Joy Electric Album/EP ranking lists.

[WhiteSongBoy]

This post is dedicated to making lists based on the design as follows. The list I made is based on overall album feel and not best songs.

Do you agree with my list? What else would you change?

||||||ALBUMS||||||
------Legendary Tier------
The White Songbook
The Ministry of Archers
We Are the Music Makers
Melody

------Top Tier------
The Otherly Opus
Favorites at Play
The Tick Tock Treasury
The Magic of Christmas

------Great Tier------
My Grandfather the Cubist
Robot Rock
Unelectric

------Middle Tier------
Hello Mannequin

------Low Tier------
CHRISTIANsongs


||||||EPs||||||
------Legendary Tier------
Workmanship
Starcadia
Old Wives Tales

------Top Tier------
Montgolfier and the Romantic Balloons
Curiosities and Such

------Great Tier------
Friend of Mannequin
The Land of Misfits
Early Cubism

------Middle Tier------
Five Stars for Failure
Their Variables
Children of the Lord

------Low Tier------
The Tick Tock Companion


NOTE: I have yet to hear the unmixed white songbook tracks, so that is why it is not included. ALSO note that I did not include the comps like A&C even though some of my top songs are from that comp.

Feel free to post your own lists! See what all your JE board friends come up with!

[Dr. M]

Eh, if I had to do something like this, it would go:

BEST:
The White Songbook
Melody

GOOD:
Everything besides MGTC

BAD:
MGTC

And the EP's would be, like:

BEST:
Starcadia
FSFF
OWT

GOOD:
The rest of them, except Their Variables which I haven't heard and Curiosities which isn't a favorite.

[deadliner]

Eh... I'll just list my top 5 combined in no specific order.

Hello, Mannequin
The Otherly Opus
CHRISTIANsongs
Old Wives Tales
Melody

[Cletus]

I think I'd consider all je releases to be in the "good" or "great" category, with the exception of "The Ministry of Archers", "Curiosities and Such", and "Friend of Mannequin" which I'd place under "legendary". Those three are really the only ones I listen to regularly anymore.

[Jono]

This is about how I would rank Ronnie's original Joy Electric albums--which means I'm not counting Favorites at Play or The Magic of Christmas, or Shepherd, though I like all three of those. Or Unelectric.

1. My Grandfather, the Cubist
2. The Otherly Opus
3. Melody
4. The Ministry of Archers
5. Christiansongs
6. The White Songbook ties with The Tick Tock Treasury
7. We Are the Music Makers
8. Robot Rock
9. Hello, Mannequin

I want to be cool and old-skool and rank Melody tops but... I do feel I like those other ones slightly better, as albums, at least. Aside from that one anachronism, Ronnie's releases from 2005-onward have basically been more and more enjoyable for me, so the ranking there is really a no-brainer.

It might look funny that I'm tying TWSB and TTTT together, but really, it's true. I know I like CS better than them and WATMM less... and really what ties them is I like TTTT better as an album (though some of its individual songs are stellar), whereas I like TWSB better for its individual songs (though it is an excellent album as well). They cancel each other out, in a way.

I loved Hello, Mannequin initially but that kinda wore off in a year or so. I don't dislike it though.

[Dr. M]

I don't think anyone should feel obligated to rank Melody as one of the best unless they genuinely feel it is, just because being "old school" is cool. I guess for me it's just so consistently good, the very height of Ronnie's "early phase", where as The White Songbook is the height of his "later phase".

[Nikmis]

1 The White Songbook
2 The Ministry of Archers
3 Robot Rock
4 The Tick Tock Treasury
5 Melody
6 Christiansongs
7 Hello, Mannequin
8 We Are the Music Makers
9 My Grandfather, the Cubist
10 The Otherly Opus

this is how i feel these days, not having listened to joy electric very much at all in the last year. but i don't really listen to anything anymore how sad. but 1-8 i love and they are all pretty close, its only 9 and 10 I don't really love.

[raybobindustries]

01. The White Songbook
02. The Tick Tock Treasury
03. The Ministry of Archers
04. Robot Rock
05. Melody
06. Hello, Mannequin
07. The Otherly Opus
08. Christian Songs
09. My Grandfather, the Cubist
10. We Are the Music Makers

[ThisNameIsNotProfane]

Yay, Nikmis agrees with me! I still love the Ministry of Archers, but I'd definitely have to give #1 to The White Songbook. So good and so much of it!

[Dr. M]

Nikmis did it so I have to do it.
This is how I feel right this second. At any point in time there will be slight variations.

1. The White Songbook
2. Melody
3. Art and Craft disc one
4. Christian Songs
5. The Otherly Opus
6. We Are the Music Makers
7. The Tick Tock Treasury
8. Hello Mannequin
9. Robot Rock
10. The Ministry of Archers
11. My Grandfather, the Cubist

Granted I haven't listened to a few of these in a long, long time. I love TMOA, it's just too short. Art and Craft would be hard to overrate but very easy to underrate. There are a couple songs on Robot Rock I love way more than anything on Hello Mannequin, but Hello Mannequin beats it by being so utterly all-around solid. Sometime soon I'm going to go on a massive Joy Electric marathon, and I will tell you if anything changes.

[Robbie]

Here's my top ten Joy Electric albums:

The one with The Cobbler
The one with How Friends are Made Then Lost
The one with Lily Pad The Forest Our Home
The one with Shepherds of the Northern Pasture
The one with A Cottage Song
The one with Red Will Dye These Snows of Silver
The one with Sweet Sweet Charity
The one with The Fifth Point of the Compass
The one with The Phonograph Plays Part and Parcel

In no particular order.

[Nikmis]

dr. m how could you possible say that watmm is better than robot rock. you are a pervert

[Dr. M]

It depends on the mood I'm in. Artistically, WATMM is more ambitious. As far as a pleasurable listening experience, RR wins. I think at the end of the day WATMM is more important, if that makes sense.

[MorellasForest]

I like Melody the best. It's not that I'm being old school, but that it was the first album of his that I heard in 1995. There are so many great songs on that CD. The beeps and bleeps were like Nintendo music. There was nothing like it at the time. There were 18 songs on the album and the first 7 or 8 songs are dynamite.

If you disagree check out this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9M0G1pwN98

Music Makers has some great songs as does Robot Rock and White Songbook. Christian Songs has some cool songs as does Cubist and the Christmas album is cool if you're in the mood for it. Rainbow Rider is cool too. I never really got into the other albums. Despite like the albums and EPs there's nothing like Melody.