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08 March 2007

The 200 Albums Everyone Must Have Includes Kenny G. Seriously. Kenny G.
post by: jrossi4r at: 12:15 | 42 comments
The soundtrack for Dirty Dancing? Ooooooh Kay.

I have 48 of those albums.
posted by gaspode 08 March | 12:22
I have 36 of them.

Hell Freezes Over? Really?
posted by danf 08 March | 12:27
I have 30 of them and I'm kind of embarrassed by owning a couple. That's a pretty crap list - I mean, Shania Twain? Kid Rock? Eeeeeurrrghhh.
posted by mygothlaundry 08 March | 12:30
People gotta make lists that are like, The Five Albums everyone must have, or maybe The Three Albums. Two Hundred? Fuck that.

I wonder if you could get a consensus on even The One Album?
posted by Hugh Janus 08 March | 12:34
Avril Lavigne? The Forest Gump Soundtrack? Weird.
posted by brainwidth 08 March | 12:34
Also, there are a bunch of artists/acts with multiple albums on the list, which to me at least is a big no-no. I mean, four Metallica albums? No.
posted by brainwidth 08 March | 12:36
That is possibly the weirdest and least sensible "top x albums" list I have ever seen. I mean including a Celine Dion album? Kenny G? He has his place, IMHO but it as elevator/go-to-sleep music. There are video game soundtracks I would rank above even Duotones, arguably his best album.

That said, I have 93 of them.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs 08 March | 12:37
The Albums That People With No Individuality, Who Just Buy What Music Marketers Tell Them To Buy, Must Own
posted by matildaben 08 March | 12:38
ORIGINAL CAST – PHANTOM OF THE OPERA HIGHLIGHTS

I don't even know what to say.
posted by BoringPostcards 08 March | 12:39
how the fuck did creed end up on there???
posted by syntax 08 March | 12:39
The site looks nice until you get to the list, which looks as though someone's just copy+pasted it from Excel.

I've got 77 of those and am a bit embarrassed by some of the ones I'm missing. But, really, that list is an utter joke. I bet they did what all those "top 100 bestest evah" TV programmes do and presented voters with a list of, say, 250 albums and asked them to pick their top 5 or 10 from that.
posted by TheDonF 08 March | 12:40
Kenny G is there to be smashed against the door in a fit of drunken rage.
posted by casarkos 08 March | 12:42
No. Suck. I disagree.

*is still cranky from getting her shout on in the shouting thread*
posted by Specklet 08 March | 12:42
heh. i actually own 37 of 'em. 38 if you count the acapella version of jay-z's "the black album"

does owning multiple copies of the same album count, because i have seven lp copies of meat loaf's bat out of hell. (don't ask)
posted by syntax 08 March | 12:45
That said, I have 93 of them.

Half of which are on vinyl which I can't play, but none the less. I am guessing there are about 10 of said 93 that I would put in a top 200 list.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs 08 March | 12:49
I missed Bat Out of Hell. . .

37.
posted by danf 08 March | 12:50
Put out by the National Association of Recording Merchandisers, and endorsed by the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame? I'm surprised it's not even worse. (And I'm not surprised at how closely it correlates with sales figures.)

Also, 200? Does the average person even own that many albums?

(I own at least 25 or so of 'em, mostly on vinyl--about halfway through, I kinda lost interest in counting.)
posted by box 08 March | 12:51
If anyone doubted that the Hall of Fame was anything other than a sick joke perpetrated by Jann Wenner and his buddies, this list should clear that right up. Lists like this are always useless at best, but this sets the bar even lower than usual.
posted by bmarkey 08 March | 12:54
They have no Cake, therefore this list is utter trash.

Why would I care what NARM thinks I should buy anyway? I really dislike "definitive" lists like this. Definitive for whom? Not me, that's for sure.

Besides, entire albums are passe. It is the very, very rare album that doesn't have a bunch of fluff/filler.
posted by fenriq 08 March | 12:55
Given that this is coming from NARM, I think this was based on some formula involving number of total sales and number of weeks on the charts. It doesn't feel human selected (though maybe massaged a little). It's beyond arbitrary to have Avril on there for instance, but the album did sell like crazy and did chart for a long time.
posted by Lentrohamsanin 08 March | 12:55
NARM makes me laugh because that's what Nathan Fisher said immediately after having deadly Quaker sex on Six Feet Under.
posted by jrossi4r 08 March | 13:02
No Jeff Buckley?
No Tom Waits?
No Elvis Costello?
No Leonard Cohen?
No Lucinda Williams?
No Donny Hathaway?
No Sam Cooke?

Infidels.
posted by grabbingsand 08 March | 13:16
lol
posted by matteo 08 March | 13:29
Given that this is coming from NARM, I think this was based on some formula involving number of total sales and number of weeks on the charts

hm. if that's the case, colour me astounded that there's no madonna on that list, not that i'd advocate her over kenny g mind you.

this list smells like baby boomers. abort! abort! oooooga! awooooga! dive! dive!
posted by lonefrontranger 08 March | 13:45
colour me astounded that there's no madonna on that list


164. MADONNA – LIKE A VIRGIN
posted by bmarkey 08 March | 13:59
Alanis? Beyonce? Kenny Motherfucking G?

Relax folks, I am here to provide the antidote. (seriously, album lists are notoriously unreliable and baxsed on political and cultural bullshit, rather than musical quality, besides, as a wise man once said, nobody walks around humming albums). Not to mention, No Ramones? No Frank Zappa? No Kiss? I suppose I should thank God they didn't forget Marvin Gaye and Springsteen.

No Leonard Cohen?

Call me an infidel, but while I find Cohen impressive as a songwriter, I never cottoned to him much as a performer.
posted by jonmc 08 March | 14:23
I have 12 of them on CD, 3 on vinyl, and about 5 more on MP3 only.
posted by matildaben 08 March | 14:30
I have 64 of them. Looks like I've got some work to do.
posted by Hellbient 08 March | 14:39
I have, or had, 22 of them. Some are on vinyl (and I still have ...somewhere) and some are on long departed cassette tapes which have never been replaced.
posted by deborah 08 March | 14:41
As usual this is a stupid exercise made more stupid through lack of intelligent choice. There are quite a few on there I'd replace with something by the Talking Heads or the Police.
posted by eekacat 08 March | 15:26
I have a lot also. I agree, this list is crap. Although, I do own the Forest Gump soundtrack and Shania Twain!
posted by LoriFLA 08 March | 15:53
What exactly does difinitive mean here? Definitive of what? I also own a good many on the list, and of those, many of them should not be on the list.

"A Love Supreme" is Coltrane's definitive album? I wouldn't say so, but that is the only Coltrane entry.

The soundtrack to Grease? Admittedly I wore out two vinyl copies before buying the CD, but definitive? No.

Paul Simon's definitive album is "Graceland"? Over "There Goes Rhymin' Simon"? Uh-uh.

Hell, some of those albums aren't even definitive of the genre they represent, let alone overall. To whit: Deep Purple's "Made In Japan" (not on the list) is the hard rock/metal concert album that redefined the medium for performance (no overdubs or studio trickery), engineering (virtually no overloaded microphones despite both Blackmore and Lord pushing their Marshall amps to meltdown), and production (dynamic soundstage with a crisp mix).

Before "Made in Japan" were the Rolling Stones "Get Yer Ya-Yas Out" (overdubbed vocals), the Who "Live at Leeds" (overdubbed vocals and song edits), and the James Gang "Live In Concert" (overloaded microphones and extensive tape saturation).

Oh well, we are talking, after all, about the Hall of Fame people here.
posted by mischief 08 March | 16:17
Idolator has a good piece summing up the purpose of this ridiculous list - marketing, pure and simple.

From the press release:
he National Assn. of Record Merchandisers and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame unveiled a list of 200 albums that belong in everybody's CD collection titled the Definitive 200 that will be used as a marketing tool at big box outlets (Wal-Mart, K mart, Best Buy), chain music shops (Virgin, Trans World outlets), indie CD stores (Cheap Thrills in new Brunswick, N.J.*, J&R in New Yok, Newbury Comics in Boston, Zia in Phoenix, Ariz., and Waterloo in Austin, Texas) and online sites (Amazon, Overstock). Campaign is starting with 75 retailers signed up.

From the commentary:
What makes us roll our eyes is the idea that this "campaign"--which seems to be, in sum, a slapped-together roll call of recent platinum albums and a bunch of standalone displays--will somehow invigorate record sales. There are two reasons that there's no way this will happen: First of all, most of the albums on the list have reached their sales-saturation point....
posted by matildaben 08 March | 19:03
If everyone must own them, I'll just borrow them from the neighbors.
posted by mischief 08 March | 20:01
thumbs down

I have about 22 of them and 1.2 of those I wouldn't put on a best of list, just stuff I'm mildly nostalgic about from my younger years... which this list feels like in a large part. a few fans of stuff by the Beatles/Dixie Chics/Stones/Floyd .. etc threw their favorite albums on some god damned list and suddenly it's all "what you have to have", fuck that noise.

Top 5 Albums you need to own:

1> Rain Dogs
2> Folsom Prison
3> The Velvet Underground & Nico
4> Lincoln
5> Things We Lost In The Fire

See how easy it is... see how many of you don't agree with me? Best of lists are inherently flawed unless they mean "My" best of...
posted by edgeways 08 March | 20:18
I either own or owned about a third of these but most of them (even a lot of the ones that I own) I would classify as "Music that I really never need to hear again".
posted by octothorpe 08 March | 20:21
Edgeways, I own the first three of your list but I've never heard of the other two. Google tells me that #5 is by a group called "Low" but I've never heard of them and I can't really google the word Lincoln.
posted by octothorpe 08 March | 20:24
I own 20 of these and would probably like to own about 100 more, but they are in my "nice to have but not worth going out of my way to get them" list.
posted by dg 08 March | 21:15
On the plus side, all 200 albums are listed on the same page.
posted by mischief 08 March | 23:54
I own 35 of those on CD (not counting cassette tapes), and I'm ashamed to own at least ten of them.

(Also--only one Bowie album, but that much Zep? Bleh.)
posted by Prospero 09 March | 08:22
I approve of Edgeways list. Lincoln is by They Might Be Giants. Things We Lost in the Fire is still my most favorite Low album ever, although their forthcoming album Drums and Guns is pretty amazing.
posted by matildaben 09 March | 11:02
I had two, but now I only may have one. And I'm good with that.
posted by Zack_Replica 10 March | 02:03
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