Rate Your Music has a feature that allows users to see the average ratings for albums ranked not just by genre, but also by the country of the voters. Because ratings are always being added by RYM users, this is not a static list, so you may see slightly different results than I'm talking about here when you click the links, depending on when you're reading this.
I was curious about the best new wave albums as voted by US versus UK voters. If you look at the US voting, there are 3 Talking Heads records and 3 Elvis Costello records in the top 6. The Cars come in at #7 and The Pretenders at #8. The highest The Jam charts is #23.
If you look at the UK voting, I was amazed that Talking Heads still manage 3 of the top 6 albums with Ian Dury, Blondie, and New Order rounding out the top 6. Elvis is 7th in the UK. The Jam are there at #8 followed by XTC and The Stranglers. The Cars show up at #52 in the UK while New Order shows up at #41 in the US. Ian Dury just barely manages to creep into the top 100 (at #100) in the US.
Talking Heads are also #1 among German voters, and The Feelies (!?) are #2 in Germany with the B-52s at #4. Japan also gives Talking Heads the top spot and 4 of the top 7 spots. Japan comes in at #24 in Japan. Talking Heads are way on top in Australia as well and Split Enz surprisingly couldn't manage any better than #24 there. In New Zealand, Split Enz come in at #2.
I don't really understand how RYM makes its charts. Even in Ukraine, Talking Heads are #1, but there's a band with a name I can't spell with the english alphabet that has 4 albums in the top 10 with higher ratings. I guess their algorithm must involve both average rating and number of ratings. Anyway, the Talking Heads global dominance in this category is simply astounding.
"Simply astounding" is a nice way to put it, and very polite, Dave. I hear the damn Talking Heads everywhere. Surprisingly, Tom Tom Club has also grabbed its place in the new wave canon.
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