Lancemc
Blue Crack Addict
I don't actually think our disagreement is around the idea of the 'album' or how we listen to it, but more in our conception of its criticism or how we analyze it. I find a lot of music criticism and the type of criticism that happens on this forum to be kind of revisionist-fantasy, for lack of a better term on the spot. Like, you praise what you dig, but then everything else is "The album should have been this, or they should have done that, or it should be shorter or it could have been this or that." Which the whole length issue is a usual part of. I just don't really play that game. Let me experience the whole work the artist created and respond to it how I will, and I'm happy to discuss what it does and how it does it, what it makes me feel and what I like about it or don't like. And you can talk about the technical achievements and the mix and this and that in the same way or course and so on. But so much of what I read, far more so in music discussion it seems than in any other medium (though it happens in film criticism too, unfortuantely, and it's just as inane then), is "I want it to be this, it would be better if it were that, or it fails because it's XYZ instead of ABC." And yeah, I'm speaking in terms too general, that a lot of that does factor in to good criticism as well, but it's all about context and perspective.