My 100 Favourite Albums Ranked

25. Peter Gabriel, untitled third album (1980)

The album often referred to as ‘Melt’. Although I loved the single Games Without Frontiers, it was a five-star review in Sounds that prompted me to buy this album. I like some of the tracks on his first two solo albums, but Gabriel really ups his game with this third release. We didn’t know it at the time but the opening track Intruder is the origin of one of the most recognisable musical tropes of the 80s – the ‘gated’ drum. This isn’t a concept album but there is undoubtedly an underlying lyrical theme – outsiders, whether the burglar (Intruder), the misfit (No Self-Control), the assassin (Family Snapshot) or the revolutionary (Biko). Gabriel famously takes forever to record albums. His work always repays close listening. He has an extraordinary musical mind.

Standout tracks: No Self-Control; Family Snapshot; Games Without Frontiers; Not One of Us; Biko

24. Simon and Garfunkel, Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970)

When I compiled a top-50 list in 1983, I put The Simon and Garfunkel Collection as my number one. (I think I had just bought the album and it was never off the turntable.) It isn’t eligible for this list (original studio albums only), but it is noteworthy that six of the eleven tracks on Bridge Over Troubled Water – Simon and Garfunkel’s magnificent swansong – featured on that single-album collection. That’s how good Bridge Over Troubled Water is.

What’s more, two of the other five tracks would not have disgraced the collection either. One is So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright, and the other is possibly their most overlooked gem – the autobiographical The Only Living Boy in New York. I find it so desperately moving – a friendship that is falling apart. The only puzzle is why such an outstanding lyricist as Paul Simon feels the need to resort to “Doh-n-doh-de-doh-n-doh”. I also find myself wondering whether a song as extraordinary as Bridge Over Troubled Water is better as the opening or closing track. Given its rousing climax, I would have put it at the end and maybe started the album with the magnificent The Boxer.

Standout tracks: Bridge Over Troubled Water; Keep the Customer Satisfied; So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright; The Boxer; The Only Living Boy in New York

23. Coldplay, A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002)

I really like Coldplay’s debut album, Parachutes (2000), but this follow-up takes them to another level. How extraordinarily assured they sound – as if they were already writing songs for stadiums. The song In My Place strikes me as typical of early Coldplay – an insistent riff that leads into a big-hearted, feel-good chorus. It is a formula that – in songs such as Clocks, Warning Sign and A Whisper – they use repeatedly, and it also enables them to elevate even fairly run-of-the-mill songs like Politik and Daylight. I still buy – and enjoy – Coldplay albums but, like many bands, nothing matches the quality of their earliest work.

Standout tracks: In My Place; The Scientist; Clocks; Warning Sign; A Whisper

22. Elbow, The Seldom Seen Kid (2008)

This is something of a late switch. For a long time I was planning on putting their third album – Leaders of the Free World (2005) – in this list but changed my mind after another listen of both albums. Fuck, it’s a tough choice. Elbow’s music is intelligent and expressive and full of emotional heft. Take the opener, Starlings, about the sudden, explosive impact of falling in love. Or Weather to Fly, a gentle meditation on youthful energy and optimism. But The Seldom Seen Kid really makes its presence felt with the impressive run of songs on the second half of the album, from The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver onwards. The Fix makes me laugh, Some Riot makes me weep, One Day Like This makes me smile. What a poet Guy Garvey is.

Standout tracks: Weather to Fly; The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver; The Fix; Some Riot; One Day Like This

21. Styx, The Grand Illusion (1977)

It was Pete Pardo of the Sea of Tranquility YouTube channel who persuaded me to listen properly to Styx. They are one of the few bands on this list who feature twice and with consecutive albums. Styx were releasing albums in the early 70s, but they only really found their feet with Equinox (1975) and Crystal Ball (1976) – the latter album, in particular, could easily have been on this list. The Grand Illusion, released in January 1977, is their masterpiece – mainstream rock music of the very highest quality. Pieces of Eight (1978) – a bit lower down in this list – is almost as good. A band at the height of their powers.

Standout tracks: The Grand Illusion; Superstars; Come Sail Away; Man in the Wilderness; Castle Walls

20 Talking Heads, Fear of Music (1979)

When I glanced through Sounds magazine’s albums of the year for 1979, little did I know that more than forty-five years later I would be placing Fear of Music in my top-twenty favourite albums of all time. (It was their favourite release of the year.)

First things first, it is – like all of the Talking Heads albums – fundamentally a collection of really catchy and clever songs. Clearly, they were not afraid to experiment, though tracks like I Zimbra, Paper and Life During Wartime further accentuate the rhythmic feel of much of the second album. Best of all, Fear of Music has the fingerprints of producer Brian Eno all over it. Working alongside fellow genius David Byrne, the result is both weird and wonderful. The album is a treat for the ears, especially now that it can be heard in Dolby Atmos.

Standout tracks: Mind; Paper; Life During Wartime; Air; Heaven

19. David Bowie, Low (1977)

Sound and Vision, the first single from Low and released in February 1977, was possibly the first David Bowie song I was ever aware of. (I must have heard one or two others before then, but without knowing they were by him.) It piqued my interest because it was so unusual – it’s short, the singing doesn’t start until halfway through and the vocal delivery is rather odd. When I eventually bought Low, I found it heavy-going, particularly side two. This was not the Bowie of Life on Mars, Suffragette City and Drive-in Saturday.

And that’s rather the point. Bowie was an actor and musical chameleon par excellence – the master of reinvention. Ziggy was long gone. So too the Thin White Duke. Low was the first of his Berlin trilogy, recorded in the literal and metaphorical shadow of the Berlin Wall rather than under the bright lights of hedonistic Los Angeles. The sound was heavily influenced by producer Tony Visconti and collaborator Brian Eno, and draws on the electronic/ambient style of German bands such as Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk. Lots of the New Romantic bands of the 80s credit Bowie as a formative influence, but his work was much more avant garde. Truly, a 70s album that never sounds dated.

Standout tracks: Speed of Life; Sound and Vision; Be My Wife; Warszawa; Art Decade

18. The Beatles, Revolver (1966)

I didn’t mind the early Beatles stuff – of the two big collections I think I preferred the Red Album to the Blue Album – but I never seriously entertained the idea of buying any of those first few albums from Please Please Me (1963) to Help (1965). Everything changes with Rubber Soul (1965) and Revolver, the two albums which I think of as the bridge between ‘early’ and ‘later’ Beatles. Both albums document the Beatles perfecting their songwriting craft. Fourteen high-quality songs delivered in thirty-five minutes; not a second of vinyl time goes to waste.

Much is made of the seminality of Tomorrow Never Knows, John Lennon’s drug-enhanced experiment in using the studio as an instrument. It’s the final track (though apparently the first one recorded) – a signpost to what was to come. But the whole album is groundbreaking, with all five members of the band – I’m including producer George Martin – at the top of their game. It is extraordinary that only two tracks from Revolver (and none of the ones listed below) featured on the Red Album.

Standout tracks: Taxman; I’m Only Sleeping; Here, There and Everywhere; Good Day Sunshine; And Your Bird Can Sing

17. Pink Floyd, Animals (1977)

Whenever I try to picture Seventies Britain it is TV shows like The Sweeney and The Professionals that come to mind, particularly the frantic car chases that are usually executed amidst the rubble and detritus of a decaying, deindustrialised London. The iconic cover of Pink Floyd’s Animals depicts Battersea Power Station (plus flying pig) in the London of that era, and the album’s tracks are a bleak but brilliant document of a society in political, economic and (particularly) moral decline.

The music (and the musicianship) is, it goes without saying, terrific but – like him or loathe him – it is Roger Waters whose conceptual conceit truly elevates Animals. His Orwell-esque allegories systematically dissect and then skewer the dominant culture and mores that so evidently repulse him. It is chilling and deeply cynical – but always mesmerising. The ‘Lord Is My Shepherd’ section of Sheep doesn’t quite work, but it is still – along with Comfortably Numb – my favourite Pink Floyd track.

Standout tracks: Dogs; Sheep

16. Yes, The Yes Album (1971)

For a long time this was pencilled in as my number-one Yes album. On reflection, it yields the top spot to another, if only on the basis that one crucial ingredient in the classic Yes mix is missing: Rick Wakeman. What the album does have, however, is the debut appearance of Steve Howe, whose scintillating contributions helped to transform the Yes sound and enabled them to experiment with ever more ambitious pieces of music. (Wakeman’s arrival by the time of the next album, Fragile, had a similar ratcheting effect, I would argue.)

Songs such as Yours Is No Disgrace, I’ve Seen All Good People and Perpetual Change became staples of the live show but the album’s highlight (and another live staple) is arguably Starship Trooper. The acoustic Clap is another Howe masterclass, though it is odd that the album includes a live – and not particularly well recorded – version and not the slightly longer studio recording (which features part of what became Mood for a Day at the end – perhaps that’s the reason).

Standout tracks: Yours Is No Disgrace; Starship Trooper; Perpetual Change

15. Rush, A Farewell to Kings (1977)

The sleeve notes on Rush’s 1976 live album All the World’s a Stage – great title! – include the statement that the album “signifies the end of the beginning, a milestone to mark the close of chapter one, in the annals of Rush”. A Farewell to Kings opened chapter two. The most obvious progression is the introduction of keyboards – sparingly, at first – to the band’s sound.

There is a distinctly medieval/pre-industrial feel to A Farewell to Kings – the lovely acoustic introduction recorded in the open air, the lyrical references to blacksmiths, madrigals and Rocinante (from Don Quixote) – and yet paradoxically the album closes with a voyage into deep space and an encounter with a black hole. The lyrics of the title track resonate even more powerfully in the 2020s than they did in the mid-70s – “The hypocrites are slandering the sacred halls of truth” – and the words of Closer to the Heart are up there with Neil Peart’s finest. And if there is a better side of vinyl than the original side one, I can’t think of it.

Standout tracks: A Farewell to Kings; Xanadu; Closer to the Heart; Cygnus X-1

TO BE CONTINUED…

Pages:Previous 1 2 3 4