Balaklava
by Pearls Before Swine
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Pearls Before Swine bestography
Balaklava is ranked as the best album by Pearls Before Swine.
(N.B. Bestographies include all albums by an artist (and their variations), but do not include albums ranked outside the top 100,000).
Listen to Balaklava on YouTube
Balaklava track list
The tracks on this album have an average rating of 78 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).
Balaklava rankings
(Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings). (Last updated: 4 hours ago).
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ArthurknightBalaklava collection
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Balaklava ratings
Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AVwhere:
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 62 ratings for this album.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Album ratings | Avg. album rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ! | 06/24/2026 16:00 | Exist-en-ciel | 15,335 | 70/100 |
| ! | 02/09/2026 00:25 |  Martini | 758 | 95/100 |
| ! | 01/02/2026 20:34 |  Fischman | 11,857 | 66/100 |
| ! | 04/13/2025 21:53 | sealskin0 | 192 | 77/100 |
| ! | 11/25/2024 19:10 |  DommeDamian | 7,576 | 49/100 |
Rating metrics:
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 5% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 75.8/100, a mean average of 76.4/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 76.4/100. The standard deviation for this album is 13.4.
Balaklava favourites
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Balaklava comments
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Jboy56 02/10/2023 15:43 | #293877 | TOP COMMENT
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Quite unique style of music in 1968, poetic and enigmatic. Nice
A unique vision brilliantly realized. If you like challenging music from this era this record is a must listen.
CellarDoor 10/01/2012 16:49 | #51583 | TOP COMMENT
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Sounds VERY similar to a Leonard Cohen album. There's even a cover of "Suzanne".
One of the most creative (but widely unknown) figures of the late 1960s was Tom Rapp, who in 1968 was the leading figure behind the masterpiece 'Balaklava' - a concept album inspired by the anti-militarist struggle of the same name. The running theme of the album is of apocalyptic death and desolation but told within the framework of humanities quest for salvation among the fatalistic ruins and bleak despair of war. The imagery conjured up by the music is one of dense macabre symbolism and the atmosphere mournful. Rap's art is closer to the surrealism of Dali and Ernst than it is to the psychedelic LSD "trip".
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