A humanoid's guide to essential music albums

TITLE
A humanoid's guide to essential music albums. Which came about during an Emirates flight. There I read an article that contained an album track list that some authors claimed to be the essential music albums that one should know of ...

THE ARTICLE
The article was labelled something like "Essential Albums" and contained a narrated list of about 100 allegedly essential music albums.

The list featured only artists/albums of the so-called "western world". Primarily representing the music genres of popular music.

Unfortunately I cannot find the article on the Internet any longer. However, I did notice that Emirates still upholds its label of "Essential Albums" from their entertainment system (see snippet below).

THE STIMULI
I recall that I both knew and even owned a couple of the albums from the article.

So I challenged myself to first try out the suggested album list, then perhaps building an even "better" essential album list. In practice these activities more or less ran i parallel and it took me one year to listen through the suggested album list.

THE CHALLENGE
First thing first. What defines an essential album? And what makes an album truly great? How much is influenced by context of the album?

I believe one should trust one's own instincts and subjective impressions (feelings, moods, energy) of one's experience of listening to a particular album. If you listen to an album more than once, it could be a candidate for your own essential list;-)

RESOURCES
I use below resource sites and tools for trying out new album candidates and some did make it to my own essential list.

metacritic - https://www.metacritic.com/music
BestEverAlbums - https://www.besteveralbums.com/
tunefind - https://www.tunefind.com/
Shazam app - https://www.shazam.com/apps
iTunes/Google Play - Recommendations for you (based on your purchasing profile
Sea of Tranquility - both https://www.seaoftranquility.org/ and YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/SeaofTranquilityProg/featured

BASELINES
Acclaimed sources that have inspired me in my essential albums quest:

billboard - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_200
Rolling Stones Magazine - Top 500 list - https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-156826/
BBC music magazine - Top 50 list - http://www.classical-music.com/article/50-greatest-recordings-all-time
Classic FM - Top 100 list - https://www.classicfm.com/music-news/pictures/artist/100-classical-music-recordings-you-must-own/

MY MUSIC BACKGROUND
As a boy I received full musical and vocal training (classical music) at the Copenhagen Municipal Choir School.

At the age of 13 I got my first two music albums; The Game by Queen (1980) and piano concert number one by Tchaikovsky. Which probably influenced my preference for so-called "progressive rock" and "alternative rock" in what followed.

In my post-teens, I was introduced to "classic rock" music of the 1960s and 1970s (Cream, Doors, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Beatles, Yardbirds, Black Sabbath etc.), which I still find very enjoyable to listen to at times. In parallel with this I got involved in listening to jazz, especially so-called "fusion jazz" (spanning the likes of Weather Report, Miles Davis, Chick Corea, John Coltrane and Pat Methany etc.) and the blues. Thank God! I actually met my wife at a blues festival.

I normally use a pair of Shure SE215 earphones together with my mobile phone (Google Pixel), when listening to music and I dream of investing in a pair of Shure SE846.

My Essential Albums:

Wish You Were Here | Pink Floyd

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A humanoid's guide to essential music albums

My Essential Albums:

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