Acclaimed Music Forum

STEFAN

Feb 29, 08 - 11:21 PM

ABOUT ´MEGA-CRITIC´

INTENT :

´MEGA-CRITIC´ ARE THE UP-TO DATE CHARTS OF THE RUNNING YEAR´S BEST REVIEWED ALBUMS. THEY ARE PUBLISHED EXCLUSIVELY HERE IN THE ´ACCLAIMED MUSIC FORUM´ AT THE BEGINNING OF EACH MONTH.

SOURCES :

THE CHARTS ARE CALCULATED ON THE BASE OF 26 SOURCES IN 3 REGIONS :

EUROPE / DAGBLADET (NO) - EXPRESSEN (SW) - GAFFA (DK) - HUMO (BE) - MONDOSONORO (ES) - MUSIK-EXPRESS (GE) - NOJESGUIDEN (SW) - PLATTENTESTS (GE) - ROCK&FOLK (FR) - SPIEGEL (DE) - SVD (SW)

UK / DROWNED IN SOUND - GUARDIAN - MUSICOMH - NME - OBSERVER MUSIC MONTHLY - Q - UNCUT

US / COKEMACHINEGLOW - PITCHFORKMEDIA - POPMATTERS - PREFIX - ROLLING STONE - SLANT - SPIN - TINYMIXTAPES

SCORES :

AN AVERAGE SCORE OF ALL THE REVIEWS IS CALCULATED AND ADJUSTED TO DO JUSTICE TO ALBUMS WITH A HIGHER NUMBERS OF RATINGS.

QUALIFICATION :

AN ALBUM QUALIFIES FOR THE REGIONAL CHART WITH A MINIMUM OF 3 REVIEWS (SCANDINAVIAN OR GERMAN ALBUMS HAVE TO BE RATED AT LEAST WITH ONE NON-SCANDINAVIAN, RESPECTIVELY NON-GERMAN REVIEW).

FOR THE COMBINED CHART A MINIMUM OF 6 REVIEWS (IN 2 DIFFERENT REGIONS) IS REQUIRED.

RELEASE DATE :

AS THE EOY-LISTS USUALLY START AROUND THE END OF NOVEMBER, ALBUMS WITH A DECEMBER RELEASE DATE (PARTIAL OR ENTIRELY) ARE ALSO INCLUDED:

GHOSTFACE KILLAH :
EU : DEC - UK : DEC - US : DEC
LUPE FIASCO :
EU : JAN - UK : JAN - US : DEC
WU-TANG CLAN :
EU : DEC - UK : FEB - US : DEC
JONNY GREENWOOD :
EU : JAN - UK : DEC - US : FEB
MARY J: BLIGE :
EU : FEB - UK : FEB - US : DEC

- OVERLAPPERS : ALBUMS WITH A PARTIAL RELEASE DATE PRIOR TO DECEMBER WHICH ARE RELEASED DURING THE NEW YEAR IN OTHER REGIONS QUALIFY ONLY FOR THE COMBINED CHART IF THE 2008-REVIEWS OUTNUMBER THE 2007-REVIEWS :

CASS MC COMBS :
EU/UK : 12 REVIEWS FEB - US : 3 REVIEWS OCT/NOV

OTHERWISE THEY ONLY CAN MAKE IT TO THE REGIONAL CHARTS :

RAVEONETTES :
EU/UK : 16 REVIEWS NOV/DEC - US : 6 REVIEWS FEB
BLACK LIPS :
UK/US : 11 REVIEWS SEP/OCT - EU : 8 REVIEWS JAN/FEB
LE LOUP :
US : 4 REVIEWS SEP/OCT - UK : 3 REVIEWS DEC

- LATE BLOOMERS : SOME ALBUMS RELEASED BEFORE DECEMBER EITHER ARE OFFICIALLY RE-RELEASED OR GET ALL THE ATTENTION ONLY IN THE NEW YEAR AND THEREFORE QUALIFY FOR THE CHARTS .

BON IVER
RELEASE : SEP - 2 REVIEWS SEP/OCT - 3 REVIEWS FEB
ZS
RELEASE : SEP - 4 REVIEWS JAN

COMPETITION :

FIGURE OUT THE HIGHEST NEW-ENTRY TO NEXT MONTH´S COMBINED CHART AND ENTER THE CHANCE TO WIN THAT CD. POST YOUR GUESS (ONE PER PERSON) AS A REPLY TO THE RUNNING MONTH´S ´META-CRITIC´-POST BEFORE THE 25TH.

Stephan

Feb 29th, 2008 - 11:46 PM

Re: ABOUT ´MEGA-CRITIC´

Interesting Stefan, and great work; I'm looking forward to the February list. And that competition, is that for the month March or can we guess for February now?

Toni

Mar 1st, 2008 - 12:30 AM

Re: ABOUT ´MEGA-CRITIC´

Hey, Neoptolemos, I always thought you were the Stefan who posted the Mega-Critic updates every month!I only realized there's a Stefan and a Stephan now with your post, haha!

Sinder Velvin

The Beatles - Helter Skelter (Edited Take 2), i.e. the Anthology 3 version

Mar 1st, 2008 - 4:20 AM

Re: ABOUT ´MEGA-CRITIC´

Those caps are making my eyes bleed.

BillAdama

Mar 1st, 2008 - 11:52 PM

Re: ABOUT ´MEGA-CRITIC´

The math nerd in me is begging me to figure out my own system which corrects for the fact that most of the albums near the top have extremely negative skewed distributions.

Maybe I can figure out the distribution of scores for any given publication and convert any given score to the percentile of scores that publication gives. That would give stronger weight to extremely positive scores, and less weight to extremely negative scores.

STEFAN

Mar 2nd, 2008 - 11:57 AM

Re: ABOUT ´MEGA-CRITIC´

Dear BillAdama

For the math nerd in you, here the individual scores
for the Top 10 of the last ´Mega-Chart´:

01 Vampire Weekend
EU : 76 - 80 - 90 - 60 - 83 - 83 - 83 - 00 - 80 - 80 - 83
UK : 80 - 80 - 80 - 80 - 80 - 80 - 80
US : 88 - 90 - 80 - 70 - 80 - 80 - 70 - 60

02. Black Mountain
EU : 75 - 80 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 83 - 83 - 87 - 80 - 70 - 67
UK : 90 - 60 - 80 - 00 - 60 - 80 - 80
US : 74 - 80 - 70 - 70 - 00 - 70 - 70 - 00

03. Hot Chip
EU : 82 - 70 - 70 - 80 - 67 - 67 - 83 - 62 - 00 - 80 - 67
UK : 70 - 60 - 70 - 60 - 80 - 80 - 80
US : 70 - 90 - 80 - 80 - 90 - 80 - 70 - 48

04. Drive-By Truckers
EU : 00 - 00 - 00 - 80 - 83 - 67 - 67 - 100 - 00 - 90 - 83
UK : 00 - 60 - 00 - 60 - 00 - 60 - 100
US : 82 - 60 - 00 - 80 - 70 - 60 - 00 - 78

05. Magnetic Fields
EU : 83 - 70 - 80 - 80 - 83 - 67 - 50 - 00 - 80 - 80 - 83
UK : 80 - 40 - 60 - 80 - 60 - 60 - 60
US : 80 - 80 - 75 - 80 - 80 - 60 - 80 - 00

06. Cat Power
EU : 74 - 80 - 80 - 80 - 50 - 50 - 83 - 87 - 60 - 80 - 83
UK : 80 - 60 - 80 - 60 - 60 - 60 - 80
US : 57 - 60 - 85 - 80 - 80 - 60 - 80 - 00

07. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
EU : 69 - 00 - 90 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 80 - 80 - 00
UK : 00 - 100 - 00 - 80 - 100 - 00 - 80
US : 00 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 00

08. Los Campesinos!
EU : 59 - 80 - 60 - 00 - 83 - 00 - 00 - 75 - 00 - 70 - 67
UK : 90 - 80 - 80 - 60 - 80 - 00 - 80
US : 84 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 00

09. The Mountain Goats
EU : 00 - 70 - 80 - 00 - 33 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 83
UK : 80 - 80 - 90 - 60 - 00 - 80 - 60
US : 80 - 80 - 80 - 00 - 50 - 00 - 90 - 00

10. British Sea Power
EU : 83 - 70 - 50 - 40 - 67 - 67 - 83 - 50 - 00 - 00 - 67
UK : 90 - 80 - 90 - 70 - 100 - 80 - 60
US : 40 - 50 - 00 - 00 - 70 - 70 - 80 - 83

And NO, Sinder Velvin, I don´t want your eyes to bleed.

nicolas

Mar 3rd, 2008 - 6:56 AM

Re: ABOUT ´MEGA-CRITIC´

Thanks Stefan !

John

Mar 8th, 2008 - 6:16 AM

Re: ABOUT ´MEGA-CRITIC´

I'm going with Destroyer as the top new entry next month.

Sinder Velvin

Mar 8th, 2008 - 11:09 AM

Re: ABOUT ´MEGA-CRITIC´

"The Premonition" by Firewind! Title says it all.

BillAdama

Mar 12th, 2008 - 1:41 AM

Re: ABOUT ´MEGA-CRITIC´

I finished the program I already referred to. (And the time efficiency is cubic, so clearly I'm a really efficient programmer!) The only issue now is it currently handles ties badly.

Thanks for the individual ratings, but I might pick my own sources so I can compile the data myself.

BillAdama

Mar 13th, 2008 - 8:35 PM

Re: ABOUT ´MEGA-CRITIC´

I think what I'm going to do is add one album to the data per day. That way I don't have to do a lot of tedious data entry all at once, but by the end of the year there'll be hundreds.

Another reason I want to pick my own sources is to represent more strongly sources that will give a fair listen to genres like folk and country.

Here's what I have so far:
(Position) (Band/album) (Total win/loss) (Percent of individual matchups won)

1. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend 5 - 0 0.6428571428571429
2. Drive By Truckers - Brighter Than Creation's Dark 4 - 1 0.6444444444444445
3. Black Mountain - In The Future 2 - 2 0.5185185185185185
4. Hot Chip - Made In The Dark 2 - 2 0.46938775510204084
5. Magnetic Fields - Distortion 1 - 4 0.39285714285714285
6. Cat Power - Jukebox 0 - 5 0.3333333333333333

A win means, when album A was compared to album B, more critics rated album A higher than album B. If there's no win or loss, it was either a tie, or there were less than ten out of my twenty publications that rated both. I'm thinking of adding a few more sources since now I'm only adding one album per day.

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Author	Comment
STEFAN Feb 29, 08 - 11:21 PM	ABOUT ´MEGA-CRITIC´ INTENT : ´MEGA-CRITIC´ ARE THE UP-TO DATE CHARTS OF THE RUNNING YEAR´S BEST REVIEWED ALBUMS. THEY ARE PUBLISHED EXCLUSIVELY HERE IN THE ´ACCLAIMED MUSIC FORUM´ AT THE BEGINNING OF EACH MONTH. SOURCES : THE CHARTS ARE CALCULATED ON THE BASE OF 26 SOURCES IN 3 REGIONS : EUROPE / DAGBLADET (NO) - EXPRESSEN (SW) - GAFFA (DK) - HUMO (BE) - MONDOSONORO (ES) - MUSIK-EXPRESS (GE) - NOJESGUIDEN (SW) - PLATTENTESTS (GE) - ROCK&FOLK (FR) - SPIEGEL (DE) - SVD (SW) UK / DROWNED IN SOUND - GUARDIAN - MUSICOMH - NME - OBSERVER MUSIC MONTHLY - Q - UNCUT US / COKEMACHINEGLOW - PITCHFORKMEDIA - POPMATTERS - PREFIX - ROLLING STONE - SLANT - SPIN - TINYMIXTAPES SCORES : AN AVERAGE SCORE OF ALL THE REVIEWS IS CALCULATED AND ADJUSTED TO DO JUSTICE TO ALBUMS WITH A HIGHER NUMBERS OF RATINGS. QUALIFICATION : AN ALBUM QUALIFIES FOR THE REGIONAL CHART WITH A MINIMUM OF 3 REVIEWS (SCANDINAVIAN OR GERMAN ALBUMS HAVE TO BE RATED AT LEAST WITH ONE NON-SCANDINAVIAN, RESPECTIVELY NON-GERMAN REVIEW). FOR THE COMBINED CHART A MINIMUM OF 6 REVIEWS (IN 2 DIFFERENT REGIONS) IS REQUIRED. RELEASE DATE : AS THE EOY-LISTS USUALLY START AROUND THE END OF NOVEMBER, ALBUMS WITH A DECEMBER RELEASE DATE (PARTIAL OR ENTIRELY) ARE ALSO INCLUDED: GHOSTFACE KILLAH : EU : DEC - UK : DEC - US : DEC LUPE FIASCO : EU : JAN - UK : JAN - US : DEC WU-TANG CLAN : EU : DEC - UK : FEB - US : DEC JONNY GREENWOOD : EU : JAN - UK : DEC - US : FEB MARY J: BLIGE : EU : FEB - UK : FEB - US : DEC - OVERLAPPERS : ALBUMS WITH A PARTIAL RELEASE DATE PRIOR TO DECEMBER WHICH ARE RELEASED DURING THE NEW YEAR IN OTHER REGIONS QUALIFY ONLY FOR THE COMBINED CHART IF THE 2008-REVIEWS OUTNUMBER THE 2007-REVIEWS : CASS MC COMBS : EU/UK : 12 REVIEWS FEB - US : 3 REVIEWS OCT/NOV OTHERWISE THEY ONLY CAN MAKE IT TO THE REGIONAL CHARTS : RAVEONETTES : EU/UK : 16 REVIEWS NOV/DEC - US : 6 REVIEWS FEB BLACK LIPS : UK/US : 11 REVIEWS SEP/OCT - EU : 8 REVIEWS JAN/FEB LE LOUP : US : 4 REVIEWS SEP/OCT - UK : 3 REVIEWS DEC - LATE BLOOMERS : SOME ALBUMS RELEASED BEFORE DECEMBER EITHER ARE OFFICIALLY RE-RELEASED OR GET ALL THE ATTENTION ONLY IN THE NEW YEAR AND THEREFORE QUALIFY FOR THE CHARTS . BON IVER RELEASE : SEP - 2 REVIEWS SEP/OCT - 3 REVIEWS FEB ZS RELEASE : SEP - 4 REVIEWS JAN COMPETITION : FIGURE OUT THE HIGHEST NEW-ENTRY TO NEXT MONTH´S COMBINED CHART AND ENTER THE CHANCE TO WIN THAT CD. POST YOUR GUESS (ONE PER PERSON) AS A REPLY TO THE RUNNING MONTH´S ´META-CRITIC´-POST BEFORE THE 25TH.
Stephan Feb 29th, 2008 - 11:46 PM	Re: ABOUT ´MEGA-CRITIC´ Interesting Stefan, and great work; I'm looking forward to the February list. And that competition, is that for the month March or can we guess for February now?
Toni Mar 1st, 2008 - 12:30 AM	Re: ABOUT ´MEGA-CRITIC´ Hey, Neoptolemos, I always thought you were the Stefan who posted the Mega-Critic updates every month!I only realized there's a Stefan and a Stephan now with your post, haha!
Sinder Velvin Mar 1st, 2008 - 4:20 AM	Re: ABOUT ´MEGA-CRITIC´ Those caps are making my eyes bleed.
BillAdama Mar 1st, 2008 - 11:52 PM	Re: ABOUT ´MEGA-CRITIC´ The math nerd in me is begging me to figure out my own system which corrects for the fact that most of the albums near the top have extremely negative skewed distributions. Maybe I can figure out the distribution of scores for any given publication and convert any given score to the percentile of scores that publication gives. That would give stronger weight to extremely positive scores, and less weight to extremely negative scores.
STEFAN Mar 2nd, 2008 - 11:57 AM	Re: ABOUT ´MEGA-CRITIC´ Dear BillAdama For the math nerd in you, here the individual scores for the Top 10 of the last ´Mega-Chart´: 01 Vampire Weekend EU : 76 - 80 - 90 - 60 - 83 - 83 - 83 - 00 - 80 - 80 - 83 UK : 80 - 80 - 80 - 80 - 80 - 80 - 80 US : 88 - 90 - 80 - 70 - 80 - 80 - 70 - 60 02. Black Mountain EU : 75 - 80 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 83 - 83 - 87 - 80 - 70 - 67 UK : 90 - 60 - 80 - 00 - 60 - 80 - 80 US : 74 - 80 - 70 - 70 - 00 - 70 - 70 - 00 03. Hot Chip EU : 82 - 70 - 70 - 80 - 67 - 67 - 83 - 62 - 00 - 80 - 67 UK : 70 - 60 - 70 - 60 - 80 - 80 - 80 US : 70 - 90 - 80 - 80 - 90 - 80 - 70 - 48 04. Drive-By Truckers EU : 00 - 00 - 00 - 80 - 83 - 67 - 67 - 100 - 00 - 90 - 83 UK : 00 - 60 - 00 - 60 - 00 - 60 - 100 US : 82 - 60 - 00 - 80 - 70 - 60 - 00 - 78 05. Magnetic Fields EU : 83 - 70 - 80 - 80 - 83 - 67 - 50 - 00 - 80 - 80 - 83 UK : 80 - 40 - 60 - 80 - 60 - 60 - 60 US : 80 - 80 - 75 - 80 - 80 - 60 - 80 - 00 06. Cat Power EU : 74 - 80 - 80 - 80 - 50 - 50 - 83 - 87 - 60 - 80 - 83 UK : 80 - 60 - 80 - 60 - 60 - 60 - 80 US : 57 - 60 - 85 - 80 - 80 - 60 - 80 - 00 07. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds EU : 69 - 00 - 90 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 80 - 80 - 00 UK : 00 - 100 - 00 - 80 - 100 - 00 - 80 US : 00 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 00 08. Los Campesinos! EU : 59 - 80 - 60 - 00 - 83 - 00 - 00 - 75 - 00 - 70 - 67 UK : 90 - 80 - 80 - 60 - 80 - 00 - 80 US : 84 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 00 09. The Mountain Goats EU : 00 - 70 - 80 - 00 - 33 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 00 - 83 UK : 80 - 80 - 90 - 60 - 00 - 80 - 60 US : 80 - 80 - 80 - 00 - 50 - 00 - 90 - 00 10. British Sea Power EU : 83 - 70 - 50 - 40 - 67 - 67 - 83 - 50 - 00 - 00 - 67 UK : 90 - 80 - 90 - 70 - 100 - 80 - 60 US : 40 - 50 - 00 - 00 - 70 - 70 - 80 - 83 And NO, Sinder Velvin, I don´t want your eyes to bleed.
nicolas Mar 3rd, 2008 - 6:56 AM	Re: ABOUT ´MEGA-CRITIC´ Thanks Stefan !
John Mar 8th, 2008 - 6:16 AM	Re: ABOUT ´MEGA-CRITIC´ I'm going with Destroyer as the top new entry next month.
Sinder Velvin Mar 8th, 2008 - 11:09 AM	Re: ABOUT ´MEGA-CRITIC´ "The Premonition" by Firewind! Title says it all.
BillAdama Mar 12th, 2008 - 1:41 AM	Re: ABOUT ´MEGA-CRITIC´ I finished the program I already referred to. (And the time efficiency is cubic, so clearly I'm a really efficient programmer!) The only issue now is it currently handles ties badly. Thanks for the individual ratings, but I might pick my own sources so I can compile the data myself.
BillAdama Mar 13th, 2008 - 8:35 PM	Re: ABOUT ´MEGA-CRITIC´ I think what I'm going to do is add one album to the data per day. That way I don't have to do a lot of tedious data entry all at once, but by the end of the year there'll be hundreds. Another reason I want to pick my own sources is to represent more strongly sources that will give a fair listen to genres like folk and country. Here's what I have so far: (Position) (Band/album) (Total win/loss) (Percent of individual matchups won) 1. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend 5 - 0 0.6428571428571429 2. Drive By Truckers - Brighter Than Creation's Dark 4 - 1 0.6444444444444445 3. Black Mountain - In The Future 2 - 2 0.5185185185185185 4. Hot Chip - Made In The Dark 2 - 2 0.46938775510204084 5. Magnetic Fields - Distortion 1 - 4 0.39285714285714285 6. Cat Power - Jukebox 0 - 5 0.3333333333333333 A win means, when album A was compared to album B, more critics rated album A higher than album B. If there's no win or loss, it was either a tie, or there were less than ten out of my twenty publications that rated both. I'm thinking of adding a few more sources since now I'm only adding one album per day.