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Year-By-Year Rankings Has rock music aged gracefully? What was the best single year in rock history? What was the best record of 1966? Was there any good music in the 70s? Questions like these are of course a matter of taste. But we wanted to at least set the record straight on what we think, so here we present a year-by-year statistical summary of our ratings, with links to what we think the best records in each year were. How do the rankings work? Well, it's really pretty nightmarish. Ultimately, the scores are percentages scaled between the best year and the worst, and they depend on a sum of all the scores we handed out for each individual year. However, the intermediate steps in the calculation are pretty brutal, so you can skip reading them if you want. Here they are: Convert the ratings to numbers ( = 1, = 1.5, = 2, etc.). When both of us have rated a record, use the average of the two ratings. Our funk, hip hop, and 70s - 90s pop reviews are included, but our jazz and Latin music reviews aren't. Add up all the ratings for a year. Smooth out the curve by adding scores for neighboring years together. So 1971's new score is its old score plus the scores for 1970 and 1972. More reviews always mean higher scores, and we need to get rid of that signal. So we regress the scores against the number of reviews we did, and then take the residuals. A log-log regression is used here because it works better. Rescale the smoothed, residual scores so they run from 0 to 100%. So here's the curve: You'll notice two important things about the scores. First, there are cycles that last about six years. We think these cycles relate to the invention of major new movements like "classic" 60s rock; soft rock and glam rock; funk, disco, and punk; "alternative" rock; and so on. Second, we do not think modern popular music is getting any better. In fact, we think the mid-80s and early 90s really sucked. Fortunately, things have picked up again lately with the death of 80s synth pop and the rebirth of traditional rock music under the alias of "grunge" and "Britpop." Some of the overall trends might merely reflect our own biases, but the cycles are probably as "real" as any cultural phenomenon can be - we had no idea we were going to find them when we did this analysis. And even more surprisingly, we found the periodic peaks in both of our ratings, despite the fact that Alroy is crazy about the early 80s and Wilson likes the 70s a whole heck of a lot more. And the best year in rock ever? 1966 - we haven't reviewed quite so many records from that year, but it was a damned good one. (JA) Psst! Hey, buddy: wanna see all our five-star ratings in one big inchoate mass? (DBW) Year - Rating - Best Album(s) 1963 - 17% Bob Dylan, Freewheelin' Bob Dylan 1964 - 30% The Beach Boys, All Summer Long The Supremes, Where Did Our Love Go? Dionne Warwick, Make Way For Dionne Warwick 1965 - 38% Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited 1966 - 89% The Beach Boys, Pet Sounds 1967 - 99% The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Jimi Hendrix, Axis: Bold As Love The Zombies, Odessey And Oracle 1968 - 100% Frank Zappa, We're Only In It For The Money 1969 - 72% The Beatles, Abbey Road 1970 - 79% Derek and the Dominoes, Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs John Lennon, Plastic Ono Band The Velvet Underground, Loaded 1971 - 86% Marvin Gaye, What's Goin' On Joni Mitchell, Blue The Rolling Stones, Sticky Fingers Sly and the Family Stone, There's A Riot Goin' On The Who, Who's Next 1972 - 74% Stevie Wonder, Talking Book 1973 - 53% Carole King, Fantasy Stevie Wonder, Innervisions 1974 - 49% Joni Mitchell, Court & Spark 1975 - 55% Bob Dylan, Blood On The Tracks 1976 - 68% Joan Armatrading Jeff Beck, Wired Stevie Wonder, Songs In The Key Of Life Bootsy's Rubber Band, Stretchin' Out... 1977 - 63% Bootsy's Rubber Band, Aaah... The Name Is Bootsy, Baby! Earth, Wind & Fire, All 'N All Parliament, Funkentelechy Vs. The Placebo Syndrome 1978 - 50% Elvis Costello, Armed Forces Funkadelic, One Nation Under A Groove 1979 - 26% Earth, Wind & Fire, I Am The Police, Reggatta De Blanc 1980 - 19% Stevie Wonder, Hotter Than July 1981 - 27% King Crimson, Discipline 1982 - 41% George Clinton, Computer Games Michael Jackson, Thriller Chaka Khan King Crimson, Beat Prince, 1999 Patrice Rushen, Straight From The Heart XTC, English Settlement 1983 - 44% Run-D.M.C., Run-D.M.C. 1984 - 35% Prince, Purple Rain 1985 - 15% LL Cool J, Radio Run-D.M.C., King Of Rock Talking Heads, Little Creatures 1986 - 10% XTC, Skylarking 1987 - 20% Prince, Sign O' The Times 1988 - 25% Public Enemy, It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back Sonic Youth, Daydream Nation 1989 - 20% Rickie Lee Jones, Flying Cowboys Madonna, Like A Prayer Queen Latifah, All Hail The Queen Angela Winbush, The Real Thing XTC, Oranges & Lemons Young MC, Stone Cold Rhymin' Neil Young, Freedom 1990 - 7% Salt-N-Pepa, Blacks' Magic 1991 - 0% A Tribe Called Quest, The Low End Theory MC Lyte, Act Like You Know Richard Thompson, Rumor And Sigh 1992 - 1% Adrian Belew, Inner Revolution Praxis, Transmutation 1993 - 5% P-Funk etc., Greatest Hits Live Prince, The Hits/The B-Sides 1994 - 17% Tori Amos, Under The Pink Richard Thompson, Mirror Blue 1995 - 19% Lunachicks, Jerk Of All Trades 1996 - 24% Prince, Emancipation 1997 Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott, Supa Dupa Fly Wow, this is the worst web page of 1998. Get me outta here...  Main page   New additions   Pop: 00s  90s 80s 70s 60s 50s  Latin/Jazz   Top 20: DBW JA   E-mail