What do you think about it, and how do you exactly deal with it?

 Enjoy! 

That makes two of us. I don't even know where to begin with listing favourites, when there's no genre, country, year, or artist specified. 

That makes three of us.

That makes four of us.

While I don't understand that should be such a difficult subject. 

Nobody understood the thread's topic. 

Please be more clear in what is the thread about. What are we supposed to do here?

Yes, thanks, Greg.

I'm thinking mainly about the many polls listing albums and/or aritsts with the question to vote for the favourite one. 

I would reply, but probably only to compare it unfavorably to I.O.U., Metal Fatigue, Hard Hat Area and the Heavy Machinery album with the Johanssons... 

I don't really understand what your question or confusion regarding polls is...most polls on PA seem pretty clear to me. Just pick your favorite from a list.

I will say that there are a lot of polls on here - not to call anyone out or anything - that have like 15 albums nobody has ever heard, and then 2 rock staples that most people will be familiar with, just because they all have the word croissant in their title or whatever. It's fine, but I don't really see what insight you would get from a poll like that.

I don't normally like multiple votes; for me being forced to decide is part of the game. Games live on constraining rules. Chess wouldn't interest anyone if you just could do any move you want. (Other than that I often don't really find the decision easier where to draw the line in multiple vote polls than what "the one favourite" is. "Vote for three" is still OKish, "vote for anyone you like"... meh!)

Neither do I like "both/all of them/none of them/don't know" options much, for similar reasons. (Although in scientific questionnaire design you better do something like this; these are not games!)

I'm curious about what people think and on what basis exactly they choose their favourites - amongst other things.

Some people seem to have a lot of trouble with that. This is a pet peeve of mine not limited to PA, but when you ask people for 1/5/10/20/whatever favorites, there's people who can't help but mention at least twice as many and include some runner-ups for good measure. Or do their XX favorites per decade or genre. When you limit yourself, the albums/songs/movies/games/etc. you pick have much more meaning. 

After nearly 60 years of appreciating music, I have found that "favorites" are an elusive idea ... and tomorrow there will be another one.

My point has been for a long time, that if you LOVE MUSIC, it doesn't matter what it is, you will always find something good everywhere that is attractive, and I can not (usually) get over the feeling that there is a side of the folks in PA that do not listen to "anything else", which to me, is weird, and a severe limitation as to what THE MUSIC EXPERIENCE is all about ... so the harlem kids are just that ... a bunch of kids with no music ... those Barcelona pickers that make rockers look like idiots wouldn't know music from their street learning ... those dancers in Africa wouldn't know "music" but they have danced since the day they were born ... 

This is a "pop" board and place, so it would be normal to see so many folks talking about their favorites, but still ... I can't even think of a favorite after so many years of listening to a very wide variety of music's from all over the world ... and I won't try to start now. 

Above all ... favorite does not mean it's the best, either ... it's just a favorite, and many fans need to wake up to that, instead of maintaining a teen attitude. But seeing that "teen" attitude as you get older, is a bit off the charts for me, and weird. The world is flat!

If there's a list of, say, 20 albums, and I'm asked to pick my favorite, then I pick the one that I like the most. I don't know in how many ways you can do that. If I were to go through my album collection and pick my X favorites, it'd be a gut feeling thing, you can't really do it any way other than that AFAIK. It's just a subjective preference.

Thanks for all the nice and interesting posts so far, not least yours, Manuel and Mosh.

 

I can think of four ways to pick a favourite:

The one you currently like the most.

The one you like the most of all time.

The one you are currently playing the most.

The one you have played the most over all time.

 

Whereas the first two are based on "gut feeling", the latter two could in principle be objectively measured.

 

 

The problem here is that when the OP asks for some specific number of favourites, that number might not be appropriate for particular people to reply to. Most commonly, the OP asks for too many, but sometimes people might have a grouping of favourites that makes little sense to break apart for the sake of the OP's choice of number. I would prefer to allow people to reply with their own choice of number, the number that makes most sense to them. For example, when asked to list my favourite groups, the most appropriate number of favourite groups for me is one: Van der Graaf Generator - I quite simply have no other favourite groups - I have albums I love from many groups, but only VdGG qualifies as a favourite group.

 

Actually, I've started not so few threads with this thought on my mind.

Barclay James Harvest

Camel

Caravan

Genesis

Jethro Tull

Led Zeppelin

The Moody Blues

Mike Oldfield

Pink Floyd

Renaissance

Santana 

Tangerine Dream

Uriah Heep

YES

* At least eight albums owned by each artist listed.

I think these polls are rather pointless. People are bored and/or have too much spare time, and I've engaged in some of these polls from time to time, but in the end these polls vanish in the forum archives, and the results are forgotten. IMHO it is better to rate and tag music either here or on other music websites, and to browse those websites to learn about new artists and releases.

I've learned about plenty of new music because of artists and albums mentioned in polls. So it's never pointless. Also these polls often create very nice discussions, so like I said- not pointless. 

Yeah, you can measure the latter two. But you won't end up with a list of favorites. There's some albums that I'd consider among my top 10 or so that I rarely listen to because you have to be in the mood for them or because I don't want to grow bored of them, and there's others that I return to regularly. There's albums I listen to a lot right now, but that doesn't mean they'll end up among my favorites - sometimes you get bored of an album that initially was something you keep coming back for, while others have staying power.

I prophesy disaster wrote:   The problem here is that when the OP asks for some specific number of favourites, that number might not be appropriate for particular people to reply to. Most commonly, the OP asks for too many, but sometimes people might have a grouping of favourites that makes little sense to break apart for the sake of the OP's choice of number.

It could be interesting, Paul, if you could tell something more about how you look at the whole subject.

I'm not least impressed by your ability to be apparently able to rank almost everything. 

Well, the OP doesn't have dictatorship authority. I like restrictive "rules" but then I don't mind much if somebody breaks them. It's a game, sure, but one that I don't lose if somebody else doesn't play by the rules. (And I may have posted more than 10 on occasion when somebody asked for a "Top 10 of something". )

Hi,

To me, this is a really sad comment, on a lot of folks in the medium, that are not helping, and think that their way is better than any one's thoughts, opinions or polls. 

For someone running something where the inmates rule, this is a very strange comment ... like the same/similar thing doesn't happen over there, with folks voting on something that many of them have not even heard in its entirety, and sometimes based on one song. 

I think the folks on PA are a bit more inclusive and helpful to a band and its work, even if I criticize things here and there ... but the comments are about defending the music ... not a fan! If you were a musician trying hard, you want some respect and appreciation, and someone saying that your work, or someone's poll including your work, is meaningless ... you wouldn't like it ... 

I get the thought that some folks want to make sure they sound bigger and better than the musicians, and that's not right, and neither is it fair ... the musician had the guts to put his heart on the line ... 

Most of the albums I have in my collection are favourites. To me, it would be a pointless exercise to rank or to rate them, and I therefore have much trouble in listing them as is being asked in the current flurry of 7x7 and 10x10 listings. That is why I don't participate in these listing exercises, nor do I rate album here on PA (nor elsewhere) because I don't find pleasure in it and thus don't want to spend time on it. It is however nice to read those listings and rankings and sometimes it can inspire me to listen to albums that I don't know or haven't heard since some time.

Polls are a fun way to be confronted with a more or less random selection and to think about which one I would prefer. The most interesting ones are those with - to me - new bands/artist and to listen to them. That is how I discovered some new acts and albums, thanks to these threads. The most "productive" in that regard have been the Interactive Polls for me: lots of new discoveries generally of high quality.

 

Of course you will. They may not be the same lists as obtained from the first two, but they are lists of favourites nevertheless. Even if you explicitly choose the first two, the latter two will still produce lists of favourites. And it doesn't matter if the lists obtained from the latter two differ from the lists that you chose.

 

They're not completely pointless, I remember that back in the old days I also used them and enjoyed doing so. I just think that these discussions, as interesting as they may be, are fleeting - they are usually only interesting for a short amount of time and then they fade away. I simply prefer more permanent ways of adding information about artists and releases. We can have the interesting discussions anyway!

If my comment sounds "very strange" to you, that should be a clue to you. Maybe you didn't get what I was trying to say? Or I failed to make my point, but in any case I don't see how what I said could be construed to be offensive to artists.

I guess that discussion, understood as talking about and exchanging different points of view, is one of the crucial aspects of dealing with art. 

I'm browsing PA, RYM, Sputnik, Metacritic etc. by proxy, since it's all being aggregated at TYM. I really like the medium of polls and discussion threads, I just don't have nearly enough time to keep track of them properly like I used to 15 years ago. 

Sorry, I still don't get it - exactly how are my words offending progressive artists?

Very interesting and put in a very nice way.

"I would love to experience art through someone else's ears/ eyes (really their brain which interprets the data)."

I've had similar thoughts, but on the other hand, it could be pretty weird, as differently as we all afterall perceive and understand the whole world - for not to talk about how we feel it. 

And yes btw, surely not everybody is fond of discussion to the same degree.

neither do I for sure  

Sounds a bit selfish? You can't be bothered to rate/rank your favorite albums, but you do use ranked lists for inspiration. I agree that it can seem a bit tedious to try to rank one's favorite albums, but it doesn't necessarily take a lot of time to do so, and once you've done it others can benefit from it as much as you benefit from them.

^ Well, it would probably be a very relative affair that my ratings would benefit to someone. As an example, recently in a thread we talked about THRaKaTTaK, the King Crimson live album, which has an average rating of 2.77. My possible four star (or even five star) rating would get the average at best at 2.78 or something in that area, so I don't think it would benefit whoever.

However, I hope that my comments in the forum threads here benefit much more to people. Not that my opinion about music is that important, but for those who have started to know a bit where my preferences lie - and maybe share them to some extent - they might know a bit better when or not to follow one of my recommendations. So, to me, comments on music/albums/songs on these forums are much more valuable than uncommented ratings.

Furthermore, listening to music, and everything that comes with it, is for me (mostly) a spare time activity, and I am one of those who wants to spend his spare time in the most pleasant way possible. Rating, ranking or reviewing music are not part of my personal pleasures, so if you consider it "selfish" of me not to get into those things, then I'll leave that up to your judgement - I'll be happy to be selfish in that respect. Personally, I attach much more value to the comments on music of each and everyone on these forums than on their uncommented/unexplained ratings (and I think I'm commenting quite reasonably here on these forums so that others can appreciate - positively or negatively - my musical preferences). The one thing that I find selfish is the obsessive and narcissist posting of ones ratings everywhere possible without any commenting on how those ratings came into being. That, to me, is of no informational value whatsoever: neither about the music, nor about the why of the person's preferences.

So, when I say (as I did somewhere above) that most of the albums I have in my collection are favourites, I mean that it is of no value nor pleasure to me to rank or rate them between each other. I have my preferences of course, but I don't see the fun in rating my Die anarchistische Abendunterhaltung albums or my Eloy albums so I can say that I gave three or four stars to this or that one where I find a lot of listening pleasure when hearing the one or the other... And especially, then concluding that a say 3.5 star DAAU album would be less interesting than a 4 star rated Eloy album. This is something I really cannot - and don't want to - integrate in my thinking about or approaching of music.