Top 99 Greatest Music Albums
by 
sageamagoo 
Hey you—make more time for music in your life! It is a great gift of our universe that we have ready access to all the audio art in history. Take advantage of the internet, it's all out there: leagues of fine specimens just waiting for you to discover.
I spend every day exploring our planet's music. Here, I've boiled down 3500 albums from all corners of the world into 100 perfect records I couldn't live without.
Albums that it killed me to remove from this chart (to bring it down to 2 albums per artist):
Cardiacs - On Land and In The Sea + Guns + Pony (basically a Cardiacs album)
NoMeansNo - Wrong + The Worldhood of the World (As Such)
The Residents - Intermission + Animal Lover
Mr. Bungle - California
Björk - Homogenic
The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Follow me on Rate Your Music: https://rateyourmusic.com/~sageamagoo and write something cool for me to listen to in the comments below!
- Chart updated: 01/13/2026 09:45
- (Created: 10/29/2012 20:32).
- Chart size: 99 albums.
There are 104 comments for this chart from BestEverAlbums.com members and Top 99 Greatest Music Albums has an average rating of 90 out of 100 (from 144 votes). Please log in or create an account to leave a comment or assign a rating.
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When this album dropped, I knew finally someone was listening to the music of my generation, and stepping up the game. Melding Radiohead with Silverchair, The Dismemberment Plan with Voivod, Between the Buried and Me with Animal Collective, it took growing up with this music to craft such a finely honed, otherworldly genre blend. Flows through thousands of beautiful moments, forever changing, this does what Magma did melding together the sounds of their time with the same uncompromising artistry. Not to mention it's up to date with the sound of the 2020's, this fills the shoes left by all this world's most jaw-dropping progressive music.
[First added to this chart: 06/18/2024]
Available from
An epic tome of mighty heroes on an absurdist quest where work and play, worry and wonder intertwine. Every sound swirls like ancient magic, quantum particles in bizarre flux, screaming thoughts in a world that demands your attention. Every wrong note is placed just right in this bizarre and complex reality of conflicting impulses and overlapping desires. A profound creation that sets free my deepest soul, I live in awe of Sing To God.
[First added to this chart: 09/14/2015]
Available from
The progenitor. April 1970, France.
Magma were paying attention to the burgeoning musical revolution happening in jazz and popular music, including the Canterbury Scene. Zappa, Soft Machine, and King Crimson broke the ice for new musical possibilities, and from another direction Miles, Chick, John, Joe, Bennie, Wayne, Jack, Lenny and Dave had just created brand-new sounds with Jazz Fusion. But Magma did what no one ever dreamed possible before.
Magma's debut is the most daring, forward-thinking album of 1970. It's the final form of the evolution experimental music took from all these influences into fine art of the highest order. It is the first landmark album of this style for how it fuses these sounds with aspects of modern classical and is completely brilliant over 4 epic sides. This album was the bleeding edge of novel music that immediately preceeded the advancements Faust, Can, Gong and more in 1971.
Magma led the way to the outer bounds of our imagination at the most crucial year in music history. The story of Kobians fleeing the tyranny of their home planet only to instate fascism on the planet they invade speaks volumes about horrors humanity has only begun to experience without one word being spoken in a discernable language (naturally it's all in Kobian).
Here in 1970 was the first pioneering use of heavy technical complexity that inspired King Crimson's Larks' Tongues in Aspic, at the very cusp of the birth of metal itself.
Magma had an ear to the ground on so many fronts and with complete artistic integrity and full use of the studio crafted this groundbreaking mindmelting piece of audio history and pointed the way for decades of music to come. [First added to this chart: 10/09/2023]
Magma were paying attention to the burgeoning musical revolution happening in jazz and popular music, including the Canterbury Scene. Zappa, Soft Machine, and King Crimson broke the ice for new musical possibilities, and from another direction Miles, Chick, John, Joe, Bennie, Wayne, Jack, Lenny and Dave had just created brand-new sounds with Jazz Fusion. But Magma did what no one ever dreamed possible before.
Magma's debut is the most daring, forward-thinking album of 1970. It's the final form of the evolution experimental music took from all these influences into fine art of the highest order. It is the first landmark album of this style for how it fuses these sounds with aspects of modern classical and is completely brilliant over 4 epic sides. This album was the bleeding edge of novel music that immediately preceeded the advancements Faust, Can, Gong and more in 1971.
Magma led the way to the outer bounds of our imagination at the most crucial year in music history. The story of Kobians fleeing the tyranny of their home planet only to instate fascism on the planet they invade speaks volumes about horrors humanity has only begun to experience without one word being spoken in a discernable language (naturally it's all in Kobian).
Here in 1970 was the first pioneering use of heavy technical complexity that inspired King Crimson's Larks' Tongues in Aspic, at the very cusp of the birth of metal itself.
Magma had an ear to the ground on so many fronts and with complete artistic integrity and full use of the studio crafted this groundbreaking mindmelting piece of audio history and pointed the way for decades of music to come. [First added to this chart: 10/09/2023]
Available from
Fantastic, demented, groovy cartoon jams. Consciousness twists and warps around colourful tunnels at breakneck speed. Boatloads of singalong hooks, insane morphing electronics, maximum-vibe stand-up bass riffs, and drum-and-bass rhythms carry life's essense through every bend and turn, an eclectic trip of true cosmic proportions.
[First added to this chart: 03/20/2013]
Available from
Plastic Beach - "it's like wonderland." An impossible spectacle of gigantic synths, layers of waves all pulsing with the dance beat of the century. An ode to the unstoppable excess of mass consumption and desolation of the modern spirit.
[First added to this chart: 10/31/2012]
Year of Release:
2010
Appears in:
Rank Score:
6,111
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Available from
Playful psych pop with crazy chord changes. Sarah plays chamber instruments, her pal Dominic plays drums, Mark plays acoustic & electric guitar, and Sharron commands the cosmos with her strong vocal presence. From the soft croon of My Shoulder Ride, to the atonal bellows in Hearty Connection, to a performance that reaches beyond the stars in the epic Memphis In Texas, Shrubbies dream bigger and go further than almost anyone.
With this many twists and turns, Memphis in Texas is a joyride of unconventionality with strange melodies that flower with time. [First added to this chart: 08/29/2021]
With this many twists and turns, Memphis in Texas is a joyride of unconventionality with strange melodies that flower with time. [First added to this chart: 08/29/2021]
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Take it from these gnomes: you've got to tune in to the vibes of the planet! Playful pixies use their jazz chops to invent intelligent pop music with the finesse and confidence to go anywhere and they do. A spectacular, mesmerizing journey through the cosmos.
[First added to this chart: 08/29/2021]
Available from
A spellbinding enigmatic mystery, at once abstract and wonderous, exploring the simultaneity of comfort and dark unease. Immensely captivating, the sprawling nature of its beauty can hold you for eternity in its grand spell.
[First added to this chart: 06/18/2024]
Year of Release:
1970
Appears in:
Rank Score:
8,730
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Available from
Joni's most touching, profound lyricism drifts on winds of fluid currents with the freedom of pure expression. This form of jazz fusion profoundly conjures the natural world and follows each of Joni's whims to its most artistic conclusion in intense layers of rhyme and metaphor.
[First added to this chart: 01/15/2024]
Year of Release:
1976
Appears in:
Rank Score:
3,681
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Available from
The beam of a searchlight finds a crushed soul lost in the pit of its own darkness. Through the blinding force of love and sheer strength of will all effort is expended to turn this soul back around. To hold up a light, and reclaim a glimmer of hope in our messy existence for someone who's lost to see.
The look on your face tells me everything - it's your link to the world. The Soft Bulletin is a constant display of your innermost thoughts for anyone looking to notice. [First added to this chart: 10/29/2012]
The look on your face tells me everything - it's your link to the world. The Soft Bulletin is a constant display of your innermost thoughts for anyone looking to notice. [First added to this chart: 10/29/2012]
Year of Release:
1999
Appears in:
Rank Score:
10,374
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Total albums: 99. Page 1 of 10
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Top 99 Greatest Music Albums composition
| Decade | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1930s | 0 | 0% | |
| 1940s | 0 | 0% | |
| 1950s | 0 | 0% | |
| 1960s | 3 | 3% | |
| 1970s | 24 | 24% | |
| 1980s | 13 | 13% | |
| 1990s | 27 | 27% | |
| 2000s | 17 | 17% | |
| 2010s | 8 | 8% | |
| 2020s | 7 | 7% |
| Artist | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|||
| Cardiacs | 3 | 3% | |
| The Residents | 2 | 2% | |
| Gentle Giant | 2 | 2% | |
| The Flaming Lips | 2 | 2% | |
| Kate Bush | 2 | 2% | |
| Mr. Bungle | 2 | 2% | |
| Radiohead | 2 | 2% | |
| Show all | |||
| Country | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|||
| |
48 | 48% | |
 |
30 | 30% | |
 |
5 | 5% | |
 |
4 | 4% | |
| |
4 | 4% | |
 |
3 | 3% | |
 |
2 | 2% | |
| Show all | |||
Top 99 Greatest Music Albums chart changes
| Biggest climbers |
|---|
Up 20 from 80th to 60th |
Up 17 from 56th to 39th |
Up 12 from 73rd to 61st |
| Biggest fallers |
|---|
Down 21 from 68th to 89th |
Down 17 from 38th to 55th |
Down 15 from 60th to 75th |
| New entries |
|---|
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Top 99 Greatest Music Albums ratings
Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AVwhere:
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 3 ratings for this chart. | Show all 144 ratings for this chart.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Chart ratings | Avg. chart rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ! | 06/06/2026 11:09 | PurpleHazel | 48 | 96/100 |
| ! | 06/06/2025 17:48 |  Tamthebam | 657 | 85/100 |
| ! | 01/29/2025 12:41 |  SomethingSpecial | 1,089 | 86/100 |
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 2% of all charts on BestEverAlbums.com. This chart has a Bayesian average rating of 89.9/100, a mean average of 90.0/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 90.2/100. The standard deviation for this chart is 10.7.
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Top 99 Greatest Music Albums favourites
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Top 99 Greatest Music Albums forum mentions
This chart has been referenced 10 times on the forums, Explore the wider forum discussion to see what members have said about it.
From 
BestEverAlbums 06/06/2025 08:00 in Chart of the day (#4971): By sageamagoo
BestEverAlbums 06/06/2025 08:00 in Chart of the day (#4971): By sageamagoo“Today's chart of the day Top 100 Greatest Music Albums by sageamagoo () 1. Plastic Death by Glass Beach (2024) 2. Sing To God by Cardiacs (1996) 3. Magma by Magma (FR) (1970) 4. El Oso by Soul Coughing (1998) 5. Plastic Beach by Gorillaz (2010) 6. Memphis In Texas by Shrubbies (1999) 7. Angel's Egg…”
(10 mentions across Chart of the Day topics)View latest topic →
Top 99 Greatest Music Albums comments
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Top Comments First | Newest First | Positive Sentiment First | Longest Comments First
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From
bonnequestion 06/27/2020 15:00 | #254607
I rarely rate other's people charts because I think it is kind of weird to judge people's taste. However, I don't hesitate to highly rate a chart such as this one, not because I agree with all of its choices, but because it is perfectly made.
This chart represent everything I'd like all charts to be: it is very personal, full of picks that are more obscure (I hate charts that look just like a reorganisation of the top-100 of this website) and there are tons of interesting comments explaining the choices. Good job!
As for the picks, I really like the inclusion of two Flaming Lips albums that are too often ignored: At War With The Mystics and Clouds Taste Metallic. Two wonderful albums by one of the greatest band of the last 30 years. Also, I'm glad to see Surf's Up here, what an underrated album! Crocodiles by Echo & The Bunnymen is another choice I really like. Not the typical E&TB we see on most chart, but I agree it's one of, if not their best. And what about See You On The Other Side by Mercury Rev! Bold choice, I like that you included this gem in here.
Your chart also convinced me to look into two bands I still haven't listened to enough : Gorillaz and NoMeansNo. Thanks and keep up your good work! (Edited)
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From
hairymarx1 TOP 100 COMMENTER 04/01/2013 05:21 | #70932
I appreciate your honesty. As expected, this chart is not my cup of Earl Grey but I respect your choices nonetheless. Variety is the spice of life.
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From
phantom1305 08/28/2015 02:59 | #148733
phantom1305 08/28/2015 02:59 | #148733
Great choices! It's clear to see why you liked my chart so much! Just from your top ten I know I'm going to enjoy trying to listen to some of these that I haven't heard yet. :D
Have you heard Steven Wilson (from Porcupine Tree)'s solo stuff or Blur (Same singer as Gorillaz)? I think you might enjoy it! :)
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From
doubleA 03/17/2020 07:51 | #248805
doubleA 03/17/2020 07:51 | #248805
What an absolutely gorgeous chart!!! The write-ups are as personal and special as the picks themselves. You manage to hit right in the special pleases with them!
Mind if I borrow the concept of grading how the album has grown? Really love the idea, it kinda gives another perspective on how the record relates to you. (Edited)
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From
mianfei 11/21/2023 10:02 | #300088
This is one of the more impressive charts I have seen, although mostly completely different from my own. The write-ups are quite decent, and the chart is quite diverse although I would say there is — for an overall chart — a little too much focus on a few artists. (Edited)
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