a little more P&J data

125. Danger Doom: The Mouse and the Mask (8.95ppv, 40 votes, poll rank 34)
126. Black Mountain: Black Mountain (8.91ppv, 11 votes, poll rank 138)
127. Sigur Ros: Takk . . . (8.91ppv, 32 votes, poll rank 50)
128. Various Artists: Run The Road (8.87ppv, 31 votes, poll rank 52)
129. Cole, Keyshia: The Way It Is (8.86ppv, 14 votes, poll rank 110)
130. Edwards, Kathleen: Back to Me (8.83ppv, 12 votes, poll rank 130)
131. Spektor, Regina: Soviet Kitsch (8.83ppv, 12 votes, poll rank 130)
132. Prine, John: Fair and Square (8.80ppv, 15 votes, poll rank 103)
133. Books, The: Lost and Safe (8.80ppv, 10 votes, poll rank 156)
134. Jorge, Seu: Cru (8.80ppv, 10 votes, poll rank 156)
135. Franz Ferdinand: You Could Have It So Much Better (8.77ppv, 52 votes, poll rank 26)
136. Broken Social Scene: Broken Social Scene (8.76ppv, 21 votes, poll rank 72)
137. Nine Inch Nails: With Teeth (8.71ppv, 17 votes, poll rank 92)
138. Madonna: Confessions on a Dance Floor (8.58ppv, 26 votes, poll rank 61)
139. Dylan, Bob: No Direction Home: The Bootleg Series, Volume 7 (8.50ppv, 10 votes, poll rank 161)
140. Shout Out Louds: Howl Howl Gaff Gaff (8.50ppv, 10 votes, poll rank 161)
141. McMurtry, James: Childish Things (8.45ppv, 11 votes, poll rank 144)
142. Architecture in Helsinki: In Case We Die (8.36ppv, 11 votes, poll rank 145)
143. Boards of Canada: The Campfire Headphase (8.31ppv, 13 votes, poll rank 125)
144. Malkmus, Stephen: Face the Truth (8.27ppv, 11 votes, poll rank 148)
145. Clem Snide: End of Love (8.20ppv, 15 votes, poll rank 112)
146. 50 Cent: The Massacre (8.17ppv, 12 votes, poll rank 137)
147. Darkness, The: One Way Ticket to Hell . . . and Back (8.08ppv, 13 votes, poll rank 133)
148. Paul, Sean: The Trinity (7.50ppv, 10 votes, poll rank 185)

And for real overkill, here are all those 148 albums ordered by how much they benefit or suffer when ranked by points per vote instead of total points:

Porcupine Tree: Deadwing ... #118 by total points, up to #9 by ppv
New Order: Waiting for the Sirens' Call ... 109 up to 3
Crowell, Rodney: The Outsider ... 120 up to 17
Gillespie, Dizzy and Parker, Charlie: Town Hall, New York City, June 22, 1945 ... 120 up to 18
Living Things: Ahead of the Lions ... 94 up to 5
Various Artists: Our New Orleans 2005 ... 129 up to 40
Lambert, Miranda: Kerosene ... 99 up to 11
Jesu: Jesu ... 116 up to 29
Out Hud: Let Us Never Speak of It Again ... 134 up to 51
Coltrane, John: One Down, One Up: Live at the Half Note ... 102 up to 23
Various Artists: One Kiss Can Lead to Another: Girl Group Sounds, Lost & Found ... 76 up to 1
Stuart, Marty & His Fabulous Superlatives: Soul's Chapel ... 84 up to 12
Son Volt: Okemah and the Melody of Riot ... 106 up to 35
Nada Surf: The Weight Is a Gift ... 107 up to 36
Edan: Beauty and the Beat ... 75 up to 7
Akron/Family: Akron/Family and Angels of Light ... 87 up to 19
Veirs, Laura: Year of Meteors ... 136 up to 70
Marah: If You Didn't Laugh You'd Cry ... 96 up to 32
Gang Gang Dance: God's Money ... 98 up to 34
Magic Numbers, The: The Magic Numbers ... 119 up to 55
System of a Down: Hypnotize ... 108 up to 47
McCartney, Paul: Chaos and Creation in the Back Yard ... 73 up to 15
Carey, Mariah: The Emancipation of Mimi ... 54 up to 6
Clipse: We Got It 4 Cheap Vol.2 ... 55 up to 8
Richard Hawley: Cole's Corner ... 124 up to 78
Lady Sovereign: Vertically Challenged ... 140 up to 94
Sigel, Beanie: The B.Coming ... 86 up to 43
Okkervil River: Black Sheep Boy ... 58 up to 16
Six Organs of Admittance: School of the Flower ... 127 up to 85
Kills, The: No Wow ... 128 up to 87
Jones, Sharon & The Dap-Kings: Naturally ... 77 up to 37
Rogue Wave: Descended Like Vultures ... 77 up to 38
Opeth: Ghost Reveries ... 79 up to 41
Black, Frank: Honeycomb ... 142 up to 104
Paul, Sean: The Trinity ... 185 up to 148
National, The: Alligator ... 38 up to 2
Perceptionists, The: Black Dialogue ... 101 up to 65
M. Ward: Transistor Radio ... 104 up to 72
Wright, Lizz: Dreaming Wide Awake ... 146 up to 114
Pernice Brothers, The: Discover a Lovelier You ... 104 up to 73
Kronos Quartet and Asha Bhosle: You've Stolen My Heart: Songs From R.D. Burman's Bollywood ... 149 up to 118
Doves, The: Some Cities ... 151 up to 121
Various Artists: American Primitive Vol. II: Pre-War Revenants (1897-1939) ... 151 up to 122
Eels: Blinking Lights and Other Revelations ... 46 up to 20
Diamond, Neil: 12 Songs ... 68 up to 44
Books, The: Lost and Safe ... 156 up to 132
Bunyan, Vashti: Lookaftering ... 82 up to 59
Jorge, Seu: Cru ... 156 up to 133
Coldplay: X&Y ... 32 up to 10
Bird, Andrew: The Mysterious Production of Eggs ... 49 up to 27
...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead: Worlds Apart ... 97 up to 75
Dylan, Bob: No Direction Home: The Bootleg Series, Volume 7 ... 161 up to 139
Shout Out Louds: Howl Howl Gaff Gaff ... 161 up to 140
Isolee: We Are Monster ... 41 up to 24
Blige, Mary J.: The Breakthrough ... 122 up to 107
Gogol Bordello: Gypsy Punks Underdog World Strike ... 62 up to 48
Fiery Furnaces, The: Rehearsing My Choir ... 100 up to 86
Pelican: The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw ... 113 up to 101
Black Mountain: Black Mountain ... 138 up to 126
Womack, Lee Ann: There's More Where That Came From ... 56 up to 45
Gauthier, Mary: Mercy Now ... 63 up to 52
Banhart, Devendra: Cripple Crow ... 90 up to 79
Wilco: Kicking Television: Live in Chicago ... 90 up to 80
Rigby, Amy: Little Fugitive ... 70 up to 61
Lightning Bolt: Hypermagic Mountain ... 114 up to 106
Billy, Bonnie "Prince" and Sweeney, Matt: Superwolf ... 115 up to 108
Deerhoof: The Runners Four ... 36 up to 31
Hold Steady, The: Separation Sunday ... 8 up to 4
System of a Down: Mezmerize ... 30 up to 26
Maximo Park: A Certain Trigger ... 71 up to 67
Malkmus, Stephen: Face the Truth ... 148 up to 144
Haden, Petra: Petra Haden Sings: The Who Sell Out ... 126 up to 123
McMurtry, James: Childish Things ... 144 up to 141
Architecture in Helsinki: In Case We Die ... 145 up to 142
Common: Be ... 15 up to 13
Kaiser Chiefs: Employment ... 66 up to 64
Bush, Kate: Aerial ... steady at 25
Edwards, Kathleen: Back to Me … steady at 130
Robyn: Robyn ... 80 down to 81
Spektor, Regina: Soviet Kitsch ... 130 down to 131
Monk Quartet, Thelonious with Coltrane, John: Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall ... 12 down to 14
Plant and the Strange Sensation, Robert: Mighty Rearranger ... 117 down to 119
Go-Betweens, The: Oceans Apart ... 64 down to 68
Art Brut: Bang Bang Rock & Roll ... 23 down to 28
50 Cent: The Massacre ... 137 down to 146
Young, Neil: Prairie Wind ... 51 down to 62
O'Connor, SinÈad: Throw Down Your Arms ... 89 down to 100
Stars: Set Yourself on Fire ... 37 down to 49
Darkness, The: One Way Ticket to Hell . . . and Back ... 133 down to 147
Bright Eyes: I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning ... 16 down to 33
Kings of Leon: Aha Shake Heartbreak ... 65 down to 83
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club: Howl ... 85 down to 103
Broadcast: Tender Buttons ... 93 down to 111
Boards of Canada: The Campfire Headphase ... 125 down to 143
Cole, Keyshia: The Way It Is ... 110 down to 129
West, Kanye: Late Registration ... 1 down to 21
M.I.A.: Arular ... 2 down to 22
Go! Team, The: Thunder, Lightning, Strike ... 19 down to 42
Clientele, The: Strange Geometry ... 81 down to 105
Marley, Damian "Jr. Gong": Welcome to Jamrock ... 44 down to 69
Stevens, Sufjan: Illinois ... 3 down to 30
Adams and the Cardinals, Ryan: Cold Roses ... 69 down to 96
Queens of the Stone Age: Lullabies to Paralyze ... 88 down to 116
Mountain Goats, The: The Sunset Tree ... 29 down to 58
Elliott, Missy: The Cookbook ... 95 down to 124
Decemberists, The: Picaresque ... 33 down to 63
Prine, John: Fair and Square ... 103 down to 134
Antony and the Johnsons: I Am a Bird Now ... 7 down to 39
Spoon: Gimme Fiction ... 14 down to 46
Clem Snide: End of Love ... 112 down to 145
Annie: Anniemal ... 48 down to 82
Lil' Wayne: Tha Carter 2 ... 83 down to 117
Animal Collective: Feels ... 22 down to 57
Lidell, Jamie: Multiply ... 60 down to 97
Dungen: Ta Det Lungt ... 31 down to 71
Feist: Let It Die ... 42 down to 84
Little Brother: The Minstrel Show ... 67 down to 109
Death Cab for Cutie: Plans ... 47 down to 90
New Pornographers, The: Twin Cinema ... 9 down to 53
My Morning Jacket: Z ... 10 down to 54
Apple, Fiona: Extraordinary Machine ... 5 down to 50
Gorillaz: Demon Days ... 21 down to 66
Nine Inch Nails: With Teeth ... 92 down to 137
Silver Jews: Tanglewood Numbers ... 74 down to 120
Amadou & Mariam: Dimanche a Bamako ... 13 down to 60
Sleater-Kinney: The Woods ... 4 down to 56
Young Jeezy: Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101 ... 39 down to 92
Mars Volta, The: Frances the Mute ... 45 down to 99
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah ... 35 down to 91
Low: The Great Destroyer ... 57 down to 113
Cooder, Ry: Chavez Ravine ... 59 down to 115
LaVette, Bettye: I've Got My Own Hell to Raise ... 20 down to 77
Game, The: The Documentary ... 53 down to 110
Legend, John: Get Lifted ... 27 down to 89
Springsteen, Bruce: Devils and Dust ... 40 down to 102
Broken Social Scene: Broken Social Scene ... 72 down to 136
LCD Soundsystem: LCD Soundsystem ... 11 down to 76
Wolf Parade: Apologies to the Queen Mary ... 28 down to 93
White Stripes, The: Get Behind Me Satan ... 6 down to 74
Rolling Stones, The: A Bigger Bang ... 43 down to 112
Bloc Party: Silent Alarm ... 18 down to 88
Konono No. 1: Congotronics ... 24 down to 98
Various Artists: Run The Road ... 52 down to 128
Sigur Ros: Takk . . . ... 50 down to 127
Madonna: Confessions on a Dance Floor ... 61 down to 138
Beck: Guero ... 17 down to 95
Danger Doom: The Mouse and the Mask ... 34 down to 125
Franz Ferdinand: You Could Have It So Much Better ... 26 down to 135

Not that I've done that or anything.

1) Some of these records are hatem-or-lovem polarizing
2) Some of these records are excellent, but relatively few people have heard them

What does any of it tell us about music? Nothing we wouldn't more straightforwardly deduce just from knowing how the poll works in a human sense, I'm sure. This is mostly just internal fiddling with the implications of the mechanics of the poll.

But while we're doing that, here's the top 25 singles with 10/9/8/etc point values assigned to ballot position. Published poll rank in parens.

1 (2): Amerie - 1 Thing
2 (3): Clarkson, Kelly - Since U Been Gone
3 (1): West, Kanye Featuring Jamie Foxx - Gold Digger
4 (4): Gorillaz/De La Soul - Feel Good Inc
5 (5): Marley, Damian "Jr. Gong" - Welcome to Jamrock
6 (5): Stefani, Gwen - Hollaback Girl
7 (10): Three 6 Mafia Featuring Young Buck & Eightball & MJG - Stay Fly
8 (7): Franz Ferdinand - Do You Want To
9 (7): Madonna - Hung Up
10 (16): The Legendary K.O. - George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People
11 (9): White Stripes, The - My Doorbell
12 (11): Game, The Featuring 50 Cent - Hate It Or Love It
13 (12): LCD Soundsystem - Daft Punk Is Playing At My House
14 (13): Jones, Mike Featuring Slim Thug & Paul Wall - Still Tippin'
15 (15): Elliott, Missy Featuring Ciara & Fat Man Scoop - Lose Control
16 (19): Carey, Mariah - We Belong Together
17 (18): Ying Yang Twins - Wait (The Whisper Song)
18 (17): Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict a Riot
19 (24): Kelly, R. - Trapped In the Closet Chapter 1
20 (24): Antony and the Johnsons - Hope There's Someone
21 (14): Killers, The - Mr. Brightside
22 (20): Lady Sovereign - Random
23 (20): Paisley, Brad - Alcohol
24 (26): Spoon - Turn My Camera On
25 (20): Common Featuring The Last Poets - The Corner

Obviously there's no reason to assume that ballot order is significant in the current balloting, but if we assume that most people put in their singles either in order or randomly, then the "real" results are likely to resemble these.

Oh, and Sterling, if you're serious, drop me an email with your address and I'll send you some CSV files.

Put another way, the higher the number of votes, the less effect point weighting has on ranking. At 10 votes -- a really small number, for these purposes -- the range is 109 (New Order) to 185 (Sean Paul) -- which looks maybe kind of interesting. At 15 votes, the range is only 75 (Edan) to 112 (Clem Snide), which in Pazz & Jop terms is virtually nothing. At 21 votes, not even 3% of the total, the range is a big 18 places: 54 (Mariah Carey) to 72 (Broken Social Scene).

The vote weighting makes almost no difference at the top of the poll. If you didn't weight votes at all, the top 10 and the top 20 would be the same, with really minor relative placement differences, and there would be one change in the top 30 -- SoaD Mesmerize would drop from 30 to 32 and Danger Doom would move from 34 to 30. And that gets you through all the records that attracted votes from 5% of the voters.

To me, this means that the more confident you are that there is any kind of consensus among critics that a particular record is valuable, the less meaningful their relative ranking of it is. And that's sort of the point, if there is one, of Pazz & Jop -- identifying critical consensus. Vote weighting is a nifty, fair way to continue ranking things at low vote levels, substituting meaningless ranking differences and small ties for the massive, unsatisfying ties that unweighted voting produces (see the singles list). But there are 1700+ records listed, and the tie at #440 among 9 records that each got the maximum 30 votes from one voter apiece (including a Crazy Frog record and Alice Cooper's latest) tells you pretty much that you have long since entered territory where rank means nothing without knowing who was voting and what their strategy was.

Mind you, then I personally would have absolutely no interest in the results, and nothing to run stats on, but I think that would be a better-focused representation of "critical consensus", if you believe such a thing is meaningful and desirable.

this is basically true of everything Greil Marcus does

(But I thank Glenn for his work, which certainly shows interesting info.)

You would think that, the more votes a particular release got, (a) the more the points-per-vote would tend towards the mean, which I assume is somewhere around 10 (but might be slightly lower if a few people don't use their whole 100 points), and (b) the amount of deviation from the "expected" vote total that constituted a statistically meaningful indication of extra-special passion would be smaller (i.e., Kanye's 11.1 ppv on 227 votes would probably be more impressive than New Order's 12.5 ppv on 10 votes).

But, eyeballing this year's and previous years' polls, that clearly isn't the case. Year in and year out, the top vote getters are all above-average in ppv. It looks like, in recent years, that is almost universally true down to the level of about 40 votes, and that below 20 votes a clear majority of releases get below-average totals (although not as far below average as the top vote-getters are above average, because, on the whole, there are a lot more votes for the under-20s than for the over-40s). In other words, the expected ppv is probably a relatively flat curve that rises slowly as more votes are received, and then more sharply at high vote totals.

How come? I can't think of a non-scandalous explanation. Maybe there really is some kind of (relatively weak) non-subjective communal quality standard at work, so that "better" records get both more votes and more points. Or maybe, collectively, professional critics are more similar to 8th grade girls than you would expect, in that they tend to like something more intensely as a greater number of their friends also like it. (That might also help explain why Coldplay and Mariah Carey are among the ppv champs.)

Anyway, if you could plot that curve based on several years of P&J data, and also the standard deviations based on votes-per-release, you might then be able to identify which releases seem to have attracted real passion (or not) relative to their vote total. Of course, that list might not cut down glenn's list much. Except I suspect The Hold Steady and The National would look like the most impressive examples. I really ought to listen to those.

This is the part of Glenn's alterna-pj I'd really disagree with. Half the fun for me is pottering about in the lower reaches (esp of the singles poll), marvelling at the obscurities and joke entries (plus the fact that Akon's "Lonely" got exactly one vote), occasionally downloading something I've never remotely heard about etc.

Obviously real consensus, though, requires iteration. So do what I said above for a nomination pass. Then, for a second round of voting, everybody revotes (one vote each) for one of the nominated artists. Then print the top half of those. Or repeat a third time. The P&J will begin to approach the Grammys in structure, but probably still different artists will win.

But here's an alternate thought-experiment: stipulate that consensus is dull, and individual ballots are always more interesting than large aggregates. Now how (if at all) would you change the P&J to do a better job of actively conveying diversity of opinion rather than leading with the top of the chart?

I've always wondered how many releases a voter actually listens to every year ... how many are in their average consideration set. As a dj I listen to thousands of discs every year, albeit not very closely for the majority of them.

What if it turns out that there's a positive correlation between voting for Separation Sunday and voting for The Woods, a positive correlation between voting for Separation Sunday and voting for "Since U Been Gone," but a negative one between voting for The Woods and voting for "Since U Been Gone"? It might mean that Separation Sunday got votes from several different clusters of voters, and The Woods got votes from several different clusters, but they were only partially the same clusters, so let's see what those clusters are. (Might give us a more sophisticated map than one that just says "indie voter" and the "pop voter" and "hip-hop voter" etc.)

It's not news to me that a lot of pros like Kanye West, M.I.A., or Sufjan Stevens (although the rarified context of P&J is surely the only one in which those three have anything meaningful in common beyond year-of-release). And it's not news that a lot of people like a lot of idiosyncratic things that no one else likes as much. (I have that experience a lot.) It is news to me, however, that so many people like The Hold Steady so much (I have barely heard of them), or Bettye Lavette (I wouldn't have guessed). Not "everyone," but a bunch of people in a context where it's hard to come by a bunch of people. That's valuable, interesting information that it would be hard to come by otherwise.

I had never heard of OutKast, either, before noticing a lot of votes for Aquemini in a P&J. Good call! I was grateful. Also, more years back, Sleater-Kinney.

It's a little like what I imagine about the Afghani legislature. No parties, no infrastructure, no one has ever had elections before. So a bunch of people get elected however (with some U.S.-imposed PC rules), and then they all show up in Kabul and have to figure out who agrees with whom, and who has what agendas, and where there may be enough common interest to move something forward. It makes a big difference if you find out there's some decent bloc of people who care about getting satellite TV or rug-weaving subsidies, but no one's as het up as you are about well-digging.

To glenn's point: The individual ballots are interesting, but only in a "sort of" way. Few express any kind of coherent position (glenn's excepted). Most of the ballots are a mish-mash of ideas and tastes, some of which seem obvious to me and some incomprehensible, balanced in one of the limited number of ways available with 10 slots and 100 points. In other words, exactly what I would do. Unless you know the balloter or his/her work, individual ballots are a very Japanese kind of art form, where you appreciate very subtle arrangements of similar material within a strict set of formal rules. It's great to have so many in one place, but I don't want to read them all. Give me the numbers.

Of course, Amazon has that software. It probably isn't too hard to do. I suspect, though, that with only 800 people its hard to really spot subtle patterns. It would be meaningful if as many as 30% of the people who liked X liked Y, but if only 5 people liked X, and only 4 liked Y, it's going to be hard to spot that. The main thing you would probably find out was that for any particular record that got a decent number of votes, Kanye and M.I.A. were also pretty popular among the voters.

I tried some of this on an eyeball basis. I said, "Who in hell voted for Bruce Springsteen, and what else did they vote for?" Well, I would say that 1, maybe 1-3/4 of the Springsteen ballots had any kind of consistent taste of the sort that would seem obvious. There were a lot of M.I.A. votes in there, and Antony votes, and Sleater-Kinney, and Kanye, and System of a Down. I guess I didn't notice any Isolee. But Gwen Stefani, sure.

1 (3). Stevens, Sufjan: Illinois (159/159)
2 (2). M.I.A.: Arular (64/218)
3 (1). West, Kanye: Late Registration (61/227)
4 (4). Sleater-Kinney: The Woods (37/116)
5 (7). Antony and the Johnsons: I Am a Bird Now (33/94)
6 (5). Apple, Fiona: Extraordinary Machine (32/106)
7 (11). LCD Soundsystem: LCD Soundsystem (28/79)
8 (9). New Pornographers, The: Twin Cinema (28/91)
9 (6). White Stripes, The: Get Behind Me Satan (26/100)
10 (8). Hold Steady, The: Separation Sunday (22/80)
11 (28). Wolf Parade: Apologies to the Queen Mary (22/46)
12 (13). Amadou & Mariam: Dimanche a Bamako (19/71)
13 (17). Beck: Guero (19/63)
14 (18). Bloc Party: Silent Alarm (19/61)
15 (10). My Morning Jacket: Z (18/90)
16 (23). Art Brut: Bang Bang Rock & Roll (17/47)
17 (22). Animal Collective: Feels (16/52)
18 (36). Deerhoof: The Runners Four (15/30)
19 (21). Gorillaz: Demon Days (15/53)
20 (14). Spoon: Gimme Fiction (15/63)

Notable drops include Monk/Coltrane down to a tie for 29th with only 10 votes vs 69, and Common down to 33rd with only 9 vs 58. Interesting jumps for Wolf Parade and Deerhoof, but as you can see, this stuff gets statistically unreliable pretty quickly.

Conversely, though, here's the same re-run using only Kanye voters:

1 (1). West, Kanye: Late Registration (227/227)
2 (2). M.I.A.: Arular (90/218)
3 (3). Stevens, Sufjan: Illinois (61/159)
4 (5). Apple, Fiona: Extraordinary Machine (50/106)
5 (6). White Stripes, The: Get Behind Me Satan (44/100)
6 (8). Hold Steady, The: Separation Sunday (41/80)
7 (15). Common: Be (38/58)
7 (4). Sleater-Kinney: The Woods (38/116)
9 (11). LCD Soundsystem: LCD Soundsystem (33/79)
10 (7). Antony and the Johnsons: I Am a Bird Now (32/94)
10 (9). New Pornographers, The: Twin Cinema (32/91)
12 (16). Bright Eyes: I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning (31/61)
13 (17). Beck: Guero (30/63)
14 (21). Gorillaz: Demon Days (29/53)
15 (13). Amadou & Mariam: Dimanche a Bamako (27/71)
15 (10). My Morning Jacket: Z (27/90)
17 (26). Franz Ferdinand: You Could Have It So Much Better (22/52)
17 (27). Legend, John: Get Lifted (22/46)
19 (53). Game, The: The Documentary (20/27)
20 (23). Art Brut: Bang Bang Rock & Roll (19/47)

Hmm. Monk/Coltrane drops again, so I'll do just one more for that:

1 (12). Monk Quartet, Thelonious with Coltrane, John: Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall (69/69)
2 (1). West, Kanye: Late Registration (17/227)
3 (2). M.I.A.: Arular (16/218)
4 (5). Apple, Fiona: Extraordinary Machine (12/106)
4 (6). White Stripes, The: Get Behind Me Satan (12/100)
6 (102). Coltrane, John: One Down, One Up: Live at the Half Note (10/12)
6 (20). LaVette, Bettye: I've Got My Own Hell to Raise (10/57)
8 (120). Gillespie, Dizzy and Parker, Charlie: Town Hall, New York City, June 22, 1945 (9/10)
9 (13). Amadou & Mariam: Dimanche a Bamako (8/71)
9 (24). Konono No. 1: Congotronics (8/54)
9 (4). Sleater-Kinney: The Woods (8/116)
9 (3). Stevens, Sufjan: Illinois (8/159)
13 (17). Beck: Guero (7/63)
13 (59). Cooder, Ry: Chavez Ravine (7/26)
13 (26). Franz Ferdinand: You Could Have It So Much Better (7/52)
16 (7). Antony and the Johnsons: I Am a Bird Now (6/94)
16 (129). Various Artists: Our New Orleans 2005 (6/10)
18 (33). Decemberists, The: Picaresque (5/36)
18 (9). New Pornographers, The: Twin Cinema (5/91)
18 (43). Rolling Stones, The: A Bigger Bang (5/32)
18 (51). Young, Neil: Prairie Wind (5/27)

Yeah, OK, there's a demographic for you.