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