From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V4 #32 Reply-To: loud-fans@smoe.org Sender: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk loud-fans-digest Tuesday, February 3 2004 Volume 04 : Number 032 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [loud-fans] Lolita Nation oddity [Aaron Mandel ] Re: [loud-fans] poll results ["Joseph M. Mallon" ] Re: [loud-fans] poll results [Aaron Mandel ] [loud-fans] Heavenly States/Heavenly Poll/etc. ["Bradley Skaught" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 10:24:14 -0500 (EST) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Lolita Nation oddity On Sun, 1 Feb 2004 zoom@muppetlabs.com wrote: > Speaking of which, are we to assume Aaron is still sleeping? My home cablemodem was disconnected sometime Friday for unknown reasons. Expect me to finish compiling results today or tomorrow; the poll, in any case, is now closed. aaron / help@eecs ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 12:47:19 -0500 (EST) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: [loud-fans] poll results THE TOP FIVE (see below for the rest): 1/ New Pornographers - Electric Version (95.29 points) 2/ Ted Leo/Pharmacists - Hearts Of Oak (64.21 points) 3/ Shins - Chutes Too Narrow (49.18 points) 4/ Pernice Brothers - Yours, Mine & Ours (49.17 points) 5/ White Stripes - Elephant (39.15 points) First of all, I want to thank everyone who voted for making this the biggest poll year since I started doing them in 2000, according to my records. Makes things more interesting, I think. I've been tracking the results gradually as they came in, and until a week or two ago, with most of the votes in, Ted Leo and The New Pornographers were neck and neck, and the Shins weren't looking like a contender. As always, the value of each vote has been increased by .01 as a tiebreaker, so a score of 21.05 means that five people voted for the album, giving it 21 points total. Heavy-hitter awards go to Wire and Sparks for earning an average of 4 points per ballot they appeared on; Outkast did quite well by the same measure, getting 3.6 points per ballot and substantially outscoring Wire and Sparks in total. Please note that "The" has been stripped off the front of bandnames automatically in order to preserve my sanity; I realize this is not really right for things like "The Darkness" but such is life. Also, Chris Murtland's "most normal loudfan" standing is mostly due to him only voting for two albums. You might want to mentally disqualify him if you find that unsavory. This post available at: http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~aaron/poll/lf03/results.txt Full results (including albums only one person voted for) at http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~aaron/poll/lf03/full-results.txt Results: ALBUMS 1/ New Pornographers - Electric Version (95.29 points) 2/ Ted Leo/Pharmacists - Hearts Of Oak (64.21 points) 3/ Shins - Chutes Too Narrow (49.18 points) 4/ Pernice Brothers - Yours, Mine & Ours (49.17 points) 5/ White Stripes - Elephant (39.15 points) 6/ Fountains Of Wayne - Welcome Interstate Managers (39.14 points) 7/ Outkast - Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (36.1 points) 8/ Belle And Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress (34.11 points) 9/ Richard Thompson - The Old Kit Bag (25.1 points) 10/ Radiohead - Hail To The Thief (25.09 points) 11/ Kathleen Edwards - Failer (22.09 points) 12/ Liz Phair - Liz Phair (21.07 points) 13/ Postal Service - Give Up (20.1 points) 14/ Lucinda Williams - World Without Tears (17.06 points) 14/ Decemberists - Her Majesty The Decemberists (17.06 points) 16/ Nada Surf - Let Go (16.06 points) 17/ Wire - Send (16.04 points) 18/ Minus 5 - Down With Wilco (15.07 points) 19/ Wrens - The Meadowlands (15.05 points) 20/ Strokes - Room On Fire (14.06 points) 21/ Weakerthans - Reconstruction Site (13.04 points) 22/ Go-Betweens - Bright Yellow, Bright Orange (12.06 points) 23/ Darkness - Permission To Land (12.05 points) 24/ Guided By Voices - Earthquake Glue (12.04 points) 25/ Sparks - Lil' Beethoven (12.03 points) 26/ Beulah - Yoko (11.05 points) 27/ Jayhawks - Rainy Day Music (11.04 points) 28/ Ad Frank And The Fast Easy Women - In Girl Trouble (11.03 points) 28/ David Bowie - Reality (11.03 points) 30/ Stew - Something Deeper Than These Changes (10.05 points) 31/ Steve Wynn And The Miracle 3 - Static Transmission (10.03 points) 31/ Wheat - Per Second, Per Second, Per Second...Every Second (10.03 points) 31/ Broadcast - Haha Sound (10.03 points) 34/ Quick Fix - The Push (10.02 points) 35/ Dressy Bessy - Dressy Bessy (9.05 points) 35/ Stephen Malkmus And The Jicks - Pig Lib (9.05 points) 37/ Dar Williams - The Beauty Of The Rain (8.04 points) 38/ Grandaddy - Sumday (8.03 points) 38/ Zwan - Mary Star Of The Sea (8.03 points) 38/ Cobra Verde - Easy Listening (8.03 points) 38/ Throwing Muses - Throwing Muses (8.03 points) 42/ Trolleyvox - Leap Of Folly (8.02 points) 42/ Calla - Televise (8.02 points) 42/ Honeydogs - 10,000 Years (8.02 points) 45/ Hot Hot Heat - Make Up The Breakdown (7.05 points) 46/ Death Cab For Cutie - Transatlanticism (7.04 points) 46/ Bangles - Doll Revolution (7.04 points) 48/ Warren Zevon - The Wind (7.03 points) 48/ Calexico - Feast Of Wire (7.03 points) 48/ Robyn Hitchcock - Luxor (7.03 points) 48/ Delgados - Hate (7.03 points) 48/ Rainer Maria - Long Knives Drawn (7.03 points) 48/ Fall - The Real New Fall LP Formerly 'Country On The Click' (7.03 points) 48/ Effection - Soundtrack To A Moment (7.03 points) 55/ Manitoba - Up In Flames (7.02 points) 55/ Caesars - 39 Minutes Of Bliss (In An Otherwise Meaningless World) (7.02 points) 55/ Saturday Looks Good To Me - All Your Summer Songs (7.02 points) 58/ Dandy Warhols - Welcome To The Monkey House (6.04 points) 59/ Bleu - Redhead (6.03 points) 59/ Anton Barbeau - King Of Missouri (6.03 points) 59/ Exploding Hearts - Guitar Romantic (6.03 points) 59/ Britta Phillips And Dean Wareham - L'Avventura (6.03 points) 63/ Dresden Dolls - s/t (6.02 points) 63/ Idlewild - The Remote Part (6.02 points) 63/ Ulrich Schnauss - A Strangely Isolated Place (6.02 points) 63/ Fleetwood Mac - Say You Will (6.02 points) 63/ Joe Jackson - Volume 4 (6.02 points) 68/ Cat Power - You Are Free (5.03 points) 68/ Yo La Tengo - Summer Sun (5.03 points) 70/ Sun Kil Moon - Ghosts Of The Great Highway (5.02 points) 70/ Polyphonic Spree - The Beginning Stages Of The Polyphonic Spree (5.02 points) 70/ Chris Whitley - Hotel Vast Horizon (5.02 points) 73/ Francine - 28 Plastic Blue Versions Of Endings Without You (5.01 points) 73/ Magic Dirt - Tough Love (5.01 points) 73/ Van Duren - Idiot Optimism (5.01 points) 73/ Jill Sobule - The Folk Years 2003-2003 (5.01 points) 73/ Chris Smither - Train Home (5.01 points) 73/ Toshack Highway vs. Sianspheric - Magnetic Morning/Aspirin Age (5.01 points) 73/ Kinski - Airs Above Your Station (5.01 points) 73/ Philip Price - Honey In The Chemicals (5.01 points) 73/ Deathray Davies - Midnight At The Black Nail Polish Factory (5.01 points) 82/ Jupiter Affect - The Restoration Of Culture After Genghis Khan (4.03 points) 82/ Rapture - Echoes (4.03 points) 84/ Soundtrack - A Mighty Wind (4.02 points) 84/ Dwight Yoakam - Population: Me (4.02 points) 84/ Various Artists - Every Word - A Tribute To Let's Active (4.02 points) 84/ Rachael Sage - Public Record (4.02 points) 84/ Constantines - Shine A Light (4.02 points) 84/ Lilys - Precollection (4.02 points) 84/ Steely Dan - Everything Must Go (4.02 points) 84/ Buzzcocks - Buzzcocks (4.02 points) 84/ Webb Brothers - Webb Brothers (4.02 points) 84/ Josh Rouse - 1972 (4.02 points) [ bunch of records that got one four-point vote omitted ] 123/ British Sea Power - The Decline Of British Sea Power (3.03 points) 124/ Anton Barbeau - Guladong (3.02 points) 124/ Tris McCall - Shootout At The Sugar Factory (3.02 points) 124/ Larch - Only Pop Music Can Save Us Now (3.02 points) 124/ Eels - Shootenanny! (3.02 points) 124/ Starlight Mints - Built On Squares (3.02 points) 124/ Thorns - s/t (3.02 points) 124/ Meat Loaf - Couldn't Have Said It Better (3.02 points) 124/ Salteens - Let Go Of Your Bad Days (3.02 points) 124/ Amy Rigby - Til The Wheels Fall Off (3.02 points) 124/ Scott Miller And The Commonwealth - Upside/Downside (3.02 points) 124/ Kristin Hersh - The Grotto (3.02 points) [ three-point singletons omitted ] 179/ Kings Of Leon - Youth And Young Manhood (2.02 points) 179/ Aislers Set - How I Learned To Write Backwards (2.02 points) 179/ Fischerspooner - #1 (2.02 points) 179/ Bettie Serveert - Log 22 (2.02 points) 179/ Thermals - More Parts Per Million (2.02 points) [ whole lotta two- and one-point singletons omitted ] MOST NORMAL LOUDFANS (raw) 1/ Chris Murtland (14.19 points) 2/ Joe Mallon (10.91 points) 3/ Michael Mitton (10.7 points) 4/ R. Kevin Doyle (10.58 points) 5/ Randy Beever (9.79 points) 6/ Wes Vokes (9.21 points) 7/ Steve Holtebeck (9.18 points) 8/ betsy lescosky way (9.17 points) 9/ Mike Curley (8.81 points) 10/ Michael Roeser (8.55 points) 11/ Jim Robson (8.38 points) 12/ Michael Zwirn (8.37 points) 13/ Tom Krueger (8.06 points) 14/ Roger Winston (7.97 points) 15/ Jeff Downing (7.94 points) 16/ Andrew Heyman (7.75 points) 17/ Jeff Norman (7.74 points) 18/ CJ Camp (7.72 points) 19/ Andrea Weiss (7.69 points) 20/ Steven Matrick (7.28 points) 21/ Dan Sallitt (7.23 points) 21/ Stewart Mason (7.23 points) 23/ Larry Tucker (7.09 points) 24/ Miles Goosens (7.03 points) 25/ Brian Block (6.43 points) 26/ Aaron Mandel (6.25 points) 27/ Rex Broome (5.88 points) 28/ West A. Moran (5.45 points) 29/ Doug Stanley (5.44 points) 30/ Dave Walker (5.34 points) 31/ amy lewis (5.02 points) 32/ Gil Ray (4.95 points) 33/ David Seldin (4.85 points) 34/ Bradley (4.62 points) 35/ jer fairall (4.42 points) 36/ George Mastalir (4.35 points) 37/ Bill Silvers (4.25 points) 38/ Cyndy Patrick (4.22 points) 39/ braneout (4.05 points) 40/ Richard richblath (3.99 points) 41/ doug mayo-wells (3.87 points) 42/ Dan Stillwell (3.83 points) 43/ Richard Gagnon (3.73 points) 44/ Paula Carino (3.45 points) 45/ Phil Fleming (3.22 points) 46/ Andrew Hamlin (2.99 points) 47/ glenn mcdonald (2.56 points) 48/ Jen Grover (1.9 points) 49/ Tom Enroth (1.21 points) 50/ Kelly O'Connor (1.12 points) 51/ Jon Tveite (0.79 points) 52/ Dana Paoli (0.61 points) MOST NORMAL LOUDFANS (weighted) 1/ Chris Murtland (34.41 points) 2/ Steve Holtebeck (28.88 points) 3/ Jim Robson (28.2 points) 4/ Randy Beever (27.47 points) 5/ Michael Zwirn (26.74 points) 6/ CJ Camp (25.44 points) 7/ Andrew Heyman (23.23 points) 8/ Roger Winston (23.17 points) 9/ Jeff Downing (22.74 points) 10/ Mike Curley (22.71 points) 11/ Tom Krueger (22.37 points) 12/ Jeff Norman (21.88 points) 13/ Wes Vokes (21.25 points) 14/ Doug Stanley (21.19 points) 15/ George Mastalir (20.62 points) 16/ Michael Mitton (19.31 points) 17/ David Seldin (19.25 points) 18/ Aaron Mandel (19.08 points) 19/ Dan Sallitt (18.1 points) 20/ Steven Matrick (17.75 points) 21/ Rex Broome (15.86 points) 22/ Dan Stillwell (15.51 points) 23/ Cyndy Patrick (15.39 points) 24/ Larry Tucker (14.72 points) 25/ Brian Block (13.89 points) 26/ R. Kevin Doyle (13.56 points) 27/ Michael Roeser (12.85 points) 28/ Bradley (12.57 points) 29/ Paula Carino (11.65 points) 30/ betsy lescosky way (11.43 points) 31/ Andrea Weiss (11.22 points) 32/ jer fairall (10.68 points) 33/ doug mayo-wells (9.67 points) 34/ Joe Mallon (9.44 points) 35/ Richard Gagnon (9.01 points) 36/ Dave Walker (8.98 points) 37/ Bill Silvers (8.64 points) 37/ Miles Goosens (8.64 points) 39/ braneout (8.13 points) 40/ Richard richblath (8.07 points) 41/ glenn mcdonald (7.75 points) 42/ Stewart Mason (5.77 points) 43/ Andrew Hamlin (4.26 points) 44/ Phil Fleming (3.59 points) 45/ Kelly O'Connor (3.02 points) 45/ Tom Enroth (3.02 points) 47/ Jon Tveite (2.58 points) 48/ amy lewis (2.42 points) 49/ West A. Moran (0.71 points) 50/ Dana Paoli (0.24 points) 51/ Jen Grover (0.21 points) 52/ Gil Ray (0.14 points) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 10:16:40 -0800 (PST) From: "Joseph M. Mallon" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] poll results On Mon, 2 Feb 2004, Aaron Mandel wrote: > MOST NORMAL LOUDFANS (raw) > MOST NORMAL LOUDFANS (weighted) Aaron, Thanks for all your work. Could you explain the difference between these two ratings? Joe Mallon jmmallon@joescafe.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 13:45:48 -0500 (EST) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: [loud-fans] poll results On Mon, 2 Feb 2004, Joseph M. Mallon wrote: > Could you explain the difference between these > two ratings? Whoops; that's what I get for rushing. The score for "most normal" is based on how many points other people gave to the albums each person voted for. For the "raw" listing, a person's score is just the total of the scores of the albums they voted for, divided by the total normal of points that voter cast. The "weighted" listing is similar, but with the score for each album multiplied by the number of points the voter assigned it. In other words... suppose that Bob and I both voted for only two records, like this: Aaron - 5:The New Pornographers 4:Ted Leo Bob - 5:Ted Leo 4:The New Pornographers We would have equal 'raw' normality scores, because we voted for the same records. (And they'd be large, because those were the two winners of the poll!) However, my weighted score would be higher than his, because I would have five times the score of the NPs record plus four times Ted Leo's instead of vice versa. aaron ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 11:06:45 -0800 From: "Bradley Skaught" Subject: [loud-fans] Heavenly States/Heavenly Poll/etc. Someone recommended The Heavenly States album recently and I wanted to second that. Not everything on it really adds up, but it's loaded with great ideas and imaginative songwriting. I like that they can rock out emo-style without whining or relying purely on bombast. And they can throw some neat little production tricks in which I always welcome. Too bad they recorded it on a computer--it really sucks a lot of life out of it. They're an interesting live band--worth checking out. I wouldn't recommend entering into any sort of business relationship with them, though--they've got a bad reputation around here. I suppose enterting into business releationships with rock bands is, generally, a bad idea! Except for Sue and Joe, of course... The poll is great, thanks Aaron! The only real surprise for me is that the Super Furry Animals didn't score better--i'm still really in love with that album and it seems to me that it's capable of satisfying most of the pop music needs folks have around here. B ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2004 14:58:44 -0600 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: [loud-fans] poll results Y'know, I'm feeling more like a normal Loud-Fan than usual after seeing the poll results: I've owned 15 of the top 20 at some point during 2003, and currently own 12 (sorry, Postal Service, Minus 5, and Nada Surf). It's just that several of them fell below the 15-album poll parameters, or, in the case of the Pernice Brothers and Radiohead, I didn't quite spend enough time with them in 2003 to know if they belonged in my top 15. But I got more of a general feeling of "yeah, me too!" from the 2003 results than I had in a while. Thanks again to Aaron for making the poll process so easy. later, Miles ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V4 #32 ******************************