Apple 100 Best Albums

[FarmerTan]

I can now say that I have seen the real slim shady video!

It should have been captioned.

So I looked up the lyrics, and found out it was from the year 2000!

I have decided that I am still too old for rap music.

 

[Lockback]

Okay, so I turned 71 today ... but after looking at this list, I feel like I'm 171.
I literally had not heard of probably half the artists and albums, partly because I absolutely despise hip-hop/rap/whatever they call it nowadays. Not melodic. Lyrics I can't relate to. Just bloody awful. And so I pretty much stopped listening to new music around 2000 or so.
So that left me baffled by a lot of the choices. I saw some I agree with (Abbey Road, Purple Rain, Ziggy Stardust) and a whole lot of 'em that had me mumbling " ... I've never heard of that artist in my life."
I know. I know. I'm getting old.
Okay. But I know who John Coltrane and Miles Davis are and I'll bet a lot of these whippersnappers in Gen Z don't have a clue.

 

[StillShaving]

Apple Music 100 Best Albums

Welcome to 100 Best Albums, our definitive list of the greatest albums ever made. Sign up to stream full tracks or add these albums to your library.

100best.music.apple.com

Apparently, Apple has published a 100 best albums list. I have not looked at it very closely except to see Miseducation of Lauryn Hill as ranked first and Thriller second. Abbey Road third. Purple Rain fourth. Pet Sounds is 20th. Apparently the only Stones album in the top 100 is Exile at 53. I may not be searching properly. The only Hendrix is Are You Experienced at 53. Aja at 63. Joni Blue at 16.

I have no idea of the criteria or methodology. I wonder why Apple is bothering to do this.

I had heard about the top 10 and was surprised about #1 as I did not think it had a outsized impact. I have no real opinion on that album as I don't recall listening to it, though I liked her collaboration on the Killing Me Softly remake.

They wanted to bother those of us who clicked over to their website to suffer through a long cover-flow scrolling session in order to read it. Maybe that interface works better on a touch interface, but I find the animation and endless scrolling with the scroll wheel on a mouse to be tedious.

 

[Jim in NZ]

Rap - a 4 letter word that starts with a silent C.

 

[FarmerTan]

Rap - a 4 letter word that starts with a silent C.

That would be my opinion, but I suppose the folks that like that genre would not like Hillbilly and Honky-tonk music as much as I....

 

[Lockback]

Rap - a 4 letter word that starts with a silent C.

Spot on.

 

[luvmysuper]

Every genre of music ever written has examples of genius and garbage.
And which category it fits in is entirely up to the listener!

 

[beginish]

Lots of stuff in there that I’m completely unfamiliar with. I was running through it (from 100 to 1) and couldn’t find Dark Side of the Moon, ready to come here and post what a farce the list was, but then found it in the top 30. It’s not SO bad.

The very notion of Album has so changed, that you wonder if it’s really an apples to apples comparison between Pet Sounds and Lemonade. Let’s face it, even great albums have some real clunkers as tracks. I listened to the new Billie Eilish album yesterday and marveled at the high caliber of songs from start to finish. Tough to do! It’s as meticulously crafted as Kind of Blue, and Miles did it over 5 songs.

I gave rap a fair try in my year of one album per day a couple years ago, and it just isn’t for me. Nothing wrong with it, but it doesn’t strike a chord.

 

[rsp1202]

I gave rap a fair try in my year of one album per day a couple years ago, and it just isn’t for me.

It was amazing the outright stealing of music that was going on initially, and laughing that they called it "sampling." That got shut down, but I remember the attitude that allowed it. Not for me, either.

 

[beginish]

It was amazing the outright stealing of music that was going on initially, and laughing that they called it "sampling." That got shut down, but I remember the attitude that allowed it. Not for me, either.

I can’t give them a hard time about it at this point. Musicians have always, um, been inspired by others. One of my favorite classical pieces is Brahms’ ‘Variations on a Theme by Joseph Haydn’. At least he gave credit where credit was due. Most artists do that now, pay the royalty, etc. Not too many Vanilla Ices out there.

 

[Toothpick]

I tend to think of music like artwork. There is all kinds of different types. We’ve gone through several periods of what’s popular. Everyone has their favorite genre and it’s all simply a personal taste. You can google the most popular artwork and you will get generally the same answers but maybe not in the same order. Google 100 best albums and it’s the same outcome.…generally the same albums but not all in the same order. There’s timeless works of art and timeless musical albums.

But…..it’s all pretty much meaningless

 

[The Knize]

I can’t give them a hard time about it at this point. Musicians have always, um, been inspired by others. One of my favorite classical pieces is Brahms’ ‘Variations on a Theme by Joseph Haydn’. At least he gave credit where credit was due. Most artists do that now, pay the royalty, etc. Not too many Vanilla Ices out there.

Did Vanilla Ice not credit under pressure? I doubt VI himself had much to say about what he put out anyway.

I think I would say that I was and am a big fan of the sort of early rap. Not so much Sugar Hill Gang and Run DMC, but the stuff that came relatively soon after: NWA, Dr. Dre, Snoop, Tupac, Biggie, and, for sure, Eminem. Maybe even Vanilla Ice, but just for Ice, Ice, Baby. Maybe even LL Cool j and Coolio. Bones, Thugs, and Harmony. After that it rather petered out for me. Some how I could handle the ultra violence better than I liked the utterly crude sexual content that came along, especially from women rappers. But I think for a time, rap was by far the most original, creative, authentic, and meaningful thing going on in music. I think several of the rap albums Apple had in its top 100 belong there. I was okay with the sampling and I am good with where we ended up on that. I would rather have a creative guy or group sample an existing song than have something written by committee to the same chord pattern they always use.

I listened to the new Billie Eilish album yesterday and marveled at the high caliber of songs from start to finish. Tough to do!

Sounds like a needed addition to the B&B Perfect Album thread. I like Billie Eilish and her brother, who does a lot of the production as I understand it, a lot.

 

[beginish]

Did Vanilla Ice not credit under pressure? I doubt VI himself had much to say about what he put out anyway.

I think I would say that I was and am a big fan of the sort of early rap. Not so much Sugar Hill Gang and Run DMC, but the stuff that came relatively soon after: NWA, Dr. Dre, Snoop, Tupac, Biggie, and, for sure, Eminem. Maybe even Vanilla Ice, but just for Ice, Ice, Baby. Maybe even LL Cool j and Coolio. Bones, Thugs, and Harmony. After that it rather petered out for me. Some how I could handle the ultra violence better than I liked the utterly crude sexual content that came along, especially from women rappers. But I think for a time, rap was by far the most original, creative, authentic, and meaningful thing going on in music. I think several of the rap albums Apple had in its top 100 belong there. I was okay with the sampling and I am good with where we ended up on that. I would rather have a creative guy or group sample an existing song than have something written by committee to the same chord pattern they always use.


Sounds like a needed addition to the B&B Perfect Album thread. I like Billie Eilish and her brother, who does a lot of the production as I understand it, a lot.

Queen/Bowie sued VI for copyright infringement and won.

 

[The Knize]

Queen/Bowie sued VI for copyright infringement and won.

That is probably a fair way to put it, although the Net tells me that technically the case settled. My own non-expert opinion is that VI's purported defense that he added a note at the end of the riff, was really no defense at all. Bowie and all members of Queen did get songwriting credits, along with VI, for "Ice, Ice, Baby," and presumably royalties. Although VI apparently at one point claimed that he bought out the Bowie and Queen royalty rights, with Queen, at least, denying that that was the case.

Also interesting is that John Deacon, the Queen bass player, has said that Bowie came up with the famous bassline, whereas Bowie has said that Deacon did. Mercury is said by some members of Queen to have been the primary songwriter from the Queen side, but like I said all members of Queen got at least some writing credit, I do not know if equal. Apparently equal songwriting credit for all Queen material by all members became the rule later, but this was not the usual case at the time "Under Pressure" was written.