Polls, polls, polls: the Brits seem to be into them even more than we are. The Observer has come up with the 100 Greatest British Albums of all time. They have taken this thing seriously, even publishing their methodology here (they list the 100 wankers - "critics, industry figures and pop stars" - who did the voting).
The pretentiously unpretentious intro by Paul Morley is here:
- Lists. Don't you just hate them. And yet, don't you just love them. Hate them because they're all wrong, they're biased, they're fixed, they miss too much out, they're in the wrong order, they're utterly arbitrary, they try to cage musical beasts that should be allowed to run free in our imaginations without the indignity of being branded with numbers. And whatever comes top is usually going to knock you speechless.
You also love them because whatever comes top is going to knock you speechless. And because without them we wouldn't really know where the Gordon Ramsay we were. They're not complete maps of anything, they're the edge of a map that features the entrance to a universe that is so vast and complicated that in the end you have to make your own way through it. The list helps you begin. It's not the Complete Book of Anything, it's like the contents page. It's the start of something, in the ridiculous but necessary disguise of being definitive.
It is the definitive nature of the list that always unnerves me. The idea that the list is stating once and for all, this is it. But lists keep coming, ordering music in specialist sections, in time, in genre, in space, lists that sometimes support previous lists, as if there really is any kind of rock music canon, lists that often undermine previous lists, as if to say rock is always on the move and cannot ever be pinned down. The story is always changing.
Lists in one sense, the boring sense, try and make things safe and organised. Ultimately, in a good sense, they keep breaking things up, they keep reminding us that behind and beyond the obvious, the regulars, the usual suspects, there is more and more to discover. It is in a way what is outside the list, music that is just beginning to make its way into the list, and indeed up the list, as well as the music that is slipping away, that makes them so fascinating. In this list, guaranteed, as the best lists are, to send you bananas, to get you reworking them in your own image, the Clash are joining the Beatles on the saintly stage, Public Image Ltd nibble at the Stones in the bad boy tent. Massive Attack trip past Floyd, Oasis have left Blur for Britdead. Elsewhere Nick Drake, Robert Wyatt, John Martyn and Vashti Bunyan drift in from the outside, inscrutably repre senting all that music yet to be discovered. Richard Thompson, Peter Hammill, Kevin Coyne, Roy Harper ...
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Douglas Mays
A good list. I would change the order and 'tweek' some points (I vote for Muswell Hillbillies also) but if I look at the list without a numerical order, the list is OK. It pretty much depends on when we tapped into the music.
I remember David Bowie once said in regards to how fast trends and things move along that someone who is 19 years old has very little in common with someone who is 25. Check my numbers on that one, but you get the idea.
peaceloveguidance
2 - Harald
I think the only ones who called Oasis better than the Beatles were Oasis :)
3 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
What the hell, man. Those observer cats. Trying to grab the kudos and what not. No pogues? No Billy Bragg? Don't Stand Me Down listed and yet no too-rye-aye or Searching For The Young Soul Rebels? That's just ridiculous. Underrated, Dexy's third record may be, but its not as good as the first two, no damn way as far as The Duke is concerned. The Smiths best records were Meat Is Murder and The Queen Is Dead. Strangeways, Here We Come is a very close third. Whilst their debut is brilliant also, it's simply not as good as those later records, man, not in the slightest.
And rubber soul is the best beatles album, by a million country miles or whatever.
4 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
And where in the fuck might i ask is Sunshine On Leith by the proclaimers? What in the fuck is going on with you Observer fools.
And that Gordon Rhamsey joke was just gut-chewingly awful.
His how is called "Hell's Kitchen", y'see, so, ha and so on.
Look out for The Duke's forthcoming assesments of every proclaimers album, an article apiece, and see why these motherfuckers should be tried for ignorance.
5 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Incidentally, great report Eric.
And where the hell was The Crocketts first damn record??
6 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
And Earth Versus The Wildhearts. Thats just about the best Brit debut of the nineties. Argh.
Alright, i'll shut the hell up, but you Observer cats just made The Duke's list, ie, list of folks what need a good motherfucking talking to.
7 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Just noticed Searching... is higher than Don't Stand Me Down, so i sit slightly corrected, but REALLY slightly. You'd hardly notice, in fact, if i hadn't told you so just now.
8 - Bob A. Booey
Typical muddle-headed rock critic list.
Anyone who understand punk or the Clash knows that their self-titled first album was their magnum opus. The Clash undoubtedly got fat and lazy artistically -- London Calling was before they got too disco, but the songs were slower, more indulgent, and tried harder to make the political points that the first album did so effortlessly and with so much more life and energy.
Early Morrissey solo albums belong fairly high on that list.
Portishead, for as short-lived a band as it was, was a fairly influential band and belongs somewhat higher. You can see their influence in a group like the Manic Street Preachers.
I'm too lazy to really read the list and think of other glaring omissions, but I'm sure they're many. Massive Attack is the trendy choice there -- horribly overrated. They belong near the bottom.
Zeppelin and Plastic Ono? Some of the 80s choices just seem kitsch.
Good catch on Wire and Underworld, who DEFINITELY belong. X-ray Spex and Generation X (before Billy Idol got lame) probably belong too if you're talking about early Brit punk. Depeche Mode is cheesy, but no less cheesy than Dexys Midnight Runners, Yes or Echo and the Bunnymen. They belong somewhere.
New Order/Joy Division belong way higher since they're so influential and loved by rock critics everywhere.
The Pogues are Irish so I don't know if they technically count, but if they do, they belong in the top 10.
Oasis mostly sucked, but they did write the greatest Beatles tune not written by the Beatles: Don't Look Back in Anger. I love that friggin song.
That is all.
9 - Bob A. Booey
Acid Drops was a good PIL song.
10 - Eric Olsen
It would appear the Irish were excluded, I was wonderingabout that. No U2 is a pretty good indication.
11 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
The pogues were actually london-irish, formed in london with mostly english members, so i guess they are in fact british. I doubt they could have existed had they been an Irish band. The fact that they were london-irish was a pretty important element to their initial success.
12 - Mark Saleski
i thought Morrison was irish...
13 - Mark Saleski
...and i know the list is geographical, but they could make some room on the list by pulling out all of the Stones records, cuz let's face it, they're more american than british.
14 - BRICKLAYER
How can ANYONE take this list seriously when it does not include one Iron Maiden album? That's just patently ridiculous! And no Judas Priest?!?! How silly. And just one Black Sabbath (I think, I mean I didn't read the list very carefully)? And not even Vol. 4 at that? Puhleaze, back to the drawering board, fancy boys!
15 - Tom Johnson
I'm with the Layer of Bricks - Maiden and Priest are absolutely necessary to explain where music today has come from. Regardless of their status today, what they did and who they influences is undeniable. A list that leaves them off does so more to make a statement about what they think is cool than what they truly think is important. Same goes for missing King Crimson's In The Court Of The Crimson King. I don't even particularly care for this album, but I understand and recognize its importance to music. It's just stupid not to.
These Brits and their damned lists! Don't they have anything productive to do?
16 - The Dude
I agree, Mark. Van the Man is Irish, and Astral Weeks (my personal fav) is a very Irish album -- in fact it's based in Belfast. What gives?
17 - Antfreeze
The first couple albums Dire Straits put out didn't have a bad song on them. Probably my favorite guitarist. Knopfler understands tone and subtlety like no other player I know and is a genuinely humble man. When DS got too popular he walked away and disappeared into the Nodding Hillbillies. How cool is that?
18 - JR
A list that leaves them off does so more to make a statement about what they think is cool than what they truly think is important.
I doubt they know the difference.
19 - Douglas Mays
I guess we shouldn't forget about the prog. movement with albums by Camel, Caravan and others. "Cunning Stunts" is a good listen. Be careful how you say that...
peaceloveguidance
20 - Tim Hall
I'm not surprised by the omission of acts like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. Not that they don't deserve to be there, but the British music critic establishment have never accepted heavy metal as a legitimate genre of rock. Metal exists in a parallel universe as far as they're concerned.
The excessive number of punk and new wave albums can be explained by the fact that the British baby boom was a decade later than America's.
And I still think The Smiths are ridiculously overrated.
21 - Eric Olsen
I agree that metal and prog are foolishly, nearly totally, excluded, and that this is typical crit behavior - look at the Rock Hall.
22 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Regarding Van Morrison, he is in fact Northern Irish, which means he is British. That is all.
23 - Nom De Plume
Plenty of folks, possibly Van included, don't consider Northern Ireland to be part of Britain, the distinction being not only a geographical one but also political and historical. That said, VM has lived and recorded in the US since the beginning of his solo career, so that may even muddy the waters further.
Elsewhere, in addition to omissions already cited, Fairport's "Unhalfbricking" but not "Liege and Lief", the watershed album of British folk-rock? Plus, why not pick one of Elvis Costello's superior albums ("My Aim..." is the weakest of his early stuff) where he's backed by the English Attractions instead of U.S. musicians? The Mekons' "Fear and Whiskey" also definitely belongs on this list, as does Orbital's second and The Stranglers' "Black and White". Further, reiterating the posts above, the paucity/lack of British metal bands is a serious oversight
24 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Yeah, but wether van considers himself british or not, he is and thats all there is to it. If you're born in britain, your nationality is british, regardless of your own political concerns. I would quite like to be Swedish, but no, British it is i'm afraid. Oh well.
American thing is interesting. Is an album british if it is recorded in america using american producers and players? Who knows? What if one third of a band are british and the other two are german. Who says if its british or german? Who the hell knows?
25 - Brady
First of all Duke, I agree that "The Stone Roses" is way too high - although I know it is a great album. "Abbey Road" is, I think, more sophisticated an album than the others mentioned by The Beatles( "Revolver" always gets mentioned but I think there's alot of fluff there - damn fine fluff tho). Elvis should be way fucking higher, like " and "Imperial Bedroom"? Those ommissions are a crime. The Smiths were great but they were not The Beatles. What about The Cure? Do they get any love? "Metal Box" by PIL is fucking artistically and conceptually brilliant; I would place it high too (Nothing is ever going to be "Never Mind..." it's too goddamm fantastic). The list includes Fairport Convention - right fucking on, they can't be overpraised. Oasis was vastly overrated and a flash in the pan - although "Definitely Maybe" is a fun if nonsensical listen. Dusty was a sweetheart and a hell of a singer with great taste in songs - good choice. Some of the list seems a bit reactionary and given time won't age well I'm afraid. However most of the choices are well researched if perhaps shoddily assembled order-wise. Praise is given to people who really deserve it but don't always get it ( At least in the mainstream) like Nick Drake, Billy Bragg, Robert Wyatt, Lloyd Cole and Ian Dury(! RIP). Oh Duke, it is rather balsy to admit liking "Sandinista!" over "London Calling" but hey, they are both such good albums I can live with that. The British kicked rock and roll in the ass when we ( The U.S) needed it. I applaud them highly for it. Oh, P.S: I'm glad they included one of my favorite bands - The Police; they often get maligned and left off of lists like these, so I won't bitch that "Outlandos D'amour" isn't here. P.P.S. Thin Lizzy's "Jailbreak" - good inclusion! Peace, Brady.