Before we get started with any of this, I want to give a HUGE thanks to everyone who participated in the 2013 Readers Poll. I cannot properly convey how much it means to me personally to have people voluntarily get involved and share their opinions like that. Lists were coming in right down to the wire on New Year’s Eve, and in the end, we had a grand total of 335 participants, up from 2012 and full of thoughtful, excellent picks.

This year, you can see so for yourself, since thanks as always to the technological wizardry (or at least I call it wizardry because I don’t understand how it works) of Slevin, we’ve been able to cull all 335 individual lists and present them in full. You’ll find them after the jump below. And yes, in case you were wondering, that’s an awful lot of lists.

The method by which the picks are measured has also changed some. We used a point system, wherein a 1-4 ranking was worth five points, 5-8 worth four, 9-12 worth three, 13-16 worth two and 17-20 worth one. To keep things clear, I’m also including the raw vote tally, so you can see what actually got picked the most as well as where individual albums landed on people’s lists.

Here goes:

Top 20 of 2013 — Weighted Results

1. Clutch, Earth Rocker (589 points)
2. Vista Chino, Peace (431 points)
3. Queens of the Stone Age, …Like Clockwork (357 points)
4. Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, Mind Control (354 points)
5. Monster Magnet, Last Patrol (329 points)
6. Kadavar, Abra Kadavar (312 points)
7. Windhand, Soma (291 points)
8. Earthless From the Ages (285 points)
9. Red Fang, Whales and Leeches (276 points)
10. Black Sabbath, 13 (220 points)
11. Blood Ceremony, The Eldritch Dark (217 points)
12. Church of Misery, Thy Kingdom Scum (166 points)
13. Sasquatch, IV (155 points)
14. Carcass, Surgical Steel (136 points)
15. Kylesa, Ultraviolet (129 points)
16. Orchid, The Mouths of Madness (124 points)
17. Samsara Blues Experiment, Waiting for the Flood (114 points)
18. Deafheaven, Sunbather (112 points)
19. Kvelertak, Meir (109 points)
20. Ghost, Infestissumam (103 points)
20. The Melvins, Tres Cabrones (103 points)

Honorable mention also goes to:
ASG, Blood Drive (96 points)
Naam, Vow (95 points)
Alice in Chains, The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here (90 points)
Pelican, Forever Becoming (90 points)
Gozu, The Fury of a Patient Man (85 points)
Deville, Hydra (79 points)
Lumbar, The First and Last Days of Unwelcome (79 points)

In Solitude, Gorguts and Black Pyramid also has respectable showings, as you can see in the lists themselves. Clutch dominated from day one and never relinquished the lead, but some of the races for the spots behind them were tight, like Queens of the Stone Age and Uncle Acid keeping it close, as well as others. In any case, such unanimity around Earth Rocker was exciting in itself. It was my album of the year too.

Let’s do the raw votes:

Top 20 of 2013 — Raw Votes

1. Clutch, Earth Rocker (142 votes)
2. Vista Chino, Peace (114 votes)
3. Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, Mind Control (98 votes)
4. Queens of the Stone Age, …Like Clockwork (95 votes)
5. Monster Magnet, Last Patrol (91 votes)
6. Kadavar, Abra Kadavar (87 votes)
7. Windhand, Soma (84 votes)
8. Earthless, From the Ages (81 votes)
9. Red Fang, Whales and Leeches (77 votes)
10. Black Sabbath, 13 (71 votes)
11. Blood Ceremony, The Eldritch Dark (68 votes)
12. Church of Misery, Thy Kingdom Scum (50 votes)
13. Sasquatch, IV (47 votes)
14. Kylesa, Ultraviolet (43 votes)
15. Orchid, The Mouths of Madness (40 votes)
16. Carcass, Surgical Steel (37 votes)
17. Ghost, Infestissumam (34 votes)
18. ASG, Blood Drive (32 votes)
19. Kvelertak, Meir (32 votes)
19. Samsara Blues Experiment, Waiting for the Flood (32 votes)
20. The Melvins, Tres Cabrones (31 votes)
20. Naam, Vow (31 votes)

Honorable mention to:
Deafheaven, Sunbather (29 votes)
Alice in Chains, The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here (27 votes)
Black Pyramid, Adversarial (27 votes)
Gozu, The Fury of a Patient Man (26 votes)
Pelican, Forever Becoming (25 votes)
Causa Sui, Euporie Tide (23 votes)
Jex Thoth, Blood Moon Rise (23 votes)
Lumbar, The First and Last Days of Unwelcome (23 votes)
Russian Circles, Memorial (23 votes)
Cathedral, The Last Spire (22 votes)
Egypt, Become the Sun (21 votes)
Horisont, Time Warriors (21 votes)

Beelzefuzz, Devil to Pay, Deville, In Solitude, All Them Witches, Big Business, Inter Arma and Sandrider also had strong showings at around or just under 20 votes each, and everything else was less than that. Pretty similar makeup to the weighted results overall, with Queens of the Stone Age and Uncle Acid swapped out. Once again though, the moral of the story is that Clutch kicked ass in 2013, and I think that’s something we can all agree on.

—

One more time, cheers, kudos and gratitude to all that participated in the 2013 Readers Poll. As we move into 2014, I couldn’t be more thrilled with how it all came out and couldn’t be happier to have everyone who got involved included in these results. Here’s to next time around.

All of the lists that were sent in are included here after the jump for your perusal. I hope if you find somewhere my math was fuzzy, you’ll point it out. Otherwise, please enjoy.

Read more »

I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks. The Top 20 of 2013 Readers Poll is now open! Submit your list of your favorite records from this year using the form below, and at the end of the month, the results will be counted up and a final, overall Top 20 will be had!

There are no restrictions on bands, genres, types of albums, vinyl-only, tape-only, whatever. Anything you want to put on your list, whatever you feel deserves your vote, is welcome. We’re doing things a little different this year in that all the lists will be published along with the results of the Top 20, so that everyone’s picks, however obscure or whatever they might be, can be seen and enjoyed by everybody when the time comes.

The polling is also different in that where an album is placed on your list counts too, not just the raw votes. It requires more math, but it’s for a good cause and should hopefully make the final tally even more accurate.

Fill our your picks below, click Submit, and you’re good to go. Happy voting:

[THIS POLL IS NOW CLOSED. THANKS TO ALL WHO ENTERED.]

As is more or less the case with this whole site, the 2013 Readers Poll wouldn’t be possible without the dedication and coding brilliance of Slevin. It’s his database and his design for the polling itself, and without it, I’d be using an abacus to tabulate results. If you see him at the bar, please buy him a beer and give him a hearty “Thank you sir.”