As you may have seen, this week’s NME features the 2013 edition of their 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time. For this one, they also accepted votes from a bunch of the mag’s alumni, including me, so I thought it’d be an easy, albeit self-indulgent, blog to reproduce my Top 50 albums here.
As I’ve said before, I find these lists a lot harder to compile as I get older and, I hope, become a bit less didactic in the way I think about the music I like and the music I dislike. This is what my Top 50 looked like in early September, anyhow: rather canonical, a little nostalgic, no doubt fatally undermined by the absence of records I will soon be mortified to have forgotten, but generally resembling one of those Rock Snob pisstakes from ten or so years back.
I do remember, though, poring over an NME Greatest Albums list that was published in the mid-‘80s, and discovering a horde of extraordinary albums – like “What’s Goin’ On”, for a start – that broadened my perspective way beyond the world of Aztec Camera and Echo & The Bunnymen that I probably lived in at the time. It was a critical tool that allowed me to see the bigger picture, and whenever I see people treating all magazine lists with the same blanket disdain, thinking about it reassures me; at their best, they can have a profound effect.
Be interested, as ever, to hear your thoughts: about the NME list as much as mine, of course.
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1. The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds
2. Neil Young – Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
3. Television – Marquee Moon
4. Fairport Convention – Liege And Lief
5. Terry Riley – A Rainbow In Curved Air
6. My Bloody Valentine – Loveless
7. Gil Evans – The Individualism Of Gil Evans
8. Joni Mitchell – Hejira
9. The Rolling Stones – Exile On Main Street
10. Dexys Midnight Runners – Don’t Stand Me Down
11. The Go Betweens – Spring Hill Fair
12. Neil Young – On The Beach
13. Marvin Gaye – What’s Goin’ On
14. Steely Dan – Countdown To Ecstasy
15. Linda Perhacs – Parallelograms
16. Led Zeppelin – 4
17. Neu! – Neu! 75
18. Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited
19. REM – Murmur
20. The Smiths – The Queen Is Dead
21. Van Morrison – Astral Weeks
22. Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation
23. The Grateful Dead – Europe 72
24. Brightblack Morning Light – Motion To Rejoin
25. Love – Forever Changes
26. Elliott Smith – Either/Or
27. Gram Parsons – Grievous Angel
28. Robert Wyatt – Rock Bottom
29. The Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers
30. Alice Coltrane – Journey In Satchidananda
31. The Stooges – Funhouse
32. GZA – Liquid Swords
33. Gillian Welch – Time The Revelator
34. Red House Painters – Red House Painters
35. Funkadelic – Maggot Brain
36. Robbie Basho – Venus In Cancer
37. The Waterboys – Fisherman’s Blues
38. Big Star – Third/Sister Lovers
39. Tim Buckley – Happy Sad
40. The Band – The Band
41. Leonard Cohen – The Songs Of Leonard Cohen
42. MC5 – High Time
43. Slint – Spiderland
44. Prince – Around The World In A Day
45. Kraftwerk – Trans Europe Express
46. Joanna Newsom – Ys
47. White Stripes – White Blood Cells
48. The Fall – This Nation’s Saving Grace
49. Pavement – Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
50. Boredoms – Vision Create Newsun
UPDATE 7/11/13: Responding to all your comments and interest, I’ve found the 131-strong longlist that I used to come up with my Top 50 (it mostly involved skimming through my iTunes, plus a cursory look at my shelves). A good few records that some of you have mentioned are in this lot, plus hopefully a few less well-known things that deserve a wider audience.
Let me know what you think, anyhow (they’re not in any order, I should point out):
The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds
AC/DC – Back In Black
The Beach Boys – Surfs Up
The Beach Boys – Smile
The Beatles – Revolver
Aphex Twin – Selected Ambient Works Volume II
Alice Coltrane – Journey In Satchidananda
Archie Shepp – Attica Blues
Gil Evans – The Individualism Of Gil Evans
Pharaoh Sanders – Black Unity
Smog – Knock Knock
Bill Fay – Bill Fay
Neu! – Neu! 75
Bjork – Vespertine
Led Zeppelin – 2
Led Zeppelin – 4
Led Zeppelin – Houses Of The Holy
Boredoms – Vision Create Newsun
Brightblack Morning Light – Motion To Rejoin
Bruce Springsteen – The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle
Caetano Veloso – Caetano Veloso (2)
Can – Tago Mago
Public Enemy – It Takes A Nation Of Millions
GZA – Liquid Swords
Robbie Basho – Venus In Cancer
Boards Of Canada – Geogaddi
Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited
Bob Dylan – John Wesley Harding
Bob Dylan – Blood On The Tracks
Comets On Fire – Avatar
Creedence Clearwater Revival – Cosmo’s Factory
Lemonheads – It’s A Shame About Ray
Rocket From The Crypt – Hot Charity
The Byrds – Younger Than Yesterday
David Bowie – Heroes
David Bowie – Station To Station
Dennis Wilson – Pacific Ocean Blue
Dexy’s Midnight Runners – Don’t Stand Me Down
The Waterboys – Fisherman’s Blues
Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation
Steely Dan – Countdown To Ecstasy
Funkadelic – Maggot Brain
Duke Ellington – Far East Suite
Patti Smith – Horses
Television – Marquee Moon
Elliott Smith – Either/Or
Os Mutantes – Os Mutantes (1st)
Fairport Convention – Liege And Lief
Fairport Convention – Unhalfbricking
The Fall – This Nation’s Saving Grace
Gram Parsons – Grievous Angel
Tim Buckley – Blue Afternoon
Tim Buckley – Happy Sad
Linda Perhacs – Parallelograms
Gillian Welch – Time The Revelator
Neil Young – Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Neil Young – Ragged Glory
Neil Young – On The Beach
The Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers
The Rolling Stones – Exile On Main Street
The Grateful Dead – Europe 72
Nick Cave – The Good Son
The Stooges – Funhouse
MC5 – High Time
LCD Soundsystem – Sound Of Silver
Jim O’Rourke – Eureka
Joanna Newsom – Ys
Joni Mitchell – Hejira
Joni Mitchell – Court & Spark
Red House Painters – Red House Painters
Sun Kil Moon – Ghosts Of The Great Highway
Julian Cope – Peggy Suicide
The Go Betweens – Spring Hill Fair
The Go Betweens – Before Hollywood
Aztec Camera – High Land Hard Rain
Kraftwerk – Trans Europe Express
Richard & Linda Thompson – I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight
Leonard Cohen – The Songs Of Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen – I’m Your Man
Cluster – Sowiesoso
Love – Forever Changes
Mike Oldfield – Hergest Ridge
My Bloody Valentine – Loveless
The Necks – Mosquito/See Through
PJ Harvey – Dry
The Pop Group – Y
Pulp – Different Class
Queens Of The Stone Age – Songs For The Deaf
REM – Murmur
Robert Wyatt – Rock Bottom
Roy Harper – Stormcock
Royal Trux – Accelerator
Sandy Bull – E Pluribus Unum
Scritti Politti – Songs To Remember
Shirley & Dolly Collins – Death And The Lady
Sly & The Family Stone – Fresh
Pavement – Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
Terry Riley – A Rainbow In Curved Air
Terry Riley – Persian Surgery Dervishes
The Velvet Underground – The Velvet Underground
Scott Walker – Scott 4
Wilco – A Ghost Is Born
Nick Drake – Five Leaves Left
The Band – The Band
Spiritualized – Lazer Guided Melodies
The Monkees – Head
Jeff Buckley – Grace
Pixies – Surfer Rosa
The Feminine Complex – Livin’ Love
Ali Farka Toure & Toumani Diabate – By The Light Of The Moon
Youssou N’Dour – Immigres
Four Tet – Pause
Fennesz – Endless Summer
Marvin Gaye – What’s Goin’ On
Isaac Hayes – Hot Buttered Soul
Screaming Trees – Dust
Love As Laughter – Destination 2000
Stereolab – Emperor Tomato Ketchup
The Smiths – The Queen Is Dead
Slint – Spiderland
Van Morrison – Astral Weeks
Van Morrison – The Common One
Van Morrison – Into The Music
Husker Du – Candy Apple Grey
Big Star – Third/Sister Lovers
Prince – Around The World In A Day
Van Dyke Parks – Song Cycle
Lauryn Hill – The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill
D’Angelo – Voodoo
Donald Fagen – The Nightfly
White Stripes – White Blood Cells