Top 100 Greatest Music Albums by jbfarmer

Growing up in a small town in Idaho, I’m surprised that my music taste ever became what it is. My dad was a music major for a few years in college, so I guess that combined with my obsession with the piano from a young age kinda just evolved over the years. There was a point where I was the only person I knew that liked my music outside of my family. I collected records and checked out this website all by myself. Eventually I had friends that I could relate to with this stuff. Feel free to check out their charts, too! keatownrodriguez and pjohnsongolf

A lot of these albums mean a lot to me and have been the soundtracks to important phases of my twenty years of life. There’s always more work to be done on this chart, but I can feel pretty good about it for now. After making this chart, I feel more like I just wrote an autobiography so I hope you can enjoy my story.

• Chart updated: 08/27/2022 18:45
• (Created: 07/13/2018 07:02).
• Chart size: 100 albums.

There are 2 comments for this chart from BestEverAlbums.com members and Top 100 Greatest Music Albums has an average rating of 88 out of 100 (from 3 votes). Please log in or register to leave a comment or assign a rating.

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13. (=)

Zenyatta Mondatta 

 The Police

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I love The Police to death. I had a compilation Cd of their stuff with some Sting songs on it, too. I listened to that a lot the winter of my Freshman year. I have a lot of good memories going for drives in the snow with my cousin and shooting guns with him at the range when it was cold while listening to The Police. This is also the odd reason that “Fields of Gold” always makes me think of winter. Synchronicity is a great album, but I think I like the songs that I like on Zenyatta Mondatta even more. Sting is one of my favorite vocalists, Andy Summers is probably my favorite guitarist ever, and Stewart Copeland is easily one of my favorite drummers. These guys had tons of talent and refused to do what everyone else was doing. The result of this was a timeless sound and some really great records.

Favorite Tracks: Don’t Stand so Close to Me, Driven to Tears, Bombs Away, Canary in a Cole Mine [First added to this chart: 12/13/2018]

Year of Release:

1980

Appears in:

353 charts

Rank Score:

1,650

Rank in 1980:

26

Rank in 1980s:

164

Overall Rank:

1,064

Average Rating:

 76 (525 votes)

Comments:

20

17. (=)

Doolittle 

 Pixies

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Too much time spent screaming “DEBASER” with my friends in the car to not love this album this much. Pixies are just fun all the time, and are always there when I need an energy shot. Great stuff.

Favorite Tracks: Debaser, This Monkey’s Gone to Heaven, Wave of Mutilation, Crackity Jones [First added to this chart: 12/13/2018]

Year of Release:

1989

Appears in:

2,541 charts

Rank Score:

33,018

Rank in 1989:

1

Rank in 1980s:

2

Overall Rank:

18

Average Rating:

 88 (2,939 votes)

Comments:

293

19.

Never For Ever 

 Kate Bush

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She’s brilliant, she’s exceptional, she’s a queen.

Favorite tracks: Babooshka, The Wedding List, Army Dreamers

Year of Release:

1980

Appears in:

270 charts

Rank Score:

1,555

Rank in 1980:

28

Rank in 1980s:

176

Overall Rank:

1,127

Average Rating:

 79 (381 votes)

Comments:

18

21. (20) 1

Eddie And The Cruisers 
Soundtrack

 John Cafferty And The Beaver Brown Band

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My dad showed me this movie when I was a kid. We quote it almost every time we have a conversation together. The movie would be nothing without this soundtrack. “Tender Years” can bring me to tears, and “On the Dark Side” is both a great song and a great joke that my dad and I reference from the movie a lot. I’ve never met anyone that knows anything about Eddie and the Cruisers, which really surprises me because it’s a classic in my book. Solid work from John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band to make music from a fictional band from a book into a music-themed-movie masterpiece.

Favorite Tracks: On the Dark Side, Tender Years, Season in Hell, Those Oldies but Goodies [First added to this chart: 12/13/2018]

Year of Release:

1983

Appears in:

13 charts

Rank Score:

67

Rank in 1983:

214

Rank in 1980s:

2,214

Overall Rank:

16,307

Average Rating:

 73 (20 votes)

Comments:

0

33. (32) 1

Thriller 

 Michael Jackson

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Timeless Best-Seller

Favorite Tracks: Beat it, Billie Jean [First added to this chart: 03/10/2022]

Year of Release:

1982

Appears in:

1,632 charts

Rank Score:

16,464

Rank in 1982:

1

Rank in 1980s:

8

Overall Rank:

71

Average Rating:

 82 (2,153 votes)

Comments:

162

40. (39) 1

Songs From The Big Chair 

 Tears For Fears

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Have ever been to natural hot springs in the winter? I highly recommend it. This album is the soundtrack to that experience. Especially if you go at night.

Favorite Tracks: Head Over Heals, Everybody Wants to Rule the World [First added to this chart: 03/10/2022]

Year of Release:

1985

Appears in:

633 charts

Rank Score:

5,232

Rank in 1985:

6

Rank in 1980s:

45

Overall Rank:

335

Average Rating:

 79 (686 votes)

Comments:

48

51. (50) 1

Only A Lad 

 Oingo Boingo

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This band is hilarious. Danny Elfman is hyper-expressive to the point that it’s funny. Plus, he went on to do some of my favorite movie scores. This is one band I would have loved to see when they were new just because of their energy.

Favorite Tracks: Little Girls, Only a Lad [First added to this chart: 03/10/2022]

Year of Release:

1981

Appears in:

45 charts

Rank Score:

228

Rank in 1981:

104

Rank in 1980s:

862

Overall Rank:

5,823

Average Rating:

 74 (62 votes)

Comments:

6

58. (57) 1

Look What The Cat Dragged In 

 Poison

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“Talk Dirty to Me” and “Rasputin” (by Boney M) were the biggest deal to me and my coworkers my first summer at the job I keep mentioning.

Favorite Tracks: Look What the Cat Dragged In, Talk Dirty to Me [First added to this chart: 03/10/2022]

Year of Release:

1986

Appears in:

55 charts

Rank Score:

139

Rank in 1986:

132

Rank in 1980s:

1,279

Overall Rank:

8,738

Average Rating:

 64 (81 votes)

Comments:

5

59. (58) 1

Pyromania 

 Def Leppard

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Favorite Tracks: Photograph, Rock of Ages [First added to this chart: 03/10/2022]

Year of Release:

1983

Appears in:

312 charts

Rank Score:

1,729

Rank in 1983:

16

Rank in 1980s:

158

Overall Rank:

1,016

Average Rating:

 73 (439 votes)

Comments:

27

64. (63) 1

Traveling Wilburys, Vol. 1 

 The Traveling Wilburys

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I can’t think of any other Superbands as put together as this one. These guys just seemed to have fun making music with other top-tier musicians.

Favorite Tracks: Handle With Care, Tweeter and the Monkey Man [First added to this chart: 03/10/2022]

Year of Release:

1988

Appears in:

321 charts

Rank Score:

2,220

Rank in 1988:

13

Rank in 1980s:

117

Overall Rank:

786

Average Rating:

 76 (392 votes)

Comments:

30

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Total albums: 14. Page 1 of 2

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Top 100 Greatest Music Albums composition

Decade	Albums	%
1930s	0	0%
1940s	0	0%
1950s	2	2%
1960s	7	7%
1970s	19	19%
1980s	14	14%
1990s	9	9%
2000s	20	20%
2010s	23	23%
2020s	6	6%

Artist	Albums	%
Queen	1	1%
Joy Division	1	1%
Asian Kung-Fu Generation	1	1%
Steely Dan	1	1%
Blink-182	1	1%
Jethro Tull	1	1%
Jacob Collier	1	1%
Show all

Country	Albums	%
	64	64%
	24	24%
	4	4%
	3	3%
	3	3%
	1	1%
	1	1%

Top 100 Greatest Music Albums chart changes

Biggest fallers
Down 1 from 19th to 20th Sheer Heart Attack by Queen
Down 1 from 20th to 21st Eddie And The Cruisers by John Cafferty And The Beaver Brown Band
Down 1 from 21st to 22nd Talking Book by Stevie Wonder

New entries
Never For Ever by Kate Bush

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

Top 100 Greatest Music Albums ratings

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Rating	Date updated	Member	Chart ratings	Avg. chart rating
100/100	12/19/2023 03:28	ChiefyArchie	1	100/100
80/100	09/24/2022 14:21	mutley88	29	79/100
100/100	04/11/2022 16:16	Larcx13	1,141	86/100

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Top 100 Greatest Music Albums comments

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Rating:  

100/100

From ChiefyArchie 12/19/2023 03:32

Never in history has more thought and time been put into a greatest albums of all time chart. This man is a legend and the only reason I ever found this website. The pure craziness and drastic differences from one artist to the next should tell you how much he knows music. I don’t have all the same favorite artists or albums, but I have major respect for this chart.

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Rating:  

80/100

From mutley88 09/24/2022 14:49

This is everything a BEA chart should be, though a lot of the albums on here aren't my cup of tea, the personal comments make it great would've rated 100 if every album had a comment. Came to this through a shared love for the Chicago album and would probably have skipped through it if not for the comments. I get how experience shapes the music we come to love, for example "Take Me Home Country Roads" A tune I once regarded with disdain has become a favourite memory now of a drunken karoake night in Thailand. I would like to return here years from now to see how it evolves over a time. If BEA had been around in my 20's it would have been a completely different chart to the one now, probably contain a lot more cheesy 80's synthpop.
Hope that is a typo in the Nirvana comment & that your brother loved & not lived a long time ago, was bit worried there. Never knew Robert Smith did a song with Blink 182.
as a postscript while typing this had that Plini album playing in the background, it's a grower. Nice one

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