The Chorus.Fm Users Definitive Albums List • Page 4

hell yeah we already got two. nice.

 

Brb, I’ve gotta second guess myself for a few more days before I share mine.

 

Think about the points thing! It reduces random outliers jumping up the list just because two people put them high.

 

I can hardly rank 10 albums much less 50

 

Nice idea, but i'll probably wont contribute. Nearly always too tired for stuff like this haha

 

I’m considering leaving Kanye off, but his albums have had a big impact on my music consumption.

 

it’s a bad idea, man

you can rank 10 if you want. those 10 will get the appropriate points. the remaining 40 might as well not even be on the list if you aren’t going to rank them, though.

 

Might be worth asking @Jason Tate about the algorithm he came up with to give albums that show up on lots of lists more weight.

 

isnt that what the points based thing is for? like, if they’re on more lists, they’re inevitably getting more points?

 

I think the idea is whether you do simple addition of points or some fancier scaling to handle outliers. If first place gets 50 points and 50th place gets 1 point, first place is weighted 50x. Another option is first place gets 75 points and 50th place gets 25 points, so first place is only weighted 3x. Imagine there are 50 submissions that all have the same album in the 50th spot. Shouldn't it show up higher than if one random submission has an album in the 1 spot that no one else puts on their list?

It really is just a trade-off between "people's most favorites" and "people's consensus favorites".

 

I think you’re misunderstanding my... point.

it’s a weighting thing. If you give all #1 albums 50 points and all #50 albums 1 point, that is a massive discrepancy that completely decimated the value of consensus albums at the lower end of the list. If you start at 100 points for #1 choices and end at 51, it’s a 2:1 ratio instead of 50:1.

 

Right! Especially important on a consensus list. Got that scale from Robert Christgau.

 

this was really hard after the top 20 or so. after that, it just became "these are the albums i like listening to recently, so in what order would i most likely want to listen to them in?"

1. jimmy eat world - clarity
2. american football - lp3
3. tears for fears - songs from the big chair
4. blink 182 - untitled
5. quicksand - slip
6. the story so far - proper dose
7. paramore - after laughter
8. somos - temple of plenty
9. til tuesday - voices carry
10. taylor swift - red
11. owen - at home with owen
12. run the jewels - rtj2
13. box car racer - self titled
14, carly rae jepsen - emotion
15. motion city soundtrack - commit this to memory
16. armor for sleep - what to do when you are dead
17. hall & oates - private eyes
18. fugazi - self titled
19. led zeppelin - self titled
20. motion city soundtrack - commit this to memory
21. ariel kill him - alpha is down
22. the postal service - give up
23. moving mountains - pneuma
24. park - building a better ______
25. vein - errorzone
26. death cab for cutie - transatlanticism
27. p.o.s. - never better
28. julien baker - sprained ankle
29. everclear - sparkle and fade
30. prawn - ships
31. nick drake - pink moon
32. pentimento - i, no longer
33. turnover - peripheral vision
34. diet cig - over easy
35. hundred reasons - ideas above our station
36. catherine mcgrath - talk of this town
37. montgomery - new clear war
38. gates - bloom and breathe
39. explosions in the sky - the earth is not a cold dead place
40. the early november - the room's too cold
41. beastie boys - licensed to ill
42. latterman - no matter where we go...
43. death from above - you're a woman, i'm a machine
44. frank sinatra - in the wee small hours
45. thursday - full collapse
46. the 1975 - self titled
47. the matches - decomposer
48. the jealous sound - kill them with kindness
49. felt - 3
50. taking back sunday - tell all your friends

 

Thinking about doing a top 50 that shaped me and then cringing over some of the things I’d have to include to be honest.

 

Damn, took way less time than I thought it would for Br*nd N*w to show up on a list.

 

If you do it I'll include a Chili Peppers album

 

Amazing how much progress you think we made as a society (/website lolz) and then someone puts Brand New or Kanye on their list. You guys really think they deserve that extra promo huh?

 

Before this gets out of hand, we should address it. What are we doing with problematic artists? Brand New is obviously not the only one, and it's pretty clear that people are itching to pile on someone for including them on their list. Do we nix them completely? Do you include them with an *? I think it's assumed that a large number of people on this site hold those records in high regard. They also know the horrible things that that piece of shit did. Is it better to just exclude the records?

What about other artists who have problematic pasts? What are you doing with them? The Beatles, Zeppelin, Bowie, Pac etc.

 

I assume The Smiths Smashing Pumpkins and Kanye will show up on lists

 

Exclude the records. These artists that “people are itching to include” have had their due. If you can’t find an album to sub-in for an abuser or racist, etc. then add the problematic records to a separate un-ranked category.

 

And, for that matter, what line are we drawing? Kanye and Jesse are both absolutely problematic. Do they deserve to be in the same sentence? I genuinely don't know. I was planning to include multiple Kanye albums on my list, and to remove Brand New completely.

In addition, what is the real point of this list? Is it to expose lesser known artists? To compile a canon for Chorus posters?

 

My personal opinion is an asterisk is fine if the user wants to call it out. Not a super well thought opinion, but the lines of what and what not to exclude is a bit grey.

 

So the list should be for artists who haven't "had their due"?

 

The idea is to give extra value to albums that don’t necessarily score a ton of top 10 rankings, but end up on the largest number of lists. We used the scoring system you’ve suggested on all staff lists up through end of last year, then Jason came up with an algorithm that makes it so 1-2 people ranking an album high doesn’t automatically get that album into the top 10.