Radio 2's 100 Best Albums

[Jaded]

On a more positive note: I don't see Cliff Richard on that list.

A quick scan reveals that between us we have 17 of those albums.

That's a lot of Cliff albums, Woofage. Brave of you to own upto that 

PSML at that 

[bobb]

It's not a terrible list. I would imagine it's a lot better than a list complied by *Local* FM would be.

It is a bit strange though. You've got the greatest hard rock album of all time (that isn't by Led Zeppelin) in Appetite for Destruction as well of the greatest hard rock album of all time that is by Led Zeppelin in Led Zep IV, but then you've got nonsense like fucking Coldplay, fucking Keane and fucking Dido!! Not to mention Bryan fucking Adams and Simply fucking Red.

I see there's no Hendrix on the list and there's no room for the greatest concept album of all time in Ogden's nut gone flake either. But there is room for Kylie, Bubble and Maroon fucking 5....

[Peter]

Lot of anger, there, Bobb - good man!

[tiermat]

Bobb, you forgot the fact that the Whinging Canadian Bitch gets an album in that list!

[bobb]

I don't want to go back to the list to see what rubbish I've missed. I shall leave it at that 

[mattc]

but you have to admit that many many people enjoy listening to those albums by Simply Red <shudders>, Bryan Adams*, ColdPLay and

the Whinging Canadian Bitch

Deal with it - or get these people assasinated!

(TBH I'd rather have Ogdens... than Kylie or Bublé, BUT, on a desert island with no other choices, I'd rather have this entire list on shuffle than just listen to my  - or bobbs - top 5 alone. That's what Radio is for - a bit of variety, maybe show you new things, probably piss you off every few hours.)


(*I assume Bryan isn't the bitch.)

[L CC]

I have, or have had, 40 of them.
I've always had shit taste.

Chic & Dionne Warwick ftw.

ETA: I've never owned anything by Queen, Oasis, Led Zep or, erm Ogdens

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Chic and Dionne Warwick are awesome. But not as awesome as Queen. A Night at the Opera is not their best album though.

[RJ]

Eight.  (Plus some compilation overlap).  Some odd choices of album for artists that do make the list (for example, no Blood on the Tracks, Who's Next, or Rust Never Sleeps ...).

Not that I'm hugely upset, as I've always regarded R2 as the "acceptable" face of predicable blandness 

[Exit Stage Left]

I've always regarded R2 as the "acceptable" face of predicable blandness 

That's why it's such a good soundtrack to life in the UK in the early 21st Century. It fits perfectly.

[RJ]

I've always regarded R2 as the "acceptable" face of predicable blandness 

That's why it's such a good soundtrack to life in the UK in the early 21st Century. It fits perfectly.

Aural wallpaper/off-white emulsion?  Yes, quite.  I'm clearly a person out of time.  Anyone for furniture music?

[Specializta]

I was trapped in a car the other day with someone who listens to BBC radio of one flavour or another and I heard a track ostensibly by Buble. There was nothing left of his own voice on the track, entirely autotuned. Then I heard another, think is was gaga, exactly the same. Is this what popular music has become now, manufactured even to the point of vocals? Beyond the computer operator masquerading as a sound engineer no talent required at all, just a face that fits?

[caerau]

Buble autotunes?  I would accuse him of many things but not that- I did at least have him down as a someone who could sing.

Still I don't listen closely enough to most pop to notice autotuning and I certainly avoid Buble - I'm not sure I've seen him outside of TV talent(less) shows.

But, with the SAW/Simon Cowell influence of the last 20-30 years  - yes, clearly that is what the major teen attracting sector of the industry has become.

[Peter]

Buble can sing.  I'd be very surprised if he was auto-tuned.  What I don't like about him is that he  makes the song "about him as a performer", instead of what the song is actually about.  A good/bad example is "Cry Me A River", which he sings as if it was a jolly comedy number, rather than the bitter, ironic song that it is.  Try Julie London or Dinah Washington for the real thing!

[billplumtree]

Radio 4's top 10 albums, according to PM just now:

10  Transformer - Lou Reed
9  Blood on the Tracks - Bob Dylan
8  Hunky Dory - David Bowie
7  Trout Mask Replica - Captain Beefheart
6  Bryter Later - Nick Drake
5  Hot Rats - Frank Zappa
4  OK Computer - Radiohead
3  Brothers in Arms - Dire Straits
2  Astral Weeks - Van Morrison
1  Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd

Now *that's* a bit more like it.

[hatler]

Yo !   That is a bit closer to the mark.

[clarion]

I've only owned two of those, as well.  But it's a better selection notwithstanding the fact that both Ziggy and Low are better than Hunky Dory, and Brothers In Arms is the Direst of Straits.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

I was trapped in a car the other day with someone who listens to BBC radio of one flavour or another and I heard a track ostensibly by Buble. There was nothing left of his own voice on the track, entirely autotuned. Then I heard another, think is was gaga, exactly the same. Is this what popular music has become now, manufactured even to the point of vocals? Beyond the computer operator masquerading as a sound engineer no talent required at all, just a face that fits?

I'd be surprised if Lady Gaga was autotuned. She has a great voice.

[Exit Stage Left]

Radio 4's top 10 albums, according to PM just now:

10  Transformer - Lou Reed
9  Blood on the Tracks - Bob Dylan
8  Hunky Dory - David Bowie
7  Trout Mask Replica - Captain Beefheart
6  Bryter Later - Nick Drake
5  Hot Rats - Frank Zappa
4  OK Computer - Radiohead
3  Brothers in Arms - Dire Straits
2  Astral Weeks - Van Morrison
1  Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd

Now *that's* a bit more like it.

Al, albums that speak of a kind of incarceration of young males, bei ti in public schools, dull provincial enclaves, or even prison. Complex, brooding and introspective.The sort of music common to a generation of youths.
Radio 2 has to cater for an audience that actually had a good time growing up, and wants to remember it. Women for instance.

[madcow]

Our shortlist was made up of albums whose tracks are played by Radio 2 most regularly

In other words stuff that we think you should   like, because you can't be trusted to choose the stuff we like. Michael Buble, James Blunt-  FFS,  who buys that rubbish?

[Exit Stage Left]

Our shortlist was made up of albums whose tracks are played by Radio 2 most regularly

In other words stuff that we think you should   like, because you can't be trusted to choose the stuff we like. Michael Buble, James Blunt-  FFS,  who buys that rubbish?

In the last month I've heard the full abum version of 'Hold Your Head Up' by Argent, and 'In the Court of the Crimson King, by King Crimson at about 11am on the Ken Bruce show. That's about as much as I'd reasonably expect of youthful preferences to be reflected. I heard 'Bye Bye Baby' by the Bay City Rollers the other day. I hadn't known it was originally a Four Seasons hit, and the drumming was surprisingly good.

I'm constantly surprised by the quality of the playing on records I never liked, when I listen to them with an open ear. The bass on 'Club Tropicana' by Wham for instance.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/WYX0sjP6Za8&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/WYX0sjP6Za8&rel=1</a>

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Club Tropicana is the best 80s song ever. Fact.

I used to work with the Rollers' drummer.

[Pickled Onion]

Our shortlist was made up of albums whose tracks are played by Radio 2 most regularly

In other words stuff that we think you should   like, because you can't be trusted to choose the stuff we like. Michael Buble, James Blunt-  FFS,  who buys that rubbish?

and

we asked listeners to pick their favourite from our list of Radio 2's Top 100 Most Played Albums.

So they chose the albums, the listeners just put them in order. I also don't believe they play many album tracks, just the chart single that was on the album. Like out of all David Bowie's output Let's Dance would hardly be anyone's top pick.

I have fairly eclectic taste, at a guess we have about 50% of those. By contrast I think we have 199 of Rolling Stone's top 200.

[Biggsy]

we asked listeners to pick their favourite from our list of Radio 2's Top 100 Most Played Albums.

So they chose the albums, the listeners just put them in order. I also don't believe they play many album tracks, just the chart single that was on the album. Like out of all David Bowie's output Let's Dance would hardly be anyone's top pick.

It is for some who love love Nile-Rogers-produced pop.  Let's Dance is the only Bowie album I own (though not the only one I like).  It was hugely popular and four singles were released from it, including two Number Twos and a Number One.

[Specializta]

I was trapped in a car the other day with someone who listens to BBC radio of one flavour or another and I heard a track ostensibly by Buble. There was nothing left of his own voice on the track, entirely autotuned. Then I heard another, think is was gaga, exactly the same. Is this what popular music has become now, manufactured even to the point of vocals? Beyond the computer operator masquerading as a sound engineer no talent required at all, just a face that fits?

I'd be surprised if Lady Gaga was autotuned. She has a great voice.

I'm frankly amazed people can't hear it, same for Buble; maybe it's just the one tune [I doubt it] but the one I heard had, as I said, almost nothing left of his own voice. Yes she has a great voice but gaga even says in interview that she does it deliberately, she wants people to hear the effect.

"So I asked her why she felt the need to amend her vocals in the studio. "Its not for my voice," GaGa replied. "The radio is used to a certain perfection and it compresses the voice in a certain kind of way, it smooshes all of the sound together so it sounds smaller but fatter, its not open, very condensed. Unless you are Duffy, where its this extremely organic record, its important to play into the psychology of the listener who is used to a certain sonic quality in the voice. If they don't hear that, its not hip.""

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/neilmccormick/8217928/Lady_GaGa_and_Akon_the_mysterious_rise_of_autotune/