Does he actually believe that The Shaggs - Philosophy Of The World is a 7/10 which is as good or better than all albums released by the beatles, david bowie (except heroes), nirvana, post 60s pink floyd, led zeppelin, the smiths, beach boys, black sabbath, etc...?
>>130674352no bass in the context of rock music is a huge disadvantage
>>130674352He likes outsider music and finds boomer radio music dull. Not everyone in the world accepts RYM rankings as authoritative
>>130674909>He likes outsider musicI think he likes the concept of it and that causes him to inflate its scores. Personally, I doubt that he actually listens to The Shaggs for pleasure.
>>130674352he loves zappa who loves this album so it makes sense
in his own words, a 7 means you should "buy it eventually" (you can just change that "buy" to "listen to") and his opinions come "from a historical perspective" (he's always stressing that he's a historian)any album that is arguably the "first of its kind" will most likely get a high score from him even if it sounds like shit, and likewise any album that is derivative will get low scores even if they sound good
>>130675532the problem with this approach as it applies to The Shaggs is that uncountable people have been shit musicians for millennia. they were absolutely not the first band to amateurishly belt out music that barely hangs together, they were just one of the first to put it on vinyl and attempt to make a virtue of it.
>>130675158>Personally, I doubt that he actually listens to The Shaggs for pleasureYour personal incredulity notwithstanding, many people have listened to the Shaggs over the years and they aren't listening for any reason other than pleasure. It's a quintessential hipster kitsch album, I recall it being on Kurt Cobain's top 50
>>130675663>uncountable people have been shit musicians for millennia. they were absolutely not the first band to amateurishly belt out music that barely hangs togetherNo one has ever claimed otherwise, this is a feeble strawman. The Shaggs' album is funny and it circulated among tape traders because it was uniquely comical>they were just one of the first to put it on vinyl and attempt to make a virtue of itAnd this point is simply wrong. The girls themselves hated being in a band, they only did it because their father forced them to as part of a failed get-rich-quick scheme. The few hundred copies of their album kicked around bargain bins for 10 years until hipsters started trading tapes of it to laugh at. The Shaggs were not millennials, they weren't making shitty music on purpose in a self-aware way
>>130675725>It's a quintessential hipster kitsch albumSo it really is about image not music, got it
>>130676162Your inability to appreciate when something is funny really is telling
>>130675766so what makes it historically significant on the Scaruffiscale then? he thinks its historically important because its so bad its funny? that would be like a film critic rating The Room as a pivotal moment in cinemano. it might be a laugh to listen to, but you wouldn’t want to do it regularly or even many times in total, and its not important in that sense, its just a bit of a giggle.
>>130676226I don't agree with the other anon that Ruffi's ratings are a unit of measurement for historical significance. I think this rating is good evidence for the contrary, that the ratings are personal and subjective, reflecting the enjoyment he derives from the album
>>130674352He's just a hipster, no big mystery
>>130676226>historically important because its so bad its funny?there is another aspect that you're not getting here, it's more than just "so bad that it's funny" imo.I'm speaking on a personal level here because this sort of thing gets very much into subjectivity. I've been playing music for a long time, I've long since reached the point where pretty much anything on guitar is accessible for me to learn. People playing fast or technical isn't impressive anymore, that's all within reach so the "wow" factor doesn't get very far, at this point it becomes all about taste. The decisions made by someone with no fucking idea what they're doing, especially someone who doesn't even want to be there, can in turn become interesting. I'd never in a million years make some of the decisions they make on that record because 2 decades plus of training have infiltrated my mind, it's like trying to look at words on a page and not comprehend them, it's impossible."Anybody could have done it" is a common argument against any abstract art, and the response usually is "well they didn't". It's true that you could give any group of kids some instruments and get a similar result, but the story, the packaging, the results, are all just this perfect little package that leads to an album that's interesting on a few different levels. It has been memed into relevancy by Zappa but here it is, take it or leave it
Scaruffi is a pseud like those people who look at some doodles on a canvas and say: omg this is so deep.He mistrusts melody, if someone writes catchy melodies he dismisses them as silly ditties. Hence his hate for the Beatles. He thinks it's more innovative to put out a noise album with people screetching spastically in a mic than to write a tune that will be memorable decades after. He's like that.
>>130674352I disagree in that I think it should be rated higher but he and i probably have different ideas of a 7.
>>130674352Everyone with a clue knows The Shaggs were better than The Beatles.
>>130674909>He likes outsider musicThis.
>>130676162you finally cracked the code to why people like punk/garage shit
>>130674352scruffy is based for not giving all those bands u named a >7 lmaaoghauua fuck them shitters
I wonder if Scaruffi saw what that one anon sent yet…
>>130679502Comeback should be lower. The hedgehog boys sold out
>>130679502>guy completely devoid of any voice karaokes over some random radio tunes>scaruffi: omg it's his magnum opus! a singular testimony to the complexity of outsider music. an audacious experiment in musical self-expression! magnificoHe's the definition of pseud.>no you don't get it, it's supposed to sound badAt least Daniel Johnson wrote some heartful songs, he didn't just overdub some radio tracks
>>130683388It's funny reading his Syd Barrett reviews where he'll be like "This song is a mischevious dadaist parody on banal pop songs" when Barrett as the least self-aware songwriter out there. The guy was actually just a mentally ill pothead who wanted to make songs about elephants and gnomes and such
Yes because he highly values novelty and Philosophy of the World is an unprecedented album for the time that it was released.
>>130683388Anon, can you report back whether or not gullible is written on the ceiling at your present location?
