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The Afterword Top 100 2024 – The Results

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A Happy New Year to you all.

Before any results are posted I have to acknowledge the hard work of @salwarpe, who has done the vast, vast majority of the leg work on this enterprise this year. Any thanks that have been offered to me (and there have been plenty, thanks for your thanks) should really be directed towards him and his magic spreadsheet.

Before the excitement of this year’s results, here is a quick summary of the results from the last seven years.

2018 642 albums nominated – winner Ry Cooder: Prodigal Son

2019 563 albums nominated – winner Bruce Springsteen: Western Stars

2020 531 albums nominated – winner Bob Dylan: Rough & Rowdy Ways

2021 565 albums nominated – winner Robert Plant & Alison Krauss: Raise The Roof

2022 556 albums nominated – winner Half Man Half Biscuit: The Voltarol Years

2023 574 albums nominated – winner Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit: Weathervanes

2024 – 558 albums nominated – winner: ?????????????

The Afterword Top 100(ish) Of 2023 – The Results

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Before the results are released, here’s a quick summary of the last six years’ results (with thanks to Lodestone Of Wrongness, whose post from last year I have shamelessly cannibalised.

2018 642 albums nominated – winner Ry Cooder: Prodigal Son

2019 563 albums nominated – winner Bruce Springsteen: Western Stars

2020 531 albums nominated – winner Bob Dylan: Rough & Rowdy Ways

2021 565 albums nominated – winner Robert Plant & Alison Krauss: Raise The Roof

2022 556 albums nominated – winner Half Man Half Biscuit: The Voltarol Years

2023 574 albums nominated – winner ??????

2022 Albums Of The Year

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Before the results countdown commences, a brief resume of the last five years:

2018 642 albums nominated – winner Ry Cooder: Prodigal Son

2019 563 albums nominated – winner Bruce Springsteen: Western Stars

2020 531 albums nominated – winner Bob Dylan: Rough & Rowdy Ways

2021 565 albums nominated – winner Robert Plant & Alison Krauss: Raise The Roof

2022 556 albums nominated – winner ?????

“And now my blue banisters are green and grey, ah-ah” (aka IT’S RESULTS DAY!!!!!!): Afterword Album of 2021 Results

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Saturday felt like a Sunday, Sunday felt like a Saturday. So today is Monday, right? And what does the first Monday in January mean? It means The AfterWord Album of 2021 results are in!

After a long night’s toil, Little Gary is exhausted. But enough of Little Gary and his sordid adventures, let’s get going, shall we?

(Usual disclaimers – mistakes, mishaps and misspellings may well have occurred (92.37% probability) and the “old but new” debate lumbers on. But, hey, we’re friends, right? Right?)

No less than 565 separate albums were nominated (no wonder Little Gary is tired). One album led from the the first week of voting and was only overhauled in the final furlong between Christmas and New Year.

As is the time-honoured (?) tradition (?) let’s starts with those poor wee albums nominated by just one person giving it one measly vote Alan Vega- Mutator Brian Setzer – Gotta Have The Rumble Ches Smith And All We break – Path of Seven Colours Decemberists – Live Home Library Drinking Boys And Girls Choir – Marriage License Elton John – Regimental Sgt Zippo Gnod – La Mort Du Sens Isaiah Rashad – The House Is Burning John Zorn, » Continue Reading.

The Afterword’s Favourite Films 2020 – THE RESULTS

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Thanks for all the entries. And special thanks for the 32 people who posted as I asked with dashes in thetheir offering, the rest made my life very hard.;)

Silly me chose the deadline to be on the day when I had 2 huge work deadlines and also the day before I go on (faurly local) vacation for 2 weeks. So apologies for the errors that will surely be there.

Results in the comments. We had 94 entries and 490 unique films were chosen.

Afterword Poll Results

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All the Poll results over the years in one handy place, you lucky people.

We think we’ve captured them all but if anyone thinks a poll is missing just leave the link here and we’ll add it

Afterword Best Albums of the 21st Century – the results

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Just counting them up now – coming soon!

May take me a bit of time. 96 of us voted for no less than 620 albums – that’s an average of over 6 unique choices each. So consensus is thin on the ground. A few albums clearly stand out however, although it has still been possible to get into the Top 10 with just 5 votes.

Will try to post later this evening.

Final Score – 1980 to 1999 – Afterworders Top 500 Albums

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Thanks to all of you who have taken part in this poll. Total number of Albums voted for: 499 Number of AW Voters: 98 (sadly no Moose or Bingo to make 100) Total Votes: 980 [Drum roll]

……….Please note the results have been input on punched cards (Fortran77). The teletype will be back working after this batch job has run on my ICL mainframe.. Final Score 16:45 today………………….

The Afterword Favourite Albums – The Results

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OK, in the style of Radio 1 in the 70s/80s I am going to count down the albums form 10 to 1, and will then reveal the rest of the top 100, go through this at your own pace, I suggest playing the youtube link to get into the spirit of things.

Some stats: Around 100 contributions, I think 645 dufferent albums were nominated.

Disclaimer: I have double checked the results, but no guarantee everthing is completely correct. I had some trouble from the likes of @Lodestone-of-Wrongness and @Lemonhope trying to sneak in multiple entries …

OMG!! IT’S HERE!!! IT’S HERE!!!! THE RESULTS ARE IN!!!!!

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First a disclaimer (where disclaimer = excuse). The votes have been tabulated in four different countries, on a laptop, a phone and a tablet. Sometimes the spreadsheet has been opened late at night and ample refreshments may well have been taken beforehand. Whilst I am certain that the major placings are correct (within the normal statistical deviance of plus or minus 50%) there may indeed be some minor mistakes towards the bottom edges of the leader board where a combination of very silly band names and even sillier album titles may have led to a confused nay befuddled Little Gary inadvertently making the tiniest of errors. So apologies to Swidt, a hip hop collective from Onehunga, New Zealand and oft we jolly well go.

The Afterword’s 60 years of music…. the results…!!

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Thank you everyone for your contributions to my 60 albums thread. And thank you for bearing with me while it slowly dawned on me that it was a bigger job than I thought and I hadn’t really planned it out properly!

I’ve found it fascinating reading all the results. But I’ve now finished the big spreadsheet and I’m ready to share the results. I’ll do so year by year in the comments below. It’s going to take some time to go through all the years, but, hey, we have all the time in the world, in the words of Mr Armstrong.

I’ll also comment on some of the problems, like the same album appearing in different years (West Side Story, I’m looking at you).

My next job is to decide a method on choosing the winner for each year. I don’t want to just go with the one with the most votes for each year. That’s bland and boring and I never intended that. I’ll lay out all the nominations for each year here and then I can have a think.

One thing is clear – some years have a clear winner. I think in these cases I can just » Continue Reading.

THE RESULTS ARE IN!!!! (2018)

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On Day 1 I decided I would listen to every record listed: you bastards – 642 different albums!! I’ve probably listened (some of these listens lasted for minutes and minutes) to around one hundred so far – my, what a strange bunch you are. To be serious for a moment, thanks to everyone who voted and thanks for opening up these ancient ears to stuff I really, really had never heard of before. 351 albums were selected only once. Earning but one measly point ie being placed in 20th place were the following poor wee lambs

Anna Ternheim – All The Way To Rio Buddy Guy – The Blues Is Alive & Well Cher – Dancing Queen Colin MacLeod – Bloodlines Curses – Romantic Fiction DJ Kush – Cosmic Yard Ed Bennett/Decibel – Togetherness Fly Vance – Live in London Gregory Alan Isakov – Evening Machines Hermit And The Recluse – Orpheus and The Sirens Larkin Poe – Venom & Faith Marcin Wasilewski Trio – Live Papa M – A Broke Moon Rises Protoje – A Matter of Time Sarah Shook & The Disarmers – Years Shame – Songs of Praise Soulwax – Essential The War And The Treaty – » Continue Reading.

Albums of 2018 – Rereleases Poll – The Results

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Here are the results – I’m unable to format, copying from a spreadsheet with the result it looks even messier with the points totals. So I’m giving scores for the top 5 alone.

There were a total of 99 different entries. The top five scored thus: 1 – 71; 2 – 51; 3 – 35; 4 – 21; 5 – 19

Beatles – The Beatles (White Album) 1 Bob Dylan – More Blood, More Tracks 2 Primal Scream – Give Out But Don’t Give Up 3 Bobby Gentry – The Girl From Chickasaw County 4 The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society 5 Jethro Tull – Heavy Horses 6 Marillion – Clutching At Straws 7 John Coltrane – Both Directions At Once 8 Kate Bush – Complete =9 Tom Petty – Hidden treasures =9 Love – Forever Changes =10 Martin Freeman and Eddie Piller Present Jazz On The Corner =10 David Bowie – Loving The Alien Box =10 The Moody Blues – In Search Of The Lost Chord =10 Robert Kirby – When the day is done =10 John Lennon – Imagine =16 Prince – Piano & Microphone 1983 =16 Roxy Music – Roxy Music =16 Frank Sinatra – » Continue Reading.

AW TOP ALBUM OF 2017: RESULTS.

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Right apart from the fact that it appears that Americana is very popular around here I`m going to stick to the facts. After a re-count Jason Isbell has been voted a close winner over St. Vincent in the AFTERWORD TOP ALBUM OF 2017 POLL. Over 90 of you voted for up to 20 artists each. Over 625 albums and 615 bands/artists were nominated, representing the diversity of musical tastes around here.

Thank you to all who took part and commented, this has been an enjoyable exercise for me. I would like to thank those Prog Rock giants The Flower Kings whose music has helped me in this endeavour.

Disclaimer: Any mistakes and missing umlauts are intentional. The results are in Comments. Admin could the results be displayed at the top of the column for a 7/8 days, thank you.

The One True Tune To Rule Them All – RESULTS!

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It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for, no doubt.

After a week long process of intensive debate, and a voting process that has baffled pollsters, tried the patience of the electorate and lead to the permanent shattering of several friendships, and at least one marriage that we know of, we have finally arrived at the very Apex of all Afterword culture: The One True Tune To Rule Them All.

Henceforth, from this day on, when we discuss music let us do so united in the common recognition that there is one song that stands apart from all its brethren. A tune that pleases all ears, and confounds none. A song that has the entire Afterword singing along, arms aloft, with nary a nay-sayer in sight, and only brotherly love and bonhomie in evidence.

There are those who said it could not be done. That such a tune, quite simply, did not exist – COULD not exist. To those people, I say: Ha! Read herein, without your own eyes, the evidence that musical consensus is not just an arcane theory, or an ancient rumour, but an actual, practicable science, with results you can touch and feel. Recognise that man can » Continue Reading.

The Afterword Albums Of The Year 2016 – The Results

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The results are in. 97 Afterworders voted for a total of 612 albums, The scoring mechanism really focussed the mind. It was possible to get into the top fifty with just two votes, yet Mogwai’s Atomic languished in 61st place with ten votes. Where there is a tie for points, I’ve given the higher place to the album attracting more votes.

@salwarpe will be adding colour and flavour, comparing and contrasting different scoring systems. Still, there is a very clear winner no matter what system is used.

Here is the official top ten Afterword Albums of 2016:

1. David Bowie – Blackstar 703 points (48 votes) 2. Leonard Cohen – You Want It Darker 330 (29) 3. Radiohead – A Moon Shaped Pool 274 (31) 4. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Skeleton Tree 252 (26) 5. Michael Kiwanuka – Love And Hate 252 (21) 6. Teenage Fanclub – Here 177 (20) 7. Paul Simon – Stranger To Stranger 169 (17) 8. Wilco – Schmilco 128 (14) 9. Case/Lang/Viers 115 (17) 10. The Avalanches – Wildflower 112 (10)

You can view everyone’s votes on the link.

Happy New Year!

https://theafterword.co.uk/the-afterword-best-albums-of-2016-poll/

Best/Favourite Songwriters – The Results.

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Well that was a `rum` blog, but without further ado here are the results in ascending order, (votes in brackets):

Receiving one vote each: Marc Almond, Ian Anderson, Burt Bacharach, Syd Barrett, Irving Berlin, Buck/Berry/Mills/Stipe, Sammy Kahn & Jerome Kern, Charli XCX, Kurt Cobain, Sam Cooke, Cathal Coughlan, John Darnielle, Difford & Tillbrook, Nick drake, Richard Drummie, Stephen Duffy, Greg Dulli, Stephen Foster, Gamble & Huff, George & Ira Gershwin, The Gibb Brothers, Gilbert & Sullivan, Martin Gore, Peter Green, Greenwich/Barry/Spector, Kristin Hersh, Nick Heyward, Noddy Holder & Jim Lea, Howard Jones, Paul Kelly, Carole King, Mark King, Leadbelly, John Lennon, Jerry Lieber/Mike Stoller, Mark Linkous, Little Richard, Frank Loesser, Ian Mackaye, John Martin, Paddy McAloon, Mogg & Way, Morrissey, Van Morrison, Randy Newman, Roland Orzabal, Andy Partridge, Prince, Smokey Robinson, Tom Rowlands & Ed Simons, Tom Russel, Mike Scott, Stephen Sondheim, Richard Strauss, Joe Strummer & Mick Jones, Tennant & Lowe, Harry Vanda & George Young, Clifford T Ward, Diane Warren, Roger Waters, Jimmy Webb, Kurt Weill, Stevie Wonder.

19th (2): Becker/Fagan, Black Francis, Nigel Blackwell, Nick Cave, Duke Ellington, Noel Gallagher, George Gershwin, Buddy Holly, Jackie Leven, Shane McGowan, Morrissey/Marr, Lou Reed, The RZA, Richard Thompson, Bruce Springsteen, » Continue Reading.