I love making lists. It's a very narcissistic activity ("let's celebrate my awesome taste!") and that's probably WHY I love it, but so be it. These are my top 100 albums. That is, the albums I've listened to over and over and over again, that I know really well and can listen to almost any time and enjoy. I didn't employ any rules about limiting # per artist or excluding "best of" packages (although I did resist the temptation to include the entire Nick Drake box set as a single entry because that felt like cheating).
If you don't believe your taste is the best, really, what can you believe. At least in my opinion. If you thought it was sub-prime, you'd probably go try to find more things that suit your tastes and philosophy.
Also, I can't fault you for listing that boxset. It's so legit. I went through a 3-4-year period where I wrote a lot of free verse, and I was listening almost exclusively to Drake and Elliott Smith. I favor Pink Moon, love Five Leaves Left, and probably need to spend more time with Bryter Layter, although listening to it as many times as I have, I do think it's at minimum very good.
Prince - 1999
Pink Floyd - Animals
Phil Spector - Back to Mono
Joni Mitchell - Blue
Joni Mitchell - Court and Spark
Bruce Springsteen - Born in the USA
Nico - Chelsea Girl
The Clash - Combat Rock
Curtis Mayfield - Curtis
Kraftwerk - Electric Café
James Brown - Foundations of Funk – A Brand New Bag: 1964–1969
Sly and the Family Stone - Fresh
Funkadelic - Funkadelic
Parliament - Funkentelechy vs the Placebo Syndrome
Paul Simon - Graceland
Stevie Wonder - Innervisions
Sam Cooke - The Man and His Music
Kraftwerk - The Man-Machine
Parliament - Mothership Connection
Depeche Mode - Music for the Masses
Bjork - Post
Prince - Purple Rain
Prince - Sign o the Times
New Order - Substance
Cocteau Twins - Treasure
The stuff I need to be listening to, but just haven't, yet. This should give me a push. I am a fan of Cosmic Slop, but it wasn't listed. Those choices make me want to take in some more P-funk. I Love Bjork, but have never heard Post, which is pretty weird.
Laurie Anderson - Big Science
George Michael - Faith
The Beach Boys - Friends
Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel - Hole
Sinead O'Connor - I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got
Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
Pet Shop Boys - Introspective
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin
George Michael - Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1
Various Artists - The Look of Love: The Burt Bacharach Collection
Talking Heads - Speaking in Tongues
Built to Spill - There’s Nothing Wrong with Love
Erasure - The Two Ring Circus
Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel 3
Built to Spill - Ultimate Alternative Wavers
Pet Shop Boys - Very
I've tried with these albums or artists, and they didn't work for me.
U2 - October
The Rolling Stones - Let It Bleed
The Who - Live at Leeds
Chet Baker - Let’s Get Lost
Van Morrisson - Moondance
Beastie Boys - Paul’s Boutique
The Who - Quadrophenia
Tears for Fears - Songs from the Big Chair
Eurythmics - Touch
Groups and/or albums that I don't feel one particular way or another about.
Throbbing Gristle - 20 Jazz Funk Greats
The Orb - Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld
Prefab Sprout - The Best of Prefab Sprout: A Life of Surprises
Cub - Betti-Cola
Lois - Butterfly Kiss
Various Artists - The Complete Stax/Volt Singles: 1959-1968
Big Country - The Crossing
Morphine - Cure for Pain
China Crisis - Difficult Shapes and Passive Rhythms
The Sea and Cake - The Fawn
Poolside - Indyglow
Heavenly - Le Jardin de Heavenly
Buffalo Tom - Let Me Come Over
Family Fodder - Monkey Banana Kitchen
Red House Painters - Ocean Beach
Barbara Manning - One Perfect Green Blanket
Papas Fritas - Papas Fritas
Grace Jones - Private Life: The Compass Point Sessions
The Dukes of Stratosphear - Psonic Psunspot
Pulsars - Pulsars
The Fixx - Reach the Beach
The Rentals - Return of the Rentals
The Sea and Cake - The Sea and Cake
Tangerine Dream - Thief
Steel Pulse - True Democracy
Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Welcome to the Pleasuredome
The Art of Noise - Who’s Afraid of the Art of Noise?
Beat Happening - You Turn Me On
Kind of like the albums you haven't heard of of mine, except I have no old man excuse. If there's anything here you think I might dig, do tell.
De La Soul - 3 Feet High and Rising
Elvis Costello - Blood and Chocolate
Nick Drake - Bryter Layter
The Magnetic Fields - The Charm of the Highway Strip
Joy Division - Closer
Pavement - Crooked Rain Crooked Rain
Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left
Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
The Smiths - Louder Than Bombs
Eric B. & Rakim - Paid in Full
A Tribe Called Quest - People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm
The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
New Order - Power Corruption and Lies
David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works, Volume 2
The Buzzcocks - Singles Going Steady
Elvis Costello - This Year's Model
The Velvet Underground - Velvet Underground and Nico
Pink Floyd - The Wall
The Beatles - The Beatles
I'm in on all of these picks. Some are in my official/actual 100, some could be some day. But I could pick up any one of these and just listen to it all the way through.
Vince Guaraldi Trio - A Charlie Brown Christmas
Is this the official soundtrack or score or whatever of that Christmas special? I know I might seem like I was born yesterday, but I didn't know there was actually an album behind it. I so want to hear this.