''All Time Top 1000 Albums'' is a book by

Colin Larkin Colin Larkin (born 1949) is a British writer and entrepreneur. He founded, and was the editor-in-chief of, the ''Encyclopedia of Popular Music'', described by ''The Times'' as "the standard against which all others must be judged". Along wit ...

, creator and editor of the ''

Encyclopedia of Popular Music ''The Encyclopedia of Popular Music'' is an encyclopedia created in 1989 by Colin Larkin. It is the "modern man's" equivalent of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music'', which Larkin describes in less than flattering terms.''The Times'', ''The Kno ...

''. The book was first published by Guinness Publishing in 1994. The list presented is the result of over 200,000 votes cast by the public in record shops, universities, schools and the French music trade show

MIDEM Midem is the acronym for Marché International du Disque et de l'Édition Musicale, which is organised annually in and around the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes, France. The trade show, organized by Reed MIDEM, a subsidiary of Re ...

– and ranked in order. Each album's entry is accompanied by an annotation with a 100-word review, details of its creation, and notes about the band or artist who recorded it.

The Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...

' '' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' album made the top spot in the first edition, and the same band's '' Revolver'' made the top spot in the second, third and pocket editions of the series.

Background

In 1987, radio presenter

Paul Gambaccini Paul Matthew Gambaccini (born April 2, 1949) is an American-British radio and television presenter and author in the United Kingdom. He has dual United States and British nationality, having become a British citizen in 2005. Known as "The Grea ...

asked approximately 80 critics and

disc jockey A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include Radio personality, radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at a nightclub or music f ...

s from the United Kingdom and United States to list their ten greatest albums of all time. From these lists, he compiled the "Top 100 Albums" which was subsequently published by Pavilion Books in 1987. In 1993, Larkin was approached by the now-defunct ''

Today Today (archaically to-day) may refer to: * Day of the present, the time that is perceived directly, often called ''now'' * Current era, present * The current calendar date Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Today'' (1930 film), a 1930 ...

'' newspaper to update this list, which was published in the newspaper. As a consequence, Larkin suggested the idea of a Top 1000 albums book to his publisher. Unlike the Gambaccini list, Larkin wanted to compile a list from votes cast by "broader opinion", and in keeping with the genres used in the ''

''. Larkin set about polling several thousand people via a printed voting form, left in

record shop A record shop or record store is a retail outlet that sells recorded music. In the late 19th century and the early 20th century, record shops only sold gramophone records, but over the 20th century, record shops sold the new formats that were ...

s and sent to schools and universities. The result was the first edition of the ''All Time Top 1000 Albums'', published in 1994. In 1998 the second edition was published by

Virgin Books Virgin Books is a British book publisher 90% owned by the publishing group Random House, and 10% owned by Virgin Group, the company originally set up by Richard Branson as a record company. History Virgin established its book publishing arm ...

using the continuing votes received over the previous four years. As a result of the publicity garnered by the encyclopedia and the first edition, Larkin was able to ask for votes during his numerous radio broadcasts for BBC GLR, now

BBC London 94.9 BBC Radio London is the BBC's local radio station serving Greater London and its surrounding areas. The station broadcasts across the area and beyond, on the 94.9 FM frequency, DAB, Virgin Media channel 937, Sky channel 0152 (in the Lond ...

. He collected 100,000 votes, and the 2nd edition sold 38,000 copies. In 1999, Virgin published a smaller pocket edition, followed by a 3rd edition published in 2000, by which time the ongoing poll had reached over 200,000 votes cast. In September 2000,

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadca ...

reported the "head-to-head" battle between the Beatles and Radiohead, the two bands who took the top four positions on the list.

Editions

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:All Time Top 1000 Albums Lists of albums 2003 non-fiction books Music books Virgin Books books

Background

Editions

See also

References