I’m furious that they are responding at all.
May 27, 2024 7:55 AM Subscribe
Quit arguing about the Apple Music albums list. From Slate music guy Carl Wilson on his Substack.
Counterpoint: continue to argue about the Apple Music albums list.
posted by box at 8:42 AM on May 27 [7 favorites]
posted by box at 8:42 AM on May 27 [7 favorites]
I think there's a lot of interesting material in there about how lists are compiled and what they mean in the world of music criticism and where they are more or less valuable and informative, so I probably shouldn't have framed the post around the headline. I liked the inside baseball look at how these things get made from a guy who routinely participates in making these things.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:48 AM on May 27 [3 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 8:48 AM on May 27 [3 favorites]
Carl Wilson is also the author of Let's Talk About Love: Why Other People Have Such Bad Taste, which I really enjoyed.
posted by box at 8:51 AM on May 27 [6 favorites]
posted by box at 8:51 AM on May 27 [6 favorites]
Metal and metal-adjacent music has really fallen out of fashion--they have Nevermind, of course, and then Led Zeppelin II. After that, we go all the way to 52 before hitting Appetite for Destruction, then Master of Puppets, finally Back in Black.
Even if you try to shoehorn in The Downward Spiral or Rage Against the Machine (and I wouldn't), that's still less than ten percent of the list. Which is fine by me, heavy music isn't really my bag, but also it feels like it was a much bigger part of these kinds of conversations twenty or thirty years ago.
(I'm also available to do 'they picked the wrong soandso album,' I've got a bunch of those, but I've stopped doing the one where I insist that #47 is much better than #46--that got boring real quick.)
posted by box at 9:38 AM on May 27 [1 favorite]
Even if you try to shoehorn in The Downward Spiral or Rage Against the Machine (and I wouldn't), that's still less than ten percent of the list. Which is fine by me, heavy music isn't really my bag, but also it feels like it was a much bigger part of these kinds of conversations twenty or thirty years ago.
(I'm also available to do 'they picked the wrong soandso album,' I've got a bunch of those, but I've stopped doing the one where I insist that #47 is much better than #46--that got boring real quick.)
posted by box at 9:38 AM on May 27 [1 favorite]
what struck me about the Apple list is that One Hundred selections is not nearly enough. You can't begin to do justice to what is so-called essential in recorded music (since whenever) with only one hundred titles. So either go long or go home.
I mean, where's the Can? Where's the Orb? Where's the Sigur Ros? Where's the Sonic Youth?
posted by philip-random at 9:59 AM on May 27 [4 favorites]
I mean, where's the Can? Where's the Orb? Where's the Sigur Ros? Where's the Sonic Youth?
posted by philip-random at 9:59 AM on May 27 [4 favorites]
My favorite lists aren't simple lists at all, because this shit is way more complicated than one stupid list can convey, no matter how you assemble it. What's the math? Are they saying the number 1 album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, is 1 percent better than the number 2 album, Thriller, which in turn is 1 percent better than Abbey Road? Probably not. Do they mean these albums are a gazillion percent better than the albums in 1000th place?
But no ranking is any damned good if you already know all the albums and have your own opinions of them. Instead of a list, I want an app that will reliably point me to new things (not just possibly-new-to-me things) that I might like based on old stuff I already like. I want 100 percent of the world's AI devoted to solving this problem. YouTube could make itself useful by developing something like that instead of showing the shit suggestions it gives me now. You tell it (or it detects) that you are crazy about some New York band c.1985 and it finds a Shanghai band c.2024 that you will like.
And if they're just going to give us a list like this Apple top 100 ("crafted by Apple Music’s team of experts alongside a select group of artists, songwriters, producers, and industry professionals"), I want it to be a database filterable by characteristics of the voters. Here are the top 100 albums of all time... where the voter matches (birthplace = India, citizenship = France, gender != M, age >= 50, etc.).
posted by pracowity at 11:24 AM on May 27 [1 favorite]
But no ranking is any damned good if you already know all the albums and have your own opinions of them. Instead of a list, I want an app that will reliably point me to new things (not just possibly-new-to-me things) that I might like based on old stuff I already like. I want 100 percent of the world's AI devoted to solving this problem. YouTube could make itself useful by developing something like that instead of showing the shit suggestions it gives me now. You tell it (or it detects) that you are crazy about some New York band c.1985 and it finds a Shanghai band c.2024 that you will like.
And if they're just going to give us a list like this Apple top 100 ("crafted by Apple Music’s team of experts alongside a select group of artists, songwriters, producers, and industry professionals"), I want it to be a database filterable by characteristics of the voters. Here are the top 100 albums of all time... where the voter matches (birthplace = India, citizenship = France, gender != M, age >= 50, etc.).
posted by pracowity at 11:24 AM on May 27 [1 favorite]
I try not to be too judgy about people's choice of platform on this fallen internet of ours, but you have to admit it's kind of hilarious that he's popping a monocle over people daring to discuss a list published by a company with an ad that's cRuShInG aRt... while posting on a platform that does revenue sharing with literal Nazis.
posted by Rhaomi at 11:32 AM on May 27 [8 favorites]
posted by Rhaomi at 11:32 AM on May 27 [8 favorites]
Not sure how much direct editorial control he has these days (I’ve moved away from the music side of things at the ol’ fruit stand these days), but when we were still Beats Music Scott Plagenhoef (Head of Editorial, the head “playlist” dude, if you will) had a party trick where he’d ask for any musical recording artist in history during a meeting, and then go into more detail than you could possibility believe about them. And yeah, lots of people could talk forever about something like Pet Sounds or Nirvana’s impact on popular music, but he could go just as long about something like Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney road show performances and their contribution to the enduring popularity of The Wizard of Oz.
Anyway, all this to say, wouldn’t surprise me if each entry of our list had a 30+ minute explanation each for every entry and why they are placed where they are.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 12:37 PM on May 27
Anyway, all this to say, wouldn’t surprise me if each entry of our list had a 30+ minute explanation each for every entry and why they are placed where they are.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 12:37 PM on May 27
I thought Carl Wilson died in 1998.
posted by Faint of Butt at 2:21 PM on May 27 [1 favorite]
posted by Faint of Butt at 2:21 PM on May 27 [1 favorite]
This is the first I've heard anyone talking about this list so I guess that means I'm winning at life.
posted by egypturnash at 3:00 PM on May 27 [2 favorites]
posted by egypturnash at 3:00 PM on May 27 [2 favorites]
pracowity, have you tried Pandora? It's quite good at "You like X, so here's Y" - especially since they added "Discovery" and "Deep cuts" modes a couple years ago.
posted by McBearclaw at 4:56 PM on May 27 [1 favorite]
posted by McBearclaw at 4:56 PM on May 27 [1 favorite]
I think it's worth noting that this 100 albums thing pops up automatically when you launch the music app on the iPhone and has to be dismissed (a whole swipe up). I don't like that sort of cruft showing up when I want to play music. That whole free U2 album was also just in the way.
The much bigger issue is that this list just exists as a 'radio station' on the desktop app. Apple knows the experience of using the music app sucks - that's why they spun off classical as it's own thing and why this list is actually a website. It's not for advertising - on my desktop app right now the second row of "Browse" is entirely dedicated- four tiles wide, of links over to the website. Which is at least decent and interesting like the html review and so much nicer than the app.
posted by zenon at 8:10 PM on May 27
The much bigger issue is that this list just exists as a 'radio station' on the desktop app. Apple knows the experience of using the music app sucks - that's why they spun off classical as it's own thing and why this list is actually a website. It's not for advertising - on my desktop app right now the second row of "Browse" is entirely dedicated- four tiles wide, of links over to the website. Which is at least decent and interesting like the html review and so much nicer than the app.
posted by zenon at 8:10 PM on May 27
popping a monocle over people daring to discuss a list published by a company with an ad that's cRuShInG aRt... while posting on a platform that does revenue sharing with literal Nazis.
"The petition added that Substack’s commitment to free speech isn’t absolute because it does remove some sex-related content."
wow.
posted by HearHere at 1:36 AM on May 28
"The petition added that Substack’s commitment to free speech isn’t absolute because it does remove some sex-related content."
wow.
posted by HearHere at 1:36 AM on May 28
have you tried Pandora? It's quite good at "You like X, so here's Y"
Thanks. I'll have a look.
But does it consider all kinds of music, all around the world, or does it keep you in a simple silo? Because "If you like [some current top 5 New York hip hop act], we think you'll like [some other current top 5 New York hip hop act]" isn't doing much work for anyone.
I want something smart enough to look at my love of some songs from Canada (1957), Sweden (1972), and Chile (1942), maybe also look at the movies and books I like best, how I like to spend my free time, and so on, and then come back with a modern Nigerian song that I will love, not based on what other people with similar tastes like, but based on what it thinks I'll like after analyzing the stuff I already like. Which might be asking a lot, but doing a lot of crazy database searches and so on is exactly what computers are for. I tell it what I love and it comes back with something more than the obvious. I want it to discover things for me that I absolutely would not have discovered on my own.
posted by pracowity at 7:49 AM on May 28
Thanks. I'll have a look.
But does it consider all kinds of music, all around the world, or does it keep you in a simple silo? Because "If you like [some current top 5 New York hip hop act], we think you'll like [some other current top 5 New York hip hop act]" isn't doing much work for anyone.
I want something smart enough to look at my love of some songs from Canada (1957), Sweden (1972), and Chile (1942), maybe also look at the movies and books I like best, how I like to spend my free time, and so on, and then come back with a modern Nigerian song that I will love, not based on what other people with similar tastes like, but based on what it thinks I'll like after analyzing the stuff I already like. Which might be asking a lot, but doing a lot of crazy database searches and so on is exactly what computers are for. I tell it what I love and it comes back with something more than the obvious. I want it to discover things for me that I absolutely would not have discovered on my own.
posted by pracowity at 7:49 AM on May 28
From Rhaomi's link:
Hamish McKenzie, a Substack co-founder, doubled down on the company’s policy in a Dec. 21 blog post.
“I just want to make it clear that we don’t like Nazis either — we wish no-one held those views. But some people do hold those and other extreme views,” he wrote.
“Given that, we don’t think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go away — in fact, it makes it worse,” he wrote.
I see! Their policy is "Won't someone think of the Nazis?"
posted by medusa at 8:05 AM on May 28 [1 favorite]
Hamish McKenzie, a Substack co-founder, doubled down on the company’s policy in a Dec. 21 blog post.
“I just want to make it clear that we don’t like Nazis either — we wish no-one held those views. But some people do hold those and other extreme views,” he wrote.
“Given that, we don’t think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go away — in fact, it makes it worse,” he wrote.
I see! Their policy is "Won't someone think of the Nazis?"
posted by medusa at 8:05 AM on May 28 [1 favorite]
all this Apple Music list really says is, Come listen to these albums on Apple Music. Yep.
posted by theora55 at 10:12 AM on May 28 [2 favorites]
posted by theora55 at 10:12 AM on May 28 [2 favorites]
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posted by Depressed Obese Nightmare Man at 8:36 AM on May 27