My discoveries per year - Music Diaries - Forums : Best Ever Albums

dihansse · 2016-04-10T12:28:28-04:00

Well! Here I would like to start with my own long term project taking advantage of the best BEA has to offer: overall charts from people who are as interested in music as I am. I already have year charts which are based on the albums I already own or know, but there are a lot of them which I haven't listened to yet and which might be worth discovering. I'd like to do this by going through the overall BEA top lists per year starting in 1963 which is both my year of birth and the year in which I personally think rock music started to become interesting. To keep it a bit varied I will skip through the years in five year periods, ie starting in 1963 then 1968 then 1973 all the way to 2013 and then back to 1964 and so on. Every year I will start with some stats of my personal chart in comparison to the overall year charts, both top 20 an top 50 and will start to listen to at least the top 20 albums I don't know and I'll hope to give some comments sometimes very short, sometimes a bit longer. I will also update my personal year charts accordingly. In principle I will use Apple Music to listen to the albums, which I suppose will cover most of the field. If a certain album isn't present in Apple Music, I'll have to skip it. I will try to listen to all the albums at least once and sometimes twice if I doubt, but I'll skip the really stupid ones (ex a Xmas compilation in 1963) and also other compilations, classical music, jazz and easy listening. This will be a long term project which means there might be times in which I will stop a bit of course because I don't want be stuck listining to albums of the same year all the time. However I suppose this will take at least a month per year. I will try to keep it up but please don't be mad if I give up (maybe already after the first year :lol: )

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More albums of 1979 with a lot of Ireland (and Northern Ireland):
In Through The Out Door by Led Zeppelin (nr 33 in the overall BEA top chart of 1979): sorry got the album title wrong in the former post. This is not one of the best albums of Led Zep because except In The Evening and , there are not many good songs on this album. But these two make the album so I'm gonna include it anyway in my personal top of 1979.
- Replicas by Tubeway Army (nr 35): By coincidence the two Gary Numan are place next to each other in the BEA chart of 1979 but I like this one much better: apart from Are 'Friends' Electric, there's also the wonderful Down In The Park. Also the rest of the album is good.
- Inflammable Material by Stiff Little Fingers (nr 36): I already owned a lot of the tracks of this debut album from a greatest hits but strangely enough not the signature song: Suspect Device. In any case certainly for my personal chart
- Black Rose by Thin Lizzy (nr 37): This album contains some of the best track of this band so certainly for my top chart
- The Raincoats by The Raincoats (nr 38): Normally I like this kind of jangly rock but here the songs are just not there so not an album for my personal top chart.
- Eat To The Beat by Blondie (nr 39): there is a number of good tracks on this album: Atomic, Dreaming and Accidents Never Happen. The rest of the album is not so good but still good enough to make it to my personal top chart.
- Overkill by Motörhead (nr 40): Together with The Ace Of Spades this must be one of the best album of this great band (still miss Lemmy). The list of classic tracks is nearly endless: the title song with its neverending end, No Class, Metropolis, Stay Clean, Capricorn, etc. A lot of these tracks are also featured on one of the best live albums ever: No Sleep 'Till Hammersmith.- 20 Jazz Funk Greats by Throbbing Gristle (nr 41): this album is just boring with its long and repetitive structures. It's certainly a precursor to Industrial and you can see where the Belgian band Front 242 got it's source but the latter industrial bands did better.
- The Undertones by The Undertones (nr 42): this debut album of this great Northern Ireland punk band is also their best. The US version doesn't contain one of their best Teenage Kicks but for me it belongs to the album so together with Here Comes the Summer two of the best punk songs ever appear on this album. I saw them live last year and although there was a lot of grey and fat, the band still rocked. I love this album.

Next album to listen to is Slow Train Coming by Bob Dylan.

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And this is the last bunch of albums of 1979 I listened to:
- Slow Train Coming by Bob Dylan (nr 44 on the overall BEA top chart of 1979): this is one of those religious albums of Bob Dylan and some of the tracks are not so bad but not good enough for my personal top chart
- Into The Music by Van Morrison (nr 45): I really have started to like the earlier albums of Van Morrison and also in this album there are some good tracks like Bright Side Of The Road, but overall there isn't as much of the magic quality here, so I won't include this album
- Duty Now For The Future by Devo (nr 46): not really my thing
- Machine Gun Etiquette by The Damned (nr 47): this must again be one of the finest punk albums ever although it's not really punk anymore. Melody Lee and Noise, Noise , Noise are only a few of the standouts.
- Candy-O by The Cars (nr 49 and also the last album in the BEA chart of 1979 with an overall rank better than 2500): I can't say this is a bad album but at the same thing, there's not a single track that I would really like to listen again so I'm not gonna include this album either in my personal top chart of 1979.

And this concludes my listening session of albums of 1979. In all I think this is a very good year in music with a still a bit of punk which gradually evolving into new wave, the very pleasant ska movement produced some very good records and also on the hardrock front, bands like Motörhead, AC/DC, Van Halen and the Scorpions really rocked. With this session I added a lot of new albums to my personal top chart but I must confess that I already knew a lot of the tracks of these albums from greatest hits or live albums or by just having listened to them before. There wasn't even one band I appreciated here I was completely unfamiliar with. I also pretty agree with the BEA canon as there is only a few albums in my top chart which aren't in the overall BEA top 2500.

So this is the final verdict of 1979 with at the start the overall BEA rank and thereafter the BEA 1979 year rank and my personal year rank before and after this listening session.

BEA Rank Title By Band BEA YearRank - My Rank before To My Rank after
2046 Overkill By Motörhead 40 - To listen To 1
297 Fear Of Music By Talking Heads 5 - 1 To 2
305 Highway To Hell By AC/DC 6 - To listen To 3
2136 Communiqué By Dire Straits 43 - 3 To 4
694 Armed Forces By Elvis Costello & The Attractions 14 - 4 To 5
1620 One Step Beyond... By Madness 32 - 2 To 6
2077 The Undertones By The Undertones 42 - To listen To 7
682 The B-52's By The B-52's 15 - 5 To 8
39 Unknown Pleasures By Joy Division 3 - 6 To 9
757 Setting Sons By The Jam 18 - 9 To 10
2373 Machine Gun Etiquette By The Damned 47 - To listen To 11
23 The Wall By Pink Floyd 2 - 8 To 12
2584 Van Halen II By Van Halen 51 - 14 To 13
1447 Discovery By Electric Light Orchestra 26 - 11 To 14
1536 Look Sharp! By Joe Jackson 30 - To listen To 15
6446 Night Owl By Gerry Rafferty 99 - 16 To 16
23185 On Parole By Motörhead 281 - 7 To 17
13844 Wave By Patti Smith Group 194 - 13 To 18
1617 Lovedrive By Scorpions 31 - To listen To 19
1773 Inflammable Material By Stiff Little Fingers 36 - To listen To 20
14 London Calling By The Clash 1 - 10 To 21
452 Breakfast In America By Supertramp 9 - 15 To 22
1856 Black Rose By Thin Lizzy 37 - To listen To 23
1437 Three Imaginary Boys By The Cure 27 - To listen To 24
1023 154 By Wire 20 - To listen To 25
1147 Drums And Wires By XTC 23 - To listen To 26
720 Reggatta de Blanc By The Police 17 - 12 To 27
2920 The Long Run By Eagles 58 - 17 To 28
1383 Lodger By David Bowie 25 - Partly listened To 29
2627 Broken English By Marianne Faithfull 54 - 18 To 30
2017 Eat To The Beat By Blondie 39 - To listen To 31
1626 In Through The Out Door By Led Zeppelin 34 - To listen To 32
290 Entertainment! By Gang Of Four 4 - To listen To 33
677 Damn The Torpedoes By Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers 13 - To listen To 34
636 Specials By The Specials 12 - To listen To 35
24196 The Bells By Lou Reed 298 - 19 To 36
1754 Replicas By Tubeway Army 35 - To listen To 37
605 Metal Box By Public Image Ltd. 11 - To listen To 38
590 Tusk By Fleetwood Mac 10 - 20 To 39
27445 China By Vangelis 322 - 21 To 40
27607 Head Injuries By Midnight Oil 322 - 22 To 41
342 Off The Wall By Michael Jackson 7 - To listen To A No
815 Y By The Pop Group 19 - To listen To A No
1146 Joe's Garage Act l By Frank Zappa 22 - To listen To A No
1322 Cut By The Slits 24 - To listen To A No
1940 The Raincoats By The Raincoats 38 - To listen To A No
2061 20 Jazz Funk Greats By Throbbing Gristle 41 - To listen To A No
2198 Slow Train Coming By Bob Dylan 44 - To listen To A No
2213 Into The Music By Van Morrison 45 - To listen To A No
2365 Duty Now For The Future By Devo 46 - To listen To A No
2474 Candy-O By The Cars 49 - To listen To A No
370 Rust Never Sleeps By Neil Young And Crazy Horse 8 - Already listened
725 Singles Going Steady By Buzzcocks 16 - Greatest Hits Excluded
1096 Live Rust By Neil Young And Crazy Horse 21 - Live excluded
1488 Sheik Yerbouti By Frank Zappa 28 - Already listened
1506 Strangers In The Night By UFO 29 - Live excluded
1652 The Pleasure Principle By Gary Numan 34 - already listened
2388 La Leyenda Del Tiempo By Camaron 48 - Excluded
2502 It's Alive By Ramones 50 - Live excluded
3607 The Raven By The Stranglers 68 - Already listened
4524 Reproduction By The Human League 74 - Partly listened
4766 Einstein On The Beach By Philip Glass 97 - Already listened

And I will again skip 5 years and move on to 1983.

TheHutts Profile

I'msurprised that you don't enjoy Rust Never Sleeps given you like other Neil Young albums - I'd regard it as one of his very best albums (along with After The Goldrush and On The Beach). Any particular reason?

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TheHutts wrote:

I'msurprised that you don't enjoy Rust Never Sleeps given you like other Neil Young albums - I'd regard it as one of his very best albums (along with After The Goldrush and On The Beach). Any particular reason?

I'm a big fan of Neil Young and this is certainly a fantastic live album but in my top charts of each year/decade (and also in this thread), I try to limit myself to regular albums so no live albums or greatest hits.
As far as live albums of Neil Young are concerned I'm an even bigger fan of Weld. The trio "Love and Only Love", "Rockin'' in the Free World" and "Like a Hurricane" are about the best half an hour of guitar music you'll ever hear. I have included this album in my overall top chart where I do include live albums and greatest hits if I think they better represent the artist than regular albums.

TheHutts Profile

dihansse wrote:

I'm a big fan of Neil Young and this is certainly a fantastic live album but in my top charts of each year/decade (and also in this thread), I try to limit myself to regular albums so no live albums or greatest hits.
As far as live albums of Neil Young are concerned I'm an even bigger fan of Weld. The trio "Love and Only Love", "Rockin'' in the Free World" and "Like a Hurricane" are about the best half an hour of guitar music you'll ever hear. I have included this album in my overall top chart where I do include live albums and greatest hits if I think they better represent the artist than regular albums.

Because Rust Never Sleeps is all previously unreleased songs, I'd personally classify it as a "regular album." A couple of the tracks are recorded in the studio. The main reason I'd exclude live albums and compilations is because they double up on material that's already been released - an album of all new material is fair game IMO. Your chart of course.

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So I'm now at 1984 where the albums to listen to (limited to the first overall BEA top 2500 albums) are (with overall BEA rank at the beginning and after that 1984 BEA rank and finally my rank if it's already in my chart or to listen (with also some excluded ones like live albums aso):

BEA Rank Title By Band BEA YearRank - My Rank before
108 Purple Rain By Prince And The Revolution 1 - To listen
190 The Smiths By The Smiths 2 - 5
191 Ride The Lightning By Metallica 3 - 3
201 Born In The U.S.A. By Bruce Springsteen 4 - To listen
219 Let It Be By The Replacements 5 - 11
224 Legend By Bob Marley And The Wailers 6 - Already listened
301 Hatful Of Hollow By The Smiths 7 - Compilation excluded
321 Double Nickels On The Dime By Minutemen 8 - Already listened
383 Treasure By Cocteau Twins 9 - To listen
388 The Unforgettable Fire By U2 10 - 12
434 Stop Making Sense By Talking Heads 11 - Already Listened
439 Ocean Rain By Echo & The Bunnymen 12 - To listen
450 Zen Arcade By Hüsker Dü 13 - 1
523 Powerslave By Iron Maiden 14 - 9
556 Reckoning By R.E.M. 15 - 4
623 1984 By Van Halen 16 - To listen
1072 Meat Puppets II By Meat Puppets 18 - 10
1097 Diamond Life By Sade 19 - To listen
1112 Rattlesnakes By Lloyd Cole and the Commotions 17 - 2
1181 Alchemy By Dire Straits 20 - Live excluded
1287 Tabula Rasa By Arvo Pärt 21 - To listen
1331 From Her To Eternity By Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds 23 - 6
1379 The Works By Queen 22 - To listen
1441 Reckless By Bryan Adams 24 - 7
1461 My War By Black Flag 25 - To listen
1502 Fugazi By Marillion 27 - To listen
1544 The Pros And Cons Of Hitch Hiking By Roger Waters 26 - To listen
1641 Defenders Of The Faith By Judas Priest 28 - To listen
1654 Love At First Sting By Scorpions 29 - To listen
1655 Couldn't Stand The Weather By Stevie Ray Vaughan And Double Trouble 30 - To listen
1785 A Walk Across The Rooftops By The Blue Nile 37 - To listen
1792 Out Of The Cellar By Ratt 31 - To listen
1799 Heartbeat City By The Cars 32 - To listen
1888 Some Great Reward By Depeche Mode 33 - To listen
1959 Like A Virgin By Madonna 40 - To listen
1965 Learning To Crawl By The Pretenders 34 - To listen
1985 Private Dancer By Tina Turner 36 - To listen
2001 Swoon By Prefab Sprout 35 - To listen
2005 Psychic... Powerless... Another Man's Sac By Butthole Surfers 42 - To listen
2049 Stay Hungry By Twisted Sister 38 - To listen
2051 Grace Under Pressure By Rush 39 - To listen
2079 Café Bleu By The Style Council 41 - To listen
2148 Hallowed Ground By Violent Femmes 43 - To listen
2188 Brilliant Trees By David Sylvian 44 - To listen
2195 Welcome To The Pleasuredome By Frankie Goes To Hollywood 52 - Already listened
2269 Perfect Strangers By Deep Purple 45 - 13
2319 Don't Break The Oath By Mercyful Fate 46 - To listen
2434 The Flat Earth By Thomas Dolby 47 - To listen
2450 E2-E4 By Manuel Göttsching 48 - To listen
2523 Sparkle In The Rain By Simple Minds 49 - 14
3429 Red Sails In The Sunset By Midnight Oil 58 - 16
6533 The Las Vegas Story By The Gun Club 98 - 8
9486 Spring Hill Fair By The Go-Betweens 147 - 15

Note For TheHutts: One of my favorite live albums ever is in this list: Stop Making Sense by Talking Heads (the movie is even greater). So again a big doubt if I would include it but I won't because it contains no real new songs).

I already started listening to the first albums in the list:
- Purple Rain by Prince And The Revolution (nr 1 in the overall BEA top chart of 1984): of course I know most of this album and there is a lot of really good tracks on this album like of course the title track so I will certainly include this one in my personal top chart.
- Born In The U.S.A. by Bruce Springsteen (nr 4): same remark as for Purple Rain: of course I know most of the album and like most of the tracks but never came round to buying it. So certainly again for inclusion in my top chart with favorites I'm On Fire and No Surrender
- Treasure by Cocteau Twins (nr 9): I like the general atmosphere of the album and some of the tracks are not bad but nothing caught my ear enough to really like it.
- Ocean Rain by Echo & The Bunnymen (nr 12): I nearly know everything from Echo and The Bunnymen (ex I have the maxi compilation Crystal Days) but didn't buy the album yet. This is certainly one of the best albums by this band and I'm fond of all the tracks so yes.
- 1984 by Van Halen (nr 16): the first two albums of Van Halen are brilliant but after that the quality started to dwindle. It might be one of the best of the others but tracks like jump are not really my thing. In fact there's only one good song on this album: Hot For Teacher, and that's not enough.
- Diamond Life by Sade (nr 18): the laidback atmosphere on this album is very good and it's stuffed with hits but it's nevertheless not something I would put on to listen to by myself (it's perfect as a background album for a party with friends).

Next album to listen to: Tabula Rasa by Arvo Pärt.

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I listened to Arvo Pärt, it's not bad but I'll leave it out of here so the next album I listened to is:
- The Works by Queen (nr 23 on the overall BEA top chart of 1984): not the best Queen album but it contains some decent tracks like Hammer to Fall and It's a Hard Life. It won't be ranked very high in my personal top chart but I'l include it anyway
- My War by Black Flag (nr 24): I'm not a fan of black flag nor of Henry Rollins and this album hasn't changed my mind. I always like a bit of melody or good songwriting even in hardcore albums and this album simply doesn't have that.
- Fugazi by Marillion (nr 26): Marillion is one of the bands I really don't like. This music is pompous and directionless and it was hard to wade through this long tracks.
- The Pros And Cons Of Hitch Hiking by Roger Waters (nr 27): it's incredible how much this solo album of Roger Waters sounds like Pin Floyd albums like The Wll, but it hasn't got the inspired songs of the Floyd albums although there are flashed of good guitar and sax playing like on the title track. All I would prefer the originals so I won't include this one in my personal top chart.

The next album to listen to is Defenders of the Faith by Judas Priest, another band not in my list of favorite bands which seems to be a bit a repeating thing for this period in music for me.

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And some more albums from 1984:
- Defenders Of The Faith by Judas Priest (nr 28 in the overall BEA top chart of 1984): There are a few good tracks on this album that none that really stick.
- Couldn't Stand The Weather by Stevie Ray Vaughan And Double Trouble (nr 29): This is just a good old bluesrock album with good guitarplaying and good songs which become an even better one with the Hendrix cover Voodoo Chile. There are some fantastic live versions of this track to be found on Youtube like this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPOrZfKHjiI
- Love At First Sting by Scorpions (nr 30): I'm a big fan of the early Scorpions and this is one of their later albums and maybe the most obvious one I don't really like. Still Loving You is maybe not bad but I've heard it too much. The only tracks that can stand between their older songs is Coming Home. So I won't include it.

The next album to listen to is A Walk accross the Rooftops from the Blue Nile.

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And here are three albums of 1984 I don't really like:
- A Walk Across The Rooftops by The Blue Nile (nr 31 on the overall BEA top chart of 1984): Tinseltown in The Rain and Stay are not bad even if it is because they were semi-hits at the time but the rest of the album is not so good so I won't include this one in my personal top chart of 1984.
- Out Of The Cellar by Ratt (nr 32): This band didn't really catch on in Europe and from hearing this album I can understand why: very middle-of-the-road hair-metal.
- Heartbeat City by The Cars (nr 33): Drive is not bad but the rest is really not my thing and the electronics also sound very dated.

The next album to listen to is Some Great Reward by Depeche Mode.

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And some more albums of 1984:
- Some Great Reward by Depeche Mode (nr 34 on the overall BEA top chart of 1984): I like nearly almost all the tracks on this album and they really stick but as a whole I don't like them enough to satisfy as a completely satisfying album if that makes sense.
- Like A Virgin by Madonna (nr 35): stuffed with hits but too lightweight.
- Learning To Crawl by The Pretenders (nr 36): this album contains the best song of the Pretenders by far: Middle of the Road. But also the rest of the tracks and even the ones that were not really a hit like Time The Avenger are really good. Only the slows at the end are less than great but overall this is a very good album.
- Private Dancer by Tina Turner (nr 37): her voice can be really good combined with good and rougher songs like in her Ike & Tina period but the songs on this album are just too slick to be good.

The next album is the debut album of the Butthole Surfers.