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| From | "Bill" <billm45s@verizon.net> |
| Subject | All Time Top 20 Pop Albums |
| Date | Wed, 16 Jan 2008 20:17:46 -0500 |
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Wow, this was really quite difficult. I clearly have at least 50 (most
likely more) top 20 pop albums of all time and the process of elimination
was almost numbing. I mostly avoided recent albums, to be sure they past
the passage of time test.
That said, Stewart I think you were brilliant to do this on a
no-definitional basis. The last thing we all need is another definitional
argument. Instead we get to transfer that discussion internally, as each of
us tries to decide what to put on this list. And trust me, I am quite
thankful for that internal discussion or I would never have been able to
finish this list. In fact, at the end of this email, I have included a list
of artists who would have an album on my all time favorite 100 (which of
course I have never completed and I am sure is greater than 100), who I
eliminated from consideration for this top 20 list based upon my own
definitional debate. Some determinations were easy (e.g. McCoy Tyner, Bob
Marley, Sly, Zappa/Mothers). But other determinations were not as easy and
perhaps the artists are not so different than some artists I did include.
So with that long-winded introduction, here is my top 20 pop albums of all
time:
1.. Kinks - Village Green Preservation Society
2.. Kinks - Something Else
3.. Beatles - Revolver
4.. Bruce Springsteen - Darkness on the Edge of Town
5.. Bill Lloyd - Set to Pop
6.. Lucinda Williams - Car Wheels on a Gravel Road
7.. Marshall Crenshaw - S/t
8.. Squeeze - Argybargy
9.. Flying Burrito Brothers - Gilded Palace of Sin
10.. Beatles - Rubber Soul
11.. Scott Miller & the Commonwealth - Thus Always to Tyrants
12.. The Who Sell Out
13.. Nick Lowe - Pure Pop for Now People/Jesus of Cool
14.. Van Morrison - Moondance
15.. Graham Parker - Squeezing Out The Sparks
16.. Will Kimbrough - This
17.. Brad Jones - Gilt Flake
18.. Old 97s - Satellite Riders
19.. Weird Summer - In Search Of
20.. Willie Nile - Streets of New York
In no particular order, artists who had albums I seriously considered:
Byrds
Love
The Melroys
Candy Butchers
Blue Ash
Creedence/Fogarty
Buzzcocks
Elliott Murphy
Elvis Costello
Darin
dBs
CVS
Mark Johnson
Owsley
LAs
Kennedys
DM3
George Usher
Beth Thornley
Windbreakers
Bobby Sutliff
REM
Orange Humble Band
Cheeks
Pernice Brothers
Doug Powell
Beach Boys
Big Star
Amy Rigby
Spongetones
Swan Dive
Eugene Edwards
Go-Betweens
Lackloves
Peter Case
Merrymakers
Dusty Springfield
Nils Lofgrin
Artists I eliminated based upon my own arbitrary definitional basis as to
what constitutes pop to make my life easier:
Barrence Whitfield and Tom Russell (whose Hillbilly Voodoo otherwise would
have been top 10)
Blood Oranges
Bob Dylan
Rolling Stones
Bob Marley
Black 47
Sly & the Family Stone
Marvin Gaye
Paul Butterfield
McCoy Tyner
John Coltrane
Miles Davis
Wilderness Road
Strawbs
Steely Dan
Otis Redding and Carla Thomas
Richard & Mimi Farina
Fred Neil
Eric Andersen
Velvet Underground
Prince
Neville Brothers
Maria Muldaur
Zappa/Mothers
Frank Sinatra
Electric Flag
Jefferson Airplane
Stevie Wonder
Garland Jeffreys
Robbie Fulks
T-Bone Burnett
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