What's everyone listening to...?

[Colin YNWA]

For me The Game is kinda the tipping point. Like the albums prior to that - beyond that gets far more patchy. That's not to say there's not good stuff there just nowhere near as much as on early records. The Game itself okay and kinda bridges the two periods as I define them in my mind.

Haven't listened to Hot Space in donkey's years. I wonder if its worth tracking down...

[shaolin_monkey]

The tipping point for me was always A Day At the Races.  A few awesome tracks but not at the standard of anything prior.  News of the World, Jazz and the Game were all a bit meh, with a couple of stand out tracks.

[Frank]

The tipping point is when something - a virus or a type of footwear - goes from being small scale and popular/common among only a few people to suddenly becoming more popular among the mainstream. You mean Jumping the Shark, which is when something goes from being great to shit, sometimes overnight. Stop getting essentially meaningless pop-science and hipster lingo wrong!

[Skullmo]

The tipping point is when something - a virus or a type of footwear - goes from being small scale and popular/common among only a few people to suddenly becoming more popular among the mainstream. You mean Jumping the Shark, which is when something goes from being great to shit, sometimes overnight. Stop getting essentially meaningless pop-science and hipster lingo wrong!

A tipping point is an example of hysteresis in which the point at which an object is displaced from a state of stable equilibrium into a new equilibrium state qualitatively dissimilar from the first.

And that is when they fell down . . .

[shaolin_monkey]

The tipping point is when something - a virus or a type of footwear - goes from being small scale and popular/common among only a few people to suddenly becoming more popular among the mainstream. You mean Jumping the Shark, which is when something goes from being great to shit, sometimes overnight. Stop getting essentially meaningless pop-science and hipster lingo wrong!

It depends how you look at it.  If you have a stack of plates, and you keep adding to the stack, eventually they will reach tipping point, and will fall over and smash. 

Whole plates = good, smashed plates  = bad.

As such, when describing an album as the tipping point, it was point just before their muiscal plates crashed into broken badness.

Therefore, 'tipping point' is a perfectly valid form of describing when a band goes from great to not very great at all very quickly. 

[Colin YNWA]

Stop getting essentially meaningless pop-science and hipster lingo wrong!

...but I do have a beard and wear a lot of flat caps...

I'm also a big fan of Day at the Races and News of the World... I can kinda see your point about Jazz but that on the down trajectory rather than being the point of no return and Queen's water skis hit the jump ramp...

[Skullmo]

I know we are not supposed to mention it . . .. by I love the Miracle

[Frank]

The tipping point is when something - a virus or a type of footwear - goes from being small scale and popular/common among only a few people to suddenly becoming more popular among the mainstream. You mean Jumping the Shark, which is when something goes from being great to shit, sometimes overnight. Stop getting essentially meaningless pop-science and hipster lingo wrong!

It depends how you look at it.  If you have a stack of plates, and you keep adding to the stack, eventually they will reach tipping point, and will fall over and smash.  Whole plates = good, smashed plates  = bad.

As such, when describing an album as the tipping point, it was point just before their muiscal plates crashed into broken badness. Therefore, 'tipping point' is a perfectly valid form of describing when a band goes from great to not very great at all very quickly.

Malcolm Gladwell coined the phrase to describe a specific phenomenon, though.

Taking your example of stacking plates so high they crash to the floor, what if bringing about what you describe as The Tipping Point became a craze among a small crowd of hipsters then suddenly caught on throughout the wider population? How would you describe that moment when everyone realised how great it was and joined in now you've taken the phrase The Tipping Point and repurposed it as meaning to build on achievements before suddenly becoming a bit shit?

There was already a phrase which described that - Jumping The Shark - but now you've created another - The Tipping Point - by co-opting another phrase which already had a widely agreed and understood meaning. Now you've got two ways of describing something becoming shit, one of which also means the direct opposite, where before you had two distinct and widely recognised phrases with clear and entirely discrete meanings.

Language is a fluid thing, brah, but down the way of your idiosyncratic carjacking of metaphor lies the possibility that you'll punch a friend in the mouth because he was trying to tell you your harp playing had reached a point where you're gaining popularity among a wider public, because you thought he was calling you shit. Commonly agreed meanings within specific language communities rock.


Afrikan Boy - Hit Em Up: http://youtu.be/8HtmgrzcP1U

[Greg M.]

I'm also a big fan of Day at the Races and News of the World... I can kinda see your point about Jazz but that on the down trajectory rather than being the point of no return and Queen's water skis hit the jump ramp...

I'd say Jazz is their last great album - to my ears, it's superior to Day and News, which both seem a bit inconsistent, though each have great moments. Day suffers from being a replay of Night, though that's not always a bad thing - Judas Priest's Defenders of the Faith and Metallica's Master of Puppets are both superior clones of their predecessors. My fondness for Jazz in the Queen canon is matched only by their debut album, probably 'cos the former was the first Queen album I owned. The one I've been listening to recently though is Sheer Heart Attack, which is much better than I'd remembered. It seems very much the one where all their eccentricities come screaming to the forefront - it's easy enough to categorise the first two as (somewhat peculiar) hard rock albums, but Sheer Heart Attack seems the template for all that follows.

[Skullmo]

The tipping point is when something - a virus or a type of footwear - goes from being small scale and popular/common among only a few people to suddenly becoming more popular among the mainstream. You mean Jumping the Shark, which is when something goes from being great to shit, sometimes overnight. Stop getting essentially meaningless pop-science and hipster lingo wrong!

It depends how you look at it.  If you have a stack of plates, and you keep adding to the stack, eventually they will reach tipping point, and will fall over and smash.  Whole plates = good, smashed plates  = bad.

As such, when describing an album as the tipping point, it was point just before their muiscal plates crashed into broken badness. Therefore, 'tipping point' is a perfectly valid form of describing when a band goes from great to not very great at all very quickly.

Malcolm Gladwell coined the phrase to describe a specific phenomenon, though.

Taking your example of stacking plates so high they crash to the floor, what if bringing about what you describe as The Tipping Point became a craze among a small crowd of hipsters then suddenly caught on throughout the wider population? How would you describe that moment when everyone realised how great it was and joined in now you've taken the phrase The Tipping Point and repurposed it as meaning to build on achievements before suddenly becoming a bit shit?

There was already a phrase which described that - Jumping The Shark - but now you've created another - The Tipping Point - by co-opting another phrase which already had a widely agreed and understood meaning. Now you've got two ways of describing something becoming shit, one of which also means the direct opposite, where before you had two distinct and widely recognised phrases with clear and entirely discrete meanings.

Language is a fluid thing, brah, but down the way of your idiosyncratic carjacking of metaphor lies the possibility that you'll punch a friend in the mouth because he was trying to tell you your harp playing had reached a point where you're gaining popularity among a wider public, because you thought he was calling you shit. Commonly agreed meanings within specific language communities rock.


Afrikan Boy - Hit Em Up: http://youtu.be/8HtmgrzcP1U

Can we just stick to 'bit where they went a bit shit'

[shaolin_monkey]

The tipping point is when something - a virus or a type of footwear - goes from being small scale and popular/common among only a few people to suddenly becoming more popular among the mainstream. You mean Jumping the Shark, which is when something goes from being great to shit, sometimes overnight. Stop getting essentially meaningless pop-science and hipster lingo wrong!

It depends how you look at it.  If you have a stack of plates, and you keep adding to the stack, eventually they will reach tipping point, and will fall over and smash.  Whole plates = good, smashed plates  = bad.

As such, when describing an album as the tipping point, it was point just before their muiscal plates crashed into broken badness. Therefore, 'tipping point' is a perfectly valid form of describing when a band goes from great to not very great at all very quickly.

Malcolm Gladwell coined the phrase to describe a specific phenomenon, though.

Taking your example of stacking plates so high they crash to the floor, what if bringing about what you describe as The Tipping Point became a craze among a small crowd of hipsters then suddenly caught on throughout the wider population? How would you describe that moment when everyone realised how great it was and joined in now you've taken the phrase The Tipping Point and repurposed it as meaning to build on achievements before suddenly becoming a bit shit?

There was already a phrase which described that - Jumping The Shark - but now you've created another - The Tipping Point - by co-opting another phrase which already had a widely agreed and understood meaning. Now you've got two ways of describing something becoming shit, one of which also means the direct opposite, where before you had two distinct and widely recognised phrases with clear and entirely discrete meanings.

Language is a fluid thing, brah, but down the way of your idiosyncratic carjacking of metaphor lies the possibility that you'll punch a friend in the mouth because he was trying to tell you your harp playing had reached a point where you're gaining popularity among a wider public, because you thought he was calling you shit. Commonly agreed meanings within specific language communities rock.


Afrikan Boy - Hit Em Up: http://youtu.be/8HtmgrzcP1U

I take your point, and am glad you agree language is fluid.  The deciding factor for me is whether the majority of the group understand your overall meaning, despite the mixing of metaphors etc, which was the case in our initial conversation.  However, too many cooks spoil the broth, we fly like moths to a candle, and many a mickle makes a muckle.  Make of that what you will.

On an unrelated note, I'm glad to see another vote for Sheer Heart Attack, which is awesome.

[Frank]

despite the mixing of metaphors etc, which was the case in our initial conversation.  However, too many cooks spoil the broth, we fly like moths to a candle, and many a mickle makes a muckle.  Make of that what you will.

Well, exactly. Blow your whistles for, and stroke however many chins you have to, brand new Knife Party and Aphex Twin.

[8-Ball]

That Dubstep stuff always makes me think of Optimus Prime having an epileptic fit...

Chrispy - Roll Out http://youtu.be/qpA24Wa8dSs

[Frank]

That Dubstep stuff always makes me think of Optimus Prime having an epileptic fit...

Gottae have something to listen to while me and my fellow hoodied yoot are cruising round provincial town centres in Fat Alan's mum's Volkswagen Polo with the windows down, tooting at girls then pretending it wasn't us when they turn around. I found this in her CD player:

http://youtu.be/k9hKp2zm6X4

[I, Cosh]

Never mind the dubstep, my album of the week this week is definitely by Vessel.

Shades of fellow Bristololian Third Eye Foundation to my ear. Not sure what they're putting in the water down there but it's certainly working. Assuming the intention is to come up with a great, offbeat musical act once every twelve years or so.

Incidentally, someone told me Malcolm Gladwell tosses off urban foxes.