There was a feature in Uncut magazine last month, listing the 200 Greatest Albums of All Time. Greatest, Best, Finest, Most Influential; no matter what how you want to define it, a selection like that is more than a bit subjective, isn’t it? Many of the Uncut selections were fairly predictable. Not that the albums themselves were boring —- most are pretty much classics that are guaranteed to please — it’s just that we’re all used to seeing familiar choices such as Pet Sounds, Blonde On Blonde, Astral Weeks, Forever Changes, Ziggy Stardust, Kind of Blue, Tapestry, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, A Love Supreme, Exile On Main Street, What’s Going On, Are You Experienced?, and After the Goldrush on these sorts of lists, so there weren’t many true surprises.

But the Uncut list got me to thinking about my own Top 200. By no means would I dare to label my choices as a “Best” or “Greatest” list, rather these are simply my favorite albums, those proverbial Desert Island Discs that I’ve played endless times over the years and ones that I could never willingly part with. In the realm of list compilers, I suppose I cheated a bit, picking some hits/best of packages, various artist collections, live albums, and even a couple of boxed sets. But hey, they are my favorites, so I won’t apologize.

Like most listeners, my taste in music was heavily influenced by the music that I heard when growing up, mostly songs on the radio. In my case, the “formative” years were in the 1960s when I started listening to the radio and in the early 1970s when I started buying music. But I’ve maintained a very heavy listening and buying habit in the ensuing decades, so you’ll see a smattering of more recent recordings on this list too. What can I say; I’m a music addict!

I own thousands of albums and I agonized over whittling this list down to “only” 200. I’m sure that I’ll kick myself for missing a few, but looking over the choices, I’m pretty satisfied with them. But confining the list to 200 meant leaving off many great albums, including ones by some of my very favorite recording artists, such as the Temptations, Drive-By Truckers, George Jackson, Allen Toussaint, Otis Redding, Sly & the Family Stone, Joni Mitchell, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, the Go-Betweens, Booker T & the MGs, Glen Campbell, Isaac Hayes, Talking Heads, Lou Reed, the Byrds, and so many others.

These albums are not ranked in order of most favorite, just alphabetically by album title. I’m certain that there are more than a few picks that will strike you as odd or perplexing. My choices could be as obscure as the great Tom Foolery album or the fantastic debut recording by Love Tractor, or something as mainstream as Bruce Springsteen, Led Zeppelin, or Agents of Fortune by Blue Oyster Cult, but these are the albums that remain the nearest and dearest to my heart.

The first pick on my list is a good example of my loose criteria: the first two albums by Big Star. I had both albums as a 2-LP import record back in the early 1980s, and now I own the 2-CD package, so in my mind these two albums are inseparable, just one complete blissful listening experience that can’t be divided.

Big Star |
#1 Record/Radio City |
20/20 |
20/20 |
Magnetic Fields |
69 Love Songs |
Jimmy Buffett |
A-1-A |
Blue Oyster Cult |
Agents of Fortune |
Richard Lloyd |
Alchemy |

Crack the Sky Animal Notes |
|
Marvin Gaye |
Anthology |
Ramones |
Anthology |
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark |
Architecture and Morality |
Squeeze |
Argy Bargy |
Van Morrison |
Astral Weeks |
Cheap Trick |
At Budokan |
Allman Brothers Band |
At the Fillmore East |
NRBQ At Yankee Stadium |
|
Daryl Hall & John Oates |
Atlantic Collection |
B-52’s |
B-52’s, the |
Warren Zevon |
Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School |
Paul McCartney & Wings |
Band on the Run |
Band, the |
Band, the |
Bob Dylan & the Band |
Basement Tapes, the |

Various Artists Beat the Retreat: Songs By Richard Thompson |
|
Hollies |
Best of the Hollies |
Kimberley Rew |
Bible of Bop |
XTC |
Black Sea |
Bob Dylan |
Blood On the Tracks |
Michael Murphey |
Blue Sky Night Thunder |

Swimming Pool Q’s Blue Tomorrow |
|
Ry Cooder |
Bop Till You Drop |
Bruce Springsteen |
Born To Run |
U2 |
Boy |
John Hiatt |
Bring the Family |

John Prine Bruised Orange |
|
Style Council |
Café Bleu |
Lucinda Williams |
Car Wheels on a Gravel Road |
David Byrne |
Catherine Wheel |
Creedence Clearwater Revival |
Chronicle |
Neil Diamond |
Classics: The Early Years |
Jean-Michel Jarre |
Concerts in China |

999 Concrete |
|
Steely Dan |
Countdown To Ecstasy |
Feelies |
Crazy Rhythms |
Echo & the Bunnymen |
Crocodiles |
Tom Petty |
Damn the Torpedoes |
Bruce Springsteen |
Darkness on the Edge of Town |
Dream Syndicate |
Days of Wine and Roses |
R.E.M. |
Dead Letter Office |
Neil Young |
Decade |

Utopia Deface the Music |
|
Sade |
Diamond Life |
King Crimson |
Discipline |
Atlanta Rhythm Section |
Dog Days |
Elton John |
Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only the Piano Player |

Brother Jack McDuff Down Home Style |
|
Nektar |
Down To Earth |
Waylon Jennings |
Dreaming My Dreams |
Josh Rouse |
Dressed Up Like Nebraska |
Bongos |
Drums Across the Hudson |
Squeeze |
East Side Story |
Wally Badarou |
Echoes |

Glenn Phillips Echoes: 1975-85 |
|
Everything But the Girl |
Eden |
Jimi Hendrix |
Electric Ladyland |
Pete Townshend |
Empty Glass |
Gang of Four |
Entertainment |

Garland Jeffreys Escape Artist |
|
Isley Brothers |
Essential |
Rod Stewart |
Every Picture Tells a Story |
Yo La Tengo |
Fakebook |
|
|
Little Feat |
Feats Don’t Fail Me Now |
Snow Patrol |
Final Straw |

Heartsfield Foolish Pleasures |
|
Jackie Leven |
Forbidden Songs of the Dying West |
Crosby Stills Nash & Young |
Four Way Street |
Devo |
Freedom of Choice |
New Musik |
From A to B |
Nick Drake |
Fruit Tree (Boxed Set) |

Elvis Costello Get Happy |
|
Gil Scott-Heron |
Glory: The Gil Scott-Heron Collection |
Randy Newman |
Good Old Boys |
World Party |
Goodbye Jumbo |
Elton John |
Goodbye Yellowbrick Road |
Gordon Lightfoot |
Gord’s Gold |
Paul Simon |
Graceland |
Green On Red |
Gravity Talks |
Al Green |
Greatest Hits |
Chi-Lites |
Greatest Hits |

Wreckless Eric Greatest Stiffs |
|
Doll By Doll |
Gypsy Blood |
Pylon |
Gyrate |
Jimmy Cliff |
Harder They Come, the |
Smiths |
Hatful of Hollow |
Poco |
Head Over Heels |

Fleetwood Mac Heroes Are Hard To Find |
|
Rolling Stones |
Hot Rocks |
Stevie Wonder |
Hotter Than July |
Richard & Linda Thompson |
I Want To See the Bright Lights Tonight |
Nada Surf |
If I Had a Hi-Fi |
Eurythmics |
In the Garden |
Velvet Crush |
In the Presence of Greatness |
Van Morrison |
Inarticulate Speech of the Heart |
Various Artists |
Indestructible Beat of Soweto, the |
Stevie Wonder |
Innervisions |

Ozark Mountain Daredevils
It’ll Shine When It Shines |
|
Jonathan Richman |
Jonathan Goes Country |
Steely Dan |
Katy Lied |
Mink DeVille |
Le Chat Bleu |
Wet Willie |
Left Coast Live |
Replacements |
Let It Be |
Elvin Bishop |
Let It Flow |
Railway Children |
Listen On: The Best Of |

Grover Washington, Jr. Live At the Bijou |
|
Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band |
Live Bullet |
Bob Marley & the Wailers |
Live! |
Clash, the |
London Calling |

Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen
Lost in the Ozone |
|
Kitchens of Distinction |
Love is Hell |
Love Tractor |
Love Tractor |
Horslips |
Man Who Built America, the |
Television |
Marquee Moon |
James Taylor |
Mudslide Slim and the Blue Horizon |
R.E.M. |
Murmur |

Long Ryders Native Sons |
|
Red Rider |
Neruda |
Rod Stewart |
Never A Dull Moment |
Gin Blossoms |
New Miserable Experience |
Charlie Daniels Band |
Nightrider |
Nils Lofgren |
Nils Lofgren |
Ronnie Wood |
Now Look |

Guy Clark Old #1/Texas Cookin’ |
|
Peter Gabriel |
Peter Gabriel (3rd Album) |
Led Zeppelin |
Physical Graffiti |
Knitters, the |
Poor Little Critter on the Road |
Emmylou Harris |
Portraits (Boxed Set) |
New Order |
Power Corruption & Lies |
Shoes |
Present Tense/Tongue Twister |
Pretenders |
Pretenders |
Who, the |
Quadrophenia |

Jacobites (Nikki Sudden & Dave Kusworth)
Ragged School |
|
Tom Waits |
Rain Dogs |
Deacon Blue |
Raintown |
Jayhawks, the |
Rainy Day Music |
R.E.M. |
Reckoning |
Willie Nelson |
Red Headed Stranger |
Mekons |
Rock ‘n Roll |

Various Reggae Artists
Rockers: Original Soundtrack |
|
Ben Folds |
Rockin’ the Suburbs |
Tarney-Spencer Band |
Run For Your Life |
Jackson Browne |
Running On Empty |
Neil Young |
Rust Never Sleeps |
Clash, the |
Sandinista! |
David Bowie |
Scary Monsters |
Marshall Tucker Band |
Searchin’ For a Rainbow |

Dexy’s Midnight Runners
Searching for the Young Soul Rebels |
|
Lynyrd Skynyrd |
Second Helping |
Rosanne Cash |
Seven Year Ache |
O’Jays |
Ship Ahoy |
Ry Cooder |
Show Time |
UB40 |
Signing Off |

Linn Linn Sin Za Ba |
|
Buzzcocks |
Singles Going Steady |
Records, the |
Smashes, Crashes, and Near Misses |
Interview |
Snakes & Lovers |
Robert Palmer |
Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley |
Todd Rundgren |
Something Anything |
Jam, the |
Sound Effects |
Dan Fogelberg |
Souvenirs |

Spinners Spinners |
|
Graham Parker |
Squeezing Out Sparks |
Grant Green |
Steet Funk & Jazz Groove |
Talking Heads |
Stop Making Sense |
Lynyrd Skynyrd |
Street Survivors |
Curtis Mayfield |
Superfly Soundtrack |
Camper Van Beethoven |
Telephone Free Landslide Victory |

Atlanta Rhythm Section
Third Annual Pipe Dream |
|
Moody Blues |
This is the Moody Blues |
Replacements |
Tim |
Tom Foolery |
Tom Foolery |
Neil Young |
Tonight’s the Night |

Amazing Rhythm Aces Too Stuffed To Jump |
|
Reivers, the |
Translate Slowly |
Elvis Costello |
Trust |
Fleetwood Mac |
Tusk |
Pure Prairie League |
Two Lane Highway |
U2 |
Unforgettable Fire |

Pongsit Kampee & Lek Carabao
Unplugged (Plug Loot) |
|
Fountains of Wayne |
Utopia Parkway |
Durutti Column |
Valuable Passages |
Ultravox |
Vienna |
Jerry Jeff Walker |
Viva Terlingua |
Joan Armatrading |
Walk Under Ladders |

Joe Strummer Walker Soundtrack |
|
Guadalcanal Diary |
Walking in the Shadow of the Big Man |
Ian Hunter |
Welcome To the Club |
Doobie Brothers |
What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits |

Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass
Whipped Cream & Other Delights |
|
X |
Wild Gift |
Emmylou Harris |
Wrecking Ball |
Vulgar Boatmen |
You and Your Sister |
Tom Petty |
You’re Gonna Get It |