Acclaimed Music Forums

by **Otisredding** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 1:33 pm

The best albums of 2012

The ratings come from a formula that includes a) average of ratings from different sources and b) numbers of magazines that rated the album.

The magazines I used for the ratings were:
USA: Allmusic; AV Club; BeatsPerMinute; Cokemachineglow; Consequence Of Sound; Pitchforkmedia; Popmatters; Rolling Stone; Slant; Spin; Tinymixtapes
UK: Drowned In Sound, The Guardian, Music OMH, NME, No Ripcord
EUR: Gaffa; Humo; Jenesaispop; Laut; Mondosonoro; Nojesguiden; Plattentests; Playgroundmag; Sentire Ascoltare; Storia Della Musica

Very Important: You can help improve MCCH: If you know some prestigious web sources(preferably not USA not UK) please let me know. The reviews should have scores (numbers, letters, stars ...) and publish over 400 reviews per year

by **Harold** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 4:19 pm

Otis, I think you may have left something out here...

by **Otisredding** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 9:57 pm

MCCh 2012 (1) January, 31

by **Otisredding** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 2:31 pm

MCCh 2012 (02) February, 15

by **Henrik** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 9:19 am

Otis, I wrote "updated around every monthly break" on the AM home page. Do you intend to make updates more often, or use a different schedule?

I now see it says "top albums of 2011", I need to change that when I get home tonight...

by **Otisredding** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 11:13 am

Henrik, if there is no objection, I would do two updates per month: day 15 and 30/31 of each month.

by **Henrik** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 11:35 am

That's too often!

Just kidding...

by **Otisredding** » Wed Feb 29, 2012 10:39 pm

MCCh 2012 (03) February, 29

9 new entries. New music from Melbourne, London (2), Nashville, Nottingham, Seattle (2), Vancouver and Barcelona.

by **lagire** » Sat Mar 03, 2012 5:38 pm

hi,
magicrpm of france is a music and web magazine which post many critics per year.

by **lagire** » Sat Mar 03, 2012 5:44 pm

here is a list of web critics from france:
- rock and folk
- magicrpm

by **lagire** » Sat Mar 03, 2012 6:12 pm

otis,
why don't you post more than 20 albums?

by **lagire** » Sat Mar 03, 2012 6:25 pm

i forgot "music story" which is as allmusic but for france

by **Otisredding** » Sun Mar 04, 2012 6:27 am

lagire wrote:otis,
why don't you post more than 20 albums?

2012 has started very recently.

The list will be progressively getting bigger.

Albums from the list, now 20, are the records that remain in the top 100 at year end, approximately.

by **Otisredding** » Sun Mar 04, 2012 6:41 am

What the top 20 on March 1, 2011, in Mega Critic Chart?

001. PJ Harvey 'Let England Shake'
002. James Blake 'James Blake'
003. Iron & Wine 'Kiss Each Other Clean'
004. Radiohead 'The King Of Limbs'
005. Destroyer 'Kaputt'
006. Mogwai 'Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will'
007. Wire 'Red barked Tree'
008. Rumer 'Seasons Of My Soul' (2010)
009. Drive-By Truckers 'Go-Go Boots'
010. Smith Westerns 'Dye It Blonde'
011. Deerhoof 'Deerhoof Vs Evil'
012. Bright Eyes 'The People's Key'
013. The Decemberists 'The King Is Dead'
014. Hannah Peel 'Broken Wave'
015. ... And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Death 'Tao Of The Dead'
016. Anna Calvi 'Anna Calvi'
017. Twilight Singers 'Dynamite Steps'
018. Yuck 'Yuck'
019. Cut Copy 'Zonoscope'
020. Lykke Li 'Wounded Rhymes'

by **Otisredding** » Sun Mar 04, 2012 6:48 am

And in March 1, 2010?

001. Beach House ´Teen Dream´
002. Four Tet ´There Is Love In You´
003. Yeasayer ´Odd Blood´
004. Ali Farka Touré & Toumani Diabaté ´Ali And Toumani´
005. Pantha Du Prince ´Black Noise´
006. Vampire Weekend ´Contra´
007. Hot Chip ´One Life Stand´
008. These New Puritans ´Hidden´
009. Owen Pallett ´Heartland´
010. Lindström & Christabelle ´Real Life Is No Cool´
011. Spoon ´Transference´
012. Gil Scott-Heron ´I´m New Here´
013. Laura Veirs ´July Flame´
014. Joanna Newsom ´Have One On Me´
015. Charlotte Gainsbourg ´IRM´ (2009 )
016. Field Music ´Field Music (Measure)´
017. Midlake ´The Courage Of Others´
018. Retribution Gospel Choir ´2´
019. Thee Silver Mt. Zion ´Kollaps Tradixionales´
020. Sade ´Soldier Of Love´

by **Otisredding** » Sun Mar 04, 2012 6:53 am

And in March 1, 2009?

001. Animal Collective ´Merriweather Post Pavillion´
002. Antony & The Johnsons ´The Crying Light´
003. M. Ward ´Hold Time´
004. Andrew Bird ´Noble Beast´
005. Morrissey ´Years Of Refusal´
006. The Phantom Band ´Checkmate Savage´
007. Dan Auerbach ´Keep It Hid´
008. Titus Andronicus ´The Airing Of Grievances´(2008 )
009. Alela Diane ´To Be Still´
010. Bruce Springsteen ´Working On A Dream´
011. J.Tillman ´Vacilando Territory Blues´
012. Harmonic 313 ´When Machines Exceed Human Intelligence´
013. Telepathe ´Dance Mother´
014. Buraka Som Sistema ´Black Diamond´(2008 )
015. James Yuill ´Turning Down Water For Air´
016. Empire Of The Sun ´Walking On A Dream´
017. Lily Allen ´It´s Not Me, It´s You´
018. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart ´The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart´
019. Franz Ferdinand ´Tonight : Franz Ferdinand´
020. Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3 ´Goodnight Oslo´

by **Otisredding** » Sun Mar 04, 2012 7:02 am

And in March 1, 2008?

01. Vampire Weekend ´Vampire Weekend´
02. Black Mountain ´In The Future´
03. Hot Chip ´Made In The Dark´
04. Drive-By Truckers ´Brighter Than Creation´S Dark´
05. Magnetic Fields ´Distortion´
06. Cat Power ´Jukebox´
07. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds ´Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!´
08. Los Campesinos! ´Hold On Now, Youngster´
09. The Mountain Goats ´Heretic Pride´
10. British Sea Power ´Do You Like Rock Music?´
11. Ghostface Killah ´The Big Doe Rehab´
12. Cass Mc Combs ´Dropping The Writ´
13. American Music Club ´The Golden Age´
14. Beach House ´Devotion´
15. Toumani Diabate ´The Mande Variations´
16. Lupe Fiasco ´The Cool´
17. Baby Dee ´Safe Inside The Day´
18. Earth ´The Bees Made Honey In The Lions Skull´
19. Goldfrapp ´Seventh Tree´
20. Wu-Tang Clan ´8 Diagrams´

by **Otisredding** » Sun Mar 04, 2012 7:24 am

lagire wrote:here is a list of web critics from france:
- rock and folk
- magicrpm

Merci beaucoup, lagire

Rock and folk. published only 25 reviews a month. Ineligible

Magicrpm. I will read more. At first I think it's a quality publication. And publishes an extensive critique of discs

France will be represented in the next MCCH!

by **Otisredding** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 9:08 am

lagire wrote:i forgot "music story" which is as allmusic but for france

music-estory meets the requirements

Thank you very much, lagire, MCCH is better now because we have France.

Someone from Holland, Ireland, Poland, Ukraine ... you know any music website with reviews ...

by **Henrik** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 9:57 am

Otis, I don't know if you want to use it, but there's an excellent website http://kritiker.se that combines ratings from Swedish magazines. The top albums of 2012 (only sorted by average rating, not taking into account the number of ratings) can be found here: http://kritiker.se/skivor/arets-basta-skivor/?ar=2012. First Aid Kit's rating is based on no less than 35 Swedish magazines!

If you want to use some kind of aggregated score from Swedish critics based on this website (instead of using Nöjesguiden) I could help you come up with a formula for that.

by **Otisredding** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 1:59 pm

It's a great website. It seems that in Sweden everyone is putting letters, numbers, bees, fir, crosses, horses, etc.. on reviews of the albums.

I have to do that I in Spain.

option a) I could eliminate Nojesguiden scores and use of Kritiker.

option b) Keep Nojesguiden and include other publication of Sweden but which one?

Gaffa is published in Sweden and Denmark?

by **Henrik** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 2:48 pm

I think option a is better than b. It would be a better source and it probably means less work for you as well. But if you choose option a, I think the combined Swedish rating should count as more than one source. Here's a suggestion that just popped into my head:

Number of reviews for MCC calculation = floor (ln (#reviews at kritiker.se))
This means that you take the natural logarithm of the number of reviews and remove all decimals
Example: 35 reviews = floor (ln (35)) = floor (3.56) = 3
(3-7 reviews = 1, 8-20 reviews = 2, 21-54 reviews = 3)

(Cutting the decimals will make your presentation look cleaner and it might make the job easier for you, otherwise there's no need for you to do that)

Alternatively - if you don't think that "4 reviews" from Sweden for the First Aid Kit album is too much - you could use
round (ln (#reviews at kritiker.se))
This means that you round the logarithm value to the nearest integer
Example: 35 reviews = floor (ln (35)) = floor (3.56) = 4
(2-4 reviews = 1, 5-12 reviews = 2, 13-33 reviews = 3, 34-90 reviews = 4)

A third and simple alternative could be to just count kritiker.se as two sources.

In any case, you don't have to worry about the bees and horses.

Krikiter.se has done the job for you and translated all ratings into a 1-5 scale.

I was also surprised to see Gaffa listed at kritiker.se. I don't know about the relation to the Danish magazine.

by **lagire** » Wed Mar 07, 2012 4:27 pm

Thank for your response, otis.
morever, i am looking for, also, websites critics with ratings as in megacriticchart.
but criterias more larger than megacritichart <400 or > 400 reviews.
do you know others? (except those of metacritic)

In france, there was also a website as kritiker.se named "le guide musical" in 2010-2011, but it disappeared for lack of means.
they are searching for investors, perhaps it will reappeared one day.

by **Otisredding** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 2:29 pm

MCCh 2012 (04) March, 15

7 new entries: new music from San Jose, Transylvania?, Freehold, Raleigh, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York and new number one

And new webs used: Music-story (France), Magic RPM (France), and Gaffa (Sweden)

by **Stephan** » Sun Mar 18, 2012 10:28 am

About the Dutch review websites, the only magazine I can think of that does a lot of reviews is Oor, but they don't publish their reviews (or grades) online.

Belgium does have a magazine that publishes grades online: Humo.be. They have published 53 reviews in 2011 so far, and they actually have over 3000 reviews on their website. The website isn't the easiest to navigate, but you can find it here.

by **Otisredding** » Mon Mar 19, 2012 11:00 am

Thank you, Stephan

Oor not eligible because it does not publish reviews in web

HUMO is already included in MCCH, but this year has decreased much revision numbers: it is possible to remove HUMO from the spreadsheet

by **Otisredding** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 11:15 pm

MCCh 2012 (05) March, 31

6 new entries

And new webs used: Rave (Australia); DIY (UK); Blurt (USA); Bowlegs (USA). Eliminated, for now, these sites because they do not reach 50% of the average number of reviews: Humo, Mondosonoro, Cokemachineglow, Spin and Tiny Mix Tapes

by **Nassim** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 1:36 pm

Les Inrocks, the main French music magazine, puts notes in reviews since 2010 or 11, and have just updated its website to include them.

by **Otisredding** » Thu Apr 12, 2012 6:04 am

Thank you very much, Nassim.

Les Inrocks is a great magazine, therefore, now MCCH is better.

by **Otisredding** » Sun Apr 15, 2012 10:23 am

MCCh 2012 (06) April, 15

10 new albums!

by **Otisredding** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 10:03 pm

MCCh 2012 (07) April, 30

10 new albums! again!

by **Otisredding** » Tue May 15, 2012 9:38 am

MCCh 2012 (08) May, 15

Yes, 10 new albums again!

by **Otisredding** » Wed May 16, 2012 1:27 pm

Participate in the new superpoll!

Base: 100 best albums of 2012 so far, according to MCCH

5 polls (20 albums each)

You can choose four albums from each list and, of course, you can change your vote until May 30

On June 1st we will open a new poll with the 20 best of the year (the four albums the most votes from each list) and we will decide what is our favorite album of 2012 so far

Poll A

Poll B

Poll C

Poll D

Poll E

by **Otisredding** » Thu May 31, 2012 7:39 am

MCCh 2012 (09) May, 31

9 new albums and new number 1!

by **Otisredding** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 6:07 am

MCCh 2012 (10) June, 15

9 new albums!

by **Otisredding** » Sat Jun 30, 2012 6:28 am

MCCh 2012 (11) June, 30

8 new albums!

This is a great clue to hit the new number one

by **lagire** » Mon Jul 02, 2012 1:06 pm

Hi everyone,

Except metacritic, ADM and kritiker, does anyone know other websites which does the same job?

thanks for your responses.

by **dr_Robert** » Mon Jul 02, 2012 2:21 pm

lagire wrote:Hi everyone,

Except metacritic, ADM and kritiker, does anyone know other websites which does the same job?

thanks for your responses.

ADM? I take it that is a "metacritic" sight of some sort. What is the webaddress for them?

by **Harold** » Mon Jul 02, 2012 2:31 pm

dr_Robert wrote:
lagire wrote:Hi everyone,

Except metacritic, ADM and kritiker, does anyone know other websites which does the same job?

thanks for your responses.

ADM? I take it that is a "metacritic" sight of some sort. What is the webaddress for them?

It's Any Decent Music. http://www.anydecentmusic.com

by **dr_Robert** » Mon Jul 02, 2012 2:58 pm

Thanks Harold! I just had a look at it. Looks neat. Does anyone have an opinion on whether Any Decent Music is better or worse than Metacritic? (Their ranking seem to take the number of reviews into account and I don't think Metacritic's ranking does that).

by **irreduciblekoan** » Tue Jul 03, 2012 6:51 am

They both have their pros and cons. I prefer Any Decent Music's formula. It's "tougher" and more logical (to me). They also use somewhat better sources in the few cases that ADM uses a source Metacritic doesn't use and vice versa. Three exceptions to that last point are FACT mag, XLR8R and Resident Advisor. ADM doesn't use those sources and I think they're good ones.

Metacritic has its own benefits, the main one being that it includes more releases. ADM will tend to miss some of the smaller, more niche albums that Metacritic would still have an entry for, even if only with 4 or 5 reviews.

Generally, I use both to complement what I explore. But neither one is as good as Mega Critic. And I don't just say that because I'm here. I love Mega Critic's use of non-English critics, and also prefer its method of only focusing on the same 31 sources so the scores are fairer all around. I basically use Metacritic and ADM for the albums that have a negligible amount of reviews which Mega Critic doesn't include, as well as EPs.

by **dr_Robert** » Tue Jul 03, 2012 2:16 pm

Thanks for your answer irreduciblekoan!

If anyone is interested, I have made a... Megalomaniac (?) Metacratic chart for the first half of 2012 using the Megacritic chart, ADM and kritiker.se. In order to give it an added value to the list in this thread, the number of ratings has been given a considerable importance. You find the list here: http://rateyourmusic.com/list/dr_Robert ... ritic_list

by **Otisredding** » Sun Jul 15, 2012 5:55 am

MCCh 2012 (12) July, 15

6 new albums!

And new number one?

by **Otisredding** » Tue Jul 31, 2012 8:28 am

MCCh 2012 (13) July, 31

5 new albums!

And new number one?

by **Otisredding** » Wed Aug 15, 2012 5:22 am

MCCh 2012 (14) August, 15

Many music critics rest in summer.
MCCh not stop.

6 reentries!

by **Otisredding** » Fri Aug 31, 2012 6:34 am

MCCh 2012 (15) August, 31

This is not the time to Four Tet, or Ariel Pink, or Yeasayer or Animal Collective. Well, only for a small part of animal collective…

8 new albums in top 80!

by **Otisredding** » Sat Sep 15, 2012 6:03 am

MCCh 2012 (16) September, 15

10 new albums in top 85!

by **Otisredding** » Sun Sep 30, 2012 5:47 am

MCCh 2012 (17) September, 30

6 new albums in top 90!

And two great albums in top 10:

by **Otisredding** » Mon Oct 15, 2012 5:42 am

MCCh 2012 (18) October, 15

7 new albums in top 95!

And one new album in top 10:

by **Otisredding** » Wed Oct 31, 2012 6:21 am

MCCh 2012 (19) October, 31

There are 100 good albums in 2012?

Music critics say yes!

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