January 19, 2011

My favorite albums...by the numbers


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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