Top 100 Greatest Music Albums
by 
viquel 
My personal favorites in a neat, representative 100,
Since best of lists are the ultimate form of recomendation
With my reviews, hoping to fill the whole list in future (My numerial ratings are years-dated and semi-random and should probably be ignored)
- Chart updated: 11/17/2025 15:15
- (Created: 01/17/2015 00:58).
- Chart size: 100 albums.
There are 17 comments for this chart from BestEverAlbums.com members and Top 100 Greatest Music Albums has an average rating of 90 out of 100 (from 29 votes). Please log in or register to leave a comment or assign a rating.
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Past the tagline of "the very first fully sample-derived full-length record" or something, the true reason for its enduring popularity and relevance is more complex. It's bound to hit you in layers: first, the sense of humor and playfulness of the opener "Best Foot Forward", full of showman's gusto. Then, its ability to be relaxing and ethereal, best seen in cloudy lullabies-by-beats like "Changeling". And, finally, that bit of underlying ominousness beneath the surface's warm glow. You can feel a slip into the inky void when the choir hits in that ghostly manner in "Building Steam...", and it's not for nothing that the record closes out with Twin Peaks' infamous "it is happening again" moment of dread.
It's a true "urban" album, not in the sense that the industry has bastardized that word into, but in the way that it's connected to that bustling, overcrowded nature and that outside outpour of motion. It's like a late-afternoon bus ride through rush-hour streets. To an extent, it tastes of gravel and smells of exhaust fumes. The weighty textures, the tactility of the vinyl rasping, the almost tangible record store dust kicked up in the drum breaks — they all serve to ground you somewhere physical and dense. But, nonetheless, the record feels at all times only a step away from otherworldly. There's a constant possibility that your next step will lift you off the ground, or else sink you beneath it, but in any case slip you away from the material world and take you far off to unknown outer places. [First added to this chart: 02/14/2015]
It's a true "urban" album, not in the sense that the industry has bastardized that word into, but in the way that it's connected to that bustling, overcrowded nature and that outside outpour of motion. It's like a late-afternoon bus ride through rush-hour streets. To an extent, it tastes of gravel and smells of exhaust fumes. The weighty textures, the tactility of the vinyl rasping, the almost tangible record store dust kicked up in the drum breaks — they all serve to ground you somewhere physical and dense. But, nonetheless, the record feels at all times only a step away from otherworldly. There's a constant possibility that your next step will lift you off the ground, or else sink you beneath it, but in any case slip you away from the material world and take you far off to unknown outer places. [First added to this chart: 02/14/2015]
Year of Release:
1996
Appears in:
Rank Score:
9,221
Rank in 1996:
Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
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Among Underground Resistance's contributions to the music landscape, in their break with conformity and convention, maybe none is more significant than their emphasis on anonimity. To remove from the equation the artist's ego, the cult of commodified personality, the promotional guest appearances and stunts, and instead foreground the music itself in all its power. So the producer or collective of producers behind the Martian alias are blurred away, and there emerges this mystic figure beaming the tracks to us straight from the rocky crags of the red planet. It adds to the music's inherent sense of freedom and spirituality, which are half of the project's ethos, the other half being its political conscience. There's a strong focus on community and shared fight, reflected in the repeated mantra of "the spirit of the people is greater than the Man's technology". Not that the album is anti-tech, either politically or aesthetically, what with the broad warmth and optimism of its everpresent sci-fi theme. But it rejects the aesthetics of oppressive, monolithic, crushing machines in favor of a loose, liquid, free-form kind of tech, represented by its soulful, melodic techno and so-called "high-tech jazz" sound. So it goes that you speed through the stars, away from Earth at high velocity, and not hunkered down in a spacecraft's rigid hull, but riding free on solar winds, propelled almost by strength of spirit alone.
[First added to this chart: 08/25/2016]
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There’s no getting around the darkness inherent in this record’s core concept, inspired as it is by the real-life horrors of slavery and its accompanying stream of massacres. Hence the sunken, guttural call of ghosts and ancestors that opens the record. And, throughout, this basis of anger and horror results in moments of tense, glacial urgency, passages through Gigeresque caverns and lost wanderings in the deep sea murk. You can almost see the submerged pistons and propellers emerging like the fallen bodies of monsters.
But the Drexciyan mythos is ultimately a narrative of hopefulness, of rising up from discarded depths and building up to a new tomorrow, and aspects of that optimism permeate quite a bit of the record. It’s telling that the bright, glowing “Andrean Sand Dunes” comes as early as track 3, which, in its futuristic tech atmosphere, could well be bringing us gliding over to the sprawling sub-sea metropolis, the great Drexciyan achievement, blinking with colors like anemones and coral polyps, while shafts of sunlight pierce the water. It’s not surprising that in subsequent albums the fate of the narrative would take it rocketing to the stars. [First added to this chart: 10/11/2015]
But the Drexciyan mythos is ultimately a narrative of hopefulness, of rising up from discarded depths and building up to a new tomorrow, and aspects of that optimism permeate quite a bit of the record. It’s telling that the bright, glowing “Andrean Sand Dunes” comes as early as track 3, which, in its futuristic tech atmosphere, could well be bringing us gliding over to the sprawling sub-sea metropolis, the great Drexciyan achievement, blinking with colors like anemones and coral polyps, while shafts of sunlight pierce the water. It’s not surprising that in subsequent albums the fate of the narrative would take it rocketing to the stars. [First added to this chart: 10/11/2015]
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In their debut Affenstunde, Popol Vuh had already joined early electronica and “world music” inspirations for their distinctive sound, but in their sophomore release, they achieved a much more complex, progressive, purposeful structure. It opens with sounds of rustling water at play, which suggest exactly the kind of trespassing into royal gardens of splendor that the orientalist title refers to. Following up are the sounds of tribal drumming and the ghostly voice of the Moog synthesizer — no doubt to be had about the forbidden nature of this place. As layers of sounds and instruments stack, the early limestone sparseness of the track gradually grows dense and lush, becoming a sort of green paradise of birds and flowers. It’s really quite beautiful, but in a way, it’s just the buildup for the real core of the album, which lies in the second of two tracks. The mighty “Vuh” turns the garden’s tranquility on its head, like a portal that has been crossed, or a mirror shattered to pieces. Shattered as well is reality itself, up against a thick wall of sound. It drowns you in cymbals, church organ and the overwhelming Moog-choir. Popol Vuh aimed throughout their career at transcending the earthly realm, and this ambition might have been satisfied here better than anywhere else, in this alien soundscape that washes over you in tidal waves.
[First added to this chart: 10/11/2015]
Year of Release:
1971
Appears in:
Rank Score:
695
Rank in 1971:
Rank in 1970s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
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Popular wisdom is that it took a club scene as rebellious and volatile as the 1990s UK scene to get us staples this fierce, electrically charged, gritty and uncompromising. But I can’t elaborate anymore on that, really. Speaking as an outsider in all regards, and having discovered the album decades later, in low-quality sound files and free of all context of “what it meant” in its time, I found it to come across like a forbidden, ciphered object, an ancient, dusty artifact, or the product of a dream, bubbled up from some deep, subconscious murk. It’s probably the most “cyberpunk” a record has ever felt like — not the cyberpunk of sleek, glossy products and corporate neon, but the cyberpunk that is coated in grime, dripping with smog and gutter steam. It’s in this world that exist both the liquid mercury propulsion of “So Many Dreams” and the lurching, crunchy pulse of “Anita’s Dream”. But there is something else to be had here; you can feel it in the mystical nature of the reverbed sound effects, and certainly in the soulful vocals that call out, in longing or in bliss, disembodied like specters. The secret to the record's beauty is that it presents this first layer of some ugliness, of rusted-up, humid tech, and then reveals, behind it, the second layer of ethereality and lushness.
[First added to this chart: 08/25/2016]
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Not easy to describe the exact feelings brought up by this album — how the “Ready Lets Go” opener could be almost soothing in its bed of fuzz and late-night television jingles, but with something disquieting underneath, something just slightly off. And then how “Music is Math” lunges in, breaks free the phantoms, leaves you there struck with vertigo, with something heavy weighing the pit of your stomach. It encapsulates the whole experience of the album, which tastes lightly of metal in your mouth and progresses like the onset of fever and tremors. It conjures up blurred, half-remembered images from the murk of film grain and analog broadcasts. In your fevered state, you might think there are hidden meanings and connections in the great jumble of accumulated images beamed at your head throughout your life. Or maybe you simply find comfort in this notion, no matter how fake, because how else could you parse out and make sense of this coexisting mental deluge? Despite the dark places it goes to, by the time of its final string of more hopeful tracks, you might be soothed back down, feeling like you can see the sunshine again. And yet, maybe you’ll never shake that feeling that there’s something still lurking in that closing “Magic Window” track of silence.
[First added to this chart: 10/11/2015]
Year of Release:
2002
Appears in:
Rank Score:
3,400
Rank in 2002:
Rank in 2000s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
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It’s easy to talk about Nihiloxica in terms of “cultures meeting” and “modernity meets tradition”. And, no question about it, it’s accurate too. These tensions and contrasts are an essential part of the band’s music. But when you actually listen to an album like this and let it wash over you, distinctions of culture, tradition, modernity, are, in the moment of that first collision, scrubbed away, and you're put in a place where the only reality is power, potency, anger, freedom. The way “Nilo Chug” enters ominously, builds and builds, then bursts open and pours down the monsoon that lasts for the remainder of the track. While “Kadodi” speeds in right from the start and just pounds relentlessly for over five minutes of continuous fever. And the moment in “Endongo” when the percussion breaks off into that brooding synth interlude, which is simply menacing, the calm at the eye of the storm. The rugged synth work and frenetic percussion make this close to an industrial project. In the end, the record fades out in a spectral synth, leaving behind the aftermath of a raw, kinetic force, a hurricane or earthquake.
[First added to this chart: 06/06/2019]
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This wasn’t the first product of the transatlantic collab between the most talented Detroit producers of their day and the legendary Berlin-based label Tresor, but anything it might lose in terms of sheer led-bolted harshness compared to its “X-101” predecessor, it more than makes up for in thematic ambition. Really, the concept is what sets it apart from any other 90s techno release, that being an outerplanetary voyage through the orbit of the great ringed Saturn. This allows, before all else, for a chance to bask in the pitch-black emptiness of space, best felt in the string-laden opening track. The following tracks each correspond to one of the celestial bodies and formations that girdle the giant. So there’s an array of personalities present, which lets every X-102 member show their trademark sound, from the steely abrasiveness of Mills, the minimalism of Hood and the soulfulness of Banks. But the whole record can be seen as an exercise in buildup, as you anticipate the nearing moment of planetary contact, which, of course, comes in the climactic final track, a walloping giant in its own right. So the narrative is the record’s great feat, from the quiet, brooding start all the way to the celebratory, bombastic end.
[First added to this chart: 02/20/2018]
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NIN’s earlier work, by being looser and more spontaneous, also felt angrier in a blind, caged animal sort of way. The Fragile is, in comparison a labored, deliberate work, one that aims to say bigger things. Maybe it loses some immediacy as consequence, but it also becomes a meatier, more substantive record, while still seething with rage and finding itself squarely caught in the horror of the whirlwind.
It's music of decrepitude, but with the sheen of high production values. Rancid and festering enough, but marrying the corroded, chafed metal textures with a crispy clean beauty in rendering, almost challenging you to be, at once, repulsed by its rusty factory ooze and compelled by some hard-to-describe pristine glow. And when “Somewhat Damaged” or “The Wretched” hit, it's hard not to feel both the repulsion and the allure in how those bright red blood vessels throb away.
But the larger appeal of NIN's music is in its affective impact. The emotions are always bare, exposed, sincere, although for all its young, hot-headed fervor, a bit of playfulness, rhythm or self-awareness is usually not too far away. But its crucial aspect, the core of its strength, is that it throws that cathartic punch that can only come from someone who has been at the deep end where most of us don’t venture. [First added to this chart: 08/06/2023]
It's music of decrepitude, but with the sheen of high production values. Rancid and festering enough, but marrying the corroded, chafed metal textures with a crispy clean beauty in rendering, almost challenging you to be, at once, repulsed by its rusty factory ooze and compelled by some hard-to-describe pristine glow. And when “Somewhat Damaged” or “The Wretched” hit, it's hard not to feel both the repulsion and the allure in how those bright red blood vessels throb away.
But the larger appeal of NIN's music is in its affective impact. The emotions are always bare, exposed, sincere, although for all its young, hot-headed fervor, a bit of playfulness, rhythm or self-awareness is usually not too far away. But its crucial aspect, the core of its strength, is that it throws that cathartic punch that can only come from someone who has been at the deep end where most of us don’t venture. [First added to this chart: 08/06/2023]
Year of Release:
1999
Appears in:
Rank Score:
2,606
Rank in 1999:
Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
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It’s an album designed to be so cryptic and monumental that it can eclipse the artist and be perceived like a cosmic mystery. Feels, in scope and presentation, tailor-made to be dug up from old sands, discovered among crumbled ruins, maybe far in the future by an alien race, a cryptic message, an attempt by some intelligence to broadcast a signal out there. Despite how monolithic, faceless, almost uncaring it seems at times, it does contain sections of soothing, cradling beauty in tracks like #3 and #17, which are deservedly beloved. In context, they feel like the work is of such cosmic magnitude, so permeated into and in touch with everything in the universe, that it occasionally brushes up against human emotion too. But I’m more fond of the deep space horror side of it, in tracks like the string-laden #10, the siren call of #4 or the blanket of white noise that is #16. They seem like glimpses at the other side of the cosmos, the forbidden, nameless side, with passages and halls that you’d dare not cross lest you go mad with terror.
[First added to this chart: 08/06/2023]
Year of Release:
1994
Appears in:
Rank Score:
2,060
Rank in 1994:
Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Total albums: 100. Page 1 of 10
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Top 100 Greatest Music Albums composition
| Decade | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1930s | 0 | 0% | |
| 1940s | 0 | 0% | |
| 1950s | 2 | 2% | |
| 1960s | 5 | 5% | |
| 1970s | 16 | 16% | |
| 1980s | 12 | 12% | |
| 1990s | 22 | 22% | |
| 2000s | 21 | 21% | |
| 2010s | 17 | 17% | |
| 2020s | 5 | 5% |
| Artist | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|||
| Popol Vuh (DE) | 4 | 4% | |
| Drexciya | 3 | 3% | |
| Scientist | 2 | 2% | |
| Björk | 2 | 2% | |
| OutKast | 2 | 2% | |
| Radiohead | 2 | 2% | |
| Queens Of The Stone Age | 2 | 2% | |
| Show all | |||
| Country | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|||
| |
43 | 43% | |
 |
17 | 17% | |
 |
9 | 9% | |
 |
8 | 8% | |
 |
3 | 3% | |
 |
3 | 3% | |
| |
3 | 3% | |
| Show all | |||
Top 100 Greatest Music Albums chart changes
| Biggest climbers |
|---|
| Up 14 from 29th to 15th Einsjäger & Siebenjäger by Popol Vuh (DE) |
| Up 11 from 20th to 9th The Fragile by Nine Inch Nails |
| Up 6 from 48th to 42nd iAsia by James Ferraro |
| Biggest fallers |
|---|
| Down 10 from 11th to 21st Radio Ethiopia by Patti Smith Group |
| Down 10 from 36th to 46th Satori by Flower Travellin' Band |
| Down 7 from 9th to 16th Songs For The Deaf by Queens Of The Stone Age |
| Leavers |
|---|
| By The Time I Get To Phoenix by Injury Reserve |
| Igor by Tyler, The Creator |
| Clube Da Esquina by Milton Nascimento / Lô Borges |
| Rain Dogs by Tom Waits |
| Acabou Chorare by Novos Baianos |
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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 29 ratings for this chart.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Chart ratings | Avg. chart rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ! | 03/08/2025 06:31 | Scrabbler | 3 | 60/100 |
| ! | 01/25/2025 14:14 |  SomethingSpecial | 1,104 | 85/100 |
| ! | 07/04/2024 14:12 | BraddlesHendo | 497 | 91/100 |
| ! | 04/02/2023 04:49 | Moondance | 476 | 85/100 |
| ! | 04/01/2023 21:02 | Johnnyo | 2,557 | 80/100 |
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 2% of all charts on BestEverAlbums.com. This chart has a Bayesian average rating of 90.0/100, a mean average of 91.2/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 91.3/100. The standard deviation for this chart is 6.9.
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Top 100 Greatest Music Albums comments
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From Scrabbler 03/08/2025 05:44 | #307921
Well done sir.. A truly remarkable list. I'm going to stay here awhile... and learn a lot. Thankyou.
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From Moondance 04/02/2023 04:55 | #295695
An admirable chart - nice, fairly even spread across the decades; great diversity across nations (although a bit disappointed to see that Australia/New Zealand have been overlooked again). It was also nice to read that your family introduced you to Bob Dylan ~ and now you have 2 Dylan albums in your top 100.
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From 
DeusExMackia 02/16/2023 11:30 | #294084
DeusExMackia 02/16/2023 11:30 | #294084
Absolutely outstanding. So much stuff I've never heard of before. Love your thinking with this.
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From 
Cardboardfolder 12/01/2018 14:30 | #225983
Cardboardfolder 12/01/2018 14:30 | #225983
I love how personnal your chart is!
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From 
ForegroundNoise 12/01/2018 10:11 | #225976
ForegroundNoise 12/01/2018 10:11 | #225976
Such a great chart! A lovely mix of music, I really love your taste. That's a shame about the comments you removed, I would have loved to see them!
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From 
guzguzgarbit 12/01/2018 09:47 | #225975
guzguzgarbit 12/01/2018 09:47 | #225975
Very good chart, lot of interesting choices
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From 
arthurbittencourt 12/15/2017 02:47 | #203128
arthurbittencourt 12/15/2017 02:47 | #203128
congratulations for one of the best lists in this site!!!!!
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From 
JulianR 12/12/2017 06:42 | #203001
JulianR 12/12/2017 06:42 | #203001
solid stuff! I would rec Untitled Unmastered if you havent heard it, but I would guess you have already
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From 
Davy 06/08/2017 16:28 | #192241
Davy 06/08/2017 16:28 | #192241
Original collection. Totally agree with your notes :D
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From Weepingguitarman 06/08/2017 15:12 | #192235
Universal classics mixed with really unique picks. This is what I come to this site for. Great chart
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
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