Over the years, there have been many lists drawn up of “THE GREATEST ALBUMS OF ALL TIME”. Many albums repeating on the lists but not always in the same order & always highly scrutinized by all who read them. It seems like the world had become obsessed with “The top of all time lists”. With respect to music it makes sense these lists exist. Certainly from the onset of Rock n’ roll they’ve existed & music never looked back.
Now, after 60 odd years & a myriad of mega-stars, the great debates begin & the one that always fascinates me, “THE GREATEST ALBUMS OF ALL TIME”. The internet’s a perfect one for these sort of lists & I ignore them consistently like ignoring spam because without fail, personal opinion gets in the way & then the comments rage on & people get ugly. A few weeks back, in front of me as one of the headlines of a legitimate news website – “THE OFFICIAL TOP 20 GREATEST ALBUMS OF ALL TIME”. I was too curios not to look, I mean this was “official”! I clicked & there, before my very eyes was yet another list with flawed criteria & as hard as the compiler of the list may have tried, personal bias filtered through. This top 20 based its figures on sales & the amount of Grammy’s won. Clearly, the compiler was a big Led Zeppelin fan with 5 of the 20 albums being Zeppelin albums. I cannot argue that Zeppelin don’t deserve to be their but 5 albums seemed to be a clue to me of bias.
It’s had me thinking for weeks now, can you really compile a list like this? The answer is no. the only way we could ever compile a legitimate list would be to base it on sales & even there when I looked into that it has only been in recent times that we have seen international sales being calculated as opposed to sales figures from the US. Furthermore, technology must have an influence on these figures with the advent of the LP, the cassette tape, the decline of these 2 & the introduction of the compact disc & now its demise affecting sales figures worldwide. You cannot officially have a “G.O.A.T” list.
Looking at this list did one good thing. It made me think of what my top 20 albums of all time would be & what I realized is that we all have our greatest & does it really matter what other people think? As I read through all the comments & reading comments you would see on Youtube for example, it seems like people the world over need other people to affirm that their opinion is right! That’s crazy in itself because our opinions are what make us unique. So, think about your lists, based on albums that really had an impact on your lives. They may not have been the biggest selling, they may not have won 5 Grammy’s but they meant something in your life & surely that's far more important than whether or not other people think it’s “THE GREATEST ALBUM OF ALL TIME”.
Here’s mine, I based it on the impact it had on my life. Surprisingly no Prince albums made my list but he does remain my favourite artist of all time:
1. D’angelo – Voodoo
2. Michael Jackson – Dangerous
3. India Arie – Acoustic soul
4. Eric Benet – A day in the life
5. Amel Larieux – Infinite Possibilities
6. John Mayer – Room for Squares
7. Damien Rice – O
8. Eryka Badu – Baduism
9. Incognito – No time like the future
10. Jeff Buckley – Grace
11. Jill Scott – Experience
12. Nikka Costa – Everybody Got their something
13. P.M. Dawn – The Bliss Album
14. Stevie Wonder – Songs in the key of life
15. Terrence Trent D’arby – Vibrator
16. The Brand New Heavies – Brother Sister
17. George Michael – Older
18. Alana Davis – Blame it on me
19. Lenny Kravitz – Mama Said
20. Van Morrison - His band & The street choir
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