To Be Kind
by Swans
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Swans bestography
To Be Kind is ranked as the best album by Swans.
(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 To Be Kind on YouTube
To Be Kind 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.
To Be Kind rankings
Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings). Click to see how the rankings are calculated (Last updated: 4 hours ago)
| Year | Source | Chart | Rank | Rank Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Candy | Top 8 Greatest Music Albums | 2/8 | - |
| 2026 | cicadelic | Libération Les meilleurs disques 2014 | 31/34 | - |
| 2026 | Jorbaa | Top 100 Music Albums of the 2010s | 39/100 | 12 |
| 2026 |  Wasinski | Top 80 Music Albums of 2014 | 1/80 | 5 |
| 2026 |  videoheadcleaner | Top 100 Music Albums of 2014 | 67/100 | 2 |
| 2026 | Rm12398 | Top 38 Music Albums of 2014 | 2/38 | 5 |
| 2026 |  covecove | Top 100 Music Albums of 2014 | 97/100 | 0 |
| 2026 | fabm0 | 1 My Chart All Time 3 | 88/100 | - |
| 2026 | brent13 | Top 16 Music Albums of 2014 | 16/16 | 0 |
| 2026 | leniad | Top 100 Music Albums of the 2010s | 7/100 | 19 |
| Total Charts: The total number of charts that this album has appeared in. | 688 | |||
| Total Rank Score: The total rank score. | 6,069 | |||
To Be Kind collection
Showing latest 20 members who have this album in their collection | Show all 226 members
To Be Kind 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 895 ratings for this album.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Album ratings | Avg. album rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ! | 10/06/2026 16:27 | Siromynian | 1,789 | 74/100 |
| ! | 10/04/2026 05:36 | Exist-en-ciel | 16,265 | 70/100 |
| ! | 09/24/2026 17:23 |  SomethingSpecial | 1,819 | 82/100 |
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 81.8/100, a mean average of 80.4/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 81.9/100. The standard deviation for this album is 18.9.
To Be Kind favourites
Showing latest 10 members who have added this album as a favourite | Show all 171 members
To Be Kind forum mentions
BestEverAlbums 10/04/2026 08:00 in Chart of the day (#5455): By ThaCrookedSpokeView latest topic →
BestEverAlbums 10/02/2026 08:18 in Monthly overall chart movements - September 2026View latest topic →
BestEverAlbums 05/12/2026 20:00 in Album of the day (#7137): To Be Kind by SwansView latest topic →
View all forum mentions
To Be Kind comments
Top Comments First | Newest First | Positive Sentiment First | Longest Comments First
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Fantano also gave The Money Store 10/10 yet you don't see it at the top of 2012.He thought MBDTF was average but BEA has it as second best of 2010.So no,it's not first because a famous critic gave it a perfect score.
In a recent interview Gira talked about how he's a huge fan of Jimmy Page. It's funny to think that back in the day people thought the music of Led Zeppelin was satanic. Imagine what would happen if this album came out in 1971. Those same people probably would've shit their pants!!!
As massive as The Seer is, To Be Kind somehow feels bigger. Songs are heavy as all hell and absolutely terrific. Definitely not for everyone, though.
Mother Nature's Son TOP 100 COMMENTER 08/25/2014 18:11 | #120333 | TOP COMMENT
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I'm not sure if this is really worth my time and trust me, my time isn't much worth to begin with! Compared to "The Seer", I feel like I'm experiencing something much less melodic and overall much less... memorable. It's like every track (not song) is meant to be this grand crescendo wall of shocking and overwhelming noise and then some eerie much quieter ambiance afterwards to symbolise some kind of aftermath before the next doomsday begins. Problem though, I didn't really get any goosebumps and I can still sleep at night!
Not to say I didn't enjoy it to some extent, "The Seer" just happened to make a much bigger impression on me despite equal amounts of ambitiousness.
Hayden TOP 100 COMMENTER 05/19/2014 23:52 | #112330 | TOP COMMENT
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One of the only bands that I can think of that's released 'to be classics' 32 years into their career.
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