So far right now: Kid A, Turn On The Bright Lights, Back To Black, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, White Blood Cells, The College Dropout, Late Registration, Rated R, Songs for the Deaf, Arular (Kala is still 4.5), Oh, Inverted World, American Idiot, Since I Left You, Untrue and Funeral are all rated 5 stars!

I' currently searching the top 200 to check other changes! So far these are the ones and: Libertines's self-titled has gone from a 4 to 3.5 :/

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is still 4 stars :-(

Daft Punk's Discovery 5 stars
The Avalanches' Since I Left You 5 stars
The Streets Original Pirate Material 5 stars
Dizzee Rascal Boy in Da Corner 5 stars

Big snobs in terms of acclaim: Yankee Hotel, Illinoise, Sound of Silver, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, In Rainbows, Ys, Merriweather Post Pavillion, Fleet Foxes, I Am A Bird Now, Untrue, Return to Cookie Mountain.

I can deal with Mila Kunis not being nominated to an Oscar, but some of these titles not making the 5 star group put Christopher Nolan Best Director snob to shame.

And of those artists, only Wilco, PJ Harvey and Radiohead have 5 stars...the others are 5 starless :'(

At least YHF has 5 stars from RS Album Guide and a 10.0 from pitchfork.

Untrue is rated a 5, i saw it now! I swear it was 4.5! They only gave 5 stars to albums that made a lot of EOD by American critics. And another thing: Even though Wilco and Polly already have 5 stars albums (one each), it should have updated to 4.5 or something.... too bad, maybe another year.

But Sound of Silver and Illinoise are among the really forgotten ones (since Fleet Foxes might had been deemed "too new" and Ys made more Europeans EODs than americans)

And Yankee is top 5 of the decade... so, even if Summerteeth was already a 5, it should have made part of the group, it wasn't a problem to them to upgrade two of Queens of the Stone Age albums. Same goes to PJ Harvey, who knows in the wake of the release of Let England Shake?

Yeah, I mean, Wilco has 3 albums on Acclaimed with higher ratings than Rated R.

Green Day's American Idiot is a 5 star...I'm gradually going through and picking out all of the 5 star upgrades.

It's kinda weird that Wilco is kinda being a hot trending topic over here in the forum the last 2 months! there's always something that involve them! hope new album delivers to that

Mostly because I'm their annoying cheerleader who everyone hates.

Btw, you need to vote in the moderately acclaimed poll...Wilco is up this week!

Don't worry! I'm the annoying Joanna Newsom cheerleader! I can't judge you for liking anyone! And there are cheerleader of the likes of Sufjan, LCD and Arcade Fire and older artists! Everyone is a fan of someone! Let's all have some fun!

And I'll vote, even though is tough competition since Samba Esquema Novo is a Classico of my country! Mas Que Nada, Let's listen and vote!

So far, these are the ones that were updated alphabetized for easy tallying:

Arcade Fire- Funeral
Arctic Monkeys- Whatever People Say I Am...
Burial- Untrue
Daft Punk- Discovery
Dizzee Rascal- Boy in Da Corner
Green Day- American Idiot
Interpol- Turn on the Bright Lights
M.I.A.- Arular
Queens of the Stone Age- Rated R
Queens of the Stone Age- Songs for the Deaf
Radiohead- Kid A
The Shins- Oh, Inverted World
The Streets- Original Pirate Material
Kanye West- The College Dropout
Kanye West- Late Registration
Amy Winehouse- Back to Black

I'm a little bothered that they're not adjusting across the board: For example, Amnesiac and HTTT should be 4.5 by now, and In Rainbows should probably inch up to a 5.

The nominations were announced? *looks*

Ha! I called most of them. My predictions from a month or two ago:

Inception
Toy Story 3
Winter’s Bone
127 Hours
Get Low
Black Swan
The Kids Are All Right
The Social Network
Somewhere
The Fighter

Got 8 out of 10. Just missed King's Speech and True Grit. If I made a prediction last week, I would have gotten 9 out of 10.

Inception deserves Best Cinematography more than Best Director. (And Social Network is going to get Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay, even though the only one of those it deserves is Adapted Screenplay.)

Also, Christian Bale and Natalie Portman just kind of win.

Anyway, re: the topic. Allmusic is good as a beginner's guide due to it's inclusiveness, but the ratings themselves aren't any more important than any other source.

Natalie is a LOCK! If Annete take the Oscar home, i can see a backlash coming! Also Agree that Social Network deserves only the Adapted Screenplay. Christian Bale is a lock. Colin Firth is going to take it for The King's Speech (even though he was brilliant as Tom Ford) and Jeff Bridges won't pull off a Tom Hanks. The Supporting Actress category is kind of tough. The True Grit girl that should be Best Actress but campaigned for Supporting might surprise everyone, Amy Adams is an Oscar darling and she might take home for being nominated twice before, Melissa Leo is still the front runner since she's been grabbing every award, but Helena Boham Carter could take it home since she's in the middle of The King's Speech Academy hype (12 NOMINATIONS!).

I think that Nolan deserved a nomination for Inception, even if he wouldn't win. And very glad to see Winter's Bone in the Best Picture, Jennifer Lawrence and Hawkes totally ruled that movie, if their categories wasn't locked i would root for them. Surprised to see Michelle Williams for Blue Valentine, thought they were going to overlook her like they did to Ryan. What a brave, raw, human performance. The Best Actresses of this year totally put Sandra and 2010's to shame.

And back to music: Amnesiac used to be a 3 star album and they raised half a star a few years ago. I don't think they would rate HTTT as a 4.5 and i have no idea why In Rainbows is not a 5, since like i said before, Queens of the Stone Age got away with it.

I love how AMG still has the 3 1/2 star review they did for Whatever they Say I Am... on the site. It looks really silly now that the album is a 5 star.

I think they are a joke for adjusting anything at all. Why can't the have the strength of their convictions and stick by their original verdict?
That Arctic Monkeys one is ridiculous, and Kid A was 4 stars originally. AMG editors are just sheep following the herd when they do this.

good for Interpol. thoroughly deserved.

I kinda agree with this. If Allmusic want to be the be-all-end-all source of pop music they'd like to be, by taking hindsight into account, then why not adjust the scores of every single great album after 5-10 years, or just not give scores at all until later, and have that score represent the "consensus"? Why change some deserving albums, but not others? It seems so arbitrary. What is the criteria then?

Just stick with what your critic originally gave an album and admit that you're just another review site.

I don't mind waiting to give 5 stars, but do it to albums that you at least liked on release. Bumping Funeral from 4.5 to 5 isn't a big stretch. Taking an album like Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not and bumping it a star and a half is a little fake and pandering.

I don't mind bumping an album like Kid A up an entire star considering they re-reviewed it (I never read their Arctic Monkeys review, so I can't speak to that one). I don't see it as pandering if the current staff just doesn't agree with the original review given. I change my mind on albums all of the time based on how well they're dating, holding up, etc. even pitchfork changes their minds on albums over time.

But are they doing it because they changed their opinion, or are they doing it because of what they perceive as common opinion?

You don't see obscure gems getting bumped, you see the ones that are already up high on AM.

To me the purpose of AllMusic is essentially to reflect the common opinion. Their ratings serve as a basic guide when approaching an new artist, and almost always reflect critical consensus. Along with everyone else, AllMusic underrates new records until consensus can be built. For canonical albums like the ones bumped up to 5 five stars, it makes sense to raise their ratings given the recent consensus built around such records.

The top 50 albums on AM's all-time list that don't have 5 stars on AMG.

01. Wilco- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
02. Lou Reed- Transformer
03. Neil Young- Harvest
04. The Who- Tommy
05. Sufjan Stevens- Illinois
06. Radiohead- In Rainbows
07. Animal Collective- Merriweather Post Pavilion
08. Pink Floyd- The Wall
09. Cream- Disraeli Gears
10. PJ Harvey- To Bring You My Love
11. The Stooges- The Stooges
12. Suicide- Suicide
13. Metallica- Metallica (“The Black Album”)
14. Kate Bush- Hounds of Love
15. Lou Reed- Berlin
16. Nine Inch Nails- The Downward Spiral
17. Robert Wyatt- Rock Bottom
18. The Human League- Dare!
19. Franz Ferdinand- Franz Ferdinand
20. Frank Zappa- Hot Rats
21. Peter Gabriel- So
22. The Doors- L.A. Woman
23. Antony and The Johnsons- I Am a Bird Now
24. Rage Against the Machine- Rage Against the Machine
25. Bob Dylan- Time Out of Mind
26. Pere Ubu- The Modern Dance
27. Prefab Sprout- Steve McQueen
28. The Flaming Lips- Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
29. Sigur Ros- Agaetis Byrjun
30. The Police- Synchronicity
31. OutKast- Speakerboxxx/ The Love Below
32. The Byrds- The Notorious Byrd Brothers
33. Talking Heads- Fear of Music
34. The Pogues- Rum, Sodomy & The Lash
35. Fleet Foxes- Fleet Foxes
36. R.E.M.- Out of Time
37. Beastie Boys- Ill Communication
38. The Magnetic Fields- 69 Love Songs
39. Kraftwerk- The Man Machine
40. The Smashing Pumpkins- Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness
41. M.I.A.- Kala
42. Joanna Newsom- Ys
43. Bjork- Post
44. PJ Harvey- Stories From the City, Stories from the Sea
45. Spiritualized- Ladies and Gentlemen, We are Floating in Space
46. Portishead- Third
47. David Bowie- Station to Station
48. Bob Marley and the Wailers- Live!
49. TV on the Radio- Return to Cookie Mountain
50. Donald Fagan- The Nightfly

97% of the top 100 is 5 star rated
91% of the top 200
82% of the top 300

I remember when Kala came out, they backed Arular down from 4.5 stars to 4. I still like Arular better! I agree with Jackson(?). I look to AMG to be more of a consensus on older albums. I think it's more helpful that way.

This is how good albums get lost. Henrik's formula sorts through all critical acclaim and bases results on numbers. Allmusic does the opposite, taking snapshots of critical acclaim and formulating results based on nothing but hype. It's garbage.

There is also Allmusic's massive snubbing of Blur's Think Tank. They gave it two stars and called it "a lousy album."

It's ranked #613 of all time here, and it got an 83 on Metacritic upon release. They should fix this one - it's embarrassing. It should be like 4.5 stars.

13 should be higher too. That's a great album.

I think every album in the top 500 should be at least a 4.5. Every album in the top 1000 should be at least a 4, and no album on the top 3000 should be any lower than 3.5.

There's only a Blur album that really is lousy and it is Leisure, but it had its reasons to be. Anything that came after it is genius to me: from Modern to Tank in many different ways. And while reviewing Gorillaz's Demon Days the guy couldn't stop comparing it to Think Tank. That review is kind of embarissing, just like Kate Bush's 2.5 stars for The Dreaming that they later turned into a 3.5, The Cure's 17 seconds being a 3 stars kinda bugs me too. And is my problem with Allmusic: These albums are acclaimed and considered to be among the greatest ever and they still have some lousy reviews and opinions. Why upgrade some and be the ultimate music guide and left others "faithful" to the original opinion? It's beyond me.

I agree with everything you said (yay!) except for Leisure being lousy. I think, like Pablo Honey, it is a decent album with some very notable songs (She's So High, There's No Other Way, and Sing). As a product of its time, I would give it 3 stars - good, but not great. Since nothing on that album is actually bad, though, I wouldn't call it lousy.

3.5 stars for 13 is ridiculous, that album is an achievement. I have a feeling that album would be a lot more acclaimed in general if they had taken out one or two of the longer songs, as it's a bit exhausting to listen through all the way. Still, it never lets up in quality, and IMO is much better than Parklife.

13, in my book, is their crowning achievement. I wouldn't change anything about it.

I don't think is lousy either, but that's how people describe it sometimes and i understand why they do, something that i can't accept when referred to later material. To me is a little inconsistent and more a follower than a forward thinking album like their later material. I would give it 3 stars too. But Think Tank is genius. Everything that came before too. Hard to believe that Modern Life and The Great Escape are placed low, defining britpop albums and to me the whole decade, including 13, that one might be my favorite of them.

I just love Blur. LOVE, LOVE.

The Kills' album Midnight Boom from 2008 has 5-Stars now...

http://www.allmusic.com/album/midnight-boom-r1313433

Now this was a weird, out of nowhere addition to the 5 star cannon

still rate albums in comparison only to that act's other albums? For instance, a 4-star album by the Rolling Stones may not necessarily be of equal quality to a 4-star album by Kenny G. It had been that way in the books and even explained on the website, but not sure if that's still the case.

That album was so underrated. I'm glad it's finally getting it's recognition. One of my favorite albums of 08

Also, Hell Hath No Fury by Clipse (http://www.allmusic.com/album/hell-hath-no-fury-r669489), which is a wicked album.

also 2000's and some 5-starred albums...

Real - Ednita Nazario.
Orlando Poleo - Lo Bueno de la Vida
Basic Channel - BCD-2
Clave y Guaguanco - La Rumba que no Termina
Fred Hersch - Leaves of Grass
Mike Keneally - The Universe Will Provide
Aphex Twin - 26 Mixes for Cash
Frank London's Klezmer Brass Allstars - Brotherhood of Brass
Michael Mayer - Immer
School Days - In Our Times
Metro Area - Metro Area
Jay-Z - the Blueprint
Basement Jaxx - Rooty
The Strokes - Is This It
System of a Down - Toxicity
Andre Rieu - La Vie Est Belle
Kid Koala - Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
Iskra 1903 - Chapter One
Eminem - Marshall Mathers LP
Masada - Masada: Live in Sevilla
Jurassic 5 - Quality Control
Outkast - Stankonia
The White Stripes - Elephant
David Lang - The Little Match Girl Passion
Casa de Leones - Casa de Leones - a 5 star reggaeton album (Only one I know of).
Dismember - Like an ever-flowing stream
Necrophagist- Onset of Putrefaction
Negura Bunget - OM
The Stooges - Raw Power (noticed it goes to 5 stars, then to 4.5, again to 5, 4.5, 5....)
Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath, Vol. 4
Judas Priest - British Steel (same issue as Raw Power, explained above).
Human League - Dare!

and why did allmusic remove the search button? It's hard to look for 5 stars 1 by 1. Anyone know of an easier way? How?

And we also had
The Kills - Midnight Boom

I also just got an email where I was notified of these new 5 stars:
N.W.A - Straight Outta Compton
The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin

Miranda Lambert - Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

I'm shocked Straight Outta Compton wasn't already a 5 given its influence to 90s hip-hop (both good and bad).

The Soft Bulletin is quite a grower; I can see why that one took a while to reach 5-star status.

Blackbyrds' City Life and Rickie Lee Jones' eponymous debut album dropped from 5 stars to 4 stars and NWA's Straight Outta Compton is on 5 now.

I also noticed the Rickie Lee Jones drop, they also downgraded her Volcano EP to 3.5 and The Magazine went from 2 stars to 3. They basically reevaluated her discography - still underrating Pirates as a 4. In the light of her new album, Gillian Welch's first album was also downgraded to a 4 and Time (The Revelator) is now a 4.5 star record.

Happy to see that "Oh, Inverted World" gets 5 stars. It's my personal favourite of the 00's.

For the rest, my opinion: AllMusic is incomplete (a lot of albums missing), is very US oriented and since a few years I'm completely ignoring their star ratings. I only go there once in a while to read album reviews.

Metal releases got a 10 album boost in 5-starred albums. Isis' Oceanic, Mastodon's Leviathan, Opeth's Blackwater Park, Napalm Death's Scum, Electric Wizard's Dopesmoker, Darktrone's A Blaze in the Northern Sky, In Flames' Jester Race, At The Gates' Slaughter of the Soul and Neurosis' Through Silver In Blood. I still can't get over the Rickie Lee drop.

Sorry,
edited a few minutes later cause I forgot to mention Emperor's In the Nightside Eclipse

I'm still waiting for a 5-star 00's latin music release. Hopefully Frank Reyes will get it and Aventura will drop to 2 stars..

Amy Winehouse, rest in peace.

Origin's Entity has 5 stars. A 2011 extreme metal release with 5 stars and no review proper. Just like Shining's Blackjazz that got 5 stars and got dropped to 4.5. And since when is Aqualung 4.5? And another thing, Wilco's reviewers mixed and confused Yankee Hotel with Summerteeth.

Gillian Welch's Time (The Revelator)is now a 4? And her Revival album is now a 4.5 pick.

It's the other way around, now. Too bad for Revival fans Though, Time is the best album of hers and should achieve such a rating.

I noticed a few weeks ago that Beyonce's B'Day is now a five star album.

It's a slap on the face see this album as a five-star and not Illinoise nor Yankee - both inside the top 5 - or so many of the other albums inside the top 100 of the decade.

Eh. I enjoy Sufjan Stevens and Wilco but I always felt those two albums were overrated anyway. YHF is one of my least favorite Wilco albums. The ones I would move to five stars immediately are In Rainbows and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. My guess is that Allmusic will do so within 2-3 years. Wouldn't be surprised if Illinoise and YHF are upgraded later as well.

I still don't believe B'day..

Allrovi, the Allmovie and Allmusic replacement site, is badly updated. For a second, I saw B'day on 5/5. It's on 4/5 there and Gillian Welch's Time had 4 and her debut had 5. False alarm with rovi.

Don't cross compare artists and genres when using this site. It's bound to disappoint you. Instead view any album awarded full 5 stars as one that was a particular highlight of a really noteworthy artist/band within the genre, at the time of it's release. Whether you like her or not, Beyonce has become somewhat on an icon within modern pop music. Some of her songs even made it onto 'end of decade lists' recently. So I don't find it too surprising that they wanted to represent this somehow. Not sure B'Day was the correct choice personally, but that's just how AllMusic goes around rewarding noteworthy musicians in pop. After all they cover every widely-recognised genre and everyone of them gets the same fair treatment.

Rock albums tend to get a many of the promotions. AllMusic loved YHF. It was their (joined) top album of 2004 along with The Flaming Lips 'Yoshimi...' - see their 'AllMusic loves 2004' entry. I expect the rating will eventually get changed. It just didn't make the cut this time. This also goes for many of the releases were mentioned above. Albums like 'In Rainbows', 'Merriweather Post Pavilion' and 'Sound of Silver' will probably require a longer gestation period before their editors feel they can properly reward them as classics - particularly MPP, which was only released two years ago.

As for those left confused about 'Midnight Boom' being made 5 stars, did you actually give the album a fair chance? It's a great little release!

I agree about the Kills and am happy to see them grow a pair a put their foot down on giving them such a high rating when it got great reviews but was still overlooked by critics in the Year End List department. To this day I can't look at a horse or a Sarah Jessica Parker flick without thinking of their marvelous Alphabet Pony.

Old thread. No recent 5 stars.

Yeah, I doubt they'll upgrade any new albums for another year or two now. However I do have high hopes that this means they'll soon be updating a compilation of pre-2000s albums soon. Based on AMs lists there are quite a few oldies that could probably do with the full five-star rating.

Any in particular you'd all like to see changed?

Not sure if we covered this one but...

Mastodon - Leviathan (2004)

No worries, Henrik and the team have already been alerted here about the new Metal updates on Allmusic. So chuffed that along with Mastodon, both Isis and Opeth got some recognition. All three are/were highly consistent acts.

Both Summerteeth and YHF deserve 5 stars.

Raw Power - Screams from the gutter

www.allmusic.com/album/screams-from-the-gutter-r16207

That's from 1985, not the 2000s.