How obvious/dominant is your favorite album?

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Moonbeam
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How obvious/dominant is your favorite album?

Post by Moonbeam »

Do you have a standout pick as your favorite album, or does it something you have to struggle to identify? Has it changed much over the years?

Prince's 1999 has long been an obvious favorite for me, and I've gotten around to approximately quantifying its dominance. Using an exponentially decaying point system from my all-time song list, I've added the points for each song on my top 800 album list. The resulting ranked list of albums with the most points reasonably approximates their actual placements on my all-time list:

#1 in points Prince - 1999 (#1 on my all-time list)
#2 in points Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) (#2 on my all-time list)
#3 in points The Cure - Disintegration (#5 on my all-time list)
#4 in points Prince - Lovesexy (#4 on my all-time list)
#5 in points Prince - Sign o' the Times (#20 on my all-time list)
#6 in points Janet Jackson - Rhythm Nation 1814 (#3 on my all-time list)
#7 in points Prince - Controversy (#9 on my all-time list)
#8 in points Mylène Farmer - Ainsi soit je... (#11 on my all-time list)
#9 in points Annie - Anniemal (#6 on my all-time list)
#10 in points Eurythmics - 1984 (For the Love of Big Brother) (#13 on my all-time list)
Album Graph 10.png
From the graph, 1999 is pretty clearly ahead of the others, and Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) is pretty solidly #2.
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Holden
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Re: How obvious/dominant is your favorite album?

Post by Holden »

Dang this is a super cool experiment! I’ll have to try it… what was the points equation you used?
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Moonbeam
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Re: How obvious/dominant is your favorite album?

Post by Moonbeam »

Holden wrote: Wed Jun 22, 2022 11:41 am Dang this is a super cool experiment! I’ll have to try it… what was the points equation you used?
It’s a pretty standard AMF-type formula:

Points = 5100/(50 + rank)

I then added the points for all my top 800 albums based on my top 3653 song list.
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andyd1010
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Re: How obvious/dominant is your favorite album?

Post by andyd1010 »

I just applied that formula to my top 10,000 songs, and these are the top 10 albums it spit out. Funeral is a very dominant No. 1. I just moved Born to Run ahead of Abbey Road to No. 2 in my rankings, so it's interesting that this corroborates it! Some big differences after that though - I wouldn't rank Help!, The Joshua Tree, the White Album or Reflektor this high, but they are there because they have a few incredible songs despite not being as consistent as the other albums (they're still great though!).


Funeral 330.7917281
Born to Run 213.1360842
Abbey Road 191.1346
(What's the Story) Morning Glory? 161.1506028
Help! 158.5597931
The Joshua Tree 152.8409833
OK Computer 148.2126167
The Beatles (White Album) 128.174881
Reflektor 114.9264464
Led Zeppelin IV 112.4069014
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Maschine_Man
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Re: How obvious/dominant is your favorite album?

Post by Maschine_Man »

I have been making my top albums list on google sheets for almost a decade now, and it basically runs itself. I rank each track individually (minus interludes) and then give the album an overall score - these numbers are then averaged out and a separate column automatically updates the albums overall rank. While my score system is out of 30, most tracks and albums don't get scored under a 15 as that is a point at which I actively dislike the track/album. 45% of songs are rated a 17, 18, or 19, and almost 60% of albums fall in-between 17.00 and 19.99.

Basically this means albums are rarely given higher than a 20 (only 250 albums) and even less over 25 (6!). This clustering towards the middle is fine with me, because I would rather have a better idea of the albums that lead the pack. To successfully reach the Top 50 (or roughly 22/30) not only does an album need a couple of stand out songs, the deep cuts need to be high quality AND the track list/flow/concept/execution of the album has to be noteworthy.

While each of the Top 10 has a 30/30 album rank, its the slight differences in song average that separate them all - it's just about consistency. I also included other milestone ranks to show how the score decreases overall.

1. Björk - Homogenic (27.82)
2. White Stripes - Elephant (26.83)
3. White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan (26.42)
4. Pixies - Doolittle (25.5)
4. B52s - The B-52's (25.5)
6. Smiths - The Queen Is Dead (25.12)
7. Goldfrapp - Supernature (24.75)
7. Smiths - Strangeways, Here We Come (24.75)
9. Kate Bush - Hounds Of Love (24.5)
10. Gorillaz - Demon Days (24.48)
--
50. U.S. Girls - A Poem Unlimited (22.08)
--
100. Mitski - Puberty 2 (21.13)
200. Julia Holter - Have You In My Wilderness (20.32)
300. Will Butler - Generations (19.65)
400. La Femme - Paradigmes (19.05)
500. Coldplay - X&Y (18.43)
600. Fiona Apple - Extraordinary Machine (18)
700. Blur - Blur (17.62)
800. Damon Albarn - The Nearer the Fountain.. (17.02)
900. Lady Gaga - ARTPOP (15.5)
Brad
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Re: How obvious/dominant is your favorite album?

Post by Brad »

This does present an interesting view... while I knew my first two were neck-and-neck, it's interesting to me that the other 8 each pair up similarly (obviously, my scoring method isn't straight 1-10)
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Jirin
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Re: How obvious/dominant is your favorite album?

Post by Jirin »

Over the past 20 years it's been:
Bob Dylan - Blonde On Blonde
Jimi Hendrix - Are You Experienced
Tim Buckley - Happy Sad
Beatles - Revolver

And Tom Waits - Rain Dogs has been consistently in the top 3. No one is consistently far above the others.
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Listyguy
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Re: How obvious/dominant is your favorite album?

Post by Listyguy »

I adjusted the formula to give less weight to the top songs, but overall this is close to in-line with my favorite albums, with Dylan being slightly over-represented. Not surprisingly, albums like Abbey Road and A Love Supreme, which are more about the whole than the parts, are nowhere to be found here.

1. Bringing It All Back Home - 257.229116 (#5 on my last album list)
2. Blood On the Tracks - 246.5987032 (#6 on my last album list)
3. Led Zeppelin IV - 225.4037112 (#1 on my last album list)
4. Revolver - 207.0936122 (#8 on my last album list)
5. Are You Experienced? - 193.5450007 (#4 on my last album list)
6. The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan - 191.9064006 (#43 on my last album list)
7. Ready to Die - 185.0503171 (#86 on my last album list)
8. Blue - 183.7344548 (#10 on my last album list)
9. In Utero - 182.7083096 (#7 on my last album list)
10. Axis: Bold As Love - 176.0247466 (#11 on my last album list)
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Edre Depeche Head
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Re: How obvious/dominant is your favorite album?

Post by Edre Depeche Head »

I don't do a point system outside of basic rating out of 100. I have 23 albums rated at a 100, but Violator by Depeche Mode still reigns supreme for nostalgic and personal reasons.
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Rob
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Re: How obvious/dominant is your favorite album?

Post by Rob »

I'm very intuitive in rankings and in album ratings in general. Any point system is never going to work for me, especially since a great album is not just about good songs, but also about flow, synergy between songs and perhaps a total theme. These all get lost in above point system.

I wouldn't call my favorite album, Bringin' It All Back Home by Bob Dylan, dominant by any stretch. There are a couple of albums that can take the #1 spot. A the moment this one just feels the most right.
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Re: How obvious/dominant is your favorite album?

Post by Zorg »

Thanks to not doing AMF polls for a while, I've sorta de-mythologised my favourite album lists a lot. So I'm happy to say it's still London Calling (and my various spreadsheets say its been that for almost 10 years now) but it doesn't really mean much! I obviously love the album to bits but I hardly listen to the album anymore.

It's a bit like saying Pele is the best footballer ever or something. Or the other GOAT debates that are a bit tiresome in sports these days. I sort of know what's in my pantheon (and indeed what's at the very top!) but I'm not that bothered anymore! At least until the next AMF poll...
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