Collaborators' Top Albums of 2018

Nogbad_The_Bad wrote: Raff wrote: Yeah! The panheads have truly taken over! So glad to see Far Corner's magnificent album so high. Now I hope to see them on stage some time during this year! I was thinking the same thing, good year for those of a panhead persuasion. Hopefully someone suggest Far Corner for ProgDay.

 

At least one person heard it and mentioned it in discussion, and I think it quite narrowly missed not making into that person's top twenty. Most years I have not participated in this, but this year I did even if I couldn't make it to twenty with albums that I found interesting enough to mention.   While I would expect that I'm one of the biggest Art Zoyd admirers in PA, and I have a big Art Zoyd collection, I don't have Phase V (if they sent me a copy for reviewing purposes, then I would listen). I have so much Art Zoyd, little money, and I'm not that keen to buy more AZ at this time (5 cds, that's daunting). I'm just reading your review at PA now, I see you're the only reviewer, and there have only been two raters (two rating-only, ah, one is Oleg). CLICK

My top album was Kosmischer Läufer - Volume IV, Anna von Hausswolff's Dead Magic was my number two and Steve Hauschildt - Dissolvi was my number three.



Edited by Logan - February 23 2019 at 06:35

^^ I'm an admirer of AZ too, and I'm sure it would have made my list if I'd bought it. That I didn't has something to do with the fact that I'm really still absorbing the mammoth Cuneiform box set from 2017. In that context another 5 CD set of AZ material didn’t feel like that big a priority. I will get to it one day!

EDIT: Ian posted simillar sentiments whilst I was writing that

Edited by Mascodagama - February 23 2019 at 07:15

Lewian wrote: I'm not a collaborator so shouldn't have much to say here but anyway, a) overall nice work, very informative, and b) as far as I can see, Art Zoyd's Phase V didn't pick up a single point, and I'm just curious whether anybody actually listened to this and decided that it shouldn't have a place on their list, or whether just nobody gave it a spin? I mean it's the last album with Gerard Hourbette, it's superbig (5 CDs) and pretty good (in my view, but also it currently has ratings 5-5-4), and by a band that is widely acknowledged as having made important contributions to RIO - why wouldn't it appear anywhere? It should qualify for 2018, no? As I wrote in my review, the Art Zoyd family didn't help the album a lot by not making any of it available anywhere for free (as far as I know) and also I don't know whether there's any chance to get it other than forking out 30+ Euros, but still...?

Probably I am just echoing the previous comments, but it requires so much time to give the hundreds of releases a fair listen (and financial commitment) to form an opinion that I can't put forth the investment in either context for 5 CDs. Even for the great Art Zoyd. My pan overfloweth. There is just so much to absorb.

OK, thanks for the responses. About what I expected. Obviously this is not a criticism, you can spend your money on whatever you want. AZ don't seem to be all to eager to sell many copies of this, which is a pity. Hardly any marketing is taking place. This might somehow have to do with Gerard's death, but I don't think so, the pattern was there before (it was a similar thing with Eyecatcher).

Lewian wrote: OK, thanks for the responses. About what I expected. Obviously this is not a criticism, you can spend your money on whatever you want. AZ don't seem to be all to eager to sell many copies of this, which is a pity. Hardly any marketing is taking place. This might somehow have to do with Gerard's death, but I don't think so, the pattern was there before (it was a similar thing with Eyecatcher).

 

deandob wrote: This list just goes to show how diverse the prog audience is, most of the titles especially towards the top of the list wouldn't be in my list (seems to be a bias towards avant bands, reflecting the tastes of the more active members here?).... ]

   Avant-Prog listeners tend to be active, whereas ones who listen to vanilla Prog tend to be lethargic to the point of being comatose   

Edited by Logan - February 23 2019 at 17:27

Here is the subgenre breakdown of the top 50.

9 Crossover
7 Eclectic
6 Avant
4 Neo
3 Symphonic
3 Psych
3 JR/Fusion (Just realized I mislabeled "Lady with" as Psike)
3 Folk
2 Heavy
2 Zeuhl
2 Tech/Extreme
2 DPI
1 Canterbury
1 Math/post
1 Prog Metal
1 Exp/Post metal

Edited by Tapfret - February 23 2019 at 18:27