Naked City
by John Zorn

Overall rank: 2,617th | 1990s rank: 448th | 1990 rank: 37th
Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings).(Last updated: 3 hours ago)

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Year	Source	Chart	Rank	Rank Score
2026	PurpleHazel	Top 100 Music Albums of the 1990s	9/100	18
2026	Purplepash	Top 72 Music Albums of 1990	21/72	4
2026	covecove	All That Jazz...	39/100	-
2026	Johnnyo	Guide to building a prog collection as Feat. on Metal Storm	41/100	-
2026	CripplingAutism	Top 91 Music Albums of the 1990s	49/91	9
2026	Kalos	Top 100 Music Albums of the 1990s	63/100	8
2026	Norman Bates	Top 100 Music Albums of 1990	12/100	4
2026	amirmishali	Top 100 Music Albums of the 1990s	39/100	12
2026	PurpleHazel	Top 29 Music Albums of 1990	1/29	5
2026	daCritic	Top 26 Music Albums of 1990	18/26	2
		Total Charts: The total number of charts that this album has appeared in.		131
		Total Rank Score: The total rank score.		606

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Naked City collection

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Naked City ratings

Average Rating:

77/100 (from 151 votes)

Showing latest 3 ratings for this album. | Show all 151 ratings for this album.

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Rating	Date updated	Member	Album ratings	Avg. album rating
85/100 !	06/06/2026 11:32	PurpleHazel	1,515	79/100
75/100 !	01/14/2026 16:51	Exist-en-ciel	15,701	70/100
95/100 !	11/29/2025 03:34	Kingturtle	7,579	73/100

Rating metrics: Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some albums can have several thousand ratings)
This album is rated in the top 3% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 76.9/100, a mean average of 76.9/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 77.2/100. The standard deviation for this album is 15.1.

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Naked City forum mentions

This album has been referenced 29 times on the forums, Explore the wider forum discussion to see what members have said about it.

From

BestEverAlbums 06/30/2026 08:00 in Chart of the day (#5359): By PurpleHazel

“Today's chart of the day Top 100 Greatest Music Albums by ) 1. by (1963) 2. by (1970) 3. by (1965) 4. (1973) 5. by (2005) 6. (1966) 7. by by (1969) 9. (1974) 10. by (1977) 11. by (1985) 12. by (1983) 13. by (1972) 14. by (1969) 15. by (2013) 16. by (1971) 17. (1968) 18. (1958) 19. by (1967) 20. by…”

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From

NoisyBeast 03/23/2021 02:06 in What album are you listening to right now?

“first listen I like wacky and original stuff so I liked this Star-studded roster of musicians on this project! Original for sure!!! Wacky, Zany, Nutty... you name it! All bases were covered! 8)”

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From

Purplepash 11/21/2020 02:15 in You must listen to the album below you: canon edition

“Wow! Why have I not heard of this before? One of the most unique albums I've heard in a while, and the best punk jazz album ever? Avant-garde jazz with experimental noise and some grindcore. Also a little bit of country twang, and some surf rock a couple of times. And not just spread out throughout…”

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Naked City comments

Rating:

100/100

From chivocosmico 11/29/2016 15:14 | #179340 | TOP COMMENT

Naked City is avant-garde at its most fun. Inspired by Looney Tunes veteran composer and arranger Carl Stalling, Zorn's Naked City consists mostly of fast compositions that explore a wide array of genres, styles and moods in a brief amount of time. The dissonant insanity of free jazz and noise, the extreme speed of grindcore, the clean licks of country and western, and so much more... All in the space of a few measures. As Zorn once put it (describing Stalling's soundtracks), 'all [genres] are embraced, chewed up and spit out in a format [reminiscent of] Burrough's cut-ups or Godard's film editing in the 60's'.

Helpful? (Log in to vote) · 1

Rating:

85/100

From RioBravo 04/02/2021 01:22 | #268085 | TOP COMMENT

There's a certain virtuosic, show-off-y side to Naked City's pastiche that can be off-putting if you don't accept the manic cartoony angle of the entire thing. But the respect with which Zorn and the band treat the originals in Lonely Woman and the film score covers (especially The Sicilian Clan, Chinatown and, my favorite, Contempt), keeping their melodic beauty intact and even enhancing it through all the creative changes lets me know there's sincere love for the music he covers and samples.
Zorn's wild genre-surfing is at play both at the album level (songs from different styles next to each other) and often inside the songs themselves. Also, his connection between the nihilism of free jazz and punk rock/grindcore is very convincing and will probably make this the best first jazz album for impatient (noise/hardcore) rock fans.

Helpful? (Log in to vote) · 0

Rating:

90/100

From cmoshier 08/23/2017 17:39 | #196620 | TOP COMMENT

Completely unhinged and amazing

Helpful? (Log in to vote) · 2

Rating:

85/100

From

mozzmozz 05/10/2018 19:54 | #214546 | TOP COMMENT

Utterly, utterly bonkers. On the fringes of jazz.
Some super-gorgeous tunes (The Sicilian Clan, I Want To Live, Chinatown ...) interspersed with short bursts of something I can only describe as "thrash jazz". And there's some funky bass lines on a few film theme tunes.
Great stuff.

Helpful? (Log in to vote) · 0

Rating:

80/100

From ScatterDBrain 05/11/2016 00:46 | #165702 | TOP COMMENT

has some fantastic high points with Batman, The Sicilian Clan, and The James Bond Theme but is brought down by some of the snippets of noise that can be found in the middle of the album

Helpful? (Log in to vote) · 0

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