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.
- Chart updated: 03/21/2015 12:15
- (Created: 10/02/2013 06:10).
- Chart size: 100 albums.
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 87 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 58,000 charts on BestEverAlbums.com from The Charts page.
This chart is currently filtered to only show albums from the 1990s. (Remove this filter)
Rank Score: 92.50%
[First added to this chart: 11/16/2013]
Year of Release:
1993
Appears in:
Rank Score:
10,619
Rank in 1993:
Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Rank Score: 92.50%
[First added to this chart: 07/20/2014]
Year of Release:
1991
Appears in:
Rank Score:
8,467
Rank in 1991:
Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Rank Score: 92.50%
[First added to this chart: 03/24/2014]
Year of Release:
1998
Appears in:
Rank Score:
1,549
Rank in 1998:
Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Rank Score: 92.27%
[First added to this chart: 11/12/2013]
Year of Release:
1994
Appears in:
Rank Score:
1,503
Rank in 1994:
Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Rank Score: 92.22%
[First added to this chart: 03/27/2014]
Year of Release:
1998
Appears in:
Rank Score:
2,678
Rank in 1998:
Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Rank Score: 92.14%
[First added to this chart: 03/23/2014]
Year of Release:
1997
Appears in:
Rank Score:
3,551
Rank in 1997:
Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Rank Score: 91.92%
[First added to this chart: 03/23/2014]
Year of Release:
1996
Appears in:
Rank Score:
872
Rank in 1996:
Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Rank Score: 91.67%
[First added to this chart: 12/20/2013]
Year of Release:
1991
Appears in:
Rank Score:
11,842
Rank in 1991:
Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Rank Score: 91.67%
[First added to this chart: 03/24/2014]
Year of Release:
1997
Appears in:
Rank Score:
10,086
Rank in 1997:
Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Rank Score: 91.54%
[First added to this chart: 11/17/2013]
Year of Release:
1997
Appears in:
Rank Score:
5,581
Rank in 1997:
Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Total albums: 20. Page 1 of 2
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% |
| Artist | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|||
| Rusty Squeezebox | 1 | 1% | |
| The Verve | 1 | 1% | |
| DJ Shadow | 1 | 1% | |
| Slowdive | 1 | 1% | |
| Marvin Gaye | 1 | 1% | |
| Plan 9 (US) | 1 | 1% | |
| Bobb Trimble | 1 | 1% | |
| Show all | |||
| Country | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|||
 |
59 | 59% | |
 |
25 | 25% | |
 |
5 | 5% | |
 |
3 | 3% | |
 |
3 | 3% | |
 |
2 | 2% | |
 |
1 | 1% | |
| Show all | |||
Top 100 Greatest Music Albums chart changes
| Biggest fallers |
|---|
| Down 1 from 72nd to 73rdOn The Beach by Neil Young |
| Down 1 from 73rd to 74thPhantasmagoria by Curved Air |
| Down 1 from 74th to 75thPerfect From Now On by Built To Spill |
| New entries |
|---|
| How I Quit Smoking by Lambchop |
| Leavers |
|---|
| Nassau by The Sea And Cake |
Top 100 Greatest Music Albums similar charts
| Title | Source | Type | Published | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Top 100 Greatest Music Albums | steve_o_619 | Overall chart | 2014 | |
| BEA 100 (One Album per Artist) |  BozoTyrannus | Custom chart | 2020 |  |
| One Album per Artist Chart | Imaybeparanoid | Custom chart | 2016 |  |
| PPV Overall Ranking | bea | Custom chart | 2021 | |
| Top 100 Greatest Music Albums | TheNowhereGuy | Overall chart | 2020 |  |
| Top 100 Greatest Music Albums |  Mechalodon | Overall chart | 2017 | |
| BEA+RYM Overall Rank | Imaybeparanoid | Custom chart | 2017 | |
| BEA Forum Regulars' Top 100 (2015) |  HigherThanTheSun | Custom chart | 2015 | |
| Top 100 Greatest Music Albums | barbarossa | Overall chart | 2022 | |
| The BEA Friendly Chart |  alelsupreme | Custom chart | 2015 | |
Top 100 Greatest Music Albums similarity to your chart(s)
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Top 100 Greatest Music Albums ratings
Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AVwhere:
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 87 ratings for this chart.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Chart ratings | Avg. chart rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 04/11/2026 08:54 | Musicbuff123 | 18 | 61/100 | |
| 03/20/2025 14:09 |  SomethingSpecial | 1,089 | 85/100 | |
| 01/15/2025 16:47 | Exist-en-ciel | 156 | 97/100 | |
| 01/27/2022 11:42 |  IlMala | 178 | 95/100 | |
| 09/11/2021 17:10 |  DommeDamian | 1,004 | 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 91.4/100, a mean average of 91.9/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 92.0/100. The standard deviation for this chart is 8.8.
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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From 
Larcx13 01/06/2021 11:26 | #263916
Larcx13 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)
From 
salahshoori 04/18/2020 11:08 | #250158
salahshoori 04/18/2020 11:08 | #250158
Wow! This can be the most interesting chart on this site. Thanks for sharing it.
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From Reppu1976 06/24/2019 14:20 | #238166
Great Job! Very diverse chart!
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From 
Paule 06/02/2019 08:45 | #237017
Paule 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)
From jeffrey-hodgson 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)
From PeterSmith 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) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From 
authorunknown 07/19/2017 21:17 | #194625
authorunknown 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)
From 
LedZep 05/23/2017 14:56 | #191285
LedZep 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)
From Azkushang 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)
From 
LadyGodiva 08/04/2015 21:05 | #147098
LadyGodiva 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)
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