Saturday July 26th marked the first time in Billboard music history that a comedy record debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200 List. The record was, of course, “Weird Al” Yankovic’s 14th studio album, Mandatory Fun. This was Al’s final LP in his 14-record contract with RCA, and the success is attributed in part to his brilliant advertising campaign for the record.
Al contacted a number of media portals like Funny or Die and CollegeHumor and offered to deliver virally-popular content in exchange for their funding and producing each of his videos. Al released one video for 8 days of the album’s 10 day release and acquired more than 46 million views during that short span.
Al commented that, moving forward he would likely focus on singles, as media culture moves so quickly that waiting to build a 12-track album would render your content “yesterday’s news.”
In honor of “Weird Al’s” success, (and as the delivery of my latest vinyl order has been delayed another two weeks), I thought I’d offer a post on the “lighter side” of music.
So today, we’ll take a look at the best (and the absolute worst) rated records as ranked by aggregate music data sites, Metacritic and rateyourmusic.com.
Metacritic has been tracking aggregate music, film, and video game metascores since January 11 of 2000. Out of curiosity, I populated a list of every album they’ve ever scored and looked up the lowest and highest scores since the site’s inception.
There is a tie for first place –
The Clash – London Calling (25th Anniversary Legacy Ed.)
and, Weezer – Pinkerton (2010 Deluxe Edition)
Both have a metascore of 100 from 12 sources and a User Score of 8.8 from 148 and 146 sources respectively.
And the lowest-ever score?
The Bloodhoung Gang’s Hefty Fine is 2nd to last with a failing score of 28.
But way down at the bottom is Playing With Fire – an attempt at a rap record by Britney Spears’ ex-husband, Kevin Federline.
It scored a miserable 15.
Hailed by critics as “GENERIC!” … “INSTANTLY FORGETTABLE!” … “TRITE!” … and “INCONSEQUENTIAL!” this is one for the books.
Rateyourmusic’s scores are user-generated and span a much-wider timeline.
All-time highest-scoring records include, Velvet Underground & Nico at #3, Dark Side of the Moon at #2, and Radiohead’s OK Computer holding the #1 position with over 27,000 ratings and an average score of 4.24.
But now on to the dark side of RYM’s charts.
Crazy Frog Presents Crazy Hits (2005) comes in at #1 with a score of nearly zero. The album was saved by one sarcastic user who composed several hundred words praising the album sarcastically and awarding it 5 stars.
And not surprisingly, Crazy Frog charted not once but five times in the bottom 50.
And at number 2 is brokenCYDE – a crunkcore band with four albums in the bottom 10 and another in the bottom 50.
In fact, nine total crunkcore records appear in the bottom 100.
Kevin Federline shows up at #4 on the RYM All-Time Bottom Chart with the same record named by Metacritic.
Soulja Boy charted four more albums in the bottom 50 with a genre called “snap” – apparently a derivative of crunk music.
Soulja Boy… staying classy.
Aaron Carter and Justin Bieber each placed four times in the bottom 50 with various forgettables.
Aaron Carter… clearly of the same music university.
And Professor Bieber. Selfie of a composer who will live in infamy.
How do you think Bach would feel about the state of the music industry today?
Please do yourself a favor and listen to something arresting, challenging and beautiful today. Thank you.
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