100 Essential Albums to Own on Vinyl
What you are about to read is a list of 100 essential albums for you record collection. These 100 albums are not the best 100 albums ever, or the 100 best of the last 50 years or whatever metric you want to put on them. Instead, these 100 titles are the building blocks of a wonderful record collection, a record collection that is to be envied, that can be enjoyed by every listener, that will set you up to explore many other avenues in your collection from this starting point.
So without further ado, here we go:
Fleetwood Mac: Rumours
What can we write here that hasn’t already been said about the Moon Landing, or the Mona Lisa, or a sunset. One of the greatest rock albums ever made, the fact that it still stays dominating the charts and the algorithm is proof enough.
Taylor Swift: 1989 (Taylor's Version)
The best of the re-records of the Towering Behemoth that is Taylor Swift, the album where she went pop, and became the music world’s Sun, Moon, and Stars.
Bob Marley: Legend
The cover might be in every, let’s say, skunky dorm room in America but Marley’s music was genuinely radical, stunning, and beautiful. Deserves to be more than a cliché; every song here is flawless.
Michael Jackson: Thriller
No album has ever sold more copies, and none ever will. Launched as many singles as it has songs, and its best moments are playing a funeral, wedding, drug store, and gas station somewhere right now.
The Eagles: Hotel California
Worth it for the guitar solo on the title track alone; lucky for you the rest of the album rules too.
Tom Petty: Greatest Hits
Instead of a studio album here, Petty’s greatest hits is like a nuclear bomb of rock greatness. Levels nearly every album you can put it against, and its effects will be felt for years.
The Beatles: Abbey Road
The second-to-last Beatles album is also their best selling, and that makes sense: It’s the one with the most complete suite, the one with quiet, loud, and introspective moments. Also has one of Ringo’s weirdest songs (“Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”).
Johnny Cash: The Essential Johnny Cash
Every artist who’s ever worn all black owes their entire existence to the songs you’ll find here.
Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin IV
The greatest hard rock album ever, you can track the DNA of this album into basically every band with a rock hit for the last 50 years. “When the Levee Breaks” still sounds like Poseidon making landfall, and “Black Dog” still sounds like it’s coming from the pits of hell.
Pink Floyd: The Dark Side Of The Moon
Never a world-conquering album, this was on the charts for something like 15 years straight. It might not sync up with Wizard of Oz, but it’s still as spacy and weird as psych rock ever got.
Journey: Greatest Hits
Yes, this has the song you’re thinking of. And yes, their other hits are as rousing.
Amy Winehouse: Back to Black
It gets lost in the sad narrative of her life, but this album is basically all killer no filler. Top to bottom, one of the best albums of the ‘00s; a smashing of hip-hop, soul, and girl groups that still hasn’t been replicated.
Queen: Greatest Hits I
These are the things of sport stadiums: anthems meant for vanquishing your foe, for celebrating victory over Darth Vader, and um, riding your bicycle. Somehow an underrated band because their hits are so huge.
Prince: Purple Rain
The Prince album that should come standard issue with every turntable sold in America, and at least most of the known world. The idea that a soundtrack could be this good is still unbelievable to consider.
Frank Sinatra: Ultimate Sinatra
The first ever vinyl LP was a Frank Sinatra album, and that was before he made “My Way.” He invented having charisma on record.
The Beach Boys: Sounds Of Summer: The Very Best Of The Beach Boys
Their songs have slipped into the cliché of the ‘60s, but their albums and songs were genuinely radical: Brian Wilson was the first artist to treat the recording studio itself as an instrument to be honed, to be perfected. He never surfed, but still made the saddest, best songs about it.
Pearl Jam: Ten
Nirvana were the flagbearers, the knife-edge walkers, while Pearl Jam were the grunge steady hands: Always there, always ready, always good. Ten feels like one of the last “classic” Rock albums ever made: A towering inferno of riffs, howls, screams, drums, and grooves.
Bob Dylan: Greatest Hits
In these songs, he proved that music could be as well-written and considered as poetry, as deep as most novels, as hard to parse as experimental film.
Chris Stapleton: Traveller
The biggest country album of the 2010s, Stapleton was a workingman bluegrass performer before writing this record close to his 40th birthday, exploding into an arena-touring world-conquering hero. “Tennessee Whiskey” is the best love song of the 2010s.
AC/DC: Back in Black
When their lead singer tragically died, you could have expected AC/DC to pack it in, and head back to Australia. Instead, they retooled with a new singer, and released one of the best selling-albums of all time. This is the metal album everyone knows; even your mom can sing most of the songs on here.
Zach Bryan: Zach Bryan
One of the newest albums on this list, this guy is this generation’s John Prine, who somehow became Garth Brooks, too. He’s the best young songwriter in country, and also somehow one of the biggest artists. Bodes well for the future.
Lauryn Hill: Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
One of the greatest rap albums of all time, it was the first to win Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards. That Lauryn has never properly followed it up speaks to its peerlessness: How can you top perfection?
James Taylor: James Taylor's Greatest Hits
Often considered “easy listening,” James Taylor songs are much sadder and more raw than people realize. Consider this an opportunity to listen to his music anew, and realize he’s a self-lacerating singer-songwriter who somehow got pigeonholed into something he wasn’t.
ABBA: Gold: Greatest Hits
It’s a phenomenon that’s never been explained: Two couples of Swedes connected like a nuclear reaction and wrote something like 15 of the best pop songs ever committed to wax. This document is the proof it indeed happened.
Kendrick Lamar: To Pimp a Butterfly
An album so good, it basically resulted in Kendrick getting a Pulitzer. Became famous for its anthem “Alright,” but is deeper and more varied than that. The best rap album of the 2010s.
Red Hot Chili Peppers: Greatest Hits
For the last 40 years, it feels like we get a Red Hot Chili Peppers re-emergence every 10 years, where they drop a grip of hit singles, have a huge album, and disappear for a few years. This album captures all those cocoon bursts in one album.
Lana Del Rey: Born to Die
No one could have called how influential, how massive this little album would become as time went on over the 2010s. Here’s where it all started for Lana.
Creedence Clearwater Revival: Chronicle
CCR released their entire catalog of seven albums in under four years, the kind of output that no band has touched before or since. This album, collecting their greatest hits, serves as a distillation of those heady four years, when every time the band hit the studio, gold would emerge.
Adele: 21
One of the biggest albums of the Obama presidency, Adele captured what it was like to be her at 21 in a way that felt universal, that could apply to everyone. That’s the genius of this album: It’s specific in a way that you could come away convinced the song is about you.
Elvis Presley: The Essential Elvis Presley
The blueprint, the archetype, the stick by which all pop stardom will forever be judged against. That said, his music has ended up underrated somehow; its vitality and groundbreaking nature evident in every note.
Sabrina Carpenter: Short n' Sweet
When we weren’t looking another former Disney TV star morphed into the Queen of Pop music. They can’t keep getting away with this.
Nirvana: Nevermind
The Big Bang for alternative ‘90s music, the final death knell for hair metal, the strike against polish, against overly manicured moments. A masterpiece, no matter what way you slice it. R.I.P. Kurt.
Wu-Tang Clan: Enter Wu-Tang
Like cocaine straight from Bolivia, this album is raw, uncut, and guaranteed to have a major effect on you. The Voltron-esque joining of 9 MCs at the top of their game, delivering the best rap debut of all time. Should come with a pair of Timberlands.
Crosby Stills Nash & Young: Deja Vu
Wherein the greatest trio in folk-rock history is joined by folk-rock’s prime free agent, and they join forces to make a whirlwind of sound. “Teach Your Children” will be a staple until we are all dust.
Boston: Boston
A group of 9-to-5’ers in Boston (one of them worked at Polaroid) spent their off-hours perfecting a demo tape that for years circulated around record labels, not being listened to or considered. When it finally was, those guys re-recorded that demo with a real budget, and made rock history, one of the best selling albums of all time.
Billy Joel: The Stranger
Billy Joel’s fifth album made him a household name: His songs of everyday people having everyday problems finally found the audience he deserved all along. “Movin’ Out” is one of the best piano-rock songs ever.
Luke Combs: This One's For You Too
The expanded edition of Luke Combs’ debut LP is a perfect distillation of all his charms: the simple songwriting, the blending of traditional country and modern country, and his overriding sense of humor.
George Strait: Icon
The skeleton key for understanding modern country is this collection of George Strait singles. He laid the track that Garth, Alan, and various Lukes have now ridden their own trucks through.
Barbie The Album: Barbie The Album (Original Soundtrack)
The biggest soundtrack of the 2020s, an encapsulation of how music is what is today is present here. Plus the Indigo Girls are super underrated!
Van Halen: 1984
The last album before Van Halen became Van Haggar, this is when Van Halen went from being the biggest rock band on earth to being the biggest musical act period, for a while. “Jump” and “Panama” and “Hot for Teacher” are platonic ideals for rock songs breaking through on the pop charts.
Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band: Greatest Hits
The poet bard of the Midwest, Seger captures the small moments and the small lives that feel so large. “Night Moves” is the best song about young love ever written.
Janis Joplin: Janis Joplin's Greatest Hits
This collection also serves as a huge what if: What if Janis lived, what if she made more records, what if we got to see what she’d do in the ‘80s. Instead, we have this collection.
Al Green: Greatest Hits
The greatest non-Otis Redding soul singer ever, this hits collection is one of the best selling soul albums of all time. You go to church, you go to the bedroom, you go to the street, you go to the club, and sometimes in the same song.
Louis Armstrong: Basin Street Blues
Before Louis Armstrong, New Orleans music was a local concern, with its best ideas—jazz was invented there!—eventually exported and mutated. After Louis, New Orleans was rightly identified as one of the best musical cities on earth. Hear why.
Arctic Monkeys: AM
The breakout album—at least in the U.S.—from the wunderkind British indie rockers made them into festival headliners. But that doesn’t happen if this record isn’t their best: a massive achievement in songwriting, riffs, and all around cool vibes.
Foo Fighters: Foo Fighters
Dave Grohl recorded most of this album entirely alone in the aftermath of Kurt Cobain’s suicide. The idea that the drummer of Nirvana was this talented, and could launch another iconic band is hard to fathom if it wasn’t for this album.
Chappell Roan: The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess
The Chosen One, the Lisan Al-Gaib of modern pop music. This album rightly has conquered the world, the kind of record people will use as a benchmark in their own lives as we get away from it.
Lainey Wilson: Bell Bottom Country
One of country music’s most recent breakthrough, Lainey Wilson’s rebellious, throwback outlaw country felt like a breath of fresh air when it hit a couple years ago. We don’t know yet what she’ll do next, but with a base like this, who knows how high she’ll climb.
Sade: The Best Of Sade
Sade songs are best described with the images they provoke: wind through silk, beaches at dusk, the Aurora Borealis. The vibes are never better than they are on a Sade record.
Kacey Musgraves: Golden Hour
The album that made Kacey Musgraves a mega star, and one that blended country with pop, dance, and every genre that was exploding in 2019. Deserves to be in every record collection for “Velvet Elvis” alone.
Alan Jackson: The Greatest Hits Collection
Every Alan Jackson song feels like one of those Zen Koan poetry books: There’s some sentence in each one of them that just knocks you sideways and changes the way you think.
Jimmy Buffett: Songs You Know By Heart
Because sometimes you just need to sit on a beach, sip a colorful cocktail, and forget about Microsoft Teams.
Foreigner: Farewell - The Very Best Of Foreigner
The undeniable kings of soft rock. They have songs that will make you pine for your ex, and also have you redownloading Hitch for the millionth time.
Olivia Rodrigo: GUTS
What are they doing down at Disney HQ that they can turn out world-changing pop stars like this? Olivia was before Sabrina, but same story: They can’t keep getting away with this.
Bee Gees: Saturday Night Fever (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
The single disco album that basically came standard issue in the ‘70s. If you bought any stereo product, it probably came with a copy of this. No one ever better defined the genre than this soundtrack.
Ray Charles: Genius Loves Company
Towards the end of his legendary career, Ray Charles hit the studio with a bunch of the artists he inspired, and probably delivered his best album since the early ‘60s.
Carole King: Tapestry
One of the greatest songwriters of all time, and she doesn’t get enough credit because her music was so popular. She should be as revered as Dylan, Mitchell, and any other singer-songwriter you can identify with a single name.
David Bowie: Changesonebowie
The seminal collection of hits from rock’s greatest shape shifter. It’s crazy how much ground Bowie covered from the time he caught on with his folk song about an astronaut to the release of this collection in the ‘70s.
Tina Turner: Private Dancer
Taking control of her life and career after an overdue divorce from Ike, Tina Turner had a career resurgence in the ‘80s where everyone simultaneously got to remember she’s one of the best singers to ever do it.
Tyler: Igor
The album from the young iconoclast that cemented him as one of the most visionary minds in all of music. He used to shock people with the content of his songs. Now he can do it with the stylistic changes.
Miles Davis & John Coltrane: The Final Tour: Copenhagen, March 24, 1960
Wherein you get to hear John Coltrane work with Miles for the last time, before he’d leave the dictates of his mentor’s sounds to expand the palette of jazz forever with his own albums. A slice of jazz history.
Norah Jones: Come Away With Me
A throwback, cozy jazz coffeehouse album that somehow became a world-conqueror. You could buy this anywhere that CD shelf space in the early ‘00s, and you heard this album even if you never purposefully listened to it. Everyone was cool with that.
Mac Miller: Swimming
The final album released during Mac Miller’s lifetime, this record showed Mac’s ear for beats and experimentation. Featuring production from everyone from Jon Brion to Flying Lotus, it’s sad to know Mac still had so much music to give.
Bruce Springsteen: Born to Run
The breakthrough record from the little Jersey kid from Asbury Park. His songs of down-on-their-luck people seeking salvation in running away still resonates today.
Guns N Roses: Greatest Hits
By some metrics they are the last hair metal band, but by others they were actually the first alt-rock band. Either way, their music still hits, and Axl Rose’s voice will go down as one of the best in rock history.
Phil Collins: The Singles
Underrated as a songwriter, but properly revered as a hit-maker, this Phil Collins collection has more hits than most artists ever see, and that’s crazy to consider since this was his side gig for playing in Genesis.
Hozier: Hozier
The young lord of folk-pop, music from this album is probably going to be in the TikTok algorithm as long as that app exists. That wouldn’t be possible if this album wasn’t chock full of memorable lines and undeniable hooks.
Green Day: Dookie
The biggest punk band to ever do it, this album launched them from playing DIY spaces to playing literal arenas. So much of this album is imprinted on the Millennial mind; its chords and choruses now part of the fabric of existence.
Tyler Childers: Purgatory
The lowkey king of alt-country, Childers has carved out a career with honest songwriting, and his clarion bell, beautiful voice. His first album is a masterpiece; one of the best country albums of the 21st century.
Miles Davis: Kind of Blue
The most emotional, beautiful, and best-selling jazz album of all time. If Miles had never made another album after this, he’d still be the GOAT.
Elton John: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
The seventh album from Elton John is this double album that has so many staples of classic rock radio, you probably think this is the title of his Greatest Hits album. It’s not! This is just a regular LP with “Bennie and the Jets,” “Candle in the Wind,” and “Funeral for a Friend/ Love Lies Bleeding” on it, and that’s just the first side of the album.
Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard And Soft
The third album from Billie Eilish, this record captures what makes her so magnetic, and why she’s beloved by so many. The quiet, hushed vocals that make you lean in close. The experimental production. The sense that something special awaits behind every corner.
Jane's Addiction: Nothing's Shocking
The clown princes of L.A.’s alt-rock scene in the late ‘80s, Jane’s Addiction’s debut album is like a Led Zeppelin album made by people born inside of a TV instead of born in the English countryside (complimentary). “Jane Says” still feels like a séance.
SZA: CTRL
The long-gestating debut LP from SZA is one of the best R&B albums ever: an airy announcement of a generational talent making art at the highest level.
The Rolling Stones: Let It Bleed
The most complete Stones album, nine songs of all killer no filler. From the opening of “Gimme Shelter” to the closing chorus of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” they make the case for themselves as the greatest band to ever do it.
Dolly Parton: The Very Best Of Dolly Parton
She’s held up now as a cultural institution, but it’s easy to forget how accomplished Dolly is as a musician. “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You” were written in the same 24 hours, and that’s just two songs on this record.
Sinead O'Connor: I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got
The second album from the radical, unfairly maligned Irish singer-songwriter is known and remembered for her take of “Nothing Compares 2 U,” but it’s more than that: A hushed, damaged powerhouse of a record.
Nat King Cole: Unforgettable
A compilation of some of the earliest hits in vocal jazz history, Nat King Cole’s legacy is present in this release. It’s a perfect album for a romantic night in with your partner.
Bon Iver: For Emma Forever Ago
Justin Vernon took a breakup of a band and a relationship hard, and retreated back to his parents’ cabin to lick his wounds. Instead of binging TV like the rest of us, he wrote and recorded this raw, incredible album that is in the pantheon of breakup albums.
Metallica: Master Of Puppets
The third album by the kings of thrash, this album broke through to the rock mainstream in a way no album by a band like Metallica had before. It’s easy to see why in retrospect: It’s riffs are towering, but the songwriting is open to interpretation, leaving everyone to take the battles of the lyrics as their own.
J Cole: 2014 Forest Hills Drive
J. Cole’s best project, an album that aspire to rap classic status, and very nearly grabs it by the lapels. It’s in that trying for eternity that J. Cole is at his best: No one works harder to be great than him.
Harry Styles: Fine Line
The second album from boy band legend Harry Styles plays like a modern take on an Elton John album: a blending of pop and rock styles, and songs you can slowly dance to in your kitchen.
Phoebe Bridgers: Punisher
The defining album of COVID-19: An indie rock classic that sounds like what self-isolation felt like in 2020. That’s not on purpose, but Phoebe Bridgers captured the feeling of unrequited feelings that happened for all of us when we couldn’t leave the house.
The Doobie Brothers: Best of the Doobie Brothers
It’s crazy to know now, but the Doobie Brothers—one of the best yacht rock bands ever—were formed to play Hell’s Angels clubs in Northern California. Then they hit upon a sound, and delivered a peerless catalog of hits perfect for a day sailing the lake.
Willie Nelson: Greatest Hits
There’s no greater chronicler of the human condition, no writer who has written songs about what it’s been like to be alive longer than Willie Nelson. The last of a dying breed, he’s done it all, and written it out for us to learn from.
Silk Sonic: An Evening With Silk Sonic
Like an unfrozen funk album from 1974, Silk Sonic—the duo of Bruno Mars and Anderson Paak—make music that is rich, that sounds like it was made to be played in a room with shag carpeting. It sounds so much like the real thing that it dominated the music world of 2022.
The Grateful Dead: Skeletons From The Closet: Best Of Grateful Dead
Every Dead Head knows the Dead were best experienced live, but in case that reality is too daunting, start here: A collection of their most beloved songs.
U2: The Joshua Tree
Before they forced an album onto everyone’s iPhone, U2 made this album: A stunningly great masterpiece that put them on the map. This album has all their best songs, and won basically every Grammy it was eligible for. An album that has to be heard to be believed.
Beastie Boys: Licensed To Ill
The debut from the Beastie Boys was so huge, and turned so many suburbanites onto rap music, that they basically spent the rest of their career running from it, making sample-heavy masterpieces and rap-rock hybrids. They need not have been though: It’s a fun, technically dexterous record that is groundbreaking for how it made rap approachable and ready for the pop charts.
Steely Dan: Can't Buy A Thrill
The debut LP from the jazz-rock legends. They arrived completely formed and would tweak their formula to make some of the most technically audacious records ever committed to wax. “Dirty Work” is on this, in case you want to recreate Tony Soprano’s iconic sing-along.
Patsy Cline: Greatest Hits
The First Woman of Country music, Patsy Cline tragically died in a plane crash before the release of her third LP. “Crazy” would become an iconic hit, but this compilation is, like an album further up this list, a great “What-If” story. What music would Patsy have made if she lived past the early ‘60s?
Buckingham / Nicks: Buckingham / Nicks
Long one of the hardest to find and most desired albums ever, this was recorded before Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac and made history. This record is great on its own terms though: A record that points the direction the duo would go when they’d join Mac, and make Rumours.
Cher: Forever
A greatest hits collection from one of the sneakily most prolific musical artists of her generation. She’s got hits spread over 40 years, and all of them rule.
Dave Matthews Band: Crash
The second album from this roadhorse band is softer, more nuanced, and also more experimental than their first. It’s the record that made them into the act that could tour year round in perpetuity.
Linkin Park: Hybrid Theory
Lowkey the best rap-rock album ever made; it’s the one that blended the disparate styles of emo, punk, metal, and hip-hop into something that felt entirely new when it landed.
Daft Punk: Discovery
Groundbreaking blending of rock riffs with house music; this is the album that taught a generation to loosen up and get down.
The Doors: The Doors
A groundbreaking classic rock album that basically launched L.A.’s rock culture, this album stands out now for its musical flourishes as much as its hippie/beat poetry.
Tame Impala: Currents
A modern psych-pop classic, a record so good it has a song Rihanna could cover.
Hootie & the Blowfish: Cracked Rear View
The peak of ‘90s frat-rock, these guys went from playing southern parties to the top of the pop charts, seemingly out of nowhere. Wouldn’t have happened if this album didn’t have 5 songs that absolutely smoke when you perform that at karaoke.
Jay-Z: The Black Album
The supposed “retirement” album from Jay-Z is one of his most audacious; it’s a classic rap album that was made to be a classic, that sounds expensive, and has the best rapping of Jay-Z’s life.
