I'll start off this extensive research with 2000, up until 2009. I'll then go back to 1980, all the way up to 1999, to then wrap things up with the 70s and before.
Seeing the amount of albums I listen(ed) to, I'll be choosing my Top 25 Albums for each year. An ordered Top 10, and ~15 others worth mentioning. I'm also considering the live albums and EPs, but they have their own section since songs on these have usually already been released before.
These are general rankings of how I see them today, and based on my Last.FM songs playcounts (2005-now) put through the formula:
Total Sum of each Album's Song's (running time X playcount)
DIVIDED BY
Album's Total Running Time
Thanks to MediaMonkey and its amazing scripting abilities, that formula gives an Album's REAL playcount, taking into consideration every song's lenght & playcount in relation to the overall album's lenght and # of songs on it.
You'll see the result (# of times I've REALLY listened to an album since 2005) besides each, along with my 5* Rating. (x/x)
The average of all ratings of a Year's Albums is shown in (%).
Note that I haven't necessarily discovered and enjoyed all these albums on their released years, some I discovered years later. So these are also based on how important (to me) some of these albums were at the time.
(**) are the complete albums I was into at that time;
(*) are albums that contained only a few song(s) I was into or listened to at that time;
and those without (*) are albums I discovered years later.
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Favorite albums (1970-1979)
Favorite albums (1980-1989)
Favorite albums (1990-1999)
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2000 (86%)



1) Furnished Souls for Rent (48/5) (**)
2) Universe (6/5) (**)
3) The Screen Behind The Mirror (9/5) (**)
4) Dead Soul Men (6/4)
5) undefined (1/4)
6) CAB (4/4)
7) Another Spin Around The Sun (5/4) (*)
8) Origin (9/4)
9) Stiff Upper Lip (1/4)
10) SMPTe (3/4) (*)
Live/EP:
-) S&M (-/5)
-) Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live (-/5)
-) Half the World Is Watching Me (-/5)
-) Earth, Sky and Everything in Between (-/5)
worth mentioning:
-) Don't Give Me Names (1/4)
-) if_then_else (2/4)
-) You Go Now (6/4)
-) Rated R (6/4)
-) Outbound (1/4)
-) Brave New World (1/4)
-) Flamenco.A.Go.Go (1/4)
-) The Sickness (4/3)
-) Lightbulb Sun (3/3)
-) Shuttlecock (2/3)
-) Mer De Noms (3/3) (*)
-) My Favorite Headache (2/3)
-) Crush (9/3) (*)
-) Ice Cycles (2/3)
-) Situation Dangerous (1/3)
-) Please Come Home... Mr. Bulbous (1/3)
-) Crack a Smile... and More (1994 album w/ Blues Saraceno) (1/3)
Coming up next: 2001
Artists List
A Perfect Circle, AC/DC, Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, Blues Saraceno, Bon Jovi, Bozzio Levin Stevens, CAB, Chroma Key, Derek Sherinian, Disturbed, Dream Theater, Edwin, Enigma, Evanescence, Freak Kitchen, Geddy Lee, Guano Apes, I Mother Earth, Iron Maiden, Joel Hoekstra, King's X, Metallica, Mew, Mourning Widows, Pink Floyd, Planet X, Platypus, Poison, Porcupine Tree, Queens of the Stone Age, Steve Stevens, Super TransAtlantic, The Gathering, Transatlantic.