A hobby of mine for the last 10 years or so has been collecting Top 100 lists of albums.  Every once in a while I concatenate them to see how the world’s musical taste is changing; what’s new, what’s rising, what’s fading.  The world does change, but slowly. Pre-2000 albums still dominate the lists, even today, but acts from the 2000s are starting to break through such as Adele, Coldplay, Muse and Pixies.  Adele’s 21 album which was put out in 2011 is on this list; a truly remarkable feat.  Just as remarkable is Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue from 1959.

The following list was compiled from 88 Top 100 (or more) Album polls from the major aggregators such as: Rolling Stone, New Music Express, Entertainment Weekly. The 2012 and 2017 RIAA top 100 albums by sales and the Grammy Year’s Best Album are also included. The lists range in time from 1974 to 2017. Every album was assigned a score based on its ranking in the various polls. For example an album that was ranked number 1 in a particular poll was given a score of 100. An album ranked at 100 was given a score of 1.  The individual list’s scores were then summed with the other lists and sorted.  The greatest sum was ranked as the number 1 album.  The smallest sum was ranked as the number 100 album.  The number 1 album is The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s and it was included in 83 polls and had a sum score of 7333. The album included in the least number of polls and still making the list was Muse’s Origin of Symmetry which showed up on just 14 polls.

Obviously the more polls an album is listed on the more likely they will score high on this list.  To counter that effect I will also publish a list based on an album’s average score which should help alleviate that issue.  I will also publish a listing based on the number of polls an album makes.

Now for what it’s worth, my list: