Talk:The Top 100 Canadian Albums

Criticism

I’m going to start a criticism section for this article. I’m fairly new here and an not completely familiar with all the formatting rules, so I’m starting this discussion in advance to forewarn any interested parties.BigRockFan (talk) 18:51, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Blender is a prominent magazine that covers bands from all over the world. The fact that it lists the NPs album as the second best Canadian indie album of all time is most certainly relevant.

There are numerous other examples as well from the Canadian college charts to all of the top review sites and lists including Pazz & Jop, Jackin' Pop, Metacritic, etc. Mersereau's list is very, very, far out of step with what everyone else has said and a criticisms section on it could easily run to many paragraphs just covering the major review magazines and polls that completley contradict it, so I'm not quite sure how to proceed. The point needs to me made, however, that this list is either the product of grossly incompetent research methodology, or something less innocent. I suspect the former because prominent bands from certain regions have been either omitted or ranked far below where they should be (some top BC and Quebec artists are most prominently omitted), and good but not great albums from other regions are enormously overrated, (i.e. the Rheostatics and Eric's Trip), so it looks very much like his list of experts was heavily regionally skewed.BigRockFan (talk) 10:28, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi BigRockFan. You mentioned that you are new, so you might not yet be familiar with Wikipedia policies about original research. You could have a criticism section if you are citing reliable sources that have criticized the book or its list, but you are not permitted to use Blender as a source if Blender was not commenting on this book. Your own observations that this book's list is out-of-step with other lists constitutes WP:OR. Feel free to ask if you have questions about this. Cheers, --Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 02:37, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the links, and I do see your point. People seem to be by and large ignoring this book, likely hoping that it goes away and is forgotten quickly, and that makes complete criticisms hard to find. There are some good quotes but no really good explanations of how and why it is so biased. The National Post talked of “glaring omissions”, and the Montreal Gazette said, “Bogus might be the only polite word to describe The Top 100 Canadian Albums … actually a slightly longer B-word pops into mind …” I’ll create a criticisms section with these in the next day or two but I would like to find one with a more complete comment on the outrageous regional bias of the list as I think that would be a lot more useful to the reader, so if anyone knows of a good review like this please post it in the criticisms section, or perhaps post it here in the discussion area and I’ll write it in myself. BigRockFan (talk) 06:29, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Mersereau's list discriminates against BC artists as much and possibly even more than it discriminates against Quebec artists, but not being from BC I haven't seen a good, quotable, criticism of this yet, so if anyone knows of one please add it to the piece or post a link to it here so I can add it.BigRockFan (talk) 19:06, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I do have a concern here. Both from your comments and from what you have added to the article, it occurs to me that you might be starting from a position of "this book is biased" and then seeking out book reviews that are in keeping with your own opinion, potentially ignoring other more positive reviews. I'm not saying that is what you are intending to do, but it is kind of coming across that way. If that is the approach you are taking then it is not in keeping with the goal of a neutral encyclopedia article. See also Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial#Space and balance. A "critical reception" section of a book article ought to be representative of the reviews that are out there, meaning the positive and negative comments in the article should be roughly balanced similar to the proportion of what is out there on the whole. The way it looks right now gives the impression that critics only had negative things to say about this book. Is that the case? You have backed it up with two citations so far; let's see what else is out there. --Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 02:30, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Don’t forget that the two newspapers I’ve quoted are one of the two national newspapers in Canada, and the most prominent English language newspaper in Quebec. These are far from obscure references that were sought out to suit a personal agenda. I did specifically search the Globe and Mail as well but found no reference to Bob Mersereau or this book at all, and that I suspect is telling in itself.

If you’re not familiar the Canadian music scene enough to be able recognise how biased this list is just by looking at it then I’m sure that some of what you’ve read here can be a bit hard to believe at first, but after doing some research what you will find is that the objective, neutral, POV of this list is that it is extremely regionally biased and not credible. Rodriquez called the methodology “pure bush-league” and he was probably being conservative when he said that. It was so biased that I find it almost impossible to believe that it was the result of only incompetence. That opens some very serious questions about Mersereau’s motives, but what they might have been is a research project that goes beyond what we’re doing here.BigRockFan (talk) 19:12, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Although I completely agree that this list is seriously flawed, whenever I see criticism of someone else's "best of" list I always find it necessary to point out the inevitable corollary: for this list to include more francophone or hip hop albums, other albums that are currently on the list have to be removed from it to keep the list to 100. Ever noticed how nobody who thinks Symphony in Effect or Quatre saisons dans le désordre should have been here ever tells us what album they think should have been bumped to make room for it? It's all very well and nice to complain that your own favourite album didn't make the list, but it's pointless if you're not willing to put your money where your mouth is by also identifying some albums that shouldn't have made the list. It's just so quintessentially Canadian, in a roll-your-eyes-to-heaven sort of way, to insist that a "best of" list has to go out of its way to ensure regional representation. Well, okay — Hot Shots can go. Blech!! Bearcat (talk) 07:00, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

C'est incroyable! Les auteurs de cette liste sont complétement déconnectés. Le Québec fait bien de vouloir se séparer de la prétention canadienne. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.58.209.195 (talk) 22:09, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Poor title for article.

Many people who see this article will think it is a wikipedia article listing the top 100 Canadian albums, especially if they skip over the intro and go straight to the list. The article is about the horrendously flawed BOOK by that name, and the "list" in question excludes essentially all anglophone bands from Quebec (April Wine, Mahogany Rush and Gino Vannelli spring to mind, for starters), and others have noted that BC bands are omitted, as are some of the later indie bands of note. It is too bad that the title cannot be edited, but it should be changed to, "The Top 100 Canadian Albums (the book)", or something to indicate that it is about a book containing a list that is in no way authoritative, and that has been utterly and completely ridiculed by almost every major music critic in Canada - it is not disputed that the book is horrendously flawed in a way that cannot be attributed to a simple difference in taste. Nobody has commented on this article for five years, which is a good sign.77Mike77 (talk) 23:23, 5 December 2013 (UTC)