samo🦕
Diamond Member
not really a movie person
looking at the big sky
Joined: December 2017
Posts: 15,387
Pronouns: they/them
|
Post by samo🦕 on Apr 5, 2023 17:53:58 GMT -5
|
|
samo🦕
Diamond Member
not really a movie person
looking at the big sky
Joined: December 2017
Posts: 15,387
Pronouns: they/them
|
Post by samo🦕 on Apr 5, 2023 18:08:52 GMT -5
I'm not surprised that this is the first full-length track out, but it deserved a little better. It's time for that other big point gap, because #12 beat Mrs. Bartolozzi by a full 13 points! Highest rank: 5 (x2) Perfect rankings: 2 Lowest rank: 14
|
|
samo🦕
Diamond Member
not really a movie person
looking at the big sky
Joined: December 2017
Posts: 15,387
Pronouns: they/them
|
Post by samo🦕 on Apr 5, 2023 18:16:04 GMT -5
|
|
samo🦕
Diamond Member
not really a movie person
looking at the big sky
Joined: December 2017
Posts: 15,387
Pronouns: they/them
|
Post by samo🦕 on Apr 5, 2023 18:25:57 GMT -5
This is another one I'm not surprised to see leave early, but imo all three songs we're losing tonight should've gone further. Only beating Pi by 2 points is #11. It's got the 4th lowest SD, and the gap between its lowest and highest ranks is the smallest of any song outside the bottom 2. Highest rank: 6 Perfect rankings: 2 Lowest rank: 12
|
|
samo🦕
Diamond Member
not really a movie person
looking at the big sky
Joined: December 2017
Posts: 15,387
Pronouns: they/them
|
Post by samo🦕 on Apr 5, 2023 18:33:02 GMT -5
|
|
samo🦕
Diamond Member
not really a movie person
looking at the big sky
Joined: December 2017
Posts: 15,387
Pronouns: they/them
|
Post by samo🦕 on Apr 5, 2023 18:51:39 GMT -5
I'll hopefully get to 10-6 tomorrow, with the top 5 coming on Friday. For now, here are some stats: {Average of remaining ranks}1. BB🌕 5.5 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) 2. singingrulebritannia 5.7 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11) 3. Gonza'90 6.3 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 15) 4. nathanalbright 6.3 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 12, 13) 5. willapted33 6.6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13) 6. God 7.2 (1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13) 7. samo🦕 7.4 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15) 8. dremolus - solarpunk 7.5 (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 13, 16)
|
|
God
4x Platinum Member
Crazy y Cubano
Joined: July 2010
Posts: 4,298
|
Post by God on Apr 5, 2023 20:09:51 GMT -5
Washing machine 😢
|
|
samo🦕
Diamond Member
not really a movie person
looking at the big sky
Joined: December 2017
Posts: 15,387
Pronouns: they/them
|
Post by samo🦕 on Apr 6, 2023 17:23:38 GMT -5
We'll kick off the top 10 with a song I thought would be in the bottom 5, but a surprise #2 (its only top 5 rank) saved it. Highest rank: 2 Perfect rankings: 1 Lowest rank: 12 (x3)
|
|
samo🦕
Diamond Member
not really a movie person
looking at the big sky
Joined: December 2017
Posts: 15,387
Pronouns: they/them
|
Post by samo🦕 on Apr 6, 2023 17:28:22 GMT -5
|
|
samo🦕
Diamond Member
not really a movie person
looking at the big sky
Joined: December 2017
Posts: 15,387
Pronouns: they/them
|
Post by samo🦕 on Apr 6, 2023 17:30:44 GMT -5
It's a beautiful song, but I'm glad it's out before the other tracks on A Sky of Honey. The last song missing the top half only has one rank outside the top 10, but its #3 is its only top 5 rank. Highest rank: 3 Perfect rankings: 2 Lowest rank: 13
|
|
samo🦕
Diamond Member
not really a movie person
looking at the big sky
Joined: December 2017
Posts: 15,387
Pronouns: they/them
|
Post by samo🦕 on Apr 6, 2023 17:34:00 GMT -5
|
|
samo🦕
Diamond Member
not really a movie person
looking at the big sky
Joined: December 2017
Posts: 15,387
Pronouns: they/them
|
Post by samo🦕 on Apr 6, 2023 17:37:33 GMT -5
Like An Architect's Dream, I really enjoy this but don't return to it as often as anything on the second half of the disc. The last four songs have been extremely close in points, but 6 points separate the top half from the bottom half. Losing to #7 by a single point is the last song without a top 3 rank, and the 2nd-least divisive song remaining. Highest rank: 5 (x2) Perfect rankings: 1 Lowest rank: 13
|
|
samo🦕
Diamond Member
not really a movie person
looking at the big sky
Joined: December 2017
Posts: 15,387
Pronouns: they/them
|
Post by samo🦕 on Apr 6, 2023 17:40:51 GMT -5
|
|
samo🦕
Diamond Member
not really a movie person
looking at the big sky
Joined: December 2017
Posts: 15,387
Pronouns: they/them
|
Post by samo🦕 on Apr 6, 2023 17:44:19 GMT -5
There are a couple songs on A Sea of Honey that still haven't clicked for me, and this is one of them. It's really good, but this album is incredible. Finishing one point away from the songs on either side of it is the song with the highest SD of the game. It (unfortunately) couldn't quite finish in the top 5, but was only two points away from doing so. Highest rank: 2 (x2) Perfect rankings: 1 Lowest rank: 15
|
|
samo🦕
Diamond Member
not really a movie person
looking at the big sky
Joined: December 2017
Posts: 15,387
Pronouns: they/them
|
Post by samo🦕 on Apr 6, 2023 17:46:24 GMT -5
|
|
samo🦕
Diamond Member
not really a movie person
looking at the big sky
Joined: December 2017
Posts: 15,387
Pronouns: they/them
|
Post by samo🦕 on Apr 6, 2023 17:49:35 GMT -5
This is a career highlight, probably top 15 in her entire discography. It took a lot of listens to get there for me, but if you haven't heard this since first listening to the album, I would 100% recommend giving it a second look. Tonight's final reveal falls one point short of #5, and is the last song without a top 2 rank. It also has the 2nd highest SD. Highest rank: 3 Perfect rankings: 0 Lowest rank: 15
|
|
samo🦕
Diamond Member
not really a movie person
looking at the big sky
Joined: December 2017
Posts: 15,387
Pronouns: they/them
|
Post by samo🦕 on Apr 6, 2023 17:52:38 GMT -5
|
|
samo🦕
Diamond Member
not really a movie person
looking at the big sky
Joined: December 2017
Posts: 15,387
Pronouns: they/them
|
Post by samo🦕 on Apr 6, 2023 17:57:21 GMT -5
We're down to the final 5! What do you think will win it all? {Average of remaining ranks}1. singingrulebritannia 3 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) (=) willapted33 3 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) 3. BB🌕 3.8 (1, 2, 3, 6, 7) 4. Gonza'90 4.2 (1, 2, 4, 5, 9) 5. samo🦕 4.4 (1, 3, 4, 5, 9) 6. God 5.6 (1, 2, 7, 8, 10) 7. nathanalbright 7.6 (1, 3, 9, 12, 13) 8. dremolus - solarpunk 9.4 (1, 6, 11, 13, 16)
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Apr 7, 2023 11:42:23 GMT -5
Here's my album review for this one:
Aerial, by Kate Bush
No one would ever accuse Kate Bush of being a prolific artist. That said, she has always aimed at quality over quantity, and if her artistic production has waned over the course of her career, an album by the artist or even a song, even a song that is already relatively familiar, is something that many people celebrate. And so it is with Aerial, an album that came out a dozen years after he previous album (and was remastered in 2018 with some changes, including a change in male vocals). During the time off the artist did not lose her artistic ambition--this album is a double album at 80 minutes in length--but she did raise her son and take a step back from what was already an increasingly infrequent career as an artist. If Kate Bush still had art she wanted to make, it was clear that she was not at this point in her life ambitious about topping the charts. Does the album stand up compared to her earlier work? Let's see.
"King Of The Mountain" begins the album with a gorgeous and somewhat austere track that takes a while to kick in with more instrumentation and a sound like being on top of a lonely mountain. "Pi" offers a gentle character study of a gentle but somewhat troubled man before moving into an exploration of the transcendental number itself. "Bertie" offer a gorgeous love song that sounds like it could come from a 16th century madrigal or something equally historical in nature. "Mrs. Bartolozzi" provides another intriguing character study about someone, in this case what seems to be a story about washing machine and swimming. "How To Be Invisible" sounds ghostly and continues an examination of lonely and obscure people, continuing an apparent theme that this album has established so far. "Joanni" offers intriguing production and another story song about a woman who sounds like Joan of Arc dealing with raging medieval battle. "A Coral Room" ends disc one with a spare piano ballad about a mysterious town poetically described and connected to the narrator's mother and her little brown jug. "Prelude" offers a brief bit of spoken word from a small child set to lovely but spare piano playing. This blends into a "Prologue" that shows the same gentle and spare piano and sweet strings playing behind an optimistic Kate Bush singing in hope. "An Architect's Dream" offers drums and a subtle bassline and another character study about an artist's creativity, which is continued by "The Painter's Link," which follows the same theme. "Sunset" provides a comparatively lively song about the concern of death and endings, cutting against the dreams of immortality that have filled most of the album. "Aerial Tal" offers a short interlude with a chirping bird. "Somewhere In Between" offers the beauty of going on a high hill, calling back to the album's opening but with more gentle music and a less harsh and lonely wind and a focus on the beauty that one sees and experiences. "Nocturn" provides a dreamlike song about a dreamlike state of solitude that like much of this album builds up gradually from a very spare beginning. "Aerial" then closes the album with a return to the seashore with nervous and anxious instrumentation behind a song that expresses the narrator's desire to be on the roof and sees a return of the chirping bird we met earlier.
This album is certainly a concept album with a high degree of internal cohesion. One might almost say that it has almost too much cohesion in the way that the songs blend together and many of them start extremely austerely before picking up as they go along, adding tempo and more instrumentation. There is a sense of purposeful repetition here, not only in that the lyrics of the songs frequently are repeated over and over again, but song titles are repeated here in some fashion, and the album as a whole deals with a certain consistent set of themes. Most of these themes--like the relationship between men and women, between isolation and communication, between memory and life on the one hand and death on the other hand, are themes that have continued throughout Bush's body of work. There are a lot of beautiful moments on this album, but it is an album that really lacks not only any obvious single, but in a great deal of variety between the songs. If the artist had made one track lasting for more than an hour, she could have hardly made it blend together any better than she does here. Whether or not this album suits the listener depends on whether they like albums that are ambitious in scope but austere and somewhat severe in their execution, with the negative spaces carrying much of the burden of the meaning of the material.
|
|
samo🦕
Diamond Member
not really a movie person
looking at the big sky
Joined: December 2017
Posts: 15,387
Pronouns: they/them
|
Post by samo🦕 on Apr 7, 2023 17:02:38 GMT -5
With our final 5 we have the last four (full-length) tracks of A Sky of Honey, as well as the album's only single. But which side will finish at #1? Find out tonight. #5 only beat Joanni by one point, and finished seven behind #4. It has the 3rd highest SD (the highest remaining), and would've been much less divisive if not for its one rank outside the top 10. #1s: 0 Top 3s: 2 Bottom halfs: 4 Perfect rankings: 0
|
|
samo🦕
Diamond Member
not really a movie person
looking at the big sky
Joined: December 2017
Posts: 15,387
Pronouns: they/them
|
Post by samo🦕 on Apr 7, 2023 17:05:20 GMT -5
|
|
samo🦕
Diamond Member
not really a movie person
looking at the big sky
Joined: December 2017
Posts: 15,387
Pronouns: they/them
|
Post by samo🦕 on Apr 7, 2023 17:11:20 GMT -5
I still think it's a little overrated, but it's come a long way from being in my bottom 2 among the full-length songs. It's still easily my least favourite song in the top 5 though, so I'm glad to see it here. #4 is more than 10 points away from cracking the top 3, and sees the first loss of any #1 ranks. #1s: 1 Top 3s: 1 (including #1s) Bottom halfs: 2 Perfect rankings: 0
|
|
samo🦕
Diamond Member
not really a movie person
looking at the big sky
Joined: December 2017
Posts: 15,387
Pronouns: they/them
|
Post by samo🦕 on Apr 7, 2023 17:14:08 GMT -5
|
|
samo🦕
Diamond Member
not really a movie person
looking at the big sky
Joined: December 2017
Posts: 15,387
Pronouns: they/them
|
Post by samo🦕 on Apr 7, 2023 17:20:38 GMT -5
It's the second-longest song on the album, but I never get bored of it, especially those last three minutes. All of the top 3 have at least two #1s, but #3 is the only one with two bottom-half ranks. #1s: 2 Top 3s: 4 Bottom halfs: 2 Perfect rankings: 2
|
|
samo🦕
Diamond Member
not really a movie person
looking at the big sky
Joined: December 2017
Posts: 15,387
Pronouns: they/them
|
Post by samo🦕 on Apr 7, 2023 17:22:18 GMT -5
|
|
samo🦕
Diamond Member
not really a movie person
looking at the big sky
Joined: December 2017
Posts: 15,387
Pronouns: they/them
|
Post by samo🦕 on Apr 7, 2023 17:27:50 GMT -5
It's the second-longest song on the album, but I never get bored of it, especially those last three two minutes. It's down to the final 2: "King Of The Mountain" and "Sunset". One has 107 points, the other 112. They're the only two songs to ever be at #1, with both spending at least three lists there. Between them they have five #1s, nine top 2s (though only God has both of their top 2 still in) and a single bottom-half rank ( dremolus - solarpunk's #13). One has the 4th highest SD, the other the 3rd lowest. But which will win? Find out in 10 minutes.
|
|
samo🦕
Diamond Member
not really a movie person
looking at the big sky
Joined: December 2017
Posts: 15,387
Pronouns: they/them
|
Post by samo🦕 on Apr 7, 2023 17:38:25 GMT -5
|
|
samo🦕
Diamond Member
not really a movie person
looking at the big sky
Joined: December 2017
Posts: 15,387
Pronouns: they/them
|
Post by samo🦕 on Apr 7, 2023 17:43:34 GMT -5
And after a long, long wait, we have a winner! "Sunset" is up there with "Wuthering Heights" and "Night Of The Swallow" for my favourite winner we've had in this series, and none of that would've been possible without those of you who've stuck around for almost two years of this series, so I want to thank all of you especially, as well as anyone who's sent for any of these. I'll have the opening post for Director's Cut up at some point, but there's another rankdown I'll be opening tomorrow for something pretty different to anything we've ranked here.
|
|
|
Post by nathanalbright on Apr 7, 2023 18:04:19 GMT -5
Wuthering Heights is gorgeous; I'm bummed I missed the beginning of this series.
|
|