Top 10 Greatest Albums of All Time

(NOTE: This list only includes albums that I've listened to so some choices might surprise you)

#10 Rubber Soul - The Beatles(1965)

This album is when The Beatles ditched their simplistic and commercial style of songwriting and started to branch out. They were heavily influenced by pot at this point and you can probably
call Rubber Soul, The Pot Album. With all that pot though, they had never created such a fine musical album like this before at that point. Songs like Michelle, Girl, and Norwegian Wood branch
out to various influences while their songwriting reaches new heights in tracks like I'm Looking Through You, Nowhere Man, In My Life, and Think For Yourself. By the way, this is the first album
to feature songs that weren't about love. The Fab Four were changing alright.

#9 Highway 61 Revisited - Bob Dylan(1965)

We already knew how great Bob Dylan was in his first couple of years, when he was as simple of a musician as you got. This album though, was a bit of a different approach, featuring keyboards 
and guitars put together to create quite a unique sound that had never come together before. The highlight of this album obviously is Like A Rolling Stone, which created keyboard oriented rock and
would eventually spark the progressive rock genre several years later. Other songs though are still incredibly interesting such as Highway 61, It Takes a Lot To Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry, and Desolation
Row which show Bob Dylan at his cynical best. This I feel was Bob Dylan's peak as a musician and the major influence it has on various of the greatest albums that couldn't make this list can't be overstated.

#8 Dark Side of The Moon - Pink Floyd(1973)

This is an album that actually contained a lot of commercial appeal for Pink Floyd. We all know them for their long, complex, and emotional pieces that range from 7 minutes to over 20 at times, but this album
went away from that, with the longest track being "Us and Them", which is just under 8 minutes. This is another album that shines because of it's music and what Pink Floyd does on these tracks is really
incredible. Take for example, "Money", containing one of the best baselines in music and a groove so addicting, not even disco music can top it. Songs such as "Us and Them", "Time" and "Brain Damage" also
contain some pretty amazing lyrics which is something you can always count on with Pink Floyd. It's frequently compared with Radiohead's "OK Computer" as albums questioning human functionality but to me,
this one really clicks on all cylinders.

#7 Abbey Road - The Beatles(1969)

Many Beatles fans call this the last Beatles album because for the most part, it was the last album they recorded collectively. No finale from a band is as epic and collective as this one though and what really makes
this one stand out is that gigantic medley on Side 2. Obviously listening to it now, it might not seem that special with a ton of prog rock bands incorporating medley's onto their albums but no album does it better than
Abbey Road. From the opening piano chords to "You Never Give Me Your Money" to the melancholy ending of "The End", which ends on a line so prophetic you can write a book about it("And In The End, The Love you take is
equal to the love you make"), this sequence is so memorable and so powerful that when "Her Majesty" hits you 20 something seconds later, you forget how hilarious The Beatles were at times. Side 2 aside, Side 1 has some
of their greatest songs on it such as "Come Together" and "Something", while throwing in some really neat songs such as "Octopus' Garden" and "I Want You(She's So Heavy), which leads right to "Here Comes The Sun" and
the majestic Abbey Road Medley. It's one of the highest selling albums for a reason folks.

#6 Innuendo - Queen(1991)

Call me biased for this choice but I'm sorry, this album is massively underrated and massively underappreciated for what it does right. For all the inventiveness of the previous albums, no album comes emotionally close for me than this album because it's one of the most powerful albums ever recorded emotionally. Freddie Mercury was essentially on life support as this album was being recorded, yet he put up possibly his greatest album vocally. Tracks such as the title track, "The Show Must Go On", "I Can't Live With You" and "Don't Try So Hard" showcase his upper range while songs such as "Bijou", "Ride The Wild Wind", "I'm Going Slightly Mad" and "These Are The Days of Our Lives" showcase his lower range. Lyrically, this album is full of gems and none top the emotional power of "These are The Days of Our Lives" and the raw, sheer defiance of "The Show Must Go On", which is the greatest vocal performance I've ever heard. Also, what almost every critic fails to realize about this album that really make it special is that each track is given a ton of personality to it. Even tracks some may find as "filler", like "Delilah" and "All God's People" stand out because of their different timbre and tone. No song on this album sounds the same and no song here disappoints as a result.

#5 Led Zeppelin IV - Led Zeppelin(1971)

Now we get into the timeless classics beginning with this one. Picking the best Led Zeppelin album is almost impossible because of the roll they were on from 1969-1975. This album though remains unblemished while each of their other albums did have one or two tracks that were rather lackluster. For starters, I feel that this album is where the songs really came to life in the studio. Obviously, we all know about "Stairway to Heaven"(2nd greatest song ever), but there are even more tracks that really showcase the power of this band. One of my all time favorites is "When The Levee Breaks" which has one of the most bad ass harmonica riffs in popular music mixed with some incredibly powerful drumming by one of the greatest drummers in Bonzo. Then we get to some of the other tracks that just showcase the hard rock power of Led Zeppelin such as "Misty Mountain Hop", "Rock and Roll", and "Black Dog". A lot of fans also point to "The Battle of Evermore" as one of their most creative tracks, featuring a mandolin performance for the ages and last but not least, the calm and cool atmosphere of "Going To California". Despite only having 8 tracks, this album is quite a journey and going strictly of what a rock album should be, this one defines exactly that.

#4 John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band - John Lennon(1970)

Yeah uh, when I called Innuendo the most powerful album recorded emotionally, I might've exaggerated a tiny bit. That one is definitely 2nd but 1st goes to this album. For those of you who aren't fortunate enough to hear this one, let me fill you in. It was recorded after a primal therapy session between John Lennon and his psychologist after Lennon started having emotional pain over his rather tragic childhood involving his mother being run over and killed by a policeman and his father abandoning him after leaving for sea. This album to me is what created the John Lennon we all know and love today. As a Beatle, he still had his moments of infamy like his numerous accounts of abuse and his cold personality but this album was as raw as it gets. Songs on this album contain some of the most beautiful melodies and lyrics you'll ever hear in music. Songs such as "Mother", "Well, Well, Well" and "God" are emotionally painful to listen to, yet so damn brilliant as a result. "Love" and "Working Class Hero" contain a more simplistic arrangement but shine through their plain, raw emotion. "I Found Out", "Isolation", and "Look At Me" contain some absolutely incredible lyrics and really touching vocals and I can name-drop every single song on this album to just show you how open and honest this album is. The ending of "Mother" alone though should explain it's spot on this list. Granted, so should the entire song for that matter:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPYsMM…

#3 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - The Beatles(1967)

Many consider this album the greatest of all time and at the date of uploading this, it's actually 8 days away from it's release date. I definitely would've agreed with you until I heard the next two albums but this album still brings a ton to the table. It's really one of the most well known concept albums and an album that definitely inspired album oriented rock much later down the road. So on influence level, it's pretty huge, however, the songs make it truly one of the greatest albums ever. The album opener and "With A Little Help From My Friends" are just absolutely fantastic feel good songs that get you right into it before you run into "Lucy in The Sky with Diamonds", which is one of the most psychedelic songs of all time. As you progress through the songs though, you notice that each of them are completely different from each other and really go into a similar message of "love", which is the overlying theme of this album. The ending though with "A Day In The Life"(one of the greatest beatles songs if not the greatest), pretty much sent this album to the record books and rightfully so as it really ended up being one of the most unique songs ever made and the precursor to prog rock. Despite all the acclaim this album gets, it does have two lapses in "Lovely Rita" and "When I'm 64"(although I love this one) which are slightly below par but the high quality songs surrounding it cannot be ignored. Had "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" been on the album though, we'd be having a different conversation right now.

#2 Pet Sounds - The Beach Boys(1966)

Brian Wilson heard Rubber Soul, then wanted to create an album even greater than that! Considering that we're on #2, I can definitely say that he succeeded. This album has possibly some of the most interesting songs on this whole list from an overall standpoint. It's considered a concept album as well and is possibly moreso concept album than Sgt. Pepper. Regardless, what this album does so great is the variety of styles it goes for. Chamber pop, Psychedelic rock, Baroque pop, you name it. The highlights of this album are obviously "Wouldn't It Be Nice", "Sloop John B", "God Only Knows", and "Caroline, No". All four of those are some of the greatest songs ever recorded and the way every song on this album ends is just incredibly clever with a "row-row-row your boat type ending for each of them" which is perfect because it leads to a perfect fade-out for each one. Then we get to songs like "That's Not Me", "You Still Believe in Me" and "Here Today" which really get personal lyric wise and have much more of a relation than past Beach Boys songs. The influence this album has had though are really what give it the #2 spot. Without this album, Sgt. Pepper does not exist. The sessions also saw the origins of "Good Vibrations", one of the most innovative pop songs ever recorded. This album though should really be best known for starting the psychedelic craze and leading an onslaught of some of the most artistically creative songs in popular music history from 1966-1968. On impact alone, it's well deserving of it's spot but combine that with the amount of top notch songs it has? It's a miracle it's not #1. 

#1 Revolver - The Beatles(1966)

Not only is this my favorite album of all time, but I really believe that this album is the masterpiece of music. No original collection of songs has been so experimental, innovative and amazing all at once than this album. Revolver was another step forward after the experimentation done on Rubber Soul. However, while that album was the pot album, this album was the acid album. That ended up causing a majority of tracks on this one to stray away from themes of romance completely. Instead, we saw songs about yellow submarines, perils of loneliness, drugs, dying, and meditation. This album though represents how far you can push the boundaries in popular music with songs like "I'm Only Sleeping", "Love You To", "And Your Bird Can Sing", "She Said She Said"(my favorite song of all time), "Doctor Robert" and "Tomorrow Never Knows", which are so psychedelic and lacking of common structure that the music world was blown away by it's complexity. Then we get to Paul McCartney, who didn't even need to try acid to take his skills up a notch. Some of his greatest love songs were written on this album including the heavenly "Here, There and Everywhere", upbeat "Good Day Sunshine", incredibly poignant "For No One", and the wild and wacky "Got To Get You Into My Life". Most importantly, this is where George Harrison shined after many albums shunned his songs. "Taxman", "Love You To" and "I Want To Tell You" are so great, the album definitely wouldn't have been as memorable without them. Every single song on this album offers something new and no song to me for one second let up in quality. For all the praise that Sgt. Pepper gets, I feel that this album does everything that album did right, but not only first, but much better. No fillers or any lack of substance, this is what The Beatles were all about and what really make them the greatest band. The greatest band just so happened to create the greatest album while they were at it.

Here are some honorable mentions that just slightly missed the list:

#11 The White Album - The Beatles(1968)
#12 Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd(1975)
#13 Led Zeppelin II - Led Zeppelin(1969)
#14 Rumours - Fleetwood Mac(1977)
#15 OK Computer - Radiohead(1997)
#16 Nevermind - Nirvana(1991)
#17 A Night At The Opera - Queen(1975)
#18 Surrealistic Pillow - Jefferson Airplane(1967)
#19 Are You Experienced? - Jimi Hendrix Experience(1967)
#20 The Doors - The Doors(1967)