I'm 100% with you man. I think it's always a shame when some albums have firm spots in people's top5/top10 before the year starts.
I think we have to give people the benefit of the doubt that they aren't doing that. Or that they have listened to only five or six albums from this year (I've only heard six so far). The new Opeth was highly anticipated for me, and I assumed it would probably end up in my top 3 or so, but it would rank fifth for me at this point out of the six I've heard.
I think people certainly go in with expectations, but I honestly can't see anyone saying "I don't like this Opeth album, but I'll rank it #2 anyway because I like Opeth." They would only rank it in their top 5 if it was actually in their opinion one of the top 5. And again, not everyone listens to more than five or six new albums in a given year. So even if they thought that the new Opeth was mediocre, it might still make their top 5 if they only heard six albums that year and one was awful.
On topic of the thread (since this post is my entrance to it), I don't tend to have definitive answers for what my favorite albums are in a timely fashion, because I generally go back early in the next year to ones that I missed. I've listened so far to six albums, from which I would rank a top four (because I only find these four to be worthy of special mention) of:
1. Coldplay -
Ghost Stories2. Anathema -
Distant Satellites3. Transatlantic -
Kaleidoscope4. Tuomas Holopainen -
Music Inspired by the Life and Times of ScroogeThe other two were
Pale Communion by Opeth and
Restoration by Haken. The former was hit-and-miss for me, and I've only listened to the latter once (though I hope to listen to it more in the future)
My ranking of albums really won't be set in stone though until I listen to
Restoration a few more times and get some of the ones I missed, definitely including
1989 by Taylor Swift, and possibly including
The Road of Bones by IQ and
Second Nature by Flying Colors.