For almost as long as I can remember, media critics have hailed ''Bitches Brew'' by Miles Davis as the best jazz album of all time. I never understood or agreed with that statement for several reasons.
1. Its not a jazz album.
2. It may be an important record as far as musical progression in the jazz genre, but it doesn't really hold a candle to many of Miles' other albums and great works by the likes of Coltrane, Dolphy,Ra, Mingus, Coleman, Ayler, Silver, Sharrock, Sanders etc...

I think Bitches Brew is a far overrated album and encourage any new listener of jazz to explore some of the names I posted above before thoughtlessly falling into the queue of Bitches Brew.

I didn't like Bitches Brew until I heard the title track on a massive sound system. It sounded like Miles' trumpet was ripping straight through my soul. Really intense shit.

I don't think anyone in their right mind would consider a great "jazz" album, though. It's clearly jazz-fusion, and one of the best damned examples of it too.

i consider it one of the best albums ever of any genre

Im really really disapointed by The Eternal.

For me I (and I find myself saying this alot) I think its mis-rated. In terms of relevance and influence, originality etc... yes escellent record.

musically? oh well, its good it hasparts that make me feel alive, but, when i listen to this record, a little part of me dies every time.

I don't listen to Bitches Brew that often but when I do I'm never anything other than amazed by it. Mis-rated, over-rated, under-rated, I don't know. I do think it's sort of taken for granted though. Like, 'oh yeah, Bitches Brew, awesome', when, for me at least, it takes for me to actually sit down and listen to it again to remind myself just how amazing it is actually is.

It´s really strange for me that Miles disliked (and talked about it in interviews) Coltrane´s freer stuff from 65 onwards, saying Coltrane sounded like he had lost his mind etc., and then he made Bitches Brew. Really different music but almost equally fucked up/weird.

Bitches Brew is one of my favorite albums of all time. Listen to it and On the Corner. His innovations in the studio and unique approach to his instrument are what set him apart on Bitches Brew, and his melding African tradition stuff with jazz to create complex polyrythms and an emphasis on rhythm over melody and harmony are what to look for on On the Corner.

Coltrane's avant-garde work was derivative. He didn't do anything for the avant-garde movement other than be a famous jazz musician who slightly crossed over into it. Don't get me wrong, I love Coltrane, and he did push jazz along, but during the first 20 years of Miles' career he defined what jazz was. In terms of importance to the genre there is no contest.

Maybe it's because I've always been around it, but nothing about jazz sounds very avant garde to me anymore.

Even the most atonal skronk sounds traditional.

I may be completely wrong in this, but I tend to think that Coltrane, at least during his major improv period, was more influential outside of jazz than he was inside it.

i'm talking strictly musically.

music and personal politics DO NOT MIX. it's about what it sounds like, not some jackass in a rolling stone cubicle's opinion and dissection of it.

Obviously, you're forgetting your massive love for Prussian Blue and Skrewdriver?

you're funny.

Fleetwood Mac's 'Tango In The Night' is an excellent pop record.

No One is Innocent and The Great Rock n Roll Swindle, while being far from the Sex Pistols' best, are still really good songs.

yeah, it's a shame they didn't make it onto the album.

Ryan Adams is the best songwriter of the decade (though Cardinology is worse than a colonoscopy).

Earth 2 is an awful, pointless, aimless record of someone nodding off while they record.

Porcupine Tree are great.

I dont doubt it.

I stopped at Tusk (which I love)

Is Tango... worth checking out?

Exactly, the unrecorded songs are the best

Wait wasn't that meant to be a zing?

That's not unpopular at all, dude. Unless by badass you mean better.