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 2000s. (Remove this filter)
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Although artists like Carol Kleyn had used a harp as a folk/rock instrument, ‘The Milk-Eyed Mender’ is a totally unrivalled piece of work. Newsom’s childlike energy and wondrous lyrics may have been done before but the sound of ‘The Milk-Eyed Mender’, anchored by a unique mix of harp, piano and harpsichord, is wholly unparalleled, and Newsom’s voice has an innocence it does not on her later albums (all masterpieces and would have been included if I had no two-album limit). The songs meld with Newsom’s sound perfectly: ‘The Milk-Eyed Mender’ is not folk, nor rock, but a quite unique art form that forges an astounding succession of songs in the second half, highlighted by the piercing fairy voice of ‘Peach, Plum, Pear’ and ‘Three Little Babes’ alongside the unearthly beauty of ‘Swansea’, ‘Cassiopeia’ and ‘Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie’. As an impression of nature from the wondrous eyes of a child, there is quite simply no record like this, nor any record so indescribable in its simplicity and power.
[First added to this chart: 05/13/2019]
Year of Release:
2004
Appears in:
Rank Score:
2,602
Rank in 2004:
Rank in 2000s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
17
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An album to which I am a latecomer, but with a unique concept of combining traditional folksong with classical arrangements, ‘Night in Galicia’ loses nothing of either tradition and manages to show the power of Eastern European traditional singing better even than the much more famous ‘Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares’, in part because the chants are so much more epic. ‘A-A-A O-O-O Eh-Eh-Eh EE-EE-EE OO-OO-OO’, ‘The Meadow's Lowing Now Is Sinking’ entrance the listener in a repetitive “drone” frequently aimed at but seldom captured, because the vocals make a trance that drums cannot. This re-imagining of traditional music is why this album makes the Top Ten.
[First added to this chart: 05/13/2019]
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Ethan Miller on this seldom-spoken-about album produces the most blistering guitar melodies ever heard on record, and the first authentic fusion of alternative rock and free jazz. On their self-titled debut, Comets on Fire came across as a generic alternative band with some potential, but ‘Field Recordings from the Sun’ is something entirely different. Instead of the typical overblown and tune-free sound of 1990s “alternative” music, Miller and his band strip away unnecessary amplification to actually reveal a unique talent for creating the most brutal, heaviest, yet intensely melodic, soundscapes ever heard on record — misnamed “noise” because the guitars were so harsh. ‘Beneath the Iceage’ is so smooth that it never “stops” in that annoying fashion even when Miller’s powerful, throaty, voice enters the fray, and ‘Return to Heaven’ shows them as the best “jam” group since Duane Allman. Ben Chasny makes an appearance too on ‘The Unicorn’ and somehow overshadows the background electric guitar until the final climax, which manages to not recall ‘Don, Aman’. A true unheard masterpiece.
[First added to this chart: 06/03/2019]
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Whilst attempts to fuse rock with orchestration had been made ever since the 1970s, Godspeed You! Black Emperor remain the true masters because of their visceral brutality, which adds to the energy of both the rock and classical instruments as no group except perhaps Art Zoyd had ever previously approached — and Art Zoyd did not have the variety of textures Efrim Menuck and his band demonstrate here. The spoken-word vocal intros — which I generally dislike — are welded into the instrumental winding to create an apocalyptic feeling never managed before or since. As a generation’s feeling of despair towards those in power, the instrumental pieces on ‘Lift Yr Skinny Fists like Antennas to Heaven’ are unrivaled.
[First added to this chart: 05/13/2019]
Year of Release:
2000
Appears in:
Rank Score:
13,236
Rank in 2000:
Rank in 2000s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
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The first folk album to expand on ‘Hejira’’s inimitable sound? The only album to combine fingerstyle with vocalese? The most beautiful and most romantic acoustic album ever made? Houston duo Tom and Christina Carter had been making music together for over a decade when ‘Joy Shapes’ appeared in 2004, but nobody ever has managed to make something so simultaneously spartan, spaced-out, and beautiful as these five epic pieces. The slow pace is like nothing else and results in the crying voice of Christina Carter weaves itself in a wonderful way over the slow acoustic beats, accompanied by background electric guitar that adds to the mood. Never before had acoustic music actually been made of “beats” in the way ‘Joy Shapes’ was from the beginning of opener ‘Here Not Here’ until the end of ‘Voice for You’. In spite of the potential for monotony, the tone of these beats varies greatly from the twinkling ‘Stroke’ to the John Fahey-like opener. Intensely physical and sensual yet abstract, ‘Joy Shapes’ is a completely unique soundscape of romantic love that may require immense patience, but rewards those who listen closely with vocal and guitar sounds that are truly “out there”.
[First added to this chart: 05/13/2019]
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As a reinvention of pop music, this album was the first after the punk era to show that “pop” could be transformed into “art”. Annie Clark on ‘Marry Me’ takes the interwoven soundscapes of dream pop and makes them into something that may appear to resemble rock music, but which really sounds like neither. The textures of first track ‘Now, Now’ are neither the melodic, incomprehensible vocals of Fraser, Gerrard or Haslam, nor the grating vocals of so many female rockers from the 1990s. Instead, the guitars and electronics are woven into a singular pop sound whose lyrics succinctly expressed the anger of the masses in the 2000s, as seen on second track ‘Jesus Saves, I Spend’ and album centrepiece ‘Paris Is Burning’. Then, ‘Your Lips Are Red’ goes even deeper into the decay of the world after the September 11 attacks, and manages like no other song to combine pop simplicity with mock-classical variation in textures, whilst ‘Marry Me’, ‘Landmines’ and ‘What, Me, Worry’ take on a softer texture with a sexual frankness that few albums can manage.
[First added to this chart: 05/13/2019]
Year of Release:
2007
Appears in:
Rank Score:
634
Rank in 2007:
Rank in 2000s:
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Average Rating:
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Damn McCarthy here re-invigorates an old template for an era when it was much more countercultural than traditional folk ever was during the 1960s and early 1970s — in the process predating the “freak folk” movement of the middle 2000s without being heard. The dark fairytales of ‘Mother Twilight’ are accompanied by a stark production and gymnastic vocals far removed from older exponents of folk song: even Kate Bush could never match what Dawn does on ‘Hela’ or ‘Catch Me’, and the a cappella ‘Beautiful Blade’ shows the eclecticism that would make freak folk with its wordless whistling amidst mystical mantras and plainchant-like backing. The dark ‘Sleepwalker’ and ‘Shadowsound’ express the most touching feeling of insecurity, the slow-burn title song is a mystical invocation of nature with guitars, and ‘Moth’ is folk music as mystical marriage in a form that manages to be catchy. In both themes and beauty opposed to everything at the time, ‘Mother Twilight’ needs to be heard.
[First added to this chart: 05/13/2019]
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As an out-of-time singer/songwriter work, this album stands unequalled. Lo-fi singer/songwriters had become a dime a dozen as early as the 1990s, but none were ever remotely so unique in mood or sound as what Sarah June managed here. Dark, single-note guitar lines make what we might call a more atmospheric Shaggs sound on ‘We Lurk Late’, ‘The Illustrated Man’ and the particularly intense ‘My Red Shoes’. This creates a mood that reflects the emptiness of modern culture as no other album can, and even on ‘Charlotte’, ‘Radio Waves’ and ‘Jungfrau Maria’ (“Virgin Mary”) the sense of emptiness is made into a sound completely like no other. June’s second and marginally less unknown album ‘In Black Robes’ is also excellent, but the atmosphere and simple vocal-and-electric sound on ‘This Is My Letter to the World’ was never so fully captured.
[First added to this chart: 05/13/2019]
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[First added to this chart: 05/13/2019]
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[First added to this chart: 03/25/2020]
Year of Release:
2002
Appears in:
Rank Score:
486
Rank in 2002:
Rank in 2000s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Total albums: 10. Page 1 of 1
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Top 100 Greatest Music Albums composition
| Decade | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
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|
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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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|
| Julia Holter | 2 | 2% | |
| Joanna Newsom | 2 | 2% | |
| Laura Nyro | 2 | 2% | |
| Van Morrison | 2 | 2% | |
| Steely Dan | 2 | 2% | |
| Sky Cries Mary | 2 | 2% | |
| Talk Talk | 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 | |
| Top 100 Greatest Music Albums |  paologabriel | Overall chart | 2025 |  |
| Top 100 Greatest Music Albums | boyd94 | Overall chart | 2025 |  |
| 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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