What's Your Top 10 List?

L.A. Times Archives

Sept. 27, 1998 12 AM PT

When the American Film Institute recently issued its list of the 100 best movies, the selections were immediately criticized as too commercial. And the Modern Library editorial board’s ranking of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century was attacked on several grounds--from favoring American authors to being a cynical gimmick to push the publishing entity’s own line of books.

Now, Calendar is looking for the best pop albums of all time, and we’re going straight to the real experts: you, our readers.

To give you some ideas, Calendar asked 12 artists and experts to list their Top 10 albums. Robert Hilburn picks some additional notable albums on Page 71.

You can vote for the albums that have meant the most to you over the years or the ones that you think are the most distinguished, in any genre: rock, rap, reggae, soul, punk, grunge--you name it.

Send us your choices by mail, fax, e-mail or the Web site. Please send just 10 titles. Feel free to add some brief comments about the albums. All entries must reach us by Oct. 12. We’ll share the results on Oct. 25.

ERYKAH BADU

1. Stevie Wonder’s “Innervisions”

“It’s a remarkable album that expresses my entire 1970s experience in one completely connected melodic flow.”

2. Stevie Wonder’s “Songs in the Key of Life”

3. The Emotions’ “Rejoice”

“It’s a look at the human experience from the ladies’ point of view.”

4. Roy Ayers’ “The Best of Roy Ayers”

“He puts the punctuation into the sentencing of music.”

5. N.W.A.’s “EFIL4ZAGGIN”

“Even more than ‘Straight Outta Compton,’ this album for me marked the emergence of the street rebel in rap. It was an important voice that needed to be heard.”

6. Nirvana’s “Nevermind”

“A morbid underwater experience that I could relate to in the same way as I could relate to Stevie Wonder. So honest and real.”

7. Anita Baker’s “The Songstress”

“This music was actually medicine for a lot of women . . . music that healed some wounds that needed to be closed in terms of relationships.”

8. A Tribe Called Quest’s “Midnight Marauders” and “The Low End Theory”

9. Rufus’ “Rufus Featuring Chaka Khan”

10. Tie between Dr. Dre’s “The Chronic” and Mary J. Blige’s “What’s the 411?”

“Dre helped the whole world get high all over again, like Sly and Hendrix did earlier. . . . Mary J. Blige merged hip-hop and R&B.; She closed the gap between Chaka Khan and the Wu-Tang Clan.”

CHUCK D.

Public Enemy

1. Run-DMC’s “Raising Hell”

“This album showed people that rap wasn’t a novelty, but that it was a music with a power comparable to rock ‘n’ roll and everything else.”

2. Sly & the Family Stone’s “Greatest Hits”

“Sly took all the best ingredients of ‘60s music and put them together in a single package that defined the period for me.”

3. Isaac Hayes’ “Hot Buttered Soul”

4. N.W.A.’s “Straight Outta Compton”

“Rap was never the same after this. . . . “

5. Funkadelic’s “Funkadelic”

6. Ice Cube’s “Death Certificate”

“He’s a master of words, someone who paints a picture that is so clear that everyone can understand it.”

7. Beastie Boys’ “Licensed to Ill”

“This opened a door between rock and rap, helping integrate the cultures.”

8. Muddy Waters’ “Electric Mud”

9. The Beatles’ “Revolver”

“It’s my favorite Beatles album because of the experimentation and the great collection of songs.”

10. LL Cool J’s “Radio”

“Until LL, rap was mostly a group thing. He showed that a solo artist could be successful in rap.”

CLIVE DAVIS

Arista Records

Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”

Janis Joplin’s “Pearl”

Annie Lennox’s “Diva”

The Mamas & the Papas’ “The Mamas & the Papas”

Santana’s “Abraxas”

Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water”

Sly & the Family Stone’s “Greatest Hits”

Patti Smith’s “Horses”

Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run”

Stevie Wonder’s “Songs in the Key of Life”

--The list is alphabetical. Davis adds, “It is with great restraint that I intentionally left off Whitney Houston’s debut album and Aretha Franklin’s “A Rose Is Still a Rose.”

(The Joplin, Santana and Simon & Garfunkel albums were released by Columbia during Davis’ reign as president from 1966 to 1973. The Lennox and Smith albums were released by Arista, where Davis has been president and CEO since ’75.)

VINCE GILL

1. Emmylou Harris’ “Pieces of the Sky”

2. Linda Ronstadt’s “Heart Like a Wheel”

3. Joni Mitchell’s “Court and Spark”

4. Buck Owens’ “Carnegie Hall Concert”

5. James Taylor’s “Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon”

6. Bonnie Raitt’s “Sweet Forgiveness”

7. Sonny Landreth’s “South of I-10”

8. Stevie Wonder’s “Songs in the Key of Life”

9. Bob Wills’ “The Last Time”

10. The Beatles’ “Let It Be”

JIMMY IOVINE

Interscope Records

Dr. Dre’s “The Chronic”

Bob Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited”

Jimi Hendrix’s “Are You Experienced?”

Les McCann and Eddie Harris’ “Swiss Movement”

Nine Inch Nails’ “Pretty Hate

Machine”

The Rolling Stones’ “Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass)”

Sly & the Family Stone’s “Greatest Hits”

Phil Spector’s “Christmas Album”

Bruce Springsteen’s “Darkness on the Edge of Town”

U2’s “War”

--The list is alphabetical. (Iovine was a recording engineer on “Darkness of the Edge of Town.” Interscope released “The Chronic”).

SINEAD O’CONNOR

1. Curtis Mayfield’s “New World Order”

“Besides it being a great record, the effort that he went through to make the record--being in an iron lung and having to rest after singing each sentence--is such an inspiration to me.”

2. Bob Dylan’s “Slow Train Coming”

“It was great to hear music that mixed religion and sex because Ireland is very religious with no sex, if you know what I mean.”

3. N.W.A.’s “Straight Outta Compton”

“The best rap album ever made.”

4. Aretha Franklin’s “I Never Loved a Man the Way I Loved You”

5. Bob Marley’s “Rebel Music”

“Again, very sexy, but very religious and rebellious at the same time.”

6. Buju Banton’s “ ‘Til Shiloh”

“There’s a song, ‘Untold Story,’ which talks about how opportunity is a scarce commodity for poor or black people in the music business mainstream.”

7. Sizzla’s “Praise Ye Jah”

“He’s another Jamaican, a contemporary of Buju. Great singing voice. He sounds very Irish to me.”

8. Sizzla’s “Black Woman & Child”

9. Ella Fitzgerald’s “Cole Porter Song Book, Vol. 1”

“Ella has a great sense of humor in her voice, so she’s perfect for Cole Porter songs.”

10. Ray Charles & Betty Carter’s “Ray Charles & Betty Carter”

LOUIE PEREZ

1. Jimi Hendrix’s “Are You Experienced?”

“That record changed my life. . . . When I put this record on, it wiped out everything I knew about music for a second and made me think about it in a new way. It made music seem limitless.”

2. Laura Nyro’s “The First Songs”

“What Hendrix did with a guitar, Nyro did with her voice and her songs. It brought the whole songwriting thing into perspective for me.”

3. X’s “Los Angeles”

“X is as great a rock band as America has produced. The songs were these concise little vignettes, almost like little movies about life.”

4. Miguel Aceves Mejia’s “Volume 5”

“Of all the Mexican ranchera singers that my mother liked, he was the greatest. When we went back to our roots in Los Lobos, he was someone I tapped into.”

5. Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s “The Inflated Tear”

“He played with such intimacy that the music was like an extension of his breath.”

6. Germs’ “G.I.”

“This came out during the disco era, when music had become this formulated thing, and punk rock--and the Germs in particular--was like a reclaiming of music by young people. So raw and vital.”

7. John Cage’s “Indeterminacy”

8. Aldo Ciccolini “The Complete Piano Works of Eric Satie”

9. Beny More’s “Magia Antillana”

“An incredible Cuban singer, who dealt with all the various styles of music that have come out of Cuba.”

10. Capt. Beefheart’s “The Spotlight Kid”

BONNIE RAITT

1. Muddy Waters’ “The Best of Muddy Waters”

“This is the greatest record I own--it is the connecting artery between rock ‘n’ roll and the blues.”

2. Bob Dylan’s “Greatest Hits”

“He’s probably among the five most important people of the century--in terms of music and social impact.”

3. The Beatles’ “Greatest Hits, 1962-66”

4. Aretha Franklin’s “Gold”

“Of the female singers of the century, I think Aretha and Ella are the greatest.”

5. Tie between the Rolling Stones’ “Hot Rocks” and Jimi Hendrix’s “Are You Experienced?”

“The Stones were the siren call of rock ‘n’ roll for me; as for Hendrix as a guitar player, the world has not been the same, blues has not been the same.”

6. Bob Marley’s “Legend”

“I can’t think of life without reggae and he is the heart of reggae.”

7. Son House’s “The Legendary Son House”

“The father of the blues.”

8. Tie between Frank Sinatra’s “The Capitol Years” and Ella Fitzgerald’s “Rodgers and Hart Songbook.”

“Their mastery of phrasing and their understanding of rhythm takes the element of popular singing to a totally different level.”

9. Benny Goodman’s “Live at Carnegie Hall”

10. Miles Davis’ “Sketches of Spain”

“He opened music up the way Picasso did art.”

CARLOS SANTANA

1. Miles Davis’ “Sketches of Spain”

“This album captures the eternal romance thing that is happening between God and earth, between creator and creation.”

2. John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme”

3. Bob Marley’s “Exodus”

“I think Coltrane and Marley are important in a unifying sense. They are inviting humanity to be of one mind. They help form a collective mind, which is a powerful force.”

4. Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On”

“His music gave people illumination. Even though the album was out in the early ‘70s, it’s still extremely relevant today.”

5. Jimi Hendrix’s “Axis: Bold as Love”

“Hendrix was a real jump-start in using the electric guitar as a big canvas to paint things that had never been painted before. It’s not so much the volume of Hendrix’s music, but the sensitivity and the awareness and the range.”

6. Aretha Franklin’s “Aretha: Lady Soul”

7. Santana’s “Abraxas”

“For me, it’s a beautiful combination of the sensual and the spiritual.”

8. Eddie Palmieri’s “Super Impositions”

9. John Lee Hooker’s “House of the Blues”

10. Miles Davis’ “Miles in the Sky”

“A supreme collection of musicians.”

LARS ULRICH

Metallica

In no special order . . .

Alice in Chains’ “Dirt”

“This was the bleakest record of the ‘90s, the Black Sabbath album of the whole Seattle scene.”

Oasis’ “Definitely Maybe”

“After Kurt Cobain’s death, there was a terrible lull in music. No one wanted to be a star. The attitude of rock was gone. But Oasis brought all that back and reminded me of everything I liked about rock . . . the confidence, even arrogance of it.”

Guns N’ Roses’ “Appetite for Destruction”

“To me, rock should be about danger and about unpredictability and that was Guns N’ Roses. You never knew from one moment to the next what step Axl was going to take, musically or personally. I know I am in the minority, but I am very confident that he’ll return with something worth hearing.”

AC/DC’s “Let There Be Rock”

“During this period, they were about as intense as anyone who ever played hard rock. This is one of those records where you can hear the buzz of the amplifiers between songs. It had that kind of electricity.”

Deep Purple’s “Made in Japan”

Thin Lizzy’s “Live and Dangerous”

“Phil Lynott wrote some of the most personal and emotional lyrics at a time in hard rock when everyone else was just going on about black magic or sexism or whatever. . . . “

Nirvana’s “Nevermind”

“This is pretty close to the perfect record. He put the ideas and sounds of an era into one profound package.”

U2’s “War”

“U2 has made a lot of great records, but this is the one that did the most for me . . . showed me how much purity and emotion you could put into an album. When it came out, I listened to it every day for six months.”

Bob Marley’s “Exodus”

“I wasn’t so much into reggae, but Marley’s voice had such feeling that whenever I wanted to take a break from hard-rock as a youngster, he’s the one I’d turn to.”

The Rolling Stones’s “Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out!”

TRISHA YEARWOOD

1. Linda Ronstadt’s “Hasten Down the Wind.”

“She’s my biggest influence because of the power in her voice and her song choices. There’s desperation in some of her songs that certainly inspired some of my depressing ballads.”

2. Emmylou Harris’ “Pieces of the Sky”

3. k.d. lang’s “Ingenue”

“It’s the CD that basically [my husband and I] fell in love to. . . . She’s one of the finest singers on the planet.

4. Carole King’s “Tapestry”

“This is probably the first album where lyrics and stories impacted me.”

5. Matraca Berg’s “Lying to the Moon”

6. Iris DeMent’s “Infamous Angel”

7. Prince’s “1999”

“I’m a lyric-oriented person, but this album reminded me of the value of fun and the groove in music.”

8. Sheryl Crow’s “Sheryl Crow”

“This is as close to a girl doing really roots rock ‘n’ roll that I’ve ever heard. It’s so raw and in your face.”

9. Elton John’s “Elton John, Greatest Hits”