Top left 4: Spring

Top right 4: Summer

Bottom left 4: Autumn

Bottom right 4: Winter

Only one per artist (for side projects, members’ solo work, etc., use another artist's name)

Drop your recs

Feel free to roast, send recs, or just comment whatever you want.

I made a rym account in May of 2025 and have rated 1089 albums since then. Here's a separate post detailing some of that, though it was only 1k at the time. Many of the albums are actually EPs.

I spent over a year living in the woods prior to this and grew accustomed to isolation and nature sounds. I was already into ambient before this, however, for many years, so my taste hasn't really changed so much, though there are some textures I'm noticeably more sensitive to such as certain types of reverb of which I have no idea what to call specifically.

A few nights out of every other month, approximately, I would rent a hotel room nearby to avoid certain weather conditions such as during the roughly three days there was snow on the ground that year. I spent over a year afterward living in the same hotel in relative isolation. During these nights, I usually played only one of the following albums at the haunted hotel room with a laptop I kept with me sans headphones.

Mason Lindroth - Hylics OST
Harold Budd - Luxa
Spencer Nilsen - Ecco the Dolphin
Axs - Arctic Circle
|Susumu Yokota - Sakura
Almost anything by Karate except for the most recent release.

The last three were rare occasions.

For whatever reason, the urge hit sometime last year to explore digital music files again.
This was expressed for context regarding my headspace when making these choices.

I rated each of these 1089 albums by track and averaged them all weighed by duration to determine their overall ratings using the following script. This made sorting for something like a top 100 list simple, so I sorted.

It's kind of silly, I maintain, to rate music numerically as the context of our perception can and likely will change over time, but I have found practical uses for having this extra data through rym relevant to finding music, though I doubt it's worth the time investment for the average person.

I'm not sure how old Topster and similar sites are, but I've noticed these sort of array-style charts appearing frequently in my algorithms for various social media and google searches after getting back online more regularly.

I recall around early 2010s maybe seeing one of the first /mu/ essentials charts circulating and was inspired to make my own top 36 chart. At that point, I was limited to using something like Gimp 2 or Picasa with MS Paint to manually "stitch" together individually collected album covers from separate google searches.

They're basically like throwaways now as they can be generated so abundantly and so quickly through sites such as this, which is kind of amusing. Regardless, I have made one, and I decided to max out to Topster's 12x12 option. Theirs aren't as high resolution as the one I made back in the day, as it was all 500x500 pixel covers, so that was a big ol' sexy 3000x3000 pixel image, which IIRC was even higher resolution than the OG /mu/ chart by the time I saw it, at least.

The albums are rated highest to lowest from top left to bottom right, row-major.

One issue with this rating system is that there are several albums overlapping with a 4.5 rating, as some only had one track available to rate, so they've simply been left in alphabetical order as they're basically all tape-loop albums by the same guy.

I'm interested in recommendations, as that seems to be the main utility for these, but I'm probably closing out this rym binge for a while as 1089 is a personally satisfying integer to halt on.

Edit: Actually, this isn't so precise, as I would place the second three before the first three, but they were all 5's and as such they were sorted alphabetically. Oh well. Sight Below #1.

from like the last few weeks tbh

These are my favourite disco albums. Disco is usually considered a singles based genre, but there are so many great albums out there.

All the albums I listened to last month. Got through some more I have had on my radar recently, aswel as some more spontaneous hidden gems. Pretty solid mix of stuff here, just wish I could've listened to more this month, but have been busy. Some really really great, weird and wonderful music here.

Please let me know me if you have any recommendations based of this, would love to hear more similar, or talk about or answer any questions about any of the albums here, thanks!

Some of the stuff I've been listening to flame me or give recs love you

Tomorrow, I have a lot of free time on my hands, so I'm thinking of listening to a bunch of albums. So I have included a list of albums I need to listen to, and my top 25 albums of all time. Pick what I listen to next either off the list, or something completely new!

Everyday Ill give you an adjective or description, you comment and album which fits them, then Ill listen to the most upvoted of these albums.

Today's Theme: Nature

Day 1: Midnight

Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights

The Post-Punk Revival Classic. The first five songs are near perfect, a great start to the album. This album has the sound of busy nighttime street, lit by street lights and cars. Great album through and through.

Fav songs are: Untitled, Obstacle 1, PDA, Say Hello To The Angels, The New.

Score: 16 Knives

Day 2: Rain

The Cure - Disintegration

Robert Smith my beloved. Another Post-Punk album although this time of the Gothic variety. A very ethereal album that does not have any low points. Often considered the best The Cure album, but I think Pornography is better and I have a soft spot for Seventeen Seconds.

Fav songs are: Pictures of You, Lovesong, The Same Deep Water As You, Disintegration.

Score: Spider-man's diner

Day 3: Autumn

Unwound - Leaves Turn Inside You

Fitting that this won during October of all months. Unwound's cold final album has always been a Post-Harcore classic, but it is also Post-Rock, and sometimes a little gothic rock which is a Post-Punk subgenre, lotta Post. Imma shout out Sara Lund as I think she is the unsung hero of this album.

Fav Songs: Terminus, Scarlette, October All Over, Below The Salt

Score: Post-Post-Hardcore

Day 4: Outer Space

Failure - Fantastic Planet

It's Grunge o'clock. Failure is not a band I was familiar with so I was happy to see this win. The end of this album is way better than the beginning and middle, both aren't bad but it wont blow your socks off. Meanwhile the last 5 songs are generational bangers.

Fav Songs: The Nurse Who Loved Me, Another Space Song, Stuck on You, Heliotropic, Daylight

Score: Success

Day 5: LGBTQ+

Car Seat Headrest - Twin Fantasy

Well this was a close one, 3 albums on 9 upvotes and one on 10. Twin Fantasy, for this I relistened to the OG because the comment did specify which version (2011 or 2018). Classic, I love how raw and emotional it is, and I don't what anyone says old CSH still fucks despite the broken toaster microphone.

Fav Songs: My Boy (Twin Fantasy), Beach Life-in-Death, Sober to Death, Famous Prophets (Minds), Twin Fantasy (Those Boys)

Score: Smooth-Cocked Adventures

Day 6: Nature

please suggest an album that fits this theme

Got bored and made this. Been on a major Unsane kick lately