The Curmudgeon: The Problem with Ranking Music in 2017
In an era when musicians are putting their emphasis on live music and downplaying LPs, shouldn’t critics do the same?
Photo: Courtesy of San Fermin
It’s December, and for music critics that means filling out countless polls and 10-best lists. (Or in Paste’s case, the 50 Best Albums of 2017.) It’s a time-consuming exercise, but it’s a fun game—and often enlightening, for it forces one to put a calendar year into perspective by making distinctions (what is it that makes the fifth-best album better than the sixth?) more specific than merely what’s good and bad.
In 2017, however, I find myself asking if a list of the best albums is still the best way to measure a year’s worth of music. Personally, I love albums, but except for the Taylor Swifts and Jay Zs of the world, musicians no longer make much money from recordings. For most artists, albums are just a promotional tool to drum up business for their only remaining income stream: live performances. If musicians are putting their emphasis on live music, shouldn’t we critics do the same?
Many critics have argued that the best way to read pop music’s temperature is with a thermometer calibrated as a list of the best singles. Most listeners now consume music one song at a time—as a stream, a download or a radio track. Shouldn’t critics assess music the same way?
Except for the Taylor Swifts and Jay Zs of the world, musicians no longer make much money from recordings. For most artists, albums are just a promotional tool to drum up business for their only remaining income stream: live performances.
Such an argument is irrefutable if you’re only interested in what were the year’s best songs. But if you’re interested in who were the year’s best artists, a single will tell only so much. A romantic ballad, for example, reveals but one facet of a performer; you’d need to hear a celebratory dance number, an angry rocker, a melancholy confessional, a narrative memoir song and/or a protest anthem to get a fully rounded portrait. One song’s not enough. That’s why albums seem a more helpful measure—or would, if the industry still emphasized long-players as a listening experience and income source.
What the industry does emphasize—because it’s the one thing it still knows how to monetize—is live music. So why don’t critics emphasize it as well? A 20-song live set combines songwriting, singing and musicianship in enough different ways to reveal an artist’s every facet in a particular year of their career. So why shouldn’t a top-10 live-show list supplant the traditional top-10 album list?
Three major counterarguments immediately present themselves. First, studio ingenuity is crucial to certain kinds of music-making—especially for experimental rockers such as the Beatles and Beck, and even more so for hip-hoppers such as A Tribe Called Quest and Kanye West. Why should these artists be penalized by replacing best-album lists with best-live-show lists?
Second, the live show that I saw in one city on the tour may be a lot better or a lot worse than the live show you saw in a different city on the same tour. We can’t be sure we’re seeing the same show the way we can be sure we’re hearing the same album. Third, while it is reasonable to expect a critic to hear all the crucial albums of the year, it’s not so reasonable to expect that critic to see every important tour.
We can get around these objections by pointing out that live shows require special skills that aren’t reflected in studio recordings, every bit as much as studio skills aren’t reflected in live performances. In a poll, the variations in which shows a voter attends will get evened out in the combined voting—and even an individual top-10 list can highlight a live performer whom readers might otherwise overlook.
The Dustbowl Revival made an excellent album this year, but their live show is where they truly shine. (courtesy Signature Sounds)
For example, my favorite live performance of 2017 came from the Dustbowl Revival, a Southern California string band with horns and two lead singers. The group’s recording from this year, The Dustbowl Revival, was very good—a top-20 album if not a top-10—but onstage before an audience, the octet raised their energy and impact to another level. That’s because the band’s strengths—playful improvisation, a contagious sense of humor, stomping dance rhythms and heart-on-the-sleeve ballads—flourish more onstage than in the studio. It would be as inaccurate to give them an album-of-the-year nod as it would be to deny them the live show of the year.