Thread Idea: Album Discussions

Ever wonder why people hate an album that you love, or love an album that you hate? Ever wanted to see if you could convince them otherwise?

I thought it would be cool if maybe every couple of weeks or so we were to pick an album that we all wanted to discuss and start a thread on it. I think sometimes it can be cool to dialogue with people who might have differing opinions on albums. You might end up agreeing to disagree, or one of you might end up changing your minds, but at the very least you'll get to understand one another better.

Criteria for Album Selection:
I think this thread would be good for people to suggest albums, and then whichever suggestions get the most interest would be a good choice for the next topic.

When suggesting albums, please make sure that they are at least somewhat well-known. I know that this is pretty subjective, but an album that three other people have heard won't make for very good discussion. The more popular the album is, the more (and arguably better) discussion you can have.

Be careful when choosing "sacred" albums (i.e. anything in the PA Top 10 or so). Nothing wrong with discussing those, but just be aware that there might be tons of fanboys to mindlessly defend it, or sacred cow slaughterers to mindlessly bash it, so intelligent discussion might be difficult. But then again, maybe that won't happen.

As far as the actual discussion goes, if you've done a review for the album then feel free to post the review in the thread. PLEASE do NOT reference any reviews on the site if their authour has not posted them in the thread, unless it's in a very general way (i.e. saying "I disagree with a lot of reviewers who feel that this album is too short" is fine, saying "Review X by user Y is totally bogus" is not). There's nothing cool about trashing someone's opinion when they aren't there to defend it.

Apart from that, the idea of the thread is to see if we can get some good discussions going about some music, so try to make sure your comments are intelligent and helpful. "OMG tis album is suxz!" is not a post destined to go down in PA history as a valuable contribution.

So what do you think? Anyone interested? We've got tons of reviews on the site, but a review page is a collection of monologues (and rightfully so). This is the opportunity to dialogue.

I thought that maybe a good album to kick things off would be King Crimson's Starless and Bible Black, but whatever people would be most interested in talking about.

I like the idea.  Albums that are well known, or by well known artists that have a lot of mixed reviews would be good subjects.  This would mean most albums would be in the overall 2 - 4 star range, and would eliminate the most loved and most derided.  The two suggestions so far, Starless and Bible Black, and Tales From Topographic Oceans fit the criteria well, I think.  I would like to suggest Genesis by Genesis as well, or 80s Tull such as Broadsword and the Beast or Crest of a Knave.  We may just get overwhelmed by suggestions on this!

I think thats a great Idea, and I would love to take part in some discussions, particularly:

YES - Tormato

YES - Tales From Topographic Oceans

Dream Theater - Systematic Chaos

and some others

well, yes but the discussions there get buried under tons of other stuff. We should do this like a "featured album discussion of the week" or whatever. Put it on display so to speak...


ooops, this post was a direct reply to the one above which it seems was deleted...


Edited by theBox - June 12 2009 at 03:10

Love the idea! I actually live and breathe for discussions like these, so I'd definitely participate. I too think this thing should be made official and put on display to get more people.

tales from topographic oceans
for girls who grow plump in the night
brain salad surgery (dangerous territory maybe?)
10.000 days
heavy weather (Weather Report)

Plus I challenge anyone to talk me into Zeuhl.

I think that this topic should move to prog apreciation bands

I'd be happy to discuss Starless and Bible Black, which I think very good, though I'd rather discuss Larks' Tongues in Aspic.

Other possibility: Soft Machine's Third.

Anderson III wrote: Plus I challenge anyone to talk me into Zeuhl.

I would think that the Zeuhl and Zeuhl-related universe would have many delights for you.  I'm not sure how many bands/albums you know.

Do you know Weidorje?  And, though perhaps rather embryonic Zeuhl in some ways, have you heard Magma's Kobaia?  I adore that album.  What about 1001 Degrees Centrigade?  Retrospective 1 and 2?  I used to be a Zeuhl completist, and huge on Zeuhl generally, but for a long time, the Zeuhl I listen to by far the most is THE Zeuhl band, Magma.  Even if Magma doesn't appeal, others might.  I might have thought you'd appreciate the first two Magma albums.

Logan wrote: If i understand you.... But I don't find much interest in only posting reviews in a thread in the discussion forums if we don't comment on them.  There are other threads for posting reviews and we have reviews at the site.  This is is the discussion part of the site.

Excellent idea!

Well, looks like for the time being Tales From Topographic Oceans has it, might leave this open for a couple more days to see what happens.

moshkito: Not for the first time, I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at. I don't see why we would have a thread for reviews without discussion when we have an entire website devoted to reviews without discussion. That's what the PA is, reviews. Sure, a lot of them aren't necessarily of professional calibre, and some of them might just be fanboys gushing, or some elitist muttering about how it "isn't prog enough," but no one's forcing you to read those reviews.

So if you want a thread for reviews only, without discussion, go ahead. You'll have to explain to the forum at large, though, why this isn't redundant, because I'm a little confused on that point. If you feel that you personally have a lot to contribute then you should consider blogging in the Prog Blogs subforum.