Big Circumstance
by Bruce Cockburn
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Bruce Cockburn bestography
Big Circumstance is ranked 6th best out of 34 albums by Bruce Cockburn on BestEverAlbums.com.
The best album by Bruce Cockburn is Stealing Fire which is ranked number 8614 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 145.
(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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Big Circumstance track list
The tracks on this album have an average rating of 76 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).
Big Circumstance rankings
Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings). Click to see how the rankings are calculated (Last updated: 3 hours ago)
| Year | Source | Chart | Rank | Rank Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Skerns | Top 83 Music Albums of 1988 | 1/83 | 5 |
| 2026 | Skerns | Top 100 Music Albums of the 1980s | 46/100 | 11 |
| 2026 | Johnnyo | Top 100 Music Albums of 1988 | 29/100 | 4 |
| 2026 | Moondance | Top 100 Music Albums of 1988 | 74/100 | 1 |
| 2025 | Johnnyo | Top albums of the '80's (101 - 200) | 62/100 | - |
| 2025 | mostlymor | Top 100 Music Albums of 1988 | 82/100 | 1 |
| 2025 |  greatson | Top 32 Music Albums of 1988 | 12/32 | 3 |
| 2025 |  pavelthevelvet | Top 99 Music Albums of the 1980s | 93/99 | 1 |
| 2024 | Johnnyo | Canadians (1 - 100) | 36/100 | - |
| 2020 | andybasic | Top 40 Greatest Music Albums | 13/40 | 25 |
| Total Charts: The total number of charts that this album has appeared in. | 12 | |||
| Total Rank Score: The total rank score. | 53 | |||
Big Circumstance collection
Showing all 5 members who have this album in their collection
Big Circumstance 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 3 ratings for this album. | Show all 13 ratings for this album.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Album ratings | Avg. album rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ! | 09/15/2026 09:19 | JamesMowbray | 5,742 | 69/100 |
| ! | 08/22/2024 07:39 | TonySayers61 | 26,094 | 64/100 |
| ! | 08/04/2024 02:09 | dhbarrett | 8,896 | 65/100 |
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 has a Bayesian average rating of 73.1/100, a mean average of 73.8/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 73.8/100. The standard deviation for this album is 13.5.
Big Circumstance forum mentions
Big Circumstance comments
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