTATION. AS THE WAY TO ADAPTION IS BLOCKED, THE BIOLOGICAL ENERGY WE CALL LIBIDO DOES NOT FIND ITS APPROPRIATE OUTLET OR ACTIVITY, WITH THE RESULT THAT A SUITABLE FORM OF ADAPTATION IS REPLACED BY ABNORMAL OR PRIMITIVE ONE. ----------------------- IVAR wrote: i'm no match for Jung but i can explain my question. i thought that by including Beatle solo works you were considerably weakening the Stones's advantage where it comes to longevity. finding them still five places ahead surprised me. for the same reason i'm struck by last four artists on your list: Who, Hendrix, Marley, Mitchell. if longevity is a major consideration, this suggests that the relatively few albums produced by Marley and, especially, Hendrix have an unusually high greatness "density". you won't get any disagreement from me on that score! in fact, i have a particular affinity for that measure -- not to the exclusion of longevity, but alongside it. i wonder, how would you rank artists by density of greatness? short career, bands count (no one has to die), relatively small number of albums, bad albums allowed if compensated by otherwise extreme density. ---------------------- I am satisfied by your response. It reveals an exposure to a specific brand of philosophical and logical thinking which I find appropriate and gratifying.--------------------To me, longevity is the ultimate proof of artistic vision. In my opinion, the passionate qualities of some short-lived artists of "high artistic density" -- artists who have built up an entertainment cult without having a voluminous body of recordings but, nevertheless, are artist who are able to invoke an immediately cognizable textual signature -- are of lesser historical importance than those artists whose work is great in proportion to the time-period of their productions. Historical and psycho-biographical evidence indicated that Hendrix was going to create quasi-orchestral recordings with Gil Evans that would be comparable with similar recordings by Miles Davis in terms of their influence and artistic breadth of vision. As it is, Hendrix recorded ouevre extends to 10 or more albums and he should be considered as an artist with a substantial body of work. The same goes for Kurt Cobain of Nirvana who is at some point below Joni Mitchell in terms of artistic importance. Perhaps he is on the level of a Neil Young, whose song "Hey Hey My My" he quotes in his suicide note, stating, "It's better to burn out than to fade away...." Neil Young has retired that song from his performing repertoire. ----------------------- question: is Vermeer a lesser artist than Rembrandt? Modigliani than Matisse? Flaubert than Zola? i mean, because of their more limited productions. maybe you'll say that music is different -- but then how about Chopin and Liszt? history sometimes is ambivalent between the smaller and larger bodies of work, or even favors the smaller. of course i'm not presuming to speak for history -- just thought it worth mentioning.------------speaking for myself, in the here-and-now, i acknowledge that an artistic vision developed over a long lifetime is impressive and satisfying in ways that a smaller production isn't. i only want to add that a smaller production has its own virtue: the chance for concentrated attention that both exhausts its subject (because small) and is endlessly renewed (because great). ----------------------- You are attributing to public opinion an artistically discerning consciousness, which I do believe it has. I do not believe that critics, those men and women whose privilege it supposedly is to bestow and arbitrate and estimate value, will do anything but make a creed out of the dominant value-systems already present in contemporary American culture. If this sounds a little vague, I do not intend it to be. I am just saying that in both the public mind and in the critical mind certain average conceptions have crystallized as to the great productions in the history of popular music and I believe these will stand for all time, or at least not differ radically from their present form. My list is a hierarchy of my favorite artists, not a list of the greatest artists of all time because I feel that, in creating such a list, I would unavoidable fall prey to some incorrect axioms and opinions. I have the privilege of being able to listen to the music of these artists ever night each and every night and as a result their music has a much more fluid and flexible vitality in my mind than they do in the minds of others. I fully expect those who cannot afford to a thorough exposure to these artists are on some level wanting of a measure of vital creativity and I would fully expect the general public to disagree with my judgments due to the fact that, as Jung says, "they cling to the dead letter because they cannot grasp its living contents."-----------------------Rabbi, as your libido is invested in masturbatory habits which should have been discarded long ago, I feel your judgment is unreliable and untrustworthy.--------------I see your gay lifestyle as a way of practicing a more social form of autoeroticism.----------- Here is another quote for you, this time more appropriate: Why the Rabbi is gay only the Genesis knows, // that companion who rules the star of our birth, // the god of human nature, mortal though he be in each single life -- // and changeful of countenance, black and white."