Thank you to everyone who submitted theirTop 20 albums towards my survey. Overall I had 31 Top 20s submitted between February 2002 and the beginning of June. Special thanks to Mike Eveleigh, Jon Whittle and especially John Evans for persuading friends, family and colleagues to submit lists towards my poll.

I have assigned points for each vote. When a list was ranked 1 to 20 the 1^st choice received 20 points, 2^nd 19 down to 1 point for the 20^th choice. Many people didn't rank their list of 20 albums in order. For these lists, I decided that the fairest approach was to give each album the median score between 20 and 1 which is 10.5 points per album. A couple of people also told me their 1^st or 1^st and 2^nd choices only but didnt rank the remaining albums on their lists. For these lists, the remaining albums were each given the median score between 19 and 1 or 18 and 1 points i.e. 10 points for a list with a 1^st choice only indicated and 9.5 points where a 1^st and 2^nd choice only are indicated.

Below is the Top 20 Albums, sorted by points then by no. of votes:

As you can see, many of the albums which feature highly in much bigger polls than this one are also in this Top 20 although honourable mentions should be made for 69 Love Songs, Raindogs and Soul Mining.

Some of the more interesting and unusual choices just below the Top 20 include My Bloody Valentine Loveless (24), Johnny Cash American III Solitary Man (25), Elton John Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (26) and Free Fire And Water (30). If the Top 20 had been compiled purely by number of votes then (Whats The Story) Morning Glory by Oasis would have come joint 2^nd with 6 votes. However it is only no. 35 as most people who voted for it put it between 15^th and 20^th. Funnily enough, the only other album by the Brothers Gallagher to feature (Definitely Maybe) got the same number of points but was only voted for by 2 people!

From the list of Top Albums, you will not be surprised to learn that The Beatles are the top artist / group overall by some distance. The Top 30, sorted by total points then total no. of votes is as follows:

Some interesting choices just outside the 30 include Tindersticks, Four Tops and (despite the author's attempts to get him higher) Nick Drake.

I hope that you all find the overall lists interesting.  I'm planning to update the poll and get some further votes towards the end of the year if there is sufficient interest - I'll certainly be changing a few of the entries in my Top 20 which I compiled at the beginning of February. So if you would like to send me a revised list, get any of your friends to submit their list or ask me any questions about the overall lists please get in touch. I can let you know how many votes a certain album received but not who voted for what as all individual lists will be treated confidentially.

The original reason I got into this project was to submit my list after finding out how to contribute towards the next edition of the Virgin All-Time Top 1000 Albums. If anyone is interested in submitting their list, please e-mail the author Colin Larkin at colinmuze@aol.com or colin@muze.co.uk. The Top 20 list must be in 1-20 rank order and, like my poll, greatest hits type albums by a single artist cannot be included although live albums, film soundtracks or compilations of b-sides or rare tracks can be included.

Enjoy the music and thanks once again for your contributions.

Greg