Favorite Bands/Artists • Page 4

Dance Gavin Dance is cool, though I only like the Tilian stuff. Curious, what Circa album would you be referring to?

 

1. Motion City Soundtrack
2. Descendents
3. Yellowcard
4. Depeche Mode
5. Mike Kinsella
6. The Promise Ring
7. The Wonder Years
8. Thrice
9. The Hotelier
10. Saves the Day
11. Dinosaur Jr.
12. Brand New
13. Jimmy Eat World
14. The Smiths
15. Pedro the Lion

This list may not be in exact order, but this pretty much most of my favorite bands. It rotates a lot with the spots always changing, and sometimes new bands enter the list as well. My list excludes artists and rappers since it would make the list harder to make. The only exception is Mike Kinsella because I can't decide which my favorite project of his is.

 

Violent Waves. Though upon further consideration, I was probably too hard on it. I think I gave it like a 2 originally but I actually don't mind the first 5 tracks, I just haaate the rest. Their adjusted score would definitely see them in the top 10.

 

I was actually shocked when I found out Violent Waves isn't well liked. It's probably second to Blue Sky Noise for me. I like the atmosphere to the whole thing, and I connect with it lyrically more than any other Circa album I think. I'm glad you were at least able to be okay with first half though, I know the pain of hating an album by a band you love.

 

That's what I mean though, I could do that but I feel like its unfair to those that do have discographies I like more but have one or two early/late albums that would fuck up the average. I do think my top 10 wouldn't change all that much but I'd get a few bands in there that have only one great album and nothing else.

 

Which Brand New album?

 

Quite hard to pick a top 10 or 20, but I guess if I take out the bands I just like and love, these would be my favourites:

English language bands/artists:

1. Manic Street Preachers
2. Chewing on Tinfoil
3. Bruce Springsteen
4. The Lawrence Arms
5. Jimmy Eat World
6. The Gaslight Anthem
7. Bad Religion
8. Sir Reg
9. Blink 182
10. Atmosphere
11. Brand New
12. Yellowcard
13. Sage Francis
14. The White Buffolo
15. Streetlight Manifesto

And since I grew up in Germany with a strong French background, there are also quite a few great bands from Europe/Quebec that are worth checking out and hold a dear place in my heart:

Non English artists:

1. Turbostaat
2. Vulgaires Machins
3. Fjørt
4. Kaizers Orchestra
5. Guillaume Beauregrd
6. Kettcar
7. Tocotronic
8. Mes Aieux
9. Pierre Lapointe
10. Skamabankt

 

1. Jimmy Eat World
2. Circa Survive
3. Thursday
4. Thrice
5. Sigur Ros
6. Deafheaven
7. Moving Mountains
8. Pianos Become The Teeth
9. The 1975
10. Deftones

 

1. The National
2. Pavement
3. Radiohead
4. The Pixies
5. Deftones
6. Grimes
7. mewithoutYou
8. Jeff Buckley
9. Say Anything
10. Kanye West

Honorable mentions: The Notorious B.I.G., Creedence Clearwater Revival, Failure, Fiona Apple, Tom Waits, My Bloody Valentine, Brian Eno, Interpol, At the Drive-In, Bjork, The Killers, Drake, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Miles Davis.

 

Your Favourite Weapon

 

I just act like that one doesn't exist.

 

With you 100% here. I can't stand that album outside of No Seatbelt Song.

 

I know what you mean, but I feel like by disregarding some releases you're not really evaluating bands properly. I wanted to take everything into account and just let the chips fall where they may.

Have I mentioned how I'm taking this too seriously?

 

I wouldn't say I'm disregarding them but for example if one band has an album I view as a 10, three 9's and one 3. They would have an average of 8 whereas one band who put out two 8.5 albums would have an average of 8.5 and I don't think there's any way I could say I enjoy the second band more if that makes sense.

Hey, it's serious business.

 

Blink
Anthony Green Projects
Dallas Green Projects
Explosions
Hammock
Jimmy
Thrice
Yellowcard
Copeland
New Found Glory

Defunct List:
Emanuel
Terminal
Evaline

 

It's really cool to see circa fans' preferences because there's never an obvious, "favorite." People are all over the board with them.

 

Oh yeah, definitely. Though, I see a lot more love for Juturna, On Letting Go and Blue Sky Noise than Violent Waves and Descensus. I really love every album though. My excitement for Anthony Green's new solo album is more excitement than I've felt in years for an album.

 

I actually disagree - you may enjoy band 1's peak more than band 2 overall, but all things considered, you enjoy band 2 more on average. That's what I was trying to do - it was less about total enjoyment and more about average enjoyment. If there's part of a band's discography you just hate, even if it's just one epic failure among a bunch of masterpieces, that's gotta be represented somehow. It may not be emotionally or psychologically satisfying, but it's honest and objective (or as close to objective as is possible).

 

Not really, band 1 has three albums better than either of band 2's. They just have one dud. I think that has to be represented I just don't think an average score really does that very well or is all that fair. Bands are inevitably going to peak and fall off eventually if they continue on for long enough but does that make them any less of a band than one who hasn't yet started to falter even if they never reach the heights of the other band?

 

Overall, yes. It doesn't take away from their peak, a masterpiece is still a masterpiece, but If not through an average, how else would said dud be represented?

 

I just tried to take it into personal consideration in terms of how highly I think of their discography as a whole. Like on my list Death Cab and Kamelot have albums I like more than anything by Copeland or Nate but they've got some weaker albums too which knocks them down a bit. I think had I taken an average score though they would end up falling out of my list completely and being replaced by band's that I wouldn't consider as worthwhile.

Another way I thought of doing this was just picking them based on what 10 I'd most want to keep in order but I feel like that wouldnt put enough emphasis on the weaker albums because you could just ignore them.

This is why I found it difficult, I don't think there's an easy way to do it.

 

Also say My Chemical Romance reunited and put out 4 albums I despised, if I took an average score for them they wouldn't crack my top 15 but they'd still have three albums in my top 5 of all time which would make no sense.

 

That makes perfect sense to me. How could you put a band in your top 10/15 if you despise - not just don't care for, but actively despise - 50% of the music they put out?

 

Because they put out three of my top 5 of all time. That's so much more important to me. It's so easy for a band to put out an album you don't care for but almost impossible to find one that you like that much, let alone three by one band.

 

I get that, but that's the whole reason I did it this way: to take personal bias, i.e. how important a band is to you, completely out of the equation.