Oh yeah, here's something that I've been contemplating. You know how in Film Club, for the small group activities, it's mandatory to give a grade? How would we feel about doing that for Record Club? I think it would be cool to have the "group average grade" each week for the albums. Then again, I wouldn't want to step on anyone's toes in terms of what they want to write or not write in their album reviews.
I feel like it's nice to be able to lean on the grade a little bit sometimes. Like if I don't feel like making too many critiques and instead want to go a little weird with the creative writing stuff, then there's less pressure to make my opinion clear, as the grade at the bottom does a lot of the work anyway. But that's just me.
So hop in the comments (if they're working?!) and let me know what you think about this. Also, let's hear some final takes about the Streets. How were the reviews? Anything manage to change your mind on this album?
Pam and I are seeing Charli XCX tonight! I should hopefully have a review at some point if there's much to say. If not, I'll just give a thumbs up or thumbs down in the comments.
Happy Friday, let's fucking go, weekend!!!!!!
16 comments:
Seems to me, based on the three reviews, that this was one of those albums that you really had to dig into / commit yourself to / actually give more than a cursory listen to in order to like it at all. Proud to see that everyone who reviewed did just that. There's been so many times that the focus that RC affords on an album has allowed me to see it better (and appreciate it better) than I would have if it was just a random album I was listening to that week.
I appreciated this line from Nate Dogg: "Here's hoping you found your own version of 'Empty Cans.'" Feels like THE point of this exercise, listening to this album. What can we learn from this piece of art that we just collective consumed for a week, etc.
The bit from Sunny about scriptwriting books is going to stick with me. I remember reading an interview with Thomas Lennon (of Reno 911 fame) back in the day, apparently he is a scriptwriter too and he and his writing partner wrote a book in 2011 about scriptwriting, and he made it seem so... joyless, I guess would be the word. Like, "here's the formula, this is what we plug in to the script to make it functional, this is how we allowed the studio to make a $90 million profit on Herbie: Fully Loaded, because we made it good enough."
I appreciate that Mike Skinner took steps apparently to make this album a cohesive story (more than most rock opera auteurs can say, anyway), but I gotta believe there is some other secret ingredient here that makes this album's story better than Herbie: Fully Loaded.
The last thing I'd like to mentioned that I don't think any of the three reviews hit on: how this album was a legitimate commercial smash hit in the U.K., with "Dry Your Eyes" hitting #1 on their pop charts. This is just so fucking weird to me. I think maybe I'm just so conditioned by the American pop charts to believe that "commercially successful" and "artistically successful" are 98% of the time completely separate ideas. And it's discombobulating to me to think that an album can have cult status in one country and be a best seller in another country.
Nate here: I had an ambient awareness that this was an absolute smash in the UK, mostly because the college rock radio station / MTV 2 was playing a lot of "Fit But You Know It" and "Dry Your Eyes" at the time, but the massiveness of these 'chunes across the pond was not clear to me. Also, if you keep listening to the Streets, he eventually made the entire plane of out "Dry Your Eyes" to rapidly diminishing returns.
Pet theory: Sunny dislikes all British artists. Will need to dig into the data.
I abhor numbers on reviews, unless they're Nates. I will play along, but I will give every album a 2.5. If you want to know how a reviewer feels about an album, read the review.
Yeah, I hate the idea of having to add a number to my review as well. It might actually stop me from participating. It feels like too much pressure lol
This is a fair take, and ultimately I think the majority opinion.
I like the numbers because it frees me up to write anything I want in the review, even when what ends up being written isn't necessarily "how I feel about the album" in a quantitative sense. Like I might have a few disparate thoughts that I'm more interested in exploring, and I feel comfortable writing about them and just them, since the grade at the bottom also gives my overall impression of the thing. (This Katy Perry review being a decent example of what I'm talking about.)
AND I will say that it's a fun way to compare albums that are otherwise incomparable, as well as a fun way of being able to track my opinion on the album over longer periods of time. Like, what the fuck, I gave Hopesfall a 1? and underscores only a 3.5? And there are other 3.5 albums I barely even remember at this point?
@Gloria — also a fair opinion, thank you. I will assume that this is why you dropped out of Film Club and will not be hearing any other reasons to the contrary!
I am happy to compare any two albums for you, just let me know.
How about Abbey Road by the Beatles and Super Ghostbusters by Vargskelethor?
This isn't something I did completely today, but over time I've kept an excel spreadsheet with all my grades in RC (and FC). You can see that RC music is currently averaging a grade of 3.090680101 pukes out of 5 for me.
Supporting my "most music is fine" theory.
Also supports my theory that it's fun to have numbers to compare. That's not at a 3 because of all the 3-puke reviews, that's at a 3 because of all the 4-pukers and 2-pukers cancelling themselves out too!
You don’t even want to know how many Nates all of Britain is getting
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