Rock Album Best 100
12-2-08 Record Collector Magazine - Rock Album Best 100
The entire list!
Record Collector Magazine (
1. THE BEACH BOYS – Pet Sounds
2. BOB DYLAN – Highway 61 Revisited
3. THE BAND – Music from Big Pink
4. KING CRIMSON – In The Court of the Crimson King
5. THE BEATLES – Revolver
6. THE SEX PISTOLS – Never Mind The Bollocks
7. THE VELVET UNDERGROUND & NICO – s/t
8. THE BEATLES – Rubber Soul
9. THE BEATLES – s/t (aka Double White Album)
10. NEIL YOUNG – After The Goldrush
11. BOB DYLAN – Blonde on Blonde
12. CAROLE KING – Tapestry
13. THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION – Freak Out!
14. JOHN LENNON – John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band
15. PINK FLOYD – Dark Side of The Moon
16. THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE – Electric Ladyland
17. THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE – Are You Experienced?
18. THE BEATLES – Sgt. Peppers’ Lonely Hearts Club Band
19. THE ROLLING STONES – Beggar’s Banquet
20. TALKING HEADS – Remain In Light
21. THE ROLLING STONES – Let It Bleed
22. THE BEATLES –
23. SLY & THE FAMILY STONE – There’s A Riot Goin’ On
24. THE ROLLING STONES – Exile On
25. LED ZEPPELIN – Led Zeppelin #1
26. CAPTAIN BEEFHEART – Trout Mask Replica
27. DONALD FAGEN – The Nightfly
28. STEELY DAN – Aja
29. ELVIS COSTELLO – My Aim Is True
30. ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND – At Fillmore East
31. TELEVISION – Marquee Moon
32. PRINCE – Sign O’ The Times
33. BUFFALO
34. JAMES TAYLOR – Sweet Baby James
35. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN – Born To Run
36. PINK FLOYD – Piper At The Gates of Dawn
37. THE BAND – s/t
38. GEORGE HARRISON –
39. THE KINKS – The Village Green Preservation Society
40. THE BEATLES – Please Please Me
41. THE POP GROUP – For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?
42. THE WHO – My Generation
43. CROSBY, STILLS & NASH – s/t
44. LED ZEPPELIN – Led Zeppelin #4
45. NEIL YOUNG – Harvest
46. THE ZOMBIES – Odyssey & Oracle
47. JONI MITCHELL – Blue
48. THE SHAGGS – Philosophy Of The World
49. BOB DYLAN – Freewheelin’
50. SLY & THE FAMILY STONE – Stand
51. PATTI SMITH – Horses
52. LED ZEPPELIN – Presence
53. LAURA NYRO – Eli and the 13th Confession
54. V.A. – No
55. THE CLASH –
56. BLIND FAITH – s/t
57. JOY DIVISION – Closer
58. THE WHO – Tommy
59. LITTLE FEAT –
60. STYLE COUNCIL – Our Favorite Shop
61. LED ZEPPELIN – Led Zeppelin #2
62. THE DOORS – s/t (#1)
63. MC5 – Kick Out The Jams
64. TODD RUNDGREN – Something / Anything
65. THE STOOGES – s/t (#1)
66. THE BYRDS – Mr. Tambourine Man
67. JOHN LENNON – Imagine
68. BOB DYLAN – Blood On The Tracks
69. THE STYLE COUNCIL – Café Bleu
70. PAUL & LINDA McCARTNEY – Ram
71. THE ROLLING STONES – Sticky Fingers
72. T. REX – Electric Warrior
73. PREFAB SPROUT – Steve McQueen
74. CREAM – Disraeli Gears
75. THE CLASH – Sandanista
76. U2 – The Joshua Tree
77. ERIC CLAPTON –
78. THE BEATLES – A Hard Day’s Night
79. FAIRPORT CONVENTION –
80. ELVIS PRESLEY – From Elvis In
81. THE BYRDS – Sweetheart of the Rodeo
82. DAVID BOWIE – Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars
83. THE LOVIN’ SPOONFUL – Do You Believe In Magic?
84. JOHN MAYALL with ERIC CLAPTON – Blues Breakers
85. THE BEATLES – Meet The Beatles (Japanese Vers.)
86. SCRITTI POLITTI – Cupid & Psyche ’85
87. RY COODER – Chicken Skin Music
88. DEREK & THE DOMINOS – Layla
89. THE KINKS – Something Else
90. DAVID BOWIE – Low
91. THE DURUTTI COLUMN – The Return Of The Durutti Column
92. PHIL SPECTOR / V.A. – A Christmas Gift For You…
93. BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS – Catch A Fire
94. PAUL McCARTNEY & WINGS – Band On The Run
95. XTC – Skylarking
96. THE DOORS – Strange Days
97. BLACK SABBATH – s/t (#1)
98. VAN DYKE PARKS – Song Cycle
99. 10cc – How Dare You?
100. THE JAM – All Mod Cons
Certainly some surprises here – and some real unique stuff! No Ventures or Deep Purple – but the Japanese version of the debut Beatles LP? How’d the Pop Group get on this list? Or The Durutti Column? Or Laura Nyro? Two Style Council albums?
posted by Ron Kane @ 6:32 AM
7 Comments:
Okay, certainly this is five guys sitting around the office listing their "most influential" records (they probably look like the guys in "High Fidelity"), and then they each get to throw in their five personal favorites. How else to explain The Shaggs, Little Feat, Laura Nyro, Durutti Column, Style Council, Prefab Sprout, etc? Whenever I list my favorites I include very personal LPs like Elvis Costello's "Imperial Bedroom", Ultravox's "Vienna" or the debut Icehouse LP. They didn't change the world, but they damn sure changed mine.
An interesting list. I look forward to the readers version.
Hey i am a big fan of Steely Dan, but Mr Walter Becker has a new album called Circus Money, What a great album it is, just had to share that with all the Steely Dan Fans.
www.sonic360.com/walterbecker
Jeepers. I have 22 of these. Does that make me lame? And all that Style Council??!! They sucked! Jam only for me! And not in my top 100, either. And late period Steely Dan/Donald Fagen? No. As much as I like The Nightfly or Aja (many of its songs stick in my head) give me "Can't Buy A Thrill" or "Pretzel Logic!" I never heard them until many years after the event but I can understand the hoopla in retrospect. As a pre-teen, the tunes whizzed above my head.
As for Prefab Sprout, have you ever HEARD Steve McQueen/Two Wheels Good Mr. Ware? As it was once said about Stephen Duffy; "We do not need another PAddy McAloon."
Nice to see the best Talking Heads album name-checked, but it's probably their LEAST influential early recording. Nice to see the sprawling Sandinista! here, though. Its excess is a big part of its charm to me. But overall, there is a lack of postpunk that betrays the ages of those involved. Whoever made this list is between the ages of 50-60. About half of these are the same Rolling Stone wanker canon.
And where's Who Sell Out?!
Yes, where is "The Who Sell Out"?
I have 17 of them. I'm with you on the early Steely Dan Jim. "Pretzel Logic" is my favorite by far, but I'm very fond of the first six (up through "Aja"). I jumped off the ship with "Gaucho" and have never re-connected.
I'm also very okay with Prefab Sprout - they're just not often lumped in with this kind of crowd.
Coincidentally, I also have or recently had approx. 22 of these albums -- if you were to ignore the Beatles albums it would be like 12.
I hate lists like these, because they are simply not true. Nobody short of Ron has even HEARD most of the great albums of the RnR era, they just reflect the ages of the people asked to compile the list.
My own list would be much more heavy with 70s and 80s artists (of course) because that's when I grew up. So calling this "the best" is just more bs in a bs-ridden world.
My other pet peeve is when such a list is called the "ultimate" such or "best of all time" or "best ever." Nice try, but immortality's a bit harder to achieve than just proclaiming it.
The most frustrating aspect is that it's ENTIRELY possible to collate this kind of data and actually produce something close to an accurate "100 best" rock albums. You might need to break down the categories a bit, because "rock" has expanded to incorporate soul, funk, disco, punk and new wave (among other distinct genres), but it would really be a service to those of us who were not born/too young in (name a decade) to have a strongly-researched "best of (said decade)" list to work from.
I'm not about to listen to all 10 gazillion records released in the 1950s-60s, but I'd love to see a scholarly approach that produced a "genuine best" 100 albums from those decades to gain a better appreciation of those eras.
Chas-san,
I posted this list to show the unusual 'bias' of the Japanese record collecting mentality. I am not suggesting this list speaks for any of us.
Incidentally, I found a copy of the Eric Anderson album on the other list that surprised me.
- Ron
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