Favorite Records versus Best Records, can you disassociate them?
 

A Thousand leaves are left to stay and....


Do you often find a difference between your favorite records and what you find the best records?

i had a discussion a while back with a friend who said she didn't see a difference, but i disagree

favorites fluctuate too much, but if you sit yourself done and think what is the best, i think you will find a hell of a lot of different choices then your favorites

i also i find this comes up when listening to artist with extensive catalogs, and find that the first thing i buy from them tends to be my favorite of theirs even when i find something better in their catalog, like Mary Timony, I first bought The Golden Dove, at this point i think Ex Hex and her new one The Shapes We Make are better, but i still find The Golden Dove right there in my listen-ables

any thoughts, i am very curious about this and if i am alone in this, do you find any differences?

I know exactly what you mean. Sometimes what I feel is an artist's "best" record also happens to be my favorite... such as Bjork's Vespertine or Fleetwood Mac's Tusk.

Other times I may find a specific record by an artist to be technically, and aesthetically better than that artist's other works... but it's not my "favorite" of theirs, for either personal emotional or nostalgic reasons or whatever.

Take Talking Heads, for example. Remain in Light is arguably their best album, but Fear of Music is probably my favorite.

can I be totally honest? this is bullshit for the musical critic wannabe. like the old William Friedkin quote...

I don't see a difference. Daydream Nation is obviously the group's best record as far as what the guitarists do with their instruments, but I would much rather listen to Evol and A Thousand Leaves, simply because I respond to them emotionally rather than just... intellectually?

Haha...

Yeah, kinda bullshit. I guess I can see where y'all are coming from, but from my perspective, my "best" records are my "favorites" and vice versa. If I don't find something aesthetically pleasing, then it's neither.

Then again, I've got my records separated into "Good", "Better", "Best" and "Favorite".

sorry, i forgot to add the bullshit option to the poll;)

one person's bullshit is another person's inquisitive curiousity.

i think "best" and "favorite" are frequent distinctions i make with a lot of
bands records. an artist reaching their creative apex doesn't always
mean the album will be "better" for the listener.

allright, example time.

the first 3 shonen knife records have shoddy production, rudimentary
playing, tentative vocals, and songs that seem they could fall apart at
any second. the first 3 shonen knife records are fucking brilliant.

after their 4th record, they got better production, improved their
instrumental prowess, and became much more streamlined and confident
in how they brought their music across. and really? those records of
tight riffs and clean production are good...but they're not touching
"burning farm".

to use SY as an example...Daydream Nation is their best, showing what
the band could do mixing and matching the standard song structure with
their desire to "fuck shit up" with glorious results. it's great shit. and
honestly...my favorite SY is "a thousand leaves." largely off of what that
record evokes for me personally. DDN is unquestionably outstanding...but
ATL hits me at a deeper level.

I've been known to say "X is their best but Y is my favorite."

don't get me wrong jenn, just my two cents regarding how the whole thing has been thought out...

which instruments are we using to judge an artist? our own senses.
we cannot be objective, all we have to use is the ears, and how heart responds to them.

so, why bothering? unquestionably, what makes you feel good about that certain song is JUST the fact that it's appealing to your senses. therefore - you can say it's a good soong.

empirical - that's how it is.
now, if you go out saying "Daydream Nation is their best, showing what
the band could do mixing and matching the standard song structure..." now you're implying much bigger architectural judgement processes here - kinda amusing tho that you're reporting that DDN is arguably their best output yet it's not your favourite...

...i mean, why are you thinking that DDN is their best? you certainly are not judging basing that impression on your sole senses...

and that's how it is - or usually should be.

i mean - who is who to say THIS IS THEIR BEST THING yet it ain't even yr fave one? makes no sense on a logical level.

the way the songs are put together...the flow of the album...the
overt chemistry of the band. not saying none of their other albums don't
have great composition and playing, but it's super-concentrated on DDN.

you said:

an artist reaching their creative apex doesn't always mean the album will be "better" for the listener. the first 3 shonen knife records have shoddy production, rudimentary playing, tentative vocals, and songs that seem they could fall apart at any second. the first 3 shonen knife records are fucking brilliant.

after their 4th record, they got better production, improved their
instrumental prowess, and became much more streamlined and confident in how they brought their music across. and really? those records of tight riffs and clean production are good...but they're not touching "burning farm".

i think you're mixing up creative apex with technical climax.

yet to some people it does--make sense, i mean. we don't all listen to and
appraise music the same way, thank Jebus.

technically, joe satriani is an incredible guitarist. but he is only a "favorite"
of Guitar Center employees. it's not much of a stretch for some people to
make the distinction, if they can be bothered.

it's all opinion, so what if jenn's opinion is different then yours max?

technically, joe satriani is an incredible guitarist. but he is only a "favorite"
of Guitar Center employees.

again, i think you're seriously mixing up creative abilities with technical abilities.

two seriously different things. we'd all be dream theater fanboys then (Jebus forbid).

no problemo about that man! i think the whole point to this is kinda... blowing in the wind.

hey, i wanted to post that!

well said.

I have a pretty high opinion of my opinion. If it's my favorite, it has to be the best.

i think the whole point of this thread is that they aren't mixing the two up, it's asking whether a band's most technically accoplished work is also the most emotionaly resonant, and then patrick gives examples of the two things being different.

it's for example, being able to tell that something is a well made and thoughtful piece of work regardless of whether or not it strikes a chord with you emotionally. john zorn, for example, a lot of his music annoys me greatly, but i'm not so pigheaded or solipsistic as to think that he is a bad musician just because i don't like him.

Interesting thread. I prefer A Thousand Leaves to Daydream Nation, but the latter is musically more ground-breaking, if you compare them objectively. This also reminded me of a lot of records that I've bought and are made with hi-tech electronic equipment. A fair few of them sound ever so up to date, in terms of the use of new technology etc, but ultimately don't seem to make much of a point, therefore I end up listening to electronic music that was sometimes made 40 years ago. I hope that this all makes sense.