Here are my 100 favourites from the albums that I’ve reviewed on this site to date. A few longtime favourites are missing because I haven’t reviewed them yet. As you can probably tell from the list, my tastes run towards sophisticated pop. Even though I was born in 1979, a lot of my favourites come from between 1966 and 1990. It tends to be tough for newer artists to break in ahead of longtime established favourites – it, unfortunately, means the top of the list is dominated by white males.
The list is limited to one album per artist, which is bad news for records like Randy Newman’s Sail Away and The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street.
Rank | Title | Band | Year | |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | ![]() | Close To The Edge | Yes | 1972 |
2 | ![]() | Pet Sounds | The Beach Boys | 1966 |
3 | ![]() | Radio City | Big Star | 1974 |
4 | ![]() | Court And Spark | Joni Mitchell | 1974 |
5 | ![]() | Another Green World | Brian Eno | 1975 |
6 | ![]() | The Colour Of Spring | Talk Talk | 1986 |
7 | ![]() | Skylarking | XTC | 1986 |
8 | ![]() | Blonde On Blonde | Bob Dylan | 1966 |
9 | ![]() | Liege & Lief | Fairport Convention | 1969 |
10 | ![]() | Revolver | The Beatles | 1966 |
11 | ![]() | Lifes Rich Pageant | R.E.M. | 1986 |
12 | ![]() | Together Alone | Crowded House | 1993 |
13 | ![]() | 16 Lovers Lane | The Go-Betweens | 1988 |
14 | ![]() | Boys And Girls In America | The Hold Steady | 2006 |
15 | ![]() | Darkness On The Edge Of Town | Bruce Springsteen | 1978 |
16 | ![]() | Odessey And Oracle | The Zombies | 1968 |
17 | ![]() | Remain In Light | Talking Heads | 1980 |
18 | ![]() | Imperial Bedroom | Elvis Costello | 1982 |
19 | ![]() | Zen Arcade | Hüsker Dü | 1984 |
20 | ![]() | Sound Of Silver | LCD Soundsystem | 2007 |
21 | ![]() | Hounds Of Love | Kate Bush | 1985 |
22 | ![]() | Fulfillingness' First Finale | Stevie Wonder | 1974 |
23 | ![]() | Wish You Were Here | Pink Floyd | 1975 |
24 | ![]() | Illmatic | Nas | 1994 |
25 | ![]() | Ágætis Byrjun | Sigur Rós | 1999 |
26 | ![]() | Twin Cinema | The New Pornographers | 2005 |
27 | ![]() | Red | King Crimson | 1974 |
28 | ![]() | Sticky Fingers | King Crimson | 1971 |
29 | ![]() | Jordan: The Comeback | Prefab Sprout | 1990 |
30 | ![]() | Rain Dogs | Tom Waits | 1985 |
31 | ![]() | A Wizard, A True Star | Todd Rundgren | 1973 |
32 | ![]() | Be The Cowboy | Mitski | 2018 |
33 | ![]() | Good Old Boys | Randy Newman | 1974 |
34 | ![]() | Carrie & Lowell | Sufjan Stevens | 2015 |
35 | ![]() | Into The Music | Van Morrison | 1979 |
36 | ![]() | Rumours | Fleetwood Mac | 1977 |
37 | ![]() | Station To Station | David Bowie | 1976 |
38 | ![]() | Hats | The Blue Nile | 1989 |
39 | ![]() | I Like It When You Sleep For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware Of It | The 1975 | 2016 |
40 | ![]() | The Joshua Tree | U2 | 1987 |
41 | ![]() | Singles Going Steady | Buzzcocks | 1979 |
42 | ![]() | Marquee Moon | Television | 1977 |
43 | ![]() | 真っ黒 [Makkuro] | Tricot | 2020 |
44 | ![]() | Modern Vampires Of The City | Vampire Weekend | 2013 |
45 | ![]() | Let It Be | The Replacements | 1984 |
46 | ![]() | The Queen Is Dead | The Smiths | 1986 |
47 | ![]() | Yankee Hotel Foxtrot | Wilco | 2002 |
48 | ![]() | The Band | The Band | 1969 |
49 | ![]() | Paris 1919 | John Cale | 1973 |
50 | ![]() | The Mollusk | Ween | 1997 |
51 | ![]() | After The Gold Rush | Neil Young | 1970 |
52 | ![]() | The Clash | The Clash | 1977 |
53 | ![]() | Eli And The Thirteenth Confession | Laura Nyro | 1968 |
54 | ![]() | Déjà Vu | Crosby, Stills & Nash | 1970 |
55 | ![]() | Bryter Layter | Nick Drake | 1971 |
56 | ![]() | Foxtrot | Genesis | 1972 |
57 | ![]() | Houses Of The Holy | Led Zeppelin | 1973 |
58 | ![]() | The Modern Lovers | The Modern Lovers | 1976 |
59 | ![]() | The Stone Roses | The Stone Roses | 1989 |
60 | ![]() | Trompe Le Monde | Pixies | 1991 |
61 | ![]() | To Our Children's Children's Children | The Moody Blues | 1969 |
62 | ![]() | Kid A | Radiohead | 2000 |
63 | ![]() | Graceland | Paul Simon | 1986 |
64 | ![]() | Future Days | Can | 1973 |
65 | ![]() | Here Come The Miracles | Steve Wynn | 2001 |
66 | ![]() | 1989 | Taylor Swift | 2014 |
67 | ![]() | E•MO•TION | Carly Rae Jepsen | 2015 |
68 | ![]() | Slanted And Enchanted | Pavement | 1992 |
69 | ![]() | Wrecking Ball | Emmylou Harris | 1995 |
70 | ![]() | Ten Easy Pieces | Jimmy Webb | 1996 |
71 | ![]() | Dummy | Portishead | 1994 |
72 | ![]() | Can You Fly | Freedy Johnston | 1992 |
73 | ![]() | Our Mother The Mountain | Townes Van Zandt | 1969 |
74 | ![]() | Southeastern | Jason Isbell | 2013 |
75 | ![]() | Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You | Big Thief | 2022 |
76 | ![]() | Queen II | Queen | 1974 |
77 | ![]() | Mental Notes | Split Enz | 1975 |
78 | ![]() | Spilt Milk | Jellyfish | 1993 |
79 | ![]() | Dusty In Memphis | Dusty Springfield | 1969 |
80 | ![]() | One World | John Martyn | 1977 |
81 | ![]() | I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight | Richard and Linda Thompson | 1974 |
82 | ![]() | Cosmo's Factory | Creedence Clearwater Revival | 1970 |
83 | ![]() | Funeral | Arcade Fire | 2004 |
84 | ![]() | Titanic Rising | Weyes Blood | 2019 |
85 | ![]() | Golden Hour | Kacey Musgraves | 2018 |
86 | ![]() | Aja | Steely Dan | 1977 |
87 | ![]() | Preservation | Nadia Reid | 2017 |
88 | ![]() | The ArchAndroid | Janelle Monáe | 2010 |
89 | ![]() | Legacy! Legacy! | Jamila Woods | 2019 |
90 | ![]() | For Your Pleasure | Roxy Music | 1973 |
91 | ![]() | No Other | Gene Clark | 1974 |
92 | ![]() | After Laughter | Paramore | 2017 |
93 | ![]() | Fisherman's Blues | The Waterboys | 1988 |
94 | ![]() | Valentine | Snail Mail | 2021 |
95 | ![]() | Guppy | Charly Bliss | 2017 |
96 | ![]() | The Madcap Laughs | Syd Barrett | 1970 |
97 | ![]() | Stranger In The Alps | Phoebe Bridgers | 2017 |
98 | ![]() | Lady Soul | Aretha Franklin | 1968 |
99 | ![]() | Tapestry | Carole King | 1971 |
100 | ![]() | Island | Owen Pallett | 2020 |
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Aphoristic Album Reviews is almost entirely written by one person.
Graham Fyfe is probably the only music blogger to appreciate both Neil Diamond and Ariana Grande. Based in Fleet Street (New Zealand), he's been writing this blog since around 2000. Aphoristic Album Reviews features reviews and blog posts across a growing spectrum of popular music.
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I didn’t know you had this!! A Top 100 albums. I really like at least half of it a lot. I’m real surprised at some of it, like Yes at number one. I’m surprised that you like Yes that much. And it’s so cool that you have Court and Spark so high. I have it high too, but not that high. I’ve got Summer Lawns even higher. You need to move Tapestry up though. I don’t see much Led Zeppelin or David Bowie though. lol
I only made it a few weeks ago and haven’t really finished formatting it.
It’s limited to one album per artist, and Led Zeppelin and Bowie are both in there.
Oh, yeah. Well, then get it up to 200 so you could put more than one per. Lol
That sounds like a lot of work…
You know a whole fuck-ton of albums, so it should be easy for you.
You only got three albums in common with my top 100. But seven artists in common though.
What are the three albums? I haven’t updated this for a while – need to slip a few things in.
I was wrong about how many albums in common, it’s four not three. Houses of the Holy, Court and Spark, Station to station and Tapestry. And I was way off about the artists in common also. It’s not 7 but more like 14. Those four right there plus Husker Du, Pink Floyd, Stevie Wonder, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Steely Dan, Moody Blues, Credence and Fleetwood Mac. I think Joy division too if you had that.
You can see for yourself if that’s correct.
https://rateyourmusic.com/list/bobbyb5/my-top-albums-of-all-time/
There are a few things on yours that might sneak onto mine eventually, since I only include things I’ve reviewed already. Endtroducing is a good record that I’m nowhere near getting to.
I didn’t know that you only put things that you reviewed already.
Yeah Endtroducing is great. Too bad he never followed it up with anything as good. Although eventually I started to like the album after that. It was really different though because it had hardly any Hip Hop type music like Endtroducing. It was closer to the kinds of dance music that was coming out at the time, and more Rock-ish instead of Hip Hop. Kind of along the lines of something like Fatboy Slim. But I kind of like it now though. I have no idea what he sounds like nowadays.
Why did it send my reply back to me as Anonymous?? Did I sign myself out of wordpress by accident or something? I wonder why it did that.
I’ve been fiddling with it as other users reported having problems commenting. Maybe I need to fiddle again?
I think I know what I did. Ya know that little thing where it says “you are commenting as..”. and you’re supposed to fill in your email address? Well, I think it wasn’t filled in because I was using a new phone so it wasn’t automatically there. Normally it’s just always filled in already. I guess we’ll see what happens now.
I changed the setting that required an email address as a couple of people had problems with it. Your avatar came through OK but you’re still ‘Someone’.
It still says I’m “Someone”? Well, that’s great, because I always wanted to grow up to be someone. LMAO!!!!!.
Funny!
Great Stuff to sum up your tastes, even if limited to one album per artist.
A suggestion: have you tought about doing your Favourite Album per Year? Since the early 60s. The results are often quite interesting!
I do have plans to do a top ten for every year. but so far I’ve only done the most recent years.
Many records I like but the Beatles are second to none in my book ; “the white album” my favorite
They did have one album pretty high on the list, and I would have included Sgt Peppers on the list too, if I wasn’t limiting it to one album per artist.