The fifty all time best albums by Q magazine readers...

http://us.inmagine.com/168nwm/stockdisc/sd124/186519sdc.jpg

Muse, Moby, David Gray, Wilco?

What if you had room for 237 albums 'though?

some of these are just bewildering.

Blonde on blonde, and...

Oh, Exile on main street, as its a double and I haven't got/heared it.

Interesting Kid A being in the Top Ten now though, only five years ago non clued-in listeners would have found that one quite radical (yes I know, not really... I'm thinking of mums & dads not following the shifts of IDM & Electronica very closely), now it's the token 'radical' choice and they've run off with the 'New Beatles Substitute' honours.

I bet Coldplay wish they had pushed the limits a bit more on X&Y now eh?

-- Theorry Henry

18 forever!!

I think Kate is always in these lists btw. Feels horribly tokenistic in the (rocktastic) company but there you go.

1. Let's play domination
2. Marquee Moon
3. Forever changes
4. Nuggets box
5. Trout Mask
6. Os mutantes
7. Giant Steps Boo Radleys

to be continued...

to be continues.ss

I'm bored now.

Start again.

Nos 4, 6, 10, 17, 28, 34, 36, 39, 50, 51, 61, 66 (but de stijl's better), 72 (I'll give it a go), and finally 95.

And 28 > 20?

Really?

And you'd pick 6, 39 and 61 rather than 12 (even if it isn't the best album The Smiths did), 42, 43, 44 or (next best thing to a Beefheart album) 99?

I'm surprised.

And a little hurt.

28 > 20? Ah, I've heared it too much I guess. Actually, youre right. There's enough to love there. It's probably because of that 'deluxe' edition that I played once, like you said I would. My bad.

42 is one I don't need as I could play it in my head all the way through and hear odd little things I missed every time. The timpani solo in "I'll be your mirror". The oboe in "European son".

43 and 44 I don't know or care about.

And 99 I haven't got any tom. One day.

[.... rare moment of stunned silence.... ]

"And 99 I haven't got any tom. One day."

Oh you really should have. You should probably get that one first as well.

I have "Death to the Pixies" and dug it out recently to play in the car on a long journey. Enjoyed it, but not especially so.

"Closer", well I never got JD back in the day, really. Apart from the hits. Got a cheap copy of "Still" which was alright. I did get one of the compilations, but decided that they were one of those bands where albums were a piece, not mixeable.

As regards Joy Division albums 'though, I'm afraid Still was by far the worst one of the three to get - and isn't really a "proper" album itself anyway; "alright" is probably a fair appraisal; and you're probably right about JD compilations too (Closer could arguably be considered a compilation....)

Using exactly the same basis of assessment however, Unknown Pleasures and Closer are both absolute masterpieces and completely essential.

I was in Fopp today, looking for the Catpain's "Uncondit" album but it was £8 so no. They always have the JDs so may try tomorrow. Yup, back on the road soon.

I like all the Beatles and Stones recds in the list except Sgt Pepper and Sticky Fingers. Also really like Who's Next, Led Zep IV, Automatic For The People, Low, Setting Sons, The Doors, Dummy, Ziggy, Ray Of Light, Dark Side Of The Moon, Rumours, Doolittle.
It's not too bad a list really, is it? It's just seeing all these *really popular* records all together that makes us feel a bit queasy, right?

henry i have heard the entirety of HALF that top 20 and at least one 'representative' from the rest.

the idea that ray of light is madonna's best album is completely mental.

stevem, the last christina milian album is better than pretty much EVERYTHING on this list. apart from maybe kate bush.

Yes, of course it was; and no, of course it isn't.

When I wrote "Closer could arguably be considered a compilation....", the words that were going through my head; which I was instructing my fingers to type; and which I confidently believed I could see on the screen in front of me were (of course) "Still could arguably be considered a compilation....".

Yes, I am a twat.

I don't think that album has ever been on a Q list. (And I fully agree with the readers regarding that)

As for the list? It is better than the one they did a few years back, which had way too much garage rock, contemporary R&B and Aretha Franklin in it. But, seriously. Sure Radiohead is a great band and all that, but not that great!

"The Bends" at number two is overrated, and "Kid A" shouldn't have been in the list at all.

*giggle*

ihttp://www.beefheart.com/zigzag/pictures/MortonDeath1.jpg

otm. insane that there's no showing for at least one of those in the top 20. unless they rigged it that way!

http://www.greenplastic.com/2010/12/22/ok-computer-named-best-album-of-the-past-25-years/

Q Magazine readers recently voted Radiohead’s OK Computer as the best album of the past 25 years. No big surprise there, right? The band also took three other places in the top 30 – compiled to mark 25 years of the magazine – with The Bends at eight, Kid A at 18 and In Rainbows at 23. 13 years ago, Q Magazine had a similar poll where OK Computer was also named best album of all time. Now that is staying power.

Full list after the jump.

(thanks to Peter)

The Top 30 albums:

1. OK Computer – Radiohead
2. Nevermind – Nirvana
3. (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? – Oasis
4. Definitely Maybe – Oasis
5. Whatever People Say I Am That’s What I’m Not – Arctic Monkeys
6. The Joshua Tree – U2
7. The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses
8. The Bends – Radiohead
9. Achtung Baby – U2
10. Black Holes And Revelations – Muse
11. Is This It – The Strokes
12. A Rush Of Blood To The Head – Coldplay
13. Parklife – Blur
14. Screamadelica – Primal Scream
15. White Blood Cells – The White Stripes
16. In The Aeroplane Over The Sea – Neutral Milk Hotel
17. Hot Fuss – The Killers.
18. Kid A – Radiohead
19. Funeral – Arcade Fire
20. American Idiot – Green Bay
21. The Holy Bible – Manic Street Preachers
22. Absolution – Muse
23. In Rainbows – Radiohead
24. Only By The Night – Kings Of Leon
25. Demon Days – Gorillaz
26. Origin Of Symmetry – Muse
27. Appetite For Destruction – Guns N’Roses
28. Urban Hymns – The Verve
29. Automatic For The People – R.E.M.
30. Loveless – My Bloody Valentine

Fuck Q.

....'s readers

and the magazine

potentially relevant to this discussion:

McGonigal’s introduction for the second part [of Pitchfork's c.2008 10th-anniversary feature], a retrospective by currently in-
vogue indie artists, continued to link the album’s release and Pitchfork. In the opening
sentence, McGonigal claimed that “in indie circles, In the Aeroplane over the Sea was
hailed as an instant classic.”11 McGonigal emphasized its influence on contemporary
indie artists by associating the band with artists such as Devendra Banhart, the
Decemberists, and Beirut who were themselves lauded by Pitchfork. McGonigal’s
reiterated that he, and thus Pitchfork, immediately understood the album was brilliant:
“I’m really glad that Aeroplane is so revered. I love it to death, myself—cried when I first
listened to the promo cassette and everything. I knew immediately that this was
something really special, and wasn’t surprised when quite a few other people agreed.”12
Since the original sources were deleted, and since many of the original sources are from
out-of-print magazines or on defunct websites, someone reading Pitchfork today has no
choice but to believe Pitchfork was the sole source to laud the album from the beginning.

[...] The album’s manner of
circulation is seen as archetypically indie, receiving airplay on college and alternative
radio, but not on mainstream media outlets such as MTV or Top 40 radio. Since then, the
album has been described as selling via word-of-mouth, although it can be purchased at
major music stores. This method of advertising was found in the artists’ retrospective;
many of them described being introduced to the album by a friend.

for my own part, I hadn't listened to any E6 stuff (altho I think I had heard of Apples in Stereo) before I was introduced to NMH c.2002 through a recommendation by a cool older dude from Austin who posted on the same video-game message board as me and had generally excellent taste (also put me on to Haruki Murakami — thanks Chris!). but I got the impression, at that time, that it already had quite a cult following; and most of my friends in high school who were into 'indie' music had at least heard of it (remember getting clowned on for liking "that anne frank album")

also, I like Blake's idea that the album's "anti-mainstream qualities have ossified due to the group’s musical silence" — which could maybe more cynically rephrased as "they haven't done anything to embarrass themselves or create a backlash".

at any rate, it does seem to still be perceived as essentially 'weird' in a way that is rare for an album of its stature, 'mainstream' or not. part of which is of course due to the attitudes listeners and critics bring to the thing, but let's be real, the music also has to do a lot of work to sustain such a reading.

'nother interesting angle:

Radiohead, Neutral Milk Hotel Help Vinyl Sales Almost Double In 2008

JANUARY 8, 2009 2:05 PM EDT
While CD sales continue to decline, vinyl is still experience a renaissance: 89 percent more LPs were sold last year than in '07. Part of the leap can be attributed to Capitol Records' decision to reissue many of their most famous albums on vinyl, as the Beatles' Abbey Road was the year's second-highest-selling vinyl album, Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon ranked seventh and Radiohead's OK Computer rounded out the Top 10. Radiohead's In Rainbows, an album that began its career as a free download, was 2008's biggest vinyl seller, a position that was no doubt aided by the fact that the album came out on January 1st of last year and therefore had plenty of time on shelves.

Other shockers: Neutral Milk Hotel's 1998 classic In The Aeroplane Over the Sea came in sixth, ahead of Dark Side, Fleet Foxes and Metallica's Death Magnetic. Guns n' Roses' Chinese Democracy, while struggling to sell CDs, sold enough vinyls to place third on the Top 10 list. But the biggest surprise: The B-52's' new album Funplex was the year's fourth best-selling record as it bridged the gap between people who probably owned record players decades ago and the new class of vinyl buyers.

As we examined back in June in our "Vinyl Returns" feature, the death of the CD and the influx of the MP3 — with its varying degrees of less-than-CD-quality sound — have opened the door for vinyl to be relevant again. Plus, the artwork for Aeroplane looks so much better on a larger canvas. In all, the number of records sold last year leapt from 988,000 in '07 to 1.88 million in '08. Still, the sales from vinyl only made up 0.1 percent of the music sales in 2008, a year that saw a 14 percent decrease across the board.

okay one last quote just for lols:

Shortly after the release of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Puncture magazine had a cover story on Neutral Milk Hotel. In it Mangum told of the influence on the record of Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl. He explained that shortly after releasing On Avery Island he read the book for the first time, and found himself completely overwhelmed with sadness and grief. Back in 1998 this admission made my jaw drop. What the hell? A guy in a rock band saying he was emotionally devastated by a book everyone else in America read for a middle-school assignment? I felt embarrassed for him at first, but then, the more I thought about it and the more I heard the record, I was awed.

(that's from the 2005 pfork review of the reissue, which argues that Aeroplane's most distinctive quality within the 90s indie rock canon is that it "is not cool.")

Well in the case of Bob Marley, Q readers are legally required to own a copy of 'Exodus' so that they can go around telling everybody that they "listen to reggae".

The Q readers feel no need to tell everyone they listen to reggae. They don't feel like they are required to like a certain kind of music that they don't, for instance they don't give a damn about listen to any token R&B or funk.
However, Bob Marley had more way with a tune than any (true) reggae act ever before or since, and as such, he has gotten a well-deserved position as the leading reggae act ever.

Bob Marley had more way with a tune than any (true) reggae act ever before or since

no way, e.g., horace andy; cornell campbell; jimmy cliff; the congos.

I like Jimmy Cliff, but I feel like his melodies were more repetitive and harmonically less varied than a lot of Bob Marley's tunes. I don't like "Exodus" (the song) at all, but thankfully Bob Marley was usually able to go way beyong one chord songs like that one.