April 12, 2004

Top 100 Albums of All Time This is music critic Peter S. Scholtes' list of fav albums.
  • I'd say a case could be made for about 50-600% of those making my list. Very good list - disurbingly high number of comps on the list IMHO though.
  • I can't see the list because it seems to have been monkeyfiltered (!?!), but I will take it a step further than Captain Psyko and say that no compilation albums belong on any 'great album' list. It seems like a kind of cheap gesture... If a group doesn't have one complete album deserving of inclusion then the group shouldn't qualify as great.
  • Ditto on the compilation albums...it's a given. Further than that--I don't think that 'Best of's..." should be allowed. Consideration should focus strictly on albums originaly as intended. I love the Door's, but I would never put the "Best of the Door's" in my list. :)
  • Beatles  check Replacements  check Husker Du  check REM...No REM?  Murmur, Reckoning, Fables of the Reconstruction, Document, Automatic for the People Also, Talking Heads More Songs About Buildings and Food is a must on any list. I could go on and on but I'll stop. Overall, a better list than most...
  • Any critic that doesn't include anything by Slint or Radiohead on their top 100 should be sent home with a note saying Must Try Harder. It's got some good stuff on, sure, and everything's subjective, but still, I've got my official Music Nazi cub scout badge and fuck if I'm not going to use it.
  • There are so many good records out there. Was it really necessary to put up all those Husker Du and Clash records. I mean, I LOVE both bands and all but wouldn't it have been more efficient for him to put "Clash on Broadway" since he loves comps so much?
  • Where the fuck is Chris Rea?
  • There's a definite 80's Minneapolis Punk slant to this. And there are certain narrow exceptions in which a comp might slide through... For instance, there are comps which do NOT consist of songs off of other albums, or merely parades of hits, but are spectacular snapshots of scenes at a moment in time. No New York is the classic example of this one. As to Clash on Broadway - well, perhaps not the best choice, but there IS justification for Live Albums on a list like this. Cheap Trick, Live @ Budokan. Need I say more?
  • And Make-Up After Dark is another live album thats as good if not better than any of their other records (although Sound Verite probably beats it, damn near perfect half hour that it is).
  • And on further study - the Soundtrack to Ghost Dog, the Way of the Samurai? PLEEEEEAAASE... I'm going to retract my "Pretty Good List" sentiment. This is shit. Only half a dozen or so movie soundtracks are justifiable on lists like this. One of them, This is Spinal Tap - has an actual band behind it. Another, Talking Heads - Stop making Sense - is the soundtrack to a MUSIC movie. Same goes to the soundtrack for Woodstock. The one on this list, is Saturday Night Fever - I don't agree with it, but it qualifies sufficiently as an album for a list like this. But GHOST DOG? Give me a fucking break.
  • I like the Ghost Dog album. Sorry
  • Linked at the same site - a standardised top 100 list from every decade. Somewhat more palatable, although I still stridently believe that U2 are a fucking pile of shit.
  • I would like to say, though, that I don't really understand the compulsion to make lists of things (says the author of this list of things). Even big lists. It just seems odd, ordering things against each other on some random chart of quality. Tomorrow, I'm going to write out a list of my 100 favourtite records, just to try it. I reckon its impossible. Then I'm going to write a list of my 100 favourite films, my hundred favourite sporting moments, my 100 favourite friends, my hundred favourite colours. (I think its the ordering part that throws me, more than anything.) Is there any compulsive list writers here?
  • dng - My obsession is more with the "getting to know you" type of Monkeyfilter posts. I'd love to put together statistics on geographic distribution, age, sex, favorite drink, etc., but the lack of user number in links to profiles and lack of ability to get lists of user comments (or even the posts as presented, as opposed ot the site linked in the post) would require a better obsessive than I to complete it. And, I'm much to fickle to come up with "top 100 records" or whatever. Changes from moment to moment. On the other hand, if a "best of" record was my favorite, who shouldn't I list it?
  • ...my hundred favourite sporting moments, my 100 favourite friends... You have a hundred friends, dude? Wow... you the man. I don't even have a hundred enemies. Not terribly keen on this list, even though there's a fair bit of crossover with my own fondnesses - it's all pretty obvious, and the 'obscure' ones are amongst the most obvious of the lot. And Original Pirate Material sticks out like a sore, desperately-trying-to-be-cool thumb. And the compilations are unforgivable. My top 100: 1: The Best Album in the World... Ever! 2: The Best Album in the World... Ever! 2 3: The Best...
  • I meant to write "my 100 favourite episodes of Friends".
  • thats nearly half the shows run DNG... Be a bit more discriminatin.
  • Oh, and path, I wasn't slagging off the "getting to know you" type of monkeyfilter posts - I like to tell people what I like, and I like to here what they like (and I'd like to do those stats, too, if I had the time). Its the idea of listing things in order of preference that seems a bit odd to me. Not only how do you (general you, not you, okay?) decide the placings, but why?
  • Top Three Pop-Tart Flavors: 1) Frosted Blueberry 2) Frosted Strawberry 3) Plain Raspberry (number three was a surprise, no?)
  • what about more recent classics like pavement-slanted and enchanted ... or any pixies album.... or mbv-loveless ... just for a few obvious ones that aren't on there. actually, there are so many amazing and classic albums missing that it's a waste of time to even think about putting together a list of what's not there
  • Bwahahahaaa! Fugees 'The Score'?
  • I thought it was a damn good list (with some weird omissions: no Stones??), good enough to make me want to seek out stuff I've never heard (Sir Shina Adewale and The Superstars International, here I come!). I don't get the animus against compilations. There are very few reggae albums that could be called great as a whole; why not have a compilation of the greatest reggae singles (it's a singles-oriented genre, for heaven's sake) that is indubitably great? Rules that hinder enjoyment are just dumb, if you ask me. Not that you did.
  • Horses by Patti Smith would be on my list. Icky Mettle by the Archers of Loaf is another one. I absolutely agree with him putting A Love Supreme on the list.
  • Double Nickel On the Dime by the Minutemen is a must for any record collection.
  • M?
  • That first bit should read "No Change of the Century?" And I previewed and everything!
  • No Miles? Birth of the Cool by Miles Davis is the shit.
  • 1) Language - I think it's because if you're going to talk about singles, just list singles. Don't use a comp as a backdoor to let in a bunch of singles from artists that couldn't put together an album. If you're listing albums, lets talk about ALBUMS - in the sense of music that was put together with the intent of it being an album. 2) Sully - DAMN Straight about the Minutemen. D. Boon and Mike Watt were so far ahead of their time... 3)Wolof - The Sex Pistols were a lot more important than they were good. PIL were a lot better than they were important. And PIL was, in retrospect, pretty damned important. As to the Sun Sessions - he seems to have an Elvis Boxed Set in there (another capital sin - even if you allow comps... Boxed Sets????) that would presumably include the Sun Sessions. and 4) Bitches Brew > Kind of Blue > Birth of the Cool.
  • Woah. I can see that we have hit a passionate point. Lots of monkeys jumping up and down in here. I have to admit, I don't know alot of the artists on this list. OutKast? Nas? Fugazi? The Dicks? There was a band called The Dicks? I'm going back to my little acoustically sealed cave now...
  • Okay, I can comprehend not knowing Fugazi, even if it's unconsionable and should be rectified. but Girl... how can you NOT know OutKast in the year 2004? They're only all fucking over the place, and, IMHO, the most culturally (though probably not commercially and definitely not qualitatively) successful artists since Nirvana.
  • but Girl... how can you NOT know OutKast in the year 2004? OutKast came on my Launch player the exact moment I started reading Captain Psyko's post. Imagine that. The song is Hey Ya!. Every time I hear this song I think about this.
  • dng - I wasn't complaining, just admitting my own obsession. And, ok, my favorite album of all time is a Pacific Jazz (long defunct) release from the 1950s, with Laureindo Almeda (guitar) and Bud Shank (sax). Smoky cool jazz with mostly Brazilian songs - though their version of "Speak Low" was wonderful. The original 33 1/3 isn't available anymore, but it appears that it was re-released as Braziliana I. If you're into modern jazz, try it. And, sullivan, thanks for reminding me.Miles rules!
  • And, hey, I screwed up a couple of things, but if you follow the link you'll get it right.
  • OutKast sings Hey yeah? /hasn't listened to radio in years, never in music loop
  • how can you NOT know OutKast in the year 2004? It's easy.
  • A Trible Called Quest, the Clash, Nas' Illmatic, Fugazi, the Beatles, DJ Shadow, Blur...this is a pretty good list (I can forgive the inclusion of LL Cool J and Prince).
  • A Trible Called Quest, the Clash, Nas' Illmatic, Fugazi, the Beatles, DJ Shadow, Blur...this is a pretty good list (I can forgive the inclusion of LL Cool J and Prince).
  • I can forgive the inclusion of LL Cool J I don't think I can.
  • No Lush? This list is dead to me.
  • Monkeyfilter: Where politics get a shrug and music gets a riot. hmm...Ape Riot, that sounds like a cool band name...
  • I decided at about 3 in the morning last night that The Small Mercies would be the best name ever for a band. Then, lazy reviewers could start their reviews with "Thank Heaven for Small Mercies".
  • No Radiohead? how refreshing - seems like any list you see has OK Computer at No 1 by default ... Sandinista? guffaw. Under a Blood Red Sky? ROFL No Stone Roses? whaaaaaaa?????? Lists like this are surely designed to provoke argument anyway? what would be interesting is if we had some kind of vote/poll on MoFi where we could all nominate 10 albums and we came up with a MoFi list ...
  • Actually, OK Computer hasn't been #1 on any list I've seen for several years - that was just a brief, two year spaz on the part of music critics, who have more recently come to appreciate that, yes, it is self-important puddle of android wank. They have instead returned The Bends to its rightful place at the top of the angsty pile. The Small Mercies would be a great band - sensitive, delicately arranged songs of unrequited love, with occasional bursts of electrotwat bang-core and extreme thrash futility to lighten the mood. After releasing one EP (Songs for the Grumpy) on Track and Field, they'd get signed to Twisted Nerve, and might well be seen supporting Snow Patrol on tour this winter. A quick google suggests that there have been a fair number of bands that never made it out of the student union bar called The Small Mercies. And yes, I suspect we should be thankful for that.