The Essential
by Van Morrison
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Van Morrison bestography
The Essential is ranked 53rd best out of 62 albums by Van Morrison on BestEverAlbums.com.
The best album by Van Morrison is Astral Weeks which is ranked number 70 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 15,316.
(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 The Essential on YouTube
The Essential track list
The tracks on this album have an average rating of 77 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).
The Essential rankings
Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings). Click to see how the rankings are calculated (Last updated: 6 hours ago)
| Year | Source | Chart | Rank | Rank Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | mostlymor | Top 50 Music Albums of 2015 | 11/50 | 4 |
| 2025 | arnellarsen | Top 98 Music Albums of 2015 | 79/98 | 1 |
| Total Charts: The total number of charts that this album has appeared in. | 2 | |||
| Total Rank Score: The total rank score. | 5 | |||
The Essential collection
The Essential 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 10 ratings for this album.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Album ratings | Avg. album rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ! | 08/31/2024 02:07 | BorderFreeAndrew | 15,736 | 74/100 |
| ! | 11/09/2022 23:28 |  Arthurknight | 9,587 | 72/100 |
| ! | 09/18/2020 17:19 | Tony58 | 744 | 72/100 |
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 72.3/100, a mean average of 72.5/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 72.5/100. The standard deviation for this album is 24.4.
The Essential forum mentions
The Essential comments
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