The Message
by Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five

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Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five bestography
The Message is ranked as the best album by Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five.
(N.B. Bestographies include all albums by an artist (and their variations), but do not include albums ranked outside the top 100,000).
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The Message track list
The tracks on this album have an average rating of 76 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).
Top-rated track as rated by BestEverAlbums.com members.
The Message rankings
Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings). Click to see how the rankings are calculated (Last updated: 5 hours ago)
| Year | Source | Chart | Rank | Rank Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | xhitmanx | Top 25 Music Albums of 1982 | 14/25 | 2 |
| 2026 | Top 20 Music Albums of 1982 | 7/20 | 4 | |
| 2026 | Exist-en-ciel | Top 100 Music Albums of 1982 | 20/100 | 4 |
| 2026 | top 65r albums (63), #0101-0200* | 44/60 | - | |
| 2026 | Olli | Top 100 Music Albums of 1982 | 38/100 | 3 |
| 2026 | Top 6 Music Albums of 1982 | 6/6 | 1 | |
| 2026 | Hip-Hop Greatest 100 | 31/99 | - | |
| 2026 | Top 55 Music Albums of 1982 | 11/55 | 4 | |
| 2026 | Hyggevinyl | Top 53 Music Albums of 1982 | 21/53 | 3 |
| 2026 | Top 99 Music Albums of 1982 | 9/99 | 5 | |
| Total Charts: The total number of charts that this album has appeared in. | 120 | |||
| Total Rank Score: The total rank score. | 387 | |||
The Message collection
Showing latest 20 members who have this album in their collection | Show all 28 members
The Message ratings
Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AVwhere:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.
Showing latest 3 ratings for this album. | Show all 122 ratings for this album.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Album ratings | Avg. album rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ! | 08/31/2026 20:30 | xhitmanx | 1,604 | 75/100 |
| ! | 06/09/2026 14:50 | 1,461 | 77/100 | |
| ! | 06/07/2026 23:04 | juanr1096 | 6,230 | 78/100 |
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 has a Bayesian average rating of 73.2/100, a mean average of 72.2/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 73.3/100. The standard deviation for this album is 14.3.
The Message favourites
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Forum mentions
The Message comments
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Stand out tracks are their two UK hits "The Message"(8) and "Scorpio"(77). If "Dreamin'" and "You are" weren't on this album then it would have been a good EP.
rap. project street music as its finest some soul and funk as well
The first 4 tracks are very good and the track, The Message, is one of the greatest songs of all time. Dreamin and You Are are,
antonymously, some of the worst soul songs and worst songs PERIOD of all time.
Honestly, if tracks 5 and 6 just weren't in the album, this would seriously be one of the top ten albums of all time.
Run DMC didn't sound this good in '87, it was actually '83 when they released Sucker MCs and consequently made these dudes sound and look like they were from a bygone era. And by the time of Sucker MCs, they were. This album came out in October '82 and then Sucker MCs in March '83 which then ushered in the new school, subsequently kold krushing the disco rappers and Sugar Hill and stomping all over them with hard 808s, addidas and Def Jams...by July '83 Whodini had dropped their first album.
Ground breaking songs such as "the message" are paired with poor tracks leading to an uneven album.
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