The 100 Best Albums of All Time
A correction on Apple Music's worst list of all time
It is 6:05AM and I have been working tirelessly on this list since about 9:00PM. I thought this would be a fun little exercise to do before heading out to go drink. Little did I know it would consume my entire night.
For those of you who are unaware, Apple Music saw fit to release their list of the top 100 albums of all time. This list is a false starter in too many ways to count, one of them being, why would you take your taste from an app that wants everyone to stream everything? This is an app that has a corporate stooge like Zane Lowe conducting interviews with Ed Sheeran and ROSALIA on his Beats 1 show, and giving their careers the exact same amount of respect. Prince and Michael Jackson could rise from their graves to do a comeback unity tour, and Zane Lowe would speak to them as if they were Melanie Martinez. Another issue with a streaming service providing us all with “the greatest albums of all time”, is they want people to listen to newer, more accessible stuff more than older, more obtuse shit. Therefore, on the list we had baffling rankings like Frank Ocean’s Blonde at number 5 or Billie Eilish’s debut at number 30. To replace someone like Billie entirely with an actually good pick like NEU! or Can would be a detriment to the streams. Who even gets streaming royalties when Captain Beefheart gets some streams on his album from the ‘60s.
The Apple Music list that was presented to us was a mass gaslighting procedure. It was a cruel joke that is supposed to trick us into thinking that Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black is a top ten album for all of human history. Fuck Beethoven, Bach, Aretha Franklin, no, human civilization tapped out at “Rehab”.
Anyway, I corrected their shitty list and it only took me like 9 hours? Not too bad. To make this list, I compiled 250 of the best albums from 1960 to 2022. I first went off of memory to make sure to get the very best down, then I scoured the internet to find the best records in each genre, from each decade and from each individual artist. I went on Reddit to figure out the general consensus for the best Kinks and Erykah Badu records. If I knew the material well enough, I was able to determine it for myself. I chose no live albums, and only did one record per artist. I tried my best to be inclusive in terms of genre, gender and background, but truthfully speaking, I don’t really give a fuck what people think. I tried to be as objective as humanly possible and pick the 100 most groundbreaking musical projects that I could. Here is my list, I hope you enjoy. 100-11 will be listed off, with some commentary for the top 10. Enjoy.
100-11
Type O Negative, Bloody Kisses
Lana Del Rey, Norman Fucking Rockwell!
Rage Against The Machine, Self-Titled
Outkast, ATLiens
Selena, Amor Prohibido
Sufjan Stevens, Illinois
Tame Impala, Lonerism
The Kinks, The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society
Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion
Mary J Blige, My Life
Steely Dan, Aja
Erykah Badu, Mama’s Gun
Sonic Youth, Daydream Nation
Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven
Chic, C’est Chic
Neutral Milk Hotel, In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
Black Flag, My War
Jay-Z, The Black Album
SOPHIE, The Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides
The Beastie Boys, Paul’s Boutique
The Notorious B.I.G., Born To Die
Mitski, Puberty 2
The Sex Pistols, Nevermind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols
Leonard Cohen, Songs of Leonard Cohen
D’Angelo, Voodoo
Neil Young, Harvest
Nick Cave, Murder Ballads
Queen, A Night At The Opera
Roxy Music, For Your Pleasure
Elliot Smith, Either / Or
The Smashing Pumpkins, Siamese Dream
The Replacements, Let It Be
Patti Smith, Horses
Dr. Dre, The Chronic
A Tribe Called Quest, The Low End Theory
NWA, Straight Outta Compton
Janet Jackson, The Velvet Rope
The Avalanches, Since I Left You
Bruce Springsteen, Born In The U.S.A.
LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver
Daft Punk, Discovery
Depeche Mode, Violator
Fela Kuti, Expensive Shit
GZA, Liquid Swords
The Cure, Disintegration
Nas, Illmatic
Elton John, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Raekwon, Only Built For Cuban Linx
Pavement, Slanted and Enchanted
Madvillain, Madvillainy
Metallica, Ride The Lightning
Wu-Tang Clan, Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
Aphex Twin, Selected Ambient Works 86-92
Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Kate Bush, Hounds of Love
David Bowie, Station to Station
Fiona Apple, When The Pawn…
Sade, Diamond Life
Nick Drake, Pink Moon
41. Sly and the Family Stone, There’s A Riot Goin’ On
Public Enemy, It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back
Lauryn Hill, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Love, Forever Changes
Kraftwerk, Trans-Europe Express
Michael Jackson, Thriller
John Coltrane, A Love Supreme
The Stooges, Funhouse
Frank Ocean, Blonde
Black Sabbath, Paranoid
Can, Ege Bamyasi
Television, Marquee Moon
Miles Davis, Bitches Brew
Cocteau Twins, Heaven or Las Vegas
Led Zeppelin, IV
Bob Dylan, Blood On The Tracks
John Lennon, Plastic Ono Band
Bjork, Homogenic
Funkadelic, Maggot Brains
The Smiths, The Queen Is Dead
Radiohead, Kid A
J Dilla, Donuts
Scott Walker, Scott Walker 3
Jimi Hendrix, Electric Ladyland
Kendrick Lamar, To Pimp A Butterfly
Nirvana, Nevermind
The Clash, London Calling
Nine Inch Nails, The Downward Spiral
Stevie Wonder, Innervisions
The Beatles, Abbey Road
The Rolling Stones, Sticky Fingers
The Top 10
Fleetwood Mac, Rumours
Perfect rock record from front to back. Better than any Beatles or Rolling Stones record and I stand on that. The lustful affairs on this album are conveyed through this incredible push-pull duets between Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, and also Christina McVie (R.I.P.) which I didn't know. There is such a wonderful chemistry and tension on this album that yields eleven unforgettable songs.
Marvin Gaye, What’s Goin’ On
What’s happening? What’s going on? Marvin Gaye never really has any ideas, but the point is that he tries. The greatest R&B record of all time without a question, I still can’t believe Apple Music put Blonde before this. The shimmering production on this album always makes me feel like I’m in a rainy cave in the 1970s, just trying to make sense of it all.
Joy Division, Unknown Pleasures
The definitive post-punk record. No band will ever be able to filter this type of real life pain and darkness ever again, especially not with a voice as idiosyncratic as Ian Curtis’ (R.I.P.) A total solar eclipse happened this year, and only the brief glimpse of total blackout we experienced for five minutes could capture the spirit of Unknown Pleasures. Don’t let anyone ever make fun of you for wearing this on a T-shirt, just make sure you listen to the record because it’s perfect.
Portishead, Dummy
This is probably not even the definitive trip-hop record, but that’s not even what it’s particularly going for. This record is a three-way marriage between stark vocalist Beth Gibbons, percussionist Geoff Barrow and Adrian Utley, perhaps the greatest music trio to ever exist. This album is so vintage that it becomes futuristic and predictive. It holds the key to all of time, and therefore it is timeless. My favorite album cover as well.
My Bloody Valentine, Loveless
The very best shoegaze record of all time without a question. This record is the result of specific and detailed experimentation over long periods of time, it is one of a kind in that way. This album was so good that it took them like 30 years to follow it up. Any and all shoegaze albums made today copy from this in some way shape or form. Extremely influential, extremely rare, there is nothing and will never be anything like this record again in the future. It’s a hazy, half-remembered dream of a record that you’ll never want to wake up from.
Talking Heads, Remain In Light
The best Talking Heads record hands down, and I know it’s the obvious choice but there’s a reason it’s the obvious choice. Flawless, jammy, and so deeply respectful of the type of music it’s “ripping off”. I’m not sure if Fela Kuti or Tony Allen or King Sunny Ade ever cared to listen to this, but I feel like they would’ve been proud. Pure art.
The Beach Boys, Pet Sounds
Fuck The Beatles, The Beach Boys will always have Pet Sounds. Pet Sounds will never not sound crisp and brand new, even when it’s at the 100 year anniversary. God Bless Brian Wilson for actually trying to make real music despite his stupid bandmate Mike Love just wanting to make bullshit music about surfing and sipping daiquiris. Groundbreaking and innovative, for me it’s the second pop album ever made and I don’t ever see that changing.
The Velvet Underground & Nico, Self-Titled
I’m tired and lazy just like Andy Warhol. No description. Perfect.
Prince, Purple Rain
The best pop album of all time. You may notice how low Thriller ranked on this list and that’s because that album is full of hits, but overall it’s a deeply uneven and kind of dishonest listen in comparison to nearly anything by Prince. This is an artist who designed the costume, the cover, created custom plugins for his drum machine, played guitar, sang, danced, acted in a movie that tied into the album — Prince did fucking everything. And if this album was shit, then all of that risk incurred would’ve been for nothing. And because this album is so musically perfect down to every minute little interlude and detail, the risk payed off and we got one of the best packaged and most properly hyped albums of all time. Almost the best.
Joni Mitchell, Blue
This is what my face looks like right now after nearly 10 hours of work on something that probably 500 people total will read. Me and Joni are tired as fuck. Just listen to this record from front to back, and tell me you don’t feel something. Joni is the greatest living singer-songwriter without a shadow of a doubt in my mind. The pictures that she paints of Blue are of this beautiful, natural bohemian lifestyle that sometimes results in hardships, but the hardships are worth it for a real shot at love and happiness. It’s a deeply sad and anxious album in a lot of ways, but it’s one that you just want to be friends with. I want to hold her baby, or smoke dirt weed with her and her band, or make sure she stays calm on a scary flight. It’s an album that captures the human experience better than maybe any other piece of art.
