7. Liars - 489
15. Bob Dylan - 293
21. Subtle - 239
27. Regina Spektor - 194

I'm not sure I should admit this, but these are the only albums from the list I don't possess, either physically, or downloaded (legally...before someone puts a price on my head!). I think I've got an illness.

I'm glad I don't have to admit on this forum how many dvd boxsets I've bought in the last week, or anyone might get the impression that I never leave my house...

quote:

Originally posted by philosopherEric:
While I'm going to continue to moderate as much as I can (most of the time, all that means is clearing out spam postings), I'm not going to be actively participating on the Forums much anymore. If you seem a spam post or have something that needs to be moderated, PM me.

Well, that's a shame, pE. We haven't conversed much but I've always enjoyed your posts.

quote:

Originally posted by philosopherEric:
All the hubbub back a few pages just reiterates a recent concern (echoed by a few long-time members) that these Forums have devolved into a whole lot of pointless sniping and personal attacks. I won't pretend that I've never sniped or taken personal shots, but I've tried to do it sparingly. There are quite a few folks here who simply want to, very smugly, take shots at what other people like. Several Forum regulars have expressed their concern (or have simply left) with the current state of 'discussion' and I concur. I'm not going to play the "you're gonna miss me" card because, honestly, the people who live to make others feel small so they can make themselves feel big won't care. But more than a few of the Forum regulars (mostly the old fogeys) have set up shop elsewhere, and I think that's indicative of the kind of discourse that's becoming more common here. Maybe that's just the evolution of these Forums, and maybe it's best that the dinosaurs go retire elsewhere. Most of you, in the end, won't care if some of the folks who have been posting here for two or three years stay or go. But maybe you should think twice before you shit all over someone else's favorite record just to show how much smarter or cleverer or more musically aware you are than they.

While I'm going to continue to moderate as much as I can (most of the time, all that means is clearing out spam postings), I'm not going to be actively participating on the Forums much anymore. If you seem a spam post or have something that needs to be moderated, PM me.

That's too bad, pE. You're cool head will be missed.

I've enjoyed this forum greatly since I joined. It's too bad that the occasional spats are driving off good contributors (especially ones with over 3000 posts).

Best wishes to you pE.

quote:

Originally posted by Sideshow Bob:
Shack's album is a pearler. I'd never heard them before but I play it a lot.

Can I tempt you to try White Bread Black Beer? It's far and away my album of the year.

I'm going into town today. If I can find "White Bread" for a reasonable price, I'm gonna take it on.

If you haven't heard any other Shack stuff, I can highly recommend seeking out some. If you like "Miles and Gil" you absolutely will not be let down.

However, "The Magical World Of The Strands" by Michael Head & The Strands (basically a Shack album under a different guise), is an absolute gem. If you can find it, it's well worth a punt.

quote:

Originally posted by philosopherEric:
All the hubbub back a few pages just reiterates a recent concern (echoed by a few long-time members) that these Forums have devolved into a whole lot of pointless sniping and personal attacks. I won't pretend that I've never sniped or taken personal shots, but I've tried to do it sparingly. There are quite a few folks here who simply want to, very smugly, take shots at what other people like. Several Forum regulars have expressed their concern (or have simply left) with the current state of 'discussion' and I concur. I'm not going to play the "you're gonna miss me" card because, honestly, the people who live to make others feel small so they can make themselves feel big won't care. But more than a few of the Forum regulars (mostly the old fogeys) have set up shop elsewhere, and I think that's indicative of the kind of discourse that's becoming more common here. Maybe that's just the evolution of these Forums, and maybe it's best that the dinosaurs go retire elsewhere. Most of you, in the end, won't care if some of the folks who have been posting here for two or three years stay or go. But maybe you should think twice before you shit all over someone else's favorite record just to show how much smarter or cleverer or more musically aware you are than they.

While I'm going to continue to moderate as much as I can (most of the time, all that means is clearing out spam postings), I'm not going to be actively participating on the Forums much anymore. If you seem a spam post or have something that needs to be moderated, PM me.

lol

What's so funny?

15. Guilletmots - Through the Windowpane
14. The Flaming Lips - At War With The Mystics
13. Phoenix - It's Never Been Like That
12. The Whitest Boy Alive - Dreams
11. Kate Havnevik - Melankton
10. Beth Orton - Comfort of Strangers
9. Jóhann Jóhannsson - IMB 1401, A User's Manual
8. Joanna Newsom - Ys
7. Zero 7 - The Garden
6. Regina Spektor - Begin to Hope
5. Hot Chip - The Warning
4. Scott Matthews - Passing Stranger
3. Ratatat - Classics
2. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
1. The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldier

quote:

While I'm going to continue to moderate as much as I can (most of the time, all that means is clearing out spam postings), I'm not going to be actively participating on the Forums much anymore. If you seem a spam post or have something that needs to be moderated, PM me.

I'm sorry to see you go, pE. You and some of the other long time members are some of the reasons I joined the forums after reading for awhile. Hope to see you around sometime.

TRUC, I'm not sure if I'm echoing everyone's opinion here, but I personally consider you persona non grata for laughing at pE after his leaving in a classy manner. I'm not saying you're the only one who caused him to make the decision, but it appears as though you pushed him over the edge. Like I said before, no one here appreciates that kind of antagonism, especially when you target members who have done nothing wrong.

quote:

Originally posted by RavingLunatic:
What's so funny?

announcing retirement from a messageboard.

i don't get it. if you genuinely lose interest you just stop going, you dont point to a couple people acting less than civilised, say it's part of a larger problem, and then announce you're "leaving" without getting mucked up in the same drama you're trying to distance yourself from.

also he doing the textbook internet thing by diagnosing people with the routine "oh, you're insecure" "you need to feel big by putting others down." etc etc. all i asked is that you have a better excuse for why people need 40 years of history to be taken seriously. just because it's not done in a way reflecting your time and posts here isn't a sign of immaturity, i just think it's a dumb opinion to have but would like to understand a bit better past the "well, it's obvious, innit?"

shitting on a record is not trying to engage in this one-upmanship or "i know more than you and it's quite crap". you're inferring all these things from someone plainly saying they absolutely hate a record in a way more hostile than you like, and you think all of a sudden it becomes a contest. feel free to disagree, but on the same token if you're going to pull some unsubstantiated line about being more refined to understand something, then you're the one who has initiated the clever contest.

you can air grievances all you want, but it seriously gets a big if you're announcing retirement like this. what next, you going to quit the internet?

quote:

Originally posted by TRUC:

quote:

Originally posted by RavingLunatic:
What's so funny?

announcing retirement from a messageboard.

i don't get it. if you genuinely lose interest you just stop going, you dont point to a couple people acting less than civilised, say it's part of a larger problem, and then announce you're "leaving" without getting mucked up in the same drama you're trying to distance yourself from.

My point wasn't to announce my departure because, as I said, I'm not leaving. I'm just not going to actively post. I wanted to let people know they could still PM me if they see spam threads that need deleted, etc. I guess I didn't need to do that, but there are still plenty of folks on here who I consider friends, and I thought it was courteous to let them know what's up. I could have PM'ed a lot of them, but it was faster and easier to post a general statemet in a popular thread. While I was passing the info about me on to people who might wonder why they hadn't heard from me on the Forums, but I was also pointing out the reasons why several other longtime posters have opted out. I've been posting and Moderating here for 3 years. At almost 4000 posts, I've been around a lot. I thought I would give some of the folks whom I've known for all that time the courtesy of an explanation as to my absence.

Don't give yourself too much credit, by the way. Until I read your reply quoted here, I hadn't even seen your reply to my post, or the commentary on it. I disagree with your take on only looking forward, because I think you have to both forward AND backwards, but that post wasn't even on my radar when I posted here last night. I was referring to a whole slew of other, far more childish and silly, comments made by others over the last few months, and a general lack of civility shown by a lot of people here. While I may disagree with your comments:

quote:

oh god, wouldn't the self-conscious pursuit of iconic artifacts in music simply to satisfy some "serious music listener cred" be even worse than somebody who doesnt pretend to be interested in anything other than what's happening now?
statements like that make me not want to BE a serious music listener at all. i'd just bore all my fucking friends by being deluded enough that they should be interested in the history of musique concrete.
hell no. i wouldn't be so churlish to bash on the beach boys in preference of some band from today, but i wouldnt be able to deny that i'd be senselessly bored by it.
i'm missing out on a lot, but i can leave it for the lot that's to come, and i'd rather look forward, honestly.

I can at least appreciate that there's something coherent behind them. It's not just the "fuck you, your opinions suck" reply that seems to be common these days. Disagree with me all day long. That's actually fun. But bring something to the table besides "that record sucks. How could anyone like that?"

This message has been edited. Last edited by: philosopherEric,

quote:

Originally posted by philosopherEric:


Don't give yourself too much credit, by the way. ..

I can at least appreciate that there's something coherent behind them. It's not just the "fuck you, your opinions suck" reply that seems to be common these days.

good. i'm not looking to drive anyone out. i also dont want to put myself as some BS police, but sometimes there's established/common/token opinions that could use a solid challenge, just to make sure people still know why that's a good idea.
i just got ticked when things got condescending because i wasnt into the ideal attitude one should have about listening to music. i think feeling priveledged listening to music is like feeling priveledged that i can speak english. that's not practical and to put it up on a pedestal like that is missing out on how lame most of it is.

but i digress.

i see your point by announcing it here instead of pm'ing everyone, but dont let it stop you from saying something you feel strongly about in the future simply because people say a lot of expletives.

I have internet!

Final Results:

1. TV On the Radio - 1016
2. Joanna Newsom - 870
3. The Hold Steady - 806
4. The Decemberists - 600
5. Destroyer - 584
6. The Knife - 532
7. Liars - 489
8. Neko Case - 445
9. Beirut - 434
10. Band of Horses - 395
11. Grizzly Bear - 337
12. Thermals - 331
13. Yo La Tengo - 318
14. Tom Waits - 296
15. Bob Dylan - 293
16. Thom Yorke - 291
17. Islands - 281
18. Califone - 268
19. Belle and Sebastian - 354
20. M Ward - 243
21. Subtle - 239
22. Ghostface Killah - 234
23. Cat Power - 219
24. Sunset Rubdown - 217
25. Arctic Monkeys - 204
26. Built To Spill - 203
27. Regina Spektor - 194
28. Gnarls Barkley - 185
29. Danielson - 184
30. Muse - 181
30. Tapes and Tapes - 181
32. Clipse - 177
33. Beck - 163
34. The Roots - 162
35. Howe Gelb - 155
36. Tim Hecker - 147
36. Junior Boys - 147
38. Hot CHip - 134
39. Girl Talk - 133
40. The Raconteurs - 132

One of my favorite albums of the year was Midlake's. Every time I looked at the updates, it was around 15 or 16. Did it really not end out making the top 40 (It was 16th at the last update)?

quote:

Originally posted by philosopherEric:
My point wasn't to announce my departure because, as I said, I'm not leaving. I'm just not going to actively post. I wanted to let people know they could still PM me if they see spam threads that need deleted, etc. I guess I didn't need to do that, but there are still plenty of folks on here who I consider friends, and I thought it was courteous to let them know what's up. I could have PM'ed a lot of them, but it was faster and easier to post a general statemet in a popular thread. While I was passing the info about me on to people who might wonder why they hadn't heard from me on the Forums, but I was also pointing out the reasons why several other longtime posters have opted out. I've been posting and Moderating here for 3 years. At almost 4000 posts, I've been around a lot. I thought I would give some of the folks whom I've known for all that time the courtesy of an explanation as to my absence.

Don't give yourself too much credit, by the way. Until I read your reply quoted here, I hadn't even seen your reply to my post, or the commentary on it. I disagree with your take on only looking forward, because I think you have to both forward AND backwards, but that post wasn't even on my radar when I posted here last night. I was referring to a whole slew of other, far more childish and silly, comments made by others over the last few months, and a general lack of civility shown by a lot of people here. While I may disagree with your comments:

quote:

oh god, wouldn't the self-conscious pursuit of iconic artifacts in music simply to satisfy some "serious music listener cred" be even worse than somebody who doesnt pretend to be interested in anything other than what's happening now?
statements like that make me not want to BE a serious music listener at all. i'd just bore all my fucking friends by being deluded enough that they should be interested in the history of musique concrete.
hell no. i wouldn't be so churlish to bash on the beach boys in preference of some band from today, but i wouldnt be able to deny that i'd be senselessly bored by it.
i'm missing out on a lot, but i can leave it for the lot that's to come, and i'd rather look forward, honestly.

I can at least appreciate that there's something coherent behind them. It's not just the "fuck you, your opinions suck" reply that seems to be common these days. Disagree with me all day long. That's actually fun. But bring something to the table besides "that record sucks. How could anyone like that?"

Personally I think you're letting them get to you too much. Basically all of the n00bs posting that garbage will be gone in less than a week. (Except me, and you'll just have to deal with that.) Either that, or they will have developed milder beleifs; radically dumb statements like this:

quote:

Originally posted by fearlessweaver:
I have little to add to the fogies vs. whippersnappers debate, except to say that if you think three discs of Tom Waits leftovers is one the best albums of 2006, your opinion is wrong. I know your mother told you opinions are never wrong, but in this case, it is very, very wrong.

... those statements only appear when you've never been strongly contradicted before. When you get "broken in" so to speak, that's going to get smoothed out. But the only way that happens is if people have better examples who keep their cool, i.e. you. Your "retirement" is self defeating, because the fewer good people there are around and actively posting, the more bad people will appear. Plus, people who are really leaving or even scaling back don't do it for a reason, they lose interest and don't even post about it when they fade away. You'll probably be back before long, though I mean that with no disrespect.

Also, you are guilty of one of the same sins as the insolent ones: taking this way too darn seriously.

OT-I am intrigued by some of the ongoing ancillary discourse here, and wanted to offer a few observations:

1) For better or worse, I think it is the nature of these message boards (at least the successful ones) that at a certain point they begin to take on a life of their own. Newer posters come on board perhaps without regard to or respect for what has transpired prior to their arrival. I think this is what pE is now experiencing, and likely it is in his own best interest to take a step back at this time and let the dust settle. Though I have only been an observer on this site for a relatively brief time, and a contributor for considerably less, I concur with many here in regards to the quality and thoughtfulness of pE's postings. The astute message boarder quickly learns to separate the wheat from the chaff, and pE consistently ends up in the Wheaties box. Enough ass/smoke

2) Though TRUC will most likely not find his name on a list of the State Department's top-ten foreign posting assignments, nonetheless he makes some reasonable points. Namely, there is no one way to properly evaluate music for personal enjoyment. That musical enjoyment may be more rewarding taken in historical context may be true for some, but not neccesarily for others. As a member of the "old fogey" camp--I am old enough to be your father, blah blah (though you can thank the good lord Christ I'm not...)--I have a decent perspective on and appreciation for the roots of rock and roll, and I also respect the evolution of same. And while I might encourage a younger person to listen to some of the music that provided a foundation for my own evolution, I would not conclude that it was essential as regards their ability to appreciate more recent/contemporary music. To each his/her own.

3) I am glad both pE and TRUC seem to have found a middle ground whereby they may agree to disagree without letting personal insults derail the thread of discourse. Kudos to both. Certainly those given to slinging personal insults as a means to an end in a heated debate could take a lesson from these proceedings.

Cheers,
m. clayton

This message has been edited. Last edited by: m. clayton,

quote:

Originally posted by Dork:
Also, you are guilty of one of the same sins as the insolent ones: taking this way too darn seriously.

True enough. I can't deny it. I really don't let that stuff bother me very much, but it seemed, more and more, that I'd have to wade through as many dumb posts as serious posts, and that was making me sad. I guess there's a sense of nostalgia for days gone by when we were a pretty small community of friendly, easy-going folks who frequently disagreed but never disrespected each other.

I take discourse and discussion and argument seriously, and I love music, so I get a little bound up in things that might not be really that important. It's not like I was losing sleep over what anyone was saying here, but it was making the time I was spending in the Forums less and less fun. As TRUC astutely pointed out, if it's not fun, don't do it.

quote:

Originally posted by Borachon:

I'm going into town today. If I can find "White Bread" for a reasonable price, I'm gonna take it on.

If you haven't heard any other Shack stuff, I can highly recommend seeking out some. If you like "Miles and Gil" you absolutely will not be let down.

However, "The Magical World Of The Strands" by Michael Head & The Strands (basically a Shack album under a different guise), is an absolute gem. If you can find it, it's well worth a punt.

Thanks for the tips. I'll be in the city later this week. I'll seek 'em out.

White Bread... was a secondhand impulse buy for me that hit paydirt.

quote:

Originally posted by philosopherEric:

quote:

Originally posted by Dork:
Also, you are guilty of one of the same sins as the insolent ones: taking this way too darn seriously.

True enough. I can't deny it. I really don't let that stuff bother me very much, but it seemed, more and more, that I'd have to wade through as many dumb posts as serious posts, and that was making me sad. I guess there's a sense of nostalgia for days gone by when we were a pretty small community of friendly, easy-going folks who frequently disagreed but never disrespected each other.

I take discourse and discussion and argument seriously, and I love music, so I get a little bound up in things that might not be really that important. It's not like I was losing sleep over what anyone was saying here, but it was making the time I was spending in the Forums less and less fun. As TRUC astutely pointed out, if it's not fun, don't do it.

Heh. Trust me, if you really think this is bad, you've been spoiled in the Metaforums too long. If you visited any of the other forums I frequent, you'd probably be quite shocked; even with the stupidity, this is about as intelligent as forums get.

quote:

Originally posted by Sideshow Bob:

quote:

Originally posted by Borachon:

I'm going into town today. If I can find "White Bread" for a reasonable price, I'm gonna take it on.

If you haven't heard any other Shack stuff, I can highly recommend seeking out some. If you like "Miles and Gil" you absolutely will not be let down.

However, "The Magical World Of The Strands" by Michael Head & The Strands (basically a Shack album under a different guise), is an absolute gem. If you can find it, it's well worth a punt.

Thanks for the tips. I'll be in the city later this week. I'll seek 'em out.

White Bread... was a secondhand impulse buy for me that hit paydirt.

Shack's HMS Fable and the companion disc The Fable Sessions are both great.

quote:

Originally posted by Dork:

quote:

Originally posted by philosopherEric:

quote:

Originally posted by Dork:
Also, you are guilty of one of the same sins as the insolent ones: taking this way too darn seriously.

True enough. I can't deny it. I really don't let that stuff bother me very much, but it seemed, more and more, that I'd have to wade through as many dumb posts as serious posts, and that was making me sad. I guess there's a sense of nostalgia for days gone by when we were a pretty small community of friendly, easy-going folks who frequently disagreed but never disrespected each other.

I take discourse and discussion and argument seriously, and I love music, so I get a little bound up in things that might not be really that important. It's not like I was losing sleep over what anyone was saying here, but it was making the time I was spending in the Forums less and less fun. As TRUC astutely pointed out, if it's not fun, don't do it.

Heh. Trust me, if you really think this is bad, you've been spoiled in the Metaforums too long. If you visited any of the other forums I frequent, you'd probably be quite shocked; even with the stupidity, this is about as intelligent as forums get.

Philosopher Eric - please listen to Dork - he speaketh the truth re other forums - so many resemble one of those rap face offs bitch slapping contests that populate some rap videos - though without the sense of humour!

Everyone gets discouraged by the torrents of idiocy in this information/discussion saturated age (not referring to you TRUC - you made your position pretty clear and orthodoxies always need a bit of shaking down) - sometimes one just wants to go to the mountain and get away from it.

All I can say, though I am a newbie to posting here, I have long come to this forum and njoyed your ongoing championing of power pop on this forum and think your down to earth decency will be sorely missed!