Top 156 albums by track average - Music - Forums : Best Ever Albums

II

workd my but just to not know what to name my rank

Age: 100

Location: Questionmarkland. You ask: "Where is that land?" There is no answer. Only a ?

⠀ 1-100 https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=82350
101-156 https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=82380

This chart displays the top 100 albums on BestEveralbums.com by the average of all the tracks of each album.
Since all music albums obviously consist of tracks, this chart can help you know which albums have the best songs, and determine their greatness by how many great tracks they have.

This chart's main issue is that albums with interludes/skits (E.g. Tool's albums, hip-hop albums etc.) get a lower average because of these interludes/skits, so consider this while observing this chart, since it would be always debatable which interlude/skit should be omitted in order to make the average fairer which one not (One or two of Tool's albums could've made the top 100 or a bit below that if I omitted the interludes/skits).

I have made this chart first with Excel since years ago so I could know all the best albums by their track average, so I believe this chart is the most believable way of knowing the best albums on BEA, and therefore I hope this chart would be helpful for you.

Since it has taken so long to make this chart, I'm afraid I won't update it when the time comes, since I had to go the pages of each track in each album in order to see the fractional parts of the tracks' ratings, so it would make the track averages' numbers more accurate with less accurately similar numbers that have been made with no fractional parts and have made many albums have the same track averages. However, the changes could slightly change in the meantime, so you don't have to worry that much.

I hope the idea of this chart would be an official option in the Statistics tab on BEA, since I believe it's a very helpful way to know all the best albums on the website.

If there's an album I've missed putting in this chart which has a track average of not less than 86.36 (It's an edit, since I forgot Ommadawn Laughing

), please message me below, but make sure you use the fractional parts of each track's rating by visiting each track's webpage on BEA.

Thank you for observing!

Last edited by II on 12/08/2024 17:27; edited 3 times in total

MadhattanJack

Just to end the list...

Gender: Male

I guess I'll have to start rating individual tracks now... I've probably done fewer than 10 track ratings since I got here. Anxious

Thanks for all the effort you're putting in, by the way! While it admittedly might take years of statistical analysis, creative programming and data collection, I remain confident that by the end of it all we'll be able top positively confirm that Go 2 by XTC was the best-ever album all along.

II

workd my but just to not know what to name my rank

Age: 100

Location: Questionmarkland. You ask: "Where is that land?" There is no answer. Only a ?

MadhattanJack wrote:

I guess I'll have to start rating individual tracks now... I've probably done fewer than 10 track ratings since I got here. Anxious

I hope it will go well ? If you've listened to certain albums many times, it'll go easier since you remember the tracks, thus can subjectively rate them as you feel.
This is my logic at least: "The more great tracks the album has, the greater the album", this mantra made my rating of albums much simpler.

MadhattanJack wrote:

Thanks for all the effort you're putting in, by the way! While it admittedly might take years of statistical analysis, creative programming and data collection, I remain confident that by the end of it all we'll be able top positively confirm that Go 2 by XTC was the best-ever album all along.

You're welcome Very Happy

Even if Go 2 won't be, you can feel proud you can place it at the top of your chart! I know I like certain albums that probably won't ever make any top spots, but feeling satisfied finding them out and perhaps share them with other people can be enough for me Smile

Romanelli

Bone Swah

Gender: Male

Location: Broomfield, Colorado

Moderator

This is a cool idea. I like the idea of using track ratings to help rank albums.

But...a couple of things.

First of all: you're using average track ratings from albums. 8 of your top 10 albums all have 5 or fewer tracks. 11 of your top 20. So, the question must be asked: does your formula favor popular (on BEA) albums with fewer tracks? Are you considering the number of tracks per album in your calculations? The number of albums in your top 20 suggests that maybe the higher ranked albums with fewer tracks might have an unfair advantage.

Also. And I know this from having watched this site closely for more than a decade. There are a number of users on BEA. I don't know how many there are, but I know they exist in some kind of significant numbers. There are users here who will rate an album, say, a 4. And then. that same user will rate every track on the album a 4 as well. Why? Because it's quick and easy and it gets you points. It happens here, and I've been seeing it happen for years. Which begs the question...how accurate are track ratings? (You can look it up...my total number of ratings on BEA is 0.)

For me...the best way to accurately see which albums are the best is to take the album as a whole. Which also includes, how good are the individual tracks...but as a whole. I'm going to trust the ranking of an album based on its chart position...based on what users say it should be ranked at as a whole...over individual track ratings. I believe in track ratings. I really do. For individual reasons. But I also believe that it depends on who is doing the rating. Some guy who rates every track on the album the same is not doing any of us any favors. He's simply taking his album rating and multiplying it by 8 or 10.

So, for me, the ultimate test for where an album is ranked is just ONE. Where do you put it on your chart? That's what BEA is. That's WHY it exists. CHARTS. Track ratings are not going to give you a picture of what someone thinks of an album overall...but their chart will. I know that ratings are a part of what happens here. But I can't trust song ratings. What about the guy who loves a song and rates it a 100 and ignores the rest of the album because he never listened to it? There are probably thousands of albums here with only one or two songs rated, the rest have none. Song ratings are great for you yourself...but I would never consider an album great because it has one or 3 tracks that people think are great. And I know that several people rate all songs equally on albums, which makes it untrustworthy for me.

EXAMPLE: You have In Rainbows in your top 10. The top rated track is Reckoner at 93. The lowest rated is Faust Arp at 85. But what's really telling is that Reckoner has 1,283 ratings. Faust Arp has 914 ratings. That's a difference of 369 ratings.

...
_________________
I'm leaning on the threshold
Of her mystery
And crashing through the walls
Of dying history

albummaster

Janitor

Gender: Male

Location: Spain

Site Admin

Romanelli wrote:

So, for me, the ultimate test for where an album is ranked is just ONE. Where do you put it on your chart? That's what BEA is. That's WHY it exists. CHARTS. Track ratings are not going to give you a picture of what someone thinks of an album overall...but their chart will. I know that ratings are a part of what happens here. But I can't trust song ratings. What about the guy who loves a song and rates it a 100 and ignores the rest of the album because he never listened to it? There are probably thousands of albums here with only one or two songs rated, the rest have none. Song ratings are great for you yourself...but I would never consider an album great because it has one or 3 tracks that people think are great. And I know that several people rate all songs equally on albums, which makes it untrustworthy for me.

Chart by average track rating is an interesting exercise (& thanks for raising it as a topic), but agree 100% with the above, plus the issue with skits etc highlighted in the original post, plus a shedload of other reasons why average track rating is fairly flawed as a general system for rating an album as a whole. (I'll look at making decimals more consistent across different pages - hadn't spotted that before (although rounded rating out of 100 is pretty granular already).

Liedzeit

Gender: Male

Age: 65

I do rate tracks. But I agree it is kind of silly, especially if the track ratings are used to judge the entire album. So Good Morning, Good Morning is considered to be the weakest track on Sgt. Pepper. And I agree, (just as A Day In The Life is rated the best one, and I would say it is something close to objective truth). On the other hand, would Sgt. Pepper be a better album if the had included Penny Lane or Strawberry instead of it? I do not think so. Great albums need weaker tracks to let the good ones shine even more. That is why Greatest Hits albums do (very often) not really work

There are albums though, where one weak track ruins the entire album. I can’t listen to Pet Sounds because of Sloop John B.
_________________
When the stewardess is near do not show any fear.

II

workd my but just to not know what to name my rank

Age: 100

Location: Questionmarkland. You ask: "Where is that land?" There is no answer. Only a ?

Liedzeit wrote:

I do rate tracks. But I agree it is kind of silly, especially if the track ratings are used to judge the entire album. So Good Morning, Good Morning is considered to be the weakest track on Sgt. Pepper. And I agree, (just as A Day In The Life is rated the best one, and I would say it is something close to objective truth). On the other hand, would Sgt. Pepper be a better album if the had included Penny Lane or Strawberry instead of it? I do not think so. Great albums need weaker tracks to let the good ones shine even more. That is why Greatest Hits albums do (very often) not really work

There are albums though, where one weak track ruins the entire album. I can’t listen to Pet Sounds because of Sloop John B.

I think some of it comes to subjectivity.
You say that Sgt. Pepper needs weaker tracks like Good Morning, Good Morning, which has a 82/100 rating, to let good tracks shine, but Sloop John B ruins Pet Sounds entirely, despite it being one of the highest-rated tracks of the album with a 89/100 rating and one of The Beach Boys' well-known songs, so most voters like Sloop John B.
I personally like Sloop John B's composition despite the lyrical dissonance, since it's a cover of a Bahamian folk song, so the lyrics fit better for me in Blind Blake's (the Bahamian guy, not the American) performance, so I guess I'm more comfortable listening to Blind Blake's version despite it having a slighter production.

So if an album has no weak tracks, is it bad, boring or less diverse etc.?
I decided to make this because albums are basically collections of songs, and for me: if the albums has great songs, the album is great. It's for me a simple mantra to rate an album, and I see it as objective as possible, even though it can be all subjective, since people have other factors for rating albums, but at least "the more great tracks an album has, the greater the album" has made things so much easier for me, and I still use it for so long.

II

workd my but just to not know what to name my rank

Age: 100

Location: Questionmarkland. You ask: "Where is that land?" There is no answer. Only a ?

albummaster wrote:

Chart by average track rating is an interesting exercise (& thanks for raising it as a topic), but agree 100% with the above, plus the issue with skits etc highlighted in the original post, plus a shedload of other reasons why average track rating is fairly flawed as a general system for rating an album as a whole. (I'll look at making decimals more consistent across different pages - hadn't spotted that before (although rounded rating out of 100 is pretty granular already).

I'm glad you find this chart interesting and that I raised it as a topic.

The issue with skits on the other hand can still make sense, since some people would think the skits ruin the album's experience, so I guess that's how most voters feel about skits as sole tracks, as displayed in albums with skits' webpages on BEA.
Still it's very subjective, and anyone who disagrees with that notion can rate the skits higher as high as he wants if they like them.

In conclusion, it basically makes things more confusing when it comes to be "softer" with albums with skits, since you gotta think what is a skit and what is not, so I include their ratings because they're after all parts of the album and responsible for the album's whole experience, at least for me.

I wonder what the rest of issues of track rating according to you, since I've found it very helpful and albums are practically collections of tracks, so for me "the more great tracks an album has, the great the album". I could keep finding great albums and keep liking them by this method.

MrIrrelevant

To me, this is doing a different exercise than trying to find the best albums. Interesting to look through. Also Sloop John B slander will not be tolerated!

II

workd my but just to not know what to name my rank

Age: 100

Location: Questionmarkland. You ask: "Where is that land?" There is no answer. Only a ?

MrIrrelevant wrote:

To me, this is doing a different exercise than trying to find the best albums. Interesting to look through. Also Sloop John B slander will not be tolerated!

Thanks

Everyone has different opinions of the matter.
The variety of these exercises sure gives more options of discovering albums and looking at them from different perspectives.
I made this chart since tracks can be great previews for the album you want to listen to later on, hence, tracks seem to me to be the main components of an album, since an album is by definition a collection of tracks.
And BEA has default charts for an album's rank score and an album rating, but it doesn't have one for an album's track average, so at least this chart could give a different perspective than others.
Everyone can have their opinions about Sloop John B, and I enjoy it as much as most of the other tracks on Pet Sounds.