LogFAQs > #966261299

I wasn't expecting to have to try to defend myself *now* when the fact that I'm incompatible with everyone in existence has been a documented fact for years and I've almost never explained or justified my rankings before, but I suppose I'll do my best. I'll try to divide this into two arguments, a personal one and one that tries to actually focus on the album itself.

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PERSONAL LEVEL:

When I say I'm "incompatible with everyone", I'm actually being fairly serious about that and there actually was proof of this in a few places back in the day though I don't have the evidence saved because, honestly, why would I? At a recent VGMC--I honestly can't recall if it was last year's or the one before that (though three years ago feels too far), one of the members created a program to visually chart the compatibility between all the regulars. Everyone who was a frequent participant had a node and there would be lines connecting each node to anyone else with a similar voting pattern. You could look at it and be like "ooh, here's the cluster of people that like *this* type of music and there's the cluster that likes *that* and here's someone that's right between the groups"--you know, that sort of thing.

I, and only like one or two others, were so utterly chaotic in our voting patterns that we were floating off the chart entirely without a single connecting line. Our tastes in music were not similar to anyone, not even each other. And that level of intense incompatibility cannot be faked or imitated. We're talking about hundreds of "which do you prefer between these two choices" questions being asked over the course of months with a vast number of participants. The amount of statistical analysis and planning it would take to deliberately fail to be like anyone else is so utterly mind boggling that I believe the chart should stand as definitive proof that I (and whoever else had the same issue) just have abnormal opinions on music.

There was another big VGM thing going on for a while where two or three songs would be posted per day and we'd rank them out of 10, though I think that went to Discord because no one else was participating on the board itself... I recall being the least compatible person with practically everyone else, though you'd need a several year old copy of the spreadsheet to check that data. (Actually I do believe the sheet calculated the average score for each song, so you could probably get relevant data by checking which songs I gave a very high or low rating to & comparing it to the average value, but why would you?)

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Even just in this topic series, I should think my incompatibility is well documented, at least as of the second "Rate the Albums" portion. I really, really, really enjoyed the Spice Girls album that got last place---I don't know that I would say I loved it, but it was fantastic and I enjoyed every second of it. I have nothing positive to say about Silent Shout and it easily obtained first place. So... like... not sure how me not being compatible with anyone else in this series is news??

(Going back to the first set of albums, I feel Hamilton is easily the best album we've ever covered & a whole tier above everything that came before and after it; I don't know what placement it got right off hand, but I do recall my undying love for it being a statistical anomaly here. Though considering its critical acclaim, that may be a rare case of my views on something being more mainstream than other participants'.)

Either way, I -try- to keep my general insanity and bad opinions to a minimum. I save my writeups for my own personal topics, I keep the comments light and to a minimum, and I never tried nominating an album because I accept that we are incompatible & leaving me in charge of picking the music would likely destroy the series. (I have added myself to the user list, -but- I only plan on selecting albums that other people have nominated which didn't get picked because there are a handful that I really, really, really wanted to see win their weeks & I feel giving a second chance to a few special albums is a reasonable compromise. If that goes poorly, I'll quietly remove myself from the pool)

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Aaanywho, I've been part of this series since day one. I love getting a chance to listen to music that I normally wouldn't--I've mentioned before that I don't actually listen to much new music on my own, so series like this & VGMC help "force" me to expand my horizons a bit. I also like that it's a very low pressure environment; listen to the album as many times as you want, whenever you want during the week, and there's no need to explain or justify anything. I'm honestly endlessly grateful to the host for allowing my participation thus far; that no matter how garbage my opinions are, or ill-defined they are, they're still just points of data that as relevant/irrelevant as everyone else's.