Top 100 Greatest Music Albums by 
buzzdainer 
There are so many ways to make a "100 Greatest Albums" list. What do we mean, after all, by "greatest"? Do we mean most important? Most popular? Most influential? I'd end up with very different lists for each of those questions. What I've done is select the albums that are most meaningful to me personally, the ones I keep wanting to hear time and time again. These are the albums that have fed my soul in some way, often riding in the car or spacing out on my bed. My tastes lean toward Americana, but you'll see multiple genres represented here. In general, I prefer sincerity over sarcasm, earnestness over cynicism, sentiment over cleverness, and subtlety over bombast (though I'm sure you'll see exceptions). I've included no more than one album by any primary artist, which is an accurate reflection of my tastes: I like to listen to many different artists as opposed to concentrating on only a few. That's the college DJ in me coming out, I suppose. I invite your feedback and (especially) your music recommendations. Enjoy!
As difficult as it is to rank albums, it's probably even more difficult to rate other people's charts. Really, it all comes down to taste, which is subjective, or at least a product of our own individual listening experiences, preferences, biases, phobias, and desires. If you like the Cramps and I don't, who's to say who's correct? As Public Image Ltd. put it so many years ago, "I could be right; I could be wrong." Originally I tried to evaluate the quality of the albums on user charts, but I have learned that doing so was basically impossible. Now it seems to me that charts that are lovingly created, and with a sense of some depth and breadth of knowledge, are, by definition, good. I don't use my ratings and comments to try to police other people's tastes, but instead to seek common ground and spark conversation.
- Chart updated: 14 hours ago
- (Created: 09/24/2013 01:36).
- Chart size: 100 albums.
There are 124 comments for this chart from BestEverAlbums.com members and Top 100 Greatest Music Albums has an average rating of 92 out of 100 (from 116 votes). Please log in or register to leave a comment or assign a rating.
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This album remains one of punk's defining moments, if not its single, signature document. Yet it hardly sounds like a punk rock record. In fact, it's as much a reggae record, as much a dub record, as much a werewolf-rock record, as it is a punk record. Whatever this is, though, it's stood the test of time better than any other punk album ever made. I doubt I really need to sell you on the merits of this sprawling, wonderful album, but in case I do, start with the gorgeous anthem "Train in Vain (Stand by Me)," both homage to the Ben E. King song that preceded it specifically and to pop music in general, especially early Beatles.
[First added to this chart: 02/07/2016]
Year of Release:
1979
Appears in:
Rank Score:
36,238
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256
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I'm still not sure whether or not, overall, I like Kate Bush. I've spent quite a lot of time listening to The Dreaming, and I don't hear much there that I love. But Hounds of Love is another story. It's one of those consistently great, inspired, timeless albums that transcends both its genre and the time period in which it was made. Since I moved to Montana, I've been especially taken with "The Big Sky," which captures through synths and airy, breathy vocals the vertigo feeling of standing under the biggest, most expansive sky on Earth.
[First added to this chart: 08/26/2018]
Year of Release:
1985
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Rank Score:
19,250
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Electric Light Orchestra's frontman Jeff Lynne is a musician's musican, in the sense that he always seems to appear in celebrity all-star lineups of musicians, including his involvement in supergroup the Traveling Wilburys in the 1980s. This has probably had a mixed effect on people's impressions of ELO: simultaneously attracting new listeners to his back catalog and causing his work to be overshadowed in comparison to collaborators such as Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Roy Orbison, and Tom Petty. A New World Record is clear evidence that ELO deserves consideration in the same conversation with those other giants. It's an incredibly expansive, ambitious piece of work, with soaring orchestral arrangements blending with driving guitar-driven rock. "Telephone Line" is rightly the song most people know here, but sibling singles "Do Ya" and "Living Thing" are fantastic, too.
[First added to this chart: 07/01/2021]
Year of Release:
1976
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Rank Score:
3,123
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On Pink Moon, notoriously reclusive English folklorist Nick Drake pares down his songs to the simplest of elements: his breathy, whispering vocals; his signature fingerpicking guitar style; and a simple piano melody added to the title track. The spare instrumentation and production create an incredibly intimate listening experience, but the lyrics themselves are often obscure and impenetrable. This paradox of simultaneous communion and distance lies at the heart of the emotional experience of Pink Moon. It's sometimes dismissed as a "depressed" record, but that's not really what I hear in these songs. There is sadness here, of course, but also cracks where the light gets in. Nothing quite like it has been recorded before or since.
[First added to this chart: 11/29/2020]
Year of Release:
1972
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Rank Score:
20,136
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When I was in high school, loving The Cure was a way of declaring myself as somehow outside the mainstream, refusing to go along with the crowd that loved Bon Jovi and Def Leppard. That's funny to think about now, since The Cure has become synonymous with that vague genre we now call "eighties music." What's incredible is that these songs still sound just as urgent and immediate to me now as they did in 1989. "Fascination Street" is such a great song, so mysterious with its surging bass line and whirling guitars.
[First added to this chart: 05/13/2016]
Year of Release:
1989
Appears in:
Rank Score:
27,773
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An oddball album that draws from a wild mixture of influences: electronica to be sure, but also folk, jazz, dubstep, even metal. Some of the tracks offer some of the strangest lyrics in recent memory, but this isn't an album you appreciate for its lyrical content. Rather, it's the place in the soul this band reaches through pounding drumbeats, throbbing bass lines, and sudden, unexpected bursts of a capella harmonies. An album to be felt and not scrutinized. Many of my fondest memories of listening to this album are from hearing "Dissolve Me" on a favorite playlist of one of the baristas at the Red Rock Café in Boulder, Colorado, and feeling a sense of kinship--that anyone who loves this album as much as I do must be a quality human being.
[First added to this chart: 02/10/2016]
Year of Release:
2012
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Rank Score:
7,439
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A transcendently great breakup album--or at least, a deep exploration of relationship dysfunction--from Laura Marling. This album has it all: powerful vocal performances, sharp songwriting, sophisticated guitar playing, and thunderous drumming. I had the great fortune to see Laura Marling play at the Georgia Theater in Athens on her tour supporting this album, and although I thought I was initially disappointed that she didn't bring her band on the tour (it was a solo acoustic show), she more than commanded the stage, and the performance really emphasized her talents as a guitarist. The multi-song suite that opens the album is fascinating, with the relentlessly percussive "Master Hunter" as a highlight.
[First added to this chart: 01/02/2016]
Year of Release:
2013
Appears in:
Rank Score:
748
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The Cult was one of my favorite rock bands of the eighties, with Ian Astbury's Jim Morrison-like persona and Billy Duffy's scorching work on the guitar leading the charge. The Cult managed to weave together New Wave eighties vocal stylings, the loudness and grittiness of metal, and the New Age mysticism of post-punk, producing on their second full-length album one of the most undeniably great albums of the eighties. The high point here is the mysterious and hard-rocking "She Sells Sanctuary," one of the best, if not also one of the most lyrically impenetrable, songs of its generation. Unfortunately, The Cult never came close to making another album anywhere near this great, and they've gradually settled back into obscurity. But for the brief time that they shined, they sure did shine brightly.
[First added to this chart: 09/16/2020]
Year of Release:
1985
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Rank Score:
1,121
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When I was a teenager, I absolutely loved The Police. They were the quintessential cool three-piece band, and their instrumental virtuosity seemed only rivalled by their lyrical sophistication. Then Synchronicity arrived, and the band's popularity soared. With that increased popularity came increased scrutiny, and they came to be seen both as a little too milquetoast and a little too pretentious for a lot of people's tastes. Perhaps rightfully so. Upon revisiting this album recently for the first time in a while, I find myself still appreciating so many things about it: some delightfully ironic songwriting, brilliant instrumentation, and a lingering appreciation for the simple elements of rock music. It's neither as perfect as I once thought it was, nor as imperfect as a lot of people would have you believe. And "Every Breath You Take" remains a great song, not because it's an unambiguous great love song, but because it understands the desperate depths to which love can bring a person, even to the point of something like stalking.
[First added to this chart: 07/14/2021]
Year of Release:
1983
Appears in:
Rank Score:
5,499
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XTC had a run of excellent albums in the eighties, among which Skylarking was their best. The turmoil between technically brilliant singer/songwriter Andy Partridge and record label-appointed producer Todd Rundgren behind the scenes during the recording of this album is well documented, and perhaps explains the artistic tension that makes the album a masterpiece. For me the more interesting story is the way this album, and particularly the great pop song "Earn Enough for Us," has come to feel so much more relevant (at least to me) since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, as it poignantly illustrates the tension between one's beautiful romantic aspirations and the realities of economic downturn: "I can take humiliation / And hurtful comments from the boss / I'm just praying by the weekend / I can earn enough for us."
[First added to this chart: 07/05/2020]
Year of Release:
1986
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Rank Score:
4,919
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Total albums: 10. Page 1 of 1
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Top 100 Greatest Music Albums composition
| Decade | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
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| 1930s | 0 | 0% | |
| 1940s | 0 | 0% | |
| 1950s | 0 | 0% | |
| 1960s | 4 | 4% | |
| 1970s | 14 | 14% | |
| 1980s | 16 | 16% | |
| 1990s | 21 | 21% | |
| 2000s | 17 | 17% | |
| 2010s | 22 | 22% | |
| 2020s | 6 | 6% |
| Artist | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
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|
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| The Connells | 1 | 1% | |
| Blue Mountain | 1 | 1% | |
| Devendra Banhart | 1 | 1% | |
| Kishi Bashi | 1 | 1% | |
| Gram Parsons | 1 | 1% | |
| My Morning Jacket | 1 | 1% | |
| Chris Stapleton | 1 | 1% | |
| Show all | |||
| Country | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
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| |
78 | 78% | |
 |
10 | 10% | |
 |
2 | 2% | |
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2 | 2% | |
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2 | 2% | |
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2 | 2% | |
 |
2 | 2% | |
| Show all | |||
Top 100 Greatest Music Albums chart changes
| Biggest fallers |
|---|
| Down 1 from 6th to 7th Red by Taylor Swift |
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Top 100 Greatest Music Albums ratings
92/100 (from 116 votes)
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 116 ratings for this chart.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Chart ratings | Avg. chart rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 100/100  | 47 hours ago | Larcx13 | | 86/100 |
| 90/100 | 01/12/2024 16:35 | joathome | | 80/100 |
| 90/100 | 06/26/2023 07:17 |  Applerill | | 75/100 |
| 100/100 | 02/19/2023 13:32 | BraddlesHendo | | 91/100 |
| 100/100 | 06/26/2022 02:53 | Rm12398 | | 89/100 |
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 91.7/100, a mean average of 91.0/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 92.2/100. The standard deviation for this chart is 12.0.
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Top 100 Greatest Music Albums comments
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From buzzdainer 41 hours ago
buzzdainer 41 hours ago
Larcx13, I hear you on Taylor Swift. What can I say, except that we can't help who we love? I'll check out some music from the countries you suggest. If there are particular artists I should hear, don't hesitate to shout them out!
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
100/100
From Larcx13 47 hours ago
Larcx13 47 hours ago
I honestly can't stand Taylor Swift... But this chart is quite original and I appreciate the fact that there was a lot of work put into it too. I love that Digable Planets and Parliament are somewhere in there. Cool stuff!
At this point I feel I can only recommend one thing: check out more foreign music, if you haven't already. Personally, I got into Ukraine, Brazil, Russia and Japan. Maybe I can push it a little and recommend music from my home province of Quebec.
Peace
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From buzzdainer 10/02/2022 18:32
buzzdainer 10/02/2022 18:32
Thank you for your kind comment, DiogoSRNunes! I don't consciously avoid the albums that are more popular and conventional, but I just think my tastes gravitate to the things that are less mainstream. That said, a Taylor Swift album just recently cracked my top ten of all time. So maybe I'm becoming more of a pop music fan in my old age.
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From buzzdainer 10/02/2021 17:16
buzzdainer 10/02/2021 17:16
Thank you for that generous and insightful comment, Mercury. Like you, I love March 16, 1992, and there are things about that album that I love even more than Anodyne. Albums that contain a lot of covers tend to get less attention on my charts than albums of mostly originals, which partially explains my preference for Anodyne. On that note, I have Uncle Tupelo, among others, to thank for my love of all things Gram Parsons. They recorded a version of "Blue Eyes," an early Gram Parsons tune, on one of the Gram Parsons tribute albums that came out in the early nineties. That led me on a search to hear more of his stuff, and the rest is history. If you love the Americana and alt-country movements, you can't help but love just about everything Gram Parsons ever did.
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
100/100
From 
Mercury 09/18/2021 18:12
Mercury 09/18/2021 18:12
Well, jeez, not sure how I have never come by your chart, my friend. Considering how many time while scrolling all 100 albums I was nodding appreciatively I am surprised we *only* have 8 albums in common. This is a downright excellent chart, and especially love the down and gritty americana/alt-country/folk tradition that is so beautifully shown throughout this album. Oh and that tasty tasty Gram Parsons run from 24 to 26 was beautiful to see :). Love this, truly.
And yeah, Anodyne is a great record. I may slightly prefer March 16-20 1992, but they are neck and neck. I consider Tweedy/Farrar royalty in the alt-country kingdom. the last guy who commented is a character lol.
Oh and I meant to leave a comment on your 2020s chart but its not open for such at this time, and I wanted to thank you for the kind and enthusiastic comment on my 2020s chart. Agreed Stapleton and Starting Over are treasures. I need to listen to it a few more times, as I think I am not giving it nearly enough love and attention. A Truly resonant album and indeed a great stable rock in music form for these crazy times we are all experiencing. The album I've gleaned the most comfort and reassurance from in this young and chaotic decade so far is ... hmm, none from the decade lol. My top albums have been pretty damn bleak, harsh or escapist.
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +2 votes (2 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From buzzdainer 07/20/2021 00:52
buzzdainer 07/20/2021 00:52
StreakyNuno, can you show me on the doll where Jeff Tweedy hurt you?
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (1 helpful | 1 unhelpful)
45/100
From StreakyNuno 07/18/2021 20:08
Anodyne by Uncle tupelo ........best album ever.ahahahahaahaha
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (1 helpful | 1 unhelpful)
From buzzdainer 07/11/2021 20:30
buzzdainer 07/11/2021 20:30
If Okkervil River’s The Silver Gymnasium and Drive-By Truckers’ The Dirty South aren't on your 5 best albums ever, I don't know what you know about music?
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (1 helpful | 1 unhelpful)
45/100
From StreakyNuno 07/07/2021 16:23
This comment is beneath your viewing threshold.
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From buzzdainer 04/20/2021 17:25
buzzdainer 04/20/2021 17:25
StreakyNuno, I have the utmost respect for your chart. But Pink Floyd best ever album and Pink Floyd in second ???? Sorry, I respect but I don't feel like listening to the other albums in your chart.
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (1 helpful | 1 unhelpful)
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