To rate or not to rate

There's a fine line between greatest and over-rated when it comes to music, as Brian Boyd discovers while perusing various top 10 album lists.

IT'S ALL very confusing when you look at those "Greatest Ever Albums" lists that are always cropping up, although there does appear to be some form of consensus.

Usually a survey of surveys will find Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys on the list; Van Morrison's Astral Weeks is always there or thereabouts. There will be a Dylan album, either Blood on the Tracks or Blonde on Blonde - although there have been exceptions to this rule. Similarly, with The Beatles it's either going to be Sgt Pepper's or Revolver. Love's Forever Changes is a safe bet, although Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon seems to figure very highly or not at all. You get the same dual reaction to works by either Captain Beefheart or Frank Zappa. With The Rolling Stones, seven times out of 10 it's Exile on Main Street.

The newer lists - as in those conducted over the last 10 years or so - do tend to stray away a bit from the canon. The Smiths are usually good for a mention, and it's always The Queen Is Dead. If Nirvana are on the list, it's only going to be Nevermind. The Sex Pistols usually make it with Never Mind the Bollocks, if not actually for the music, but the import of the release. With U2, it's either The Joshua Tree or Achtung Baby; with Radiohead you'll find OK Computer is favoured over The Bends nine times out of 10. In the words of a song from an album that never, ever makes any of these lists: we know this much is true.

It's when you get to the far more interesting categories of Worst or Most Over-rated Albums of all time, that the confusion really hits. People sometimes treat the "worst" and the "most over-rated" as synonyms. There's a huge difference. You can make a good case for Fleetwood Mac's Rumours being over-rated, but you really couldn't in all seriousness put it down as one of the worst ever released.

It's an interesting dichotomy. A book published by Virgin back in 1998 contained the usual "1,000 best albums of all time"; all of the works mentioned in the two paragraphs above were included. In their "Top Five Most over-rated" they had: 1. Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits; 2. Rumours; 3. Hotel California by The Eagles; 4. Bat Out of Hell by Meat Loaf; 5. Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon And Garfunkel.

That's all fair enough (except for the last, in my opinion). However, under "Top Five Worst Albums" they had: 1. Lord Sutch and His Heavy Friends by Screaming Lord Sutch; 2. Metal Machine Music by Lou Reed; 3. Having Fun with Elvis on Stage by Elvis Presley; 4. The Transformed Man by William Shatner; and 5. Initiation by Todd Rundgren.

The big problem here is that the first two on the list set out to be bad albums. The former for comedy value, the latter to begrudgingly fulfil a record company contract (you will find more than one music critic who will have Metal Machine Music on their "Best Album Ever" lists, but we'll get to that). The Elvis album is an absolute dog; everyone knows that. Shatner's album - a spoken-word affair featuring his takes on Mr Tambourine Man and Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is more idiosyncratic than bad.

As for Rundgren (who has done some amazing stuff in his time), Initiation is a concept prog-rock album that is truly diabolical. Here's a review from the time: "Initiation is a spiritual, soul-searching concept album that culminates in Todd Rundgren's most challenging composition: A Treatise on Cosmic Fire. The song (divided into many parts) is 30 minutes long, and entirely instrumental." You get the picture.

Remove the worst album category from the argument for a moment. The core of the confusion lies in the similarities between the best ever albums and the most over-rated ever albums. Bearing in mind what usually finds its way into the best ever poll of polls, take a look at the most recent "Most over-rated Album" which was done by a public vote on BBC's 6 Music radio station. Here's the top 10: 1. Nevermind by Nirvana; 2. X&Y by Coldplay; 3. The Libertines by The Libertines; 4. Definitely Maybe by Oasis; 5. The Joshua Tree; 6. OK Computer by Radiohead; 7. Sgt Pepper's; 8. Pet Sounds; 9. Never Mind the Bollocks; 10. The Queen Is Dead.

If you presented that list to somebody, without telling them what it was, it's safe to assume they would take it as a list of the best ever albums. And at least three of them would make it on to my own top 10 best.

Nevermind was singled out by voters because, as one put it, "it's one great single but the rest is irritating". Another points out that "there were many better bands - Dinosaur Jr, The Pixies etc - who came before. Nirvana just came along at the right time and became the marketing man's dream."

Whatever your own feelings about the album, it is undeniable that Nevermind was asked to represent more than it contained musically. You knew there was reason to worry when Time and Newsweek ran cover features on the band and album, saying "this is the sound of angry young America" etc. Like Never Mind the Bollocks, Nevermind has more of a totemic value than a pure musical one.

The Coldplay and Libertines selections aren't surprising, given that an in-built flaw of these polls is that they give undue prominence to recent releases. With Coldplay, it's clear that a number of voters didn't feel the album justified its hype. (After all, this was the album that caused a drop in the EMI share price because it wasn't finished in time.) Similarly, with The Libertines there were more column inches than great songs here.

With Oasis, U2, Radiohead, The Beach Boys and The Smiths, you have a curious finding. About 85 per cent of each band's hardcore and casual fans would have the albums selected here as their best. This could simply be a knee-jerk reaction against received wisdom and the vote could have been skewed by people listing Joshua Tree only because they think Achtung Baby is better. Or it could be because they think Ned's Atomic Dustbin are a better band than U2 and are making a personal point. The Beatles selection is fairly straightforward - it's not their best album; Revolver is.

Andrew Collins, the DJ who compiled the votes, was shocked by the results, not least Nirvana coming in at No 1: "I love Nevermind deeply and profoundly," he says. "I think everyone who voted for it is mad." Collins's own selection as the most over-rated album is Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica, which I too have immense difficulties with.

So how can it be that the most over-rated list can almost be a mirror match of some people's best ever list? It's easy: the two are inextricably linked. As soon as somebody says yes to an album, another person says no. It's that weird critical cantilever effect which appears to be unique to popular music. Before an album can be over-rated, it must first be rated.

Or maybe we just need to get a bit more Hegelian about this, arriving at the truth by stating a thesis then developing a contradictory antithesis and combining and resolving them into a coherent synthesis.

Feel free to continue the dialectic amongst yourselves - I'm off to compile a list of the top 10 most underrated albums.