The 5 Greatest Albums Ever - My Top 5 Most Essential Albums Of All Time

Albums that have shaped my life in music - Not your regular list but essential nonetheless

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Photo by Tori Wise on Unsplash

Narrowing down to just five essential albums was a task that was so very hard. But these albums have shaped my taste in music, my career as a musician & might I add, maybe even my life. These albums span the entire landscape of music I’ve listened to, but, these five albums are ones I keep coming back to because they’re so perfect & timeless. 

As a teenage kid, I wanted to learn bass & start a band, but my parents ushered me away from learning instruments because they felt it would interfere with my studies. But I eventually did pick up the guitar, piano & trumpet in my late twenties. However, before taking the leap to attempt to be a serious musician which has only happened in the last few years, with still some time to go before I start, or rather, muster up the courage to start performing live, I listened closely to everything. Everything.  

But I digress, before making music there was the intense listening part of my life. I scoured & consumed albums extensively from the Blues of the 1920s to the 1950s & Jazz & then the Rock and Roll of the '60s to modern day, include Electronic, Ambient, Downtempo & other electronic-centric music and add dabbling in Punk Rock, Grunge and Metal to some extent, and a bit of Hip Hop; I’ve been actively listening to music as a release for as long a I can remember. I can safely say it’s the activity I’ve done the most throughout my life #alwaysasetoralbumplaying. 

Anyway, I could “ramble on” like the Led Zeppelin song, but here’s the list of my top five greatest albums ever & why I dig these albums so much.  

The Howlin’ Wolf Album — Howlin’ Wolf

This album man. This album. I’m a huge Blues aficionado & enthusiast & there’s just something about those old Bluesmen from back in the day moaning, groaning & singing the blues on a six-string that hits home for me. I’ve heard everything from Robert Johnson, Leadbelly, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Blind Willie Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Skip James, Big Joe Williams to John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, R.L. Burnside— the list could go on, but Howlin’ Wolf stood out to me. 

Chester Burnett, aka Howlin’ Wolf, is the smoothest Blues musician of the lot & perhaps of all time, although not the greatest guitar player. Tom Waits, in an interview I wrote about, compared Howlin’ Wolf’s vocals to the Empire State Building. But anyway, this isn’t your regular Blues album because this is the Electric Blues. 

This album is a classic from start to finish. Every track on it is a banger, and the album cover is just the coolest Howlin’ Wolf album cover. This one’s an essential classic, whether you like the Blues or prefer Rock over the Blues, this staggering piece of work is Howlin’ Wolf exuding his innate cool & whisky-greased voice providing vocals & his trademark howlin’ to some exceptional electric blues on the electric guitar. 

In Rainbows / Basement— Radiohead

Radiohead are one of my favourite bands of all time, if not my outright favourite ever. Thom, Jonny & the crew are just pioneers and innovators & every member of Radiohead are precociously gifted in their own right.

They’ve pioneered the Alternative-Rock genre but after OK Computer & Amnesiac, In Rainbows marked a definitive shift in Radiohead’s sound. It’s more mature, yet with all the elements of mid-Radiohead & the electronic influences that rove in & out of this album. It’s a poignant deluxe album (Disc 1 & 2) which has some brilliant songs & is Radiohead coming full circle to deliver their best album to date. 

I wrote a bit about how my friends & I discovered In Rainbows & gorged on the live In Rainbows: From The Basement sessions in a summer back in college in 2011 just when The King Of Limbs released. YouTube had just become a proper thing in India, and we’d just endlessly play the album & the live basement performance on loop in our penthouse apartment. I also added songs off the album to my DJ sets at the local pub where I played the music part-time in what was my first job during my teens & my undergrads at MIT, Manipal.

This is as close as it gets to a Rock band creating an album which is a 100% in terms of ideation, output, execution & final sound. Plus the Basement session is just the greatest live set I’ve ever seen & heard on YouTube ever. 

Privateering — Mark Knopfler

It’s hard to pick one Mark Knopfler album to explore his diverse discography & standout sound, because I love Tracker & Down The Road Wherever. Even Knopfler’s recent album One Deep River was decent but if I had to pick one, it’d be Privateering. This 20-track album is everything Mark Knopfler’s about, rock & roll and folk put together in a mishmash of stylistic songs with those unerringly smooth guitar licks that ebb & flow in the interludes & pockets of each song’s melody, Knopfler’s Privateering is one of his best, and one album I absolutely dig & keep coming back to. 

It was between CSNY’s — Deja Vu & this album for this spot on the list, but I’m tending more towards ol’ Knopfler. Nearly every track on this album is great & a smooth listen. It’s more acoustic with slightly lesser of Knopfler’s trademark electric-centric nous, only slightly lesser, but it’s a flawlessly enchanting album & one of the finest Mark Knopfler releases he’s ever put out. Just listen to this one from start to finish. 

The Road To Escondido — J.J. Cale, Eric Clapton

In a clash & collaboration of two of Rock & Roll’s greatest guitarists, this album by the immaculate JJ Cale & the enigmatic Eric Clapton is an essential album that’s one of the greatest collaborative albums ever released. It’s an amalgamation of two behemoths of the musical genre, like two streams making the river flow— this one’s all about smooth & flow.

To just hear both guitars weilded by the greatest ever, complementing & feeding off each other in every song, The Road To Escondido is as smooth & cool as it gets for that perfect smooth Rock & Roll sound. JJ Cale is widely regarded as one of the greatest guitarists ever, which I’ve written about although he wantonly avoided the limelight, but Clapton was significantly thrust more in the spotligh as compared to his American contemporary. But their mutual respect for each other remains & is echoed in this album. This one’s a classic “Easy come, easy go, anywhere the wind blows”.

The Black Swan — Bert Jansch

I’d have easily added a Nick Drake album to end this list with a folk album, but there’s just something about Bert Jansch’s guitar playing that “spins my mind into knots”, as he sings on his debut album from 1965. Bert Jansch is my guitar hero, and probably one of the greatest acoustic guitar players ever. Maybe he’s a name you haven’t heard, but for every serious guitar player, Jansch is the epitome of guitar playing ability. 

I’ve written a short memoir about Jansch, which you can read but I had to add a Bert Jansch album on my all time essential favourites list. However, the album I’m picking isn’t considered one of his greatest, but to me it is. It’s his last studio album, Jansch’s final swan song, aptly titled ‘The Black Swan’. It’s just such a deep & moving & wholesome album. Bert was never a great vocalist but boy he could make his guitar sing, and how. The Black Swan which released in 2006 was Bert’s final studio album & a poignant reflection of his musical gift. Jansch eventually sadly came to pass in 2011 but left a staggering discography to be admired & listened to carefully.  

That’s a wrap of my list of my five greatest albums ever. They’re albums which have shaped my taste in music & are timeless albums I’ll never get tired of listening to. Of course, there’s no Beatles(I really don't like The Beatles), Led Zeppelin, Cream, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young, The Doors, Metallica, or a lot of bands & albums on regular lists, I would’ve also liked to add my favourite Jazz albums or maybe even one by Frank Sinatra, but this is my definitive list of my top five albums ever.

I hope you enjoy listening to them, and do drop a comment below if you liked listening to the albums on this list & what you think!

Happy listening! \m/

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