Hi folks, I've just updated the site. Finally...

I thought I should say something about the changes since the last update. As you may notice the albums from the most recent years have moved quite a lot. Some up and some down. This is because I have (more than before) tweaked the positions to make the years more even. I have to do some tweaking, otherwise the positions for the most recent albums and songs are too much dependent on whether the latest lists are conservative alltime-lists or tilted towards the 00s ("xxx songs you must download to your iPod").

Also, you may notice that world music albums have climbed up the lists without any additions of world music lists. That's because I have given music from countries with no critics lists a little handicap.

schleuse,
Sorry to mess up your bracketology game with new AM positions. I am sure that you will continue with the old rankings, but I couldn't resist looking at what the difference would be if you started the bracketology game today.

New songs in AM top 256:
The Velvet Underground - Heroin
TLC - No Scrubs
Love - Alone Again Or
U2 - Sunday Bloody Sunday
Britney Spears - Toxic
Robert Johnson - Cross Road Blues
Talking Heads - Psycho Killer
Muddy Waters - Mannish Boy
Stardust - Music Sounds Better with You
The Modern Lovers - Roadrunner
Sly and the Family Stone - Dance to the Music
Afrika Bambaataa - Planet Rock
The LA's - There She Goes
Blue Oyster Cult - (Don't Fear) The Reaper

Songs that are no longer in the AM top 256:
Lynyrd Skynyrd - Free Bird
The Coasters - Yakety Yak
James Taylor - Fire and Rain
Bob Dylan - Blowin' in the Wind
The Drifters - There Goes My Baby
Don McLean - American Pie
The Everly Brothers - Cathy's Clown
Justin Timberlake - My Love
Pink Floyd - See Emily Play
Jackie Wilson - (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher
The Undertones - Teenage Kicks
Ramones - Sheena Is a Punkrocker
The Crystals - He's a Rebel
Pearl Jam - Jeremy

Somehow I managed to post a question about the update before you even alerted the forum that there was one. Otherwise my 2007 question would be here.

I just downloaded the album spreadsheet file. Including the 10/24 positions and the change column are inspired ideas! The site just keeps getting better.

Jeez...I hadn't scanned the lists carefully enough. I'm even more unhappy now.

On the upside (from my selfish perspective), if I had used these rankings we would have had no "Teenage Kicks" or "Sheena Is a Punkrocker." And, even better, I think the list is generally improving (or at least lining up better with my own tastes).

Oh well...now that the new rankings are up, I'm prepared to unleash a double-secret project I've had in mind for a while (don't worry, it's relatively tiny).

Thank you very much Henrik !
I'll have a look and give you my comments if I find the time to do so
Already, some progressions that make me happy : + 22 for one of my favorite albums "Rock Bottom" by Robert Wyatt (it was #1 in the latest album top 100 I made but it was in... 1997 ! I'm working on a new one)
+1 for Born to Run
the arrival of 2 blues songs in the top 256
(by the way, I have a very good list of best blues standards made by French specialist Gerard Herzhaft, I thought it was not a top priority but I'l send it to you when I can)
A magnificient +33 for Live at St Quentin (thank you Phil Manoeuvre)
etc, etc
thanks again !
Sad news : -7 for Darkness on the edge of town

'There She Goes' in the top 256
Thumbs up

Have more perusing to do, but great work, H.

Madge currently in the top 50. I think this may be the first time she's been there since I've known of the site.

Godd news: Macarena (Los del Río) out.

H- a couple things about the Madge info:

* The citation for 1001 Songs is not listed under the info for "Into the Groove" (is it already considered in its ranking?)
* The Sunday Times list is from this year; the Washington Blade list is from 2004.

Sorry, JR. A mistake...you will have to wait until the next update until the AM place for "Into the Groove" is corrected.

Thanks for the update about the years.

Not a problem at all, sir. :)

I just noticed the Rolling Stone 100 Best Albums of the 80s list now credited to Australia- was that a recent change? The rocklist site says the Australian edition had the USA list in that, too, and there are some differences- if an album appeared on the Australian list and not the USA one, were the USA ones just pushed down in that list? That would leave some on the uSA list not appearing on the Australain one. Kinda like the Rolling Stone 500 Songs list, I guess.

I don't like all these error findings ... but the Rolling Stone error is not as bad as the Madonna error. The RS error appears only in the program that creates the album pages, which is separate from the calculation program.

For the calculations, since the Australian list is mostly just a copy of the US list, albums included in both lists are only counted for in the US list. Nevertheless, I think I will include both entries on the album pages, since that is just a write-up of all lists.

Do you really mean to include The Button-Down Mind Of Bob Newhart, a spoken comedy album?

As the site is called "Acclaimed Music", you mean? I haven't thought about this before, I was just including recommended albums, whatever genre.

And thinking about it, I don't really have a problem with it now either.

Hmm, I didn't see that the Newhart album had been included until Shaun mentioned it just now. It is indeed a strange inclusion. But ... it DID win Album of the Year at the Grammys (it's hard for us today to imagine the incredible commercial success of this comedy album, and how instantly famous Newhart became after it came out), so it kinda sorta belongs here.

Or maybe it doesn't. That's up to Henrik. It's pretty damn far afield from most of what's here, but then again so are the WIZARD OF OZ and SOUND OF MUSIC soundtracks and EINSTEIN ON THE BEACH and INDETERMINACY.

And I still maintain that THE SUN SESSIONS and SINGLES GOING STEADY should be here...

Did any of the Christian music lists make it into the update? I don't see them on the site...

There are lots of lists that weren't included in the update. The CCM lists will be included but they require a lot of work from me as most - if not all - of the albums are outside AM and I have to crosscheck with the other lists if they have been included somewhere else. Therefore the CCM lists have not been top priority.