Prologue
This is a set of charts listing my favourite albums in three categories: studio albums, live albums and compilation albums. A final section describes how I listened and got to know about the music I like.
Most albums are of those I continue to play. Many are of a time and a place in my life. Some are critically acclaimed and sold by the million; others are critically acclaimed and sold by the dozen. Some were critically derided at the time of release particularly if the album does not fit in with the narrow agenda of the rock presses’ fashion police at the time (this makes me like those albums more!).
When I started to listen to long playing records, they were considered to be a higher art form than the seven inch single. Here, you had thirty six or so minutes of a band’s songs which could be listened to individually or as a group. To listen, you needed a record player or hi-fi rig in order to play your vinyl. By the late sixties, the cassette tape became the medium whereby you could increase your collection by taping friends’ records. Nowadays, it seems that listening to a full album and certainly at a single sitting, is a thing of the past. The click of a switch on an MP3 player can fast forward you through phases of tracks or through full tracks. So, although nowadays there is more opportunity than ever to broaden your musical base, the album as an artefact or entity may not have much of a future.
What exactly constitutes an album? When I first started listening to popular music an album mostly comprised a few of the artists’ singles together with cover versions of standard rock ‘n’ roll songs. There were few artists writing their own material save for the Beatles and Dylan. Even the Stones and The Kinks only had a few self penned songs on their first few albums. The Beatles were setting new standards with each release and everyone was trying to play catch up before even further standards were set!
Albums on vinyl had a physical limitation as to the amount of music that could be contained on a disc. This was usually around fifteen to twenty minutes per side. When CDs were developed, this increased to around seventy minutes. Not all artists chose to fill CDs with seventy or so minutes of their music. The words “quality control” came to mind!
Most of the recordings listed are considered as entire albums rather than choosing albums that have only a few great tracks; most of the chosen albums contain almost all great music.
The majority of the selections are from a ten -year period from the time The Beatles and Bob Dylan began to influence how records were being made produced and marketed through to the mid seventies when I began to find that fewer albums contained all superb material. Yes, I was getting into my mid twenties and had established what I liked and what I did not enjoy.
The first compilation of my favourite albums was done in the mid-70's when I put a top 40 together (most, if not all of those selected then are contained herein!). The selection has gone through a number of revisions and rigorous reviews over the last year or two where albums were compared to others in similar positions (was X better than Y?) to end up the final charts.
The chart was compiled from my collection of over 2,500 albums on vinyl, tape and CD. That's excluding all the material I can now listen to on Spotify, You Tube and similar.
I'm sure you'll recognise more than a few of the albums although I'm equally sure that there are a few hidden nuggets in amongst the charts too!... and ,by the way, when I say ," music to empty rooms", I'm not kidding!
Dave Pennington
January 2015
In March 2018 I added my favourite Top 1000 Tracks, alphabetically split across a number of categories/playlists.
Most albums are of those I continue to play. Many are of a time and a place in my life. Some are critically acclaimed and sold by the million; others are critically acclaimed and sold by the dozen. Some were critically derided at the time of release particularly if the album does not fit in with the narrow agenda of the rock presses’ fashion police at the time (this makes me like those albums more!).
When I started to listen to long playing records, they were considered to be a higher art form than the seven inch single. Here, you had thirty six or so minutes of a band’s songs which could be listened to individually or as a group. To listen, you needed a record player or hi-fi rig in order to play your vinyl. By the late sixties, the cassette tape became the medium whereby you could increase your collection by taping friends’ records. Nowadays, it seems that listening to a full album and certainly at a single sitting, is a thing of the past. The click of a switch on an MP3 player can fast forward you through phases of tracks or through full tracks. So, although nowadays there is more opportunity than ever to broaden your musical base, the album as an artefact or entity may not have much of a future.
What exactly constitutes an album? When I first started listening to popular music an album mostly comprised a few of the artists’ singles together with cover versions of standard rock ‘n’ roll songs. There were few artists writing their own material save for the Beatles and Dylan. Even the Stones and The Kinks only had a few self penned songs on their first few albums. The Beatles were setting new standards with each release and everyone was trying to play catch up before even further standards were set!
Albums on vinyl had a physical limitation as to the amount of music that could be contained on a disc. This was usually around fifteen to twenty minutes per side. When CDs were developed, this increased to around seventy minutes. Not all artists chose to fill CDs with seventy or so minutes of their music. The words “quality control” came to mind!
Most of the recordings listed are considered as entire albums rather than choosing albums that have only a few great tracks; most of the chosen albums contain almost all great music.
The majority of the selections are from a ten -year period from the time The Beatles and Bob Dylan began to influence how records were being made produced and marketed through to the mid seventies when I began to find that fewer albums contained all superb material. Yes, I was getting into my mid twenties and had established what I liked and what I did not enjoy.
The first compilation of my favourite albums was done in the mid-70's when I put a top 40 together (most, if not all of those selected then are contained herein!). The selection has gone through a number of revisions and rigorous reviews over the last year or two where albums were compared to others in similar positions (was X better than Y?) to end up the final charts.
The chart was compiled from my collection of over 2,500 albums on vinyl, tape and CD. That's excluding all the material I can now listen to on Spotify, You Tube and similar.
I'm sure you'll recognise more than a few of the albums although I'm equally sure that there are a few hidden nuggets in amongst the charts too!... and ,by the way, when I say ," music to empty rooms", I'm not kidding!
Dave Pennington
January 2015
In March 2018 I added my favourite Top 1000 Tracks, alphabetically split across a number of categories/playlists.