A Rock Canon.

 

After compiling my article about (& recommendations for) The Grammy Hall Of Fame, I thought back to compiling rock lists, in a similar way I had for The 501 Greatest Albums Of All-Time list I compiled about a year ago.

But whereas my 501 list was a ranked list, I began to wonder what would happen if I included unranked lists as well, such as the rock entries in The Grammy Hall Of Fame. I wondered what kind of rock canon these albums might form, if I surveyed a fair number of lists to try to make a Top 100 collection.

I ended up creating an inventory from these 10 album lists:

* = Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums, 1-200 (2004)

# = Rolling Stone 200 Essential Albums (1997)

+ = VH1 100 Greatest Albums (2001)

@ = TIME: All-TIME 100 Albums (2006)

% = Grammy Hall Of Fame (Material Must Be At Least 25 Years Old)

| = Acclaimed Music, 1-200 (Current)

^ = Digital Dream Door, 1-200 (Current)

& = Pop Vortex 100 Greatest Albums (Current)

$ = Bill Shapiro: A Good Guide To CDs (1991)

! = Allan Kozinn: A/V Guide: 100 Greatest Albums Of The Pop Century (2000)

As I did so, I set a few guidelines:

• Only rock would be included. Otherwise, albums like Miles Davis' Kind Of Blue, John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, & Frank Sinatra's In The Wee Small Hours would have made this list--all excellent albums, but outside of the scope of the rock canon, which is what I was trying to define.
• No more than 200 entries to a list would be included. Thus, in a list like Rolling Stone list of 500 (or Acclaimed Music's list of 3000), only the top 200 were used. This was ultimately about content, not ranking.
• I didn't pool greatest hits albums. I was tempted to at first (as I suspect Rolling Stone must have done in their original 500 list, but I digress), I decided against it. Thus, where Elvis's original Sun Sessions LP appears on the list the below, it corresponds to that exact original LP, not the ones that have since usurped it.

After compiling all 10 lists, I had over 500 individual rock albums. I realized that the number of albums that appeared 5 or more times on the lists was 97, putting me within reaching point of my target canon number of 100.

With over a dozen of worthy albums making 4 lists--including Here's Little Richard, Meet The Beatles!, Janis Joplin's Pearl, The Harder They Come Soundtrack, Neil Young's Harvest, Bob Marley's Catch A Fire, Run-D.M.C.'s Raising Hell, Madonna's Like A Prayer, Phil Spector's Back To Mono boxed set, & The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill (each of which are stone-cold classics in my book)--I decided to go a different route to fill in the final 3 spots in an effort to keep things canonical.

Consulting Rolling Stone's original 2004 list of The Immortals: The 100 Greatest Artists Of All-Time, I chose the 3 highest entries who each did not have an album to make 5 lists or more. They were: Little Richard (#8), Buddy Holly (#13), & Sam Cooke (#16). I chose the album for each that had made the most number of lists. This way I could give a jump to a few major legends whose signature work fell out of the scope of the classic album-making era.

With the 100 albums selected, I could take a step back & look at what had come together.

7 albums appeared on all 10 lists. They were:

• The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds
• The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
• The Beatles ["The White Album"]
• Bob Dylan: Highway 61 Revisited
• Paul Simon: Graceland
• Bruce Springsteen: Born To Run
• U2: The Joshua Tree 

& of these albums, no Revolver, no Blonde On Blonde, & NOTHING by The Rolling Stones! Yet Graceland makes the cut...

So I checked out the 15 albums that appeared on 9 out of 10 lists. They were:

• The Beatles: Rubber Soul
• The Beatles: Abbey Road
• Bob Dylan: Blonde On Blonde
• Bob Dylan: Blood On The Tracks
• Marvin Gaye: What's Going On
• Jimi Hendrix: Are You Experienced
• Jimi Hendrix: Electric Ladyland
• Pink Floyd: The Dark Side Of The Moon
• Prince: Purple Rain
• The Rolling Stones: Beggars Banquet
• The Rolling Stones: Sticky Fingers
• The Rolling Stones: Exile On Main St.
• The Sex Pistols: Never Mind The Bollocks
• The Velvet Underground & Nico
• The Who: Who's Next

Compiled with the 7 above, you start to get a more classic sense of the canon. Yet still no Revolver! Also oddly M.I.A.: The Clash's London Calling, The Stones' Let It Bleed, & Nirvana's Nevermind.

Another 20 or so albums appeared on 8 charts, which seemed worthy enough to denote. Thus, all items that appear on 8 or more charts are bolded in the list below. (& the 3 "Immortals" who have less than 5 album hits are italicized.) Even this yielded some surprises, as Elvis Costello's My Aim Is True made this cut, while nothing by The Band, Bob Marley, or Sly & The Family Stone did.

Regardless, the list did ultimately confirm some of my long-held beliefs: Aretha Franklin's I Never Loved A Man The Way I Loved You trumps her often-slightly-more-celebrated Lady Soul, David Bowie's Rise & Fall Of Ziggy Stardust trumps his currently-hipper Hunky Dory, & Disraeli Gears is the best album Cream ever put together.

But this list is also a testament to those who had several near-great albums, or a lack of critical consensus as has formed around the likes of The Byrds' Sweetheart Of The Rodeo, Elvis Costello's My Aim Is True or Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water. I am thinking specifically of bands like Creedence Clearwater Revival, who had several albums appear on several lists, but none of which pulled ahead enough to make the final 100. (Cosmo's Factory came the closest, with 3 hits.) It's almost as though M.I.A. artists like Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, & The Kinks have been punished for making consistently good albums.

But I digress.

You came here for the list, so here it is.

1. AC/DC: Back In Black *+@%|^&

2. The Allman Brothers Band: At Fillmore East *#+%|^&!

3. The Band: Music From Big Pink *%^&$!

4. The Band *#@%|^&

5. The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds *#+@%|^&$!

6. The Beastie Boys: Paul's Boutique *#+@|^

7. The Beatles: Rubber Soul *#+@%|^&$

8. The Beatles: Revolver *+@%|^&!

9. The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band *#+@%|^&$!

10. The Beatles ["The White Album"] *#+@%|^&$!

11. The Beatles: Abbey Road *#+@%|^&$

12. Chuck Berry: The Great Twenty-Eight *#@$!

13. Black Sabbath: Paranoid *#@|^

14. David Bowie: Hunky Dory *#+@|&

15. David Bowie: The Rise & Fall Of Ziggy Stardust *+@%^|&!

16. James Brown: Live At The Apollo *@%|^&$

17. The Byrds: Sweetheart Of The Rodeo *%|^$

18. Ray Charles: Modern Sounds In Country & Western *#+@%^$

19. The Clash *#|^$!

20. The Clash: London Calling *#+@%|^&

21. Sam Cooke: Portrait Of A Legend *@

22. Elvis Costello: My Aim Is True *#+%|^$!

23. Cream: Disraeli Gears *+%|^

24. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: Deja Vu*#+%|^!

25. Derek & The Dominoes: Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs *#+%|^!

26. The Doors *#+%|^&!

27. Dr. Dre: The Chronic *#@|^

28. Bob Dylan: Bringing It All Back Home *#+%|^&$

29. Bob Dylan: Highway 61 Revisited *#+@%|^&$!

30. Bob Dylan: Blonde On Blonde *#+@%|^&$

31. Bob Dylan: Blood On The Tracks *#+%|^&$!

32. The Eagles: Hotel California *#+@%|^

33. Fleetwood Mac: Rumours *#+@%|^&

34. Aretha Franklin: I Never Loved A Man The Way I Loved You *#+@%|^&

35. Aretha Franklin: Lady Soul *#+@|^&

36. Marvin Gaye: What's Going On *#+@%|^&$

37. Guns N' Roses: Appetite For Destruction *#+|^&

38. Jimi Hendrix: Are You Experienced *#+@%|^&$

39. Jimi Hendrix: Axis: As Bold As Love *#+%|^&

40. Jimi Hendrix: Electric Ladyland *#+@%|^&$

41. Buddy Holly: 20 Golden Greats *#

42. Michael Jackson: Off The Wall *#+%|^&

43. Michael Jackson: Thriller *#+@%|^&

44. Jefferson Airplane: Surrealistic Pillow *#%|^!

45. Elton John: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road *@%|^&!

46.Carole King: Tapestry *#+@%|^&

47. Led Zeppelin [I] *+%|^&!

48. Led Zeppelin II *#+|^&

49. Led Zeppelin [IV] *#@%|^&!

50. Led Zeppelin: Physical Graffiti *+|^&

51. John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band *#@|^&$!

52. Little Richard: Here's Little Richard! *@%^

53. Love: Forever Changes *%|^&

54. Bob Marley: Exodus *+%|^&

55. Curtis Mayfield: Super Fly *+%|^&

56. Joni Mitchell: Blue *#+@%|^&

57. Joni Mitchell: Court & Spark *%|^$!

58. Van Morrison: Astral Weeks *#+@%|^&

59. Van Morrison: Moondance *#+@%|^&

60. Nirvana: Nevermind *#+@|^&! 

61. N.W.A.: Straight Outta Compton *#+@|^

62. Pearl Jam: Ten #+|^&

63. Pink Floyd: The Dark Side Of The Moon *#+%|^&$!

64. Pink Floyd: The Wall *%|^&

65. Elvis Presley: The Sun Sessions *+&$!

66. Elvis Presley *|^&$!

67. Prince: 1999 *+%|^&$

68. Prince: Purple Rain *#+@%|^&$

69. Prince: Sign 'O' The Times *#+@|^&

70. Public Enemy: It Takes A Nation Of Millions *#+@|^&

71. Radiohead: OK Computer *+@|^&!

72. The Ramones *#+@%|^&

73. Otis Redding: Otis Blue: Otis Redding Sings Soul *+@|^&

74. R.E.M.: Murmur *#+|^

75. The Rolling Stones: Beggars Banquet *#+%|^&$!

76. The Rolling Stones: Let It Bleed *#+%|^&!

77. The Rolling Stones: Sticky Fingers *#+@%|^&!

78. The Rolling Stones: Exile On Main Street *#+@%|^&$

79. The Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack *#+%|^&

80. The Sex Pistols: Never Mind The Bollocks *#+@%|^&$

81. Paul Simon: Graceland *#+@%|^&$!

82. Simon & Garfunkel: Bridge Over Troubled Water *+@|^&

83. Sly & The Family Stone: Stand! *+@%|^&

84. Sly & The Family Stone: There's A Riot Goin' On! *#%|^$

85. Patti Smith: Horses *#+@|^&

86. Dusty Springfield: Dusty In Memphis *#+%|

87. Bruce Springsteen: Born To Run *#+@%|^&$!

88. Bruce Springsteen: Born In The U.S.A. *#%|^&$

89. The Stone Roses #@|^&

90. Talking Heads: Remain In Light *#+|^$

91. James Taylor: Sweet Baby James *#+%^

92. U2: The Joshua Tree *#+@%|^&$!

93. U2: Achtung Baby *#+@|^&

94. The Velvet Underground & Nico *#+@%|^&$

95. The Who: Tommy *#+%|^&!

96. The Who: Who's Next *#+@%|^&$

97. Stevie Wonder: Talking Book *#@%|^!

98. Stevie Wonder: Innervisions *#+%|^&$

99. Steve Wonder: Songs In The Key Of Life *+@%|^&

100. Neil Young: After The Gold Rush *#@|^&

Greatest Hits: The Columbia Model.

The Ultimate Greatest Hits Muse.

I wish I could say that my introduction to Bob Dylan was Highway 61 Revisited or Bringing It All Back Home, but it wasn't—it was a cassette dub of my parents' Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits LP. Clocking in at just over 40 minutes, it conveniently gathered all 7 of Dylan's Top 40 singles of his peak period (1963-1966), buttressed by 3 tracks from his best 3 acoustic folk albums. The songs were mixed out of chronological order such that "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" sat next to "Blowin' In The Wind," but no matter. In terms of quality, logic, and focus, there has never been a finer collection of Dylan's music.

If there ever was a "Greatest Hits" sweepstakes in rock & roll, it would surely have to be won by Columbia Records. In the wake of Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits came greatest hits LPs from The Byrds, Sly & The Family Stone, & Simon & Garfunkel—all so fine that they would make Rolling Stone's Essential 200 list in 1997, beating out the likes of albums like The Byrds' Mr. Tambourine Man, Sly Stone's Stand!, and Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water. (A fourth, Janis Joplin's Greatest Hits, should've been included, but she was inexplicably left off the list entirely.) Each packed a punch that summarized the artist's era better than the best of the era's original albums themselves.

All of them followed the Columbia Model pioneered on Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits:

1. A relatively short (read: 1 LP) running time.

2. Most (if not all) of the artist's Top 40 hits.

3. Sequencing in a non-chronological order.

4. A timespan covering at least 4 years or 4 albums.

One of the frustrations of the post-CD era is album length. Many of the best rock & roll albums come from the era before CDs, in part because rock is best heard in a 30-to-40-minute rush. (Indeed, even many of the classic post-CD era albums—The Strokes' Is This It, The White Stripes' White Blood Cells, Neutral Milk Hotel's In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, & Arcade Fire's Funeral—comfortably sit within a single vinyl record). Furthermore, there is something about the whole "everything you need in the length of a single vinyl record" that has been all but lost in the past few decades.

I began to wonder what would happen if I took some of the major groups of the CD era & created classic greatest hits albums for them based on the Columbia Model listed above. What follows is the result, from most to least successful:

Nirvana's Greatest Hits (43 minutes)

1. Smells Like Teen Spirit (from Nevermind; #6 US, #7 UK)

2. About A Girl (from Bleach)

3. Heart-Shaped Box (from In Utero; #5 UK)

4. Come As You Are (from Nevermind; #32 US, #9 UK)

5. Sliver (single released on Insecticide; #77 UK)

6. Pennyroyal Tea (single mix of In Utero song; #1 US)

7. You Know You're Right (single released on Nirvana; #45 US)

8. In Bloom (from Nevermind; #28 UK)

9. Lithium (from Nevermind; #64 US, #11 UK)

10. Dumb (album track from In Utero)

11. Rape Me (from In Utero, #45 US, #32 UK)

12. All Apologies [Live] (from MTV Unplugged In New York)

Nirvana lends itself so easily to the Columbia Model format because they had such few hits & the ones they had were somewhat shorter in length (they are the only group to have 12 songs instead of the usual 10). Included here are all 3 of their Top 40 singles (including "Pennyroyal Tea," which hit #1 as a special release earlier this year on Record Store Day), as well as all of their songs in the original versions, with the exception of "All Apologies," which is taken from MTV Unplugged In New York, which is generally considered the better version. Ironically, it is the incompleteness of Nirvana's career that makes their greatest hits album feel the most complete.

R.E.M.'s Greatest Hits (43 minutes)

1. Losing My Religion (from Out Of Time; #4 US, #9 UK)

2. Man On The Moon (from Automatic For The People; #30 US, #18 UK)

3. Stand (from Green; #6 US, #48 UK)

4. What's The Frequency, Kenneth? (from Monster; #21 US, #9 UK)

5. The One I Love (From Document; #9 US, #16 UK)

6. Drive (from Automatic For The People; #28 US, #11 UK)

7. Shiny Happy People (from Out Of Time; #10 US, #6 UK)

8. Bang & Blame (from Monster; #19 US, #15 UK)

9. Everybody Hurts (from Automatic For The People; #29 US, #7 UK)

10. It's The End Of The World As We Know It (& I Feel Fine) (from Document; #69 US, #39 UK)

R.E.M.'s 30-year career was proving to be tricky until I realized that all of their 9 Top 40 hits fell within a 5-album period. Once I realized that, this album fell together pretty easily, as it is a mix of these 9 songs, plus their next most recognizable song ("End Of The World"), which also falls in this period. & just out of curiosity, what does R.E.M. have against "Drive"? They've left it off of both of their Warner Brothers-era compilations, even though it was technically the biggest hit from Automatic For The People in their native country.

U2's Greatest Hits (42 minutes)

1. Pride (In The Name Of Love) (from The Unforgettable Fire; #33 US, #3 UK)

2. One (from Achtung Baby; #10 US, #7 UK)

3. New Year's Day (from War; #53 US, #10 UK)

4. With Or Without You (from The Joshua Tree; #1 US, #4 UK)

5. Sunday Bloody Sunday (album track from War)

6. Where The Streets Have No Name (from The Joshua Tree; #13 US, #4 UK)

7. Even Better Than The Real Thing (from Achtung Baby; #32 US, #12 UK)

8. Desire (from Rattle & Hum; #3 US, #1 UK)

9. Mysterious Ways (from Achtung Baby; #9 US, #13 UK)

10. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (from The Joshua Tree; #1 US, #6 UK)

For U2, I went with the 5 album span from War to Achtung Baby, easily their finest era. I also went for anthems over hits; the now largely-forgotten "The Fly" may have hit #1 in the UK (#61 US), but "Sunday Bloody Sunday" (released only as a single in Germany & the Netherlands) is the song that anyone off the street could sing for you. It also would have been nice to include their remaining 2 US Top 40 hits—"Angel Of Harlem" (#14 US, #9 UK) & "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" (#35 US,  #14 UK), but they ultimately diluted the punch, as well as give Achtung Baby one more song than The Joshua Tree, a balance I would not want to upset.

Radiohead's Greatest Hits (45 minutes)

1. Just (from The Bends; #19 UK)

2. Paranoid Android (from OK Computer; #3 UK)

3. Karma Police (from OK Computer; #69 US, #8 UK)

4. Creep (from Pablo Honey; #34 US, #7 UK)

5. No Surprises (from OK Computer; #4 UK)

6. High & Dry (from The Bends; #78 US, #17 UK)

7. My Iron Lung (from My Iron Lung EP; #24 UK)

8. Everything In Its Right Place (album track from Kid A)

9. Fake Plastic Trees (from The Bends; #65 US, #20 UK)

10. Street Spirit (Fade Out) (from The Bends; #5 UK)

This contains all but one of Radiohead's UK Top 40 singles & all of their US Top 100 singles from this period. Only "Anyone Can Play Guitar" (#32 UK) is left off because it is slighter than the others & I wanted to the collection to span at least 4 studio albums; in its place is "Everything In Its Right Place" from Kid A, which Thom Yorke is on record as regretting not releasing as a single. This allowed for a proper time span & balance of material, even if not every Top 40 hit of their native country was represented.

Pearl Jam's Greatest Hits (42 minutes)

1. Alive (from Ten; #107 US, #16 UK)

2. Daughter (from Vs.; #97 US, #18 UK)

3. Spin The Black Circle (from Vitalogy; #18 US, #10 UK)

4. Who You Are (from No Code; #31 US, #18 UK)

5. Dissident (from Vs.; #14 UK)

6. Jeremy (from Ten; #79 US, #15 UK)

7. Given To Fly (from Yield; #21 US, #12 UK)

8. Even Flow (from Ten; #108 US, #27 UK)

9. Betterman (album track from Vitalogy)

10. Last Kiss (single released on No Boundaries: A Benefit For The Kosovar Refugees; #2 US, #42 UK)

There's a certain level of absurdity in trying to shoehorn modern rock groups into the archaic Columbia Model, & no band showed this better than Pearl Jam. (Ironically, they are the only group on the list signed to a Columbia subsidiary, Epic.) All of their US Top 40 hits were recorded within their first 5 albums—as well as all but 2 of their UK Top 40 hits (#30 "Wishlist" & #34 "Not For You" failed to make the cut)—but this barely hints at the bigger picture. Album cuts like "Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town" (from Vs.) & "Corduroy" (from Vitalogy) are just as recognizable as many of the tracks above, while non-singles like "Black" (which the band refused to release as a single, despite pressure from their label to do so) & "Yellow Leadbetter" (a B-side to "Jeremy") usually rank among their finest masterpieces. If any band shows why the classic format might no longer work in the CD era, it's Pearl Jam; it is probably no coincidence that they are the only band on this list to never release a best-of album that was smaller than a double CD.