Better overall 100: BEA vs RYM? - Music - Forums : Best Ever Albums

theblueboy

I was surprised to see the differences between the two sites when I looked at the top 100s today. The difference in placing of some albums (e.g. Nevermind; Vespertine) is interesting.

Better representation of undisputed classics in BEA but better diversity (less rockism) in RYM’s chart in my view.

I’m basically undecided but I’ll probably go BEA as there are a few albums that surprise me in RYM’s top 100.

theblueboy

Links to the charts:

https://www.besteveralbums.com/overall.php

https://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/al...oundtrack/

kokkinos

Hey, cool idea, I hadn’t taken a look at either of those in a while, I had no idea To Pimp A Butterfly climbed all the way to #2, good job RYM!
Not sure BEA is better in “representing undisputed classics”. I’d agree with this statement if by that term you mean albums with great cultural significance (i.e. London Calling / The Wall / Thriller / Joshua Tree / Stone Roses / Nevermind / What’s The Story Morning Glory / Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, etc.). Otherwise, I’d say RYM’s list is much closer to "the canon".
Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, that’s an easy vote for RYM. As you correctly pointed out, it’s significantly more diverse. As a result, the genres I enjoy have a much stronger presence.
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theblueboy

kokkinos wrote:

Hey, cool idea, I hadn’t taken a look at either of those in a while, I had no idea To Pimp A Butterfly climbed all the way to #2, good job RYM!
Not sure BEA is better in “representing undisputed classics”. I’d agree with this statement if by that term you mean albums with great cultural significance (i.e. London Calling / The Wall / Thriller / Joshua Tree / Stone Roses / Nevermind / What’s The Story Morning Glory / Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, etc.). Otherwise, I’d say RYM’s list is much closer to "the canon".
Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, that’s an easy vote for RYM. As you correctly pointed out, it’s significantly more diverse. As a result, the genres I enjoy have a much stronger presence.

Thanks for commenting! I guess I do think of classics as being culturally significant, whilst also gaining critical approval (even if it takes a while for critics to come round). On RYM, I was surprised by things like Godspeed and Fishmans being really high, mainly because I’m just not so familiar with them. Though RYM does seem to give a more modern take somehow and I admit BEA’s top 100 is way too rockist.

theblueboy

The Peel sessions by the Fall is at #91 on RYM. The best placing for the Fall. It is ranked at over #23,000 on BEA and is only ranked as the Fall’s 28th best album here. A pretty wild discrepancy! Shows the difference between being highly rated and being popular, though I would have expected a greater convergence between the two sites.

MadhattanJack

Just to end the list...

Gender: Male

BEA probably appeals to critics, record-store owners, and older people in general who have listened to tons of albums, because once you've listened to, say, over a thousand albums it becomes an interesting intellectual exercise to review everything you've heard and make qualitative judgments about it.

Conversely, RYM is based on ratings, not rankings, so while it's more attractive and carries more detailed information, I see it as inherently flawed in that respect and therefore less interesting. Someone like me, for example, could just show up on RYM and give all the XTC albums 5 stars, thus skipping the qualitative evaluation completely. This is in fact what I want to do, but if you don't ask me to actually rank the albums in question, then what you're really measuring in the aggregate is how many fans there are of a particular album or band, you're not really measuring how good or popular the album is relative to other albums.

To some degree I can work around this by simply making charts in which XTC albums are always ranked at the top, and in fact this is what I've been doing (though I try to be "reasonable" about it). But I still can't just max out every one of them like I can on RYM, and since Best Overall charts are much more heavily weighted, there's a limit to how much of an impact I can have doing this without looking like I'm just here to promote one band.

Long story short, I would trust a BEA ranking far more readily than a RYM ranking, on just about any album, in any genre, over any period of time. To me, that easily makes up for other aspects in which BEA is lacking, i.e., ergonomics and details.

Speaking of which, I should add that there are probably "ergonomic" reasons for why BEA ratings skew more towards older and more rock-oriented albums, that go beyond simple demographics. In particular, BEA doesn't do anywhere near enough to incentivize rating and reviewing of other people's charts — and in fact, I strongly suspect that people who really care about how their rankings are received/viewed by others (and want to see how much) don't last very long here because of this, leaving only people who don't care, like myself.

That might also explain why the forums are so civil these days (I've only been here a year, but having reviewed several older threads it's pretty clear they were less civil in the past). I'm totally theorizing now, but my guess is that members who stick around and become "regulars" either don't want to argue about album rankings, or they're among the few who over time have learned to express their distaste for things (such as albums) without offending other people. So in many ways that's good, but it probably also reinforces the "older-person skew" because older people are more likely to not care, and are also more likely to find online hostility distasteful, at least after the first few minutes or so.

Hayden

Location: Vietnam

Aight, so I hastily typed this by hand instead of copy/paste, so there'll be typos. Sorry.

I’m not super fussed about the order— so, to me, here’s the difference between the two—

RYM has—
A Tribe Called Quest - Low End Theory
A Tribe Called Quest - Midnight Marauders
Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 85-92
Bjork - Vespertine
Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath - Master of Reality
Bob Dylan - Bringing It All Back Home
Bob Dylan - The Bootleg Series Vol. 4
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band - Hammersmith Odeon, London 75
Can - Future Days
Cocteau Twins - Heaven or Las Vegas
Coltrane - The Olatunji Concert
DJ Shadow - Endtroducing
Danny Brown - Atrocity Exhibition
David Bowie - Blackstar
David Bowie - Station to Station
Death Grips - The Money Store
Dilla - Donuts
Elliott Smith - Either/Or
Fishmans - 98.12.28
Fishmans - Long Season
GZA - Liquid Swords
Godspeed You Black Emperor - F#A#
Kanye West - The College Dropout
King Crimson - Red
King Crimson - The Great Deceiver
Leonard Cohen - Songs of Leonard Cohen
MF DOOM - MM… Food
Metallica - Ride The Lightning
Microphones - The Glow Pt. 2
Miles Davis - Bitches Brew
Miles Davis - In A Silent Way
Neil Young - Live At Massey Hall
Neil Young - Rust Never Sleeps
Nirvana - Unplugged
Outkast - Aquemini
Slowdive - Souvlaki
Swans - Soundtracks for The Blind
Swans - Swans Are Dead
Talk Talk - Laughing Stock
Talking Heads - Stop Making Sense
Talking Heads - The Name of This Band is Talking Heads
The Beach Boys - The Smile Sessions
The Fall - The Complete Peel Sessions
Wu-Tang Clan - Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

(this is give-or-take ~3 comp titles)

BEA has—
Arcade Fire - Funeral
Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run
David Bowie - Hunky Dory
Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights
Jeff Buckley - Grace
Joni Mitchell - Blue
LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
Led Zeppelin - Houses of The Holy
Led Zeppelin - I
Led Zeppelin - II
Love - Forever Changes
Michael Jackson - Thriller
Neil Young - After The Gold Rush
Nirvana - In Utero
Nirvana - Nevermind
Oasis - What’s The Story Morning Glory?
Pearl Jam - Ten
Pink Floyd - The Wall
Pixies - Surfer Rosa
Prince - Purple Rain
Queen - A Night At The Opera
REM - Automatic For The People
Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool
Radiohead - The Bends
Rolling Stones - Exile On Main St
Rolling Stones - Let It Bleed
Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers
Sigur Ros - Agaetis Byrjun
Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell
Tame Impala - Lonerism
The Clash - London Calling
The Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness
The Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses
The Strokes - Is This It
The Who - Who’s Next
U2 - The Joshua Tree
Van Morrison - Astral Weeks
Weezer - Blue
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Zombies - Odessey And Oracle

We share 55% of our top 100 (which is actually less than I thought, but I'm glad it's less than 75% because that would be boring). Surprised London Calling, Joni's Blue, Agaetis Byrjun and Purple Rain aren't in RYM's top 100 Think

— as for us, I imagine Bringing It All Back Home, Blackstar and Either/Or will enter BEA's top 100 eventually.

RYM's list included archive release, live albums and soundtracks. Figured it was fair. Ours includes all that anyway.
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Last edited by Hayden on 09/04/2022 18:06; edited 2 times in total

theblueboy

Thanks for these comments - interesting reading. I’ll comment in more detail in a bit.

Really helpful to pick out those different albums from each site Hayden (and the overlap percentage).

My initial observations:

Live albums seem to do much better on RYM. Also boxsets (The Fall one)

There’s also more extreme music in RYM’s overall 100 (e.g Death; Swans) than in BEA.

At first glance rap/hip hop does quite a bit better on RYM. Jazz a little better as well.

DommeDamian

Imperfect, sensitive Aspie with a melody addiction

Gender: Male

Age: 24

Location: where the flowers grow.

I think I prefer BEA's chart since I like the order better (I think it's outrageous for RYM to have TPAB at #2 and Thriller not even in top 300. And when we're talking greatest albums ever objectively then BEA has Banana in the top 10), and in terms of the little list of picks of difference that Hayden just posted, there were more albums I loved on the BEA chart than on the RYM chart. Though it's awesome to see all-time favorites like Either/Or and The Glow Pt.2 getting that love on RYM.
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My Top 100 :
www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=4...amp;page=1

My music:
- www.hyperfollow.com/dommedamian

theblueboy

DommeDamian wrote:

I think I prefer BEA's chart since I like the order better (I think it's outrageous for RYM to have TPAB at #2 and Thriller not even in top 300. And when we're talking greatest albums ever objectively then BEA has Banana in the top 10), and in terms of the little list of picks of difference that Hayden just posted, there were more albums I loved on the BEA chart than on the RYM chart. Though it's awesome to see all-time favorites like Either/Or and The Glow Pt.2 getting that love on RYM.

This is basically my view. Thriller MUST be up there (unless Scaruffi) Think I have at #2 on my overall. Too many greats get snubbed on RYM’s chart. Though yeah some awesome inclusions. In a Silent Way so high (36 I think) is nice.