Top 100 Greatest Music Albums by slatsheit

I've tried to put this chart together the way that I believe everyone should: 1) ***no*** limitations on the number of albums by a single artist, because that would automatically make the chart a bald-faced lie (at least in my case), and 2) to rank every album meticulously in terms of desert island standards, rather than some sort of objective evaluation - with every single rank number, "hm, if I can only take this many albums with me to the desert island, would I rather have this album, or some other album I haven't included yet?" The desire to be absolutely honest with myself and others has led (and will continue to lead, until I die) to numerous revisions.

In terms of how I personally rate albums, I personally consider there to be four levels of "5 stars." The first three, I give 100 ratings to on this site; the others (more numerous) get 95s. 4.5s get 90s, 4s get 80 or 85, 3.5s get 70 or 75, 3s get 60 or 65, and so on. My ratings tend to trend higher on average than most here because if I listen to an album, something grabbed me that made me want to listen to it.

But I digress. #1-15 I would consider 5+++, #16-34 is 5++, 35-75 is 5+, and everything below (and everything contained on my "101-200" and "201-241" custom charts) is a straight 5.

I'm a self-proclaimed Gen X curmudgeon. I hate hip-hop and everything significantly influenced by it on principle - too meta and too non-musical, and I can't stand the non-stop foul language and degradation. That said, it's absolutely not a racial thing - I love and esteem plenty of r 'n' b, soul, and jazz. The first two of those three genres tend to be underrepresented here compared to my actual tastes because those genres are more singles-oriented. Jazz will probably grow in representation in time - up to this point, I generally haven't evaluated the jazz I like vs. the pop/rock because they're so apples and oranges. I do have to cop to having heard far fewer jazz albums than pop/rock albums (hundreds vs. thousands). I like classical more than jazz, and love certain pieces more than some of the pop/rock albums included here. However, classical is virtually impossible to rate in terms of albums, because classical albums are about performances, whereas I approach classical by finding a performance I like and listening to that, whereas my sense of classical favorites is a matter of pieces, not performances. If pop/rock vs. jazz, is apples and oranges, pop/rock vs. classical is apples and sweet potatoes. In terms of the album-oriented stuff I do like, I strongly believe that there was a precipitous drop-off in music in general after about 1988. Shoegaze and Radiohead's OK Computer are the only developments since which are both 1) original and 2) worthwhile. Everything else that is good is synthetic of prior styles. That's not necessarily a bad thing - there are many very good albums in such veins.

There are 3 comments for this chart from BestEverAlbums.com members and Top 100 Greatest Music Albums has an average rating of 89 out of 100 (from 5 votes). Please log in or register to leave a comment or assign a rating.

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As you will see from my lists, I'm not much of a jazzbo, but I have known and loved this album for 35 years. I have to be careful talking about jazz so as to avoid being sophomoric, as my knowledge of it is nowhere near as encyclopedic as my pop/rock knowledge. However, I have listened several times to nearly all of Miles’s albums from the mid ‘50s to the mid ‘70s, and I know enough to be aware that he had assembled an amazing dream team – certainly Coltrane, this late in his career, and Bill Evans, who was only in Miles’s band for a relatively brief time and was brought back for this exercise, Cannonball Adderley, Paul Chambers, who had been in Miles’s band forever by this point, and relatively new Jimmy Cobb (and Wynton Kelley, who plays on “Freddie Freeloader”). Perhaps not as celebrated as the original quartet, or Davis's great mid-'60s second quartet, but exalted forever by their presence on this album. Evans is huge to the four tracks he plays on here, perfect for the modal approach Davis enshrines here. His harmonic character gives this album a rarified perfume which helps make it the cornerstone that it is. Coltrane sounds surprisingly lush and warm in his tone here, and Cannonball certainly fits the proceedings well. My favorites here are of course the slow ones, “Blue in Green” and the closing “Flamenco Sketches,” gorgeous pieces that I would want playing in my dying hospital room. But the rest of it is intensely enjoyable as well. Miles’s use of Harmon mute was not unique to this album, but the extent to which he uses it is very applicable to the proceedings.

I first put this here at #8, but I realized on reflection that that was rather dishonest, so it's going down to #15 for now.
[First added to this chart: 11/18/2024]
Year of Release:
1959
Appears in:
Rank Score:
22,960
Rank in 1959:
Rank in 1950s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Total albums: 1. Page 1 of 1

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Top 100 Greatest Music Albums composition

Decade Albums %


1930s 0 0%
1940s 0 0%
1950s 1 1%
1960s 40 40%
1970s 36 36%
1980s 17 17%
1990s 5 5%
2000s 1 1%
2010s 0 0%
2020s 0 0%
Country Albums %


United Kingdom 56 56%
United States 37 37%
Canada 4 4%
Mixed Nationality 2 2%
Ireland 1 1%
Live? Albums %
No 98 98%
Yes 2 2%
Soundtrack? Albums %
No 98 98%
Yes 2 2%

Top 100 Greatest Music Albums chart changes

There have been no changes to this chart.
TitleSourceTypePublishedCountry
Mojo Readers: The 100 Greatest Albums Ever MadeMojoOverall chart1996United Kingdom
AllMusic's Greatest Albumsmusicologist97Custom chart2019
Ya joking? Should've been higher! All Time edition PurplepashCustom chart2025
BEA Top 100 Reorganized According To My TastebonnequestionCustom chart2025
200 Greatest albums of all time (1 - 100) - Uncut 2016JohnnyoCustom chart2020
200 Greatest Albums of All TimeUncutOverall chart2016United Kingdom
My Personal Ranking of Best Ever Albums' Top 100 Xxnu99etxXCustom chart2022
Going With My Gut: The Overall Chart Top 100 Re-ranked CharlieBarleyCustom chart2024
Top 100 Greatest Music Albumsalbum guru joeOverall chart2013
BEA+RYM Overall RankImaybeparanoidCustom chart2017Unknown

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Top 100 Greatest Music Albums ratings

Average Rating: 
89/100 (from 5 votes)
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Top 100 Greatest Music Albums comments

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From 08/18/2025 04:16
Nice list - lost of albums that I love here :) A little Beatles heavy but hey… you love what you
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Rating:  
90/100
From 04/01/2025 00:34
Thanks for pointing out the Overall Chart and how it can be distorted. It's true, technically, but this would be a much more valid critique of me making custom charts for certain genres instead of placing their best in the greatest. Right now, they're hardly counting for the Overall Chart, when they could be counting a lot more. I've thought about that a little bit over the years since the website as a whole has a massive rock bias as it stands, but it doesn't outweigh how annoying it is for me to try and compare them in good faith (I, like you, have my genre preferences).

You've made me think a little bit about that line in my description. It's been there for over a decade now and had you strolled in at the start and said what you've said it'd ring a lot more true. Back then, I enforced it on myself to get away from a list that had double ups on double ups. It was also part of an impetus to go and listen to new things. Today, all the albums in the list are -- I think -- 5/5 records, and consequently there's actually a very small cross section of possible records I could consider that this rule presently excludes, here they are:

The Beatles - The Beatles [White Album]
The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
Boredoms - Vision Creation Newsun
David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars
David Bowie - Station to Station
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - The Good Son
Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left
Nick Drake - Pink Moon
Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks
The Fall - Hex Enduction Hour
Guided by Voices - Alien Lanes
Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
Talking Heads - Remain in Light
The Velvet Underground - White Light / White Heat
The Wrens - Album 4.5 (bootleg wouldn't qualify)
Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones
Neil Young - After the Gold Rush
Neil Young - Tonight's the Night

Would I add any of them to my list though? Maybe like 1 or 2 at any random given day, or certainly I'd be more likely right after listening to one of them, but I think they fight against my no. 100 on pretty equal footing and there's at least as many more left out that are from artists not in the list at all. This is a result of 10+ years of such a rule. I just have a very wide tastes now and I kind of like it that way. It doesn't mean anything really because I'd still defend the rule as it stands but food for thought. Interested in hearing more from you mate keep in touch.
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Rating:  
90/100
From 03/26/2025 08:27
Thanks for your comment. I wouldn't describe our tastes as majorly divergent, at least not from where I'm sitting. There's only a handful of records in your list I don't rate at least an 8, and many more I utterly adore.

Regarding the one artist limit, I can see why you might take issue with it considering the effect it would have on your list, but I'll hazard a minor challenge to your reasoning. You -- correctly -- dismiss the premise of objectivity in the construction of your list, and instead defer to your heart. I do so too, but isn't there a tension here with how you rationalise what a list should be?

I don't have a problem with your rules per se; do your thing. However, you argue that a list with restriction is in some way a lie. You then go on to volubly articulate all the ways your own list is limited in favour of how you personally imagine and derive joy from music. My point being, we are both using the list to document and convey us and how we see our own tastes, far more so than making a claim to what is good. It seems you're aware of that but it's lost on me you'd consider my version of how to demonstrate mine somehow me lying to myself.

Simply put, I kind of figure that when someone sees I like Neil Young's On The Beach that they can also figure I like the rest of catalogue; and if they're so curious as to what extent that information is readily available on my profile. Moreover, it's compelling for me to make that commitment to a favourite by an artist that I could otherwise proliferate my list with indiscriminately, and it frees me up to self-express a modicum more and to make recommendations.

A list can do more than one thing at a time.

In any case, I enjoyed reading through your list. I appreciated picks like New York Tendaberry and the wild self-reporting of being a Gen-Xer (with that Joe Jackson live album, I promise you we can tell), however I am also left without anything new to go discover which leaves me wanting.
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