Measuring the Unmeasurable: Ranking One’s Favorite Music, Part 7 (My 100 Favorite Artists and Conclusion)

Having spent four essays detailing how difficult it is to rank one’s favorite music with both objectivity and methodological rigor (here, here, here, here), then using one such method to rank my 100 favorite tracks and albums, I conclude this series with an examination of my favorite artists and some final thoughts.

As with every stage in this process, there were unexpected pitfalls – and a few surprises.

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Having generated Track Scores (“TS”) for 9,560 tracks in my iTunes, then used them to calculate Album Scores (“AlS”) for 3,621 “albums” – defined as “form in which track was first released” – I thought it would a simple matter to sum these scores by artist to generate track and album values for each artist. Because I then planned to create an overall Artist Score (ArS) by adding the percentage each artist held of total TS and AlS, these sums needed to be positive.

I calculated TS by combining z-scores (difference between a variable value and its mean) for mix appearances and total lifetime plays. Because relatively few tracks have a significant number of plays and ever appeared on a mix, fully 74.9% (7,158) of TS had negative values. I first addressed this when calculating Album Scores by adding 0.757 to every TS, setting the median to 0. But this still left negative TS values, so I added an additional 0.255 to these tracks – 1.012 in total – to guarantee a minimum TS of 0.064, the equivalent of adding one play and zero mix appearances to a track’s TS.

Summing across artists yielded 1,350 unique “artists,” though this included such distinctions without a difference as “Bob Seger,” “Bob Seger System” and “Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band.” It also created such joint artists as “Queen and David Bowie” for the 1981 single “Under Pressure.”

Nonetheless, the resulting ranking has extremely high face validity, even if The Waterboys – whose 21 total tracks tie for #110[1] – sits at #7 overall, while King Crimson – whose 63 tracks put them at #13 – sits at #31 overall. The difference is that The Waterboys have an average TS of 4.12, while King Crimson averages just 0.82.

This was the easy part.

Far harder – and where I most second-guess my methodology – was aggregating AlS by artist. Because there are different album types, from traditional albums (ranging widely by number of tracks and by type – studio, live, best-of) to EPs and 12”-singles to traditional singles to “one-off” releases, as well as a split between complete and incomplete digitization, I could not simply add a constant value to every track or collection of tracks into an “album.” Either an album like Johnny Mercer’s My Huckleberry Friend, whose 25 tracks combine for 35 total plays and exactly one mix appearance (“One For My Baby (and One More For the Road)”), giving it an AlS of -9.836 is still negative even after adding 0.255 for each track, or vault an artist like Billie Holiday into the top 10 by over-adjusting her 51 one-off-releases (91, counting 40 recorded with Lester Young).

After much to-ing and fro-ing, I decided to add to every artist’s initial sum of AlS:

• 10.120 for each traditional album (n=492): the added value of 1.012 times 10, the standardized number of tracks per album
• 2.024 for non-traditional albums (n=3,228): 10.120 divided by 5, arbitrarily standardizing them to two tracks

Before I could add these values, however, I had to disaggregate 20 albums containing tracks by multiple artists – primarily soundtracks – into distinct “albums.” For example, I broke the Saturday Night Fever Original Soundtrack into a 4-track Bee Gees “album,” a 3-track David Shire “album,” and 1-track albums by Yvonne Elliman, Ralph MacDonald and Tavares. The resulting 99 non-traditional albums increase the overall total to 3,720.

Having completed these adjustments, I summed across artists, collapsing an additional six tracks into three artists.[2] I then computed a Historic Adjustment (“HA”) for each artist, just as I had for tracks and albums. This ranking consisted, first, of my top 12 artists in 1981 (weighted 1/43), my top 100 artists in 1993 and 1995 (13/43, 15/43), and my top 75 artists in 1999 (19/43); I assigned “3” to my favorite artist, “2” for other top 10 artists and “1” for all other artists. I also gave 50% weight to the number of albums I own by an artist which were not otherwise credited (e.g., a best-of with no new tracks recorded for it) and to the number of times I have seen an artist live. Finally, there is the Other category, also given 50% weight, which includes such things as number of other media I own pertaining to the artist (videos/DVDs, books, sheet music collections) and number of mixes dedicated to the artist.

As with tracks and albums, I calculated HA by summing the weighted values, dividing by 10 and adding 1.000. A total of 249 artists received HA, averaging a boost of 10.8%, topped by boost>50% for Miles Davis, Genesis and Roxy Music.

With this completed, I sorted by Final Score…and held my breath, anticipating my first new official artist ranking in 25 years.

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My patience was duly rewarded, as will see shortly, though there was still the matter of both aggregating artists into “Meta-Artists” (e.g., Bob Seger et al.) and disaggregating artists sharing credit for the same track/album (e.g., Queen and David Bowie); in the latter case I assigned equal proportions of the two scores to each contributing artist.[3] This reduced the number of meta-artists to 1,290; they average 7.6 tracks and 2.9 albums (0.4 traditional, 2.5 other). For simplicity, however, we refer to them as “artists.”

My 100 favorite artists by Artist Score are presented in Table 1 below, along with any top 500 tracks and top 250 albums. Other selected tracks or albums in parentheses. I use [n/a] to designate a very low-ranked (or non-existent) track/album. Boldface indicates top 100 status.

Table 1: Matt Berger’s 100 Favorite Artists (as of May 2026)

#	Artist	Top Track(s) / Top Album(s)	Artist Score
100	Chris Isaak	#236. “Can’t Do A Thing (To Stop Me)”   #214. Heart Shaped World #247. San Francisco Days	0.233
99	The Tubes	#36. “Prime Time” #172. Remote Control	0.233
98	Tori Amos	[n/a] #161. Under the Pink	0.233
97	The Eagles	#45. “I Can’t Tell You Why” #113. “In the City” #111. The Long Run	0.234
96	Billie Holiday	72 total tracks [n/a]	0.235
95	George Winston	#446. “Carol of the Bells” #169. Autumn #243. December	0.237
94	Dionne Warwick	#496. “Deja Vu” [n/a]	0.239
93	Rush	#145. “The Spirit of Radio” #390. “Red Barchetta” #101. Moving Pictures	0.241
92	The Psychedelic Furs	#218. “Love My Way” #328. “Until She Comes” #358. “Hearbreak Beat” [#273. The World Outside]	0.242
91	Devo	#450. “Gut Feeling/(Slap Your Mammy) #464. “That’s Good” [n/a]	0.243
90	Chicago/Transit Authority	#444. “(I’ve Been) Searchin’ So Long” [n/a]	0.244
89	Michael Jackson	#78. “Off the Wall” #243 “Human Nature” #136. Off the Wall #166. Thriller	0.246
88	Madonna	#284. “Lucky Star” #356. “What It Feels Like For a Girl” #437. “Borderline” #470. “I’ll Remember” [n/a]	0.247
87	Frankie Goes to Hollywood	(#578. “The Power of Love”) #89. Welcome To the Pleasure Dome	0.249
86	Simon & Garfunkel	#204. “Scarborough Fair/Canticle (#544. El Condor Pasa (If I Could)”) #193. Bridge Over Troubled Water #241. Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme	0.251
85	Adam Ant/The Ants	#39. “Dog Eat Dog” #359. “Desperate But Not Serious” #487. “Antmusic” (#256. Kings of the Wild Frontier)	0.251
84	Lush	#61. “Superblast!” #66. “Nothing Natural”   #30. Spooky	0.254
83	Wall of Voodoo	(#573. “Call of the West”) #51. Call of the West #205. Dark Continent	0.254
82	John Coltrane	[n/a] (#333. My Favorite Things) (#403. A Love Supreme) (#420. Coltrane)	0.255
81	Pere Ubu	#73. “Why Go It Alone?”   #30. Dub Housing (#266. Cloudland)	0.262
80	Echo & the Bunnymen	#134. “The Killing Moon” #378. “Never Stop” (#351. Echo & the Bunnymen)	0.263
79	Thomas Dolby	#363. “I Love You Goodbye” #372. “Europa and the Pirate Twins” (#514. “One of Our Submarines”) #146. The Golden Age of Wireless	0.264
78	Suzanne Vega	#83.   “Left of Center” (#563. “Small Blue Thing”) (#323. Solitude Standing)	0.266
77	Squeeze	#412. “If I Didn’t Love You” (#626. “Hourglass”) #198. Argybargy	0.269
76	The Pretenders	(#524. “Private Life”) #49. Pretenders	0.272
75	ABC	#202. “Tears Are Not Enough”   #12. The Lexicon of Love	0.272
74	Ministry	#217. “Effigy (I’m Not An)” #286. “Work For Love” #374. “Revenge” #43. With Sympathy	0.273
73	Shriekback	#46. “Clear Trails”   #65. “All Lined Up” #480. “Accretions” #56. Care	0.277
72	Talk Talk	#167. “Life’s What You Make It” #168. “Talk Talk” [n/a]	0.279
71	The Rolling Stones	#348. “Gimme Shelter” (#547. “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking”) [n/a]	0.282
70	Stevie Wonder	(#613. “As”) (#326. Songs in the Key of Life)	0.288
69	Brian Eno	#200. “Julie With”   #8. Before and After Science	0.289
68	Soft Cell	#435. “Youth” (#585. “Bedsitter”) #16. Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret	0.291
67	Oingo Boingo	#97. “Just Another Day” #254. “Private Life” (#525. “Winning Side”)  (#344. Dead Man’s Party)	0.291
66	Tony Banks	(#691. “Thirty-Threes”) #174. Soundtracks #210. The Fugitive (#309. Seven: A Suite for Orchestra)	0.296
65	The Moody Blues	#162. “The Voice” #211. “The Story in Your Eyes” (#261. Long Distance Voyager)	0.305
64	Electric Light Orchestra	#208. “Another Heart Breaks” #315. “Livin’ Thing” #228. Time	0.313
63	The Clash	#279. “London Calling” (#603. “Charlie Don’t Surf”) (#267. London Calling) (#289. Sandinista!)	0.314
62	Louis Armstrong	(#665. “West End Blues”) [n/a]	0.324
61	The Beach Boys	#59. “Good Vibrations” #384. “Heroes and Villains” #223. Pet Sounds	0.326
60	Tears For Fears	#82. “Change” #224. “Pale Shelter” #500. “Mad World” (#518. “Watch Me Bleed”) #20. The Hurting (#332. Songs From the Big Chair)	0.328
59	The Human League	#20. “The Sound of the Crowd” #247. “The Lebanon”  #11. Dare!	0.342
58	Spandau Ballet	#37. “Gold”   #58. “Communication” (#639. “Lifeline”) (#642. “Only When You Leave”) #22. True	0.360
57	Berlin	#70. “Sex (I’m A…)” #126. “You Don’t Know” #343. “Pleasure Victim” #368. “The Metro” #24. Pleasure Victim	0.360
56	The Cure	#251. “A Night Like This” (#604. “Let’s Go to Bed”) (#605. “Love Song”) #206. The Head on the Door #240. Disintegration	0.360
55	A Flock of Seagulls	#16. “Nightmares” #184. “(It’s Not Me) Talking” (#535. “Modern Love is Automatic”) #23. A Flock of Seagulls	0.364
54	Public Image Ltd.	#85. “Save Me/Reprise” #58. Happy? (#276. 9)	0.368
53	The Who	#471. “Eminence Front” #100. Who’s Next (#356. Quadrophenia) (#363. Who Are You)	0.371
52	Simple Minds	#2. “Promised You a Miracle” #452. “Hunter and the Hunted” #453. “King Is White and In the Crowd” (#628. “All the Things She Said”)   #18. New Gold Dream (81/82/83/84)	0.373
51	Mark Isham	#7. “The Public Eye” #131. “The Massacre” #156. “The Public Eye (End Credits)” #355. “Pictures In the Dark” #19. The Public Eye Original Soundtrack	0.376
50	Prince/The Revolution	#144. “Little Red Corvette” #331. “When Doves Cry” (#695. “Pop Life”) #59. Purple Rain Original Soundtrack (#279. 1999) (#320. Around the World In a Day“)	0.379
49	Hall and Oates	#135. “One on One” #158. “It’s a Laugh” #259. “I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do)” (#608. “Maneater”) #163. Voices	0.383
48	Supertramp	#199. “School” #271. “Child of Vision” #458. “Take the Long Way Home” #46. Breakfast In America #87. Crime of the Century	0.384
47	Bob Seger/Silver Bullet Band	#47. “Mainstreet” #334. “Night Moves” #473. “Turn the Page” (#507. “Her Strut”) #102. Night Moves #239. Stranger in Town (#260. Against the Wind)	0.403
46	Bryan Ferry	#6. “Zamba” #339. “Kiss and Tell” #469. “Don’t Stop the Dance” (#548. “Limbo”) #7. Bête Noire	0.415
45	Kraftwerk	#441. “Computer Love”   #48. Computer World #160. Autobahn #182. The Man Machine #224. Trans-Europe Express	0.416
44	John Barry	#163. “Main Titles from HAMMETT“ #497. “Dixie Kidnaps Vera” (#540. “End Titles from HAMMETT“) #34.  Hammett Original Soundtrack #112. The Cotton Club Original Soundtrack	0.419
43	The Smithereens	#32. “Especially For You”   #181. “Blood and Roses” #25. Green Thoughts (#419. Especially For You)	0.424
42	Crowded House	(#521. “Private Universe”) (#283. Temple of Low Men) (#354. Woodface) (#386. Together Alone)	0.424
41	Duran Duran	#64. “Last Chance on the Stairway” #433. “Save a Prayer” (#542. “Ordinary World”) #14. Rio (#302. Duran Duran – Wedding) (#307. Seven and the Ragged Tiger)	0.431
40	Gary Numan/Tubeweay Army	#68. “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” (TA) #261. “I Die: You Die” (GN) (#615. “The Monday Troop”) (TA) #35. Replicas (TA)	0.452
39	Robert Palmer	#33. “Johnny and Mary” #80. “Can We Still Be Friends?” #88. “I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On” #352. “I Dream of Wires” #494. “Hyperactive” (#296. Clues)	0.458
38	Uncle Bonsai	#41. “He Must Have Been a Genius” #215. “Silent Night” (#577. “Billboard Love”) #63. A Lonely Grain of Corn #105. Boys Want Sex in the Morning	0.459
37	INXS	#14. “Don’t Change” #316. “The One Thing” #478. “Original Sin” #15. Shabooh Shoobah #149. X	0.463
36	The Stranglers	#9. “All Roads Lead to Rome” #19. “Golden Brown” #306. “Blue Sister” #62. Feline	0.468
35	The B-52’s	#150. “Topaz” (#649. “Rock Lobster”) #81. Cosmic Thing #118. The B-52’s #217. Whammy! #245. Mesopotamia	0.470
34	The Smiths	#171. “How Soon Is Now?” #280. “Barbarism Begins at Home”   #375. “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out” (#528. “Bigmouth Strikes Again”) #120 The Queen is Dead #192. Meat Is Murder	0.471
33	Pink Floyd	#91. “One of These Days”   #84. Wish You Were Here #124. Meddle #218. Animals #235. Dark Side of the Moon (#384. The Wall)	0.476
32	Led Zeppelin	#432. “Kashmir” #201. Led Zeppelin II #204. In Through the Out Door #212. Led Zeppelin IV #221. Physical Graffiti #234. Led Zeppelin	0.482
31	Icehouse	#23. “Street Café” (single version) #67. “Icehouse” (#539. “Great Souithern Land”) (#564. “Angel Street”) #82. Icehouse #117. Primitive Man #216. Measure For Measure	0.491
30	Depeche Mode	#63. “Get the Balance Right” #153. “Never Let Me Down Again” (#536. “Waiting For the Night”) (#593. “The Things You Said”) #73. Violator #80. Music For the Masses	0.494
29	Phil Collins	#99. “We Said Hello Goodbye” #177. “I Don’t Care Anymore” #342. “Long, Long Way to Go” (#645. “The West Side”) #108. Face Value #157. Hello, I Must Be Going #173. No Jacket Required	0.508
28	Yes	#245. “Run Through the Light” #461. “Tempus Fugit” #65. Drama #144. Fragile (#269. 90125) (#331. Going For the One) (#339. The Yes Album)	0.519
27	Joy Division	#34. “Transmission” #219. “Love Will Tear Us Apart” #132. Unknown Pleasures (#395. Closer)	0.524
26	Ultravox	#81. “Reap the Wild Wind”   #186. “Vienna” #258. “Visions in Blue” #304. “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes” #451. “Passing Strangers” (#552. “Astradyne”) (#595. “We Came to Dance”) #6. Quartet #37. Vienna	0.531
25	Duke Ellington/et al.	#266. “Tenderly” #467. “Willow Weep For Me” (#609. “Caravan”) #72. Ellington Indigos	0.545
24	R.E.M.	#281. “Pretty Persuasion” (#661. “Bang and Blame”)  #125. Out of Time #222 Reckoning	0.546
23	Rupert Holmes	#4. “Him” #50. “In You I Trust” #121. “Remember WENN End Title” #13. Partners In Crime #103. Swing	0.546
22	Bruce Springsteen/E Street Band	#468. “Candy’s Room” (#526. “Tunnel of Love”) (#581. “Spirit In the Night”) (#600. “Thunder Road”) #7. Born To Run #90. Darkness On the Edge of Town	0.558
21	The Alan Parsons Project	#48. “Damned If I Do” #189. “Some Other Time” #203. “Games People Play” #325. “Breakdown” (#554. “Sirius”)   #47. Eve #61. I Robot	0.562
20	Split Enz	#55. “I Got You” (#501. “Message to My Girl”) #27. Waiata #67. True Colors #215. Time and Tide	0.604
19	Elton John	#71. “Love Song” #431. “Tiny Dancer” (#545.”Someone Saved My Life Tonight”) #213. Tumbleweed Connection (#255. The Fox) (#303. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road)	0.614
18	The Fixx	#22. “Red Skies” #104. “Saved By Zero” #239. “Read Between the Lines” #346. “Stand or Fall” (#592. “Deeper and Deeper”) #75. Reach the Beach #78. Shuttered Room (#314. Walkabout) (#367. Phantoms)	0.625
17	The Waterboys	#8. “When Ye Go Away” #187. “World Party” #198. “The Big Music” #318. “Fisherman’s Blues” (#516. “The Stolen Child”) (#538. “When Will We Be Married?”) (#547. “Don’t Bang the Drum”) (#568. “A Girl Called Johnny”) #4. Fisherman’s Blues	0.632
16	U2	#196. “Drowning Man” #260. “I Will Follow” #298. “Wire” #340. “New Year’s Day” #393. “Gloria” (#637. “Lemon”) #142. Boy #122. The Unforgettable Fire #82. War	0.643
15	Yello	#90. “The Evening’s Young” #125. “I Love You” #456. “Lost Again” #54. Claro Que Si #95. You Gotta Yes to Another Excess #97. One Second	0.665
14	Fleetwood Mac	#86. “That’s All For Everyone” #138. “Hypnotized”  #326. “The Ledge” #349. “Sisters of the Moon” #407. “Tusk” #440. “Gold Dust Woman” #486. “Little Lies” (#529. “Big Love”) #85. Rumours #140. Tusk #167. Fleetwood Mac (#362. Mystery To Me)	0.773
13	King Crimson	#277. “Sheltering Sky” #459. “Epitaph Including March For No Reason And Tomorrow And Tomorrow” (#590. “Sartori in Tangier”) #52. Discipline #116. In the Court of the Crimson King #139. Beat #177. Larks’ Tongues in Aspic #242. Three of a Perfect Pair	0.833
12	Steely Dan	#341. “Hey Nineteen” #369. “Deacon Blues” #499. “Doctor Wu” (#625. “Time Out of Mind”)   #42. Aja #94. Gaucho #104. Can’t Buy A Thrill #107. Katy Lied #162. The Royal Scam	0.841
11	David Bowie	#101. “Ashes to Ashes” #143. “This Is Not America” #479. “Cat People (Putting Out Fire)” (#565. “Panic In Detroit”) (#599. “Beauty and the Beast”) #131. Aladdin Sane #134. Station to Station #176. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars #219. Scary Monsters	0.855
10	The Police	#3. “Darkness” #24. “Bring On the Night” #94. “Secret Journey” #130. “Wrapped Around Your Finger” #214. “Omega Man” (#632. “Invisible Sun”) #10. Ghost In the Machine #127. Synchronicity #141. Regatta De Blanc (#254. Zenyatta Mondatta)	0.888
9	Joe Jackson	#53. “It’s Different For Girls” #111. “Steppin’ Out” #444. “Evil Empire” (#566. “Chinatown”) #45. Night and Day #50. Heaven and Hell #98. Look Sharp! #159. Blaze of Glory #202. Night and Day II #227. I’m the Man	0.935
8	The Beatles	#475. “A Day In the Life” #83. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band #92. Abbey Road #148. Revolver #208. Rubber Soul (#344. The Beatles – White)	0.947
7	Talking Heads	#15. “Stay Hungry” #244. “The Great Curve” #414. “I Zimbra” (#584. “Crosseyed and Painless”) #40. Remain In Light #60. More Songs About Buildings and Food #86. Fear of Music #246. Speaking In Tongues (#310. Talking Heads ’77) (#397. Little Creatures)	0.951
6	Peter Gabriel	#169. “D.I.Y.” #308. “Don’t Break This Rhythm” #416. “Exposure” (#567. “Walk Through the Fire”) #70. So #106. Peter Gabriel (IV) #113. Peter Gabriel (III) #142. Peter Gabriel (II) (#353. Us)	0.958
5	The Cars	#12. “Coming Up You” #17. “All Mixed Up” #105. “Moving in Stereo” #120. “Bye Bye Love” #206. “Touch and Go” #273. “Running to You” #278. “Good Times Roll” #397. “It’s All I Can Do” #428. “Shoo Be Doo” #439. “Candy-O” (#584. “Drive”) #2. The Cars #32. Candy-O #76. Panorama #114. Shake It Up #145. Door to Door #155. Heartbeat City	1.279
4	Roxy Music	#18. “Same Old Scene” #155. “My Only Love” #173. “Out of the Blue #233. “Strictly Confidential” (#537. “True to Life”) #41. Flesh + Blood #55. Avalon #68. For Your Pleasure #109. Manifesto #121. Country Life #175. Siren #180. Stranded #199. Roxy Music	1.493
3	Miles Davis	#1. “Blue in Green” #30. “Sweet Pea” #129. “So What” #185. “Blues For Pablo” #235. ‘Round Midnight #301. “The Pan Piper” #314. “Solea” #329. “Somethin’ Else” (w/Cannonball Adderly) #364. “Water Babies” #366. “Dear Old Stockholm” #391. “All Blues” #1. Kind of Blue #69. Sketches of Spain #77. Water Babies #232. Miles Ahead (#393. In a Silent Way)	1.522
2	Stan Ridgway / Drywall	#27. “Walkin’ Home Alone” #31. “Stormy Side of Town”   #54. “Pink Parakeet” #107. “Our Manhattan Moment” #223. “Mission Bell” #336. “A Mission in Life” #392. “Time Inside” #396. “The Big Heat” #9. The Big Heat #36. Mosquitos #44. Black Diamond #57. Anatomy #137. Snakebite: Blacktop Ballads & Fugitive Songs #184. Holiday In Dirt (#316. Mr. Trouble)	1.774
1	Genesis	#13. “Entangled” #29. “You Might Recall” #122. “It’s Gonna Get Better” #166. “Heathaze” #179. “In Too Deep” #248. “The Carpet Crawlers” #379. “Like It Or Not” (#504. “Squonk”) (#505. “Dance on a Volcano”) (#523. “The Lady Lies”) (#534. “Another Record”) (#614. “Cinema Show”) (#617. “Firth of Fifth”) (#658. “Supper’s Ready”) #4. Trick of the Tail #17. Abacab #21. Selling England By the Pound #28. Duke #33. Trespass #74. Wind & Wuthering #88. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway #91. Genesis #99. And Then There Were Three #128. Invisible Touch #170. Nursery Cryme #190. Foxtrot	4.507

While Anglo-Irish white male pop and rock of the 1970s and 1980s still dominates, there is increased diversity in this list, even if Germany’s Kraftwerk and Switzerland’s Yello remain the only artists from non-English-speaking countries. Icehouse, INXS, Split Enz – and its spinoff, Crowded House – represent Australasia. Nine artists of color – Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane, Davis, Duke Ellington, Holiday, Michael Jackson, Prince, Stevie Wonder and Dionne Warwick – rank among my 100 favorites, though only Davis (#3), Ellington (#27) and Prince (#50) crack the top 50.

Holiday and Warwick and joined by Tori Amos, Madonna and Suzanne Vega as the top solo female artists, with Vega (#78) topping Madonna (#88) for #1. Kate Bush (#103) and Lene Lovich (#126) – just miss the top 100. At the same time, five bands featuring two women (40% or more) – The B-52’s, Fleetwood Mac, The Human League, Lush and Uncle Bonsai – rank among my 100 favorite artists, while female-led bands like Berlin (Terri Nunn) and The Pretenders (Chrissie Hynde), plus Talking Heads bass player and sometime singer Tina Weymouth and Stan Ridgway’s wife and co-performer Pietra Wexstun provide slightly more gender diversity.

There is also more LGBTQ+ representation: Soft Cell’s Marc Almond, David Bowie, Holiday, Elton John, Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s Holly Johnson and Paul Rutherford, The Smiths’ Morrissey, The B-52’s Fred Schneider and R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe. Thus, at most 73 of my 100 favorite musical artists entirely comprise white cisgender heterosexual English-speaking men. One in four is not ideal, but it is a step in the right direction.

Temporally, there is even greater diversity as Armstrong (1926-47), Coltrane (1957-65), Davis (1949-84), Ellington (1928-62) and Holiday (1935-58) were all active prior to 1960, while I have a few dozen Stan Ridgway tracks from 2010 and later. The 1960s are well-represented by The Beach Boys, The Beatles, Coltrane, Davis, The Rolling Stones, Simon & Garfunkel, Warwick and The Who. While the years after 1999 are primarily covered by Ridgway, there are also single albums from Peter Gabriel, Rupert Holmes, Joe Jackson, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, U2 and Uncle Bonsai (two, if you count the live The Inessential Uncle Bonsai, with its recording of “Enterprising Young Man”).

With increased temporality comes greater genre diversity: rock and pop are challenged by jazz and blues (Armstrong, Coltrane, Davis, Ellington and Holiday, along with jazz-influenced soundtracks from John Barry and Rupert Holmes, and the jazz-inspired rock of Chicago and Steely Dan), folk/singer-songwriter (Tori Amos, Simon & Garfunkel, Uncle Bonsai, Suzanne Vega), Celtic (U2, The Waterboys), Motown (Michael Jackson, Wonder – as well as the Motown-influence Hall and Oates), ambient and New Age (Brian Eno, George Winston), electronica (Mark Isham, Kraftwerk, Yello) and the traditional pop of Holmes and Warwick – and, arguably, Chris Isaak. Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Madonna, Robert Palmer and Prince, each in their own way, created a unique mashup of funk, rock and synthpop.

Nonetheless, 3 out of 4 of my 100 favorite artists fall within the broad categories of new wave/post-punk/synthpop (46 – including Pere Ubu, R.E.M. and The Tubes), art/progressive rock (15) and “classic” rock (14, including Bowie, Chicago, John, Steely Dan , as well as the “back to basics” rock and roll of Isaak and The Smithereens).

Three bands – Genesis, Roxy Music and Wall of Voodoo – share my top 100 with the solo careers of band members Tony Banks, Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel; Eno and Bryan Ferry; and Ridgway, respectively. If you include David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, Sting of The Police and three members of The Rolling Stones, 20 of my 100 favorite artists appeared at the Live Aid concerts held in London and Philadelphia, PA on July 13, 1985 – with INXS performing two songs in Australia by satellite.

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As interesting as these facts are, they do not address the key question: are these my 100 favorite musical artists?

The answer is – wait for it – yes, very much so.

I can certainly quibble with a few positions. For example, Holiday (72 tracks, 0 studio albums) and Madonna (24, 0) ranking ahead of Tori Amos (28 tracks on 2 studio albums and an EP) and Bush (27 tracks on 1 studio album and parts of 6 others) seems odd. While I quite like ABC, The Eagles, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and The Tubes, I could easily replace them with Bush, Billy Joel (#105), Leonard Cohen (#106) and Renaissance (#107). And as much as I love the one Isham album I own – The Public Eye Original Soundtrack – it does not necessarily merit him the #49 spot; he could be replaced Chic (#124).[4]

These are minor quibbles, however. More to the point is that 61 of these artists appeared on my first top 100 ranking in January 1993, with Gabriel, Genesis and Roxy Music making the top 10 then and in the two subsequent rankings. Add in 10 artists who appeared on the lists in 1995 and 1998, and fully 71% of my current 100 favorite artists were also among my favorites in the 1990s. By contrast, such artists as Armstrong, Barry, Coltrane, Davis, Ellington, Holiday, Isham, Lush, Pere Ubu, Ridgway, The Smithereens and Wall of Voodoo were barely on my radar in January 1993, if I knew them at all. Thus, this ranking is still a solid mix of “long-time” and “recent” favorites.

And there is absolutely no question who tops the list, though the numeric gap – 14.5 standard devations – is astonishing. While I likely heard “Follow You, Follow Me” on the radio in 1978 and 1979, it was “Turn It On Again” and the rest of 1980’s Duke that first captured my imagination. At the time, though, Gabriel – who left Genesis in 1975 – was my favorite artist. Over the next few years, however, I purchased 1981’s Abacab and 1983’s Genesis, while discovering their earlier work via the 1977 live album Seconds Out and their 1976 studio album Trick of the Tail. I first saw them live at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia in June 1982, when they headlined a bill with Blondie, Elvis Costello & the Attractions, A Flock of Seagulls and local favorites Robert Hazard and the Heroes. They are tied with Ridgway for most times seen live (4). I own 209 Genesis tracks across 20 full albums (14 studio) and two archival collections, as well as three Genesis-related VHS cassettes, three books devoted to them and two books of sheet music. A Trick of the Tail poster adorned multiple bedrooms, along with one for Gabriel’s So. Besides the solo work of Gabriel (#6), Collins (#29) and Banks (#66), former lead guitarist Steve Hackett, whom I met in 2003, sits at #154. When I recorded the six-cassette Boston Drive series in August 1989, I devoted an entire cassette side to Genesis. And when I married Eleanor “Nell” Broley in October 2007, I walked down the aisle to an instrumental recording of “Entangled” by The Classic Rock String Quartet.[5]

In short, while Davis recorded my favorite track (“Blue in Green”) and album (Kind of Blue), and while I own 191 Ridgway tracks (including 23 by Wall of Voodoo and the 37 he recorded with Wexstun), and while The Cars, Gabriel and Roxy Music also have a very strong “hold on my heart,” Genesis is my favorite musical artist.

Two final notes on face validity.

When Walter Becker died in September 2017, I wrote an essay memorializing him and my ever-increasing love of the band he co-founded, Steely Dan. That essay, in which I traced the history of their tracks’ appearances on mixes, is really the starting point of this series. Toward the end of the essay, I noted that Steely Dan had risen from being roughly my 50^th favorite artist, to somewhere in the high teens – though with recent plays and purchases, they had probably moved even higher. Their #12 ranking confirms this.

In the two-plus decades since I last formally ranked my favorite artists, meanwhile, I used a simple product as a rough approximation: number of tracks on mixes and number of albums owned (owned in full plus number of tracks on non-traditional albums divided by 10); this method prioritizes ownership over track/album ranking. Fully 80 artists appear on both top 100 rankings, with Bowie (#7) and King Crimson (#10) replacing The Cars (#12) and The Police (#16) in the top 10. In a (non-random) sample of 181 artists, the average rank difference is -13.6, with an absolute value of 36.7. The correlation is a solid 0.74, yet more evidence my current algorithm has very high validity.

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So, what have we learned?

Besides, of course, that any personal ranking of art (music, movies) is extremely difficult to do with any objective methodologic rigor – even if back-of-the-envelope methods serve admirably in a pinch.

The first takeaway is that any such process requires ample clean data – which, in turn, requires careful and ongoing data collection. When I first ranked my favorite music in January 1993, I had only recorded 1,163 tracks onto a mix – roughly one-third what I have 30 years later – and I only entered about half of them into my first Excel workbook, because I began with August 1989 (not August 1981). This meant I was only utilizing half of one possible data source.

When I reconstructed the workbook in December 2003, I had 1,865 tracks – roughly half what I have now – albeit with complete mix-appearance data. Thirteen years later, I had topped 3,200 tracks on mixes – but now was faced with the question of what to do with the 400 or so tracks that only ever appeared on bathtub and other non-traditional mixes. In retrospect, I should have integrated their contents sooner.

In the meantime, though, I had curated more than 9,000 tunes in my iTunes, complete with carefully-assigned information on initial year and mode of release, 62% of which had never appeared on a mix – but did have recorded numbers of plays, as did many tracks which had appeared on mixes.

This finally led me to estimate number of plays for older mixes – and a corollary takeaway: do not rely on a single data source, however comprehensive. By also looking at number of plays, I was able to reduce mix appearances to its essence – burnout-adjusted total appearances and temporal spread.

Which brings us to the third takeaway: reject invalid data analysis methods. I was fixated for years on the idea I needed to take first and most recent mix appearances into account. It was only while analyzing these data earlier this year that I realized the former simply measures when a track first came to my attention while the latter over-weights recency. I was also convinced that mix-appearance midpoint – not too long ago, not too recent – was also necessary. In the end, though, simply looking at the standard deviation of year in which a track appeared on a mix most efficiently addressed first, middle and last mix appearances.

In other words, keep it simple! Because I was trying to tease more information out of mix appearances than was available, I created ever more elaborate metrics – like assigning “0” to mix appearances which presaged burnout. These were clunky and time-consuming to update. In the end, though, I used just three metrics – total mix appearances and their temporal spread, and estimated total plays. I also made the updating of track rankings as “turnkey” as I could, eschewing factor analysis and other unnecessarily-complex measure-combining methods. The latter are often seductive, but generally add time and effort while yielding little – if any – additional information.[6]

Note, however, that reaching this point required decades of mix construction, music acquisition, and data cleaning and (re)organization. Few people are as…call it “committed to the process”…as I am, so your highly-valid music-ranking algorithm may be far simpler than my “simple” process. I am genuinely interested in your personal ranking methodology, if you wish to share it.

Until next time…and if you like what you read here, please consider making a donation. Thank you.

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[1] With Big Audio Dynamite, The Dave Brubeck Quartet, The Eagles, Michael Jackson, Tom Jones, Morrissey, The Producers and Squeeze

[2] One track on Bananarama’s Deep Sea Skiving is credited to “Bananarama (w/Fun Boy Three),” one track on Elton John’s Leather Jackets is credited to “Elton John (with Cliff Richard),” and one track on Wham!’s Make It Big is credited to “Wham! featuring George Michael.”

[3] Thus, the 1962 album Money Jungle is credited to Duke Ellington with Johnny Hodges and Max Roach.

[4] Vega will rise a few dozen slots once I purchase of the remainder of her first two studio albums, Suzanne Vega and Solitude Standing.

[5] Nell was supposed to walk down the aisle to a different piece of music, but technical difficulties meant it was “Entangled” for her as well.

[6] Nearing the end of my doctoral thesis data analyses in the summer of 2014, I put my foot down and told a committee member that the sophisticated regression models she was having me try (and with which she was barely familiar) were taking hours – if not days – to run and yielded difficult-to-interpret results. Basically, they were a complete waste of time.