Introduction: For those of you that have stumbled across this website and are interested in reading about my trek through the universe of the Tidal streaming service, let me tell you a bit about what I did. Back in 2016 I thought it would be kind of cool to listen to artist’s catalog from start to finish and rank them from best to worst. After all, who doesn’t like a good list? I thought I might do a few of them and see what happened, hoping it would introduce me to records that were foreign to me in the arsenal of an artist I was familiar with. I also though that it would be pretty cool to get out of the “one off” mode of listening to a new record, years after the previous one, in order to get a true sense of how the artist matured over time. Flash forward to June of 2019 and 250 catalogs later, I have ended the trek. I posted these all on Facebook over the years as they were completed but I’m going to move them all over here, starting with #1, in order to expand them out a bit more. Facebook doesn’t exactly allow for great formatting, you know?
As with all my catalogs, to be considered in the ranking, an album has to meet certain criteria:
- The artist must actually perform on 80% of the tracks (soundtrack and rap provision)
- No compilations of previous released material will be included.
- The album must have been released officially and within the realm of the label that the artist would have been on at the time or official releases posthumously (normally applies to a slew of live records)
- Any EPs must contain new new music and be relevant to the catalog, not be more like a single with a b-side or two.
- Compilations of previously recorded material will be included if they are remixes, bonus tracks, outtakes… mostly music that hasn’t been part of a main release before)
Entrance Point: Maybe I had heard a song or two but going into this one I didn’t know what to expect.
All albums ranked on a 10 point scale.
Editor’s note: I’m not remixing this catalog because I’m not even sure why I did it in the first place. My usual criteria for a catalog was ten studio records and they only had seven. Maybe someone asked me to do it. Back when I started, I actually got requests for bands people wanted me to take a listen to. This had to be one of them, otherwise, I don’t know how this ever got on my radar. But with that, I’m simply going to repost what I had from Facebook just for completion sake.
Write up from Facebook: My trek though the catalog of the Descendents is complete. Clearly not for me. Not impressed at all and I really don’t understand why they are loved so much. And early (albums) compared to the reunion era (records), are like listening to an entirely different band.
- Hypercaffium Spazzinate (8)
- Cool To Be You (7.5)
- Everything Sucks (7)
- Milo Goes to College (7)
- All (6)
- Liveage! (6)
- Hellraker Live (6)
- I Don’t Want to Grow Up (5)
- Enjoy! (5)
- Live Plus One (5)
Summary: 10 albums, average 5.7
The Trusty Steed 