As you may have seen, this week’s NME features the 2013 edition of their 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time. For this one, they also accepted votes from a bunch of the mag’s alumni, including me, so I thought it’d be an easy, albeit self-indulgent, blog to reproduce my Top 50 albums here.

As I’ve said before, I find these lists a lot harder to compile as I get older and, I hope, become a bit less didactic in the way I think about the music I like and the music I dislike. This is what my Top 50 looked like in early September, anyhow: rather canonical, a little nostalgic, no doubt fatally undermined by the absence of records I will soon be mortified to have forgotten, but generally resembling one of those Rock Snob pisstakes from ten or so years back.

I do remember, though, poring over an NME Greatest Albums list that was published in the mid-‘80s, and discovering a horde of extraordinary albums – like “What’s Goin’ On”, for a start – that broadened my perspective way beyond the world of Aztec Camera and Echo & The Bunnymen that I probably lived in at the time. It was a critical tool that allowed me to see the bigger picture, and whenever I see people treating all magazine lists with the same blanket disdain, thinking about it reassures me; at their best, they can have a profound effect.

Be interested, as ever, to hear your thoughts: about the NME list as much as mine, of course.

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1. The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds

2. Neil Young – Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

3. Television – Marquee Moon

4. Fairport Convention – Liege And Lief

5. Terry Riley – A Rainbow In Curved Air

6. My Bloody Valentine – Loveless

7. Gil Evans – The Individualism Of Gil Evans

8. Joni Mitchell – Hejira

9. The Rolling Stones – Exile On Main Street

10. Dexys Midnight Runners – Don’t Stand Me Down

11. The Go Betweens – Spring Hill Fair

12. Neil Young – On The Beach

13. Marvin Gaye – What’s Goin’ On

14. Steely Dan – Countdown To Ecstasy

15. Linda Perhacs – Parallelograms

16. Led Zeppelin – 4

17. Neu! – Neu! 75

18. Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited

19. REM – Murmur

20. The Smiths – The Queen Is Dead

21. Van Morrison – Astral Weeks

22. Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation

23. The Grateful Dead – Europe 72

24. Brightblack Morning Light – Motion To Rejoin

25. Love – Forever Changes

26. Elliott Smith – Either/Or

27. Gram Parsons – Grievous Angel

28. Robert Wyatt – Rock Bottom

29. The Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers

30. Alice Coltrane – Journey In Satchidananda

31. The Stooges – Funhouse

32. GZA – Liquid Swords

33. Gillian Welch – Time The Revelator

34. Red House Painters – Red House Painters

35. Funkadelic – Maggot Brain

36. Robbie Basho – Venus In Cancer

37. The Waterboys – Fisherman’s Blues

38. Big Star – Third/Sister Lovers

39. Tim Buckley – Happy Sad

40. The Band – The Band

41. Leonard Cohen – The Songs Of Leonard Cohen

42. MC5 – High Time

43. Slint – Spiderland

44. Prince – Around The World In A Day

45. Kraftwerk – Trans Europe Express

46. Joanna Newsom – Ys

47. White Stripes – White Blood Cells

48. The Fall – This Nation’s Saving Grace

49. Pavement – Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain

50. Boredoms – Vision Create Newsun

UPDATE 7/11/13: Responding to all your comments and interest, I’ve found the 131-strong longlist that I used to come up with my Top 50 (it mostly involved skimming through my iTunes, plus a cursory look at my shelves). A good few records that some of you have mentioned are in this lot, plus hopefully a few less well-known things that deserve a wider audience.

Let me know what you think, anyhow (they’re not in any order, I should point out):

The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds

AC/DC – Back In Black

The Beach Boys – Surfs Up

The Beach Boys – Smile

The Beatles – Revolver

Aphex Twin – Selected Ambient Works Volume II

Alice Coltrane – Journey In Satchidananda

Archie Shepp – Attica Blues

Gil Evans – The Individualism Of Gil Evans

Pharaoh Sanders – Black Unity

Smog – Knock Knock

Bill Fay – Bill Fay

Neu! – Neu! 75

Bjork – Vespertine

Led Zeppelin – 2

Led Zeppelin – 4

Led Zeppelin – Houses Of The Holy

Boredoms – Vision Create Newsun

Brightblack Morning Light – Motion To Rejoin

Bruce Springsteen – The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle

Caetano Veloso – Caetano Veloso (2)

Can – Tago Mago

Public Enemy – It Takes A Nation Of Millions

GZA – Liquid Swords

Robbie Basho – Venus In Cancer

Boards Of Canada – Geogaddi

Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited

Bob Dylan – John Wesley Harding

Bob Dylan – Blood On The Tracks

Comets On Fire – Avatar

Creedence Clearwater Revival – Cosmo’s Factory

Lemonheads – It’s A Shame About Ray

Rocket From The Crypt – Hot Charity

The Byrds – Younger Than Yesterday

David Bowie – Heroes

David Bowie – Station To Station

Dennis Wilson – Pacific Ocean Blue

Dexy’s Midnight Runners – Don’t Stand Me Down

The Waterboys – Fisherman’s Blues

Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation

Steely Dan – Countdown To Ecstasy

Funkadelic – Maggot Brain

Duke Ellington – Far East Suite

Patti Smith – Horses

Television – Marquee Moon

Elliott Smith – Either/Or

Os Mutantes – Os Mutantes (1st)

Fairport Convention – Liege And Lief

Fairport Convention – Unhalfbricking

The Fall – This Nation’s Saving Grace

Gram Parsons – Grievous Angel

Tim Buckley – Blue Afternoon

Tim Buckley – Happy Sad

Linda Perhacs – Parallelograms

Gillian Welch – Time The Revelator

Neil Young – Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

Neil Young – Ragged Glory

Neil Young – On The Beach

The Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers

The Rolling Stones – Exile On Main Street

The Grateful Dead – Europe 72

Nick Cave – The Good Son

The Stooges – Funhouse

MC5 – High Time

LCD Soundsystem – Sound Of Silver

Jim O’Rourke – Eureka

Joanna Newsom – Ys

Joni Mitchell – Hejira

Joni Mitchell – Court & Spark

Red House Painters – Red House Painters

Sun Kil Moon – Ghosts Of The Great Highway

Julian Cope – Peggy Suicide

The Go Betweens – Spring Hill Fair

The Go Betweens – Before Hollywood

Aztec Camera – High Land Hard Rain

Kraftwerk – Trans Europe Express

Richard & Linda Thompson – I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight

Leonard Cohen – The Songs Of Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen – I’m Your Man

Cluster – Sowiesoso

Love – Forever Changes

Mike Oldfield – Hergest Ridge

My Bloody Valentine – Loveless

The Necks – Mosquito/See Through

PJ Harvey – Dry

The Pop Group – Y

Pulp – Different Class

Queens Of The Stone Age – Songs For The Deaf

REM – Murmur

Robert Wyatt – Rock Bottom

Roy Harper – Stormcock

Royal Trux – Accelerator

Sandy Bull – E Pluribus Unum

Scritti Politti – Songs To Remember

Shirley & Dolly Collins – Death And The Lady

Sly & The Family Stone – Fresh

Pavement – Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain

Terry Riley – A Rainbow In Curved Air

Terry Riley – Persian Surgery Dervishes

The Velvet Underground – The Velvet Underground

Scott Walker – Scott 4

Wilco – A Ghost Is Born

Nick Drake – Five Leaves Left

The Band – The Band

Spiritualized – Lazer Guided Melodies

The Monkees – Head

Jeff Buckley – Grace

Pixies – Surfer Rosa

The Feminine Complex – Livin’ Love

Ali Farka Toure & Toumani Diabate – By The Light Of The Moon

Youssou N’Dour – Immigres

Four Tet – Pause

Fennesz – Endless Summer

Marvin Gaye – What’s Goin’ On

Isaac Hayes – Hot Buttered Soul

Screaming Trees – Dust

Love As Laughter – Destination 2000

Stereolab – Emperor Tomato Ketchup

The Smiths – The Queen Is Dead

Slint – Spiderland

Van Morrison – Astral Weeks

Van Morrison – The Common One

Van Morrison – Into The Music

Husker Du – Candy Apple Grey

Big Star – Third/Sister Lovers

Prince – Around The World In A Day

Van Dyke Parks – Song Cycle

Lauryn Hill – The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill

D’Angelo – Voodoo

Donald Fagen – The Nightfly

White Stripes – White Blood Cells