The requirements of the thread weren't to write an essay as justification on each artist. Do you have some sort of personal issue with me? There are people who simply said "No," and you're going on and on at me.

I've listened to all of his albums over the past decade-plus, going back to Heatmiser. I own a few of his albums and enjoy listening to them. I don't have any specific reasons why I don't think his music is good enough, I simply don't think it's good enough. Some artists I have a lot to say about, some artists I don't.

If you are dissatisfied with me saying "His music isn't good enough," try this on for size: Tough luck.

Led Zeppelin -No, I just don't like them much.
Joy Division -No, Unkown Pleasures sucked, Closer was pretty good, Ian Curtis has to have the worst, most grating voice ever.
Elliott Smith -Yes, just a great, great songwriter.
The Beatles -Yes...I love them.
King Crimson -Yes, the depth and diversity of their discography is breathtaking.
Wu-Tang Clan -Yes, One of the most talented rap outfits ever.
The Velvet Underground-Yes, I love their sound, plus incredibly influential.

My problem was more this: you originally said he didn't produce enough music and his music wasn't good enough given the length of his career. Which is fine but then you turned around and said yes to several artists with even shorter careers. Which is completely hypocritical. I don't really have a problem with you saying his music isn't good enough for your tastes but that's a completely different reason then the original one given.

I really can't even understand your complaint here. You correctly stated my position:

"he didn't produce enough music and his music wasn't good enough given the length of his career."

Yet you seem to be completely missing the bolded part.

There's nothing hypocritical. Those "'several artists" were good enough given the length of their careers.

I don't understand what the confusion here is. There are two components: length of career and quality of the music. If one is smaller, the other must be higher, in order to be worthy.

Led Zeppelin, Joy Division and Wu-Tang Clan (the bands you highlighted) had far superior music to Elliott Smith, in my opinion. Therefore, they could get away with similar or shorter career lengths.

What's hypocritical about that?

It's hypocritical because Led Zeppelin and Wu-Tang are hardly anymore transcendent then Elliott Smith. Elliott's harder to pigeonhole than either of them.

Again, you're applying your own definition to "transcendent" when I've told you several times what I mean by that word. I'm referring to the quality of the music being transcendent, not diversity in style. I don't have any idea why you'd take "transcendent" to mean "diverse"...it seems like an enormous stretch and I've told you that's not what I mean.

I'm sorry transcendent usually means beyond categories (in music terms genre) or superior to (but you didn't list anything for Elliott to be inferior to...) so I assumed it was the former which would mean to me, being diverse but I guess you can be a cock rock band and never really differ from that and still be transcendental?

The Velvet Underground - yes, because they pretty much influenced all of the bands I listened to.

Saying that a musician didn't produce "superior" music doesn't require an explicit subject for comparison. It is quite commonly used to mean "superior to the rest of music." Which, lo and behold, I specified after you questioned me about the word.

Saying something is superior does require a comparison, as its a comparative word...I've never heard anyone say "That's superior" without directly comparing it to something.