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: 23 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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My favorite album by Josh Ritter, the artist I've listened to more than any other over the past fifteen years or so, who writes meticulously crafted lyrics within his relatively traditional, organ- and guitar-centric, Dylan-inspired folk Americana. These songs evoke beautifully the rolling agricultural landscapes of Ritter's native western Idaho, a place I first visited in 1997 when I helped my sister move from Boulder, Colorado, to Moscow, Idaho (Ritter's hometown), to start graduate school. Hello Starling is chock full of stories and mythologies unique to Ritter's tunnel-blasting, lentil-growing, West-winning oeuvre. The romantic "Kathleen" is the highlight here, with one of the all-time greatest musical pickup lines: "All the other girls here are stars; you are the Northern Lights."
[First added to this chart: 04/28/2015]
2
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This album is the loud, swampy, in-your-face high-water mark for great Southern rock band Drive-By Truckers. Unlike their spiritual forebears Lynyrd Skynyrd, who have at times been naïve and reactionary in their uncritical depiction of white Southern pride, Drive-By Truckers have always understood the underlying irony of Faulknerian Southernness, which principal songwriter Patterson Hood has elsewhere called "the duality of the Southern thing." I'm not even sure that the best track here is one of Hood's, though; that honor has to go to Jason Isbell's brutal, whiskey-drenched ballad "Goddamn Lonely Love," with its achingly desperate chorus: "I'll take two of what you're having / And I'll take all of what you've got / To kill this goddamn lonely, goddamn lonely love."
[First added to this chart: 03/14/2015]
Year of Release:
2004
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Rank Score:
853
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This album brings together rock and dance music in a way that's more successful than any other album I can think of. I love the club freakouts in "Get Innocuous" and "North American Scum," but then there's also the incredible tenderness of "All My Friends" and "Someone Great." James Murphy brings these disparate styles together better than anyone, perhaps because he seems oblivious of, or indifference to, distinctions between what constitutes "pop" and "indie," respectively. All that matters to him are sounds that work beautifully, and he brings it all together with real instrumentation and analog production that feel fresh, immediate, and spacious.
[First added to this chart: 02/10/2016]
Year of Release:
2007
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Rank Score:
13,670
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Back when I lived in Reno, I played in a folk rock band. We had some original songs, but two-thirds of our set list was covers. Of those, I'd say a third of them were Gillian Welch songs. That was never our intention, but her songs are so good, so jammable, so well crafted and well written, so ready for reinterpretation, that we couldn't resist adding more. Our favorite was the title track from this album--a slow burner, mesmerizing, mysterious. Really, that description fits every song on this wonderful album.
[First added to this chart: 03/17/2016]
Year of Release:
2001
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Rank Score:
1,325
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Tacoma, Washington, based Neko Case was first recommended to me by a buddy from the Pacific Northwest. He didn't love this album; he was more taken with Neko's earlier, more obviously country-influenced work. This was my first exposure to her, and I immediately loved her gothic, witchy, reverb-heavy sound, supported expertly by guest players including Giant Sand frontman Howe Gelb and Calexico's Joey Burns and John Convertino. "Deep Red Bells" is the highlight; check out the paradoxical poetry in the lyrics in this slow, melancholy song: "It looks a lot like engine oil / And tastes like being poor and small / And popsicles in summer." Sweetness and darkness entwined: such is the spirit of Blacklisted.
[First added to this chart: 09/25/2013]
Year of Release:
2002
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Rank Score:
472
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In January of 2013 I met a girl in Denver and we drove together across Wyoming, destined for the annual cowboy poetry gathering in Elko, Nevada. We never made it all the way to Elko--her car broke down in Evanston, Wyoming, and we wound up stranded in Salt Lake City in a blizzard for a week--but for the first leg of the journey, while the sun still shone over the bleak Wyoming plains, we listened to Mescalito and sang every song together. Ryan Bingham's voice is perfect for that landscape: sounds like he's been riding the range for days without water, and his lyrics contain all the wisdom and life experience of someone who's spent his life living a little bit on the edge, among outlaws and the homeless and insane. "Southside of Heaven" is the place to start here: "On the south side of heaven / Won't you take me home / 'Cause I've been broke down for so long / And Lord, it's getting cold." Whenever I hear this album, I'll always think of that January day and the woman in the seat beside me, her legs outstretched, her feet up on the dashboard.
[First added to this chart: 09/25/2013]
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Green Day wasn't a band I was expecting to make a great album in 2004. I had enjoyed Dookie, but thought at the time that it was kind of a throwaway pop punk record. (I actually think a little more highly of it now.) I hadn't really listened to any of Green Day's other albums. But Green Day decided, at a time when George W. Bush was a popular president, to go against the grain to make an overtly political concept album that pushed far beyond the relatively straightforward song structures that had been their hallmark to that point. I suppose you could say that the album feels today like a time capsule, but when Billy Joe Armstrong declares during the anthemic title track, "Welcome to a new kind of tension / All across the alien nation," he really could be singing about 2022 as easily as 2004. I listened to this album incessantly throughout the fall of 2004, and it was a perfect outlet for the rage, frustration, and alienation I was feeling. I wish I could say that it moved me through that cathartic period and things were much different now, but unfortunately, I think that feeling of alienation has only gotten more intense as the decades have rolled by.
[First added to this chart: 10/30/2022]
Year of Release:
2004
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Rank Score:
10,080
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It's tough for me to choose a favorite Wilco album, as they're one of the seminal bands of my generation, a band whose every release I anticipate with a lot of excitement. On any given day I might pick Summerteeth, or The Whole Love, or even Sky Blue Sky. I read a review once that classified Wilco as "dad rock," to which I love Jeff Tweedy's response: "I think anybody that thinks about that as a...critical term is an asshole." I agree, particularly when you consider how genre-bending and experimental Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is. It's fun, it's adventurous, it's understated, it contains traces of their alt-country roots, and it has some of the finest and most creative percussion you'll hear on a rock album, particularly on "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart." I dare you to try to play the air drums on that song, all you anti-dad rock hipster assholes.
[First added to this chart: 01/02/2016]
Year of Release:
2002
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Rank Score:
20,562
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Indie rockers The National has made a half-dozen albums that easily could have made my top 100 of all time list. That's how consistently great they've been over the past twenty years. Alligator is their best, as it's the album that best utilizes Matt Berninger's smoky baritone and often ambiguous lyrical style. The album's opener and best song, “Secret Meeting,” tells a quintessential introvert's narrative of wanting to become invisible to avoid an awkward social encounter. “Didn’t anybody tell you how to gracefully disappear in a room?” Berninger wonders over Bryan Devendorf’s sparse drum pattern before feigning an apology both plausible and absurd: “I’m sorry I missed you / I had a secret meeting in the basement of my brain.” If you can relate, you understand what it's like both craving social connection and resorting to the most desperate of tactics to avoid it.
[First added to this chart: 09/05/2020]
Year of Release:
2005
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Rank Score:
4,078
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It's hard to fully appreciate what Andrew Bird does without seeing him live on stage, where he plays violin, whistles, sings, and uses looping technology to lay down beats and riffs. But this album is the best recorded representation of what he does. The Mysterious Production of Eggs is a very fine collection of indie folk tunes, headed by the swirling, crashing "Fake Palindromes," which is both a dictionary-mining, literary tour de force and a frenetic musical odyssey. It's also more than just a little disturbing: "My dewy-eyed, Disney bride what has tried / Swabbing your blood with formaldehyde? / Monsters, whiskey-plied voices cried fratricide / Jesus, don't you know that you could have died? / You should have died with the monsters that talk / Monsters that walk the earth."
[First added to this chart: 02/11/2016]
Year of Release:
2005
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Rank Score:
988
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Total albums: 17. Page 1 of 2
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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 Cult (UK) | 1 | 1% | |
| Blue Mountain | 1 | 1% | |
| Devendra Banhart | 1 | 1% | |
| Gram Parsons | 1 | 1% | |
| My Morning Jacket | 1 | 1% | |
| The Beach Boys | 1 | 1% | |
| Prince And The Revolution | 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% | |
 |
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  | 3 days 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 3 days ago
buzzdainer 3 days 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 3 days ago
Larcx13 3 days 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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