UPDATE 20TH JULY 2014
As my ratings and reviews seem to have been included on some other sites (including Wikipedia) thought I would update the current chart. Remember it’s a work in progress so there are quite a lot still missing. 1-62 are all 5/5 ratings the next 90 or so are 4.5/5. Someone has been putting them on Wikipedia using the rating given for my review rather than my actual rating. Hope that clears things up.
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“So what’s all this reviewing about ?” is a question I get asked quite a lot. Well not quite so much now as most people seem to have got used to it (nearly 14,000 views so far). Anyway as I’ve reached a sort of milestone with the first 1000 rated and now over 300 reviewed including the entire Top 50 I thought I’d make the original point of it known to all.
Fact of the matter is, some years ago, quite a few now if I’m honest, I was asked which of my vast collection of music was the best. Now I’d never really given this any thought so it set me to wondering. I obviously had sentimental favourites and had certain ‘go to albums’ for certain circumstances and when in certain moods. But I began to wonder if there was a way to work out which was the best overall album. Would it be one with a couple of real standout tracks and then a few good ones or an album with eight or ten good solid tunes but no obvious standout. So to cut a long story short, thank God I hear you cry, I decided to set about trying to work it out.
There has to be a few rules so obviously all compilation, best of’s and live albums aren’t included as they would have a unfair advantage. Similarly re-releases and remasters can only include the tracks on the original release. But apart from that everything is pitted against everything else. Only other qualifying criteria is that I actually have to own a copy of it.
Not long after I had started I stumbled upon the website RateYourMusic.com and joined it as it seemed a great way of catologuing my collection which was starting to become difficult to keep track of due to multi formats and multi copies etc. My results could easily be transformed to fit their ‘star system’ so I decided to use the site exclusively to record my results. Then by the time I’d done about 500 albums I began to wonder what would become of my sprawling collection when I’m no longer here. I thought of all the collections of various things I’d seen dispersed to the four winds on the deaths of their owners during my time as an antique dealer. My daughter who is the most likely inheritor of it at the moment might not realise how important this collection has been to me ……. but what if I told her, or whoever ends up with it, by providing ‘tasting notes’ for the albums. So I started writing brief notes initially only a couple of lines per album. Then one afternoon I was at a loose end and wrote a couple of lengthier peices for two of my favourite albums and decided to publish them on RYM. Much to my surprise I recieved a lot of positive feedback and was encouraged to write more and publish them on RYM. So that’s how it all started and such is the power of the internet that now I am even being asked to write reviews for new releases from established artists as well as newcomers for publicity purposes. They quite often very kindly send me review copies as well which is nice.
Anyhow as I have now finally completed reviewing all of the current Top 50 I thought I’d put the link to the current ‘chart’ on here for people who prefer to read it that way. It looked too messy before with gaps for albums I hadn’t reviewed.
Feel free to comment on anything that you agree or disagree with or that surprises you because it is there but please bear in mind it is very much a work in progress as I’ve only rated 1000 albums so far and I have well over 2000 eligible. For instance I haven’t even started on The Rolling Stones, Queen, Jethro Tull, Brian Ferry, loads of my old soul and folk albums and tons of other stuff. Plus the majority of the releases from the last few years won’t be on there yet as I am seriously playing catch up.
One more thing, these are not in any way supposed to be the definitive review of any album. I’m more enthusiastic amateur than dedicated professional and any opinions and theories about certain things in there are purely mine and shouldn’t be taken as ‘cast in stone’. These are my personal opinions on music and just because I think one particular album is better than another it doesn’t necessarily mean that is the general view of the rest of the world. In other words if you are doing some sort of degree in rock music there are other people far more knowledgable than me so be careful what you use !!!
Finally, some of the reviews are deliberately humerous, some very short and some don’t even mention the music much at all but might recall a funny story around the purchase of it or a gig I went to. On the other hand on some I have gone into some depth. Just depends what mood I was in at the time but remember initially the early ones were not intended for public comsumption and I just haven’t got time to redo them !
martinleedham 