Customer Reviews

All Time Top 1000 Albums: The World's Most Authoritative Guide to the Perfect Record Collection

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While this list does work as a starting point from which to attempt to rank all the popular music records released during the last, say, 50 years (the oldest recordings I saw were by Robert Johnson on an album originally released in 1962), it can never hope to accomplish its goal. Musical taste is far too subjective and there simply are too many records to choose from--no one has heard everything! But, as Colin Larkin stated in his intro, it does accuratley reflect on current popular public opinion (over 100,000 votes contributed from "critics, journalists, and...the fans"--that's a pretty decent poll, wouldn't you say?) I do have a couple of complaints, though:

1. There is too much emphasis on music primarily appreciated by British audiences (e.g., Primal Scream, Manic Street Preachers, Pulp, Suede, etc.). I understand that the book tries to assign equal weight to the musical tates of both countries, but if you're going to do that, why not poll Japanese people as well...that would significantly change the shape of the list also...

2. Don't get me wrong--I love the Beatles--but FOUR of the top 10 slots (including 1, 2, and 3)?? It either shows that people really do love this band tons more than any other or simply that people follow trends.

3. Everyone forgot about Husker Du already?

One request for Mr. Larkin: please put together either your own list or one created only by the critics. Pure democracy doesn't always work best.

solid book...

nice to see all three nick drake lps listed-- disappointed that can only rated two titles,but hey that's what's fun about this...

nice to see fairport dominate the folk list and gram parson take the top three slots on the country list...

u.s. readers should be aware that that over the last 12 years or so, british and european tastes in rock music have diverged considerably from american, and those who haven't kept up will think that the book overemphasizes bands from the uk.

british groups continue to enjoy mass popularity in europe and austrlia that they no longer enjoy in the us, while many bands widely popular in the u.s. generate little interest overseas...

this book reflects that

The reader from Detroit has made a mistake in his review of this book. He explains his distress in discovering that Nirvana and John Lennon aren't listed in the 'Important Band' section. Well, if he had actually read it properly he would have discovered the the secton is named 'Top 5 Albums by 100 Key Artists', and as Nirvana and John Lennon (as a solo artist) did not record as many as 5 albums this explains their absence from the list.

This book is a terrific read for anyone who is interested in popular music, especially someone who is trying to build up a collection of great music. Although the list does seem a bit odd in parts (why are four Beatles albums in the top five?, why are The Spice Girls and the Monkees in the list at all?). But overall it's a good list, and it's especially good to see a lot of great British bands from the last decade high up on the list (Charlatans, Massive Attack, Pulp, Radiohead, Stone Roses etc).

So money. It covers everything one can think of and does it with so many indexes. Examples include top 50 albums by genre and top 5 albums by the 100 greatest artists. This is an awesome collection that will guide anyone to his or her music selections.