[QUOTE="jetpower3"]

I guess I should feel pretty fortunate. I'm pretty damn young and still have a higher net worth (and that I can readily use) than the median listed for older people.

Jandurin

No, but it's just one more indication. Sometimes it seems you can never have enough, as it's very easy to feel ungrateful.

I guess I should feel pretty fortunate. I'm pretty damn young and still have a higher net worth (and that I can readily use) than the median listed for older people.

[QUOTE="ZombieJesus007"]

Let's not forget that Gaddafi pretty much assured freedom for the guy who blew up Flight Pan Am 103. This guy got to live his last days free living in a mega mansion filled with marble while most Libyans scraped by. No matter what anybody says, Libya should be one of the wealthiest countries on the planet, but Gadaffi lined his pockets and ruled a classic dictatorship regime. I would have liked him to stand trial but can't really blame the people who witnessed him deploy the army on protesters.

weezyfb

Correlation vs. causation is an important distinction to make. Did Libya do better because of Gaddafi (who was no stranger to nepotism and grandiosity), or because of the full bloom in oil production and prices that just happened to coincide with him seizing control?

Either way however, there are no excuses for the massive problems that existed under his rule, even if it did do "much better" than before. Uprisings and wars like this may seem surprising at times, but not much so when you look at how resentment/strife builds and eventually boils over (maybe with the help of a catalyst like the larger Arab Spring).

*was expecting video of Kent Brockman winning lotto*foxhound_fox

Me too :(.

But seriously, life imitating art for once.

[QUOTE="jetpower3"]

[QUOTE="GreySeal9"]

It seems to me to be a mix of things, and different albums seem make the list with different combinations of those different things.

GreySeal9

And that is one of the reasons that I have become increasingly skeptical of numbered "greatest" lists. Surely if different albums shine for different reasons, why try to compare them to one another in such a way? In what regard does Dark Side of the Moon (a remarkably well constructed and polished album - it is essentially all one song) compare to, say, The Beatles (meaning The White Album, which, while full of great songs, does not hold together as anything more than a mish mesh of different genres and styles)? Surely some albums can stand out from the rest in terms of both quality and influence (as well as all the other factors you might think of), but why would they be directly comparable, especially those that were made during different psychological and creative paradgims of what it means to be an album? For instance, music might be one day unrecognizable from its current form, and the current music we praise now laughable (although we will always appreciate its influence). Sgt. Pepper's might get credit for transforming this very definition, as well as popularizing the idea of the concept album (which transcends the actual music), but being the defining moment does not make one being the greatest. Album oriented rock is still relatively young, and as technology and ideas evolve, it might evolve into something never imagined by anyone. What sense does it make comparing albums of remarkedly different time periods when what we think of an album may no longer be true in, say, 2055? I still say influence (and maybe nostalgia) is a key factor on the creating of such lists, perhaps more so than the other factors.

Would you like the list better if it wasn't ordered?

The more I think about it, the more I believe that recognizing albums/songs/artists for their respective contribution to each definable era and type of music (whatever the definitive measure is) in terms of quality, influence, and all other relevant factors would make a lot more sense than having an end all "greatest...of all time". "All time" in itself is a pretty silly statement, as time is constantly flowing and the entire list (and maybe even the concept) might look silly many, many years from now.

[QUOTE="jetpower3"]

For instance, most of the items on this list (as well as the song and artist list) seem skewed towards much older music. While I don't deny there are many among us that fondly think of older popular music as being significantly better (I still can't figure out why), this ignores so much of the music scene and instead draws unfair comparisons of well established classics with popular tunes of the present day. Even in terms of the classics (which could conceivably now include music as late as that of the early 1990s), the 1960s and 1970s gets a lot more representation than any other time period. This period, while hugely influential in the popular music scene (especially given the cultural phenona that surrounded it), represents a relatively narrow focus in terms of groups, styles, and music enabling technology. It seems inconceivable that the music scene would be "dead" as far as quality goes, and that older music is all that should count.

That said, newer music may not have had as much time to sink in and make both a quality and cultural impact, and hence their disproportionate recognition on the list (or maybe that's just Rolling Stone's rating doctrine). Either way, the question still stands: is "great" in this context solely about quality, or is it a mixture between quality, influence, staying power, album integrity, creativeness, and everything else that makes up a great individual song and overall album?

GreySeal9

It seems to me to be a mix of things, and different albums seem make the list with different combinations of those different things.

And that is one of the reasons that I have become increasingly skeptical of numbered "greatest" lists. Surely if different albums shine for different reasons, why try to compare them to one another in such a way? In what regard does Dark Side of the Moon (a remarkably well constructed and polished album - it is essentially all one song) compare to, say, The Beatles (meaning The White Album, which, while full of great songs, does not hold together as anything more than a mish mesh of different genres and styles)? Surely some albums can stand out from the rest in terms of both quality and influence (as well as all the other factors you might think of), but why would they be directly comparable, especially those that were made during different psychological and creative paradgims of what it means to be an album? For instance, music might be one day unrecognizable from its current form, and the current music we praise now laughable (although we will always appreciate its influence). Sgt. Pepper's might get credit for transforming this very definition, as well as popularizing the idea of the concept album (which transcends the actual music), but being the defining moment does not make one being the greatest. Album oriented rock is still relatively young, and as technology and ideas evolve, it might evolve into something never imagined by anyone. What sense does it make comparing albums of remarkedly different time periods when what we think of an album may no longer be true in, say, 2055? I still say influence (and maybe nostalgia) is a key factor on the creating of such lists, perhaps more so than the other factors.

For instance, most of the items on this list (as well as the song and artist list) seem skewed towards much older music. While I don't deny there are many among us that fondly think of older popular music as being significantly better (I still can't figure out why), this ignores so much of the music scene and instead draws unfair comparisons of well established classics with popular tunes of the present day. Even in terms of the classics (which could conceivably now include music as late as that of the early 1990s), the 1960s and 1970s gets a lot more representation than any other time period. This period, while hugely influential in the popular music scene (especially given the cultural phenomena that surrounded it), represents a relatively narrow focus in terms of groups, styles, and music enabling technology. It seems inconceivable that the music scene would be "dead" as far as quality goes, and that older music is all that should count.

That said, newer music may not have had as much time to sink in and make both a quality and cultural impact, and hence their disproportionate recognition on the list (or maybe that's just Rolling Stone's rating doctrine). Either way, the question still stands: is "great" in this context solely about quality, or is it a mixture between quality, influence, staying power, album integrity, creativeness, and everything else that makes up a great individual song and overall album? Like I said, I don't think a lot of items on any of their lists have aged well solely in terms of quality and lasting impact.

How much does "most influential" play into being one of the "greatest"? Because I know plenty of items, on both the greatest songs and albums lists, that haven't seemed to age particularly well, but were hugely influential in their heyday. Or maybe it's just my changing tastes.

I'm much more annoyed at characters that aren't characters at all, but more like Deus Ex Machina plot devices.