Having done the half-2007 quick update, I'm sitting here thinking how wonderful it would be if there was a non-US/UK metacritic website as well.

Then it struck me that together we could actually do this. With regular writers from Spain, France, Germany... (I think I could make that list quite long) we could probably succeed with this. If we want to.

I haven't thought much about how this could be done, but maybe a simple Excel spreadsheet (similar to the sheets for the 1990s poll, with magazine names on the top row)? Problem is, I have very little time to administrate this thing, so it would have to be a solution where every contributor enters his information right into the sheet.

What do you think?

I think it's a great idea! Unfortunately, I don't have access to any of these lists.

I have started a little bit with this. To see the ratings, click on the Excel image.


The ratings are mainly from Swedish sources, but I also have the June issue of the German Musikexpress. That's because they had a one page article about Acclaimed Music. STEFAN kindly sent this magazine to me. Thanks again, Stefan!!!

This time the link should be working.

Ratings from the websites of Danish 'Gaffa' and German 'Laut' have been added.

You can click on the "100"s to read the positive reviews (if you know the language).

New additions: German "Plattentests" and Norwegian "Dagbladet" and "Aftenposten".

Here's a quick look at the current top 10 of 2007:

1. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
2. Nick Lowe - At My Age
3. Jamie T - Panic Prevention
4. The National - Boxer
5. Mavis Staples - We'll Never Turn Back
6. Neil Young - Live at Massey Hall 1971
7. Patrick Wolf - The Magic Position
8. Wilco - Sky Blue Sky
9. Bloc Party - A Weekend in the City
10. Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank

Henrik, what about italian webzines or magazines? I could try to add scores from Blow Up magazine (not on web) and Sentireascoltare webzine (www.sentireascoltare.com).
Just a question: have we to add scores just for records already included on the list, or for every record rewieved on the magazines?
Blow Up rewievs at least 200 records every month. It would actually be difficult add all scores.

Giuseppe, that's great!

You can add whatever you want. I have added everything on the 60 albums currently in my metacritic (US/UK) summary plus some other albums (mostly Swedish) that have been discussed a lot in my own country.

If you add ratings from Italian magazines for all albums already in the spreadsheet plus some other albums that have been praised in Italy that would be awesome!!

OK, I'm starting to add

Finalmente anche una rivista italiana... Non vedo l'ora, Giuseppe!

As for me, there are already four german magazines included in your list, Henrik. We certainly don't want the non-US/UK-list to be Germany-biased. But if there is a german magazine whose ratings you would like to include, that shouldn't be a problem...

Well, right now it's Sweden-biased, so there's definitely a need for more sources from your much bigger country (inhabitant-wise, at least).

I had a look earlier on at some other German websites (I remember Spex and Intro), but they didn't have any ratings, just reviews. I don't know if there's a way to handle that? I think the metacritic staff actually grade reviews from some sources without ratings (based on the positive/negative tone of the review), but that's an enormous amount of work.

Could it be that Spex etc. show ratings in the paper magazines?

In any case, I would appreciate a lot if you could find more ratings from the German Rolling Stone. Thanks!!

Updated again with ratings from the Hungarian WAN2.

SPEX is without any kind of ratings, there's only an "album of the month", that's it. I think it's the same with INTRO...

If nobody else here is a regular reader of the german ROLLING STONE, then I could post their ratings, of course.

I'd be happy to add in for Norwegian newspaper VG.

Rune, that's great! I'm looking forward to seeing the ratings.

I might be slow, but how do I do it? I've got the grades right here, but how do I submit them?

You can just email them to Henrik, his email is at the bottom of the main page.

Henrik, you know that I’m always willing to help, but I’m sorry that I can offer little help in this question. I’ll try to explain:

a) Magazine publications:
- Rockdelux: I am a suscriptor so I’ve got all the issues from 1998 and they offer monthly at least 50 or 60 album reviews but without points. They only list an album of the month and point to 6 o 7 albums every month (but not always positively, I remember a pointed review of the second albums from Franz Ferdinand or CocoRosie but negatively). I can send you the names of the albums but I don’t know it you can use it.
- Other good publications that don’t give points in the album reviews are: Ruta 66 (an interesting publication at least during 80s and 90s about “real” rock Stooges-style), Efe Eme (a nice publication about classic rock now distributed for free on the net in http://www.efeeme.com/ ) and RockZone (a good publication but about a style that I don’t like much, metal).
- About magazines that give 1 to 5 points are: Trax (well, really “were” in this case, in June they released the last issue; another dance magazine that closes the doors!) and the Spanish Rolling Stone. But, Henrik, I’m so sorry but I’m not going to buy the RS monthly (I don’t like it at all, it’s so superficial and it lacks solid criteria). I’ll ask my friends if there’s someone who buys it regularly (but I doubt it) but I prefer to spend my money in any other thing.
- There’s another magazines that I don’t buy: Popular 1, Spanish Kerrang, Hip Hop Nation, … I don’t’ like the too specific genre magazines, well, generally I don’t like the simple minded approaches to music, I prefer the eclectic approach.
b) Web-pages:
- I can help in this point. In Mondo Sonoro web-page you can find the reviews of may albums with a qualification of 1 to 5 points. The address is http://www.mondosonoro.com/ and then you must click in “DISCOS”. If you click on the “+” you’ll find the points that gets every record reviewed. I hope you find it useful.
- Supernovapop, http://www.supernovapop.com/index.aspx Click again in “discos”. They qualify from 1 to 10. Not as representative as Mondo Sonoro but…
- Other good Spanish web pages but don’t give points in their reviews: Muzikalia, El Lorito, Zona Zero, Alta Fidelidad.

I think the Mondo Sonoro points are worth to be included…

Honorio, I perfectly understand. And agree. I have already found and included the ratings from Mondo Sonoro. Supernovapop looks good too. Would it be OK for you to add their ratings?

In addition to Mondo Sonoro I have also added HUMO from Belgium. And then I have worked a lot on the spreadsheet to make it more informative and user-friendly. It now includes information from www.metacritic.com as well. The metascore is divided into US and UK ratings, similar to my quick monthly updates in the forum. My plan is that this Excel sheet will replace those quick updates.

Is it user-friendly or is it too much information, too messy? All your opinions are useful to me.

Please click on the image below.

Updated again with ratings from Norwegian VG (thanks Rune!) and Italian critic Piero Scaruffi.

New update with Supernovapop from Spain and more Musikexpress ratings (thanks to Stefan).

I'm currently adding French ratings from Les Inrockuptibles and Rock & Folk
My wife and I are also a subscriber of Telerama, a magazine devoted to all forms of culture and entertainment (famous for its movie reviews, but a couple of good critics write a handful of reviews every week and I think they give ratings; I'll have to check)

I could add ratings from DER SPIEGEL (biggest German newsweekly). The Online edition reviews 4-6 records per week. But as the section is called "The most important records of the week" they mainly review what they like, i.e. most of the reviews have high ratings (6/10 - 10/10). Would such a bias be ok?

nicolas and Helm, that's awesome news! Thanks!

Just download the current version of the spreadsheet, add the ratings and send to me by email (the address is in the "Info" sheet).

This project is going very well, I think!

New additions:

Soundi (Finland)
Rock & Folk (France) - more ratings will be added by nicolas
Der Spiegel (Germany) - thanks to Helm!
Avopolis (Greece)
Pop-Rock (Greece)

Next week I'll have some days off, so I'll add all the ratings of the german Rolling Stone and Musikexpress that have been published so far this year.

I didn't see that the "Musikexpress"-ratings had already been included; so I'll concentrate on the Rolling Stone only...

The sheet has been updated again. This time with ratings from the French magazines Rock&Folk and Telerama. Many thanks to Nicolas for sending me these ratings!

tfguenther, I look forward to seeing your Rolling Stone ratings when you get the time to send me those.

In addition to the "rest of the world" ranking, I have now added rankings based on German, Nordic and "rest of Europe" critics.

Let me know it the spreadsheet has become too messy.

Ni, it's Ok, I think it's even clearer and very interesting to see the differences beteween different parts of Europe
Good job, Henrik
Thank You

Henrik, I found a website of a new Dutch music magazine called Revolver:

http://www.revolvermagazine.nl/

The site contains album reviews with ratings from 1 to 5 stars.

The site is in Dutch only and there is no web page, which nicely lists all albums and ratings, but clicking on 'Archief' (top menu) and then 'Waardering' (left menu) is a good start.

So how can we add these ratings to your Excel list? Not sure how much work this will be, but I could scan all reviews, collect the ratings and send it per e-Mail to you. How about that?

Excellent, DrDre!

I'd like some kind of way to find out what the best music is that isn't in english. (Critics from US and UK, naturally, mostly review stuff written in the language they speak, so you don't get to hear all the stuff that America lumps into 'world').

then you should go through the Excel shhet and search albums from non-English speaking countries. some of these bands sing in their native tongue.
I think of Dungen (Swedish), Manu Chao (Spanish/French/Portuguese), etienne Daho (french).
But we should start a thread about non-english music;
We who are from abroad (France, Spain, NL, Scandinavia, Italy etc) have probably a lot of bands to share.
BTW, where are you from ?
I started a thread for every AM visitor called "let's talk demographics" that I post every 15 days. Feel free to post. I'm gonna do it right now;
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