I was wondering last week what my favorite albums were. Being a stats kinda guy, I looked to iTunes and skimmed through, charting any album that had the majority of songs in the four- and five-star range. I then went to allmusic.com to make sure there weren't any deleted songs. Here's the chart including all the albums that came out to an average of at least four stars (any deleted songs were tallied as being zero stars for this purpose)...
| Album | Artist | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | Deleted | Average | Total |
| Desire | Bob Dylan | 4 | 5 | 0 | 4.444444 | 40 | |||
| Blood on the Tracks | Bob Dylan | 4 | 6 | 0 | 4.4 | 44 | |||
| American Idiot | Green Day | 5 | 8 | 0 | 4.384615 | 57 | |||
| Vampire Weekend | Vampire Weekend | 4 | 7 | 0 | 4.363636 | 48 | |||
| A Ghost is Born | Wilco | 5 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 4.333333 | 52 | ||
| Traveling Wilburys, Vol 1 | Traveling Wilburys | 4 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 4.3 | 43 | ||
| Pink Moon | Nick Drake | 3 | 8 | 0 | 4.272727 | 47 | |||
| Yankee Hotel Foxtrot | Wilco | 3 | 8 | 0 | 4.272727 | 47 | |||
| To the 5 Boroughs | Beastie Boys | 4 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 4.2 | 63 | ||
| Velvet Underground & Nico | Velvet Underground | 3 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 4.2 | 42 | ||
| Joshua Tree | U2 | 2 | 9 | 0 | 4.181818 | 46 | |||
| Being There | Wilco | 5 | 12 | 2 | 0 | 4.157895 | 79 | ||
| Demolition | Ryan Adams | 3 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 4.153846 | 54 | ||
| Licensed to Ill | Beastie Boys | 4 | 7 | 2 | 0 | 4.153846 | 54 | ||
| Blood on the Tapes | Bob Dylan | 3 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 4.1 | 41 | ||
| Contra | Vampire Weekend | 2 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 4.1 | 41 | ||
| Greatest Hits/B Sides (disc 1) | Prince | 3 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 4.1 | 41 | ||
| Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Demos | Wilco | 3 | 17 | 1 | 0 | 4.095238 | 86 | ||
| Contact from the Underworld… | Robbie Robertson | 1 | 10 | 0 | 4.090909 | 45 | |||
| Graceland | Paul Simon | 2 | 8 | 1 | 0 | 4.090909 | 45 | ||
| Jerusalem | Steve Earle | 2 | 8 | 1 | 0 | 4.090909 | 45 | ||
| Garden State | various | 1 | 12 | 0 | 4.076923 | 53 | |||
| Get Behind Me Satan | White Stripes | 2 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 4.076923 | 53 | ||
| My Beautiful Dark Twisted… | Kanye West | 3 | 8 | 2 | 0 | 4.076923 | 53 | ||
| Good News for People Who… | Modest Mouse | 2 | 13 | 1 | 0 | 4.0625 | 65 | ||
| 21st Century Breakdown | Green Day | 3 | 13 | 2 | 0 | 4.055556 | 73 | ||
| Ashes of American Flags | Wilco | 3 | 14 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 80 | ||
| Lungs | Florence & the… | 2 | 9 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 52 | ||
| Nebraska | Bruce Springsteen | 2 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 40 | ||
| Oh Mercy | Bob Dylan | 2 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 40 | ||
| Step Inside This House | Lyle Lovett | 4 | 13 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 84 | ||
| Very Good Years | Frank Sinatra | 3 | 14 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 80 | ||
| Gold | Ryan Adams | 4 | 11 | 1 | 4 | 64 |
Here's how the chart works for Desire, obviously the greatest album ever. It has four 5-star songs and five 4-star songs. It has no songs that get a 3-, 2-, or 1-star rating and no songs that I disliked so much I deleted them. That averages out to 4.44 stars per song, and the album earns a total of forty stars.
Desire has the highest quality of any album. The Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Demos has the highest quantity of quality songs (earning a best total of 86 stars for the 'album' - though it's not an official release.)
There are a whole bunch of albums up there that I wouldn't have ever thought of without doing the math.
Obviously, I recommend all those albums pretty strongly.
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