Hi all!

I hope you have seen the links to these lists on the homepage. Any comments?

Here are the lists I have used:
Amazon.com (USA)
Intro (Germany)
Nöjesguiden (Sweden)
Rough Trade (UK)
Uncut (UK)
Expressen (Sweden)
Heaven (The Netherlands)
Les Inrockuptibles (France)
Word (UK)
NME (UK)
Mojo (UK)
Q (UK)
Rumore (Italy)
Dagbladet (Norway)
Dagsavisen (Norway)
Musik Express (Germany)
Blender (USA)
Vibe (USA)
Billboard (USA)
Welt am Sonntag (Germany)
Musikbyrån (Sweden)
Rolling Stone (USA)
Playlouder (UK)
E! Online (USA)
Glide (USA)
People (USA)
woxy.com (USA)
Cokemachineglow (Canada)

Thanks again to all of you who have posted lists here in the forum!

Hi Henrik-

Great work! Just a couple of questions, and tell me to screw off if you must!

Will Slant Magazine's list be included?

Do you have a timeline for inclusion of the older lists people sent in that feature as "Lists to Be Added Sooner or Later"?

I think Slant's list was by a single critic, so nope.

I will add a few other lists soon, but the longest and most interesting lists will take a long time to add, so I cannot give a timeline for this.

New lists are simple to add if all albums or songs are already on Acclaimed Music. But for critics lists with lots of albums outside Acclaimed Music, I have to find out if it they have been listed anywhere else and check their ratings in music guides. This takes time! However, I am going to stick with the ratings, as I think they make Acclaimed Music much more accurate than a few more lists.

Thanks for that. Let me know if you need any help putting things in Excel format, etc. I'm on Christmas break now!

I must say that the E! list is pretty eclectic, for what's a "mainstream" outlet.

Great work. Are there any changes on the 2004 list other than Arcade Fire and Annie?

It's interesting, 2004 looks like a really poor year, one album in the top 100, 2 in the top 200!

Also, 2005 looks even worse. I expect there will be some movement still to come but it really does look like we're in the doldrums these days.

I wouldn't say a year is necessarily poor because it only has 2 in the top 200. Considering the number of years that are represented in the lists, the average must be under 4 per year in the top 200. I think it's nice to see 47 albums from 2004 in the list- that seems to be quite a bit!

Other artists that have climbed the 2004 list are Feist, Go! Team, Rilo Kiley, Dungen and Kings of Leon.

Just in case you aren't already aware, this index may save you some work: http://www.fimoculous.com/year-review-2005.cfm

:)

Shaun

It's a little early to be talking about the number of 2005 albums in the top 200 anyway since there are almost no all-time lists that include 2005 albums at this point; the rankings are pretty much based on their year-end rankings only.

For the December 24 update, the follwing lists were added:

Gaffa (Denmark)
The Observer (UK)
Pitchforkmedia (USA)
PopMatters (USA)
Spin (USA)
Wanadoo (UK)
Rolling Stone (Germany)
Under the Radar (USA)
Associated Press (USA)
Filter (USA)
Kerrang (UK)
OOR (The Netherlands)
Prefix (USA)
The Wire (UK)
Tiny Mix Tapes (USA)
Picadilly Records (UK)
Stylus (USA)
The Milk Factory (UK)

Thanks once again for finding these lists for me. Merry Christmas to you ALL!!!

PS. Stefan, I look forward to seeing your next comparison.

Sigh...Anniemal had a very brief stay in the ranks.

2005 may not neccessarily be a poor year, but the albums that have dominated the year end polls are mostly by rather new and obscure acts, which means they will need some more time to climb the listings properly.

When a list - like the woxy.com one - specifically states that it's for a certain genre, do you then only use that list for comparison to similar albums (i.e. other alternative albums in the case of woxy)?

Genre-specific lists from genre-specific magazine (or in this case a radio station) are used for comparison between all albums. Genre-specific lists from sources who cover other genres as well are not included at all.

This is perhaps not the optimal way, but the only way that is reasonable for me. It would be too hard to judge what albums are alternative, soul, etc., and it would be too much work for me to include lists like Mojo's "best psychedelic albums".

But doesn't your method favour genres that are likely to have special magazines then?

I mean, there are lots of specialist magazines for hip-hop, electronica and metal, while there are certainly not a lot of specialist magazines for psychedelic twee pop. Wouldn't it then, at least, be fair if Mojo's list of psychedelic albums would count?

Doesnt really seem to favour metal.

--But doesn't your method favour genres that are likely to have special magazines then?--

That has sort of been my point all along. Thge majority of music sources either focus specifically on rock and alt music, or they focus on it more than other genres.

Think you might have a point there. Certainly metal seems to get completely overlooked by most critics.

In my opinion, the problem is not the magazines who define themselves as 'Metal' or 'Hip-Hop' sources, since these magazines exist because there is a higher demand for these genres (especially metal) than what's covered by the "all-genre" magazines. IMO, this needs to reflected at Acclaimed Music.

No, the problem is all the sources that claim they have "the best albums of 2005" without including any jazz, world, metal, country...