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The Times Magazine Nov - Dec 1993 - The Vultures 100 Best Albums of all Time The Times Best Albums Of The Year 2000 Thanks to John Manning for supplying this list & accompanying article.
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1- The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds - 1966
"What makes a classic album? Over the four weeks leading up to Christmas, the Vulture - together with a panel - will attempt a definitive answer by compiling a countdown of the 100 best albums produced in the last 30 years.
It started in the think-tank at Vulture HQ. As Born to Run came on the jukebox, someone blurted into his pint: "This is the best record ever made!" "But it wasn't from his best album," snapped a colleague from the depths of his anorak. And off he went. Is Sergeant Pepper better than the White Album? Did the Stones ever make a classic album? All the fundamental questions of 20th-century life were posed, debated and forgotten. But in the morning that wise old bird the Vulture announced his plan to list the Top 100 classic albums of all time. And he would need some help. First, we had to define what constitutes a classic. These records had to have substance and longevity. At worst they had to be albums which made a memorable remark in the running conversation that is popular music. At best they would be records which changed musical history. The hallmark of a classic album is that it is more than the sum of its parts. Unlike the humble old LP, which was either a collection of songs previously released as singles or a movie soundtrack, the album was a coherent whole. The Beatles started it in the Sixties by studiously avoiding putting their hits on their albums. To emphasise that their work should be consumed in 40-minute chunks, Sergeant Pepper was released without any track spacing. The album had become an art form transcending the mere song. Next we needed to define our musical parameters. The familiar categories can be misleading. To an American, "rock 'n' roll" means virtually anything with a guitar recorded since 1955. In the UK it applies to a specific period before the Beatles. The word "rock" was used in the Seventies to mean grown-up, serious popular music. Now it implies tattooed men with perms and spandex trousers making a horrible din. "Pop" goes in and out of fashion, but usually applies to something faddish and short-lived. Perhaps the word "album" itself would be enough, suggesting as it does a way of making as well as marketing music. True, other styles and genres are available for consumption on vinyl or compact disc, but their method of delivery does not define their form. No one wrote a symphony to fit on one side of a 12in record. Jazz at its best is created on stage, not in a studio. Some of the music the Vulture would chose would never be played live To make the list more readable there were some rules. No artist or band would be allowed more than two entries in the Top 100. This would prevent The Beatles, Bob Dylan and a few others dominating the list, although watch out for Neil Young, Paul Simon and Eric Clapton. To introduce an element of impartiality, the Vulture enlisted a panel of "experts". From journalism came David Sinclair, rock critic of The Times, and Simon Frith, now chairman of the Mercury Music awards. From broadcasting we recruited Annie Nightingale and Mark Radcliffe (BBC Radio 1FM), Richard Skinner (Virgin 1215) and Tracey MacLeod (BBC2s Late Show). And from the other side of the microphone came three radio station heads of music - Richard Park (Capital Radio), Mark Storey (Piccadilly Radio) and Jon Myer (GLR) - and Sammy Jacob of XFM, which is bidding for a licence to broadcast indie music in London. Each week, one member will pick out their favourite from that week's compilation. Each panellist was sent a list of 200 albums, prepared by me, representing a range of music from ABC to ZZ Top. They were asked to award each album a mark between 0 and 10 and then add up to 20 of their own suggestions, to which they would award the maximum 10 points. I adjudicated over disputes and tried hard to fiddle the result, so the lack of Lyle Lovett and Frank Zappa is a measure of my own failure. So what have we ended up with? Like most chart run-downs, you will be kept waiting for the number one because we will be printing the Top 100 in four consecutive instalments leading up to Christmas. But I can reveal the headlines. Incredibly, (thankfully - JW) there is no Dire Straits (Brothers in Arms was no 102), no Simply Red, and no Phil Collins or Genesis. Bruce Springsteen, The Who and Michael Jackson have only achieved one entry each. On the plus side there are inclusions for two Sixties soul legends, a cult English folk-rock band and an almost forgotten deceased singer-songwriter. Several of the albums were never hits, but have achieved legendary status. No fewer than seven of the Top 50 are less than 20 years old. Who says music is flash in the pan"
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