Talk Talk Spirit of Eden

Best Album by Year

Recently, a reader suggested that I list my favourite albums by year. So here you are – I’ve mostly only listed albums I’ve already reviewed on this site. I don’t know some years very well – I’m dubious about including veteran artists in a couple of 1990s slots, and I don’t know the 2008-2012 era well enough for informed choices.

Amazingly, it took until 2022 for an artist to win take the title for best album for multiple years. Unlucky artists include The Replacements, Stevie Wonder, Tom Waits, Randy Newman, and Jamila Woods.

1960s

1963: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan
1964: Out to Lunch by Eric Dolphy
1965: A Love Supreme by John Coltrane
1966: Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys
1967: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles
1968: Odessey & Oracle by The Zombies
1969: Liege & Lief by Fairport Convention


1970s

Bruce Springsteen Darkness on the Edge of Town

1970: After The Gold Rush by Neil Young
1971: Sticky Fingers by The Rolling Stones
1972: Close to the Edge by Yes
1973: A Wizard, A True Star by Todd Rundgren
1974: Radio City by Big Star (Court and Spark by Joni Mitchell is very unlucky here – it’s my 4th favourite album of all time….)
1975: Another Green World by Brian Eno
1976: Station to Station by David Bowie
1977: Rumours by Fleetwood Mac
1978: Darkness on the Edge of Town by Bruce Springsteen
1979: Into the Music by Van Morrison


1980s

1980: Remain in Light by Talking Heads
1981: Pirates by Rickie Lee Jones
1982: Imperial Bedroom by Elvis Costello & the Attractions
1983: Murmur by R.E.M.
1984: Zen Arcade by Hüsker Dü
1985: Hounds of Love by Kate Bush
1986: The Colour of Spring by Talk Talk (Skylarking by XTC is very unlucky here – it’s also in my all-time top ten….)
1987: The Joshua Tree by U2
1988: 16 Lovers Lane by The Go-Betweens
1989: Hats by The Blue Nile


1990s

1990: Jordan: The Comeback by Prefab Sprout
1991: Trompe Le Monde by the Pixies
1992: Slanted and Enchanted by Pavement
1993: Together Alone by Crowded House
1994: Illmatic by Nas
1995: Wrecking Ball by Emmylou Harris
1996: Ten Easy Pieces by Jimmy Webb
1997: The Mollusk by Ween
1998: The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
1999: Ágætis Byrjun by Sigur Rós


2000s

2000: Kid A by Radiohead
2001: Here Come The Miracles by Steve Wynn
2002: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco
2003: 加爾基 精液 栗ノ花 (Kalk samen kuri no hana) by Sheena Ringo
2004: Funeral by Arcade Fire
2005: Twin Cinema by The New Pornographers
2006: Boys and Girls in America by The Hold Steady
2007: Sound of Silver by LCD Soundsystem
2008: April by Sun Kil Moon
2009: The Whirlwind by Transatlantic


2010s

2010: The ArchAndroid by Janelle Monáe
2011: Let England Shake by PJ Harvey
2012: Devotion by Jessie Ware
2013: Modern Vampires Of The City by Vampire Weekend
2014: 1989 by Taylor Swift
2015: Carrie & Lowell by Sufjan Stevens
2016: I Like It When You Sleep For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware Of It by The 1975
2017: Preservation by Nadia Reid
2018: Be The Cowboy by Mitski
2019: U.F.O.F. by Big Thief


2020s

2020: 真っ黒 [Makkuro] by Tricot
2021: Valentine by Snail Mail
2022: Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You by Big Thief

Read More

10 Comments

  1. I only have two in common with you I think. Sgt Pepper and Station to Station. And possibly LCD Sound System, but I’m not sure I did one for that year

  2. Not sure if you are interested:)
    Your pick for 1989 led me to re-listen to Hats again, and now we have 10 and not 9 in common… I already liked it (but I now think it’s ‘great’ rather than just ‘really good). Was behind The Sensual World, which I kinda think you underrate…

    • A lot of people love Sensual World – I’m well aware that I’m an outlier. I didn’t hear Blue Nile until relatively recently- I always read about them but didn’t get to hear them until the streaming era.

Leave a Reply

More from Aphoristic Album Reviews

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.

Review Pages

Read about the discographies of musical acts from the 1960s to the present day. Browse this site's review archives or enjoy these random selections:

Sting Nothing Like The Sun
Sting Album Reviews

Conventional wisdom suggests that Gordon Sumner surrendered his credibility when he left The Police, letting his pretentiousness overcome him as he dabbled in jazz and saved the rainforests. As a singles artist he couldn’t match the brilliant individual songs like ‘Message In A Bottle’ he wrote for The Police. But […]
The Raincoats Album Reviews

Introduction The punk and new wave movements lowered the barriers to entry to a musical career, promising a more egalitarian future. Yet with the occasional exception, like Debbie Harry, The Go-Gos, and Tina Weymouth, guitar-based music remained a largely male domain in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Raincoats […]
2010s Miscellany

This page collects album reviews for 2010s artists for whom I’ve only reviewed one or two albums. In 2018 I started covering new albums regularly, so this page is very heavy on the last couple of years of the decade. (Sandy) Alex G | Michaela Anne | Big Big Train […]
Kelly Lee Owens Album Reviews

Producer and musician Kelly Lee Owens grew up in a small Welsh village. She sang in her school choir and played bass and drums in indie bands. She became an auxiliary nurse at a cancer treatment hospital in Manchester, but her patients encouraged her to pursue a career in music. […]
Radiohead Kid A
Radiohead Album Reviews

Named after a Talking Heads song, Radiohead are the most critically acclaimed band to emerge in the 1990s. They convened informally in 1986 as teenagers while attending Abingdon School in Oxford, and were originally known as On A Friday. Front-man Thom Yorke infuses his gorgeous voice with his neuroses, while the […]
Sugar Beaster
Sugar Album Reviews

After leaving Hüsker Dü, Bob Mould released a couple of solo albums, before forming another power trio. Unlike Hüsker Dü, where Grant Hart was an important songwriter and vocalist and Greg Norton was also central to the band’s sound, Sugar is Mould’s show; his two new recruits, bassist David Barbe […]

Blog Posts

I add new blog posts to this website every week. Browse the archives or enjoy these random selections:

10 Worst Songs of the 1980s

When I was a teenager in the 1990s, the 1980s were often reviled as the decade that taste forgot. But I think this list is far less heinous than the 10 Worst Songs of the 1970s – the corporate vibes of the 1980s sound less dated than the hippie ethos […]
10 Best Moody Blues Songs

Birmingham band The Moody Blues have one of the most misleading names in popular music. It fit to start with – their early repertoire was based on American blues, and their cover of Bessie Banks’ ‘Go Now’ topped the UK charts in early 1965. They played on the Ed Sullivan […]
Sex Pistols: Albums Ranked from Worst to Best

The Sex Pistols weren’t the first punk band to release an album – The Ramones beat them by 18 months. But Johnny Rotten, Steve Jones, Paul Cook, and Sid Vicious became the face of punk in the UK. Manager Malcolm McLaren successfully courted controversy – an infamous appearance on Bill […]
Bruce Springsteen Darkness on the Edge of Town
Bruce Springsteen: Favourite Five Albums

It took me a while to warm to Bruce Springsteen –  the radio mostly played his 1980s hits from Born in the U.S.A., and I had him pigeon-holed as a lame, ultra-American, lowest common denominator rocker. But eventually I gave in to his critical reputation and gave a couple of […]
10 Best Judee Sill Songs

Judee Sill was a 1970s singer-songwriter from California. Her gentle songs were at odds with her tumultuous lifestyle. She spent time in prison for armed robbery and learnt music while serving as a Church organist at a reform school. She also worked as a hooker and struggled with heroin addiction […]
The Velvet Underground Loaded
The Velvet Underground: Albums Ranked from Worst to Best

The Velvet Underground began as a collaboration between frustrated songwriter Lou Reed and classically trained John Cale. Cale had worked with experimental composers John Cage and LaMonte Young, and Reed’s interest in alternative guitar tunings and drone notes provided common ground. The pair recruited guitarist Sterling Morrison and drummer Moe Tucker and […]
%d bloggers like this: