25 album choices derived from a 23 poll series

I prepared a series of 23 polls covering, counts on fingers, 575 albums last year, that's a lot of fingers, prosaically titled "Albums from the RYM chart that are also in PA". The RateYourMusic (RYM) chart is the General Music Chart at that site and I went down the list looking to see every album included in PA -- I had missed Slint early on, my bad, for some reason I had thought it was not in PA. I went through the top 3500 albums there to prepare the entries for those polls. It was a very time-consuming, but also a rather pleasantly mind-numbing exercise, like Novocaine direct to the brain.

For this poll, I have chosen five or more given votes for each album from last year's poll series as the album qualifier. The number beside the album in the list below shows the number of votes that the album received in the poll from the series. Various bands/artists have multiple albums that would qualify on that basis, but I decided to limit this to one album per act based on the album of each act that received the most votes throughout the series of 23 polls that I conducted. If, as happened a few times, an act with an album in the poll has more than one album with that same number of votes, then I went with the album that was higher ranked at RYM.

The order that the albums are in the poll and list below is the same order as how they were ranked at RYM at the time of the creation of the poll series. For instance, Selling England by the Pound's ranking at RYM's General Music Charts was 166. There were 15 albums that were higher in the list based on RYM's rankings than SEbtP, but none of them received enough votes in the poll to potentially qualify other than Yes' Close to the Edge with seven votes. Since in a later poll The Yes Album received 8 votes (one more than CttE), the Yes album with more votes then becomes the qualifier for this poll. Manfred Mann's Earth Band's Solar Fire, which is the 25th option in this poll, ranked at number 3338 at the RYM chart.

What the competition was in nay given poll was an important factor in which album received the most votes as one could imagine.


Genesis - Selling England by the Pound (15)
Rush - Moving Pictures (13)
Van der Graaf Generator - Pawn Hearts (11)
King Crimson - Larks' Tongues in Aspic (10)
Yes - The Yes Album (8)
Pink Floyd - The Wall (9)
Camel - Moonmadness (8)
Renaissance - Ashes are Burning (5)
Supertramp - Crime of the Century (6)
Harmonium - Les cinq saisons (5)
Steely Dan - Countdown to Ecstasy (5)
Gentle Giant - Acquiring the Taste (9)
Jethro Tull - Songs From the Wood (11)
Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel 4 (6)
Chris Squire - Fish Out of Water (6)
Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells (8)
Steve Hackett - Voyage of the Acolyte (8)
Gong - Flying Teapot (7)
National Health - Of Queues and Cures (6)
Billy Cobham - Spectrum (5)
Caravan - For Girls Who Grow Plump in the Night (7)
Marillion - Script for a Jester's Tear (11)
Focus - Hamburger Concerto (7)
Transatlantic - Bridge Across Forever (7)
Manfred Mann's Earth Band - Solar Fire (6)

Notes:

1. The Yes album is tied in my poll series with Relayer with six votes. Moonmadness is tied for 8 votes with The Snow Goose (I prefer the Snow Goose). In these cases I went with the album that was ranked higher at RateYourMusic. Renaissance is tied at five votes with Live at Carnegie Hall, and the Live is higher ranked at RYM, but in this case I opted to limit this poll to studio albums.

2. I had included Prog Archives Prog Related and Proto Prog acts in that General Music RYM chart in the series, and the three that qualified for this were Led Zeppelin's first (five votes), David Bowie's Blackstar also with five votes (what an emotional, poignant and incredible swansong) and The Who's Quadrophenia with five votes yet again. I opted not to include those because the ones included in Prog categories came to exactly 25 options.

3. I was surprised that in the first poll In the Court of the Crimson King only received one vote. Selling England received 15 votes in that same poll.

This is not a multiple vote poll

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I have lots I like but six stand out the most for me:

Van der Graaf Generator - Pawn Hearts
Gentle Giant - Acquiring the Taste
National Health - Of Queues and Cures
Gong - Flying Teapot
King Crimson - Larks' Tongues in Aspic
Focus - Hamburger Concerto

Voting Pawn Hearts.

I'm very pleased to see Solar Fire has qualified. Chances are Manfred Mann and his Earth Band are not going to pick up many votes in this field, so I give them mine. Could've voted equally well for Pawn Hearts or Moonmadness. SEBTP and LTIA are of course great albums, too, as is Of Queues and Cures.


Edited by Lewian - June 03 2023 at 03:11

Edited by David_D - June 03 2023 at 04:44

I appreciate many of these, but today I'll choose National Health.

Amazing albums, Yet the YES Album holds a special place in my heart.

1. Renaissance

progaardvark wrote: Too many great ones to pick from. Instead of carefully thinking about which one, I'm going to go with the one I'm in the mood for. So, Marillion it is.

Voting for the one I'm "most feeling" in the moment is usually the way I vote in these preference type polls. That commonly is how I choose what to listen to at any given time too (some have systems to listen, for me it's a mood/gut thing mostly internal but also through the external influences of others -- and sometimes I do do it to please others even if not in the mood). A soon as something puts me in mind of "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers", I'm always feeling it. All things are apart, all things are a part.

Regarding A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers, I have noted some saying that it ruins the album for them (bad according to my old PA pal Micky), and many people saying that they really like the first half, but the second half doe not appeal so much. I like the whole thing, but it's parts from the second half that really bring on the feelings to me from the song. I want the whole thing but I gravitate most to the second half. I love it. It is so poignant to me and the pinnacle of VdGG for me.   Glorious.

I wish multiple votes were allowed. I went for The Yes Album in the end but I also like Moonmadness, Bridge Across Forever and Tubular Bells.

Another vote for Genesis, but there are many great albums here. My top 5 from this list:

Edited by someone_else - June 03 2023 at 14:16