Top 100 Greatest Music Albums by YikYak
Music is really cool. Because no two people ever have the exact same favorites and rankings. It's not like ranking baseball teams, where the number of World Series wins and Hall-of-Famers really determine how legendary your team is. Music is completely open to interpretation and opinion, which is amazing.
I chose my favorites and did not take albums specifically based on commercial success, critical acclaim, or legacy. Everything on here is my personal opinion. Of course, I haven't listened to everything and there is still a lot I have on my album bucket list.
I have a personal bias to guitar-based rock and concept albums.
I considered limiting my chart to one album per artist, but I didn't want to do that. I love a lot of albums by a few artists, like Radiohead, Queens of the Stone Age, Nirvana, The Beatles, and Pink Floyd, where I have at least 4 of their albums on my list. I wouldn't be able to choose just one album for these artists. A one album per artist limit would not show what I truly consider the 100 greatest albums of all time.
My tastes have changed considerably since I started really listening to music, so this chart will always evolve. Right now, I feel pretty satisfied with it, but tomorrow, I may not. The chart is going to change again and again. It is pretty much impossible to rank my favorites, so this is essentially the 100 albums that have stuck with me the most. And even these I could easily switch out for others, especially ones near the bottom.
Chart of the Day on: July 20th, 2016, March 15th, 2018, April 20th, 2022, February 18th, 2023, September 7th, 2023
- Chart updated: 12/02/2023 23:15
- (Created: 05/06/2016 12:45).
- Chart size: 100 albums.
There are 40 comments for this chart from BestEverAlbums.com members and Top 100 Greatest Music Albums has an average rating of 92 out of 100 (from 85 votes). Please log in or register to leave a comment or assign a rating.
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This was taken from another user, but I find it accurate:
1. Everything In its Right Place - that moment when you find out you're going to have your first kid and you need to get everything together.
2. Kid A - the baby is born.
3. The National Anthem - everything is crazy, as the kid gets older.
4. How To Disappear Completely - feeling out of control of your teenager.
5. Treefingers - Trying to switch off, from the pressures of life.
6. Optimistic - Feeling optimistic as your child has left home to build their own life.
7. In Limbo - Missing your child, not sure how to feel.
8. Idioteque - Doing things you couldn't do as your child controlled your life, everything is random!
9. Morning Bell - getting a divorce because nothing is keeping you together anymore.
10. Motion Picture Soundtrack - You have come to the end of your life and look back on old times and say goodbye to everyone.
At first, I was skeptical about this album. I didn't see the appeal. Now I see it. And wow. Just wow is all I can really say. It took a long time for me to recognize it, but now I truly can appreciate an absolute work of art. How To Disappear Completely leaves me speechless.
Key Track(s): Everything In Its Right Place, Kid A, The National Anthem, How to Disappear Completely, Optimistic, Idioteque, Morning Bell, Motion Picture Soundtrack
Key Lyric: "Stop sending letters
Letters always get burned
It's not like the movies
They fed us on little white lies
I think you're crazy, maybe
I think you're crazy, maybe
I will see you in the next life" [First added to this chart: 05/09/2016]
The Dark Side of the Moon has been a favorite of mine for a long time. I decided I wanted to listen to more of Pink Floyd's music and checked this out. To be honest, I looked at the run-time on each of the songs on the album and was intimidated. I was afraid I wouldn't like it.
Man, was I wrong. This album is perfect all the way through. Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V) is an amazing opener to the album. The 8 minutes of opening instrumentals are perfect, only to be opened up with lyrics that not only meet the quality of the instrumentals, but exceed them. Welcome to the Machine and Have a Cigar maintain the greatness, preparing for the title track. And just wow. Wish You Were Here may legitimately be the greatest song of all time. The instrumentals are absolutely incredible, but it's the lyrical beauty that truly puts this song in question of greatest of all time. And the transition into Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts VI-IX) is flawless, leading into a closer that brings the album full circle, never having a dull or weak moment.
Key Track(s): Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V), Welcome to the Machine, Have a Cigar, Wish You Were Here, Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts VI-IX) - Yes, I put all of them.
Key Lyric: "Well, I've always had a deep respect,
And I mean that most sincerely.
The band is just fantastic,
That is really what I think.
Oh by the way, which one's Pink?" [First added to this chart: 05/09/2016]
Key Track(s): I Sat By the Ocean, If I Had a Tail, My God Is the Sun, Fairweather Friends, Smooth Sailing, I Appear Missing, ...Like Clockwork
Key Lyric: "Where are you hiding, my love?
Cast off like a stone.
Feelings raw and exposed when I'm out of control
Pieces were stolen from me
Or dare I say, given away?" [First added to this chart: 05/09/2016]
Key Track(s): Second Hand News, Dreams, Never Going Back Again, Don't Stop, Go Your Own Way, The Chain, I Don't Wanna Know, Gold Dust Woman
Key Lyric: "Rock on, ancient queen
Follow those who pale in your shadow
Rulers make bad lovers
You better put your kingdom up for sale, up for sale" [First added to this chart: 06/02/2016]
Key Track(s): Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels), Neighborhood #2 (Laika), Neighborhood #3 (Power Out), Crown of Love, Wake Up, Rebellion (Lies), In the Backseat
Key Lyric: "Then, we tried to name our babies
But we forgot all the names that,
The names we used to know
But sometimes,
We remember our bedrooms and our parent's bedrooms and the bedrooms of our friends
Then we think of our parents...
Well, whatever happened to them?!" [First added to this chart: 05/09/2016]
Key Track(s): Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, With a Little Help from My Friends, Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, Getting Better, Fixing a Hole, She's Leaving Home, Lovely Rita, A Day in the Life
Key Lyric: "Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain
Where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies
Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers
That grow so incredibly high
Newspaper taxis appear on the shore
Waiting to take you away
Climb in the back with your head in the clouds
And you're gone" [First added to this chart: 05/09/2016]
Key Track(s): Kids With Guns, Dirty Harry, Feel Good Inc., Every Planet We Reach is Dead, Dare, Demon Days
Key Lyric: "I lost my leg like I lost my way
So no loose ends
Nothing to see me down
How are we going to work this out?" [First added to this chart: 06/02/2021]
Key Track(s): Intertiatic ESP, Roulette Dares, Drunkship of Lanterns, Eria Tarka, Televators, Take the Veil Cerpin Taxt
Key Lyric: "Dolls wreck the minced meat of pupils
Cast in oblong arms length
The hooks have been picking their scabs
Where wolves hide in the company of men" [First added to this chart: 06/25/2016]
Key Track(s): Sic Transit Gloria ... Glory Fades, I Will Play My Game Beneath the Spin Light, Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don't, The Quiet Things that No One Ever Knows, The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot, Jaws Theme Swimming, Play Crack The Sky
Key Lyric: "My lungs are fresh and yours to keep,
Kept clean and they will let you breathe.
Is this the way a toy feels when its batteries run dry?
I am the watch you always wear but you forget to wind." [First added to this chart: 03/10/2017]
Key Track(s): 21st Century Schizoid Man, Epitaph, The Court of the Crimson King
Key Lyric: "Knowledge is a deadly friend
If no one sets the rules.
The fate of all mankind I see
Is in the hands of fools." [First added to this chart: 10/16/2016]
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Top 100 Greatest Music Albums composition
Decade | Albums | % | |
---|---|---|---|
1930s | 0 | 0% | |
1940s | 0 | 0% | |
1950s | 0 | 0% | |
1960s | 15 | 15% | |
1970s | 11 | 11% | |
1980s | 6 | 6% | |
1990s | 27 | 27% | |
2000s | 30 | 30% | |
2010s | 11 | 11% | |
2020s | 0 | 0% |
Artist | Albums | % | |
---|---|---|---|
|
|||
Queens Of The Stone Age | 6 | 6% | |
The Beatles | 5 | 5% | |
Radiohead | 5 | 5% | |
Pink Floyd | 5 | 5% | |
Nirvana | 4 | 4% | |
Muse | 3 | 3% | |
Cage The Elephant | 3 | 3% | |
Show all |
Top 100 Greatest Music Albums chart changes
Biggest fallers |
---|
Down 1 from 63rd to 64th Black Holes And Revelations by Muse |
Down 1 from 64th to 65th Lullabies To Paralyze by Queens Of The Stone Age |
Down 1 from 65th to 66th Boston by Boston |
New entries |
---|
Fever To Tell by Yeah Yeah Yeahs |
Let England Shake by PJ Harvey |
Leavers |
---|
Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea by PJ Harvey |
The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance |
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Top 100 Greatest Music Albums ratings
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av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
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Showing latest 5 ratings for this chart. | Show all 85 ratings for this chart.
Rating | Date updated | Member | Chart ratings | Avg. chart rating |
---|---|---|---|---|
02/19/2023 04:28 | Moondance | 455 | 85/100 | |
02/18/2023 16:15 | Johnnyo | 2,026 | 80/100 | |
04/25/2022 17:09 | Cytoma | 171 | 90/100 | |
04/20/2022 13:50 | wizardalien | 31 | 88/100 | |
11/30/2021 19:44 | Mercury | 256 | 95/100 |
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This chart is rated in the top 1% of all charts on BestEverAlbums.com. This chart has a Bayesian average rating of 92.3/100, a mean average of 91.8/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 93.0/100. The standard deviation for this chart is 9.2.
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With 17 artists and 10 albums in common, there is a shared love of certain artists/albums. There is also a big divide between us in other music preferences - which to quote you: "Music is completely open to interpretation and opinion, which is amazing".
That said, I find this chart and the comments within it to be some of the best I have seen on this site ~ & I greatly appreciate the time & effort required to make insightful, considered commentary.
Love that you have 3 albums from Australia, including a few outliers. Although not in my top 100, I do have Atlas Genius in my year chart ~ so we are in quite a distinguished minority group there ~ all power to us!
Really great chart. Great comments too. I keep on trying to get my act together to add more description to my charts but always get distracted. Great job
good chart.
Very good top 10.
Well done. Best of all lists I've looked at. Know and love 80% of whats on it. Will be checking out that which I haven't heard. Double thumbs up. Great notes as well.
"Music is really cool" should be the motto for this website.
I'd already given this chart a rating but since it's chart of the day I'll leave a comment.
Love the passion that comes through on your chart. Even though I'd disagree with that interpretation of Kid A (I'd give that distinction to HTTT since it was the album that Thom Yorke wrote a lot of lyrics about shielding yuor child from the cruelty of the world after the birth of his firstborn) I share your love of that album and our chart's descriptions are spookily similar! - nice to see a like-minded music fan.
Since you are a self-professed lover of 'guitar-based rock and concept albums' then I'll give you a rec in that order: The Microphones' 'The Glow Pt.2' has a loose concept of a figure who feels disconnected from the world of modernity (I Want Wind To Blow, My Roots Are Strong And Deep, I Want To Be Cold, I Felt My Size) who experiences love and loss (I Am Bored, I Felt Your Shape) before resolving to reconnect to the elemental world through his suicide (Samurai Sword) with the album closing to the sound of the narrator's blood pouring back into the earth from whence he came (My Warm Blood).
This one's a personal favourite I think you'd enjoy but feel free to check out my chart since I think there's a number of things there you might like!
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Dang, good stuff!
A lot of albums in common which is good but the ranking leaves a lot to be desired. I appreciate the effort you took in writing above each album.
Really great stuff with great descriptions!
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