Back in about 2014, I put together a list of possibilities for my top 20 albums of all time; back to front, no skips, all bangers. The methodology was entirely vibes-based, I threw in a couple compilation albums, and I've only very rarely remembered to add albums to it in the dozen years since. I don't think I ever posted it here - I think just my top 100 listened-to songs. Likely because I never narrowed it to 20 -- I think the original list was at least 40 before I added a couple in the intervening years (while I'm not positive which ones, I'm pretty sure Disappearance of the Girl (66/avg play count) and ...Like Clockwork (57) were two).
So as I was trying to decide which albums might be worth adding from the intervening years, I decided to do it a bit more scientifically. Theoretically, a top album should have a high number of listens to every track, leading to a high average track count. So I tallied up the averages of those already on my list, further separating them Albums added pre-2005/2006 and post-. This is because I don't have play counts before itunes (2005) and for the first year or two, any listens on an ipod didn't sync to the itunes count. Obviously some favorite albums from middle/high school must have much higher total play counts than I have a record of.
Of my pre-05/06 on the list, the average is 66, and my post- is 80. Not super surprising, although there are a couple pre- that I clearly don't listen to very much anymore. For example - Extraordinary Machine (21) (although I did listen to it a couple of days ago when Tidal turned 30 and I remembered I hadn't listened to it in a while. (Actually, I didn't even bother checking Tidal, because I feel like I only ever listen to half, and it's at 44. To be discussed lower*)
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| Sorry, Madge. I'm looking forward to the new album. |
The two compilation albums on there are both quite low (Immaculate - 2 (!) and 1 - 13) The other lowest ranked in the pre- category are Evita (27; my guess is I no longer listen straight through like I used to, but mostly hit my faves), Is This It? (18), Play (14), and Ray of Light (14). I'm loathe to drop any of these though, as they are all really good albums pretty much front to back, I just haven't listened to them as much in the last 20 years.
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| Quelle surprise |
My highest rated pre-05/06 are:
Elastica - 103
Elastica - 103
Sing the Sorrow - 112
Bleed Like Me - 123
American Idiot - 129
American Idiot - 129
Garbage - 215
And, surprising absolutely no one, Version 2.0 - 227.
Ah yes, three Garbage albums in my top 5 here.
Some other interesting tidbits from this group:
- Choirgirl is getting awfully close to 100 listens/song average (99), and while I would have guessed To Venus and Back would be my most listened to, I think the fact that it's a double album means I have more songs in the 20-30 range. Dookie is also close at 97. (As for other Tori, Little Earthquakes is at 42 and in the old list. I checked all her other albums and Boys for Pele is 25, Scarlet's Walk is 19, Strange Little Girls is 34, but very skewed by the title track (16 otherwise*), Tales of a Librarian (not a true album) is 32, and Under the Pink at 25. My highest b-side album is the BofA Pavilion show in Boston I was at with 12 listens.)
- Sixteen Stone is higher than I would have guessed (75).
- My first ever tape (along with Garbage) was Jagged Little Pill, which sits at 52, and my first CD, No Need to Argue is at 79.
- The musicals, just the three from this group, average 30.
- I included one soundtrack - Go - which is at 57.
- I would have thought Haunted would be higher (58), but I think the interludes drag it down. If you take those four out, it would be at 73.
For the post-05/06 group already in the list, the lowest are:
H.A.A.R.P. - 41
Bullet in a Bible - 42
Hamilton - 43 (Again - double album, with some interludes/skips like Stay Alive (reprise), Meet Me Inside, & Blow Us All Away.)
Them Crooked Vultures - 50
So two live albums and a musical (with a lot of interludes). Bullet doesn't really surprise me because I listen to Awesome as Fuck more (66). As for Muse, Absolution is at 85 and Black Holes & Revelations is at 75. (That surprises me a bit! I would have guessed the other way round on those two. More on Muse below.)
The highest are:
Who Killed Amanda Palmer - 108
21st Century Breakdown - 109
American Idiot (musical) - 124
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson - 128
Crash Love - 154
So both the early Garbage albums - despite a far less accurate play count - wildly outpace any albums added after the advent of itunes.
Other interesting tidbits:
- I am surprised American Idiot (the album) has a higher play count than 21st Century, since in general - AFI aside - a band's album produced by Butch Vig tends to be my favorite album of theirs. I would say 21st Century is my favorite, but I wonder if the more overt protest songs have... mmmm.... rung louder in the last decade. (I knew, obvs., that Crash Love is my favorite AFI album, outpacing the Vig-Produced Sing the Sorrow (112)] Also in this group is the Vig-produced Wasting Light (60).
- Amanda Palmer outpaces the Dresden Dolls (Yes, Virginia at 80.)
- For early Lana, Paradise (92) is higher than Born to Die (84).
- The oldest album in this group is Ziggy Stardust at 53.
- The three musicals in this group are 98, given two are in my top three of this category. That means the six musicals already in the playlist average out to 64 (pretty nonsensical, since RENT is SO low compared to any type of accurate count, but ah well.)
SO. Given all this, what can we determine about other albums that could be added?
