Best Moderately Acclaimed Album of 2022: RESULTS

[Jirin]

For those unfamiliar, this is a game about the albums released in the last year that were not as critically praised as others. Every person gets to nominate one album, then everybody listens to as many nominees as they can and ranks the albums they got to listen to from favorite to least favorite.

This year, we had 24 nominated albums and 14 ballots.

Ranking is a little different from other competitions in that it uses a win loss formula. Every album is matched up against every other album in the tournament, and has a 'Match', where the winner is the album that is ranked higher on the majority of the lists that ranked both albums. So every album ends up with a win/loss record, and the final ranking also values wins against higher ranked albums over lower ranked albums.

I'll try to get through this quickly because I'm going away on the weekend.

24. Daphni - Cherry
Nominator: Mindelex
Record: 1-21-1
Ballots: 14
Fans: ProjectTermina (7)

23. Cities Aviv - Man Plays The Horn
Nominator: sickboy82
Record: 2-19-2
Ballots: 12
Fans: Jirin (4)

22. Cory Wong - Wong's Cafe
Nominator: bonnielaurel
Record: 2-20-1
Ballots: 13
Fans: bonnielaurel (1), Rdwdbob (5)

21. deathcrash - Return
Nominator: rumpdoll
Record: 2-16-5
Ballots: 12
Fans: rumpdoll (1), DaveC (5)

20. Sunflower Bean - Handful Of Sugar
Nominator: Rdwdbob
Record: 5-17-1
Ballots: 13
Fans: Rdwdbob (1)

19. Half Man Half Biscuit - The Volatrol Years
Nominator: TheLastEnemy
Record: 6-17-0
Ballots: 13
Fans: Rdwdbob (4)

18. Wild Pink - ILYSM
Nominator: Le Jeune Rylan
Record: 4-17-2
Ballots: 13
Fans: Brad (7)

17. Camp Cope - Running With The Hurricane
Nominator: acroamor
Record: 7-16-0
Ballots: 13
Fans: bonnielaurel (4)

16. Dominique A - Le Monde reel
Nominator: nicolas
Record: 5-13-5
Ballots: 12
Fans: Brad (8)

15. Lil Silva - Yesterday Is Heavy
Nominator: FrankLotion
Record: 7-14-2
Ballots: 13
Fans: FrankLotion (2), BleuPanda (3)

Going through these I'm surprised something that had no votes higher than 8th ended up 16th.

The final was really close, the top two have the same record and their head to head tally was won by one vote. The last vote to came in changed the winner, as it should be.

[Nassim]

Well my bottom 8 is in that bottom 10, I did enjoy Yesterday is Heavy and I like Cherry though I agree it's a tad overlong (and probably no in most people's alley).

Within my bottom 8, I won't pile on my bottom 2 which I think are truly terrible but I will call out deathcrash as the most disappointing as it should be for me given the influences you can hear and the style it seems to aim for, and ILYSM as the one really fully ruined by one single thing : you can hear some kind of whispery hush at the end of every sentence ending with a consonant and that is just so grating (for instance the title track goes "late in the night t-, asleep in my bed d-, all the sheets were pulled off me, I had to lift my head d-". I can't tell if the songwriting is good, if the melody is nice, all I can hear are those damn noises and it's driving me crazy !

[Jirin]

14. Ghais Guevara - There Will Be No Super-Slave
Nominator: Jackson
Record: 9-12-2
Ballots: 12
Fans: BleuPanda (4)

13. Joe Rainey - Niineta
Nominator: Nassim
Record: 8-12-3
Ballots: 13
Fans: mileswide (2), Nassim (2), Rob (3), ProjectTermina (4)

12. Hikaru Utada - Bad Mode
Nominator: BleuPanda
Record: 9-12-2
Ballots: 13
Fans: BleuPanda (2), ProjectTermina (3), Nassim (4)

[Jirin]

11. Anteloper - Pink Dolphins
Nominator: Rob
Record: 13-10-0
Ballots: 13
Fans: mileswide (4), DaveC (4), Rob (5)

10. Natalia Lafourcade - De todas las flores
Nominator: Bang Jan
Record: 15-8-0
Ballots: 14
Fans: phil (2), DaveC (2), bonielaurel (3), Gillingham (3)

9. Perfume Genius - Ugly Season
Nominator: Edre Peraza
Record: 14-8-1
Ballots: 14
Fans: BleuPanda (1), Jirin (2), Gillingham (2), Brad (2)

[Jirin]

8. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Omnium Gatherum
Nominator: granit
Record: 16-4-3
Ballots: 12
Fans: Rob (2), Rdwdbob (3), rumpdoll (4), Brad (5)

7. Aurora - The Gods We Can Touch
Nominator: Holden
Record: 16-5-2
Ballots: 13
Fans: Rob (1), Rdwdbob (2), Jirin (3), bonnielaurel (5), BleuPanda (5), phil (5), FrankLotion (5)

6. Somi - Zenzille: The Reimagination Of Miriam Makeba
Nominator: Jirin
Record: 17-4-2
Ballots: 14
Fans: Jirin (1), bonnielaurel (2), FrankLotion (3), phil (4), Brad (4)

5. Panannoul & Asian Glow - Paraglow
Nominator: DaveC
Record: 17-5-1
Balots: 13
Fans: DaveC (1), Nassim (1), mileswide (3), phil (3)

[Jirin]

4. Frou Frou - Off Cuts

Nominator: phil
Record: 19-2-2
Ballots: 12
Fans: phil (1), Rob (4), FrankLotion (4), mileswide (5)

3. MJ Lenderman - Boat Songs

Nominator: ProjectTermina
Record: 20-2-1
Ballots: 14
Fans: mileswide(1), ProjectTermina (2), Nassim (3), Brad (3), Jirin (5), rumpdoll (5)

2. King Hannah - I'm Not Sorry, I Was Just Being Me

Nominator: Gillingham
Record: 21-1-1
Ballots: 14
Fans: Gillingham (1), rumpdoll (2), Dave (3), Nassim (5)

Making the winner...
1. Jenny Hval - Classic Objects

Nominator: Brad
Record: 21-1-1
Ballots: 13
Fans: ProjectTermina (1), Brad (1), FrankLotion (1), rumpdoll (3)

So Classic Objects will get automatic entry into next year's Best Moderately Acclaimed Album. Thanks everyone!

[FrankLotion]

Thanks as always for running the poll Jirin! This is always fun.

[Rob]

Thanks, Jirin!

The winner just missed my top 5, but was definitely among the best albums in the line-up.