Best of 2008 - The Definitive List?

No, it's not my list of the best music of 2008 - that's to come, and yes you're right, that surely can be considered to be definitive, but there's another, more scientific, way of working out which releases are the best of 2008.

Metacritic keeps track of album reviews and through some complicated jiggery-pokery, works out which have been reviewed the best, then comes up with a mark out of 100. It's a good site to know about anyway (they do this for films, TV and DVDs too), but it also offers a different angle on the whole end of year poll fiesta.

So what was the best reviewed album of the year? That would be Amadou & Mariam's Welcome To Mali, with a whopping 92 out of 100.

Probably not the answer you were looking for, right? Well, this album by the excellent blind Malian couple has certainly got the critics excited, but the slightly more expected likes of TV On The Radio, Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver are not too far behind in the list.

There are more surprises though - I was shocked to see Robyn's album so highly rated, with 86%.

One thing that this list does prove (if we didn't all know this already) is that there's a pretty big disconnect between what the critics say is good and what the public go out and buy. In the top 30 on Metacritic are such relative obscurities as Shugo Tokumaru, Paavoharju, Fennesz and Butch Walker. No, I haven't either.

So I suppose that that leads to us back to the likes of Q magazine's list, with its praising of Keane, Kings of Leon, Coldplay and Razorlight. Safe they may all be, but at least they reflect what the punters have actually been buying this year.

Anyway, whichever list you prefer, they're doing what all good polls and opinion lists should do, and that's making you think about their contents.

You can check out the full list of Metacritic's Top 30 of 2008 here.