Music For 18 Musicians
by Steve Reich
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Steve Reich bestography
Music For 18 Musicians is ranked as the best album by Steve Reich.
(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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Music For 18 Musicians track list
The tracks on this album have an average rating of 86 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).
Top-rated track as rated by BestEverAlbums.com members.
Music For 18 Musicians rankings
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Music For 18 Musicians 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 331 ratings for this album.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Album ratings | Avg. album rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 04/30/2026 16:57 | Pavloss | 488 | 50/100 | |
| 04/21/2026 01:02 | davidleewrong | 2,357 | 81/100 | |
| 03/09/2026 23:52 | Exist-en-ciel | 11,433 | 70/100 | |
| 03/03/2026 09:57 | platus | 5,852 | 74/100 | |
| 12/17/2025 18:41 | marcoserra1966 | 857 | 58/100 |
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 1% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 81.5/100, a mean average of 80.6/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 81.8/100. The standard deviation for this album is 17.3.
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Music For 18 Musicians comments
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One of my wife's favourite albums. It really is an astonishing album.
Not an album for the casual listener but if you allow yourself to REALLY listen to it, it delivers in spades. A masterpiece of it's type, very minimalist, and a great listen if you give it the attention it deserves.
This is a brilliant composition of music that is amazing at creating so many images and stories in your mind. The performances on some of the instruments as well are brilliant and so emotional at times that it makes it so easy to connect to the music. It also gives us a very rich and grand experience and allows you to explore so much in the sound and discover the nuances that are all over this record. It is the perfect album to put on, switch off the lights and get comfortable in a warm chair and just enjoy the journey you are taken on. However, it can feel a little slow at times and could be shortened a little. Also, some of the sections are a little weaker than others. Overall, a very important album that always delivers a great experience and fantastic musical quality that would be even better live.
StefanR10 10/29/2020 16:22 | #259913
Very interesting music it is like a color game it repeats and then comes out in a completely new way. You can feel the tension is rising until the end of the album. Very good new classical music. Glad to have heard it.
The ultimate minimalist statement.
JulianR 11/23/2017 00:51 | #201917
Loving the ECM version that just came out too
ForegroundNoise 11/07/2017 14:00 | #200914
Despite being divided into multiple 'sections', Reich's minimalist masterpiece is performed in one take, and so has the curious property of being seemingly immobile and yet constantly washing over you. Listening to the strings undercut the vocals on Section VII has a desperate urgency that is difficult to put into words. Reich's music somehow makes you feel you've heard this a million lifetimes before and will hear it a million lifetimes over again all without uttering a single lyric.
Most of this is copied from the description of the album in my overall chart, do check it out if you have the time!!
JulianR 10/24/2017 03:02 | #200000
It might technically be called classical music, but being a person coming from a rock-oriented background, it seems a lot more like ambient electronic than anything else. It seems like something Brian Eno could have made. It barely even sounds like it was made with acoustic instruments (at least the version I have).
ForegroundNoise 09/26/2017 09:33 | #198764
On 'Music...', Reich modernises classical music for the 20th century, creating a piece that seems both to move so slowly and yet take your breath away.
corenfro 04/22/2017 03:37 | #189659
Nuanced and expansive. Similar to, but not as varied as Philip Glass's glassworks. The concepts overstay their welcome slightly. The whole thing could have been half as long and still had the same effect on me. Must be very impressive to see performed live.
Vast and deep as an ocean.
Also one of the most influential pieces of music written in the second half of the XXs.
It's everywhere. So much it has become invisible.
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