Living Years
by Mike & The Mechanics

Living Years by Mike & The Mechanics
Year: 1988
Release date: 1988-10-24
Overall rank: 8,246th   Overall chart history
Average Rating: 
68/100 (from 39 votes)
  Ratings distribution   Average rating history
Accolades:
Award Top albums of 1988 (108th)
Award Top albums of of the 1980s (1,173rd)
Award Best albums of all time (8,246th)

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Mike & The Mechanics bestography

Living Years is ranked as the best album by Mike & The Mechanics.

Mike & The Mechanics album bestography « Higher ranked
-
This album (8,246th)
Living Years
Lower ranked (8,550th) »
Beggar On A Beach Of Gold

(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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Living Years rankings

Living Years rankings summary
Overall rank: 8,246th | 1980s rank: 1,173rd | 1988 rank: 108th  Overall chart history
(Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings). (Last updated: 5 hours ago).

Living Years collection

Living Years ratings

Average Rating: 
68/100 (from 39 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 39 ratings for this album.

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RatingDate updatedMemberAlbum ratingsAvg. album rating
 
70/100
 !
4 days ago Exist-en-ciel  Ratings distribution  15,11270/100
 
70/100
 !
12/26/2025 10:13 zsolti  Ratings distribution  69281/100
 
60/100
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10/23/2025 02:44 dhbarrett  Ratings distribution  8,58465/100
 
75/100
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09/07/2025 08:35 Tamthebam  Ratings distribution  23,11369/100
 
10/100
 !
08/10/2025 05:12 Kingturtle  Ratings distribution  7,57973/100

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 has a Bayesian average rating of 68.0/100, a mean average of 65.4/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 66.8/100. The standard deviation for this album is 15.9.


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Living Years favourites

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Living Years comments

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Rating:  
80/100
The title track quite rightly stole the headlines for this release but there are some good songs under the radar here, Nobody's Perfect, Nobody Knows (my favourite from the album), Don't and Black And Blue. A solid album, the 2 lead vocalists make this a nice mix.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
60/100
From 07/28/2013 20:09 | #82637
Earnest is a good word for this album. He's trying harder than Phil Collins for sure.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | -1 votes (0 helpful | 1 unhelpful)
Rating:  
80/100
A more earnest album than their debut, this one's punctuated by the title track ode-to-deceased-father. "nobody's perfect", "seeing is believing" and fine ballads "blame" and "don't" also ground the album in solemn song-craft, while the meandering last 2 tracks deflate what could've been a stronger album.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)

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