This is it, the long awaited (well, by me anyway) blog dedicated to my 100 Essential Albums. A personal list, this collection is not based on sales, popularity or influence on anything other than myself. The idea was sparked off after reading “Rock’n’Roll : la discothèque idéale : 101 disques qui ont changé le monde” (The Ideal Disco: 101 Albums That Changed The World) by Philippe Manoeuvre and deciding that after 16 years of buying cds I should compile my own. A guide to those 100 albums that I deem essential, must-haves.
There are rules that have been suggested and applied as this list was subject to much discussion. For those not familiar with me or my main blog (see the blogroll) I’m a musician who hangs out with other musicians so the subject of “the greatest album” is always being thrown around. So to prevent a list with 5 albums by Bob Dylan or Springsteen albums or a list that featured almost every Nirvana release…
The rules:
No more than 2 albums per artist
No live albums
No compilations
Albums must have been out for at least a year to prevent the influence of temporary infatuation – I may still be deeply in love with last year’s Band Of Horses and Dinosaur Jr albums but will I regard them as “Essential” in 3 or 4 years?
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Some friends of mine have been compiling a similar list of late but I am somewhat perplexed by your rules – why no live albums? Some of the greatest albums of all time have been live albums. The Who Live At Leeds; The Allman Brothers Live At The Fillmore; Bob Marley Live At The Lyceum; Basie and Sinatra at The Sands etc etc. Our rules were only 1 album per artist (makes that choice really pertinent) and no best-ofs or compilations but other than that – anything goes. I do like your 1 year released rule although we tended to fall into that without ruling on it anyway.
Hey Swampy, thanks for your feedback.
The no live albums one was a tough call but the reaons are two fold; firstly because I was aiming for those landmark (to me) studio records and while there’s some awesome live albums out there, to me they weren’t as vital.
That being said, the second reason is that the next list (of three) is my “Essential Live Albums” on which the likes of Live at Leeds, the Clash’s Shea Stadium offering and possibly even ..At The Sands will certainly feature. Unfortunately, thanks to my remiss at keeping this one so steady in updates (something I am now addressing) this list is still in it’s scaps of paper stage but gathering pace.
Being both a music-nut and an avid lister I’d certainly be interested in seeing those of your friends though. I tried the only 1 per artist rule but there’s so many that have had more than one high point in their career (especially those that have been around for decades) and some of landmark albums for each chapter it was too tough, I argued enough with myself just pulling some of them down to two.