Top 100 Greatest Music Albums by desh79
- Chart updated: 12/22/2023 12:45
- (Created: 12/22/2016 10:22).
- Chart size: 100 albums.
There are 34 comments for this chart from BestEverAlbums.com members and Top 100 Greatest Music Albums has an average rating of 90 out of 100 (from 73 votes). Please log in or register to leave a comment or assign a rating.
View the complete list of 53,000 charts on BestEverAlbums.com from The Charts page.
This chart is currently filtered to only show albums from the 1990s. (Remove this filter)
I'll admit that I very occasionally wonder what it would be like to meet my favourite rock musicians and have a beer with them. Paul McCartney would be jolly and jovial (but not without a hint of "Yes, I don't know what it's like to hear Sgt. Pepper for the first time, you're not the first person to say that, you dimwit"). Laurie Anderson would be, erm, interesting. Yoko Ono would probably never stop talking. Lou Reed would be very rude at first but would hopefully warm to me once he realised I was a huge fan with intricate knowledge of his entire back catalogue (Rest in peace, Lou).
Kurt Cobain? What if he had lived and we, through some off chance, would have met in Bryant Park or Piccadilly Circus or a Munich beer garden or wherever my mind takes me? Frankly, I have no idea what I would say to him. I love his music, but what would I ask? What would I say? I genuinely have no idea. Cobain usually came across as a bit tight-lipped and monosyllabic in interviews, so he's a total contradiction in that his art had elements that were profound and essential, yet the guy who made it frankly seemed a bit of a dope (though that is not counting the Jon Savage 1993 interview, which I recommending googling and then listening to in full, it's absolutely fascinating from beginning to end). One could blame the drugs, of course, but that's a topic for another day.
As is so often the case with music (and any other art form), it's the wider, meta repercussion that matters, and Nirvana's second album was basically a moment in history where a style of music that had been part of the underground for the best part of a decade suddenly became mainstream, and in spectacular fashion to boot. Nevermind replacing Michael Jackson's Dangerous at the top of the Billboard album charts was a symbolic moment, make no mistake about that; one that kickstarted a golden era where genres like alternative rock and industrial metal entered the mainstream radar and effectively replaced the poodle rock which had dominated the scene up until that point (as Henry Rollins put it, "Nirvana slayed the hair bands"). I could go on about how the early 90s were generally such an optimistic period with the end of the Cold War, Clinton in the White House, Twin Peaks on the telly, etc, etc, but... again, that's also a topic for another day.
Though I will freely admit that Nevermind initially passed me by when it was released. I knew about it, saw the cover, thought the naked baby was a bit silly and naff, and didn't really pay much attention when Teen Spirit came on MTV. Heck, I was 12 years old at the time, I was too busy playing Monkey Island on my Atari ST and trying to figure out (and mostly failing) how to talk to girls. It was two years later, when the grunge wave had reached Germany proper and both Pearl Jam and Nirvana were about to release their second albums, that I realised something was afoot here. I was 14, just about to enter the Angry Young Man phase of my life, that I found myself slap bang in the target group for this type of music. So the significance of this album only came to me a couple of years late, and Cobain's eventual suicide embellished it, albeit in very tragic circumstances.
Part of the album's commercial success obviously was due to the fact that musically, underneath the layers of guitars, this is very much a pop album, something even the band themselves acknowledged (Cobain initially wanted to call Nevermind's follow up-album "Verse Chorus Verse"). Cobain's self-awareness and self-reflection, apparent through much of his work, not to mention all the diary entries and lyrics that have been posthumously released, suggest that there was a deeply intelligent and thoughtful man hiding underneath this Northwestern lumberjack-shirt-wearing dope. I kid, of course. There's a very good chance I would have liked him a lot and that we would have gotten on like a house on fire, in that parallel world where he decided not to pull the trigger, got himself together, made a few rather non-commercial but absolutely brilliant albums before leaving the music industry, watched his daughter Frances grow up, and lived a long and happy and fulfilled life. That parallel world exists, I'm sure of it. And the beer's on me, of course. [First added to this chart: 12/22/2016]
I will, however, add this: for a 17-year old who had spent the previous two years in Britpop narcolepsy, this was an utter revelation. Rock and electronic music can actually mix? Whaaaa? [First added to this chart: 12/22/2016]
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 | 12 | 12% | |
1970s | 27 | 27% | |
1980s | 17 | 17% | |
1990s | 29 | 29% | |
2000s | 12 | 12% | |
2010s | 3 | 3% | |
2020s | 0 | 0% |
Artist | Albums | % | |
---|---|---|---|
|
|||
The Beatles | 4 | 4% | |
R.E.M. | 4 | 4% | |
The Doors | 3 | 3% | |
Pink Floyd | 3 | 3% | |
Radiohead | 2 | 2% | |
The Residents | 2 | 2% | |
David Bowie | 2 | 2% | |
Show all |
Country | Albums | % | |
---|---|---|---|
|
|||
46 | 46% | ||
38 | 38% | ||
6 | 6% | ||
3 | 3% | ||
3 | 3% | ||
1 | 1% | ||
1 | 1% | ||
Show all |
Top 100 Greatest Music Albums chart changes
There have been no changes to this chart.Top 100 Greatest Music Albums similar charts
- The BEA Friendly Chart by alelsupreme (2015)
- Most Acclaimed Music Albums by Imaybeparanoid (2015)
- 100 Greatest Albums Ever by Q (2006)
- BEA Top 100 Reorganized According To My Taste by bonnequestion (2024)
- ranking the overall top 100 by OKC1 (2016)
- BEA+RYM Overall Rank by Imaybeparanoid (2017)
- BEA's Top 100 - The Correct Order by babyBlueSedan (2020)
- Re-Ranking BEA's Top 100 by sunnydhamm (2020)
- Overall Top 100 Ranked Correctly by Mother Nature's Son (2014)
- Rearrange Top 100 by Larcx13 (2020)
Top 100 Greatest Music Albums similarity to your chart(s)
Not a member? Registering is quick, easy and FREE!
Why register?
- Join a passionate community of over 50,000 music fans.
- Create & share your own charts.
- Have your say in the overall rankings.
- Post comments in the forums and vote on polls.
- Comment on or rate any album, artist, track or chart.
- Discover new music & improve your music collection.
- Customise the overall chart using a variety of different filters & metrics.
- Create a wishlist of albums.
- Help maintain the BEA database.
- Earn member points and gain access to increasing levels of functionality!
- ... And lots more!
Register now - it only takes a moment!
Top 100 Greatest Music Albums ratings
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 73 ratings for this chart.
Rating | Date updated | Member | Chart ratings | Avg. chart rating |
---|---|---|---|---|
03/03/2023 22:06 | Rm12398 | 99 | 89/100 | |
01/04/2023 22:24 | Moondance | 455 | 84/100 | |
01/04/2023 17:41 | Johnnyo | 2,014 | 80/100 | |
05/28/2022 12:34 | Brandon8 | 40 | 88/100 | |
04/02/2022 06:28 | seb7 | 105 | 91/100 |
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 3% of all charts on BestEverAlbums.com. This chart has a Bayesian average rating of 89.9/100, a mean average of 90.5/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 90.5/100. The standard deviation for this chart is 7.0.
Please log in or register if you want to be able to leave a rating
Top 100 Greatest Music Albums favourites
Showing all 3 members who have added this chart as a favourite
Top 100 Greatest Music Albums comments
Showing latest 10 comments | Show all 34 comments |
Most Helpful First | Newest First | Maximum Rated First |
Longest Comments First
(Only showing comments with -2 votes or higher. You can alter this threshold from your profile page. Manage Profile)
Really loved reading the write ups and the stories as to why these albums have resonated so much with you over the years. Great list!
A very interesting chart that spans the decades and reveals a unique musical taste ~ and the comments add flavour to your selections ~ which is always a nice BEA touch.
It was refreshing to see Lou Reed's 'New York' in there along with 'Transformer'.
An extra bonus point for including one album from south of the equator.
Great chart. Love the selections but also the work that has gone into putting this together. Cudos.
Cool list with a lot of fun picks and a lot of similar choices. Maybe a little rock-centric, but thats just me
Great list (and agree with CharlieBarley that I also like the included notes!) Always good to see Devo in a list on here and amazing to see The Residents included, one of my favourite bands! Definitely got some more bands / albums that I'll be checking out from your list too, and also revisiting some classics that I haven't heard for a while - starting with The Madcap Laughs (it's been too long since I heard that fantastic album!)
I don't know why I never rate people's charts; especially one's that I like. Better late than never I suppose :) Loving the Susumu Hirasawa pick, and your notes are well done.
Very interesting choices! Love the work you put in some of these texts.
Great chart! i love that you included some OST's from movies and games. There are some pretty interesting picks, i gotta listen to a lot of these records!
charis missing, good taste
good chart!!!1
Commenting again! Haha. I need to listen to that Love album again. Godspeed is great! Love REM. Love Big Science by Laurie Anderson, keep moving it up my main chart. White album is fantastic obviously, I even use to consider it my all time favorite but I rarely listen to the Beatles anymore. 17 artists in common, nice!
Please log in or register if you want to be able to add a comment
Your feedback for Top 100 Greatest Music Albums
A lot of hard work happens in the background to keep BEA running, and it's especially difficult to do this when we can't pay our hosting fees :(
We work very hard to ensure our site is as fast (and FREE!) as possible, and we respect your privacy.