1. Why are there no compilations? I know they're not allowed but for some artists they would be their highest-ranked albums.

2. 25 years ago the biggest stars were Prince, Madonna, Bruce and MJ. Why does nobody believe in mainstream pop music anymore? Did "Smells Like Teen Spirit" do that much?

3. I know Henrik has a lot on his plate already with this site (which we all give our enormous thanks for), but wouldn't it be cool if we could somehow calculate songwriters, producers and "influence" into the rankings? Suddenly David Bowie looks a lot more worthy at #4, for example, then just the best of the rest (my opinion).

4. Whatever happened to Sufjan Stevens? I'm waiting on 48 more albums.

5. Is the age of the guitar gone? I can't anticipate another guitar-based blockbuster revolutionary album coming out in the near-future. I think the next Elvis/Beatles/Sex Pistols/Nirvana (no those artists aren't all in the same league) moment is in hip-hop or electronica, and it's computerized.

1. That'd be cheating. It's too easy to cherry pick the best hits from the entire career of an artist and say "Look, it's their best album!" But that's cheating. An album is something meant as a unified work.

2. The record industry has been hijacked by companies like Clear Channel who are only interested in putting 20 year olds on stage vaguely proficient at sexy dancing and making them lipsynch to themselves autotuned. Nobody on major labels writes their own songs and plays their own instruments anymore, and yeah, you can tell.

3. I think the script writing credit should be taken more into account with films than even actors and directors. It would be nice to see some sort of index for the person who wrote the song. I'm not sure how you'd calculate influence though.

4. I heard somewhere music isn't Sufjan Stevens' first career ambition, and he's unsure he wants to commit to being a musician. I think he wants to be a writer instead.

5. Strokes. White Stripes. Drum loops and computerized noises are fine for dance pop and hip hop but real music fans will always yearn for people who are actually playing instruments.

I'll answer number one.

Indeed, there are some well-known compilations that have been on enough critics' lists to be included at AM, but there are reasons why they aren't eligible.

Most importantly, many (most?) critics don't include any compilations in their lists. Hence, if compilations were included at AM, most of them would be in the lower regions of the list and I think AM would then show some quite weird results in terms of comparisons between compilations and non-compliations. Well, personally I don't know how they could be compared at all and probably the critics struggle with this question too and therefore leave all compilations out from their lists. For me, the only option would be to have a separate list for compilations, but I never did that and there's no way I'm doing it now. However, I surely welcome anybody else to take on the work.

But there are other problems as well, such as for artists with more than one compilation titled "Best of" or "Greatest Hits". Sometimes it's impossible to find out from a critics' list exactly which album that was actually listed.

Bill, I didn't see your post before I posted mine. I agree with your answer too.

5. Is the age of the guitar gone? I can't anticipate another guitar-based blockbuster revolutionary album coming out in the near-future. I think the next Elvis/Beatles/Sex Pistols/Nirvana (no those artists aren't all in the same league) moment is in hip-hop or electronica, and it's computerized.

--------------------------------------------------
If you were able to anticipate it, it wouldn't be revolutionary. It's interesting you stop at Nirvana, because they, of course, predate OK Computer.

I've been wondering the same thing myself. "Illinois" ranks among my favorite albums of all time, and I'd give up red meat for another Sufjan studio album. At this point though, I've relegated him to My Bloody Valentine/Lauryn Hill/Neutral Milk Hotel territory.

I really hope I'm proved wrong.

I'll take on Question 2. The musical zeitgeist of the mainstream has been increasingly about cashing in on ever-fleeting trends as opposed to developing artists with real talent. Those artists you mentioned had real star power and talent, as well as mystique. Nothing is left to the imagination anymore, or so it seems.

The sad part of all of this is that there is a lot of great pop music that has been released this decade that largely goes ignored in light of this. Had the musical climate of the 80s persevered until today, stars would have been made out of Annie, Bat for Lashes, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Ladyhawke, The Knife and LCD Soundsystem.

That said, I do believe in Kylie Minogue, through and through.

I'll also add that I don't agree with BillAdama's comment about real music fans longing for music with "real instruments". Drum machines and synthesizers are just as valid as an acoustic or electric guitar.

Well, yeah. I was being simplistic. I wasn't trying to preclude bands that do brilliant, creative things with drum machines and synthesizers. More the ones that use machines to create that 'pitch perfect dullness' you get in newer pop songs.

When drum machines and synthesizers sound good it's because there's a really talented person injecting his personality into them, not a salaried producer draining personality out of them.

What I meant to convey is, for a band to be popular it has to have a certain charisma. Pop music now achieves this by taking away anything that distracts attention from the performer's pretty face. You can do some awesome things by pressing buttons on machines if you're talented, but it's not charismatic. Not in the same way you can be blasting riffs out of an electric guitar. You won't ever fill arenas with that kind of performance. You either need to be completely focused on vocals, or have that kind of cool visual.

i'm expecting another big guitar band to come up. the white stripes and the strokes almost did it back in 2000. i'm pretty sure the guitar will be around for fair while longer.

I wouldn't exactly say this is an answer to 2, but more of a personal elaboration on Moonbeam's point, and more of a general thought. Like Moonbeam (he/she? sorry!) said, the (mainstream) industry is about cashing in on trends and not developing talent, which explains for example the dirge of radiohead/coldplay copycats...(i personally believe coldplay copied radiohead, and the other bands copied coldplay). Furthermore, it prevents artists from developing. Now I know Sonic Youth aren't a pop band, but it's an example of allowing an artist to mature - their first couple of albums weren't that acclaimed (even though I do really like them), and it's impossible nowadays for a band to be given 3 albums (not too commercially or critically successful) before making a really good one. (and I know evol wasn't commercially successful...). Acts have to make commercially successful debut albums straightaway.

That's also why it's saddening that when an artist has made a fantastic debut pop album (step up, annie), they still don't get the recognition.

Not sure if that made any sense at all!

EDIT: Also, has Sufjan released any writings? That would sure be interesting.

I think with the internet and blogs, pop music has become uncool. People can search out interesting music and have kind of dismissed mainstream pop and dance music. Pop music has never really been album oriented- even the greatest pop albums have filler on them. If you look at pop music as a singles oriented genre I feel there is still plenty of worthwhile pop still being produced. Pitchfork did a decent job of accepting mainstream music but I don't think they do as great of a job these days.

I don't think a straight up rock record will ever be able to break new ground. Classic records tend to merge exisisting genres with a small following and make them mainstream. So, it's going to take a lot more than just guitar, bass and drums to really get the world's attention... and I could be totally wrong on that assumption- classic records pop out of nowhere and surprise everyone in regards to sound, execution and influences.

I also think it is impossible to make another "ground-breaking" rock record. The new things now always seem to have some kinds of electronic twinge to them. For me, listening to a Dance Punk band like Cut Copy is the new "rock" sound.

I agree completely with everything John just said. I would do the quote thing but it takes up too much room, and I don't want a super-long post.

The internet has made it so much easier to find the music people really like, so there's a lot of de-mainstreaming going on in music today. It's hard to have an enormous, ground-breaking hit these days; we're down to maybe one every year. ("Umbrella" is probably the latest I can think of). So I think record companies are making everything safer since they can't bank on something coming out of nowhere anymore. They throw their weight behind the surefire, annoyingly catchy hits. Another thing no one focuses on: they back the established artists more. Eminem, half as good as his 1999 self, has a #1 album. Rock radio is still playing Green Day and Pearl Jam. What is this, 1994? They're both good but way past their primes.

I really don't see where rock can go. Everything these days is a rehash. There's the "garage rock revival," the "post-punk revival," and the "Radiohead-imitators," of course. The White Stripes were close; no one really was doing punk blues before. But it's going to take something different now.

Instead of copying Radiohead's sound, bands today should copy their career path: big hit that sounds like everything else, then use it as leverage for artistic creativity to do something great.

Hmm, I don't know if Radiohead chose to go that route though, they just matured into the band that they are now as they were introduced to new sounds. If there was a band that consciouslly went into their career saying, "We're going to be middle of the road until we're allowed not to be", I would be shocked if they succeeded.

One more thought on rock and roll and the current state: I don't know if modern rock can really succeed until classic rock dies. If you want to see a show at an arena you are probably going to be limited to a band full of guys in their late 60s or country bands and people are still eating that up. Sooner or later, The Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty etc. aren't going to be able to do it anymore and maybe then the landscape will change. Classic rock still has so many icons out there that are still filling arenas and generating new audiences and it's understandable that casual music fans aren't going to explore much farther until they aren't a factor anymore. Sometimes you have to wish that the old guard would step down and let they new one's have their shot.

I don't think it's impossible to have another Beatles or Nirvana. It's not the internet age that makes it harder, that actually probably makes it easier. It's the way music is marketed.

The Beatles and Nirvana had a few things in common. Besides the obvious part of both being talented, they both loved music and had a message that spoke to the disenfranchised youth of the day. Today anything that speaks to the disenfranchised youth goes through the pop marketing wrangler and comes out as just a lot of swearing and political incorrectness for political incorrectness' sake (Eninem) or just a lot of unfocused republican bashing (Green Day). So anybody genuinely talented with a real message either is forced to speak their message through that lens or goes the indie direction and only markets to a niche.

Eminem and Green Day also have something in common. They're both way too old to be pretending they're 22.

For this I blame the rock critic environment that seems to say rock is only "relevant" when it's "angry". That pretty much disallows a band from maturing into making a rock album that's "adult". I suspect this is why John Hiatt is not seen as a "rock" artist but instead as a "album adult alternative" artist.