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: 8 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 chart is currently filtered to only show albums from the 1990s. (Remove this filter)
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In the spring of 1994, a group of friends and I followed Uncle Tupelo around New England on what turned out to be their final tour, in support of this outstanding album. They were playing small venues then; one friend from that tour recently reminded me, for instance, of Club Babyhead, a bizarre venue in Providence, Rhode Island, that had on its men's room wall a mural of some sort of pseudo-psychedelic imagery involving all manner of demonic, disturbing, devilish-looking eyes. But I suppose that's part of the fun of the small venue circuit. By the second show, the band recognized us, gave us comp tickets, and invited us to join them on their tour bus to play Sega hockey with them after the shows. We were treated like family. Every time I hear this terrific album, the crowning achievement of the alt-country genre, I'm grateful to have shared a few moments of the great musical odyssey that was Uncle Tupelo, before Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar went their separate ways to form Wilco and Son Volt, respectively. "Chickamauga" is a searing rocker that showcases Jay Farrar's talents as songwriter and lead guitarist, and is probably the most thoroughly self-aware band breakup song that I've ever heard.
[First added to this chart: 09/25/2013]
Year of Release:
1993
Appears in:
Rank Score:
843
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Comments:
8
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Recently I was part of a conversation with some friends about the career trajectory of Buffalo Tom. Among my friends in college, it was undisputed conventional wisdom at the time that Buffalo Tom's first two albums, their self-titled debut and Birdbrain, are alternative-rock classics. The album where we began to split is Let Me Come Over. Some missed the raw, imperfect production of the first two albums, whereas others liked the slicker production of the new album. By the time Big Red Letter Day came out, most of my friends had moved on, rolling their eyes at the band's "selling out." I have always been in the camp that thinks Let Me Come Over is the band's high point: a loud, guitar-driven, three-chord rock album with some surprisingly tender moments layered into the album's overall arc. For me the clean production is a sign of the band's increasing maturity and development, and I for one welcome the change from the band's fuzzier early sound. Any discussion about this album has to begin with the driving rocker "Velvet Roof," which was about as close to a hit single Buffalo Tom ever came. A great, emotional statement from one of the best bands of the Northampton scene of the early nineties.
[First added to this chart: 12/14/2018]
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I have approached few albums in my lifetime with as much anticipation as I did this one when it was first released in 1995. At the time I was fully convinced that Jay Farrar was the real talent behind Uncle Tupelo, so when they broke up it was Farrar's work, rather than Jeff Tweedy's, that I most wanted to hear. This was Farrar's first album with Son Volt coming off the last, and greatest, Uncle Tupelo album, Anodyne. So when it came out I persuaded the woman I was seeing at the time to drive with me into Portland, Maine, to my favorite independent record store to buy it, and we listened to it in the car on the way back to Ferry Beach. I loved it immediately, of course. "Windfall" is one of those songs that, upon first listening, sounded to me like something I'd known and loved all my life, with its timeworn, world-weary wisdom: "May wind take your troubles away / Both feet on the floor, two hands on the wheel / May the wind take your troubles away."
[First added to this chart: 03/14/2015]
Year of Release:
1995
Appears in:
Rank Score:
958
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When I was living in Korea back in 1997, my sister mailed me a cassette tape of this album. It was one of three tapes I had with me at the time (for some reason I didn't have the presence of mind to bring more music with me), and I wore the thing out. The title track is one of the sweetest love songs I've ever heard, and while it's probably overplayed, it still moves me every time. It reminds me sense of kinship that I always experience when I'm in the wilderness, and the profound longing I feel when I hear the words, "You belong with your love on your arm."
[First added to this chart: 09/25/2013]
Year of Release:
1994
Appears in:
Rank Score:
1,904
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This album was the soundtrack for a long drive from the Adirondacks in upstate New York down to the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee for a backpacking trip with a woman I loved at the time. We sang at the top of our lungs all the way down. I think now, though, that she might have thought I identified a little too much with the opening lines to the rollicking banjo stomper "Bloody 98": "I got a wife in Hattiesburg and a lover in Mobile." For the record, I don't, never did, and don't want to. As for the album itself, this is one of the best entries in the alt-country genre in the nineties, a collection of well-written songs with effects like barking dogs as a constant reminder of the Mississippi woods from which these songs originated.
[First added to this chart: 03/14/2016]
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Around four o'clock in the morning on September 24, 1991, I was asleep in my room in my apartment in Perth, Western Australia, when there was a loud, insistent knock on the door. I opened the door, and my buddy Josh was there, looking even wild-eyed and manic than ever. He'd been at a CD release party downtown and had taken a cab back to the apartment complex where we both lived. He slapped some headphones over my ears and made me listen, way too loud, to the opening of "Smells Like Teen Spirit." I felt the smile come over my face, knowing that groggy early morning in September would always be a landmark moment in the history of music, even though the term "grunge" hadn't yet gone mainstream. There was an immediacy, an urgency, to Nirvana's sound, combined with a clarity of production values, that made it unlike anything I'd ever heard before. Obviously Nirvana had a huge influence on other bands, especially those from the Seattle area, but I still can't say I've heard anything quite like Nevermind since.
[First added to this chart: 02/02/2022]
Year of Release:
1991
Appears in:
Rank Score:
41,998
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Martin Sexton is one of those people who just seems to have been born to write, record, and perform music. I don't know if there's a better live performer alive today, and I know that's saying something--but I ask you to withhold judgment unless you've actually seen him play live. I've seen him live five or six times over the past 25 years or so--sometimes alone with his guitar, sometimes with a drummer--and he never ceases to completely blow me away. He does amazing things with his guitar and his voice; he whistles; he knocks on his guitar and beatboxes into the microphone for percussion; he sings falsetto. He is just a remarkable talent. On top of all that, he writes memorable songs about the usual musical troubadour subjects: lost love, life on the road as a traveling musician, and, of course, food. He has several terrific albums, but Black Sheep is the one I heard first, and probably has the most consistently great songwriting.
[First added to this chart: 09/08/2022]
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[First added to this chart: 11/27/2022]
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I first heard "Does My Ring Burn Your Finger?" from this album on WNCW, my favorite radio station in the late nineties when I lived in North Carolina. Immediately I heard echoes of my favorite alt-country artists of the time: Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Jim Lauderdale. Turns out these weren't mere echoes, as all these artists lend vocals to tracks on this album, and Miller opened for Steve Earle on his El Corazón tour. This is one of the most consistently great albums from the nineties alt-country movement--one that showcases Buddy Miller's outstanding singing, playing, songwriting, and above all, his skills at creative collaboration. This is so much better, so much more tasteful and restrained, than almost anything the mainstream country music industry has made in the past forty years.
[First added to this chart: 11/22/2022]
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Before Jeff Buckley decided to wade fully clothed into the Mississippi River late one night and get himself caught in the wake of a passing boat, he recorded this one and only proper full-length album. It's the one I had in the CD player of my truck for most of the year I lived in Bennington, Vermont, while I mourned the loss of my longest and most important relationship to date. It is raw, lean, impulsive, deeply emo stuff--one of the most inspired and engaging albums ever made. People know the brilliant cover of Leonard Cohen's "Halleljuah," but for me the starting point is the devastating "Last Goodbye."
[First added to this chart: 02/10/2016]
Year of Release:
1994
Appears in:
Rank Score:
19,240
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Comments:
Total albums: 21. Page 1 of 3
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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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| 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% | |
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10 | 10% | |
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2 | 2% | |
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2 | 2% | |
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2 | 2% | |
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2 | 2% | |
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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  | 41 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 36 hours ago
buzzdainer 36 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 41 hours ago
Larcx13 41 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.
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | -3 votes (0 helpful | 3 unhelpful)
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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