Song Cycle
by Van Dyke Parks
Listen & Collect
Complete your collection or upgrade your listening experience.
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). (Last updated: 6 hours ago).
bertrandu
O.T.
Norman Bates
Tamthebam
ssteve
baystateoftheart
covecove
Patman360
Hayden
andy_hunter
IgtonumamaSong 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 5 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 | 775 | 88/100 |
| ! | 08/17/2025 03:47 | mttr-in-plc | 197 | 88/100 |
| ! | 01/05/2025 15:30 | BurndenAce | 1,246 | 76/100 |
| ! | 12/05/2024 00:53 | Proto | 4,189 | 33/100 |
| ! | 11/22/2024 07:39 |  Dankel | 2,627 | 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
Showing all 20 members who have added this album as a favourite
Song Cycle comments
Showing all 8 comments |
Most Helpful First | Newest First | Positive Sentiment First |
Longest Comments First
(Only showing comments with -2 votes or higher. You can alter this threshold from your profile page. Manage Profile)
Jboy56 08/28/2022 06:32 | #288968
No
mdbaxter 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.
Boltzmann 09/03/2018 19:44 | #220522 | TOP COMMENT
Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.
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”.
Definitely a heady record, but it's definitively a work of genius. Took the baroque revival of the 60's to another level
It's weird. It sounds like a Looney Tunes episode. I like it.
SuedeSwede 06/18/2016 13:57 | #169060
lol I had this at 60 a week ago. fuck me.
Kingturtle 03/30/2016 18:01 | #162995
tries much too hard.
This is an overlooked masterpiece, it's just incredible.
Your feedback for Song Cycle
The top-voted comments get featured on our charts, Album of the Day, and the site newsletter.
