Here they are, the top-rated albums of 2009 (so far) at metocritic.com, just in time for Christmas shopping:
1. Live At Reading, Nirvana 96
2. Live In London, Leonard Cohen 91
3. Merriweather Post Pavilion, Animal Collective 89
4. Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... Pt. II, Raekwon 88
5. American Saturday Night, Brad Paisley 86
6. Monoliths & Dimensions, Sunn O))) 86
7. Welcome To Mali, Amadou & Mariam 86
8. Hospice, The Antlers 86
9. Veckatimest, Grizzly Bear 85
10. Journal For Plague Lovers, Manic Street Preachers 85
11. Wind's Poem, Mount Eerie 85
12. Bitte Orca, Dirty Projectors 85
13. Revolution, Miranda Lambert 85
14. Axe To Fall, Converge 85
What to the scores mean? According to the website's "short summary" which I've condensed:
"Each album is assigned a METASCORE®, which is a weighted average of all of the scores assigned by individual critics to that movie, game, book or album. METASCORES range from 0-100, with higher scores indicating better overall reviews, and lower scores indicating less favorable reviews from critics. The METASCORE is considered a weighted average because we assign more significance, or weight, to some critics and publications than we do to others, based on the overall stature and quality of those critics and publications. In addition, for music and movies, we also normalize the resulting scores (akin to "grading on a curve" in college), which prevents scores from clumping together."
In other words, a fail-safe method of ranking the year's best!
Jesus Wept.
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