Top 100 Greatest Music Albums by jnmayles 
In terms of the purpose of this chart, I hope it's something somebody who is new to music or grow their taste can read and walk away with over a decade of blood, sweat, and tears of dedication to the art... okay mostly just sweat in my computer chair...
I first started seriously listening to music at age 14 (2008) when I got limited access to the internet. My uncle got me a Beatles album for Christmas each year growing up, so that is all I listened to up until 16 (and a free compilation (Levi's Talent Show) that came free with a pair of jeans my aunt gave me).
I started by listening to a few indie podcasts (Indie Spotlight, now defunct and unavailable, and Indie feed, which is archived on apple but has not been updated in over a decade). From there I couldn't stop consuming and exploring music. I continue to keep my nose to the ground for new music while I continue to concurrently explore new eras, genres, and regions.
I look for a three big things in an album when ranking it...
-Is it a complete/cohesive album end to end? This doesn't mean every song has to be good, rather that the album is treated as an entire project that's cohesive and intentional from track 1 to the end. There are some songs that would likely make it into my top 100 songs but the albums are nowhere near complete enough...
-The instrumental composition of the album. This might be a hot take, but I care very little about the vocals and lyrics when compared to the instrumentals. I still believe lyrics are important, but relative to the instrumentals I'd say it's a 70/30 split for me.
-How innovative is the album? Did it create a genre? Did the artist innovate their own sound? Are there multiple genres within the album?
-Replay-ability. Could I listen to these 100 albums for the rest of my life assuming I had to commit to these and only these.
Bonus points to the album include...
-Album cover art. I believe the album cover art is highly reflective of the pride and effort an artist puts into their work. It's interesting how the concept has evolved from the LP to the digital era. I still think this is very important. One day I hope to do a top 100 list based on album art work!
-Vocal clearness. I think a lot of music listeners are fooling themselves if they can understand the vocals on a lot of albums... I love some albums that are in foreign languages just as much as the only language I understand!
-Demo availability. I love listening to demos to see what was added and goes into polishing off a song.
A few rules about my top 100:
1. I'm keeping it to one album per artists to give people more albums to explore. I'll mark under a given album if one or more albums would have also made my Top 100 all things equal.
2. No compilations. I'll handle that with a custom chart in the future. If you're curious just look at my rated albums and filter for various artists....
3. Don't read too much into the order between bands. I've listened to thousands of albums... so the difference between 1 and 5 is negligible.... I focused on making sure my Top 10 was sorted between the next 10 (Top 20) and so on...
- Chart updated: 06/23/2025 18:15
- (Created: 02/04/2025 03:49).
- Chart size: 100 albums.
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This chart is currently filtered to only show albums from the 1970s. (Remove this filter)
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Best punk album in my opinion. Not because it's necessarily groundbreaking or genre defining, but because it's good from start to front and has so much variety throughout. The 33 1/3 on this was good as well as it dissects each track. I don't remember much from that book other than they recorded an intro of one song by hitting sticks on a brick wall...
[First added to this chart: 06/23/2025]
Year of Release:
1977
Appears in:
Rank Score:
5,178
Rank in 1977:
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Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
48
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It's hard to explain, but I think Animals is truly my favorite album of theirs; however, I think I've got to acknowledge this for just how groundbreaking this was. I envy people living in the early 70s where this was top of the pops... compared to what the masses listen to these days...
Additional Albums from Artist:
Top 40: Wish You Were Here
Top 50: Animals [First added to this chart: 06/23/2025]
Additional Albums from Artist:
Top 40: Wish You Were Here
Top 50: Animals [First added to this chart: 06/23/2025]
Year of Release:
1973
Appears in:
Rank Score:
62,907
Rank in 1973:
Rank in 1970s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
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[First added to this chart: 06/23/2025]
Year of Release:
1971
Appears in:
Rank Score:
779
Rank in 1971:
Rank in 1970s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
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[First added to this chart: 06/23/2025]
Year of Release:
1972
Appears in:
Rank Score:
4,114
Rank in 1972:
Rank in 1970s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
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[First added to this chart: 06/23/2025]
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[First added to this chart: 06/23/2025]
Year of Release:
1973
Appears in:
Rank Score:
12,895
Rank in 1973:
Rank in 1970s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
38. (=)
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[First added to this chart: 06/23/2025]
Year of Release:
1974
Appears in:
Rank Score:
1,612
Rank in 1974:
Rank in 1970s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
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[First added to this chart: 06/23/2025]
Year of Release:
1972
Appears in:
Rank Score:
12,805
Rank in 1972:
Rank in 1970s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Buy album
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[First added to this chart: 06/23/2025]
Year of Release:
1971
Appears in:
Rank Score:
6,574
Rank in 1971:
Rank in 1970s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
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Additional Albums from Artist:
Top 50: Racional Vol. 2 [First added to this chart: 06/23/2025]
Top 50: Racional Vol. 2 [First added to this chart: 06/23/2025]
Total albums: 12. Page 1 of 2
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Top 100 Greatest Music Albums composition
| Decade | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
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| 1930s | 0 | 0% | |
| 1940s | 0 | 0% | |
| 1950s | 2 | 2% | |
| 1960s | 8 | 8% | |
| 1970s | 12 | 12% | |
| 1980s | 6 | 6% | |
| 1990s | 19 | 19% | |
| 2000s | 19 | 19% | |
| 2010s | 23 | 23% | |
| 2020s | 11 | 11% |
| Artist | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
 |
|
|
| J.J. Cale | 1 | 1% | |
| The Juan MacLean | 1 | 1% | |
| Demon Fuzz | 1 | 1% | |
| Stereolab | 1 | 1% | |
| Ty Segall | 1 | 1% | |
| Röyksopp | 1 | 1% | |
| Destroyer | 1 | 1% | |
| Show all | |||
| Country | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
54 | 54% | |
 |
23 | 23% | |
 |
4 | 4% | |
 |
3 | 3% | |
 |
2 | 2% | |
 |
2 | 2% | |
 |
2 | 2% | |
| Show all | |||
Top 100 Greatest Music Albums chart changes
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Top 100 Greatest Music Albums ratings
81/100 (from 2 votes)
where:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
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N.B. The average rating for this chart will not be reliable as it has been rated very few times.
Showing all 2 ratings for this chart.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Chart ratings | Avg. chart rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 85/100  | 06/23/2025 17:09 | SomethingSpecial | | 85/100 |
| 30/100 | 02/05/2025 01:41 | AbsurdCheesecake | | 79/100 |
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