My buddy Sandy asked me for my “top ten” albums and I dismissed it at first. So many lists have been compiled through the decades and so much great music created that narrowing any greatest hits list to ten is near impossible but I’m about to try.
First some ground rules- single albums only and no live albums. Frampton Comes Alive, One More from the Road, Live From Fillmore East, The River, Physical Graffiti, Yessongs, Sandinista, The Last Waltz, Derek and the Dominos. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, and Exile From Main Street will have to wait.
Second- no greatest hits collections- too many and too easy. Some of my favorite artists have numerous classic songs but not the one great all time studio album.
Third- only one album per artist- it would be tough to narrow down my top ten Neil Young albums so giving Neil and the rest only one slot apiece seems to be the only way to go.
The Top Ten albums of all time (today) in no particular order (maybe) are the following:
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The Beatles-
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Sgt. Pepper is easily the greatest Beatles albums of all time and one of the most important in the history of rock and roll.
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Rolling Stones- Sticky Fingers
I still remember having this and “Goats Head Soup” (which I had to special order from a local record store) on eight track tape.
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Neil Young- Tonight’s the Night
“Rust Never Sleeps”
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Lou Reed- The Blue Mask
“New York” and the great Velvet Underground catalog notwithstanding , “The Blue Mask” found Lou at yet another peak of his creative powers and this album captured my attention for a long, long period of time.
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Guns N Roses- Appetite for Destruction
What! No Led Zeppelin ? My favorite Led Zep album is the double disc “Physical Graffiti”.
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Pink Floyd- Wish You Were Here
Before “The Wall” and after “Animals” Pink Floyd captivated my neighborhood with “Wish You Were Here” which also took album packaging to whole new mysterious level.
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Bruce Springsteen- Born to Run
My favorite Bruce Springsteen album is “The River” but “Thunder Road” may be the greatest rock and roll song of all time, and the album was the game changer for Springsteen, so Born to Run makes the list.
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Jethro Tull- Aqualung
Some may quarrel with this choice but when I was a high school freshman, my favorite band was Jethro Tull and my buddy Bobby’s older sister in high school put her headphones on me to check out the title song making quite a sonic impression.
The first album I bought on my own was “Warchild” and I was tempted to go with “Thick as a Brick” or “Songs from the Wood” as one of my top ten selections but the album “Aqualung” has been a classic rock staple for so long it seems to have been overlooked of late as one of the great albums in the history of rock and roll.
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Aerosmith- Rocks
“Toys In the Attic” is great hard rock album but this one is just a notch better in my estimation.
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David Bowie- Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
I love all of the different phases of David Bowie’s career but this Brian Eno collaboration edges out “Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars” for me.
Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves.
Rock on!
GQ