Song Cycle
by Van Dyke Parks
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Van Dyke Parks bestography
Song Cycle is ranked as the best album by Van Dyke Parks.
(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 Song Cycle on YouTube
Song Cycle track list
The tracks on this album have an average rating of 78 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).
Song Cycle rankings
Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings). Click to see how the rankings are calculated (Last updated: 2 hours ago)
| Year | Source | Chart | Rank | Rank Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 |  DommeDamian | Scaruffi Best Albums of 1968 | 17/61 | - |
| 2026 |  bertrandu | *All Time* Psychedelic Pop Albums | 59/100 | - |
| 2026 |  Patman360 | Top 72 Music Albums of 1967 | 8/72 | 5 |
| 2026 |  ssteve | Top 29 Music Albums of 1967 | 24/29 | 1 |
| 2026 |  Hayden | Top 100 Music Albums of 1967 | 16/100 | 4 |
| 2026 |  Repo | Top 57 Music Albums of 1967 | 30/57 | 2 |
| 2026 | saltysurprise | Top 34 Music Albums of 1967 | 19/34 | 2 |
| 2026 |  Tamthebam | Top 100 Music Albums of 1967 | 47/100 | 3 |
| 2026 |  covecove | Top 30 Music Albums of 1967 | 17/30 | 2 |
| 2026 | jdizzle123456 | Top 100 Music Albums of the 1960s | 80/100 | 4 |
| Total Charts: The total number of charts that this album has appeared in. | 147 | |||
| Total Rank Score: The total rank score. | 624 | |||
Song Cycle collection
Showing latest 20 members who have this album in their collection | Show all 48 members
Song Cycle 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 150 ratings for this album.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Album ratings | Avg. album rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ! | 10/07/2025 10:55 | JacobMullis | 780 | 88/100 |
| ! | 08/17/2025 03:47 | mttr-in-plc | 196 | 88/100 |
| ! | 01/05/2025 15:30 | BurndenAce | 1,338 | 76/100 |
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 4% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 76.5/100, a mean average of 75.0/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 76.8/100. The standard deviation for this album is 16.9.
Song Cycle favourites
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Song Cycle forum mentions
BestEverAlbums 08/04/2026 08:00 in Chart of the day (#5394): By O.T.
baystateoftheart 07/18/2025 00:23 in What album are you listening to? (cont.)Song Cycle comments
Top Comments First | Newest First | Positive Sentiment First | Longest Comments First
(Showing comments with any number of votes. Manage Profile)
This is an overlooked masterpiece, it's just incredible.
It's weird. It sounds like a Looney Tunes episode. I like it.
Boltzmann TOP 100 COMMENTER 09/03/2018 19:44 | #220522 | TOP COMMENT
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this is not really baroque pop. In baroque pop the pop is made first and then given a classical production. The songwriting doesn’t really sound like pop, rather it seems to come from a musical. But the most annoying thing is how the music seems to follow the singing so literally. He probably tried to hard indeed, but the biggest problem is that his approach is completely wrong. “Direction is more important than speed”.
mdbaxter TOP 100 COMMENTER 08/28/2020 14:23 | #257527 | TOP COMMENT
Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.
Everything about this record is incredibly well thought out. It's so dense that it's hard for me to understand how one person could have command of the vast amount of knowledge that it takes to produce something like this. It is an abject departure from the newly dominating styles of the time but loses none of their excitement and compounds upon their inventiveness. A masterpiece.
Definitely a heady record, but it's definitively a work of genius. Took the baroque revival of the 60's to another level
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