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resurrectionsongMarch 30, 2004The Lists of NathanSince Nathan, of Brain Fertilizer fame, has ceased to blog, I thought it would be nice to give him a forum from which he could share his answer to the lists (and a few lists of his own). Top Fifteen Albums Be sure to read the extended entry for more of his Top Ten lists. But before you go there, read what he wrote about these lists in general (after an email exchange in which I said there were areas that I would agree and areas where I would wildly disagree).
I actually liked Eric Olsen's list, too, although I would probably only have chosen a few of the same things that he did (Beatles and U2, for instance). At the same time, I am surprised that he didn't choose a few others (Nirvana and David Bowie, for instance). Ultimately, these lists are so completely subjective that it would be unlikely to get the same lists out of the same authors once a few months have gone past. What I was saying was quite simply that some of Nathan's choices wouldn't even come close to my All-Time Top Whatever Lists. While Joe Versus the Volcano actually came quite close, I would never think to put Beastmaster on my list because I actually thought it was a bad movie (sorry, Nathan--I'd love to hear why you liked it as much as you did). On Nathan's albums list, I see a huge difference in the style of music that we like, too. While I like the Alice in Chains and the Metallica choices, almost none of the rest crosses over into the music that I absolutely love. Things like Yngwie J. Malmsteen I simply don't like all that much, and then titles like Asia's Asia are things that I enjoyed at the time but wouldn't put on a "best" list. That isn't to say that I think Nathan is wrong, though. These lists represent his taste and his preferences--and none of it rises to the level of Offense to Art that I would find mock-worthy. I've heard it said that you can't tell someone that their taste in art is bad. The assumption is that all art is somehow equally good because someone somewhere likes it. I don't think that's true. Velvet Elvis paintings are not good art. N'Sync is not good music. There are times when taste goes awry, where discretion goes out the window, and where a person likes something that is truly not good. Given that, I don't think it's unacceptable to say that a painting, a book, a movie, or a song is bad. But it's important to not confuse a lack of appreciation on my part with a lack of talent on the artist's. That is, I may not like jazz on the whole, but I understand the art enough to know that something isn't necessarily "bad" if I don't like it. The same goes for Jackson Pollack paintings and Willie Nelson records. Still, the velvet Elvis genre of paintings is fair game, as are boy bands and movies like Titanic. Taste and an overly polite society be damned, bad is still bad. Top Ten All-Time Movies Top Ten Movies (Sub-category: SF/F) Top Ten Authors Top Ten Books Top Ten Songs Top Ten Chinese Singers Comments
and none of it rises to the level of Offense to Art that I would find mock-worthy. Whew! That was the main aspect I was curious about. Oh, and the reason Beastmaster (and Hawke the Slayer) are on the list is because they are bad. They are some of the best bad movies I've ever seen. Maybe they didn't intend to be bad, but they are. But still, they aren't bad in the way that Titanic stunk, or even Gigli. Still, to a 14-year-old who was heavily into Dungeons and Dragons, two mindless fantasy movies with acceptable plots but horrible special effects and even worse acting can still have a profound effect on the imagination. The reason for my album choices is simply this: in my opinion, they are the best (most musical, most accessible, and most listenable) albums by a band that made me want to play guitar. And my high school days were smack in the middle of the New Wave Synthesizer Band MTV explosion. I hated it, and moved deeper and deeper into heavier and heavier guitar-based music. In fact, I was so much into distorted metal guitar by my senior year that I had to get nearly a decade of perspective before I could even enjoy Bryan Adam's Reckless. Maybe the one thing you can tell about me from my lists: I am deeply into my interests. I like SF/F, so the top 8 authors were SF/F writers. The albums are all guitar-based, and so the songs are all guitar-based. I have no sub-genre of movies other than SF/F, and even still, there were another 5 that were virtually tied for #10. I didn't include JRR Tolkien as a favorite author, the Lord of the Rings as a favorite book/series, nor any of the movies as a top ten favorite even for the SF/F subgenre. Why? I'm not a big Zelazny fan, but I think Steven Brust has done some amazing stuff. Jhereg is among his best, but I really enjoy his books. As for Hawke the Slayer, I don't even remember that one. I might have to go look it up on imdb later. Posted by: zombyboy at March 30, 2004 03:50 PMTop Ten Pre-WWI Military Surplus Bolt-Action Rifles: The list is mainly based on a three dimensional index of cost vs effectiveness vs enjoyment to shoot. The US Springfield rates so low simply because it's way too expensive to buy 'em these days, so I've never fired it. Oh, and after further thought, I realized I accidentally left off The Sword and the Sorcerer, which was another pretty decent 80s fantasy flick. I liked it better than Conan the Barbarian, at least. So it should probably supplant Hawk the Slayer, except that I am pretentious enough to want an entry in my top ten list that NO ONE has ever heard of. Posted by: nathan at March 30, 2004 04:09 PMI loved Conan the Barbarian--it almost made my SF/Fantasy list. Heheh. Posted by: zombyboy at March 30, 2004 04:33 PMPost a comment
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