Found this site today. Best ever albums list aggregated from over 40,000 separate charts that have been submitted to the site.
Plenty of the usual suspects, Radiohead surprise me, not that they feature, but so many of their albums. Few other surprises, Neutral Milk Hotel at 14? Wtf? Never heard it, maybe it is a masterpiece. Personally happy to see Yankee Hotel Foxtrot at 45.
If you don’t like it, add your own list and change it!
And I only own 64 of top 100!
59 out of top 100 so pretty close to you.
Quite tame and then they throw in Tane Impala which I have but which is pretty average
Btw the Neutral Milk Hotel album is pretty rubbish.
Good to see God speed you black emperor in there.
74 here.
I like Sufjan Stevens and have a number of his albums, but not the one at #46 – “Illinois” (is it any good?). Likewise, have a number of God Speed… albums, but not the one in this chart (Lift Your Skinny Fists….).
I too have never heard of Neutral Milk Hotel.
Those are probably my favourite albums by those two artists! 66 here. Classic Rock is my downfall, I don’t have anything by Led Zep or the Who, and only one or two by the Stones, Pink Floyd and Dylan.
Yes #46 is very good.
Illinois is the only one of his that I have heard of.
@dai it’s the only one you need to hear.
Carrie and Lowell is self indulgent navel gazing (I will get my tin hat because I know a lot on here like it very much).
SteveT – always liked him. I really loved Illinois and then in an alternate AfterWord Universe “Carrie & Lowell” (definitively the worst worst record ever made) was voted Album of the Year
75 on CD, 23 on MP3. Just the two Weezer albums that I don’t have in any format and that isn’t going to be changing any time soon!
Seems half the usual suspects and half left field cult faves in the top 100. A mere 40, but I only have one Beatles LP and that was a gift. (When I was 10)
I’ve got 84 of their top 100, but their list is so seriously flawed it’s a joke.
The offence begins with the album they have at number 1.
Good grief, is there no end to the insidious ability of the soul sucking, painfully wailing dirge of Radiohead to fester within so many lists like this? Why Radiohead fans haven’t killed themselves by now will remain a mystery to me.
That’s one of the 43 I have, but I don’t think I’ve listened to it for decades.
Hmmm, I think the compilers can get around the “flawed” accusation by the fact that the chart is an aggregate of other charts, so is self-evidently “accurate”!
And Radiohead are brilliant anyway.
https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan/
Just because you don’t like something you don’t need to be an a*** about it. Post about something you like. There is probably a helpline for Pink Floyd fans too or whatever dated “miserable” prog/folk that you like.
As stated in the original post, this is aggregated from 40,000 individual lists. Naturally there is no correct list in existence for anything that relies only on opinion.
If there’s one thing I reserve the right to always be an arse about it’s bloody Radiohead!
Putting their cacophony of self-pity at Number One Best Ever just validates the wisdom of George Carlin.
Have a very large UP my foxy friend!
You are entitled to an opinion, but you are completely wrong. OK Computer is a dazzling, moving album. Kid A isn’t too far behind either. The Bends is ultimate guitar rock. You just don’t get it, your loss.
“I wish that they’d swoop down in a country lane
Late at night when I’m driving
Take me on board their beautiful ship
Show me the world as I’d love to see it
I’d tell all my friends but they’d never believe me
They’d think that I’d finally lost it completely
I’d show them the stars and the meaning of life
They’d shut me away
But I’d be alright
Alright
I’m alright
Alright”
Could be (miserable sod) Roger Waters, but better lyrics actually.
IMHO Foxy was making what we in the real world call a “joke”. His suggestion that anyone who likes Radiohead needs the Samaritans telephone number is obviously a…. oh, hold on
Maybe, but it’s just rather annoying to have great music reduced to comments like “Why Radiohead fans haven’t killed themselves ….”
Not a joke, just pathetic. Suggests the person writing it has some issues that may need attention more than those affecting Radiohead fans.
I thought he was being ironic as I believe that Phil Selway (Radiohead’s drummer) is a volunteer for Samaritans.
Have we already forgotten Father Kevin?
That’s a big 15 for me.
Rush me my ‘civilian’ badge. . .
55/100 for me.
Although a lot of the other ones I’ve dipped into and rejected. The only act in the top 100 there that I don’t have a clue what they sound like are Tame Impala at #66, so I am categorising myself as “fairly clued up”!
Tame Impala – classic TPRTOMRC* case.
*Teenagers Plunder & Recreate Their Old Man’s Record Collection
Otherwise classified as “worthy try but ultimately dull”.
Couldn’t agree more. Been done before several times over and mostly better.
When I (tried to) grew up in the nineties, Neutral Milk Hotel were huge with socially awkward teenagers with glasses, greasy hair and sweaty handshakes. So it should be popular around here, even it’s mostly the wrong generation. 😙
They must have been just after my own growing up/ zeitgeist phase (early nineties indie up to trip hop/ brit pop) as I’d never heard of them until years later. Passed me by completely at the time.
In The Aeroplane Over The Sea was apparently released in 1998, when I was allegedly not a teen anymore, but still. Swedish pop magazine Pop wrote a lot about it at the time.
A bit too “classic rock” for me. I own 29 and several of those are very ordinary indeed..
51 for me – nearly all 20th century and some of those I wouldn’t rate highly.
Surprised to see only one Joni Mitchell album in the top 100, and at 84. You have to get to 661 to find the mighty Hejira.
Hejira has always been mighty for me!
Neutral Milk Hotel is a very good album.
I remember NME (or Q?) absolutely wetting themselves over it.
I’ll do the full count later, but can report I own all the Top 10
Arcade Fire at 9?
Who writes this stuff.
And Nirvana at 15 – above London Calling and The White Album. Why?
It’s good, but not that good (maybe top 50 – just)
Nobody wrote it.
Arcade Fire is definitely the first entry that totally baffled me. I’ve attempted to listen to them but just got bored, so obviously they are not for me. But I had no idea they were so popular.
Heh. I bought that breakthrough Arcade Fire album in the little CD shop that used to be at the top of the escalator from the platform in Paddington station, hot on the heels of a drooling review in one of the monthlies. Slapped it into the CD drive of my laptop. Realised I’d been seriously stitched up by my naive anticipatory enthusiasm for something new long before we got to Reading on the way back to home. Haven’t played it since.
See too Joanna Fucking Newsom. Critics were wetting their pants about a woman with a voice that would curdle milk and lyrics that are beyond laughable.
Arcade fire and In Rainbows, both reasons why I won’t be bothering going past page 1.
Sixty something here. Having discovered a few in my collection that I didn’t know I had*, I got fed up of checking the ones I wasn’t sure about around No. 50.
Didn’t know I had that Neutral Milk Hotel one, f’rinstance. Couldn’t tell you what it sounds like and no great inclination today to find out.
First blank was their No. 7, Radiohead’s “In Rainbows”.
73 (including the top 25 – Kendrik Lamarr was my first blank)
My own personal number 1 (Quadrophenia) ranks at 1553
i’m sure most pop and rock best of lists comprise single artist’s albums, hence the results that people pay attention to. However, all pop kids should know that the best albums are compilations. Happily this leaves the compilations list to the more specialist / non mainstream music fans.
The list is seriously left field and great.
https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?b=943
No.1 The Harder They Come, Tropicalia No.5, Anthology Of American Folk Music No.6, Nuggetts No.8. The variety is huge and owning a significant number of this top 100 is hugely impressive.
Good to see “The Indestructible Beat of Soweto” holding down the coveted no. 15 spot!
Fantastic album, I was absolutely blown away by it when it came out. I’m not the type of person who could list albums in order that I like them, just being great will do for me. If I did I think that would be in my top 15.
“I’m not the type of person who could list albums in order that I like them, just being great will do for me”
Security! How did this fellow get past the front door?
No two ways about it, standards are slipping around here, Sewer.
I believe it is now considered acceptable for chaps who are not dressed in tails and a white bow tie to make contributions to the blog.
One of our neighbours (a couple of streets away) recently won the Postcode Lottery. The presenter was spotted beforehand in the local cafe, to much excitement from some (he’s apparently on daytime telly, so I didn’t recognise him).
I said “But he can’t be on the wireless, he’s not even in black tie” and it landed like a stone balloon. Civilians…
Oops sorry I forgot where I was for a moment I can confirm that The Indestructible Beat of Soweto is number 15 in my list. For clarification, that is my list of best various artists compilations. Not to be confused with my lists of best reissues and compilations, best world music albums or best African albums.
Apologies again for the totally misleading post!
I don’t care for the Beatles or the Floyd. I have (or have had) 24/50.
I almost didn’t bother looking after seeing what was No1. That band are the most overrated pile of shyte I have ever heard. Believe me I have listened to the albums and that is my opinion and I am RIGHT! Others have their own opinion which they are welcome to.
FOREVER CHANGES at 76(?) that shows how flawed that list is.
I found most of the albums listed (those I don’t own, all 51) to be pretty uninspiring, even insipid.
Forever Changes could be better, but both are great albums. A list like this is naturally going to be prejudiced towards albums that more people have heard. I fail to see why people get so upset about lists. It is what it is, certainly some albums named there that have made me interested to hear them. I may hate them, I don’t know.
NO LIST IS CORRECT!!
@dai I actually agree with you.
That list faded from my memory as fast as shit off a shovel.
Of course lists are silly, which is exactly why it’s fun to engage in the hyperbolic traducing of them!
The trouble with lists is that they hold an unnatural fascination to people who like lists. It’s a crying shame that music lovers aren’t as interested.
This list has made me really, really fucking angry. Seriously, I have rarely been more fucking upset – so much so that I am going to write to someone about it.
My first question concerning this list that I am going to write to someone about is how could The Bay City Rollers possibly be ranked only 5th?
Well?
I appreciate that it is an aggregate rather than a specific poll, but that is a conspicuously “Generation X” -style chart (lots of 90s and 00s); much more than any of the UK rock mags would likely publish. Interesting.
You can probably do it with their filtering, but isn’t there an argument that anything less than 5 or 10 years old can’t be considered greatest anything as it is still settling into its place?
I’ve got probably half. Some of the too 30 I’ve listened to and don’t care for at all, but that’s the thing with these charts. Agreed though, there seems to be a lot of Radiohead!
As well as best of all time lists they have aggregated best of decade and best of year lists in the same chart. There are clearly more recent year/recent decade lists than 60s, 70s year/decade lists so that skews things somewhat.
The Radiohead/Marmite argument (people seem to either love or hate them) is an interesting one I think – perhaps another thread for another day! I don’t think I’ve ever known another band who offer quite the same level of devotion from their fans, yet bafflement from those who just don’t “get” it.
Myself, I love OK Computer and count it as one of my big albums of that mid-nineties period (along with stuff like Beck, DJ Shadow and Spiritualized). I can see why one might categorise it as “miserable” music, but sometimes I think you need that in your life. I’ve never heard anything from them since that has made me want to buy another one of their albums (although I downloaded that Rainbows one when you were allowed to set your own price for it… which I set to zero…).
I think it’s often primarily down to the lead singer in cases where people have such strong reactions against a band, see also Coldplay, U2 perhaps. The front person in general gets the most attention, speaks the most, may have wankerish tendencies (unfortunate habit of seeming/being a bit of a twat). A rock singer’s voice has a lot more potentially trying ‘personality’ than a proper singer who is just technically right. I might be wrong.
Nail. Hit. On. The. Head. @Diddley Farquar.
To me TY`s voiced simply grates. Initially I thought `The Bends` and `OK` were, err, OK. Then that bloody voice started it`s insidious aural invasion.
Spot on I think. The memory of seeing Thom Yorke’s fizzog fifty feet high on the screens at Glastonbury as they ground out most of OK Computer has left me with some issues that need attention. The hypnosis has helped, I must admit, along with the citalopram, and I should be free of the nightmares by the end of this year.
Kid A for me is pretty much as good (after the initial shock), I like In Rainbows less. Thought their last one (Moon Shaped Pool) was lovely. The Bends is my personal favourite probably.
“The Nightfly” at no 667?
No further questions, m’lud.
I think I’ve got about 35-40 of ’em. A bit too much ‘Rawk and Prog for me and my favouritest bestest album is at 1,764. Hmmm.
I know it’s just a list and no list is correct and all that, but I had no idea that people think that Pink Moon is Nick Drake’s best album. When did that happen?
Yeah, I’ve actually noticed that. I’m not a huge Nick Drake fan but I’ve dabbled in his stuff and he’s rather good a lot of the time.
If I may posit a theory, I think that Pink Moon is a better fit for these times for two reasons:
(1) It’s just him and his guitar, no backing band. So fits in with that auteur-ish “lonesome guitar slinger” cliche that’s been very modish for the past couple of decades.
(2) It has a nicely tragic back-story. Last album before he died, a cry of despair and all that.
His earlier stuff is maybe a bit too hippy and twee for modern ears (even though it’s definitely better).
Simply, it’s because Pink Moon was used in a commercial a decade or so ago.
Oh yes, that’s right. The Volkswagen Cabriolet advert in 1999. Time flies …
Absolutely yes and everything, but also it is his best album though but. It was the first of his I heard, loved it, and was subsequently disappointed that the other two weren’t just him and guitar. Still am.
“Heart of the Congos” only in 797th place?
These people must be mad.
The Lighthouse Family only make it to place 11,052 with their best album.
I guess I’ll have to make do with their 2019 comeback album being in Lodey’s Top 20.
Klaxon!
Radiohead have three entries in the Top 10.
This chart sucks eggs – is it for dodgers?
Bingo! Was waiting for your comment ….
We are so very fortunate that absolutely none of it matters at all.
It matters more than Boris Johnson.
Still registering a negative number on the It Matters Index.