Yes, it's finally time for the poll for the whole decade! Through the year, we have nominated 100 albums and 100 songs. Now it's time to rank these 100.

Or rather, rank all the albums and songs you've heard. I would also love to read your comments about your favorite albums and songs. (Comments are optional in this game.)

In the beginning of December, there will be a big countdown. The lists will be revealed, piece by piece, from place 100 to 1, where your comments will be presented along with the voting statistics.

The 100 albums and 100 songs are available as an Excel spreadsheet:

Please fill in your rankings and comments and send the spreadsheet to .

If you don't have Excel on your computer, you can find the spreadsheet at http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pd1P6z6KpG1d-MxvLsZRgAA&gid=0. You can then send your list to me in any format you like. However, I'd like to avoid all hints to what the final list will look like, so please do NOT post your lists here in the forum.

You're free to sort the albums/songs as you like, but please keep the ID column.

The formula that will be used is
Score=100*(1+20)/(Position+20)
For someone listing all 100 albums or songs, this will give the scores
Place 1 100.00
Place 2 95.45
Place 3 91.30
Place 4 87.50
Place 5 84.00
Place 6 80.77
Place 7 77.78
Place 8 75.00
Place 9 72.41
Place 10 70.00
.
.
.
Place 91 18.92
Place 92 18.75
Place 93 18.58
Place 94 18.42
Place 95 18.26
Place 96 18.10
Place 97 17.95
Place 98 17.80
Place 99 17.65
Place 100 17.50

For lists not including all 100 albums (or songs), the albums that weren't listed will get the score for the average position in the list. For example, if someone includes 59 albums, the remaining 41 albums will get the same score as the album on the 30th place.

As you can see above, the score difference is much bigger between album 1 and album 2 than between albums further down the list. While your favorite album will get a big push, the order of the albums at the bottom of your list has less significant impact. Non-ranked albums will get a better score than the lowest ranked albums, but the score will be far away from the score for your favorite album. To me, this seems like a fair treatment to the somewhat lesser-known albums.

However, you don't need to worry about the score formula, I will take care of that when you have sent me your list.

Good luck with your list!

Just a quick note, in case anyone else is confused: the TINDERSTICKS album listed on the poll spreadsheet is their 1993 debut (not the identically titled second album from two years later).

These are great lists. This is going to be fun.

Yes, it's a pretty decent list. And quite some work to listen to it all again. But fun for sure.

it's a decent indie rock list
no country, very few rap, some elctro, no soul/r&b, no jazz, no blues, no roots rock, only one world album (Buena Vista)

"it's a decent indie rock list
no country, very few rap, some elctro, no soul/r&b, no jazz, no blues, no roots rock, only one world album (Buena Vista)"

Agreed. It's very limited. Pretty much just a college radio "best of".

Although, my lists are as much to blame as I really only branched out a little bit into hip-hop. The rest of mine are pretty much indie rock....The 90's were the boom years of both genres. But, it is disappointing to see some of the classics of hip-hop not included.

I agree with John. Everything is dyed white. That is why I try to encourage my lists to the black music (if I have to choose)

Thought this might be interesting: lists of the 10 highest-ranked 1990s albums and songs on Acclaimed Music not included in the final decade polls.

ALBUMS
1. Dr. Dre, THE CHRONIC
2. METALLICA ("The Black Album")
3. The Chemical Brothers, DIG YOUR OWN HOLE
4. Beastie Boys, ILL COMMUNICATION
5. Hole, LIVE THROUGH THIS
6. Beck, MELLOW GOLD
7. A Tribe Called Quest, THE LOW END THEORY
8. Fugees, THE SCORE
9. Daft Punk, HOMEWORK
10. Tortoise, MILLIONS NOW LIVING WILL NEVER DIE

SONGS
1. Dr. Dre feat. Snoop Doggy Dogg, "Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang"
2. Fatboy Slim, "The Rockafeller Skank"
3. TLC, "No Scrubs"
4. Metallica, "Enter Sandman"
5. TLC, "Waterfalls"
6. Madonna, "Ray of Light"
7. Cornershop, "Brimful of Asha"
8. The Chemical Brothers, "Block Rockin' Beats"
9. Pearl Jam, "Jeremy"
10. Arrested Development, "Tennessee"

I wasn't around yet when the early 90's voting was going on. A lot of good stuff is missing. I just finished filling in my rankings (but haven't submitted anything yet). What is with all the Brit-Pop? My God.

Sorry to not have been involved in the early rounds of voting. It's a crime that Low End Theory is not on the list.

Sorry if I missed this, but what's the deadline for submissions?

And here are the 10 lowest AM-ranked albums and songs that we voted for.

Albums
1. Pavement - Wowee Zowee
2. Suede - Coming Up
3. Blur - Modern Life Is Rubbish
4. Tindersticks - 1st Album
5. Tool - Aenima
6. Spiritualized - Lazer Guided Melodies
7. Belle and Sebastian - Tigermilk
8. Ride - Nowhere
9. Foo Fighters - Foo Fighters
10. R.E.M. - New Adventures in Hi-Fi

Songs (this is a lot more interesting as none of these 10 are in the AM top 3000!)
Beck - The New Pollution
Belle and Sebastian - Like Dylan in the Movies
Bonnie "Prince" Billy - I See a Darkness
Flaming Lips - Waitin' for a Superman
Pearl Jam - Black
Pulp - Babies
R.E.M. - Nightswimming
Radiohead - Let Down
Smashing Pumpkins - Tonight, Tonight
Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen, We're Floating in Space

********* Deadline is November 30 *********

16 songs from the top 100 90s list makes my brand new personal top 1000!

2Pac - California Love
Beta Band - Dry the Rain
Blur - For Tomorrow
Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah
Eminem - My Name Is
House of Pain - Jump Around
Mercury Rev - Goddess on a Highway
My Bloody Valentine - Soon
Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
Oasis - Live Forever
Primal Scream - Come Together
Pulp - Common People
R.E.M. - Nightswimming
Radiohead - No Surprises
Smashing Pumpkins - Today
Elliott Smith - Waltz #2


Happy voting process for us all!

And from this corner of the world the 20 best 90s songs are:

13. John Ottman – Usual Suspects Main Theme
14. High Llamas – Literature Is Fluff
15. Spiritualized – Take Your Time
17. Cardiacs – Dirty Boy
20. Pops Staples – Down In Mississippi
30. Charlatans – Just Lookin’
32. Frank Black – Abstract Plain
36. Teenage Fanclub – Everything Flows
40. Air – La Femme d'Argent
44. Pulp – Common People
48. MOP – Ante Up
58. Elliott Smith – Angeles
59. L7 – Shove
64. Bob Hund – Upp, Upp, Upp, Ner
69. Elliott Smith – Waltz #2
70. Prodigy - Out Of Space (Outro Remix)
72. Jane's Addiction - Three Days
75. DMX – Bring Your Whole Crew
77. Tindersticks – If You´re Looking For A Way Out
95. Frank Black – Western Star

Go "Common People" and "Waltz #2"!

Ok, I am going to make this fair, I am going to vote the albums that I voted number one.

Albums
1. Nine Inch Nails - The Fragile
2. Megadeth - Rust In Peace
3. Tool - Ænima
4. Nirvana - Nevermind
5. Iced Earth - Something Wicked This Way Comes
6. Wu-Tang Clan - Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
7. Dr. Dre - The Chronic
8. Nine Inch Nails - Downward Spiral
9. Radiohead - OK Computer
10. Oasis - (What's the Story) Mourning Glory?

Henrik kind of buried this request in his initial posting here, so just to forestall any further posts like The Swede's above:

"However, I'd like to avoid all hints to what the final list will look like, so please do NOT post your lists here in the forum."

The operative word there would be ... NOT.

Since I almost forgot about it, and I assume I'm not the most forgetful person (probably among the top though) I'll give this a kick.

Lets get crackin'.

About the scoring. Does that mean anything that lists below the mean, but I like, I will be *hurting* by listing?

What if there's an album I didn't buy because I heard the one or two songs on the radio and hated them? Shouldn't I be able to list them and hurt them?

Bill, I leave it up to you to decide in your specific case.

If someone needs a general rule for albums you haven't heard in its entirety, this is my view on it:
To put the album at the end of your list, I think you should have heard at least a few songs from the album, so that you're quite certain you will not like the rest of the songs either.

Okay, that's fair.

This formula seems like it's a great formula, if the albums you've heard are a random sample of albums from the list.

The only problem is, the ones you've heard are partially based on recommendations from people who share your taste and partially based on hearing a few songs from the albums in advance. So if you've heard maybe 50 albums on the list and like maybe 45 of them, you have to pick and choose which ones not to include so you don't end up hurting albums you like.

I don't think I'll do the songs list, just because when I listen to albums I don't tend to pay attention to song names.

Another reminder to send your ballots before the end of the month. If you participate, you will get to know which other forum posters you agree with most (and least). Here are some correlation coefficients so far.

(The coefficient can vary between -1 and 1.)

Albums poll:
Voters who agree most: Collin and Jonah (+0.42)
Voters who agree least: Twister and Torsten (-0.18)
Voter who agree most with the AM ranking: Rocky Raccoon (+0.46)
Voter who agree least with the AM ranking: Tim (+0.06)

Songs poll:
Voters who agree most: MightyMadMax and Twister (+0.45)
Voters who agree least: Collin and MightyMadMax (-0.12)
Voter who agree most with the AM ranking: DrDre (+0.27)
Voter who agree least with the AM ranking: Collin (-0.14)

"Voter who agree most with the AM ranking: DrDre (+0.27)"

Hmm, good or bad sign? I did not compare the 100 with the AM ranking up front, so maybe I'm just a "mainstream" guy?

And it also means you got my e-mail today!

Yes, thanks Dre!

On Friday, it's the last day to send me your 1990s lists. I hope there are quite a few of you who are still wondering whether you should put Beck ahead of Blur, Oasis ahead of Nirvana, etc.

I hope many of you will be hangin' around this weekend, as I'm going to present the lists slowly from #100 to #1 using the following format (probably I'll do songs on Saturday and albums on Sunday):

#??

Pavement - Wowee Zowee (1995)

Score: xxx points

Biggest fans: xxx

Comments: xxx

Acclaimed Music 1990s rank: 320