A Thousand Leaves
by Sonic Youth

A Thousand Leaves by Sonic Youth
Year: 1998
Release date: 1998-04-21
Overall rank: 3,789th   Overall chart history
Average Rating: 
75/100 (from 170 votes)
  Ratings distribution   Average rating history
Accolades:
Award Top albums of 1998 (63rd)
Award Top albums of of the 1990s (619th)
Award Best albums of all time (3,789th)

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Sonic Youth bestography

A Thousand Leaves is ranked 12th best out of 42 albums by Sonic Youth on BestEverAlbums.com.

The best album by Sonic Youth is Daydream Nation which is ranked number 75 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 14,959.

Sonic Youth album bestography « Higher ranked (3,789th)
A Thousand Leaves
This album (3,789th)
A Thousand Leaves
Lower ranked (5,076th) »
Experimental Jet Set, Trash And No Star

(N.B. Bestographies include all albums by an artist (and their variations), but do not include albums ranked outside the top 100,000).

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A Thousand Leaves track list

  Track ratings The tracks on this album have an average rating of 80 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).

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Track pick (1000 - 100 votes) Top-rated track as rated by BestEverAlbums.com members.

A Thousand Leaves rankings

A Thousand Leaves rankings summary
Overall rank: 3,789th | 1990s rank: 619th | 1998 rank: 63rd  Overall chart history
(Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings). (Last updated: 4 hours ago).

A Thousand Leaves collection

A Thousand Leaves ratings

Average Rating: 
75/100 (from 170 votes)
  Ratings distribution Help Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AV
where:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.

Showing latest 5 ratings for this album.  | Show all 170 ratings for this album.

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RatingDate updatedMemberAlbum ratingsAvg. album rating
 
70/100
 !
05/30/2026 03:04 Exist-en-ciel  Ratings distribution  14,71470/100
 
95/100
 !
12/11/2025 06:00 Kingturtle  Ratings distribution  7,57973/100
 
75/100
 !
09/07/2025 05:38 juanr1096  Ratings distribution  6,20378/100
 
20/100
 !
09/03/2025 05:48 Proto  Ratings distribution  4,18533/100
 
35/100
 !
08/11/2025 16:49 EyeKanFly  Ratings distribution  8,84965/100

Rating metrics: Help Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some albums can have several thousand ratings)

This album is rated in the top 12% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 74.5/100, a mean average of 74.0/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 74.6/100. The standard deviation for this album is 13.0.


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A Thousand Leaves favourites

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A Thousand Leaves comments

Showing all 4 comments |
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Rating:  
75/100
I haven't listened to it in a while, but from memory I seem to remember female mechanic on duty being wild af. And that the whole album is really good if a tad long and overdone in parts
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
60/100
From 07/29/2020 23:59 | #256433
Hmm. This one's a bit weak, isn't it? A lot of contrived and formulaic moments on A Thousand Leaves. It does have amazing guitar interplay, like every Sonic Youth album does, but that's really it. The song Sunday is supposedly the best song on here, I found it to be a little generic. Still, it's not horrible, it's not doing anything that I would say is crossing the line into awful, it just feels a little under par.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | -2 votes (0 helpful | 2 unhelpful)
Rating:  
90/100
Another Incredibly underrated album, Sonic Youth decided to relax, stretch their legs a bit and just quietly play some guitar. and on songs that don't do that, they'll have one of the following things that also goes extremely well for them: they'll have a kickass hard rock edge, a relaxed psychedelic melody, or a really cool jammy instrumental. In all aspects, this album rocks, but it is occasionally forgettable.

Favorite Tracks: Sunday, Wildflower Soul, Hoarfrost, Hits of Sunshine, The Ineffable Me
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From 10/22/2015 00:29 | #151829 | TOP COMMENT Help Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.
While a few of these tracks go for way too long, there is enough melodic and hypnotizing tracks to keep you enjoying it.

Favorite tracks: Contre le sexisme, Sunday, Female Mechanic Now on Duty, Hoarfrost, Hits of Sunshine, Karen Koltrane

A-
7.5
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +3 votes (3 helpful | 0 unhelpful)

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