February 1, 1997 by A.S. Van Dorston

Surprisingly, I resisted making any sort of “all-time” album list for a long time. I can handle ranking albums in a one year span, but it’s another thing to compare albums from completely different eras. Why start at 1965? Two reasons. 1965 was the year that rock really started to mature, with Dylan, The Beatles and Stones beginning to make full albums as a complete artistic statement, rather than some singles and filler. Also, my expertise on music before that year begins dwindles significantly. Lacking access to any deep vinyl-based collections of often out-of-print pre-1965 records, my knowledge is more sketchy, though I did make an effort to list the ones I know.

The top of the list favors 60s and 70s albums. Does that mean that music in the last
24 years isn’t as good? Not necessarily. Earlier in history, there were fewer bands, and certainly fewer albums being produced. The great ones that came out were extremely important and had a huge cultural impact. This hasn’t happened as much since the 80s. I believe there’s been more great music produced overall since the mid 90s. But it’s more difficult to single out ones that are “classic” amongst all the excellent choices.. There are 153 albums that earned a perfect 10. That could be a lot or a little, depending on your perspective. Nine (or 4%) are from the 90s, zero from the 00s. Maybe it’s more difficult to recognize a classic without more hindsight, but I doubt it. While there’s more great music being produced than ever, there’s fewer truly consistently great albums being made. Whether it’s a slight rut in the creative zeitgeist, who knows. I am at the very least confident that the albums below deserve their rankings. The exact order is always debatable, and not all of them belong in your girlfriend’s or parent’s collections, but they’re all my sweet babies.

These artists were scored for their best four albums. Keep in mind that this is just by numbers, not feel. I don’t necessarily favor Slayer over Stevie Wonder as artists overall. It’s just how the albums ranked.