Swans Are Dead
by Swans

Swans Are Dead by Swans
(Live album)
Year: 1998
Release date: 1998-01-20
Overall rank: 4,429th   Overall chart history
Average Rating: 
77/100 (from 85 votes)
  Ratings distribution   Average rating history
Accolades:
Award Top albums of 1998 (72nd)
Award Top albums of of the 1990s (719th)
Award Best albums of all time (4,429th)

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Swans bestography

Swans Are Dead is ranked 10th best out of 39 albums by Swans on BestEverAlbums.com.

The best album by Swans is To Be Kind which is ranked number 269 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 6,050.

Swans album bestography « Higher ranked (4,205th)
My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky
This album (4,429th)
Swans Are Dead
Lower ranked (5,938th) »
The Beggar

(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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Swans Are Dead 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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Swans Are Dead rankings

Swans Are Dead rankings summary
Overall rank: 4,429th | 1990s rank: 719th | 1998 rank: 72nd  Overall chart history
(Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings). (Last updated: 8 hours ago).

Swans Are Dead collection

Swans Are Dead ratings

Average Rating: 
77/100 (from 85 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 85 ratings for this album.

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RatingDate updatedMemberAlbum ratingsAvg. album rating
 
60/100
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06/10/2026 11:38 dukeboxkool  Ratings distribution  2,21472/100
 
70/100
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11/22/2025 23:26 Exist-en-ciel  Ratings distribution  14,77970/100
 
60/100
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10/04/2025 18:14 Rhyner  Ratings distribution  1,72659/100
 
95/100
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05/28/2025 17:43 AAL2014  Ratings distribution  4,04275/100
 
75/100
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05/14/2025 19:00 seb7  Ratings distribution  1,52080/100

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 3% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 76.8/100, a mean average of 76.8/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 77.4/100. The standard deviation for this album is 15.5.


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Swans Are Dead favourites

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Swans Are Dead comments

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Rating:  
95/100
Feel Happiness and Blood Promise are surely among the best live tracks of the 20th century. Absolutely spectacular.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Sometimes I think the first disc of this live album is the best of Swans' post-rock styled releases. It sounds like a rawer version of the Soundtracks for the Blind sound. Feel Happiness brilliantly transforms from noise jam to heartbreaking lullaby, Jarboe gives a disturbing vocal performance in I Crawled, Blood Promise gets extended as a post-rock crescendo....

The seconds disc is largely just Soundtracks for the BLind songs with lower sound quality, but the heavy version of All Lined Up and the Jarboe ballad Lavender are fantastic.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +2 votes (2 helpful | 0 unhelpful)

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