My Top 100 Albums: Raison d'etre

I'm doing a top 100 album list because I'm involved in the Serious Listmaking Team over at the Filmspotting Forum, where we Make Lists for Any Discernible Reason.  But I have a longer explanation of how my list is going to work:

An album is not a vinyl record.  Rather, it is a set of songs made to be a unit of music by an artist or set of artists. A "record" is on vinyl.  An "album" could be on CD, vinyl, tape, reel-to-reel or digital recording.  So there. 

This is what I look for in a “great” album.  It is not enough that the album have great songs.  I may give it good marks for that alone, but that won’t make my understanding of what it takes to make a great album.  A great album has two themes: both musically and conceptually.  It isn’t just a compilation of great songs, but these particular songs, when strung together, are better than when they are apart.  Somehow, they belong together, they are richer and have more subtle cues.   An album is great because it is a collection of certain songs, not just songs that played on the radio.

A great album must also have a unique sound, or a blend of sounds that we don’t really find anywhere else.  It may imitate a genre, but it also transcends the genre to become something different. 

A great album often stirs ones emotion, although that is not necessary.  For this reason, a lot of the albums on my list might be considered “depressing.”  I like depressing music.  I’m okay with that.  But it is not all I like if you read my list carefully.

It is rare that a “greatest hits” album reaches this high level of quality, but it is possible.  The Eagles’ first Greatest Hits album, Rich Mullins Songs or Credence Clearwater Revival’s Chronicle are all albums that go beyond simply collecting hits and have a theme or a feel that drive these collections.  However, the Filmspotting Forum, which has created the rules for this list has dubbed any compilation of previously released songs to be out of bound, so those albums will not appear on my list (which means no Eagles at all, and Creedence only because I found a loophole).

I do, however, have some “live” albums which have previously released songs as part of the set.  However, these performances aren’t previously released, and I am only choosing a live album that has a unique sound not found in the studio versions of the same songs.  Again, the album must be unique, and it must hang together as greater than the sum of its parts.  And, there is no Filmspotting rule against it, so they stay.

My list will seem strange to some because of the mix of Christian and non-Christian albums.  This is a false dichotomy, in my opinion.  Most of Cat Steven’s/Yusuf Islam’s albums are religious and many other non-Christian groups use religious themes as often as some Christian groups (Jethro Tull, U2, for example).   Some say that Christian albums are only good for poor imitations of non-Christian artists, and while for some Christian artists of the 70s and later that is true, that is not true for the best Christian artists.  The best Christian artists are after something different.  For example, there is the sub-genre of the worship album: This is a completely unique genre, intended to speak directly to the spirit and to lead one in prayer to God.  While most worship albums are completely dull and lifeless, there are some artists who have understood what the genre could be and pursued it.  And fewer artists still have been able to capture that essence and put it on an album.  Even so, when Christian artists do something unique with their genre, they can create something spectacular, and my list tries to reflect that. To say “all Christian albums are musically boring” is the same error as if you were putting any other genre in that slot.  Yes, most of the albums in any genre are boring except for the aficionado. But it is the exceptional album that makes the genre worthwhile, and the Christian genre is certainly worthwhile.

What about classical?  I love some classical music, especially choral.  Yet you will find few classical albums here.  Many classical pieces are either less (Allegri’s Angus Dei Op. 11) or more (Handel’s The Messiah) than an album.  Some are the right length (Mozart’s Requiem Mass), but which performer do you choose?  And it wasn’t created as an “album” anyway, it was created as live music.  This is something even a “live album” isn’t—a piece written as a performance without any intention of it being placed on an album.  I have a couple classical albums that were made as album for movie soundtracks.

Finally, my final cheat.  Because a couple compilations are so important to me, as well as a couple classical pieces, I am including them in the list, but I’m not giving them an official rankings, but I’m placing them where they ought to go.  Frankly, I feel the freedom to cheat any way I want because it’s MY list.  And I’ll cheat if I want to.