Top 100 Rock Albums of All Time - 90 to 81
Last year, I released a list of my top 40 favorite rock bands/artists before I turned 40 (which happened in November), but NOW I took on an even tougher challenge of putting together my favorite 100 Rock Albums of All Time.
These are not inspired by other people’s lists or what people consider “great or influential music” - though a lot of it absolutely will be. These are just flat out my favorite 100 albums of all-time.
You are SURELY not going to agree with most of this list, and that’s okay.
Let's continue on with the next 10 in the list and discover what's my 90-81 favorite albums of all time!
90 - Act Your Age - Home Grown was a punk/ska band from Southern California that rose to a bit of fame with this album in the late 90’s, and it was one of my favorite albums during high school. It is perfect for road trips or just hanging out with friends in a chill place. There IS a song about a school shooting which didn’t age great, but aside from that it is a great album (and that song is good...just not so fun to hear now). My personal favorite on this album is “Suffer.”
89 - Home Again - Michael Kiwanuka is an absolute unicorn of talent and sound. The man sounds like he took a time machine from 1972 and landed in 2012 when his debut album came out. This is still my favorite album of his, and I have probably listened to it 500 times. It may not be my typical style of rock music, but Kiwanuka has an incredible ability to draw you into his music and his life through his songs. The title track absolutely stands out to me as one of his best.
88 - Doolittle - Pixies have always been one of the most influential bands in the music scene for indie rock, punk rock and grunge/alternative rock. This album is my personal favorite of theirs with songs like “Debaser,” “Wave of Mutilation,” “Here Comes Your Man,” and “Monkey Gone to Heaven” I think this is the best work that Pixies ever put out. Though, my personal favorite Pixies song (“Where Is My Mind?”) resides on the album Surfer Rosa which falls just behind this album for me.
87 - Sublime - The breakout album for the SoCal band. Sublime became an international hit with this album. The band completed the album in early 1996, but then a heroin relapse led to the death of lead singer Bradley Noel a few months later. The album ended up going 5x platinum with a slew of hits. My personal favorite song would still be “Santeria.”
86 - Love Is Dead - The Mr. T Experience is one of the most underrated punk bands of all time, and this album came out right in the middle of the pop-punk boom. This was just after Green Day hit it big, but it was still before Blink-182 made pop-punk look like the main form of rock music. I like so many MTE albums, but this one hooks me in every single time. I think my favorite track is still “Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba.”
85 - Full Circle - Pennywise became one of the most well known punk bands in the early 90’s and when this album came out, they became certified punk legends. Every single punk fan in America quickly knew all of the words to the iconic (redone version) of “Bro Hymn Tribute” which Pennywise put on this album after their bassist Jason Thirsk died from suicide. The original song “Bro Hymn” was written by Thirsk himself about his friends who died. The tribute has become a song that almost every punk fan would know by heart. Other songs that are amazing on this album include, “Society” and “Final Day.”
84 - Royal Blood - The debut album by the UK duo Royal Blood stands out as one of the best damn rock albums of all time to me because it was just so hard to believe what you were hearing. A bass player who can shred a bass like a lead guitar and a drummer who bashed and smashed his way through 10 really rocking songs. Mike Kerr and Ben Thatcher came out swinging with this album, and it was a perfect setup for their next album which came out 3 years later. My favorite song on this album might be “Little Monsters” just because it’s the one I have listened to the most (thanks to the radio at the time playing it often), but that just means I know more of the lyrics on that one than the rest really.
83 - WHEN GOD WAS GREAT - The Mighty Mighty Bosstones have been putting out great albums for 30 years now, and I still say it is impossible to find a bad song by them. This one is their newest release which came out in 2021, and it is already one of my favorite albums of all time. It has quite a few great songs, but I think that “I Don’t Believe in Anything” might be one of the best songs they have ever made.
82 - Boys & Girls - Alabama Shakes were a relatively short-lived band as lead singer Brittney Howard is now a solo act, but in their 2 albums together, they created some absolutely great music, and this album is just great from start to finish. The song “Hold On” became a huge radio hit, and “Hang Loose” was another really catch song off this album. For a blues-based rock band, they sure knew how to make accessible pop-rock as well.
81 - So Long and Thanks for All the Shoes - NOFX had a run of like 5 really good albums in a row starting with Punk in Drublic (some may say even earlier, but I think up to that point, they had a bit of an identity crisis and some songs were just all over the place). Once they found their iconic sound, they started whipping great albums out, and this one was a very popular album in the late 90’s as it became a staple in car stereos for anyone that I knew in high school. It capped off the best 3 album streak the band put together too. I’m not sure I have a single favorite track here. I just like the whole album.
Did you miss the albums from 100-91? Click here to check them out!