Twenty Albums

In the mid-nineties I made a top ten album list for an online forum. Considering the fact that I made it up on the spot in just a few minutes, it has held up remarkably well -- I haven't changed my mind about any of them being top ten. Here is the list, alphabetically by artist:

• "White Album" - Beatles
• "Cheap Thrills" - Big Brother and the Holding Company
• "Bitches Brew" - Miles Davis
• "Meat Puppets II" - Meat Puppets
• "Metal Box" - Public Image Ltd
• "Murmur" - R.E.M.
• "Road to Ruin" - Ramones
• "Philosophy of the World" - Shaggs
• "The Stooges" - Stooges
• "White Light/White Heat" - Velvet Underground

In 1999 Shannon Curfman released "Loud Guitars, Big Suspicions" and it immediately went onto my top ten list. Shortly thereafter "Metal Machine Music" by Lou Reed was rereleased and I heard it for the first time, and it too joined the list. I was unwilling to drop any of these albums from my top ten list, so for many years my top ten list had twelve titles. But it wasn't my top twelve list, it was still my top ten. In 2016 Radiohead released "A Moon Shaped Pool" and I was now in the uncomfortable position of having thirteen albums on my top ten list.

I agonized about this for many years. Maybe 'agonized' is too strong a word, but it was often on my mind. Finally, I found a solution: I would make a top twenty list. It fell together as easily as my top ten list. Here it is, alphabetical by artist:

• "The Band" - The Band (2)
• "Revolver" - Beatles
• "White Album" - Beatles
• "Cheap Thrills" - Big Brother and the Holding Company (2)
• "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" - Byrds
• "Loud Guitars, Big Suspicions" - Shannon Curfman (1)
• "Bitches Brew" - Miles Davis
• "Surrealistic Pillow" — Jefferson Airplane (2)
• "Pearl" — Janis Joplin (F)
• "Forever Changes" - Love
• "Meat Puppets II" - Meat Puppets (2)
• "Metal Box" - Public Image Ltd (2)
• "Murmur" - R.E.M. (1)
• "Moon Shaped Pool" - Radiohead (F)
• "Road to Ruin" - Ramones
• "Metal Machine Music" - Lou Reed
• "Philosophy of the World" - Shaggs (1)
• "The Stooges" - Stooges (1)
• "The Velvet Underground and Nico" - Velvet Underground (1)
• "White Light/White Heat" - Velvet Underground (2)

Some observations: Janis Joplin, The Beatles, and The Velvet Underground are my three favorite musical artists; they each have two albums on the list, Joplin once with Big Brother. Lou Reed is on the list three times, once as a solo artist, and twice with The Velvet Underground. When presented alphabetically by artist eight of the first ten are sixties albums; of the two that aren't, "Loud Guitars" is timeless blues/rock, and "Bitches Brew" is whatever "Bitches Brew" is. The next ten are all protopunk or postpunk. Five of the albums are the artist's first album, 6 are the artist's second album (indicated by numbers in parenthesis); two are the artist's final album (indicated by an F in parenthesis, although Radiohead could release another in the future; Joplin released many posthumous albums, but none of the material on them were intended for release as a single work, and is mostly barrel scraping). The first album to be released was "Revolver", in 1966, and the last was "A Moon Shaped Pool", 50 years later in 2016.

If you wonder what the list would look like if I listed them in order of preference, that would be impossible, but I can say this: my three favorite albums are "Cheap Thrills", the "White Album", and "White Light/White Heat", in that order.