Does Rate Your Music Have Prog Right?

I'm sure that the top 1,000,000 will include all the best albums ever.

Originally posted by Gerinski Statistics are like a drunk with a lampost: used more for support than for illumination. (quote attributed to different people including Winston Churchill, I don't know who was the real first one).

I think progarchives is just as legitimate and important as RYM. I've only recently discovered RYM but don't see it as being any better than here.

Originally posted by rogerthat Simple...RYM has the prog top 10 as general listeners relate to prog and prog archives, probably in line with what hardcore progheads make of it.  Pink Floyd tend to score highly on both depth and appeal/accessibility so it's not surprising to see them dominate the RYM list.  You can argue that there are better albums than those PF ones but it's hard to really put down most of them.

 

Edited by Dean - March 23 2012 at 03:46

Originally posted by Dean Originally posted by rogerthat Simple...RYM has the prog top 10 as general listeners relate to prog and prog archives, probably in line with what hardcore progheads make of it.  Pink Floyd tend to score highly on both depth and appeal/accessibility so it's not surprising to see them dominate the RYM list.  You can argue that there are better albums than those PF ones but it's hard to really put down most of them.    No. That is precisely not what is happening. The RYM prog chart is not general listeners relating to prog at all, it's a chart of albums rated by RYM members that just happen to be prog albums - they didn't rate them because they were prog nor did they rate them for being prog, they rated them because they were albums they liked (be that classic rock or statium rock or dad rock or space rock or prog rock or whatever).   Looking at it over simplistcally, for half the people who rated the albums that appear in the top 10 of the RYM prog chart Pink Floyd was the only prog band they rated, and of those half of them Dark Side Of The Moon was the only Pink Floyd album they rated.   Originally posted by rogerthat And I say hard in terms of building a consensus, not in terms of finding a minority who don't like most of their albums, which is fine and unrelated to this. Not sure what you mean by this. I would say RYM was a consensus of people many of whom hadn't heard most of their albums.

It could and most likely does include people who are not mainly into prog, yes?  Pink Floyd is a band that broke through into classic rock and that is why outside prog circles, they are the band most often recalled of all prog rock bands and Dark Side the one most recalled of their albums.   So, yes, I am equating popularity to accessibility and appeal because inaccessible music doesn't achieve PF-like popularity very often.  It could potentially be a dangerous generalization but I don't think that is the case here;  PF is the only one of prog rock bands with a reasonable following that truly struck the balance and that is ultimately reflected in their dominating a top 10 prog rock albums list.  If it were a list compiled by a general rock magazine, the results wouldn't be very different.   I don't see that as only popularity but also as Floyd doing certain things that other bands didn't. 

Originally posted by Dean Not only does it include people who are not mainly into prog, it is people who are mainly not into prog. 50 million people bought Dark Side of the Moon - a tiny tiny proportion of those were people who were mainly into prog, or even remotely into prog, or even knew that Pink Floyd were prog. Accessible music doesn't achive Pink Floyd like popularity very often either, not even U2 or Radiohead have achieved that level (nor do I suspect they ever will now).

Yes, I agree.  What I was trying to imply by accessibility was that Floyd transcended their box and made stuff that happens to be archived as prog but doesn't really require one to be a proghead to enjoy it.  There may be sundry prog albums like that but I can't think of any other prog rock band who achieved that balance with so much potency.  DSOTM especially is more than a product of its time but does not at the same time require one to follow a particular scene or style closely to enjoy it.  Somewhat like Beatles in the 60s and had Beatles been archived as prog, they and Floyd would probably shut out the few SEBTPs and Reds that sneaked into this list.  So, I am in fact trying to say that it is more than just popularity.  A prog top 10 made anywhere other than on a prog website or magazine is likely to be crowded with Floyd because, as I said before, they did a lot of things other bands didn't.  Not that they were better or the other bands worse, they just reached out to a large audience in a way that cuts across generations (as opposed to popular music which fades with its epoch).

Originally posted by Equality 7-2521 It's 100% accurate. It takes their algorithm and gives the results. It's just as good as any other listing of prog done by a ratings site.

Originally posted by KingCrimson250 EDIT: Although, bizzarely, a Yes tribute album with no reviews seems to have snuck it's way into the #11 slot over here.

That is adorable, 11th greatest prog album of all time. Guess there are lies damn lies & statistics.

Looking at both lists again, I don't even find much of a difference.  3 PF albums as against 5, but a pronounced PF preference all the same.  From a general listener's perspective, the best bet to get into prog is to listen to the classic PF albums and then move to other accessible albums like CTTE or SEBTP, which is sort of what the list reflects.  Considering that, instead of Godbluff, it has Tago Mago, I might be inclined to argue it is more progressive .  Just joking, but  I certainly wouldn't have any VDGG album in my top 10 so I don't think it's mandatory in any case.

Originally posted by Turillazzo Originally posted by octopus-4 Have you seen from where most of the 5-stars ratings are coming?  http://www.progarchives.com/album-reviews.asp?id=18314 Man, that's unfair.