Top 100 Greatest Music Albums by 
Romanelli 
With production credits (because producers are important, too). Also track listings, label info and short reviews written by yours truly. I hope this chart is helpful, entertaining, and at least interesting.
- Chart updated: 04/12/2024 14:15
- (Created: 06/01/2012 04:29).
- Chart size: 100 albums.
There are 113 comments for this chart from BestEverAlbums.com members and Top 100 Greatest Music Albums has an average rating of 89 out of 100 (from 174 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 Uncle Tupelo. (Remove this filter)
- #Sponsored
Produced By PETER BUCK
1. Grindstone
2. Coalminers
3. Wait Up
4. Criminals
5. Shaky Ground
6. Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down
7. Black Eye
8. Moonshiner
9. I Wish MY Baby Was Born
10. Atomic Power
11. Lilli Schull
12. Warfare
13. Fatal Wound
14. Sandusky
15. Wipe The Clock
16. Take My Word
17. Grindstone (1991 Acoustic Demo)
18. Atomic Power (1991 Acoustic Demo)
19. I Wanna Be Your Dog (1991 Longview Farm Acoustic Demo)
20. Moonshiner (Live 1/24/93)
The story of how this album, Uncle Tupelo’s third, came to be is quite interesting. R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck caught one of their shows in Georgia in 1990, and was impressed by their version of The Louvin Brother’s “Great Atomic Power”. Buck and the band talked about possibly doing an acoustic project somewhere down the road. That time came soon. In 1992, Rockville Records was trying to pressure Uncle Tupelo into making an album that sounded more like Nirvana, who had just made it big. The label also owed the band money, so they decided to record with Buck and make an album of folk music. The label allotted a budget of only $13,000, so the band stayed at Buck’s house during the recording. It was recorded over a five day period (the album title), and sold more copies than their first two efforts combine. Strange given that it was 1992 and the album was split almost evenly between grim acoustic original songs and old, mostly traditional covers of equally grim white gospel and work songs. Not an easy task to make an album like this work, but somehow Uncle Tupelo made it work as well as it possibly could have.
Of the covers, “Coalminers”, “Moonshiner” and “Atomic Power” work the best. Highlights of the original songs include Jay Farrar’s “Grindstone”, Jeff Tweedy’s “Black Eye” and the sweet instrumental “Sandusky”. Also of interest: Farrar’s “Criminals” is based on a campaign speech by George Bush, while Tweedy’s lyrics are very Nick Drake-ish. Guitarist Brian Henneman plays the same mandolin that Buck played on “Losing My Religion”. Overall, this is a brave and bold album of acoustic folk music by a rock band that always tried to play country, but didn’t quite know how. They would make one more album before splitting off into the bands Wilco and Son Volt, but this is their most interesting and intimate work. Tracks 16 through 20 are 2003 bonus tracks, and are of interest, particularly “Take My Word” and a demo of The Stooges song “I Wanna Be Your Dog”. This album is dark and strange, but it’s an important part of the Uncle Tupelo story. [First added to this chart: 05/31/2012]
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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 | 22 | 22% | |
| 1980s | 13 | 13% | |
| 1990s | 26 | 26% | |
| 2000s | 21 | 21% | |
| 2010s | 6 | 6% | |
| 2020s | 0 | 0% |
| Artist | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
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|
 |
|
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| The Beatles | 4 | 4% | |
| The Band | 3 | 3% | |
| Drive-By Truckers | 3 | 3% | |
| Nirvana | 2 | 2% | |
| Wilco | 2 | 2% | |
| Jason Isbell | 2 | 2% | |
| Lynyrd Skynyrd | 2 | 2% | |
| Show all | |||
Top 100 Greatest Music Albums chart changes
| Biggest climbers |
|---|
| Up 5 from 66th to 61st Music From Big Pink by The Band |
| Biggest fallers |
|---|
| Down 1 from 61st to 62nd All Things Must Pass by George Harrison |
| Down 1 from 62nd to 63rd Being There by Wilco |
| Down 1 from 63rd to 64th At Last! by Etta James |
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Top 100 Greatest Music Albums ratings
where:
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Showing latest 5 ratings for this chart. | Show all 174 ratings for this chart.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Chart ratings | Avg. chart rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 100/100  | 03/29/2024 22:06 |  CassidyInc | | 100/100 |
| 90/100 | 06/11/2023 18:03 |  pedro1976 | | 84/100 |
| 100/100 | 06/03/2023 12:17 |  Schribes | | 99/100 |
| 80/100 | 03/06/2023 07:30 | Moondance | | 84/100 |
| 90/100 | 11/16/2022 17:06 | conallmalone | | 88/100 |
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This chart is rated in the top 6% of all charts on BestEverAlbums.com. This chart has a Bayesian average rating of 88.6/100, a mean average of 87.4/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 88.8/100. The standard deviation for this chart is 12.5.
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CassidyInc 03/29/2024 22:06
Neat chart, but the write ups and historical perspective you've included for many of these albums make it something special. I had a good chuckle when I finally arrived to Loveless, the album I was most excited to hear your thoughts on, and there was nothing there!
What I found most intriguing is where you actually argue in your comments why an album isn't that great - which is an unusual way to create a greatest 100 chart. A bit too US-orientated for my liking and too many so-so bands. Good to see one album each from Australia & New Zealand.
Great chart, with impressive comments; very inspirational!
would appreciate more variety from coutries, genres
Lots of new music to discover here
rockbluesfolkjaz 10/19/2021 18:18
There's a lot of excellent choices here. Many of which I'll be listening to as well. Thanks for this list!
Stunning chart. I own 83 of the albums in your chart so it's inevitable that I'm going to love it. Also love the notes. Great addition.
Nothing but great records here!
KitchenSink 01/19/2021 23:03
perfect soundtrack to being the only guy left in the rural middle-of-nowhere bar at 4AM (this may sound backhanded but I assure you it's high praise)
Mercury 01/14/2021 02:55
Still Crazy (good) after all these years.
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