p.s i am 12. if you don't believe me, you're only fooling yourselves. i get it a lot.

also, PLEASE don't have a go at me for missing out stuff like, say, ziggy stardust or velvet underground & nico. i haven't heard ziggy stardust (shock horror), and i don't like velvet underground and nico (shockshock horror). these are just one guy's opinion.

100 - A HARD DAY'S NIGHT The Beatles
99 - GERM FREE ADOLESCENTS X-Ray Spex
98 - AMBIENT 2: THE PLATEAUX OF MIRROR Harold Budd & Brian Eno
97 - HELP! The Beatles
96 - THE BENDS Radiohead
95 - A RUSH OF BLOOD TO THE HEAD Coldplay
94 - CHOCOLATE SYNTHESISER Boredoms
93 - OSOREZAN NO STOOGES KYO Boredoms
92 - AMBIENT 3: DAY OF RADIANCE Laraaji
91 - THE ERASER Thom Yorke
90 - THE EQUATORIAL STARS Robert Fripp & Brian Eno
89 - MI MEDIA NARANJA Labradford
88 - GRACE Jeff Buckley
87 - THIS BINARY UNIVERSE BT
86 - PLAY Moby
85 - LIEGE & LIEF Faiport Convention
84 - THE MAN MACHINE Kraftwerk
83 - PARKLIFE Blur
82 - WHATEVER PEOPLE SAY I AM, THAT'S WHAT I'M NOT Arctic Monkeys
81 - RUBBER SOUL The Beatles
80 - BLACK SABBATH Black Sabbath
79 - THE BEDLAM IN GOLIATH The Mars Volta
78 - VOLUME TWO The Soft Machine
77 - IN THE WAKE OF POSEIDON King Crimson
76 - AMBIENT 1: MUSIC FOR AIRPORTS Brian Eno
75 - BIG FUN Miles Davis
74 - GEOGADDI Boards of Canada
73 - SPIDERLAND Slint
72 - AUTOBAHN Kraftwerk
71 - GESANG DER JUNGLINGE/KONTAKTE Karlheinz Stockhausen
70 - BRICOLAGE Amon Tobin
69 - HAIL TO THE THIEF Radiohead
68 - TUBULAR BELLS Mike Oldfield
67 - UNHALFBRICKING Fairport Convention
66 - THE B-52's The B-52's
65 - HOT RATS Frank Zappa
64 - WATERFALL CITIES Ozric Tentacles
63 - THE SOUNDS OF SCIENCE The Beach Boys
62 - SUPER ROOTS 6 Boredoms
61 - PARANOID Black Sabbath
60 - BITCHES BREW Miles Davis
59 - TIME OUT Dave Brubeck
58 - ELECTRIC LADYLAND the Jimi Hendrix Experience
57 - BEAT King Crimson
56 - THE CAMPFIRE HEADPHASE Boards of Canada
55 - IN RAINBOWS Radiohead
54 - IRONY IS A DEAD SCENE The Dillinger Escape Plan with Mike Patton
53 - NEVERMIND THE BOLLOCKS - HERE'S THE SEX PISTOLS The Sex Pistols
52 - EVIL EMPIRE Rage Against the Machine
51 - STARLESS AND BIBLE BLACK King Crimson
50 - VIVA LA VIDA OR DEATH AND ALL HIS FRIENDS Coldplay
49 - BIRDS OF FIRE Mahavishnu Orchestra
48 - HE HAS LEFT US ALONE BUT SHAFTS OF LIGHT SOMETIMES GRACE THE CORNERS OF OUR ROOMS... A Silver Mt Zion
47 - ANIMALS Pink Floyd
46 - LIZARD King Crimson
45 - HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED Bob Dylan
44 - LED ZEPPELIN II Led Zeppelin
43 - TAGO MAGO Can
42 - LIGHT IS CALLING Michael Gordon
41 - THE SELDOM SEEN KID Elbow
40 - MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR The Beatles
39 - MEET THE RESIDENTS the Residents
38 - LARKS' TONGUES IN ASPIC King Crimson
37 - THE BATTLE OF LOS ANGELES Rage Against the Machine
36 - EISENSTEIN Sarghuma Incoxis
35 - NEVERMIND Nirvana
34 - THREE OF A PERFECT PAIR King Crimson
33 - VAYA At the Drive In
32 - THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS Robert Johnson
31 - HUNKY DORY David Bowie
30 - THE THIRD REICH 'N' ROLL The Residents
29 - END NOTE Enablers
28 - OK COMPUTER Radiohead
27 - THE INNER MOUNTING FLAME Mahavishnu Orchestra
26 - IN THE COURT OF THE CRIMSON KING King Crimson
25 - DISCIPLINE King Crimson
24 - THE BEATLES [WHITE ALBUM] The Beatles
23 - ABBEY ROAD The Beatles
22 - RELATIONSHIP OF COMMAND At the Drive-In
21 - MUSIC FOR 18 MUSICIANS Steve Reich
20 - DRUKQS Aphex Twin
19 - WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT The Velvet Underground
18 - SGT PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND the Beatles
17 - VISION CREATION NEWSUN Boredoms
16 - SUPER æ Boredoms
15 - FUR AND GOLD Bat for Lashes
14 - RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE Rage Against the Machine
13 - REVOLVER the Beatles
12 - TAKK... Sigur Ros
11 - COMMERCIAL ALBUM The Residents
10 - ( ) Sigur Ros
9 - THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON Pink Floyd
8 - DE-LOUSED IN THE COMATORIUM The Mars Volta
7 - FRANCES THE MUTE the Mars Volta
6 - ENDTRODUCING... DJ Shadow
5 - TROUT MASK REPLICA Captain Beefheart
4 - DUCK STAB the Residents
3 - RED King Crimson
2 - YANQUI U.X.O Godspeed You! Black Emperor
1 - KID A Radiohead

If you're really only 12,you must be the greatest 12 year old music fan ever - I think I was about 12 when I bought my first album

I never thought to see the day a 12-year-old loving Trout Mask Replica. Nice list, although Dylan is obviously too low.

Um, congratulations? Welcome to the forum!

No 12 year-old that I know listens to Kid A, let alone "gets" it to such an extent that it would be #1 on their list of favorite albums.

Which, by the way, no 12 year-old does either!

p.s i am 12. if you don't believe me, you're only fooling yourselves. i get it a lot.


Not only do I believe you, but you listen to too much kiddie stuff even for a 12 year old. Rage Against The Machine? At The Drive-In? The Mars Volta? C'mon.

how the hell is mars volta kiddy stuff? if you're talking about stuff like, say, jimi hendrix, bob dylan and the beatles, then they're on this list - there's about 10 beatles albums. what do you mean by kiddy stuff?

And Anthony, your skepticism is silly. Kids shouldn't be underestimated. You can read the whole western canon by the time you're 8 if you have decent parents.

how the hell is mars volta kiddy stuff?


All style no substance. Most "cool" kids love it.

ok... what about karlheinz stockhausen? how many 12 year olds do you know who are into avant-garde minimalist tape music? oh, and steve reich. and michael gordon.

With the dawn of iTunes and file sharing, as well as the ability to research virtually anything via the web, I'm not surprised at all by how much some young-uns know. If I'd had access to all that at 12 I'm sure I would have learned a lot of things sooner. (Though I doubt I would've been ready for The Residents at that age!)

Eh? I know folks who discovered 20th century classical music as children - Ligeti's stuff for example - and loved it from the start. Their parents thought they were crazy.

So either you're lucky to have parents, or you're lucky to stumble on what's cool. That, or you wait until you're older and can rely on exterior hearsay properly.

That's it.

When I'll have kids, I'll make em know the history of music by the time they're 3. They can have early on what I missed out on because I had shit parents.

And don't you misread that as me saying that "shit parents" are supposedly "parents who don't have good musical tastes". I don't mean that. I mean my parents were seriously shit; I never even met my father.

Damn wasted youth.

Regardless, good job, kid. Wish I'd have been like you; although the age gap between us isn't really that huge.

Folks like immature us are much neater than sexist, adultist "mature" people like Anthony here. Fun to mess with their minds, though.

your honor

Top 3 albums of 1981 in 1981:

1. Kim Wilde - Kids In America
2. Beatles - Sergeant Pepper
3. Beatley - Abbey Road

I was 13 then :) The year after the song "1999" by Prince started the whole parade...

That's a pretty awesome parade!

I love the name Beatley. Great name for a band. What kid born in 1996 listens to At the Drive In? It's ridiculous to call that kiddie stuff. No 12 year old even knows who Weezer is let alone At the Drive In. You're thinking kids who start community college. That was true emo but the stuff 12 year olds are listening to isn't even the fake poser emo. You may find one kid in a class of 30 that likes AFI or My Chemical Romance (the generic stuff) but everything else they're listening to you tend to see on the Disney Channel (or nowadays Rolling Stone). Either that or when MTV decides to play five minutes of music it's these generic r&b teens that need a machine to make their vocals sound passible at best. That's what our youth is listening to. Don't pick a helpless 12 year old because you think your pretentious Exile era Liz Phair, Tom Waits, Pavement and Joanna Newsom are superior because Pitchfork told you they were.

63 - THE SOUNDS OF SCIENCE The Beach Boys
40 - MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR The Beatles
24 - THE BEATLES [WHITE ALBUM] The Beatles
23 - ABBEY ROAD The Beatles
9 - THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON Pink Floyd


If you really are 12, hats off to you for having your eyes open to more than the Top 40. I sure didn't at that age. I might have owned a Beatles "hits" album (like Red or Blue) but not the actual albums. I might have owned a 45 of "Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2" but I wouldn't have the album.

Stockhausen...really?

If you listen because you enjoy it, kudos. If you listen because it makes you look "edgy" and "sophisticated" then I'm saddened you've fallen into the indie rock "cred" school far too young.

HAHA! thanks greg, but i'm not trying to be sophisticated, no. gesang der junglinge/kontakte is there because it's groundbreaking, revolutionary, and it's just fun to listen to. there's so much going on.

by the way everyone, by list has changed a bit now - "Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven" by Godspeed You! Black Emperor is at number 2, knocking down everything except Kid A down one.

A lot of great stuff on there, but there's a little bit of mediocre new stuff mixed in, like Mars Volta.

Definitely the best list I've ever seen from a 13 year old. When I was 13 my list would have had Our Lady Peace and Matchbox 20 on it.

I’m absolutely impressed by your list, kiran. I could introduce you to my daughter, she’s twelve years-old too. You seem like an interesting son-in-law.
Now some comments from an old fart:
- As sonofsamiam pointed, one of the advantages of the current times is that a 12 year-old boy (or girl) could own 100 albums for a ridiculous amount of money. When I was your age I need to buy second-handed vinyl or to burn it to cheap-sounding cassettes (you guessed it, that happened during the Jurassic period). My favourite band then was King Crimson and solo work by Robert Fripp, but sometimes it was hard to listen properly some songs. For instance (and since you voted for “Starless and Bible Black” during the song “Trio” the crick-crack of the second-handed vinyl buried the music almost completely.
- Just one guy’s opinion (OK, OK, one grown man’s opinion) but you only need to listen to more funny and danceable music. Ask Moonbeam, he could send you an awesome dance list. And Prince would be the perfect beginning point.
Anyway, great work, kiran. You’re very welcome to our forum.

Interesting list. A little prog heavy, and not enough rap or soul for my taste, but still very impressive. I was wondering though; what is The Sounds of Science by the Beach Boys? Did you mean The Sounds of Summer? The Sounds of Science by the Beastie Boys? Something else?
Thanks.

We both share our #1 favorite album. Bu I hate to think that maybe you haven't gave Velvet Underground and nico enough tries.

I would suggest you listen to My Bloody Valentines Loveless. I find it very similar to Kid A in that th both strive to keep a sound a a spirit connected for the duration of there albums.

Dave Brubeck and Miles Davis seem a bit out of place?
I would start listening to a lot of Jazz, especially being a big Kid A fan. To me it the last great Jazz album.

I would suggest with thom's personal favourite CHARLES MINGUS, then I would dip in to Humphrey littleton, and some thelonious monk. Sina Simone would also be a good addition. I always found her and thom quite similar.

I always thought the Bends was more like Loveless than Kid A.

fuck. oh ya, sorry guys, i mean the sounds of science by THE BEASTIE BOYS. mois mistake.

and in response to kevin, i hate the velvet underground and nico for a number of reasons. i wrote a review on it on rateyourmusic.com, which goes a little like this -

Yeah, that's right, I've given the supposed greatest album of all time a measly 2 stars, and no, this isn't a mistake. I really don't like this album, and before you send gory disturbing death threats to me, I'd like to state my case as to why I think this the most overrated album ever made.

SUNDAY MORNING is the opener, which has a generally nice tone to it, but why is it only me that thinks it's ever so slightly cheesy. Also, Lou Reed's voice is not designed for nice little melodic dreamy songs - he does NOT have a good singing voice at all, it just sounds a bit embarrasing in my opinion.

I'M WAITING FOR MY MAN OK, I can't knock this one. This song is just unbelievable.

FEMME FATALE I hate Nico. I hate her. She has a horrible voice, she's an overrated piece of shite. God, I can't even begin to explain how much I hate Nico's voice. This song is the kind of thing you hear in a lift. Kind of the same feeling I have with Sunday Morning - bit kind of cheesy, and not particularly special.

VENUS IN FURS OK, I can't knock this one either. Best song on the album, and perhaps the best of their career.

RUN RUN RUN Another overrated song, and the harmonies are really out of tune. People were writing songs like this 10 years ago, and the guitar solo in the middle is nowhere near as good as George Harrison, Keith Richards or Chuck Berry solos.

ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES This is the only song I actually like with Nico singing like. The piano in it fits fantastically, they got the sound totally right. The guitar solo is really untidy and the song is repetitive. I love the first minute and a half, then I turn it off.

HEROIN Nothing special at all. I find the parts where it speeds up and slows down again slightly annoying, and gets too fast for the actual players.

THERE SHE GOES AGAIN Some really tedious lyrics in this song, and sounds like a crap outtake. The guitar chord structure is very cliche and just predictably boring.

I'LL BE YOUR MIRROR (gags) Sorry. It's not beautiful when a man/woman with a horrible voice is singing it. In fact, the song isn't even beautiful anyway.

THE BLACK ANGEL'S DEATH SONG Not a bad song at all, but the performance is very untidy and badly recorded. It's just very average and, well, a mess.

It's more than just the music though, it's the recording quality too. I'm surprised that Andy Warhol, a great artist and even a great filmmaker, thought he could go into music. The fact is, Warhol knows bugger all about what he's talking about on the music front anyway. He produced it as well, which was a mistake. This is basically why the recording quality is so bad. I am not saying that the band are overrated, because White Light/White Heat is simply amazing, but there have been better albums. MUCH better albums.

also, i have listened to charlie mingus, and moanin' is an awesome track. however, i've never had a go at a full album. there may be a copy of the black saint and the sinner lady somewhere around the house(most of the music i listen to comes from either my brother or dad), and it is a classic, so yeah, i'll look into it.

That's not hate, that's indifference if you find most of the songs just average and like a few of them. Your biggest complaint seems to be sound quality, which is odd, since you also place "White Light/White Heat" on your top albums list. I can't stand that sound quality, which makes the album sound more like drivel than it already was (just my personal opinion on that album, which is just a mess of noise).

I love both of the first 2 VU albums and don't really care for the next 2.

Penguin's got a point Kiran. Sounds like your trying to trash a popular album even though deep down you kind of like it yourself..

haha! i'm not trying to trash vu & nico because it's popular - jesus, i'm not THAT low. the reason i enjoy wl/wh is because the god-awful quality works because most of the songs are raucous, whereas there a lot of gentle songs on vu & nico. also, the lyrics and music on wl/wh are miles better than on vu & nico. so, in mine, and wl/wh's defence - A) the bad sound quality works on wl/wh and not on vu & nico and B) the songs are just technically better.

LOL, my list as a 13 yo :

1.Sports Rock vol 1
2.Mase
3.Alanis Morissette
4.Puff Daddy

And so... that was IT...

Having heard so much music and being so articulate and "aware" at your age is simply prodigeous.

thanks a lot ML!