Warning: moderate wall of text, kind of an anecdote here.
I didn't vote yes or no, because neither answer would be applicable.
I love Boards. I have since I first heard their music at the age of 13 - on an
Adult Swim bump. Didn't know who made that music (which I now know is Constants are Changing) but I loved the fuck out of it. It wasn't until I found out who they actually were around my 15th birthday (I addressed in another thread how funny it is - 15 years old is a commonly reoccurring age when many posters are asked what age they got into BoC, seen it more than any other).
Hi Scores was the first BoC record I purchased and listened to in full. Geogaddi - my favorite - was actually the last (pre-TH).
At that time - then, up until I was about 16 - they were my favorite band, with BMSR, FSOL, Daft Punk and Gorillaz behind them, occupying my top 5 then (got into FSOL about the same time as BoC - with
Tales of Ephidrina, BMSR when I was about 13 or 14 - with
Start A People and
Falling Through a Field, Daft Punk when I was 12 - with
Discovery -
HAA had yet to be released, and Gorillaz when I was about 11 - their
debut blew my fucking mind, and it's still a good album).
Then sometime in early 2009, I heard some buzz about an album that had been released the year before "Radiohead style", i.e. pay what you want. Seeing as I enjoyed
In Rainbows and heavily supported this concept, I decided to check it out. That album was called
The Slip, and it was the album that would start a chain of events that were essentially to my musical development. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't anything incredible - just a collection of good songs (minus Letting You). I looked into the artist's discography though, at the time thinking "Nine Inch Nails...that band that does that Hand That Feeds song, right?".
Then when I was reading I realized that wasn't a band. That was
one guy. One guy who could play any instrument, produce any record, arrange any beat...one guy who had a powerful voice with
immense vocal range. I also then found out who the "fuck you like an animal" guy was. The fact that he pretty much makes all his music himself was astonishing, so I purchased an NIN record other than The Slip -
With Teeth - and I was impressed by how different the record sounded. They were both pretty much just straight alternative rock records with tinges of ambient and industrial rock, but they were very different at their core. So I purchased yet again another NIN record.
The one that would change my life.
It became my one of my favorite albums of all time, very quickly. It was no "straight alternative rock" record, it was a concept album crafted so well that I had and still have not heard anything of its style as good. I was 16 then when I realized this - I'm going on 21 now and my opinions have not changed.
So you see, I can't answer yes or no, because my favorite band of all time is a tie: Nine Inch Nails and Boards of Canada. One is diverse as hell, he's capable of making
rainy day soundtracks, to
groovy dance tracks, to
mellow, polyrhythmic mantras, to
pounding industrial metal, to
tear inducing ambient music, to
tear inducing, hauntingly beautiful and sad tracks that hit close to home.
One is less diverse but such masters of their craft it doesn't really matter. Their music breaths, it bleeds, it flows and exudes the essence of life. It's organic, digital, acoustic, electronic, upbeat, downtempo, happy, sad...all these things. They're capable of making tracks that
hypnotize and calm. They're capable of making tracks that are
funky as fuck. They're capable of making tracks that
make you want to rave in a room of strobelights. They're capable of making tracks
comprised of the blatant truth, delivered hauntingly. They're capable of making tracks that
just make you want to dance with the flow of the beat and the samplers. Most importantly, they're capable of making tracks (and albums)
that are just fucking incredible.
So if I'm ever asked what my favorite band is, I answer "it's a tie".
If I'm ever asked what my favorite album is, I answer "it's a tie" and post this image:
And if I'm ever asked what my favorite song is, I can answer without any doubt in my mind, without having to think twice "it's a tie:
my musical Yin, and
my musical Yang.
Those two songs are to me, from two different perspectives, what music should be: detailed, layered, cohesive, variable and as close as humanly possible to being faultless in every way. These albums are my biggest musical influences, and I aspire as an artist to one day be mentioned in the same breath as a Nine Inch Nails or a Boards of Canada.