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

I was gonna name-drop Pendragon but that seemed a step too far.

1. Radiohead - OK Computer
2. Radiohead - The Bends
3. Nirvana - Nevermind
4. The Beatles - Revolver
5. Oasis - Definitely Maybe
6. The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses
7. R.E.M. - Automatic For The People
8. Oasis - (What's The Story) Morning Glory?
9. U2 - Achtung Baby
10. Radiohead - Kid A
11. U2 - The Joshua Tree
12. The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead
13. Jeff Buckley - Grace
14. The Beatles - Abbey Road
15. Pink Floyd - The Dark Side Of The Moon
16. The Verve - Urban Hymns
17. The Beatles - The Beatles
18. The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
19. The Beatles - Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
20. The Clash - London Calling

it's an odd list in that it feels basically the same as the 1998 list -- especially the radiohead-verve post-britpop ascendancy. it's amazing that there's nothing from the last eight years.

but knowing my friends (and me, a bit) i really can't think of any albums as 'canonical' ('ok computer' felt canonical then, only 6 months after it came out!) among non-hipsters.

but seriously folks, i think this is 'cos of downloading.

maybe today's 17-year-olds can't be arsed to vote.

Younger people get their info on the net: up to the minute news, reviews, video clips, band sites, fan sites, downloads, interviews... Why would someone young buy a music magazine from their pocket money if all of that is online for free?

-- StanM (Stan10...), January 3rd, 2006.

well, yeah, but q put the franz and the killers and the coldplay 'pon their cover.

Love : Forever Changes.

... who all sound like they're big fans of the eighties, coincidentally. Or not coincidentally, if you think about the amount of old albums that get reissued (with extra DVD stuff to lure in a couple of young 'uns!), old bands that reunite and tour. This is their last chance before the internet music revolution robs them of every chance to make this amount of money. The whole industry is clutching at straws because of this evil internet thing, that's why they're pushing retro-type bands like Franz and Strokes and Kaiser Chiefs and the lot. That's what they know and that's what they know the people who still buy actual CD's might like.

(just brainstorming here, though)

1. Loveless
2. Kid A
3. Discovery
4. Chocolate Starfish & The Hot Dog-Flavoured Water
5. Dare
6. A Different Class
7. So Tough
8. OK Computer
9. The Chronic
10. Trout Mask Replica
11. One Polish, Two Biscuits & A Fish Sandwich
12. The Queen Is Dead
13. Enter The Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers
14. Dolittle
15. It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back
16. The Velvet Underground & Nico
17. The Bends
18. The Hounds Of Love
19. Revolver
20. Sticky Fingers

i don't want to break your chops, lex, but have you actually heard any of the records at all?

100) Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
99) Tom Waits - Rain Dogs
98 ) Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique
97) Lou Reed - Transformer
96) Kraftwerk - The Man-Machine
95) Iggy and the Stooges - Raw Power
94) Prince and the Revolution - Purple Rain
93) Bob Marley and the Wailers - Exodus
92) Manic Street Preachers - Everything Must Go
91) Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back
90) The Cure - Disintegration
89) Morrissey - Vauxhall & I
88 ) Neil Young - After The Goldrush
87) PJ Harvey - Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
86) Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP
85) Pulp - Different Class
84) Stevie Wonder - Songs in the Key of Life
83) Paul Weller - Stanley Road
82) Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run
81) Stereophonics - Word Gets Around
80) David Bowie - Low
79) The Jam - Setting Sons
78 ) AC/DC - Back in Black
77) The Clash - The Clash
76) Johnny Cash - American III: Solitary Man
75) The Doors - The Doors
74) Muse - Origin of Symmetry
73) Alanis Morissette - Jagged Little Pill
72) Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
71) Rage Against the Machine - Rage Against the Machine
70) Travis - The Man Who
69) Manic Street Preachers - The Holy Bible
68 ) Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
67) David Gray - White Ladder
66) The White Stripes - White Blood Cells
65) Massive Attack - Blue Lines
64) The Rolling Stones - Let it Bleed
63) The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced?
62) Kate Bush - Hounds of Love
61) Beck - Odelay
60) Radiohead - Amnesiac
59) Pearl Jam - Ten
58 ) Michael Jackson - Thriller
57) Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti
56) Moby - Play
55) Portishead - Dummy
54) Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dreams
53) U2 - All That You Can't Leave Behind
52) Nirvana - Unplugged in New York
51) The Who - Who's Next
50) Love - Forever Changes
49) REM - Document
48 ) The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers
47) Van Morrison - Astral Weeks
46) David Bowie - Hunky Dory
45) Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited
44) Joy Division - Closer
43) Pixies - Doolittle
42) The Velvet Undrground & Nico - The Velvet Underground & Nico
41) David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
40) Coldplay - Parachutes
39) Primal Scream - Screamadelica
38 ) The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Electric Ladyland
37) REM - Out Of Time
36) Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde
35) Blur - Parklife
34) The Rolling Stones - Exile on Main St.
33) Madonna - Ray of Light
32) Marvin Gaye - What's Going On
31) Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication
30) Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
29) The Beatles - Rubber Soul
28 ) Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks
27) Pink Floyd - The Wall
26) The Strokes - Is This It
25) Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head
24) Guns N' Roses - Appetite for Destruction
23) Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks
22) Nirvana - In Utero
21) Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin IV
20) The Clash - London Calling
19) The Beatles - Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
18 ) The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
17) The Beatles - The Beatles
16) The Verve - Urban Hymns
15) Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon
14) The Beatles - Abbey Road
13) Jeff Buckley - Grace
12) The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
11) U2 - The Joshua Tree
10) Radiohead - Kid A
9) U2 - Achtung Baby
8 ) Oasis - (What's the Story) Morning Glory?
7) REM - Automatic for the People
6) The Stone Roses - The Stones Roses
5) Oasis - Definitely Maybe
4) The Beatles - Revolver
3) Nirvana - Nevermind
2) Radiohead - The Bends
1) Radiohead - OK Computer

I own 78 of them. I'd say that I really like or even love a good 50 of them. My particular favourite records ever? Not even close.

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

Muse, Moby, David Gray, Wilco?

What if you had room for 237 albums 'though?

Fuck Q.

....'s readers

and the magazine

i always forget that muse exists until a Q or NME list makes the rounds

I always forget that Q exists until I see it in an airport bookstore as the only printed music magazine available

Neutral Milk Hotel is so so so so weird on that list.

"where are all the girlth"

5. Whatever People Say I Am That’s What I’m Not – Arctic Monkeys

amazing

Green Bay lol

Aaron Rogers and his head?

20. American Idiot – Green Bay

who is this magical Green Bay of whom i have heard

I have to say it surprises me that there is nothing more recent than "A Rush Of Blood To The Head". Like, Franz Ferdinand and The Killers and why aren't the numerous Muse fans reading Q voting for anything newer than "Origin Of Symmetry"?

In the 90s polls there was a tendency that way too many recent albums were popping up in the polls, but now it's the opposite. Of course this is partly an indication that there has been very much a drought of indie type British music in the past years - the biggest indie names have largely been North American.

Er, Geir - Funeral was 2005, Black Holes & Revelations was 2006, In Rainbows was 2007. And the Killers are in there.

wow! diff betwixt britishes ilx then and now is mind-boggling. (also: what ever happened to that nice Enrique lad?)

X-Post. Didn't notice those. Although "Funeral" was indeed 2005. Still puzzles me how the Q readers have already forgotten about Franz Ferdinand though.

Was indeed 2004, I mean

I bet most people wish they could forget Franz Ferdinand ever existed.

The Kaiser maybe, not the band. They are (still) great. :)

The band, not the Archduke!

Q: What's the difference between Franz Ferdinand and jokes about Franz Ferdinand's name?
A: Jokes about Franz Ferdinand's name can get old.

5. Whatever People Say I Am That’s What I’m Not – Arctic Monkeys

amazing

― markers, Friday, 24 December 2010 06:29 (8 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^^^^^

so, two ladies in the top 25, no non-whites. Surprised, surprised.

still, loveless! never would have thought they had it in them.

Two ladies? Who? Which? Regine? Bilinda?
Sorry for being "worked up" but the UK can sink into the sea.

hahaha

Sorry for being "worked up" but the UK can sink into the sea.

this should be the catchphrase on yr tour posters next time you visit the UK

the 9 american (and 1 canadian!) albums paint an even bleaker picture:

2. Nevermind – Nirvana
11. Is This It – The Strokes
15. White Blood Cells – The White Stripes
16. In The Aeroplane Over The Sea – Neutral Milk Hotel
17. Hot Fuss – The Killers
19. Funeral – Arcade Fire
20. American Idiot – Green Bay
24. Only By The Night – Kings Of Leon
27. Appetite For Destruction – Guns N’Roses
29. Automatic For The People – R.E.M.

NOT IN MY NAME

Why does limey people never want to black?

Why doeslimey people Q readers never want to black?

Look at the UK # 1s thread. Lots of limey people is black.

so, two ladies in the top 25, no non-whites. Surprised, surprised.

I guess you know Q readers don't like R&B or hip-hop much. Then, namecheck some black indie rock bands that should have been in the list

Neutral Milk Hotel is so so so so weird on that list.

― sean gramophone, Friday, 24 December 2010 06:10 (Yesterday)

not really

rmde at ppl getting upset a q lists

might as well get upset that the nra end of year list is full of guns

sorry for forgetting that yr friends in arcade fire are grrrls owen. :)

might as well get upset that the nra end of year list is full of guns

haha

well yeah obviously that's true to an extent — like, why wouldn't anyone read Q if they *didn't* think OK Computer was the best album ever made? — but I still think this list is bad enough to warrant a lil bit of upset-ness

basically the only thing that has changed in the past 5 yrs is that two of the better albums (Kid A and Automatic) drop out of the top 10 and are replaced by Arctic Monkeys and Muse

smdh

the 9 american (and 1 canadian!) albums paint an even bleaker picture:

I would say it shows the Q readers have gotten the point. Of course the best music is being made in the UK. :)

OK, so they may not be in the Top 30, but these are all in the list.

94) Prince and the Revolution - Purple Rain
93) Bob Marley and the Wailers - Exodus
91) Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back
84) Stevie Wonder - Songs in the Key of Life
65) Massive Attack - Blue Lines
63) The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced?
58 ) Michael Jackson - Thriller
38 ) The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Electric Ladyland
32) Marvin Gaye - What's Going On

The lack of women is more obvious, but I guess there are still too few female singer/songwriters out there.

Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley are both surprising, given they both died before 1985, in Hendrix's case 15 years before the poll is supposed to start. It's like Q readers don't know what they're on about!

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".

At what point did ITAOTS turn from underground Elephant 6 album into proper cannon fodder? Or has it been such a slow process I didn't notice?

No idea, although it should have been some Apples (In Stereo) album instead as they have always been much better.

http://iaspm-us.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Blake-2.pdf

(some paper I found while googling — "INTERNET MUSIC CRITICISM AS ARCHIVE: PITCHFORK MEDIA AND NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL’S IN THE AEROPLANE OVER THE SEA")

((that's the name of the paper, not the gogogle search I did to find it))

Magazine claims to have "always" liked an album that it was actually lukewarm towards on it's release, film at 11...

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.