Saturday, April 28

The Top 15 Albums of All Time

We all know this is impossible, yet it's fun. Here's my top-of-the-head stab at the top 15 albums I've heard. Keep in mind, these are complete studio albums, and exclude 'Greatest Hits' or other compilations. Sometimes albums may even be stellar without any particularly standout songs, just because of the overall quality and continuity of purpose they maintain from start to finish.

The Smiths, Strangeways, Here We Come
The Beatles, Abbey Road
Joy Division, Closer
Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon
The Clash, London Calling
Fleetwood Mac, Rumours
The Stone Roses, The Stone Roses
Black Uhuru, Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?
Morrissey, Viva Hate
Nirvana, Nevermind
Terence Trent D'Arby, The World According to Terence Trent D'Arby
The Doors, The Doors
Michael Jackson, Thriller
Radiohead, OK Computer
2Pac, Me Against The World

Feel free to enlighten me on my shoddy taste, list your own 15 albums, point out obvious ones I missed, or whatever. Mainly I would like to hear your own lists. The ones I've listed above are not strictly in order, though generally I tried to make them so. But there are sooooo many albums I left out which at any given moment I could justify including in the list: The Sundays' first album, The Cranberries' second album, about four other Beatles albums, about three other Pink Floyd albums, a couple Cure albums, The Chameleons' Script of the Bridge and on and on. But this is a launching-off point, not a final destination. Let's see where it takes us.
Posted by Metamatician on Saturday, April 28, 2007

4 comments:

Metamatician said...

What, no one's got favorite albums? Or you all just agree with me 100%?

May 02, 2007
Hans said...

I'm lost in my teens and 20's with Elvis, the British Invasion in general ~ the Beatles on the top(many of them), then The Eagles ("), Fleetwood Mac ("), Jackson Browne ("), Dan Fogelberg ("), Gordon Lightfoot, this is proving that I if I like the artist, I usually like most of the albums. From the ancient days, Hendrix, Cream, Donovan, Bread, Peter Paul & Mary, The Doors! Aretha Franklin (oh yeh baby). Latest good albums include a lot of instrumental especially Cello music, mellow music. I like jazz more than I used to with new singers like Norah Jones and rediscovering old ones like Tony Bennett who I though was really crap when I was 14. I like old country especially CASH & Haggard, Waylon and Willie -in the days when I started liking country because of the group Alabama, who made country cool for kids. There's more, but that's enough. Of your albums we agree on three at least. That's pretty cool, but then again I was raised on Rock and it just keeps on.

May 05, 2007
Metamatician said...

Thanks - I knew pretty much all these of yours but now the whole world knows! Muahahaha.

I guess the three you mentioned would be Abbey Road, Rumours, and the Doors.

A list like this is really impossible because 5 of the 15 could easily be Beatles albums, for example. How could Sgt Peppers or Revolver not be on the list?!? In the end I just went for one representative album for each group that would have multiple entries, to make it more interesting and get more variety.

I guess the only way to do it better would be by artist, but then there are some artists who've put out a single great album and that album might be one of your top 10, but the group might not even make your top 20. Or the opposite. Like Bob Marley. He's easily one of my favorite artists, but his work was spread out onto many albums, and no one in particular was good enough really to make this list.

Lists are always flawed and controversial, but that's why they're fun!

May 06, 2007
Metamatician said...

Damn, I can't believe I left REM's Automatic For The People off this list. It certainly needs to bump someone else off and be on there.

Disillusionist also needs to chime in on this list, pronto.

May 18, 2007

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