THE GREATEST ALBUMS OF ALL TIME (Rankings 30-21)

Submitted by AfterHours on Sat, 06/10/2006 - 12:39
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  • 30. LES STANCES A SOPHIE-ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO (1970)

  • MY RATING: 9.1/10

  • MY FAVORITE TRACKS:
  • 1. THEME DE YOYO
  • 2. THEME DE CELINE
  • 7. THEME LIBRE

  • CHALLENGE RATING: 6.0/10

  • GREATEST MOMENT:

  • CRITICS' LIST RANKINGS:
  • John Fordham (UK) - Jazz: Gallery of Classics (1994): No Order
  • Il Mucchio Selvaggio (Italy) - 100 Essential Jazz Albums (2004): No Order
  • Jazz&Tzaz (Greece) - The 100 Greatest Jazz Records: No Order

  • CRITICS' RATINGS:
  • All Music Guide (USA) - Album Ratings 1-5 Stars: 4.5 Stars
  • MusicHound (USA) - Album Ratings 0-5 Bones (1998-99): 4.5 Bones
  • Rolling Stone Album Guide, Ratings 0-5 Stars (USA, 1979 and/or 1983): 5 Stars

  • CRITICS' QUOTES:

  • ALL MUSIC GUIDE: In 1970, the members of the Art Ensemble of Chicago were living as expatriates in Paris. The group had only recently expanded to its permanent quintet status with the addition of drummer/percussionist Don Moye when they were asked by New Wave director Moshe Misrahi to provide the soundtrack for his movie, Les Stances a Sophie. The music was never used in the film but, luckily, it was recorded. The result was one of the landmark records of the burgeoning avant-garde of the time and, simply put, one of the greatest jazz albums ever.

  • On two of the tracks, the Art Ensemble is joined by vocalist Fontella Bass, at the time the wife of trumpeter Lester Bowie and riding the success of her pop-soul hit "Rescue Me." She's featured most prominently on the opening number, "Theme De Yoyo," an astounding piece that has achieved legendary status as the finest fusion of funk and avant-garde jazz ever recorded. The mix is indeed seamless, with Moye and Favors laying down a throbbing, infectious groove, Bass singing the surreally erotic lyrics with enormous soul and the horn players soloing with ecstatic abandon.

  • The remaining pieces cover a wide range stylistically with no less beauty and imagination, including two variations on a theme by Monteverdi, intense free improvising and soft, deeply probing sonic investigations.Their extensive knowledge of prior jazz styles, love of unusual sound sources (the so-called "little instruments) and fearless exploration of the furthest reaches of both instrumental and compositional possibilities came into full flower on this record.

  • TIGERSUSHI.COM: This is an absolute classic. Soundtrack of the eponymous French "new wave" movie, Les Stances à Sophie was reedited by Universal Sound, a label that definitely has a true talent for digging up hard-to-find sounds. This jazz LP includes one of the greatest soul anthem ever recorded, the sublime "Theme de Yoyo", a perfect blend of warm black soul, groove and energetic Free Jazz. The rest of the record is equally sublime and testimony of the creativity and productivity of Art Ensemble of Chicago during their short stay in Paris.

  • MY REVIEW: Les Stances A Sophie is an irresistable, adventurous jazz masterpiece that combines many different elements through its relatively short running time. It ranges stylistically from funk to soul, to sensitive portrayals of world music, to free jazz, from the wonderfully melodic to the intense and invigorating, all while honing a sense of sublime craft and supreme musicianship. The band has a knack at being able to communicate its stimulating, provocative music with such conviction and immediacy that it never feels over-indulgent or "unlistenable" despite being compositionally extravagant and experimental.


  • 29. A RAINBOW IN CURVED AIR-TERRY RILEY (1968)

  • MY RATING: 9.1/10

  • MY FAVORITE TRACKS:
  • 2. POPPY NOGOOD AND THE PHANTOM BAND

  • CHALLENGE RATING: 6.0/10

  • GREATEST MOMENT:

  • CRITICS' LIST RANKINGS:
  • Epoca (Italy) - The 100 Best Albums of All Time (1988) 90

  • CRITICS' RATINGS:
  • All Music Guide (USA) - Album Ratings 1-5 Stars: 5 Stars
  • Virgin Encyclopedia of Popular Music (UK) - Album Ratings 1-5 Stars (2002): 4 Stars

  • CRITICS' QUOTES:

  • ALL MUSIC GUIDE: After several graph compositions and early pattern pieces with jazz ensembles in the late '50s and early '60s (see "Concert for Two Pianists and Tape Recorders" and "Ear Piece" in La Monte Young's book An Anthology), Riley invented a whole new music which has since gone under many names (minimal music -- a category often applied to sustained pieces as well -- pattern music, phase music, etc.) which is set forth in its purest form in the famous "In C" (1964) (for saxophone and ensemble, CBS MK 7178). "Rainbow in Curved Air" demonstrates the straightforward pattern technique but also has Riley improvising with the patterns, making gorgeous timbre changes on the synthesizers and organs, and presenting contrasting sections that has become the basic structuring of his works ("Candenza on the Night Plain" and other pieces).

  • AMAZON.COM: Riley is one of the granddaddies of Minimalism. His early music, In C and the two works on this disc, brought to light the musical possibilities of rapid-fire notation and shifting sonic textures to a new form of music. Riley has done this primarily through electronic keyboards and computer technology. The composer plays all the instruments on this extraordinary disc: electric organ, electric harpsichord, "rocksichord," dumbec, tambourine, and soprano saxophone. The music is spooky and hypnotic and is an early masterpiece in the genre. It belongs in the collections of anyone interested in late 20th century American music.

  • MY REVIEW: Riley's masterpiece of minimalism has him partially improvising through two long compositions, each showcasing his ability to create strong textures and harmonies through repetitions and collisions with multiple instruments. A Rainbow In Curved Air employs a running series of keyboard notes flickering on and off in extended ruminitions that weave in and out of eachother, meet and reverse, occasionally creating mutual climaxes that mirror off the other before splintering off again. It evokes a magical trip, a stream of consciousness that plays on the dreams all of us have to exist in a place where we don't seem so limited and affected by our environment, where the universe is ours, and hopes and desires blossom from our very fingertips. Poppy Nogood And The Phantom Band, one of the supreme masterworks of the era, is a strange, enigmatic world holding both great discovery as well as universal hope nearing its twilight, as if a collective of memories are flashing before the eyes of mankind. There is a cognition there to be had, that could make our past right, that could set us on a straight path by giving us the truth of existence, but it is just a flash, and just outside our grasp.


  • 28. LULLABY LAND-VAMPIRE RODENTS (1993)

  • MY RATING: 9.1/10

  • MY FAVORITE TRACKS:

  • GREATEST MOMENT:

  • CHALLENGE RATING: 7.0/10

  • CRITICS' LIST RANKINGS: N/A

  • CRITICS' RATINGS: N/A

  • CRITICS' QUOTES: N/A

  • MY REVIEW:


  • 27. THE MODERN DANCE-PERE UBU (1978)

  • MY RATING: 9.1/10

  • MY FAVORITE TRACKS:
  • 2. THE MODERN DANCE
  • 4. STREET WAVES
  • 9. SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY
  • 10. HUMOR ME

  • CHALLENGE RATING: 6.5/10

  • GREATEST MOMENT: Nearing the end of closer Humor Me, singer David Thomas unleashes an anxious, harrowing storm of "Come on and humour me!", "It's just a joke!!" screaming atop his lungs while knowing the world around him can only collapse without an answer.

  • CRITICS' LIST RANKINGS:
  • Fast 'n' Bulbous (USA) - The 500 Best Albums Since 1965: 74
  • Spin (USA) - 100 Alternative Albums (1995): 51
  • Treble (USA) - The Best Albums of the 70s, by Year (2005): 7
  • Guardian (UK) - 100 Albums that Don't Appear in All Other Top 100 Album Lists (1999): 67
  • Mojo (UK) - The 100 Greatest Albums Ever Made (1995): 72
  • New Musical Express (UK) - All Times Top 100 Albums (1985): 29
  • Time Out (UK) - The 100 Best Albums of All Time (1989): 92
  • OOR (Netherlands) - The Best Albums of the 70s (1979): 39
  • Rolling Stone (Germany) - The 500 Best Albums of All Time (2004): 172
  • Spex (Germany) - The 100 Albums of the Century (1999): 82
  • Rock de Lux (Spain) - The 100 Best Albums of the 1970s (1988): 18
  • Rock de Lux (Spain) - The 200 Best Albums of All Time (2002): 123
  • BigO (Singapore) - The 100 Best Albums from 1975 to 1995 (1995): 77
  • Yediot Ahonot (Israel) - Top 99 Albums of All Time (1999): 82
  • Mucchio Selvaggio (Italy) - 100 Best Albums by Decade (2002): 21-50

  • CRITICS' RATINGS:
  • All Music Guide (USA) - Album Ratings 1-5 Stars 4.5 Stars
  • Robert Christgau (USA) - Consumer Guide Album Grade: A-
  • Rolling Stone Album Guide, Ratings 1-5 Stars (USA, 1992): 4 Stars
  • Spin's Book of Alternative Albums, Ratings 1-10 (USA, 1995): 10
  • Martin C. Strong (UK) - The Great Rock Discography 7th Edition, Ratings 1-10: 9
  • Virgin Encyclopedia of Popular Music (UK) - Album Ratings 1-5 Stars (2002): 4 Stars

  • CRITICS' QUOTES:

  • BLOGCRITICS.ORG: "Conceived in the certainty commercial and critical indifference would be the inevitable outcome of their enterprise, Cleveland’s Pere Ubu knew they had nothing to lose when they recorded the four singles that led up to The Modern Dance in 1977.

  • This consequence-free environment spawned an exhilarating confidence that thought nothing of whisking atonal electronica and garage-band naiveté against the thrumming industry of the local steel mills and body-shops from which they drew rhythmic inspiration."

  • STYLUS MAGAZINE: "By the time we reach the album’s penultimate track, the six-minute “Sentimental Journey,” a renunciation of what one imagines to be an existence more squalid than most – Thomas, amid breaking glass, a dejected carnival of sound effects, and a choppy, brooding bassline, enumerates the items in his tiny apartment – we seem to understand the band’s decidedly odd brand of gallows humor. In the reggae-tinged “Humor Me,” Thomas proclaims, “It’s just a joke!” along with some curt laughter, but is he trying to provide a summation of his hard-to-get comedic sensibility, what he imagines his whole existence to be, neither, or both? This is not the sort of music that lends itself well to straightforward interpretation; it does not reveal its secrets at once; even when it seems to do so, it nevertheless fails to provide the listener with no easy answers; it makes the listener want to keep on listening, even if he or she feels they are the only one."

  • MY REVIEW: The Modern Dance is a deceptively complex work, pitting David Thomas, one of the premier vocalists in rock history, amidst the bowels of industrial wreckage as he trudges through a series of songs that degenerate from full-fledged punk acts in the beginning, to trips through bouts of spiritual dissipation and revolution from the grips of an industrial wasteland, one cannot be confronted or reconciled without the other--this is a work of environmental crisis becoming a personal hell, savagely coercing the mind as if a toy. The Modern Dance perpetuates these themes by committing itself uniquely to its subject matter by actually becoming it, not just in theme, but actual byproduct. The album clangs and churns and tosses and collapses and burns and blows smoke within a striking guise of shaking power chords and punk/new wave controlled anarchy, as its demise becomes clearer and clearer. In its underbelly lies an immense power, and its purposely superficial enthusiasm gradually splinters off as its real intentions eventually give way to fragmented, tortured souls and its instruments become shrapnel, broken glass, cracking drain pipes, broken power lines and the like, only to lead the band back to reality by its close. Lead singer David Thomas is a force of nature, tour de force of split, multiplying personalities in what must be one of the greatest vocal performances in rock history. He howls and contorts and shrieks and clamours and crawls his ugly voice through the wasteland he stands in, thereby not just singing tunes, but becoming his subjects, his voice literally taking on the charred, the broken, the shrapnel, the steel, the ashen and the rust. Not only does The Modern Dance preach industrial societal issues, it is them. It doesn't sound much like an industrial album. It is industrial. It is a slowly crumbling wreck. This hyperrealism makes it all the more relevant and effective. There isn't a single emotion or instrument about it that isn't for the sole purpose of manipulating its amazing transformation, it's utterly unique forms and impressionistic concepts.


  • 26. THE ASCENSION-GLENN BRANCA (1981)

  • MY RATING: 9.1/10

  • MY FAVORITE TRACKS:
  • 2. THE SPECTACULAR COMMODITY
  • 5. THE ASCENSION

  • CHALLENGE RATING: 7.0/10

  • GREATEST MOMENT:

  • CRITICS' LIST RANKINGS: N/A

  • CRITICS' RATINGS:
  • All Music Guide (USA) - Album Ratings 1-5 Stars: 4.5 Stars

  • CRITICS' QUOTES:

  • ALL MUSIC GUIDE: "If one chooses to categorize the music on this recording as "rock," this is surely one of the greatest rock albums ever made. But there's the rub. While sporting many of the trappings of the genre -- the instrumentation (electric guitars), the rhythms, the volume, and, most certainly, the attitude -- there is much about The Ascension that doesn't fit comfortably into the standard definition of the term. Not only does the structure of the compositions appear to owe more to certain classical traditions, including Romanticism, than the rock song form, but Branca's overarching concern is with the pure sound produced, particularly of the overtones created by massed, "out of tune," excited strings and the ecstatic quality that sound can engender in the listener. Though his prior performing experience was with post-punk, no-wave groups like the Static and Theoretical Girls, it could be argued that the true source of much of the music here lies in the sonic experimentation of deep-drone pioneers like La Monte Young and Phil Niblock."

  • PITCHFORK.COM: "I've had the symphony of the streets do a little winking dance in a light drizzle to Monk's solo piano playing before, I've had Ellington make the lights of Broadway glimmer and dance for miles. White Light/White Heat split my skull open with the cold cruelty of the last exit to Brooklyn, while Paul's Boutique foretold the coke-smoking pleasures of the Vice lifestyle ten years before I arrived. Daydream Nation carved out the skyscraper shapes and dungeon scrapes of the sewer below in sound, but none of these quintessential New York records made every single movement of the Gotham populous move as one quivering entity in my head as does Branca's finale, "The Ascension".

  • Every step pounded out on concrete, every seeping bag of dragged garbage, every rat squeal, every metal-on-metal cry of the arriving train on the third rail, every disfigured bum, and all the echoing voices seem to be notated for these detuned guitars. The nasty city these compositions were birthed in appears no longer to be with us. A ghost city, seemingly isolated to Martin Scorsese and Abel Ferrera videos, still haunts us as an ineffable layer over the cleaned city of Disney, as brutal and terrifying as the city has always been. She's never left; it's nice to have her back."

  • MY REVIEW: The Ascension is an awe-inspiring, monstrous barrage of assaults, using an ensemble wielding virtually tuneless, abrasive guitars, pounding relentlessly to mount nearly impenetrable walls of sound. It is inspired by the similar rhythmic, epic and furious emotional power of great classical music composers such as Beethoven and Brahms and its pieces build great adrenaline rushes of momentum, then explode with a startling immediacy and penetrate with a shockingly direct impact of the most overwhelming sheets of caucophony.


  • 25. THIRD-SOFT MACHINE (1970)

  • MY RATING: 9.2/10

  • MY FAVORITE TRACKS:
  • 1. FACELIFT
  • 3. MOON IN JUNE

  • CHALLENGE RATING: 7.0/10

  • GREATEST MOMENT:

  • CRITICS' LIST RANKINGS: N/A

  • CRITICS' RATINGS:
  • All Music Guide (USA) - Album Ratings 1-5 Stars: 4.5 Stars

  • CRITICS' QUOTES:

  • MY REVIEW: Soft Machine's Third is an album of stunning, vast scope, encompassing many different rhythm changes while leading us through detours and surging, relentless percussion and assaulting big band climaxes, each with a synergy and purpose that is rare even in the best jazz records. Third combines the spaciousness and jamming of Miles Davis' Bitches Brew with the streams of climactic rushes of Charles Mingus' The Black Saint & The Sinner Lady. It peaks with the astonishing, mercurial and elusive epic Moon In June before wallowing in a sea of hypnotic reflection by the conclusion of closer Out-Bloody-Rageous.


  • 24. OUT TO LUNCH-ERIC DOLPHY (1964)

  • MY RATING: 9.2/10

  • MY FAVORITE TRACKS:

  • CHALLENGE RATING: 8.0/10

  • GREATEST MOMENT:

  • CRITICS' LIST RANKINGS:
  • Double Time (USA) - Top 100 Historically Significant Recordings: 12
  • Fast 'n' Bulbous (USA) - The Best Albums from 1949-64: 4
  • Rock de Lux (Spain) - The 200 Best Albums of All Time (2002): 173

  • CRITICS' RATINGS:
  • All Music Guide (USA) - Album Ratings 1-5 Stars: 5 Stars
  • Rolling Stone Album Guide, Ratings 1-5 Stars (USA, 1992): 5 Stars

  • CRITICS' QUOTES:

  • ALL MUSIC GUIDE: "Out to Lunch stands as Eric Dolphy's magnum opus, an absolute pinnacle of avant-garde jazz in any form or era. Its rhythmic complexity was perhaps unrivaled since Dave Brubeck's Time Out, and its five Dolphy originals -- the jarring Monk tribute "Hat and Beard," the aptly titled "Something Sweet, Something Tender," the weirdly jaunty flute showcase "Gazzelloni," the militaristic title track, the drunken lurch of "Straight Up and Down" -- were a perfect balance of structured frameworks, carefully calibrated timbres, and generous individual freedom. Much has been written about Dolphy's odd time signatures, wide-interval leaps, and flirtations with atonality. And those preoccupations reach their peak on Out to Lunch, which is less rooted in bop tradition than anything Dolphy had ever done. But that sort of analytical description simply doesn't do justice to the utterly alien effect of the album's jagged soundscapes. Dolphy uses those pet devices for their evocative power and unnerving hints of dementia, not some abstract intellectual exercise. His solos and themes aren't just angular and dissonant -- they're hugely so, with a definite playfulness that becomes more apparent with every listen. The whole ensemble -- trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, vibist Bobby Hutcherson, bassist Richard Davis, and drummer Tony Williams -- takes full advantage of the freedom Dolphy offers, but special mention has to be made of Hutcherson, who has fully perfected his pianoless accompaniment technique. His creepy, floating chords and quick stabs of dissonance anchor the album's texture, and he punctuates the soloists' lines at the least expected times, suggesting completely different pulses. Meanwhile, Dolphy's stuttering vocal-like effects and oddly placed pauses often make his bass clarinet lines sound like they're tripping over themselves. Just as the title Out to Lunch suggests, this is music that sounds like nothing so much as a mad gleam in its creator's eyes."

  • MY REVIEW: Eric Dolphy's masterpiece Out To Lunch is an amazing album, a cornucopia of fascinating, complex ideas, sudden stops and starts, and unlikely rhythm changes. It is constantly influx, and represents one of the very peaks of compositional ingenuity in all of music. It is free, yet impossibly calculated and carefully intelligent. It is unpredictable, intricately structured to the point of such complexity that it seems astounding to find that the work is so fully, thoroughly organized after repeated listens.


  • 23. Y-POP GROUP (1979)

  • MY RATING: 9.2/10

  • MY FAVORITE TRACKS:
  • 1. THIEF OF FIRE
  • 2. SNOWGIRL
  • 4. WE ARE TIME

  • CHALLENGE RATING: 8.5/10

  • GREATEST MOMENT: The cumulative, snowballing caucophony collapsing all over the band during the final climactic thrust of We Are Time.

  • CRITICS' LIST RANKINGS:
  • Fast 'n' Bulbous (USA) - The 500 Best Albums Since 1965: 203
  • Pitchfork (USA) - Top 100 Albums of the 1970s (2004): 35
  • Stylus (USA) - Top 101-200 Albums of All time (2004): 168
  • Spex (Germany) - The 100 Albums of the Century (1999): 51
  • Rock de Lux (Spain) - The 200 Best Albums of All Time (2002): 145
  • Mucchio Selvaggio (Italy) - 100 Best Albums by Decade (2002): 21-50

  • CRITICS' RATINGS:
  • All Music Guide (USA) - Album Ratings 1-5 Stars: 4.5 Stars
  • Martin C. Strong (UK) - The Great Rock Discography 7th Edition, Ratings 1-10: 7

  • CRITICS' QUOTES:

  • ALL MUSIC GUIDE: Abrasive, but interesting, the Pop Group's debut is perhaps the most succinct summation of their angry and defiant approach to rock & roll. Although at times resembling the discordant funk of fellow post-punk radicals Gang of Four, the Pop Group leave rhythm behind almost as quickly as they find it, and the result is a clattering din of sound resembling an aural collage. The longish, guitar-driven track "We Are Time" is the strongest cut, establishing a solid groove that won't let go.

  • PITCHFORK.COM: 25 years after their untimely implosion, The Pop Group's lacerated funk has begun to make a noticeable dent in the indie strata. Y, the Bristol post-punk band's trainwrecked opus, has been co-opted and realigned by the more nefarious members of the disco-punk revival-- most notably Liars on 2001's They Threw Us in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top. Yet, neither Liars nor any of their contemporaries have come close to matching the effectiveness of Y's arid doomsaying. Unlike most of the late-70s' no-wave types (and perennial imitators), The Pop Group were less concerned with eschewing convention than with vehemently eviscerating it. Listen to how they tear apart a boxy, reverb-laden surf riff on "We Are Time" with Dadaist malice and contempt. It's impossible to ignore Mark Stewart's incessant Thatcher-bashing, but Y is so convincing in its hectoring that one can easily imagine it arising from even more amicable circumstances. This is a record of dire necessity, armed for combat against a long litany of ills-- none more than typicality.

  • MY REVIEW: The Pop Group's Y is a stunning summation of Third World ills, set against a paranoid, claustrophic and influx jungle of instrumental breakdowns, catastrophies, splintering notes free-falling and arising in constantly unpredictable forms. Phrases and sporadic notes shift and merge manically and chaotically within its freakish, skeletal framework. Singer Mark Stewart unleashes sustained, emphatically drawn-out primal vocals, bringing into the mix a no-holds-barred vengence of conviction, while monstrous dub lines and clanging, jangling guitars juice Y into action. One of the greatest, most unsettling and courageous debuts ever, Y evokes the sheer recklessness of the military mind, the sweltering, claustrophobic jungles of Vietnam, the psychological impact from overwhelming forces of unstoppable warfare emerging from all directions, and the despairing feeling of losing ones grip on asserting the enemy from the protagonist. It is a piercing dagger to the heart of evils that soak humanity in its blood.


  • 22. ASCENSION-JOHN COLTRANE (1965)

  • MY RATING: 9.2/10

  • MY FAVORITE TRACKS: N/A (Ascension doesn't have "tracks". It is one continuous piece.)

  • CHALLENGE RATING: 8.0/10

  • GREATEST MOMENT:

  • CRITICS' LIST RANKINGS:
  • Fast 'n' Bulbous (USA) - The 500 Best Albums Since 1965: 149

  • CRITICS' RATINGS:
  • All Music Guide (USA) - Album Ratings 1-5 Stars: 5 Stars
  • Rolling Stone Album Guide, Ratings 1-5 Stars (USA, 2004): 5 Stars
  • Virgin Encyclopedia of Popular Music (UK) - Album Ratings 1-5 Stars (2002): 4 Stars

  • CRITICS' QUOTES:

  • ALL MUSIC GUIDE: "Ascension is the single recording that placed John Coltrane firmly into the avant-garde. Whereas, prior to 1965, Coltrane could be heard playing in an avant vein with stretched out solos, atonality, and a seemingly free design to the beat, Ascension throws most rules right out the window with complete freedom from the groove and strikingly abrasive sheets of horn interplay. Recorded with three tenors (Trane, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp), two altos (Marion Brown, John Tchicai), two trumpet players (Freddie Hubbard, Dewey Johnson), two bassists (Art Davis, Jimmy Garrison), the lone McCoy Tyner on piano, and Elvin Jones on the drums, this large group is both relentless and soulful simultaneously. While there are segments where the ensemble plays discordant and abrasive skronks, these are usually segues into intriguing blues-based solos from each member. The comparison that is immediately realized is Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz of five years previous. However, it should be known that Ascension certainly carries it own weight, and in a strange sense makes Coleman's foray a passive adventure -- mostly due to an updated sonic quality (à la Bob Thiele) and also Trane's greater sense of passionate spiritualism. Timed at around forty minutes, this can be a difficult listen at first, but with a patient ear and an appreciation for the finer things in life, the reward is a greater understanding of the personal path that the artist was on at that particular time in his development. Coltrane was always on an unceasing mission for personal expansion through the mouthpiece of his horn, but by the time of this recording he had begun to reach the level of "elder statesman" and began to find other voices (Shepp, Sanders, and Marion Brown) to propel and expand his sounds and emotions. Therefore, Ascension reflects more of an event rather than just a jazz record and should be sought out by either experienced jazz appreciators or other open minded listeners, but not by unsuspecting bystanders."

  • AMAZON.COM: Few works remain genuinely controversial 35 years after their inception, but Ascension can generate as mixed a response today as it did when it was released. In May 1965, Coltrane assembled 10 other musicians for one of his most ambitious recordings, a 40- minute piece that was a landmark in the free-jazz movement and a key moment in Coltrane's sponsorship of the younger members of the New York avant-garde. Along with his regular rhythm section--McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones--the band includes trumpeters Dewey Johnson and Freddie Hubbard, tenor saxophonists Archie Shepp and Pharoah Sanders, altoists Marion Brown and John Tchicai, and Art Davis playing bowed bass. The improvised ensembles shout and cry with galvanizing power, their tension testifying to Coltrane's influence and the saxophone's dominance in the style.

  • MY REVIEW: John Coltrane's Ascension is an explosive, volcanic work that not only emits the sounds of destruction like nothing before and little else since, but does it for the purpose of attaining a higher ground of spirituality. And man, if this isn't one of the epitomes of free form jazz! It has very little structure within its phrases, as it is some of the freest music ever created, but rather revisits a recurring theme as traded off between the legendary group of soloists. The body they create is wrought with magnificent, continuous bouts of insatiably forceful, spewing, climactic bursts. With this relentless conviction and intelligence from Coltrane and the rest of the players, Ascension becomes a stream-of-conscious fervor towards epiphany and a higher plane of existence, as opposed to something just numbing and mindless.


  • 21. HOSIANNA MANTRA-POPOL VUH (1973)

  • MY RATING: 9.2/10

  • MY FAVORITE TRACKS:

  • CHALLENGE RATING: 8.0/10

  • GREATEST MOMENT:

  • CRITICS' LIST RANKINGS:

  • CRITICS' RATINGS:

  • CRITICS' QUOTES:

  • MY REVIEW:


Author Comments: 

These are my picks for the greatest albums of all time. ONLY MASTERPIECES ARE GOING TO BE ALLOWED ON THIS PARTICULAR LIST (9.0 & ABOVE). I've found true masterpieces to be very rare in music, so these albums deserve special attention and therefore their own list. Rankings are based on my opinion of their merit. To me, the overall greatness of an album is primarily dependant on the four categories listed below. These are the factors I believe to be most important in making up an astonishing and profound musical experience, which is the ideal effect a work of art can have on one. My ratings are derived from a combined score from each of these four factors, in addition to the value I prescribe to each individual album track:

1. PROFUNDITY
-How powerful is it? Does it make me want to cry? Stare forth in awe? Is it miraculous? Does it give me goosebumps? Chills?

2. DEPTH
-How expansive is its content? As a work does it blossom and flourish, or is it just a stand-still of repetitive content? Does it make you feel as though you've endured a full experience by its conclusion, or is it insignificant and slight?

3. INGENUITY
-How inventive is it? Do you feel you are at the hands of great intelligence, subjectively creative ideas, or is it merely an artist or group just trying to get by?

4. CONTINUITY
-How consistent is the album's flow? Does it feel like an uneven hodgepodge, or is it carefully constructed for maximum climax and maximum impact?

All my song & album ratings are based on the following scale:

RATINGS SCALE:

0.0-4.9 NOT WORTH LISTENING TO
5.0-5.4 AVERAGE
5.5-5.9 ABOVE AVERAGE
6.0-6.4 GOOD
6.5-6.9 QUITE GOOD
7.0-7.4 VERY GOOD
7.5-7.9 EXCELLENT
8.0-8.4 OUTSTANDING
8.5-8.9 AMAZING
9.0-9.4 MASTERPIECE
9.5-9.9 SUPREME MASTERPIECE
10.0 ULTIMATE MASTERPIECE

To give you an idea of how I conduct my ratings, and the quality I am looking at here on this list, here are some examples of where I would rate some well-known albums:

0.0-4.9 NOT WORTH LISTENING TO
FOREVER-SPICE GIRLS

5.0-5.4 AVERAGE
BACK TO BEDLAM-JAMES BLUNT

5.5-5.9 ABOVE AVERAGE

6.0-6.4 GOOD
THE FREEWHEELIN' BOB DYLAN-BOB DYLAN
A HARD DAYS NIGHT-THE BEATLES
PABLO HONEY-RADIOHEAD
RUBBER SOUL-THE BEATLES

6.5-6.9 QUITE GOOD
THE BEATLES-THE BEATLES ("White Album")-THE BEATLES
BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME-BOB DYLAN
HUNKY DORY-DAVID BOWIE
IS THIS IT-THE STROKES
REVOLVER-THE BEATLES
THE RISE AND FALL OF ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS-DAVID BOWIE
RUMOURS-FLEETWOOD MAC
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND-THE VELVET UNDERGROUND

7.0-7.4 VERY GOOD
ABBEY ROAD-THE BEATLES
BEGGAR'S BANQUET-THE ROLLING STONES
THE BENDS-RADIOHEAD
BORN TO RUN-BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
DARK SIDE OF THE MOON-PINK FLOYD
LET IT BLEED-THE ROLLING STONES
LONDON CALLING-THE CLASH
THE MOON AND ANTARCTICA-MODEST MOUSE
NEVERMIND-NIRVANA
PET SOUNDS-THE BEACH BOYS
THE RIVER-BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND-THE BEATLES
THERE'S A RIOT GOIN' ON-SLY AND THE FAMILY STONE
WHAT'S GOING ON-MARVIN GAYE

7.5-7.9 EXCELLENT
ARE YOU EXPERIENCED?-JIMI HENDRIX
BLOOD ON THE TRACKS-BOB DYLAN
BLUE-JONI MITCHELL
DOOLITTLE-PIXIES
EXILE ON MAIN STREET-THE ROLLING STONES
FOREVER CHANGES-LOVE
FUNERAL-THE ARCADE FIRE
HORSES-PATTI SMITH
IN UTERO-NIRVANA
LOW-DAVID BOWIE
OK COMPUTER-RADIOHEAD
THE STONE ROSES-THE STONE ROSES
SURFER ROSA-PIXIES
YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT-WILCO

8.0-8.4 OUTSTANDING
THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL-NINE INCH NAILS
FUN HOUSE-THE STOOGES
HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED-BOB DYLAN
IN THE COURT OF THE CRIMSON KING-KING CRIMSON
MARQUEE MOON-TELEVISION
PINK MOON-NICK DRAKE
REMAIN IN LIGHT-TALKING HEADS
ZEN ARCADE-HUSKER DU

8.5-8.9 AMAZING
SEE MY "AMAZING ALBUMS" LIST

9.0-9.4 MASTERPIECE
SEE MY "GREATEST ALBUMS OF ALL TIME" LIST

9.5-9.9 SUPREME MASTERPIECE
SEE MY "GREATEST ALBUMS OF ALL TIME" LIST

10.0 ULTIMATE MASTERPIECE
NONE KNOWN

Challenge Ratings are based on the level of challenge an album poses to the listener. By this, I usually mean the degree of experimentation found on the album. The key determining factor is: how much does it diverge from pop music, from what most listeners are accustomed to? Length of tracks and the entire album are taken into account as well. Agreement with these will vary some from person to person, but I've found are usually quite accurate with most anyone, having made these evaluations based on my own experiences as well as numerous recommendations I've given over the years. One can use these ratings to presume how much work he or she will have to put into "understanding" or "getting" the album. Conceptually understanding the artists' vision is key to enjoying it on an ideal level, so these challenge ratings can be helpful in convincing someone to "giving it another shot" while they remain unconvinced of an album that just hasn't appealed to them yet. I should also note that I have observed that the more one persists in listening to and understanding the most challenging albums, the easier it becomes to take on the next one. That said, if you are reading this list and are used to simple, radio-friendly artists such as Nickleback, The Beatles and others, then it is recommended you start on the album with the lowest challenge rating and gradiently work your way up towards the more difficult ones, step-by-step.

The Challenge Ratings are defined as follows:

1.0 EXTREMELY EASY
2.0 VERY EASY
3.0 EASY
4.0 PRETTY EASY
5.0 NEITHER TOUGH NOR EASY
6.0 PRETTY CHALLENGING
7.0 DIFFICULT
8.0 VERY DIFFICULT
9.0 EXTREMELY DIFFICULT
10.0 NEARLY IMPENETRABLE

I would like to thank Piero Scaruffi (www.scaruffi.com) for the immense help he has been in the discovery of many of the albums on this list. I would also like to thank him for his valuable insight in his reviews and through e-mail correspondance (both of which I've occasionally derived some of my own views). Additionally, I would like to thank all the other webzines/publications and their reviewers I've utilized in the CRITICS QUOTES sections of this list, as well as www.acclaimedmusic.com for their existence, without which posting the multiple rankings of many of these albums from worldwide "best albums" polls, would be a real chore.

G_Riv06/26/2006

I'm familiar with most of the online webzine lists you mention in your reviews, and those I didn't recognize I hunted down for more listening suggestions. One that I couldn't find was the LostAtSea 90 albums of the 90s; I was wondering if you might be able to procure it. Thanks, and great additions to the list so far.

AfterHours06/27/2006

The link is supposed to be:

Lostatsea.net/LAS/archives/features/music/90of90s/

but when you try it you just get "page cannot be found" now. Still, there is www.Lostatsea.com website, where you may be able to search around and find the "90 of the 90s" list.

phetal08/18/2006

I have to give you credit for ranking a top whatever.

I can do three, then I cant decide. My top 3, just for fun, are California by Mr. Bungle, Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd, and 3030 by Deltron 3030 (Del tha Funkee Homosapien/Dan the Automator).

AfterHours08/21/2006

Thanks, it can definitely be a challenge at times, especially when all these albums are so amazing and so close together in terms of quality.

I own Wish You Were Here and think it's a very good album. I don't think I've heard the other two you mentioned. From what I remember I do like Mr. Bungle though. What are some other albums you would choose on a list like this?

wshogren08/22/2006

It's fun to see this list expand as more great choices are added.
What do you think of Royal Trux's Twin Infinitives? That's the one Scaruffi 9/10 album I can't really get into at all. I've tried, but I don't know...

AfterHours08/22/2006

I don't own it yet and I've only heard it briefly. I have no comment other than my initial impression is that it's probably the most challenging album I've ever heard (I'd have to listen to the whole thing to be sure of this).

I'm going to wait to pick it up at a later time, when I feel I'll actually be ready for it. There are too many other albums I am listening to right now and I doubt I could presently devote the needed attention span to it.

You're not the only one who feels the way you do. I hope I can 'conquer' it when I give it a go.

wshogren08/25/2006

To be honest, I probably haven't given it enough tries. It would need dozens of spins in order for me to fully appreciate it, if I can appreciate it at all. The problem is taking the time to listen to it; a challenge when there's so much music out there that's more readily enjoyable.

AfterHours08/25/2006

I agree, I'm curious to see how fast or how slowly I can unearth its "treasures". With all the music I've listened to in the past 5 years combined, it could end up being preparation for being able to stomach Twin Infinitives.

AfterHours11/25/2006

Well, here's my report:

I found it was very useful to have listened to and 'conquered' the majority of Scaruffi's jazz and rock masterpieces (free form jazz is very key). I picked up Twin Infinitives and found it to be an overwhelming masterpiece from the first note to the last, upon my first listen. It now ranks in my top 10 of all time and my favorite of the 90's. Perhaps this gives you some hope?

G_Riv09/15/2006

I've listened to the majority of the albums on this list with the exception of a few of the 90s ones, but I must say that these newest additions are especially close to my heart. Particularly In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, which is one of the top albums of my (admittedly brief) lifetime. Cheers, I'm looking forward to seeing the rest.

AfterHours09/15/2006

I love hearing things like this. Thankyou. Aeroplane is among the most moving, emotional albums ever made. It rarely fails to make my jaw drop in awe at its fearless ability to reveal the most personal feelings and with the utmost conviction.