Top 100 Greatest Music Albums
by NickVolos

There is so much great music, it is impossible to fit it all in a 100-entry chart.

Not only that, but it is also impossible to rank your favorite 100 records too - they are your best 100 albums after all.

This is an attempt to chart my taste in strictly rock 'n' roll music as it stands today after 35+ years of actively listening to it. In this attempt I was "forced" to leave out many of my favorites in order to:

1) List one album per artist,
2) "Promote" less known but equably great (to me) albums, and
3) Produce a chart that is equally distributed from the 60's to 10's.

In the process I am using a simple ranking algorithm, for which I posted about, because I still believe that if an album has many great songs, well, that makes it a great album.
There are 61 comments for this chart from BestEverAlbums.com members and Top 100 Greatest Music Albums has an average rating of 91 out of 100 (from 86 votes). Please log in or register to leave a comment or assign a rating.
The entries in this chart have a zero rank score because the chart has not been updated within the last ten years (points from overall charts are decayed over a ten year period).

View the complete list of 57,000 charts on BestEverAlbums.com from The Charts page.

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Rank Score: 93.50% [First added to this chart: 11/12/2013]
Year of Release:
2004
Appears in:
Rank Score:
34,072
Rank in 2004:
Rank in 2000s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Top rated album (88/100 - 3667 votes)  88 (3,667 votes)
Comments:
Total albums: 1. Page 1 of 1
Don't agree with this chart? Create your own from the My Charts page!

Top 100 Greatest Music Albums composition

Decade Albums %


1930s 0 0%
1940s 0 0%
1950s 0 0%
1960s 20 20%
1970s 20 20%
1980s 18 18%
1990s 20 20%
2000s 18 18%
2010s 4 4%
2020s 0 0%
Country Albums %


United States 59 59%
United Kingdom 25 25%
Canada 5 5%
Mixed Nationality 3 3%
Germany 3 3%
Australia 2 2%
Iceland 1 1%
Show all

Top 100 Greatest Music Albums chart changes

Biggest fallers
Faller Down 1 from 72nd to 73rdOn The Beach
by Neil Young
Faller Down 1 from 73rd to 74thPhantasmagoria
by Curved Air
Faller Down 1 from 74th to 75thPerfect From Now On
by Built To Spill
New entries
New entry How I Quit Smoking
by Lambchop
Leavers
Leaver Nassau
by The Sea And Cake
TitleSourceTypePublishedCountry
Top 100 Greatest Music Albumssteve_o_619Overall chart2014
BEA 100 (One Album per Artist) BozoTyrannusCustom chart2020
PPV Overall RankingbeaCustom chart2021Unknown
One Album per Artist ChartImaybeparanoidCustom chart2016Unknown
Top 100 Greatest Music AlbumsTheNowhereGuyOverall chart2020
BEA+RYM Overall RankImaybeparanoidCustom chart2017Unknown
BEA Forum Regulars' Top 100 (2015) HigherThanTheSunCustom chart2015
Top 100 Greatest Music Albums MechalodonOverall chart2017
Top 100 Greatest Music AlbumsbarbarossaOverall chart2022Unknown
The BEA Friendly Chart alelsupremeCustom chart2015

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


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Top 100 Greatest Music Albums ratings

Average Rating: 
91/100 (from 86 votes)
  Help 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 86 ratings for this chart.

Sort by
RatingDate updatedMemberChart ratingsAvg. chart rating
 
90/100
 !
03/20/2025 14:09 SomethingSpecial   1,10485/100
 
100/100
 !
01/15/2025 16:47 Exist-en-ciel   14798/100
 
90/100
 !
01/27/2022 11:42 IlMala   17895/100
 
95/100
 !
09/11/2021 17:10 DommeDamian   1,00489/100
 
100/100
 !
02/17/2021 05:43 pjohnsongolf   27289/100

Rating metrics: Help 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 91.4/100, a mean average of 92.3/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 92.0/100. The standard deviation for this chart is 8.2.

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Top 100 Greatest Music Albums favourites

Showing all 16 members who have added this chart as a favourite

Top 100 Greatest Music Albums comments

Showing latest 10 comments | Show all 61 comments |
Most Helpful First | Newest First | Positive Sentiment First | Longest Comments First
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Rating:  
90/100
From 01/06/2021 11:26 | #263916
Nice chart.

Do you like nothing from the 50s?
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
100/100
From 06/24/2019 14:20 | #238166
Great Job! Very diverse chart!
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
100/100
From 06/02/2019 08:45 | #237017
Awesome chart for people like me who like to expand their music horizon. Great great work!
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
75/100
From 10/12/2018 12:58 | #222400
Never heard of a lot of these artists, must take a look
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
90/100
From 04/03/2018 21:01 | #212252
Listen this is one of a number of impressive charts from you. You really have been putting the effort and listening in. Whereas I don't recognise many of the artists, let alone the albums, I am intrigued about many of your choices. More comments please against your choices.
I've only been getting into this over the last two years having switched off since the early 90s.
I only have 6 albums or your albums in my top 100 for now. I saw the Verve in there and agree it is a cracking album but surprised it scored so highly. I also got your number 1 by Love to listen to just last year and it is infectious. The bit in Red Telephone when he voices over with "We're all normal and we want our freedom" could be a parody from Flight of the Conchords ("New Zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo")
Also like your thought process behind this top 100 and I'll come back and review my rating after I've tested out a few of your choices, but you are doing great work here and making it easier for guys like me trying to catch up
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
75/100
From 07/19/2017 21:17 | #194625
Bobb Trimble. Never heard of before. Thanks for that.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
95/100
From 05/23/2017 14:56 | #191285
Extremely interesting, try Rush if you like classic rock and prog and also Godspeed You Black Emperor and Iron Maiden. They're both crucial bands in their respective genres, and neither of these genres is represented here so you might be interested in them :)
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
90/100
From 08/15/2015 01:11 | #147706
Very nice chart man, take a look at mines.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
100/100
From 08/04/2015 21:05 | #147098
oh this is a thing of beauty - a wonderful chart that I have thoroughly enjoyed reading! Lovely! :)
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
90/100
From 07/30/2015 01:57 | #146710
Diverse collection. been jotting a few of these down. Lots of psychedelic strangeness. Love it
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
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