Anteater

I don't seem to inspire the same sort of dutiful love that you do Trollmeister, but I will continue to poke and prod to keep the club going. :P

The reason we tried to change format again after you left was because most of the participants weren't a fan of a lot of the stuff popping up on the lists you were sourcing, so initially I just whipped up a list of my own and tried sourcing that. After that though, I got the impression that people thought the review format was too tedious, so I suggested changing things to where we do a couple of paragraphs worth of analysis on the weekly-chosen prog album and give it a rating afterwards.

What I'd really like to try doing is get a core group of people in here besides me and you who will consistently participate on time. For that to happen though, the review format has to stay simple and perhaps we need to (again) find some kind of basis for selecting the albums each week...because, as you pointed out, the activity level pretty much plummeted again after I left the album choices up to everyone. xD

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Anteater's 21 Fav Albums Of 2020

Anteater's Daily Tune Roulette

Xurtio

Welcome back TrollHeart!

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Trollheart

Thanks man! Good to be back!

Ant, I would suggest that maybe, just maybe, an idea might be (at least initially) for everyone to take turns just taking a prog album from their collection --- preferably their favourite or one they really like --- and let people have their say on it. I understand what you say about the review matrix, but I put that together because sometimes people have a hard time structuring reviews --- "What do I say?" "What points should I make?" etc --- and I thought it would help to give a basic framework off which people could work.

If it's become too laborious, then by all means ditch it. I would, in all honesty, prefer a sort of roundtable discussion, where we throw ideas, comments, views etc back and forth rather than actually review. Example: let's choose, oh, say "The Wall"....

Me: "I love this album, a real classic."
You: "Yeah, one of Floyd's best."
US: "Meh, overrated."
Me: "Huh?"
You: "Why?"
US: "Bit overblown, too commercial, Waters was up his own arse on it."
Xurtio: "I'd agree with that."
Me: "Watch out, I have a gun and do not know how to use it!"
Moss: "I mever heard this album."
All of us except Moss: "WHAT???"

and so on.

(Obviously, all responses in that are fictional: Moss may love the album, US may also and you may hate it. It's all just to illustrate a point, which is that interactive discussion works better really in a club-type scenario than just writing reviews.)

If we had something similar to the shoutbox, or some way of all being online at once, or maybe ... hmm ... a separate thread for each album? Wherein we could post our thoughts and argue among ourselves? Just an idea. But I think it would work much better if we were talking rather than submitting reviews. After all, think of a real book club: do they all meet and hand each other written theses? Nah, they talk among themselves and argue the merits of the book. I think that is what we should be aiming for, admittedly harder when you're not there in person, but I think it could be done.

But then, you're in charge now, the big cheese, the head honcho, a-number one, numero uno etc mutter mutter .... so I guess it's up to you how we approach it. I think I may be on to something though (or just on something...)

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Anteater

I actually like the idea of making a new "thread" for each album chosen. Whoever's "turn" it is can pick the album from their collection or just one they want to talk about.

It is indeed difficult to recreate a book club when we make it all so clinical/impersonal. That being said, I think the person who picks the album and then makes a thread about it should give it some kind of review. It would create a good basis for whatever discussions we have from that point on.

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Anteater's 21 Fav Albums Of 2020

Anteater's Daily Tune Roulette

Trollheart

The only problem with that is that we'll end up taking over the prog subforum and edging out all the other ... oh. Wait.

If we do this though, I think threads should be locked after a certain time, to prevent overproliferation of what might be considered closed subjects; the words horse and flogging come to mind...

So, what's the next album I can get in on, and are we going to setup this new "discussion" format?

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Unknown Soldier

The problem I have is time and I can just about maintain my own journal, so its quite demanding to fit an additional album review in.

I reckon a number of people feel the same and a roundtable type discussion of an album might be a better idea.

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Metal Wars

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Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Anteater

That's what I was thinking too. Therefore, let's decide who wants to go next to propose the next album and post the album here. After that, we'll create an official thread for that album and do all the roundtable discussing of it over there.

According to my previous ordering, Xurtio should be next in the queue...but we can revise the order now if you guys want.

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Anteater's 21 Fav Albums Of 2020

Anteater's Daily Tune Roulette

Trollheart

Xurtio's choice is fine with me. If for any reason he can't do it I can step in, but now that I'm a mere ordinary mortal, I'll wait my turn... mutter mutter revenge take soon everyone suffer ....

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Xurtio

I keep getting swamped. It's the start of the semester and things are still settling to equilibri between teaching and research duties. Once it settles down, I can start reviewing albums while grading papers and such!

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Trollheart

OK I can step in if you want (no that's not an armful of Marillion albums I'm carrying. You must need glasses...)

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