A list that claims to be universal, but overlooks almost everything

As I, perhaps looking to control obsessions that have dominated my thoughts and prevented me doing any real work on this blog or elsewhere over recent months, browsed YouTube looking for greatest albums articles of the type I lavished up a decade or so ago, I found one from 2013 that I had failed entirely to discover when it was originally written.

The list is, interestingly from my perspective and history as a music listener, written by Australians, namely Toby Creswell, Craig Mathieson, and John O‘Donnell. The critics claim that they are dealing with what they perceive to be a kind of “nationalist” bias in rock criticism, claiming in their YouTube interview that:

“A US list will contain 99 US artists and the Beatles; a British list will contain 99 British artists and one US artist” 

I do have my doubts that “nationalist” bias of this type is so extreme as Cresswell and Mathieson claimed in their interview; nonetheless I do not doubt that the nation one is from can greatly influence which albums are considered important.

Creswell and Mathieson claim to have compiled their list from as many authoritative sources as possible rather than their own listening; however from my knowledge garnered during the 2000s of the most serious kind of rock criticism it is not possible for me to believe honestly that they have simply failed to see that a large number of  “best albums” lists are totally ephemeral and simply reflect the public popularity of records rather than enduring influence or being even remotely groundbreaking or even distinctive. To take at least some care, even if not the most extreme sort, to ensure that such lists are avoided is essential.

Joe S. Harrington’s decision in his Top 100 Albums to not allow anything released after 1992 to be included was a sign of wisdom since it is exceedingly clear he was listening to very little groundbreaking during the decade between 1993 and 2003, whilst David Keenan, who did include a couple of albums released after 1993 in his The Best Albums Ever...Honest, nonetheless came out utterly free from trendiness and attention to the present. Piero Scaruffi’s list of the 25 best albums is even more than Harrington’s or Keenan’s, the product of extremely intensive study of music and sound (not I would say by any means perfect), and focuses on music whose influence over the long term can be clearly demonstrated. I will say that I think Scaruffi can be a little over-the-top in praising avant-garde music that is not as good as he thinks, but his ability to find music of considerable value but which I would never learn about from other more mainstream critics is most definitely sufficient for me to recommend him.

I have tabulated Creswell, Mathieson and O‘Donnell’s top 100 albums, published in their book 100 Best Albums Of All Time, along with whether the album is included in the three lists by Harrington, Keenan and Scaruffi noted in the preceding paragraph and which I also note in my critique of NME’s Top 500 Albums from around the same time. Symbols:

1. a blank indicates that the artist has no albums on the relevant list
2. one asterisk is added for each album other than the one listed here the artist has on the relevant list
3. in Harrington’s and Scaruffi’s lists, each album included is given its number on that list
4. for Keenan’s list, which was not strictly ordered, each album from here included therein is simply labelled with a “Y”
5. albums released after the lists were published, or after 1992 with Harrington, are labelled with an “ineligible”
6. albums I own are shaded in pink

	Artist	Title	Year	Harrington	Keenan	Scaruffi
1	Bob Dylan	Highway 61 Revisited	1966		**
2	The Beatles	Revolver	1966		*
3	The Clash	London Calling	1979	*
4	Nirvana	Nevermind	1991	*
5	Van Morrison	Astral Weeks	1968		Y	#21
6	Joni Mitchell	Blue	1971
7	The Rolling Stones	Sticky Fingers	1971	*	*
8	Fleetwood Mac	Rumours	1977
9	The Velvet Underground and Nico	The Velvet Underground and Nico	1967	#25	Y	#4
10	Public Enemy	It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back	1988	#27	*
11	The Beach Boys	Pet Sounds	1966	#84	*
12	Bruce Springsteen	Darkness on the Edge of Town	1978		*	*
13	Television	Marquee Moon	1977	#83	*
14	Little Richard	Here’s Little Richard	1954
15	Led Zeppelin	Untitled (Led Zeppelin IV)	1971		Y
16	Radiohead	OK Computer	1997
17	The Band	The Band	1969		*
18	The Beatles	The Beatles (The White Album)	1969		Y
19	Pixies	Doolittle	1989
20	John Lennon	John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band	1970
21	U2	Achtung Baby	1991
22	Simon and Garfunkel	Bridge over Troubled Water	1970
23	Bob Dylan	Blonde on Blonde	1966		**	#17
24	Sex Pistols	Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols	1977	#2
25	Prince	Sign of the Times	1987
26	Arcade Fire	Funeral	2004	ineligible	ineligible
27	Michael Jackson	Thriller	1982
28	Neil Young	On the Beach	1973	*	*
29	Jay-Z	The Blueprint	2001	ineligible	ineligible
30	Massive Attack	Blue Lines	1991
31	The Smiths	The Queen Is Dead	1986		Y
32	Carole King	Tapestry	1971
33	David Bowie	Hunky Dory	1971	*
34	Ray Charles	Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music	1962
35	Paul Simon	Graceland	1986
36	Iggy and the Stooges	Raw Power	1973	*	*
37	The Jimi Hendrix Experience	Are You Experienced?	1967	#20	*
38	Aretha Franklin	Lady Soul	1968
39	Ramones	Ramones	1976	#63	*
40	The Rolling Stones	Exile on Main Street	1972	*	*
41	Patti Smith	Horses	1975	#17	*
42	Miles Davis	Kind of Blue	1958	**	Y	*
43	Sonic Youth	Daydream Nation	1988	#94	*
44	Bruce Springsteen	Born to Run	1975		*	*
45	The Beatles	Abbey Road	1970		*
46	Guns’n’Roses	Appetite for Destruction	1987
47	Black Sabbath	Paranoid	1971	*	*
48	George Harrison	All Things Must Pass	1971
49	Green Day	American Idiot	2004
50	The Doors	The Doors	1967			#5
51	Pink Floyd	Dark Side of the Moon	1973
52	James Brown	Live at the Apollo	1963		Y
53	Creedence Clearwater Revival	Cosmo’s Factory	1970
54	Pearl Jam	Vs	1993	ineligible
55	The Wailers	Burning	1976
56	The Monkees	Headquarters	1967
57	Talking Heads	Remain in Light	1980
58	Rod Stewart	Every Picture Tells a Story	1971
59	Devo	Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!	1978
60	Chuck Berry	After School Session	1957
61	Eminem	The Marshall Mathers LP	2001	ineligible	ineligible
62	Blondie	Parallel Lines	1978
63	Dusty Springfield	Dusty in Memphis	1968		Y
64	R.E.M.	Automatic for the People	1992		*
65	The Supremes	Where Did Our Love Go?	1964
66	Oasis	(What’s the Story) Morning Glory	1995	ineligible
67	Kanye West	My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy	2004	ineligible	ineligible
68	Jeff Buckley	Grace	1994	ineligible
69	The White Stripes	Elephant	2003	ineligible	ineligible
70	Eagles	Hotel California	1976
71	Wilco	Yankee Hotel Foxtrot	1994	ineligible
72	Beastie Boys	Paul’s Botique	1989
73	Tom Waits	Rain Dogs	1985
74	Kate Bush	Hounds of Love	1985		Y
75	The Who	Live at Leeds	1971	*	*
76	Joy Division	Closer	1980	#47
77	Kraftwerk	Trans-Europe Express	1977
78	Randy Newman	Sail Away	1972
79	Pavement	Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain	1994	ineligible
80	Curtis Mayfield	Curtis	1970
81	Roxy Music	For Your Pleasure	1973	*
82	The Strokes	Is This It?	2001	ineligible	ineligible
83	Midnight Oil	Diesel and Dust	1987
84	Coldplay	Viva la Vida, or Death and All His Friends	2008	ineligible	ineligible
85	The Kinks	The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society	1968		Y
86	Pretenders	Pretenders	1980
87	The Modern Lovers	The Modern Lovers	1975	#70
88	Primal Scream	Screamadelica	1991
89	Fairport Convention	Unhalfbricking	1968		*
90	Elvis Costello and the Attractions	This Year’s Model	1978	#72
91	Portishead	Dummy	1994	ineligible
92	AC/DC	Back in Black	1980	*	Y
93	Beck	Odelay	1998	ineligible
94	Gang of Four	Entertainment	1979
95	Marvin Gaye	What’s Going On?	1971
96	Arctic Monkeys	Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not	2006	ineligible	ineligible
97	Queen	A Night at the Opera	1975
98	Derek and the Dominos	Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs	1970
99	P.J. Harvey	Let England Shake	2011	ineligible	ineligible
100	The Byrds	Sweetheart of the Rodeo	1968	*	*

As one can see at the merest glance, most recordings on Harrington’s Keenan’s and especially Scaruffi’s lists are completely absent:

• only eleven of Harrington’s Top 100 albums are present
• only ten of Keenan’s best 103 are present
• only four of Scaruffi’s top 25 are present
• ten artists on the list have a different album in Harrington’s Top 100
• eighteen artists on the list have a different album in Keenan’s list
• only Springsteen has a different album in Scaruffi’s top 25

What one can say about the general composition of Creswell, Mathieson and O‘Donnell’s list is that it has many major omissions by genre. Heavy metal is utterly absent apart from Black Sabbath and AC/DC, but hardcore punk and progressive rock are also unrepresented, and experimental rock also absent except for Sonic Youth, whose pop hooks allowed them to reach the Billboard Top 40 in 1994 with Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star. Folk and folk rock are also weakly represented apart from Dylan and Joni Mitchell, for whom I will say the magnificent and utterly unique Hejira may be the finest recording I have ever heard and stands much superior to the more famous Blue. The absence of metal and progressive rock is of course almost certainly due to well-documented biases in Creswell, Mathieson and O‘Donnell’s sources, and how with progressive rock the key albums were never remotely popular commercially in the English-speaking world. These biases are however no excuse for not even trying to correct them.

Another severe fault is how the most recent albums on the list are all popular and what one must call “fashionable”. There is not even something by Joanna Newsom, arguably the most brilliant musical artist of modern times, yet alone by more obscure underground acts since the 1990s, such as the post-rock scene.

For all its grandiose claims, Creswell, Mathieson and O‘Donnell’s list is a very bad one. It simply reproduces badly flawed lists of music that tends towards the ephemeral, and ignores important parts of rock history.

An examination of CET versus global temperature anomalies: Part I – overall and July to December

The Central England Temperature (CET) series goes back to 1659 and is the longest temperature record in the world. Like the global temperature record, CET shows a major increase since the 1970s, which I have documented in the first chart from an earlier post here but will reproduce for your interest:

Mean Central England Temperature for each fiscal year from 1659/1660 to 2014/2015, plus mean and percentiles for period from 1765/1766 to 1973/1974, reproduced from ‘Two “little ice ages” revealed by CET summer data’

Despite the similarity between CET and global temperatures over the long term – both are now about 1˚C or 1.8˚F above the mean from 1880 to 1974 – at shorter time scales there does not superficially appear to be any natural relationship between the two. The largest CET anomalies during the very cold months of February 1947 and January 1963 do not show a corresponding global decline, and what I previously observed as the coolest period globally around 1910 was not abnormally cool in the CET series, especially vis-à-vis an exceptionally cool period (taking the CET series as a whole) from March 1885 to January 1893.

However, as the map below shows, the period from 1903 to 1912 during which all but one of the “record cool” months at a global level occurred was actually hotter than 1885 to 1892 over the northern hemisphere’s land, but cooler over the tropics and oceans.

Moreover, the areas without data seem to have been hotter during the later period, which covered only a minor proportion of the great pluvial over Central Chile from 1898 to 1905. Wetness over Central Chile is known to be correlated with blocking, stronger anticyclones and colder conditions over West Antarctica, as shown below:

Mean 500 millibar (50 kilopascal) May to August geopotential height for 1898 to 1905 vis-à-vis the period since the second “magic gate” identified by Tim Flannery in ‘The Weather Makers’

Whilst we can see the anomalous wetness over Central Chile due to stronger onshore flow very easily from this chart, one cannot see the cold over West Antarctica that would be expected on the eastern side of the block. However, this is not very clearly seen from the temperature graph below:

The diversion of the Central Chilean pluvial put aside, in order to really look at the correlations between CET and global temperature anomaly over the period from 1880 to 1974, I have taken the following steps:

1. Compiled an unrounded monthly mean CET for every month from 1880 to 1974 via the daily CET data, which can be downloaded online here
2. Averaged the CET for each calendar month using only years from 1880 to 1974 inclusive
3. Using an Excel file and my dowloaded GISS global temperature maps (which have an anomaly vis-à-vis 1880 to 1974 means to two decimal places), I compiled all the global means as independent variable and plotted CET against it as a dependent variable
4. As a final step, I plotted scatter plots of CET anomaly against global temperature anomaly (versus 1880 to 1974 mean in both cases) and calculated the Pearson product-moment correlation.

There were too many data for a Spearman correlation and I lack any means of separating large number of equal ranks in the global temperature database, whose anomalies are naturally within a much narrower range than CET anomalies covering only about 0.1 percent of the planet’s ice-free land. 1880 to 1974 is chosen as the review period for two reasons: first, 1880 is when the earliest maps of global temperature begin, and secondly, 1974 is when, as shown by the sudden fall in runoff into Perth’s dams, the first “magic gate” caused by greenhouse emissions from the oil- and mineral-producing nations of Australia, South Africa and the Gulf States began controlling the climate. Because GISS cannot in its latest form provide fiscal year temperature means (which have the advantage in the northern hemisphere of not dividing abnormally cold or warm winters which provide most of the annual temperature variability) I have done only monthly data for the moment at least.

All Months:

Looking at our scatter plot of CET versus global temperature anomaly between 1880 and 1974, we do see some positive correlation both at a glance and with the correlation coefficient of +0.13730109. However, this coefficient is sufficiently small that variation in global temperature can explain a mere two percent of the variation in CET, since percentage explained equals the square of the variation.

It is of course possible that different seasons behave differently. Because the sun is weak or nonexistent, high-latitude winter temperatures (including those of the UK) are controlled almost entirely by air mass. Variations in wind vector could thus overwhelm global temperature trends due to variations in greenhouse gas concentrations or dimming from volcanic aerosols. In the hotter months, however, air masses possess less influence and sunlight of cloudiness has a more critical role: thus, one might expect a better correlation between CET and global temperature anomaly here.

It is also plausible that because the influence of greenhouse gas levels upon CET was shown in ‘Two “little ice ages” revealed by CET summer data’ to peak in the autumn and trough out from late winter to early summer, that we would see a peak in correlation in the autumn. We will look month by month through the fiscal year to see if either thesis can be supported, and I will divide the fiscal year into two halves to avoid having too much memory in one post.

July:

July CET anomaly versus global temperature anomaly in ˚C, 1880 to 1974

The results here do not really support our prediction that a much better correlation between CET and global temperature anomaly: the virgin mean correlation is actually less than that for all months, when we would expect high values in mid-summer. The smallness of our sample size (95 months vis-à-vis 1,140) means that strong outliers are very easy to see, notably the famously hot and dry July 1911:

As we can see, there are, apart form the generally cool Southern Hemisphere three very substantial cool regions during the UK’s hottest month since July 1852, and Europe’s hottest since July 1859 – a belt from Finland to the Black Sea, China and eastern Russia, and most of the US and Canada outside of Québéc. Newfoundland and New England, where Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine experienced records for heat that still stand today. On the fifth of July, Nashua recorded 106˚F or 41.1˚C.

August:

August CET anomaly versus global temperature anomaly in ˚C, 1880 to 1974

In contrast to July, August’s results do suggest that the summer months with more and less indirect sunlight should provide a better correlation between CET and global temperature anomalies: the Pearson correlation coefficient is almost twice that for all months. The result does however support the thesis of increased correlation in the autumn months which are being approached in August.

However, global temperature anomalies for August still can explain only about one-seventeenth of the variance of CET between 1880 and 1974. 1911 is again a huge outlier:

Global temperature anomalies for August 1911. Note the alternating patterns of heat and cool across the Northern Hemisphere, and the consistent cool in South America and over the oceans

September:

September CET anomaly versus global temperature anomaly in ˚C, 1880 to 1974

As the sun moves southwards we would expect the correlation between CET anomaly and global temperature anomaly to weaken. This is observed vis-à-vis August, suggesting that the July sample may be too small at ninety-five years to eliminate the effect of outliers. Septembers of 1944 (the hottest year globally between 1880 and 1974) and the chilly autumn of 1952 are the most substantial outliers:

September 1944 global temperature anomaly – note the cool area centred around the UK amongst an otherwise circumlatitudinal hot anomaly

September’s poor correlation coefficient also opposes the thesis of highest correlation in the autumn months: the fall from August would not be expected if greenhouse gas concentrations have c=most consistent effect in the autumn as observed in recent CET records.

October:

October CET anomaly versus global temperature anomaly in ˚C, 1880 to 1974

October seems to contradict our first thesis: the correlation between CET and global temperatures is greater than for July or September, although between 1880 and 1974 global temperature variation can explain only 4 percent of variation in CET. It does support the thesis of an autumn maximum in correlation, although the Pearson is less than for August. The major outlier of October 1896 – Central England’s coolest since 1817 but 0.13˚C hotter than average globally – shows the classic alternating “sinusoidal” pattern of hot and cool anomalies, with a very cool band centred upon Iceland and Western Europe and a hot band on Eastern Europe and Russia away from the Pacific:

October 1896 global temperature anomalies. Note the cool over Western Europe and the Great Lakes region and heat over Eastern Europe, northern Russia and Australia

November:

November CET anomaly versus global temperature anomaly in ˚C, 1880 to 1974

As we move towards winter, both theses outlined at the beginning of this post would predict a decline in the correlation coefficient between global mean temperature and CET. Vis-à-vis what we saw for October, November does seem to suggest this: the correlation coefficient is down to 9 percent and global temperature anomalies can predict less than one percent of those for CET. Striking outliers are completely absent despite the low correlation coefficient.

December:

December CET anomaly versus global temperature anomaly in ˚C, 1880 to 1974

The two theories noted at the start of this post give different predictions of how the correlation coefficient between CET and global temperature anomalies would change from November to December: an autumn maximum (October) would predict a rise, whereas a winter maximum would predict a continuing fall in the correlation coefficient.

What is actually observed is almost exactly the same correlation coefficient between CET anomaly and global temperature anomaly as for November. There are two major outliers from the general pattern:

December 1910 global temperature anomalies. Note the hot area of northern Africa and Europe, and the very cold area over Siberia and China

December 1910 is interesting not so much because of the contrast between Europe and the rest of the world, but because unlike in a conventional positive NAO situation, hot conditions extended through the Sahara, which is normally cool during positive NAO winters. As can be seen from the 500 millibar anomaly chart below, there was unlike typical positive NAO winter months much blocking over Greenland, but not a classic low-latitude block that would produce cold northwesterly flow, nor a high-latitude block in the correct place to produce a very cold easterly flow:

Departures from 1880 to 1974 mean of 500 millibar heights (in metres) over the northern hemisphere for December 1910. The block over the Black Sea and Ukraine is decisive in shaping the observed temperature pattern.

December 1939, in contrast, is notable as relative to the 1880 to 1974 mean globally the second-hottest month between 1880 and 1978 (behind January 1944 by 0.02˚C) and the relatively hottest over the Northern Hemisphere. Over the contiguous United States it was the hottest December between 1890 and 2014, although December 1889 was certainly hotter there due to remarkable heat in the East and Plains.

December 1939 global temperature anomalies vis-à-vis 1880 to 1974 averages. Note the unusual warmth over the interiors of Asia and North America – this was the latter continent’s warmest December of the century.

Whereas the colder weather of the Chukotka Peninsula relates to the fact that the anomalous high-index westerly airflow was offshore, Europe’s failure to participate in the Northern Hemisphere’s anomalous warmth was because a block over Greenland and Canada, which drove warm air into northern North America throughout this month (and the four cold “War Januaries” of 1940, 1941, 1942 and 1945), drove colder air into Europe. Unlike the “War Januaries” this block was not circumpolar and the easterly flow into the UK much weaker:

December 1939 500 millibar height anomalies in metres. Note the blocks over Canada and Central Asia driving warm Atlantic and Pacific air into Asia and North America.

In Part II of this post, we will look at January to June and make an overall examination of the correlation trends. So far, evidence of seasonality in correlation between CET anomaly and global temperature anomaly is quite indecisive and there remains the possibility that no differences exist between seasons.