24 thoughts on “Question of the Week: Which do you appreciate more…”
I’d choose an artist who put out ONE tremendous record over an artist who put out a hundred uneven productions.
A no brainer for me, I’m with Steven on this one.
Hell, one tremendous single, even. (Though I don’t really know what “uneven” means. *All* albums are uneven.) But if you’re asking whether I’d take a awesome three minutes (like, I dunno, ? And the Mysterians or Nena or M) over a consistently half-assed 30 or 40 years (like, say, Pink Floyd or the Grateful Dead), it’s really no contest, in my mind.
(Though, okay, Floyd and the Dead aren’t THAT consistently half-assed, I suppose. They both have great moments, here and there. Just none as great as “96 Tears” or “99 Luftballons” or “Pop Muzik.”)
(And I have no idea where that smiley face came from.)
Anthe, you gave it away with the Marquee Moon.
You think? I couldn’t resist. Besides that I was Blainewhacking… I knew it would snuff you out to comment. (a-wink).
Except maybe “Arnold Layne” and “See Emily Play” perhaps?
Well it depends…I don’t mind a band that can spit out great albums like the Eagles or Fleetwood Mac and many others. That’s good stuff..I appreciate a band that can do it. That is not an easy task, either you have it or you don’t. Even if it’s one great song then thats great! Just depends on the band and your preference.
Above was responding to Chuck’s post at #4, I’m lousy at them XHTML tags…
Come on, this question verges on the rhetorical. “Which is better, a small amount of quality or a large amount of mediocrity?”
Try it this way: Which do you appreciate more, an artist who puts out a few tremendous recordings and nothing else, or an artist whose great work is scattered among a dozen or more albums?
Look, man, that’s the gist of it. I think everyone’s caught on. You don’t need to act like a grumpus.
I don’t like to waste my time digging through a mountain of shit for a couple of gold doubloons. I’ll take more quality and less quantity.
< Try it this way: Which do you appreciate more, an artist who puts out a few tremendous recordings and nothing else, or an artist whose great work is scattered among a dozen or more albums?
Or, as I like to put it, which band do you like better, the Beatles or the Stones? :-p
One could argue that the albums Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z., Me Against The World, All Eyez On Me, and The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory are all we need to establish Tupac Shakur’s “musical leagacy” and that his ten plus posthumus releases do more harm than good to that legacy. However, in an entertainment industry where Orange Bowl organizers shamelessly roll a violently shaking Muhammad Ali out to mid-field in a wheelchair for the “enjoyment” of fans, what would you expect?
Less is definitely more. The Sex Pistols, NWA, and Nirvana all had relatively short recording careers, but their impact on the music industry is undeniable.
why don’t you ask Ryan Adams?
CAUTION: You might get a nasty message on your voice mail immediately following such an inquiry.
JD Considine Says:
July 10, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Come on, this question verges on the rhetorical. “Which is better, a small amount of quality or a large amount of mediocrity?”
Exactly the answer I hoped for from the man who wrote the greatest and most minimalist review in the history of rock criticism.
Reviewing the eponymous album by GTR, the entire review was:
“SHT.”
Genius, my friend. And I’ve wanted to tell you that for years…
it doesn’t even have to be an album – example: the incredible “City Slang” by Sonic’s Rendezvous Band
Oh, and in response to #9: is that Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac? And is Eagles one of them there 50s bird vocal groups? Cuz otherwise, I gotta call you on that.
At first I was going to quickly agree with the high quality/low quantity side, but then some of my favorite bands/artists are The Fall, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Current 93 and Guided By Voices, all practically defining the second category. I love these acts for their failings almost as much as I do for their successes, though it must be said that without their successes, I would never have considered their failures.
Then you have folks like Elvis Costello and Prince and The Rolling Stones – all having periods of work that I love while the rest of their timeline is (to me) of dubious quality. I’m willing to drop in and out of an artist’s continuum, keeping half an eye on them in case they get the old fire back. Kind of like how you Google old girlfriends – you don’t necessarily want to get back together but you still want to know what they are up to.
I still hold a hope that The Stones will pull off one more really great record before their contract with the devil runs out and they are freed from the Sisyphean labor of being the Rolling Stones.
Finally, you have Jandek, whose line between success and failure is so blurry that it barely exists (much like Jandek himself)
So, I think I am in the second camp.
it doesn’t even have to be an album – example: the incredible “City Slang” by Sonic’s Rendezvous Band
^^this. in general and specifically the example cited. (tho SRB had 1-2 albums worth of good unrecorded material just to muddy the waters a bit. the distinction between one-shot brilliance and plugging away may depend on circumstances beyond the musician’s control.)
I guess for me this comes down to artists vs. songs. If your primary interest is in following the contours of an artist’s career, I could see where a dozen albums of varying quality might be of interest. If your primary interest is in songs (which it is for me), you’ll take good ones from anywhere, the “who” is of almost no importance (I hardly ever follow band’s careers anymore), and quantity from any one particular artist is kind of irrelevant because you know you’ll encounter more good ones from elsewhere (it’s a selfish way of listening, and I fully condone it). There are exceptions to everything I’ve just said, but as a general rule of thumb, I’m not a stick-with-’em kind of listener and haven’t been for about 20 years.
By the way, I didn’t understand DMed’s comment:
>>> Or, as I like to put it, which band do you like better, the Beatles or the Stones? <<<
Don’t both of them clearly fall in the large-quantity-of-unevenness category? Granted, I don’t know if the Beatles even released a dozen actual albums in their lifetime, but they did release a lot of albums in a six-seven year span, and much as I love pretty much all of them at least half of them I’d say are really uneven (Abbey Road, for instance). (And yet, I accept both their unevenness as well as the Stones — at least up to a point with the latter — and will sometimes even sit through lousy tracks just to re-experience the full package.)
I totally understood DMed’s comment. And the answer is: The Stones.
RockCritics.com 
I’d choose an artist who put out ONE tremendous record over an artist who put out a hundred uneven productions.
A no brainer for me, I’m with Steven on this one.
Hell, one tremendous single, even. (Though I don’t really know what “uneven” means. *All* albums are uneven.) But if you’re asking whether I’d take a awesome three minutes (like, I dunno, ? And the Mysterians or Nena or M) over a consistently half-assed 30 or 40 years (like, say, Pink Floyd or the Grateful Dead), it’s really no contest, in my mind.
(Though, okay, Floyd and the Dead aren’t THAT consistently half-assed, I suppose. They both have great moments, here and there. Just none as great as “96 Tears” or “99 Luftballons” or “Pop Muzik.”)
(And I have no idea where that smiley face came from.)
Anthe, you gave it away with the Marquee Moon.
You think? I couldn’t resist. Besides that I was Blainewhacking… I knew it would snuff you out to comment. (a-wink).
Well it depends…I don’t mind a band that can spit out great albums like the Eagles or Fleetwood Mac and many others. That’s good stuff..I appreciate a band that can do it. That is not an easy task, either you have it or you don’t. Even if it’s one great song then thats great! Just depends on the band and your preference.
Above was responding to Chuck’s post at #4, I’m lousy at them XHTML tags…
Come on, this question verges on the rhetorical. “Which is better, a small amount of quality or a large amount of mediocrity?”
Try it this way: Which do you appreciate more, an artist who puts out a few tremendous recordings and nothing else, or an artist whose great work is scattered among a dozen or more albums?
Look, man, that’s the gist of it. I think everyone’s caught on. You don’t need to act like a grumpus.
I don’t like to waste my time digging through a mountain of shit for a couple of gold doubloons. I’ll take more quality and less quantity.
< Try it this way: Which do you appreciate more, an artist who puts out a few tremendous recordings and nothing else, or an artist whose great work is scattered among a dozen or more albums?
Or, as I like to put it, which band do you like better, the Beatles or the Stones? :-p
One could argue that the albums Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z., Me Against The World, All Eyez On Me, and The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory are all we need to establish Tupac Shakur’s “musical leagacy” and that his ten plus posthumus releases do more harm than good to that legacy. However, in an entertainment industry where Orange Bowl organizers shamelessly roll a violently shaking Muhammad Ali out to mid-field in a wheelchair for the “enjoyment” of fans, what would you expect?
Less is definitely more. The Sex Pistols, NWA, and Nirvana all had relatively short recording careers, but their impact on the music industry is undeniable.
why don’t you ask Ryan Adams?
CAUTION: You might get a nasty message on your voice mail immediately following such an inquiry.
JD Considine Says:
July 10, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Come on, this question verges on the rhetorical. “Which is better, a small amount of quality or a large amount of mediocrity?”
Exactly the answer I hoped for from the man who wrote the greatest and most minimalist review in the history of rock criticism.
Reviewing the eponymous album by GTR, the entire review was:
“SHT.”
Genius, my friend. And I’ve wanted to tell you that for years…
it doesn’t even have to be an album – example: the incredible “City Slang” by Sonic’s Rendezvous Band
Oh, and in response to #9: is that Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac? And is Eagles one of them there 50s bird vocal groups? Cuz otherwise, I gotta call you on that.
At first I was going to quickly agree with the high quality/low quantity side, but then some of my favorite bands/artists are The Fall, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Current 93 and Guided By Voices, all practically defining the second category. I love these acts for their failings almost as much as I do for their successes, though it must be said that without their successes, I would never have considered their failures.
Then you have folks like Elvis Costello and Prince and The Rolling Stones – all having periods of work that I love while the rest of their timeline is (to me) of dubious quality. I’m willing to drop in and out of an artist’s continuum, keeping half an eye on them in case they get the old fire back. Kind of like how you Google old girlfriends – you don’t necessarily want to get back together but you still want to know what they are up to.
I still hold a hope that The Stones will pull off one more really great record before their contract with the devil runs out and they are freed from the Sisyphean labor of being the Rolling Stones.
Finally, you have Jandek, whose line between success and failure is so blurry that it barely exists (much like Jandek himself)
So, I think I am in the second camp.
it doesn’t even have to be an album – example: the incredible “City Slang” by Sonic’s Rendezvous Band
^^this. in general and specifically the example cited. (tho SRB had 1-2 albums worth of good unrecorded material just to muddy the waters a bit. the distinction between one-shot brilliance and plugging away may depend on circumstances beyond the musician’s control.)
I guess for me this comes down to artists vs. songs. If your primary interest is in following the contours of an artist’s career, I could see where a dozen albums of varying quality might be of interest. If your primary interest is in songs (which it is for me), you’ll take good ones from anywhere, the “who” is of almost no importance (I hardly ever follow band’s careers anymore), and quantity from any one particular artist is kind of irrelevant because you know you’ll encounter more good ones from elsewhere (it’s a selfish way of listening, and I fully condone it). There are exceptions to everything I’ve just said, but as a general rule of thumb, I’m not a stick-with-’em kind of listener and haven’t been for about 20 years.
By the way, I didn’t understand DMed’s comment:
>>> Or, as I like to put it, which band do you like better, the Beatles or the Stones? <<<
Don’t both of them clearly fall in the large-quantity-of-unevenness category? Granted, I don’t know if the Beatles even released a dozen actual albums in their lifetime, but they did release a lot of albums in a six-seven year span, and much as I love pretty much all of them at least half of them I’d say are really uneven (Abbey Road, for instance). (And yet, I accept both their unevenness as well as the Stones — at least up to a point with the latter — and will sometimes even sit through lousy tracks just to re-experience the full package.)
I totally understood DMed’s comment. And the answer is: The Stones.