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Thread: Album Club Analysis

  1. #1
    MartinT Guest

    Default Album Club Analysis

    With over a year of Album Club in the bag, and for a bit of fun, I thought I'd analyse the distribution of albums and scoring to see how it looks to date. I have graphed the analysis on two axes: number of albums submitted per decade; standardised mean score from the voting. This is the result as of the date of this post.



    You can see that the most popular decade is the 1970s with a big dip in the 1980s. The relative popularity of the 2010s, with only three years represented, reflects I think the age group of many of our members.

    The mean scores are interesting, with the 1950s scoring the best. There's an upturn from the 1980s to the 1990s and another from the 2000s to 2010s.

    It certainly seems that the 1980s were the crappest for quality music, but the 2000s score the lowest of all.

    Top five albums
    1: Week 60 Mile Davis
    2: Week 52 Muddy Waters
    3: Week 43 Wishbone Ash
    4: Week 57 Black Sabbath
    5: Week 64 James Carr

    Bottom three albums
    66: Week 14 Britney Spears
    65: Week 44 Slovo
    64: Week 56 Raison d'Etre

    All comments and discussion welcome!
    Last edited by MartinT; 26-11-2012 at 13:30. Reason: Changed image hosting

  2. #2
    Join Date: Nov 2010

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    Nice one Martin.
    The 50's scoring best , but only 2 albums probably a couple of diamonds in a bucket of ... moving on, I agree the 80's was a big dip and things could only get better, some top acts coming on song during the 90's.

  3. #3
    Join Date: May 2008

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    They were a few good albums from the 80s but on the whole it was a poor decade for great music
    Loves anything from Pain of Salvation to Jeff Buckley to Django to Sarasate to Surinder Sandhu to Shawn Lane to Nick Drake to Rush to Beth Hart to Kate Bush to Rodrigo Y Gabriela to The Hellecasters to Dark Sanctury to Ben Harper to Karicus to Dream Theater to Zero Hour to Al DiMeola to Larry Carlton to Derek Trucks to Govt Mule to?

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  4. #4
    Join Date: May 2008

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    I'm Nick.

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    I guess it depends when you really got into music. The 80's was fantastic for it's Indie scene, No Wave, DIY Punk, 'Grunge', early Techno, Plunderphonics (Christian Marclay, Negativland, John Oswald etc)... I could go on!

    I think it's actually got more to do with the problem that the 80's was more about the music, the politics, the scene, than the production, so it's not the kind of thing Audiophiles go on about. Shame really, 'cos they're definitely losing out!!
    Nick
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  5. #5
    Join Date: Aug 2009

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    I'm Martin.

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    I'm not sure it was an audiophile thing. I was 12 in 1980 so the 80s should be my decade musically but they aren't. Don't get me wrong I did like some of the music and time and age means I can appreciate it more now, even the gated drums. It's all the crappy synthersiser shite that turns me off. They could have got the Memphis Horns or someone in but they said no, we can do that on a Fairlight now. No you can't. That didn't last, thank god.
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  6. #6
    MartinT Guest

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    Indeed, post-punk, new romantics, synth disco, goth and other light pop didn't really add up to a strong decade for me. Also there is no doubt that recording quality fell to an all-time low in the 1980s - including classical (see Deutsche Grammophon for many examples).

  7. #7
    Alex_UK's Avatar
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    Excellent, Martin. Will certainly be interesting to see how it develops over time. Will also be interesting to see if this affects how people choose their selections for the future.
    Alex

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  8. #8
    Join Date: May 2008

    Location: Cricklewood

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    Some albums from the 80s that I love
    Kate Bush Hounds Of Love
    Metallica Master of Puppets and Juistice for All
    But mostly I remember the 80s for Synth pop, AOR, New Romantics
    At the time I was a headbanger mostly listening to Diamond Head, Queensryche, Rush and Y&T
    Loves anything from Pain of Salvation to Jeff Buckley to Django to Sarasate to Surinder Sandhu to Shawn Lane to Nick Drake to Rush to Beth Hart to Kate Bush to Rodrigo Y Gabriela to The Hellecasters to Dark Sanctury to Ben Harper to Karicus to Dream Theater to Zero Hour to Al DiMeola to Larry Carlton to Derek Trucks to Govt Mule to?

    Humour: One of the few things worth taking seriously

  9. #9
    Join Date: Feb 2011

    Location: South Wales

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    I'm the'greatunwashed'.

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    Impressive work Martin for sure, one of these days I'm going to get to grips with Excel

    As to the 80's, well I probably bought a good bulk of my vinyl from 1979 when I left the Navy until the advent of CD. When I now look back at what was around, I have to agree it was a rather lean period as far as good music went, or at least regarding what I was buying during that period - no wonder I got rid of them (I do still have some Duran Duran on vinyl!) I think during the 80's my main pursuit in life was women, so I bought a lot of slush, but it sure worked

    I think the 70's is indicative of membership age as pointed out.

    So far I have kept all my album club choices to 'new' music as I enjoy discovering new bands, but the next ones going to be a little older, but likely to prove unpopular - but you never know.
    "People will hear what you tell them to hear" - Thomas Edison

  10. #10
    Join Date: May 2008

    Location: Lancaster(-ish), UK

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    I'm ChrisB.

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    The general trend is pretty obvious. Does that mean music is getting worse or just that we're all old gits?

    I suspect it's just that, over time the true classics float to the top of our musical awareness - we forget about all of the mediocre stuff and the real crap.

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