The Definitive 200: Our Top Tens

We’ll be announcing tomorrow a contest coinciding with Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s expected announcement of their Definitive 200 Records. We, at RNYK, are ineligible to enter the contest, but we wanted to get in on some of the fun. We each listed our Top 10 albums, a few of us couldn’t keep it down to 10. For your enjoyment, check out what we consider the top records of all time:

Daisy

1. Nine Inch Nails - “Downward Spiral”
2. Beatles - “Abbey Road”
3. Frank Sinatra - “Sinatra Reprise”
4. Beach Boys - “Pet Sounds”
5. The Dandy Warhols - “Come Down”
6. Jellyfish - “Spilt Milk”
7. Blur - “The Great Escape”
8. Duran Duran - “Rio”
9. Suede - “Suede”
10. The Cure - “Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me”

Adam
This is basically impossible, so here’s a quick list I put together that I’ll want to redo by next week. And yes, Creed is perhaps the worst band of the past 5 decades.

1. Radiohead - “OK Computer”
2. The Microphones - “The Glow, Pt. 2″
3. Neutral Milk Hotel - “In The Aeroplane Over the Sea”
4. Talking Heads - “Remain in Light”
5. Beach Boys - “Pet Sounds”
6. Sonic Youth - “EVOL”
7. Tim Hecker - “Presents Radio Amor”
8. Smog - “Supper”
9. David Bowie - “Hunky Dory”
10. Stars of the Lid - “The Tired Sounds of…”
11. Velvet Underground - “Velvet Underground & Nico”
12. The Smiths - “The Queen is Dead”
13. Tortoise - “TNT”
14. Steve Reich - “Music for 18 Musicians”
15. Spiritualized - “Ladies and Gentleman We Are Floating in Space”

Chester K.
I couldn’t come close to keeping it to ten. And even this seems super arbitrary.

1. Meat Puppets - “Meat Puppets II”
2. Neil Young - “Zuma”
3. David Bowie - “Hunky Dory”
4. Bob Dylan - “Blonde on Blonde”
5. Van Morrison - “Astral Weeks”
6. The Beatles - “Revolver”
7. Bob Marley & The Wailers - “Burnin’”
8. Television - “Marquee Moon”
9. Al Green - “Gets Next to You”
10. Wilco - “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot”
11. Rolling Stones - “Beggars Banquet”
12. Wire - “Pink Flag”
13. The Replacements - “Let It Be”
14. The Minutemen - “Double Nickles on the Dime”
15. XTC - “Black Sea”
16. Prince - “Sign o the Times”
17. Sly & the Family Stone - “There’s a Riot Going On”
18. The Velvet Underground - “Loaded”
19. T-Rex - “Electric Warrior”
20. Fleetwood Mac - “Rumours”
21. John Lennon - “Plastic Ono Band”
22. Stereolab - “Emporer Tomato Ketchup”
23. Grandaddy - “Sophtware Slump”
24. Sonic Youth - “Sister”
25. Roxy Music - “Stranded”

Oliver Sudden

I’m a song guy, from the days of 45s, to now with shuffle mix. Never did like albums, much. But, of course, in over 50 years of music listening, I’ve bought a few thousand albums from LPs to CDs. The bundled output of one artist can never be said to be better than the bundled output of another. I don’t have enough historical / cultural knowledge to make a judgment as to which albums were most important to global culture, generally, although I’d have to think that Louis Armstrong, “Heebie Jeebies”, Ela Fitzgerald, “A’-Tisket, A’-Tasket”, Hank Williams, “I’m So Lonesome, I Could Cry”, Elmore James, “Dust My Broom”, Elvis Presley,”Hound Dog”, The Beatles, “I Want To Hold Your Hand”, would have to have been highly significant. But, here, I won’t deal with singles at all, just consider albums. And I’ll only put on my list, albums important to me when they were released.

1. Nat Cole - “Love Is The Thing’
2. Bob Dylan - “The Times They Are a-Changing”
3. Charlie Mingus - “Blues n’ Roots”
4. Jimi Hendrix - “Are You Experienced”
5. John Coltrane - “Impressions”
6. Al Green - “Let’s Stay Together”
7. Willie Nelson - “Red-Haired Stranger”
8. Keith Jarrett - “Koln Concert”
9. Iggy Pop - “Lust for Life”
10. Sex Pistols - “Never Mind the Bullocks”
11. George Jones - “I Am What I Am”
12. Prince - “Sign O the Times”
13. Jane’s Addiction - “Ritual de lo Habitual”
14. Nirvana - “Nevermind”
15. Sleep - “Sleep’s Holy Mountain”
16. Punchdrunk - “Bird Bird”
17. Cesaria Evora - “Le Monde De…”
18. Lucinda Williams - “Live at The Fillmore”

J&R Jr.

I agree, this is hard to do because so many of my favorite songs aren’t represented on this list, but I guess that’s the whole point of this campaign - to bring back the concept of the entire album. After a lot of hard cutting I got it down to 25 :-)

1. Fleetwood Mac - “Rumours”
2. Billy Joel - “The Stranger’
3. Black Crowes - “Amorica”
4. Beatles - “Abbey Road”
5. Police - “Zenyatta Mondatta”
6. George Michael - “Listen without Prejudice vol 1″
7. k.d. lang - “Ingenue”
8. Lenny Kravitz - “Let Love Rule”
9. Steely Dan - “Aja”
10. Sarah McLachlan - “Surfacing”
11. U2 - “Joshua Tree”
12. Pink Floyd - “Animals”
13. Chris Isaak - “Baja Sessions”
14. Zero 7 - “Simple Things”
15. Stevie Wonder - “Innervisions”
16. Groove Collective - “We the People”
17. Prince - “Purple Rain”
18. Ray LaMontagne - “Trouble”
19. Grateful Dead - “Terrapin Station”
20. Metallica - “Metallica”
21. Jill Scott - “Who is Jill Scott?”
22. Led Zeppelin - “III”
23. Audioslave - “Audioslave”
24. Jamiroquai - “Traveling Without Moving”
25. Norah Jones - “Come Away with Me”

Dr. Iz
The IZ List:

1. Les Miserables - “Original London Cast”
2. Sweeney Todd - “Original Broadway Cast”
3. Enya - “Watermark”
4. Loreena McKennitt - “Mask in the Mirror”
5. Seldom Scene - “Live”
6. Cab Calloway - “Hep to That Jive”
7. Benny Goodman - “Live at Carnegie Hall 1938″
8. Shlomo Carlebach - “At the Village Gate”
9. Ella Fitzgerald - “Complete Ella Fitzgerald Songbooks”
10. Altan - “Best of Altan”

Hilly Billy

Listing an individual’s favorite albums is a written Rorschach test. It smacks of lifestyle analysis. A list that includes Ozzy and Metallica means one thing, Manilow and Neil Diamond, another.

Once, when I worked for a radio station, we listed 3 albums that we would most like to have on a desert island (never mind that we probably wouldn’t have had a phonograph). Mine were: Dylan’s “Blonde On Blonde”, Beatles’ “The White Album”, and Eric Clapton and Duane Allman’s “Layla”. Double albums all, for those long tropical nights.

Now, in the spirit of NARM’s listing of the top 200 of all time, I again list those three, plus:

1. “New Orleans: Home Of The Hits”, an album that apparently exists only in my head; I can’t find it anywhere on the web. Included on it were “Mother In Law”, “Ooh Poo Pah Doo”, “Fortune Teller”, “I Like It Like That”, “Ya Ya”, and other immortals.
2. Rolling Stones - “Aftermath” — ah, those crazy, hazy days.
3. Neil Young - “Zuma” — Neil’s signature guitar.
4. Robert Earl Keen - “Gravitational Forces” — great drivin’ songs.
5. Lucinda Williams - “Car Wheels On A Gravel Road” — instant classic.
6. Bob Marley - “Rastaman Vibration” — how do you pick just one album?
7. Jimmy Cliff - “The Harder They Come” — the film played at a midnight show in Cambridge for years.
8. Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane - “At Carnegie Hall” — pure synchronicity.
9. Hendrix - “Electric Ladyland” — first heard this by the Sea of Marmara in Turkey.
10. “Poet: A Tribute To Townes Van Zandt” — great songs, great performances.
11. Springsteen - “Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.” — exuberance.

OK, so that’s a list of 14. And, in the spirit of self-indulgence, I am throwing in my essential music DVDs: “The Last Waltz”, “Concert For George”, “Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert”, “Buena Vista Social Club”, and “Neil Young: Heart Of Gold”.

A.Rehak

1. The Ramones - “Ramones”
2. X - “Under The Big Black Sun”
3. Sonic Youth - “Daydream Nation”
4. Pixies - “Surfer Rosa”
5. Velvet Underground - “The Velvet Underground & Nico”
6. Fugazi - “13 Songs”
7. Iggy & The Stooges - “Raw Power”
8. Buzzcocks - “Singles Going Steady”
9. Suicidal Tendencies - “Suicidal Tendencies”
10. The Roots - “Things Fall Apart”
11. Juno Reactor - “Bible Of Dreams”
12. NWA - “Straight Outta Compton”
13. Wu-Tang Clan - “Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)”
14. Paul Oakenfold - “Tranceport”
15. Black Star - “Black Star”
16. Public Enemy - “It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back”
17. DJ Tiesto - “In My Memory”
18. Ghostface Killah - “Supreme Clientele”
19. EPMD - “Strictly Business”
20. Aphex Twin - “I Care Because You Do”

From all of us. Think about your Top 10 (or whatever), Tune in tomorrow for contest details and have fun.

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