Top 100 Greatest Music Albums by mianfei 
This is a rough guide to the 100 greatest albums I have listened to.
Two albums only per artist – with artists related by personnel counted as one – and with the classical recordings one recording per composition.
Especially the lower-ranked albums on the list will be subject to revision as I have a very large backlog of recordings to listen (and re-listen) to.
- Chart updated: 08/30/2024 13:15
- (Created: 05/13/2019 10:35).
- Chart size: 100 albums.
There are 25 comments for this chart from BestEverAlbums.com members and Top 100 Greatest Music Albums has an average rating of 86 out of 100 (from 44 votes). Please log in or register to leave a comment or assign a rating.
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This chart is currently filtered to only show albums from the 1990s. (Remove this filter)
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The greatest classical recording of all time, and the most singular. Dominique takes on Messiaen’s unique piano pieces from European bird songs and sculpts them into something truly wild in a way Hill, Austbø and Muraro (all brilliant in themselves) cannot. The amazing thing is that one can be enchanted by ‘Complete Bird Music for Piano Solo’ without listening all the way through it, and the startling mood changes mean it never get boring for a second even when one is familiar. The degree to which Messiaen’s piano tones actually recreate the sounds of nature is quite extraordinary even after hearing a small piece of ‘Complete Bird Music for Piano Solo’ and a small section of the songs of the species on which the compositions are based is equally remarkable, yet the pieces are so spontaneous that they take little patience to appreciate as the works of wonder that they are.
[First added to this chart: 05/13/2019]
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A startling fusion of disparate elements — rock, tribal, sampling — ‘This Timeless Turning’ is a work of oceanic and otherworldly depth from a city more known for its angry, materialistic and tuneless grunge. Anisa Romero’s ability to maintain perfect melody without a trace of anger even amidst high amplification is unrivalled by any other singer, as seen on ‘Scapegoat’, ‘Deep Sunless Sea’ and the last part of ‘Vuh’. On the softer ‘Don’t Forget the Sky’, Anisa projects a vocal tone with a depth of breath that no other singer can, and on ‘These Old Bones’ the band updates Roxy Music’s ‘Avalon’ into a tale of reincarnation so sweet that the careful listener will always be entwined. The incantory power of the whole record far surpasses any antecedents from the 1960s, even Amon Düül II. No other record portrays the dark depths of nature with such power as ‘This Timeless Turning’ and its also-brilliant successor ‘Moonbathing on Sleeping Leaves’.
[First added to this chart: 05/13/2019]
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An undisputed landmark for its fusion of the most simplistic hardcore with the most dynamic and bare-bones jazz into something entirely new and heart-wrenching, ‘Spiderland’ stands pivotal to its era. Brian McMahan’s deep, poetic, spoken vocals and the stark, quiet-to-loud dynamics on ‘Breadcrumb Trail’, ‘Don, Aman’ (which reminds me of Joni’s ‘Coyote’ in its acoustic/electric fusion), ‘Washer’ and ‘Good Morning, Captain’ take the vocal tone of theatrical performance art and make them into a totally new version of music, not even hinted in Slint’s previous work.
[First added to this chart: 05/13/2019]
Year of Release:
1991
Appears in:
Rank Score:
12,673
Rank in 1991:
Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
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For sensual art song, this album has never been bettered. Dominique’s other major Messiaen recording is the unparalleled ‘Complete Bird Music’ (#3) but this one too must be acknowledged as an unequalled rendition for austere dynamic power on the twelve songs of ‘Harawi’, sang with total spontaneity and lack of restraint by Dorow, who avoid the pomposity that mars so much classical singing. The quiet parts possess a wonderful allure like a man finding his lover, and the more upbeat parts show the happiest joy ever heard in song.
[First added to this chart: 05/13/2019]
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Like ‘Laughing Stock’, ‘Dummy’ re-established the definition of “alternative” in a manner I did not notice from my cloistered suburban background. Whereas rap of the era was simply removing the melody from 1970s soul music to create noise suitable for advertising, ‘Dummy’ did just the reverse, it used sampling and rhythm to expand the melodies and atmospheres of such past masters as Laura Nyro, Bryan Ferry, Al Green etc. In the process Geoff Barrow and Adrian Utley created a genre equally incomparable with anything preceding it as Slint or the Romeros. The songs, especially the first four, are utterly flawless compositions.
[First added to this chart: 05/13/2019]
Year of Release:
1994
Appears in:
Rank Score:
16,824
Rank in 1994:
Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
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Almost as important as ‘Spiderland’, ‘Laughing Stock’ is where “alternative” music really diverged into two camps — tuneless noisy grunge or artier experimental forms. Talk Talk’s incorporation of orchestral elements was much deeper than attempted by 1970s progressive rock bands — on ‘Myrrhman’, ‘Taphead’ and ‘Runeii’ they form a wholly integral part of the sound and texture, creating something with a similar “post-rock” aesthetic to ‘Spiderland’ but even more despairing. Then, ‘Ascension Day’ is simultaneously the most hellish cry for redemption from sin, and the most powerful rock song of the 1990s.
[First added to this chart: 05/13/2019]
Year of Release:
1991
Appears in:
Rank Score:
9,079
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Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
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The purest example of a traditional art, Anne Briggs’ a capella singing on ‘A Collection’ reveals a genuine bard(ess) at her most touching. Whilst folk singing and the songs here have been around for centuries, the way in which Anne Briggs places her person in the form of her jazzy voice into these traditional songs is something everybody should hear. The simple beauty of ‘The Doffing Mistress’, ‘Lowlands’, ‘The Whirly Whorl’ and ‘The Stonecutter Boy’ goes to the deepest roots of English culture. Then in the second half — recorded eight years after Anne’s first A.L. Lloyd-inspired recordings — there is ‘Living by the Water’ the most beautiful and simplest statement of profound solitude in nature ever put into song, and the equally beautiful and simple traditional songs ‘The Snow It Melts the Soonest’ and ‘Thorneymoor Woods’ which evoke a lost beauty that modernity cannot quench the desire for.
[First added to this chart: 05/13/2019]
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The label “alternative” may have put me off as a student, but ‘Loveless’ deserves every part of its reputation as a landmark for the way it used electric guitars to create sound worlds not seen in music before. Rather than simply amplify at the cost of any sort of tune, Kevin Shields’ labours on ‘Loveless’ make a record that shows what ambient music would sound like with amplified guitars. The whole of ‘Loveless’ reads like a child’s romantic dream, but in doing so it creates a variety of tones from the echo-ey ‘Loomer’ to the soft ‘To Here Knows When’ and the childlike ‘Blown a Wish’, whilst remaining hooky and memorable all through. Being hooky is a feat most “atmospheric” or “ambient” or “new age” music never even attempts and thus comes off as unlistenably pretentious, making ‘Loveless’ all the more remarkable and unmissable.
[First added to this chart: 05/13/2019]
Year of Release:
1991
Appears in:
Rank Score:
29,763
Rank in 1991:
Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
37. (=)
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As for the dark depths of martyrdom opposing sin, Soviet composer Sofia Gubaidulina’s work here is the most beautifully intense classical exploration of such. The tone of the bayan (button accordion) and cello complement each other perfectly in imaging the gruesome death of Jesus as found in the gospels and imagined in the stories of many contemporary mystics, and highly relevant in the context of mass murder in Stalinist Russia. The epic pitch shifting of ‘In Croce’, ‘Silenzio’ and ‘Sieben Wörter’ capture in sound the death of someone fighting against a society’s sins with an atmosphere deeper than even Jennifer Bate’s organ performances — literally winding the listeners way into a mystery.
[First added to this chart: 05/13/2019]
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For all-out psychedelia, this album is quite unrivalled with its flowing melodies and electronic sounds that never sound anything other than melodic. Most psychedelia from the 1960s is ruined by pseudo-operatic or spoken-word vocals, but David Baker here managed to perfectly complement the music, which unlike so much of that early psychedelic “rock” really does rock out with power. Baker’s ability to turn from piercing falsetto to melodic baritone adds to this, as does Suzanne Thorpe’s ability to use her flute to create melodies more jazz than free jazz on ‘Coney Island Cyclone’. The quiet-to-loud dynamics on ‘Syringe Mouth’, ‘Coney Island Cyclone’ and ‘Sweet Odyssey of a Cancer Cell to the Center of Your Heart’ mark the beginning of post-rock just as much as Slint, while the creepy piano-based ‘Blue and Black’ and ‘Very Sleepy Rivers’ express the emptiness of “Rust Belt” life like no other music.
[First added to this chart: 05/13/2019]
Year of Release:
1991
Appears in:
Rank Score:
1,858
Rank in 1991:
Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Total albums: 21. Page 1 of 3
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Top 100 Greatest Music Albums composition
| Decade | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
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| 1930s | 0 | 0% | |
| 1940s | 0 | 0% | |
| 1950s | 0 | 0% | |
| 1960s | 12 | 12% | |
| 1970s | 30 | 30% | |
| 1980s | 16 | 16% | |
| 1990s | 21 | 21% | |
| 2000s | 10 | 10% | |
| 2010s | 9 | 9% | |
| 2020s | 2 | 2% |
| Artist | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
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| Talk Talk | 2 | 2% | |
| Roxy Music | 2 | 2% | |
| Julia Holter | 2 | 2% | |
| Joanna Newsom | 2 | 2% | |
| Laura Nyro | 2 | 2% | |
| Van Morrison | 2 | 2% | |
| Steely Dan | 2 | 2% | |
| Show all | |||
| Country | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
53 | 53% | |
 |
27 | 27% | |
 |
5 | 5% | |
 |
4 | 4% | |
 |
3 | 3% | |
 |
2 | 2% | |
 |
1 | 1% | |
| Show all | |||
Top 100 Greatest Music Albums chart changes
| Biggest climbers |
|---|
| Up 1 from 87th to 86th The Power Of The True Love Knot by Shirley Collins |
| Up 1 from 86th to 85th The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle by Bruce Springsteen |
| Up 1 from 23rd to 22nd Funkentelechy Vs. The Placebo Syndrome by Parliament |
| Biggest fallers |
|---|
| Down 3 from 17th to 20th Laughing Stock by Talk Talk |
| Down 2 from 21st to 23rd Aviary by Julia Holter |
| Down 2 from 85th to 87th Witchy Activities And The Maple Death by Monika Roscher Bigband |
Top 100 Greatest Music Albums similar charts
| Title | Source | Type | Published | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Top 100 Music Albums of the 1970s | mianfei | 1970s decade chart | 2023 | |
| Top 65 Music Albums of the 1990s | mianfei | 1990s decade chart | 2021 | |
| Top 100 Greatest Music Albums | hairymarx1 | Overall chart | 2016 | |
| Top 100 Greatest Music Albums |  The Gollux | Overall chart | 2024 | |
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| Top 100 Greatest Music Albums |  AfterHours | Overall chart | 2025 | |
| PPV Overall Ranking | bea | Custom chart | 2021 | |
| Mojo 100 Greatest Albums of All Time (1995) | WayneMC | Custom chart | 2019 | |
| RYM Average Rating | Imaybeparanoid | Custom chart | 2016 | |
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Top 100 Greatest Music Albums ratings
86/100 (from 44 votes)
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 44 ratings for this chart.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Chart ratings | Avg. chart rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
85/100  | 03/06/2025 20:34 |  SomethingSpecial | | 85/100 |
95/100 | 11/29/2024 21:59 | oilnoilnoilnoil | | 93/100 |
 100/100 | 01/14/2024 06:23 | shanelovesyou111 | | 82/100 |
| 100/100 | 10/25/2023 17:49 |  sageamagoo | | 92/100 |
| 100/100 | 03/25/2023 12:27 |  LedZep | | 84/100 |
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 has a Bayesian average rating of 86.3/100, a mean average of 84.7/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 86.4/100. The standard deviation for this chart is 20.0.
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Top 100 Greatest Music Albums comments
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95/100
From oilnoilnoilnoil 11/29/2024 22:00
Awesome chart! Love the comments! I'm coming here for my next music recommendation.
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From 
Hayden 09/14/2024 14:57
Hayden 09/14/2024 14:57
Thank you Mianfei— you may very well be right. That sole entry from the 80s window isn't even technically an album! Please Don't Play "A Rainy Night In Georgia" is much closer to an EP than anything. I only recently removed an 80s album (Accordion & Voice by Pauline Oliveros), albeit from early on in the decade.
Candidates from that window? MBV's You Made Me Realise, Swordfishtrombones, Lubomyr Melnyk's The Voice Of Trees, maybe After Dinner's s/t— but I'm not going to act like the mid-80s were my favourite time for music. I lean far more towards the vibe of '80-82.
Hope you find something you like though. I have about 3-4 albums being swapped out somepoint soon. Going through a slight rejig.
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
100/100
From sageamagoo 01/15/2024 19:59
sageamagoo 01/15/2024 19:59
Hejira blew my mind, clearly a landmark work of fusion and poetry! This is exactly the kind of music I've spent my life searching for. Hearing the essential contributions women have made to music could not be more important to me, and your chart is full of exactly that.
Not hard to tell when someone's true passion lies in exploring the depths of this world's music. Your chart is learned with a lifetime of research and I will happily reference it for my own pursuits.
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
95/100
From zrommeke 03/25/2023 11:41
Impressive, interesting, inspiring!
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
90/100
From uphill 01/05/2023 15:26
Laika, Linda Perhacs, Joanna Newsom... lots of stuff that i would also rate high...
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
70/100
From Santiago 08/26/2021 04:57
I have discovered some artists that seem interesting and I am looking forward to listen to their records. On the other hand there are some artists that I know, but I think they are just OK and not good enough to be considered for the top positions of a "Greatest Music Album" chart. Thanks for posting this chart!
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +2 votes (2 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
75/100
From Moondance 07/06/2021 00:28
A thought provoking chart and your commentary on the first 50 albums reveals the deepest reflection in your music journey and should be applauded. I was a little disappointed not to see a single Australian artist/album make the top 100 grade.
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
90/100
From 
seb7 07/05/2021 21:34
seb7 07/05/2021 21:34
Not my picks, but a diverse chart nonetheless. Love seeing Hejira getting love.
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
100/100
From 
DommeDamian 07/05/2021 21:23
DommeDamian 07/05/2021 21:23
Oh my god this is great work buddy!
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
90/100
From Johnnyo 07/05/2021 15:54
Really nice and unique chart. I like it a lot
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
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