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What Makes a Classic?
sp2:
I just want to point out that Modest Mouse sort of sucks.
Just, you know, throwing this out there.
Anyways, for an album to be considered classic it needs the following:
A) It needs to be greater than the list of its influences. No music is "new" anymore...it hasn't been for a long time. Basically, it's new combinations of existing things. As far as actual musical technicality and writing, it's all been done before. However, it's possible for music to be written that adds something that steps beyond its predecessors. Whether you do something better, or you polish something that was unnecessarily rough, or you try something that hasn't been tried before in that genre, you need to add something to your genre.
B) Your album needs to be more or less listenable. Let's be honest here...50% of all music on albums are filler. They are written hastily and sloppily and for the most part, the band doesn't really give a damn about them. Those are the songs they never play live, they never release as singles, and they never put on best of compilations. They just need them to make the album long enough to be an LP. However, there is listenable filler and unlistenable filler. A classic album can't be bogged down with unlistenable filler. It needs to be listenable straight through. And I don't mean listenable as in radio-friendly. I just mean that at least 90% of the songs on there need to be quality.
C) Your album needs to have influence beyond your subgenre. It's easy to influence other bands in your own genre. But influencing sound outside your genre? That is more difficult. While you could say Arcade Fire's Funeral is a classic Indie album, it is not clear yet whether their influence will extend outside the genre of "indie" rock. This is why time plays a big part in determining if an album is classic.
So no, I'd claim that Moon and Antarctica was NOT classic. It had a lot of shitty filler and didn't really add much to the genre, and its effect outside it's little subgenre of indie rock was minimal. On the other hand, I would claim that Deloused in the Comatorium, by the Mars Volta (ohshit flame flame flame) WAS classic because it did add much to its subgenre but also has extended influence outside its subgenre as well (I have heard everything from punk bands to prog bands to hip hop artists cite them as an influence) and Deloused was released in 2003. Albums like Arcade Fire's funeral have the potential to become classic if their influence spreads outside the happy comfortable little realm of indie rock.
ASturge:
I'm not going to write a lengthy explanation.
But if you think that The Mars Volta come close to Modest Mouse, then you suck.
Just getting it out there.
Flame on ye 'everyone has their own opinion' kiddies
sp2:
Look, I've listened to every Modest Mouse album. Hell, I own them all. I used to love Moon and Antarctica until I realized that it was a cynical combination of various indie rock elements meant to capitalize off of what was then a young musical movement. Of the songs on that album, only about a third are even decent, most are filler, and shitty filler at that. I'm not saying you shouldn't like them, or that you should love the Mars Volta....there are plenty of albums I'd consider "classic" that I can't stand one iota, and that's personal taste. However, Modest Mouse is shit, and if you really honestly consider Moon and Antarctica to be a "classic" album, then you must also consider indie rock to be essentially filler. While this could be argued for and argued convinicingly for, that is not the topic of this thread, and I'd prefer not to be so cynical about a genre of music that most of us here enjoy.
Deloused in the Comatorium, like it or not, like the Mars Volta or not, think they're a bunch of pretentious wanker assholes or not, has had a wide realm of influence because it has taken prog rock, which was pretty much dead, and revived it. Not only did it revive it, but it made a previously soulless genre of music much more accessible and interesting to an audience outside of the typical prog rock audience. When you have punk bands citing a prog band as an influence, you know a band has done something classic. The influences that album has had on music, whether you like them or not, are not something you can argue convincingly against.
ASturge:
Well, that's cool.
I can see why people like Mars Volta. I just can't stomach all the needless twiddling.
Anyways, I do not consider Lonesome Crowded West or TMAA to be classics.
Just really fucking good albums.
There is a huge difference between 'classic' and 'really fucking good'
sp2:
There are albums that I think are really amazingly fucking good that I enjoy immensely that I wouldn't ever in a million years consider classic. There are also albums I hate with a passion, wish had never been recorded, and so forth that I have to grudgingly admit are indeed classics.
Example: I love the Black Keys. I think Rubber Factory is a super-cool amazing totally awesome album. I don't think it's a classic.
Example 2: I hate Rush. Passionately. I think their music is soulless and Geddy Lee's voice just grates the shit out of my nerves. And yet, I think they've done some really classic stuff.
Example 3: I love AC/DC. I really do. I also think they're total shit. I also also think that Back in Black is a classic album, as are a few others of theirs. Just because they're crap doesn't mean they can't be classic, and I certainly am not calling them classic just because I like them.
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