Top 100 Greatest Music Albums by babyBlueSedan

My favorite albums, or "The 100 albums I'd keep if iTunes had a capacity of 100 albums."

The theme of this update, as with the past couple, is upheaval. Every time I update this I claim to be moving new favorite up higher while still stubbornly putting albums I used to love but never listen to anymore near the top. I won't know for sure if I've been more successful this time around until I update this again. But I hope that this current iteration shook things up a bit and added a bit more variety, even if that variety is in the form of albums most people have heard of. I've tried to include as many artists and genres where possible, partially because I want to appear more interesting than I actually am, but in the end this is still very rock and pop oriented. In particular, this iteration makes obvious my current love of plaintive folk/singer-songwriter stuff.

I've also relaxed my artist limits just a bit to highlight the artists I really love, but I still couldn't include everything I wanted because spots are so limited. In some cases I decided what to include based on what I wanted to write about. I recommend checking out my decade charts for more deep cuts.

Also, I appreciate all the kind and generous comments - they're my main motivation for updating this every couple years or so.

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Like walking through a busy city after a tragedy

Wilco are a hard band to categorize. They started off as country, drifted into indie rock, and are now making some pretty boring rock. But for a few albums there, they perfectly blended their country roots into a sound that was layered, melodic, and beautiful. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is the high point of their discography - a bunch of twangy indie rock songs backed by glitchy electronic noises and mournful strings.

What's most interesting is that though the band couldn't really musically be considered country at this point, their lyrics still communicated the kind of depressed, sorrowful defeatism so often present in country music. In opener "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" we find the narrator drinking too much, drunk driving to his old girlfriend's house (the verb Jeff Tweedy uses for drunk driving is "assassining", which is amazing), and sleeping with her but instantly regretting it. Each verse is followed by a different segue of weird percussion and blips and a play on the line "What was I thinking when I let go of you". This slowly morphs into "when I said hello" and "when I let you back in" and culminates in the spoken word "I am trying to break your heart, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't easy". It's a regretful song narrated by someone who can't help themselves, and it is not unique in that regard on this album.

The album touches on a few other subjects, like trying in vain to find self-help and cure-alls ("Radio Cure") and being unable to find any meaning in religion ("Jesus Etc"). It touches on patriotism and disillusionment with one's country in "Ashes of American Flags" (the album was recorded in early 2001 but was released one week after Septemeber 11th, meaning American listeners instantly had a meaning for tracks title like "Ashes..". and "War on War").

The album tries to be hopeful, with the nostalgic "Heavy Metal Drummer" and the most country-sounding song on the album in "I'm The Man Who Loves You." But it can't keep up the act for long. In Poor Places the music slowly fades out to a robotic voice stating the album's title, which then blends back into "Reservations" and the most touching line on the album: "I've got reservations about so many things, but not about you". That's normally where I lose it. The songs slowly fades out to a bunch of static and more bloops, a confusing end to an album about how life is confusing.
[First added to this chart: 03/01/2014]
Year of Release:
2002
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Rank Score:
20,467
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Like walking underground and hearing a party up above you, but feeling much more content where you are

"I was dressed for success, but success it never comes"

If I was a musician, I'm sure that I would work hard to make sure my work was completely perfect. I'd agonize over every guitar tone and effect and drum beat. I wouldn't be unique in that regard - Bruce Springsteen spent like 6 months working on "Born to Run." The song, not the album. But this is also a little contradictory, because if I was a musician I'd want my music to sound as organic and spontaneous as possible. I wouldn't want it to sound processed; there's nothing wrong with that but there's something special about music that sounds off-the-cuff. And the only way to do that is just grab an instrument and play.

Which is what it sounds like Pavement did here. 110% of reviews that you read about Pavement will call them slacker rock, and it definitely sounds like there was a lack of effort on this album. Some might complain about that, but I love it. Stephen Malkmus's lazy, carefree vocals are great to sit back and chill to. The production here also fits into the vibe; later Pavement albums retained the slacker mood but polished the production, which was part of the reason they never achieved this quality again. The scratchy, noisy guitar is the perfect counterpart of the subdued bass and thudding drums.

The other reason they never achieved this quality again is because they never wrote another "Summer Babe." Or "In The Mouth A Desert." Or "Here." The first four songs on this thing are all completely flawless, and as the album progresses the songs morph from noisy pop tracks to jagged soundscapes. "Jackals" is the epitome of this, as it's more of a journey than a song. And though the majority of songs are loud and harsh, the scratchy guitar disappears on beautiful tracks like "Zurich Is Stained" to produce a more melodic sound.
[First added to this chart: 08/04/2013]
Year of Release:
1992
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Rank Score:
7,863
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Like walking through a memory of your high school days and laughing at situations because of what you know now

Want to hear a coincidence? The first time I listened to this album was a couple days before I graduated college. This album isn't exactly about college, but it spends a lot of time focusing on the aimless uncertainty that comes with being expected to make something of your life. "Wasted Days" is the epitome of this, an eight minute epic about waking up and realizing that everything you expected to do with your life hasn't happened yet. Over the next year, I listened to this album a lot, and it just kept hitting harder and harder. It really shouldn't have; I had a job lined up after college, one that used my degree even, and that should have given me some sense of purpose. But the great trick of graduating, and other major life events, is that they never seem to give you all the answers the way you think they will. You don't suddenly know how to make yourself happy, and each new life event only seems to create more uncertainty. During the period they released this album, Cloud Nothings wrote about these feelings and almost nothing else.

I think Cloud Nothings is probably the best rock band of the 10's, and it's not just because of their lyrical themes. They can write a song like few punk bands can, not being afraid to stretch the limits of the genre but never losing their trademark intensity. The album starts off with what might be my favorite track, a long dirge that repeats the same mantra over and over until erupting into a new, shouted mantra. Next comes "Wasted Days," which proves that punk songs can have extended jam sections and still rock. The album turns on a dime after this, switching from two prog-punk journeys to a couple pop punk songs. This kind of thing is really the thing that made this album stick with me - every song has an identity and it's hard to find two that sound the same. The album rounds out with an instrumental mosh pit inciter, a fiery song about erasing your memory to ease your mind, another ode to aimlessness, and...huh. "Cut You" closes the album, and it's probably a top 4 track on the album for me. The chanted outro, which gets interrupted by a guitar solo only to continue into oblivion, is an album highlight. But the song is about a jealous ex-boyfriend asking if his ex's new lover treats her as poorly as he did and complaining about how he needs someone in his life who he can hurt to keep living. It's...a bit out of place. And...kind of hard to listen to? I'm nearly certain the song is satire, putting the egotism of a bad relationship in the crosshairs. I kind of wish this song was on a different Cloud Nothings album and was replaced with a song that fit better, but it's a small complaint about a perfect album.

Years later this album still hits pretty hard, but I now view it through the lens of experience. I certainly don't feel as aimless anymore, but I'm sure uncertainty and doubt will follow me throughout my life. Cloud Nothings didn't invent this type of punk, but they adapted it into a style that fit perfectly into the decade it was released in.
[First added to this chart: 11/18/2014]
Year of Release:
2012
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Rank Score:
1,756
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I don't have a summary for this album because if you did enough drugs to simulate the feeling this album gives you, you wouldn't be able to walk for days

If I have one complaint about Danny Brown, my in-the-moment favorite rapper ever, it's that he's a little predictable. Which is a weird thing to say about one of the least predictable rappers of our generation. There's nothing about his actual music that's predictable. Rapping over a cacophony of horns or spitting lines like "you have no clue like toy stores without board games" are not predictable moves. But it's telling that I was able to copy the intro blurb from my old favorite Danny album, XXX, and paste it into this one. And if I hadn't told you, you probably wouldn't have noticed. Danny's shtick has always been "man I have a messed up lifestyle and it's going to kill me, but I can't escape". And to my relief, it worked for at least one more album this time.

One of the main differences between Atrocity Exhibition and any Danny album up to this point is the production. XXX and Old both had some unique production, but nothing that felt too out of the ordinary. And on Old he purposely wrote some songs designed for festival crowds.. There are no such songs on this album - it feels more like a horror movie score than a party album. The first track is called Downward Spiral, and true to its name it lurches along like a Nine Inch Nails track would. And Danny wastes no time in painting a pretty horrifying picture of his night out - he says that "your worst nightmare for me is a normal dream" but that doesn't even hold a candle to his description of sex:

"Couldn't get it hard tried to stuff it in soft
Had to fuck em both raw, keep my fingers crossed"

The album is full of couplets like this, tossed in with explicit tales of nights out and drugs taken. Which again, is Danny's shtick, but even on Clean Up (off of Old) it felt almost like an act, with lines about smelling like seaweed that break the atmosphere. Here there is no let-up - it all feels real.

The album also contains some of Danny's best single songs to date; as much as I loved XXX I wouldn't have been able to pick out more than three songs I really loved. But this one is packed with awesome tracks. There's the posse cut Really Doe, where Earl shows up at the end to out-rap everyone else on the track. There's Pneumonia, full of jarring tempo shifts and some of Danny's most frantic vocals. Dance in the Water is lyrically a very simplistic song but has an absolutely insane post-punk/tribal instrumental. And of course there's Ain't it Funny, which caused me to literally stare at a wall with my mouth open for three minutes the first time I heard it. Seriously, there is no other rapper alive that could rap over this track. There are probably only a few who would try. And not only are his rhymes complex, but they're insanely clever too. I mean, come on:

"Verbal couture, parkour with the metaphors
The flow house of horror deadbolted with metal doors"

"I could sell honey to a bee
In the fall time make trees take back their leaves"

And all this without mentioning When it Rain, or Rolling Stone, or Hell for It...man what a tight awesome album.
[First added to this chart: 05/29/2020]
Year of Release:
2016
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Rank Score:
6,003
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Like walking through a small Midwestern town and exchanging awkward glances with former friends

It's always interesting thinking about why I listened to some of my favorite albums in the first place. Often the answer is just because I read about it in a "best of" list, but cover art can sometimes factor in as well. Very rarely will I listen to an album just because of the title, but when I saw a review for an album titled Stranger in the Alps, I was instantly intrigued. What kind of quirky moments would an album named after the terrible TV edit of The Big Lewbowski hold?

The answer is not many - the title is unrelated to anything on this album. Phoebe Bridgers is the latest artist to release a "slightly depressing folk-influenced singer-songwriter" album this year, and the albums I had listened to so far in this vein had always left me wanting. Often they felt like they were trying too hard to make you feel something. Bridgers, on the other hand, offers up an album full of detached listlessness that feels effortless; the sad, poignant moments on this album could slip by unnoticed if you weren't paying attention. Take opener "Smoke Signals", ostensibly a song about finding "the one" after they flagged you down with the titular signals. It's easy to miss the second line about how their vacation was "just long enough to Walden it with you, any longer it would have got old". Later on, the tracks reveals itself to be just as inward looking as it is a story about love when Bridgers sings about wanting to live in a motel so she doesn't have to make her bed. Now, the sadness isn't buried this deeply all of the time; "Funeral" has a chorus that reads "Jesus Christ I'm so blue all the time". But I really enjoy how there's just a bit of gloom mixed into songs that otherwise feel pretty harmless.

Musically, the folk core is highlighted by dashes of other genres and influences, whether it be an electronic whine at the beginning of "Funeral" or the variety of instruments lurking in the background of "Georgia". There's the feel of a classic country duet on "Would You Rather" (with Conor Oberst) and what might pass as a Death Cab For Cutie song if it had a different vocalist in "Motion Sickness". The songs sound subdued and restrained, but even in the beginning you can tell there's something bubbling under the surface that's threatening to break through. Chorus of "Motion Sickness" aside, however, the first half of the album remains lowkey until it finally bursts open later on. It's surprising how cathartic that first real swelling chorus finally is.

The album ends with a cover of Mark Kozelek's "You Missed My Heart", which could easily pass as an original given the song structure and lyrics. It's a rather nice rendition - Bridgers injects more emotion into what was originally pretty deadpan and it works to the song's benefit. The cover choice recalls her reacting to the deaths of Lemmy and Bowie in the opening track, which feels like something straight out of Koz's book. But more often than not these songs are uniquely hers - a very pleasant blend of the poetic and personal.
[First added to this chart: 05/29/2020]
Year of Release:
2017
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Rank Score:
1,568
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Like walking across the stage at your graduation and having your young son watching you

I knew I would like this album after hearing the first sample (for obvious reasons - foreshadowing if you're reading this chart backwards). The production on this album is incredible - it's a lush, sample-filled wonderland that manages to create a few club-worthy bangers. And given that sample-filled wonderland is my favorite style of hip hop production, it's pretty obvious that I would like it.

Which is strange, because as good as the production is it's really the lyrics that take center stage here. Now, Blu is not an expert wordsmith by any means. He's a great rhymer, but his lyrics consist of almost no figurative language, which, for a genre that's often known for clever similes and vivid imagery is a little unique. Instead he stays mostly conversational, talking about his life and the things he's learned. And apparently Blu is a really great storyteller, because this is way more interesting than any clever wordplay rap song could ever be.

Blu mostly tells a coming of age tale of how he got into rapping and wants to prove his doubters wrong. Occasionally, this gets a little old - he mentions that he's 22 approximately 548 times, though I may have miscounted - but overall the messages are pretty interesting. He talks about when he learned he'd be a father, when he started to get bored of rapping, and childhood memories of basketball games in a stream-of-consciousness style that lets him jump from one talking point to another without anything feeling out of place. Overall conscious hip hop doesn't do much for me as it often feels like it's trying too hard, but here Blu is being conscious in the best way possible - by just being honest. Most memorable lines include:

"You can call it hell but bruh, I just say I'm below the heavens"

"Fuck hoes, because in the end I need a wife to love"

"Feeling like you struck a million looking at your kid like shit, this is my son. This n**** came from my nuts"
[First added to this chart: 11/18/2014]
Year of Release:
2007
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Rank Score:
685
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27. (21) Down6
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Like walking up to a window in your log cabin and watching the falling snow rise up past your waist

The more conversations you have about music the more you have to accept that music makes everybody feel differently. Every song is open to interpretation to everyone who hears it, and it's rare to find songs with a consensus as to what the music evokes. Which is why it's so crazy that every review I've seen for this album talk about how wintery it sounds. But don't believe me, listen to it yourself. From the first few notes you'll probably picture chilly, desolate landscapes and start to shiver. And I think I know why. Folk metal always struck me as a genre that had to be made up. It was like bubblegum thrash or instrumental spoken word - a combination of things that were complete opposites. But actually the two compliment each other perfectly. The folk aspects (read: the acoustic guitars) give the music an earthy feel, while the metal aspects (read: the electric guitars) add a sense of impending doom and a lack of hope. Combine the two and you get the season that conveys death and decay: winter.

But of course there's nothing inherently special about creating that feeling; the impressive thing is how The Mantle maintains that atmosphere for over an hour without every breaking. It opens with a song called A Celebration For The Death Of Man, which gives a pretty good indication of how cheerful the album will be. But the song is almost entirely acoustic; though I would describe the album as metal it's very reluctant to actually cut loose and get loud. Most of the tracks (the opener included) build and build and build only to flatten out without any real metal riffing. The climaxes of songs are not shouted, but rather whispered. I can't get over how well the acoustic guitar works with the heavy bass and drums, probably because it's otherworldly.

Many of the vocals here are growled, which initially turned me off. And in some types of metal I still don't enjoy this, because it either sounds ridiculous or unnecessary. But given the themes of this album, the growled vocals only make the experience even deeper and more immersive. And the singer knows when to ditch them and go clean, such as on the closing track. And most of the time I wouldn't say the growling sounds angry, just sinister more than anything. It's one indication that despite this being an album about death and endings, those things aren't always without beauty. Case in point, a lyric from In The Shadow Of Our Pale Companion: "If this grand panorama before me is what you call God, then God is not dead."
[First added to this chart: 05/18/2015]
Year of Release:
2002
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Rank Score:
1,477
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28. (27) Down1
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Like walking into your best friend's house to babysit his daughter while he goes to make funeral arrangements

I felt a bit bad when Phil Elverum released A Crow Looked At Me, because to be honest I didn't enjoy it much. It was clearly such a heartfelt piece of work that spoke about death in such a real way. There were parts of the album I liked - Real Death is tremendous and there are a lot of good lyrics throughout - but overall it was just such a tough listen. Partially because of the subject matter, but mostly because the songs just didn't flow well. Which I get was the point, but it made a heart-wrenching album all the more difficult to listen to.

So when Distortion came out I was naturally skeptical. But...well let me just say that I could probably write a ten paragraph review of that song alone. Distortion of course continues Phil's reflection on his wife's death, but the interesting thing about it is that it's not really a song about her death, or the aftermath. Sure, there are allusions to it in the first and last verses. But in between we have:

- Phil talking about how the idea of death has stalked him since he was a child. He talks about his great grandfather's body speaking "clear and metaphor free" and although he couldn't comprehend death it still terrified him.
- A story about a pregnancy scare which is relevant because it relates not to his actual death but the death of his youth. This verse is amazing because it falls apart into complete existential rambling before coming gasping up for air with "but she had her period eventually and I went back to being twenty-three" out of absolutely nowhere.
- A story about watching a documentary on Jack Kerouac in which Phil reflects on how much Kerouac's daughter reminds him of his wife. And here we get the line that stood out to me most during my last listen of this album: "and she told the hard truth and slayed the gods just like you."

And it's that line that shows what is different between this album and its predecessor. This album, though written very soon after Crow, is not an album about Geneviève's death: it's an album about Phil's love for her. Phil is devastated because of how much he loved his wife, and this is basically a display of just how much he loved her. When he sings about talking to an empty room, or singing about his "jaundiced and fucked" wife to a bunch of kids on drugs, or seeing foxgloves that grew in the clearing where he rolled around and wailed in, it doesn't feel anymore like he's doing it out of shock or despair. It feels like he's come to grips with it more and understands that despite how alone he feels, the love he once had for his wife is still there. And this is his way of showing it.

The lyrics throughout are of course amazing, and what strikes me is how important each anecdote feels. These songs can meander a bit, but every story about driving home with his wife's necklace in a bag, about the two paintings he's looking at, about standing outside of Skrillex's tour bus - it all feels so essential to the picture he's painting of what he's lost. As he says on the title track, his devastation is unique, and it requires unique stories in order to tell. It also just feels so personal; notice how I call him Phil even though I normally wouldn't refer to an artist I've never met by their first name. Through this album he's bared so much of his emotions that you can't help but feel like you know him well.
[First added to this chart: 05/29/2020]
Year of Release:
2018
Appears in:
Rank Score:
555
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Like walking out of a rowdy bar drunk at 2 AM and realizing you have to be at work in six hours

I'll start this one off with a bit of autobiographical stuff. When I was in college I did not party at all, partially because I was shy and uninterested but also because none of my friends did. Instead I hung out in the dorms on weekend nights playing board games, watching TV, and writing captions for the original version of this list. In fact, I didn't go out drinking at the bars until two nights before I graduated. But I made up for lost time by going out the next night as well and being super hungover at my graduation.

The reason I include that is that this album was not written for me. This album is basically the album-length version of All My Friends, with all of the songs being loud tributes to getting messed up but realizing you're a little too old to still be getting messed up. It's the music version of the curtain being pulled back and realizing there are consequences to all the debauchery of your past, but trying to ignore that by ordering another beer. And these songs absolutely rock; this is a combination of heartland rock and pub rock that sounds like Bruce Springsteen if his music had a bit more edge. There are pianos and horns in just the right places to highlight the enormous riffs. It would be easy to listen to this album and think it was a total frat rock album if you ignored the lyrics. But the lyrics make it so much more.

The Hold Steady have always been a very lyrically dense band, and that has not changed here. Opener Stuck Between Stations includes a lot of fun turns of phrases like "she was a real good kisser but she wasn't all that strict of a Christian" and my favorite:

"There was that night that we thought John Berryman could fly
But he didn't so he died
She said 'you're pretty good with words, but words won't save your life'
And they didn't so he died"

The song is a fun loud song and like I said, if you ignore the lyrics about being hazy and "stuck between stations" from partying too much, you'd think it was a lot of fun. That theme continues throughout the album: a story about a drug habit that "started recreational, ended kind of medical," a story of two dehydrated festival goers making out in the recovery tent, and a mournful story of a friend whose habits made it so she was never the same as when she first met the narrator. My favorite is You Can Make Him Like You, which at first comes off as a really misogynistic song. The narrator tells girls not to worry about things like knowing where your dealer is or knowing how to get home because their boyfriends handle it, at one point even suggesting they just hang in the kitchen with the other women. But the chorus flips this around completely, suggesting that if they find themselves in this situation they should leave and find somebody else. It doesn't hurt that this is the most raucous garage rock song on the album.

Again, I can't personally relate to most of these stories. But the album has the feeling of an epiphany, of dunking your head in cold running water and things finally getting a little clearer. And though most of the album gets your adrenaline going, there's nothing like the second half of First Night. The music stops except for one piano, and the title of the album is quietly repeated. Then it bursts open again with Craig Finn's victorious snarl. Finn isn't a great vocalist, but he's got infinite moxie, and that's really what counts here.
[First added to this chart: 05/29/2020]
Year of Release:
2006
Appears in:
Rank Score:
908
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Like stumbling through a messy apartment trying to find a spoon that isn't burnt so you can have some Lucky Charms

My love for this album is so great, I can only describe it in music critic cliches, so here it goes: Pure sonic pleasure. 17 brilliantly-layered songs about heroin that make Trainspotting seem like a comedy. Great lyrics, diverse instrumentation, central theme, full circle ending. If the Flaming Lips teamed up with Alice in Chains to do an album of Slowdive covers, this is what it would sound like. The best underground album of the 90s.

Alright, so I can do a little better than that. This is an album that I happened to encounter a long time ago thanks to a music writer who was convinced Failure was one of the best 50 musical artists of all time. They are not, but this is one hell of an album. Since the initial review I read (which listed this the third best album of the 90s), I mostly found reviews that called this derivative. Or Nirvana imitators. Or post grunge. Well, it's probably derivative in the sense that it does mirror a lot of the "alternative" rock of the 90s, but I don't hear any Nirvana influence.

For one thing, Ken Andrews doesn't sound anything like Kurt Cobain, despite what others will tell you. And their song-writing style is much different than the popular grunge bands in that it feels a lot more methodical and calculated. Every guitar tone and effect seems carefully planned and perfectly executed. And I mean, come on. This borders on space rock. No grunge band ever opened a song with a bongo beat like on The Nurse Who Loved Me (at least I think that's what it is). No grunge band ever achieved the type of vocal manipulation found on Pillowhead. And no grunge band ever wrote as meandering and entrancing a song as Another Space Song.

Lyrically the album deals with themes of addiction, reclusiveness, and anxiety. It's a dark album; Dirty Blue Balloons finds the narrator getting high off of nail scrapings. Leo finds him running to his car to avoid the imagined hell hounds that are chasing after him. In Stuck On You he compares his addiction to a tick or a song stuck inside his head. In Pitiful he tells heroin "I will enjoy you." It's a heavy concept, and the space-tinged melodies give it an ...well... other-worldly quality.
[First added to this chart: 08/04/2013]
Year of Release:
1996
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Rank Score:
506
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Total albums: 100. Page 3 of 10

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Top 100 Greatest Music Albums composition

Decade Albums %


1930s 0 0%
1940s 0 0%
1950s 0 0%
1960s 4 4%
1970s 9 9%
1980s 8 8%
1990s 23 23%
2000s 28 28%
2010s 28 28%
2020s 0 0%
Country Albums %


United States 79 79%
Canada 9 9%
United Kingdom 7 7%
Mixed Nationality 2 2%
Sweden 2 2%
Australia 1 1%
Compilation? Albums %
No 99 99%
Yes 1 1%

Top 100 Greatest Music Albums chart changes

Biggest climbers
Climber Up 44 from 79th to 35th
E•MO•TION
by Carly Rae Jepsen
Climber Up 35 from 45th to 10th
Songs About Leaving
by Carissa's Wierd
Climber Up 29 from 76th to 47th
The Glow Pt. 2
by The Microphones
Biggest fallers
Faller Down 32 from 57th to 89th
Dig Me Out
by Sleater-Kinney
Faller Down 29 from 26th to 55th
The Suburbs
by Arcade Fire
Faller Down 29 from 52nd to 81st
Crack The Skye
by Mastodon

Top 100 Greatest Music Albums similarity to your chart(s)


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Top 100 Greatest Music Albums ratings

Average Rating: 
94/100 (from 149 votes)
  Ratings distributionRatings distribution Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AV
where:
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 5 ratings for this chart. | Show all 149 ratings for this chart.

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RatingDate updatedMemberChart ratingsAvg. chart rating
 
90/100
 Report rating
01/16/2023 22:04 Johnnyo  Ratings distributionRatings distribution 2,01580/100
 
90/100
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05/21/2022 09:11 Timestarter  Ratings distributionRatings distribution 11490/100
  
100/100
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09/11/2021 15:03 AvalancheGrips  Ratings distributionRatings distribution 12589/100
 
95/100
 Report rating
08/31/2021 21:02 leniad  Ratings distributionRatings distribution 68685/100
 
100/100
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04/28/2021 09:45 DriftingOrpheus  Ratings distributionRatings distribution 7991/100

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 charts can have several thousand ratings)

This chart is rated in the top 1% of all charts on BestEverAlbums.com. This chart has a Bayesian average rating of 93.6/100, a mean average of 93.5/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 94.1/100. The standard deviation for this chart is 7.6.

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Top 100 Greatest Music Albums comments

Showing latest 10 comments | Show all 98 comments |
Most Helpful First | Newest First | Maximum Rated First | Longest Comments First
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Rating:  
90/100
From 01/16/2023 22:05
Great chart and the work that has gone into each entry. Wow! Brilliant stuff
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
95/100
From 08/31/2021 21:02
good writing and good taste
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From 09/29/2020 16:32
cool chart man. love the descriptions.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
100/100
From 10/28/2019 21:19
Any chart with this much time put into it is so cool to me
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
95/100
From 10/04/2019 19:23
These notes are so detailed and helpful for advocating your choices. You must really know how to listen to music and listen to it hard. Great albums, too.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
100/100
From 07/24/2019 00:02
Best Chart ever
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
100/100
From 07/23/2019 19:24
incredible. you have a different taste in music, but wow these descriptions are prime
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
100/100
From 07/23/2019 12:00
Is there a limit of how much inspiration, this chart can give?
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
100/100
From 10/18/2018 04:05
Holy crap what a chart, have a bunch in common with me and a whole list of new ones to check out, i also loved your descriptions.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +2 votes (2 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
100/100
From 10/18/2018 01:19
This is one of the most amazing things I've ever read
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +2 votes (2 helpful | 0 unhelpful)

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Recognised  Year Charts (2023)
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2. Top 10 Albums of the Year 2023 by Bleep (2023)
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