This Site's Top 200

2-14-08 This Site’s Top 200

From 2-6 to 2-13, I posted (roughly) a Top 200 for the Ron Kane Files blogspot. It simply wasn’t possible to ‘rank’ them; the list is alphabetical. I do not expect anyone to necessarily agree with me, I just wanted to post a ‘current’ “Top 200” – after reading (and not entirely agreeing with) the Rolling Stone magazine “Top 100/200/500”. I mean, they have 2 x Sly & The Family Stone albums in their Top 10 – and they weren’t even the right ones! (I thought they should’ve had “Stand” – I mean, really!). Not much R&B in my Top 200 – but there is definitely a ‘jazz’ presence. I never really followed jazz as a genre – but I heard a lot of individual works by artists like Horace Silver, Charles Mingus, Sonny Clark…and really dug some of their albums.

The sole ranking that I am comfortable stating is the my #1 record of all time remains Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention “We’re Only In It For The Money” – the years come and go, and this album never fails to absolutely delight me. I’ve been listening to it for nearly 40 years – since I was a child!

I am pleased to note that nearly all of my top albums are available as CD’s – they (the music business) has gotten around to almost all of my favorites, by now – but not 100%.

Within an artist’s body of work, it was easy to prioritize – and much more difficult when deciding which artists made the ‘cut’ (for a Top 200). Rest assured, I like way more than 200 titles!

Yes, I should probably try and come up with a “100 Greatest Songs of All Time” list – but that would take a much larger amount of work / calculation than the “Top 200” albums list did. I wonder how many of the artists would be on both lists?

This time, I didn’t bother with a breakdown by “country of origin of artist” – but it’s likely my list veers towards British and American artists (all that jazz, after all). I like to do big lists every now and again – as they tend to change over time.

So, if you want to discuss any of the titles on my “Top 200” list, head over to the comments section of the page that the title is on. I’d be happy to go over it with you, if desired. Back-slapping all ‘round!

What have I left out that you would include? Anything on the list that you are 100% unfamiliar with? Anything that really surprised you?

As always, thank you for reading my stuff. More to come!

- Ron