I haven't posted anything about music in a while, and I noticed that Keith Martin (who just began blogging his reading and is a new entry on my blog roll) keeps an interesting list of albums by years. That's the kind of obsessive thing I would do, except for some reason I can't get MusicMatch to export the year information out of my database. I, however, can get my database to sum the ratings I've given to songs on a single album and divide it by the number of songs on that CD, which is pretty much an indication of whether I like the album as a whole compared to the artist or just individual songs. I can out-obsess anybody!

So, here's my favorite albums by this method:

1. Darden Smith, Trouble No More
2. Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense
3. Nick Lowe, Labour of Lust
4. Talking Heads, Speaking in Tongues
5. Bruce Hornsby, Harbor Lights
6. Elvis Costello, My Aim Is True
7. Timbuk 3, Greetings from Timbuk 3
8. Darden Smith, Little Victories
9. Rush, Permanent Waves
10. Elvis Costello, This Year's Model

Three artists with two albums each is surprising, as is the inclusion of Rush, whom I liked in high school but thought that I didn't care for as much today. The Hornsby album is a bit of a surprise, too, but it's just a great, underappreciated album.

Waiting in the wings, just below this group, are albums by Peter Gabriel, Fleetwood Mac, Kate Bush, Michelle Shocked, and X.