Irrlicht's good. That's one I heard about from scaruffi. Schulze's later stuff isn't too hot tho - he got really new agey.

Not sure if this has been up before, but Moondog has just 1 5 star album, but four 4.5 star albums.

Sun Ra has 2 - Atlantis and Space is the Place.

The Velvet Underground's entire discography (4 albums) received 5-star reviews, as did their live album.

quote:

Originally posted by BContrat:
The Velvet Underground's entire discography (4 albums) received 5-star reviews, as did their live album.

Andy they're all well deserved.

AMG only seems willing to give 4.5 stars at most to modern masterpieces.

Examples:
Daft Punk: Discovery (4.5)
Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (4)
Modest Mouse: The Moon & Antarctica (4.5)
The Flaming Lips: The Soft Bulletin (4.5)
Fennez: Endless Summer (4)
Radiohead: Kid A (4)
Sigur Ros: Agaetis Byrjun (4.5)

Compared to many of the older albums with 5 stars ratings, these are definitely not given full credit, just because they are still recent. AMG likes to rate older albums with hindsight on how critics view them more than they like assigning new scores. For example, "Homework" by Daft Punk has 5 stars, and "Discovery" is definitely better. Oh well.

I had a discussion along these lines on lastfm a few weeks ago. I'll be perfectly willing to give an album 4.5 stars on RYM (rateyourmusic.com) but I really hesitate to give it a 5. It's just like the 10.0 debate; can you really declare something classic, unbeatable, after knowing it for a year, maybe two years? I'd say the majority of my favorite CDs I give 4.5s to, while I have maybe 10-15 5-star albums.

quote:

Originally posted by BContrat:
AMG only seems willing to give 4.5 stars at most to modern masterpieces.

Examples:
Daft Punk: Discovery (4.5)
Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (4)
Modest Mouse: The Moon & Antarctica (4.5)
The Flaming Lips: The Soft Bulletin (4.5)
Fennez: Endless Summer (4)
Radiohead: Kid A (4)
Sigur Ros: Agaetis Byrjun (4.5)

Compared to many of the older albums with 5 stars ratings, these are definitely not given full credit, just because they are still recent. AMG likes to rate older albums with hindsight on how critics view them more than they like assigning new scores. For example, "Homework" by Daft Punk has 5 stars, and "Discovery" is definitely better. Oh well.

ALSO: The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.

quote:

KingsGift
Slacker
Posted 02 January 2008 12:32 PM Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by BContrat:
AMG only seems willing to give 4.5 stars at most to modern masterpieces.

Examples:
Daft Punk: Discovery (4.5)
Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (4)
Modest Mouse: The Moon & Antarctica (4.5)
The Flaming Lips: The Soft Bulletin (4.5)
Fennez: Endless Summer (4)
Radiohead: Kid A (4)
Sigur Ros: Agaetis Byrjun (4.5)

Compared to many of the older albums with 5 stars ratings, these are definitely not given full credit, just because they are still recent. AMG likes to rate older albums with hindsight on how critics view them more than they like assigning new scores. For example, "Homework" by Daft Punk has 5 stars, and "Discovery" is definitely better. Oh well.



ALSO: The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.
Posts: 9

IMHO...I don't think I'd give any of these albums a 5 star rating either...though all are excellent and/or groundbreaking...none have the front-to-back staggering excellence of the Rubber Soul/Revolver, Are You Experienced?, Velvet Underground and Nico, Forever Changes, Astral Weeks, Highway 61 Revisited, Born to Run, London Calling, Joshua Tree, OK Computer variety, which I feel is the level of excellence an album should reach to be given a 5 star mark.

Swap Pyramid Song, Dollars & Cents with In Limbo and Tree Fingers and Kid A might have pulled it off, Moon and Antarica is a very solid 4.5...Soft Bulletin is Fresh and Adventurous, but IMHO also one of the most overrated albums of the decade...I just don't enjoy it that much aside from Superman and Race for the Prize...Hoyne's singing is glacier-like in it's pacing. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is half a great album masquerading as a front-to-back classic...Ghost is Born will in hindsight reveal itself as the superior effort from the band. Agaetis Byrjun is excellent, and 5 stars wouldn't upset me, though it's a bit of a one note album in the same way as Astral Weeks or Marvin Gaye's What's going On, or Loveless, so here I guess it depends on how much you appreciate the singular groove each of these albums created. Have never heard the Fennez or Daft PUnk efforts

quote:

Hophead
Jedi
Posted 23 April 2007 06:54 PM Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by BContrat:
The Velvet Underground's entire discography (4 albums) received 5-star reviews, as did their live album.

Couldn't agree more...Only the Rolling Stones in all of Rock n' Roll History can post a comparable 4 consecutive album run, and with the Stones, it was a constant refinement of a single core sound...with the Velvets, it was a radically different effort every time out.

quote:

Originally posted by Illiniq:
Ghost is Born will in hindsight reveal itself as the superior effort from the band.

I couldn't agree more.

quote:

Originally posted by FragileKidA:

quote:

Originally posted by Illiniq:
Ghost is Born will in hindsight reveal itself as the superior effort from the band.

I couldn't agree more.

Ditto. It is by far my favorite.

The Beatles and Led Zeppelin hold the most 5 star ratings I beleve. I tend to trust allmusic guide more than any other site, mainly because they put a lot of effort into their reviews.

Not that I'm agreeing with you guys or anything, but I'm going to give A Ghost is Born another chance and listen to it right away.

Any album with 12 minutes of blank noise gets negative points in my mind. It's annoying and stupid. Shame, because A Ghost is Born is pretty good (and Kicking Television only improves on it).

Twelve minutes of blank noise? Did you go deaf during the most significant part of Wilco's best album?

I usually use AMG for spell check . Or if I wanna find out a artists back catalog. I usually dont agree with most of their "checked" albums or "checked" songs or even ratings.

quote:

Originally posted by mark f:
Twelve minutes of blank noise? Did you go deaf during the most significant part of Wilco's best album?

If you can explain what the 12 minutes of crickets chirping after "Less than You Think" adds to the album I'd be glad to hear it.

You must have a flawed album. There are no crickets on my copy.

This may sound redundant, but after listening to the entire album (which I think you like), think: "Less Than You Think". It's not that difficult to get it, at least tied into the album's title and the FACT that there are NO crickets.

You don't have to like it, but you should "get it".

Well, to be honest, whenever I listened to the album I'd always skip ahead once it got to the part where there's no music. "Late Greats" is one of my favorite Wilco songs and I don't particularly like waiting 12 minutes for it. But that's just something that irks me about any CD that has dead air. If it's 15 minutes after one track or 30 5-second tracks or anything like that, it just annoys the crap out of me.

quote:

Couldn't agree more...Only the Rolling Stones in all of Rock n' Roll History can post a comparable 4 consecutive album run

Whoa whoa, not so fast. How about Dylan from Bringing It All Back Home to John Wesley Harding? Or The Beatles from Rubber Soul through Abbey Road? That was an awesome streak of 6 albums. Note: I'm not counting Yellow Submarine since it wasn't really a studio album. Even if you did, you still have Rubber Soul through The Beatles.

quote:

Originally posted by mark f:
You must have a flawed album. There are no crickets on my copy.

This may sound redundant, but after listening to the entire album (which I think you like), think: "Less Than You Think". It's not that difficult to get it, at least tied into the album's title and the FACT that there are NO crickets.

Nope, no crickets. But there is 12 minutes of drone which is just as bad.