The Mojo Collection: The Greatest Albums of All Time... and How They Happened

by Jim Irvin

When Columbia released The Voice of Frank Sinatra in 1949, the album format was born. Using this as a starting point, The MOJO Collection charts the evolution of the L.P. over seven decades, through reviews of much-loved classics and little-known masterpieces, right up to Coldplay's acclaimed A Rush of Blood to the Head, Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP, and Norah Jones's Come Away With Me. Revised, redesigned, and expanded for the first time, this collection now contains over seven hundred specially commissioned reviews by forty of the world's top music journalists. These reviews offer fascinating, surprising, and authoritative new perspectives into the genesis and importance of each album. Every entry comes with recording and production details and much more. The page layout and indexing systems have been thoroughly redesigned for user-friendliness, so readers can follow clear signposts to similar albums, contemporary works, and artists' influences. As a new feature, Top Five albums from various artists, along with billboard statistics from down the years are interspersed throughout. Articles on areas of music that didn't revolve around the L.P. format, plus a listing of essential sound tracks and the hundred greatest compilation albums of all time, add even more.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Reference, Classics, History, Pop Culture

868 pages, Paperback

First published August 9, 2001

Reviews

[Tim Wilson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Interesting book, extremely slow, honestly bored me though

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wide-ranging collection that covers the second half of the 20th century, this is a compendium of pop and rock albums that covers the classics, the cult works and, in particular, the overlooked diamonds in the rough. As good a place as any to research some of the bands that undeservedly slipped through the cracks, this gargantuan book gives an entree into an excitingly penumbral world of vinyl addiction and diverse listening. Those of us who have crossed in and out of its borders over the years know its attractions and its pitfalls and have tasted some - but far from all - its highs and lows.

As a means of gaining an overview of the 1960s to the 1990s, this book is also superb, packing much into its asides which can be used to conjure up the feeling and tastes of these disparate times. Perfectly undisputable it is not (nor should it be), but especially its shifting perspectives on the 1960s to 1980s are worth the price of admission, as they admit some of the dreamers who were sidelined by bad luck or bad judgment and failed to enter the canon in the way they may have expected. You are provided with the argument for these works, and your own listening, these days made so much easier by the deep catalogues of the streaming services, can serve to tell you whether or not you agree with the opinions of this redoubtable team of reviewers. At the very least, you can take these maps into the back alleys of music history and find some unjustly neglected works.

[Karla Baldeon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review on Spanish.
Me llevó una quincena de días terminar toda la compilación de los mejores discos de música, pero valió completamente la pena.
La recopilación está ordenada cronológicamente desde 1950 hasta principios de 2007, con la información de los involucrados en cada disco y una pequeña historia sobre cómo se realizó y cómo fue recibido. Al final, en forma extra, hay recopilaciones de discos de la música de películas, y los mejores discos recopilatorios por género o grupo.
Soy la orgullosa dueña de tres long plays de esta colección y de uno de los CD mencionados, por cierto. (Que a nadie le interesa, pero que me han hecho muy feliz.)
Quizá la única falla, a mí parecer, fue no incluir música de otros países en la compilación hasta finales de la década de los 90. Al menos incluyeron música africana, cubana, italiana, etc., a partir de esta fecha, pero existía buena música antes de eso en el resto del mundo.

[David Campbell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brief but interesting commentary on 100s of recordings from the 50s to the early 2000s. MOJO has selected their important music reviews, combined for the decades here in a chronological order covering a broad spectrum of artists and styles. I find so many of these insightful brief asssessments facinating and, though I cannot fall in with every selection, there is obviously an audience for all of these one page summaries. So many speak to me that I made a running list of many of the recodings that were not familiar.

[Glenn Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still reading on an occasional pick up basis. The discography is a time capsule to my teenage years. If you’re interested in music from 1960s on, it’s a great read.
You may visit, as I did, some forgotten gems via Spotify

[Tim Pieraccini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars for the sheer number of artists/albums I'd never even heard of! Definitely one to pick up if you want to broaden your musical horizons.

[Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s official: I missed the late 80s and all of the 90s.

[S.D. · Rating 3 out of 5]

The non-Classical long-player had a good commercial run, and The MOJO Collection, compiled by writers for the UK-published MOJO Magazine, chronologically assembles more than 1,700 definitive LP titles from the format’s history. Using brief but informative essays to highlight each album’s artistic, commercial, cultural, and stylistic merits (or sometimes demerits!), the authors trace the popular LP’s rise (1950s), dominance (1960s-70s), decline (1980s), fall (1990s), and retro revival (2000s). Added to many familiar, if not popular, titles are a considered handful of obscurities, and some curious clunkers. Minus points for some inexcusable typos and editorial missteps, but otherwise one of the more “objective” entries in the “Best Of” tradition.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm going to mark this book as "read" as it's been sitting on this list for so long. In reality I'm embarked on a long project of collecting/listening to every album, starting with the jazz.
So far everything I've listened to from this book's recommendations has been great, without exception.
If you find yourself jaded with the music pushed at you by the music press and media in general give it a try, there's plenty here to make you smile!

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the kind of reference book that you could read forever, and at the rate I read, it may be forever... It's a very cool anthology of Mojo Magazine's choices for the greatest albums ever since the late 50s. Amazing music.

[Johnny · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am constantly reading this awesome reference book. All the rock and/or roll that you will ever need. Fuck yeah!

[Greg Dabelstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could give it 6stars I would. Brilliant reference collection even if I don't agree with all of them.

[Ron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fans of the magazine already know the quality of the writing in the articles and reviews..

This book is a great resource for discovering music and building music collections.

[Trish · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are lots of cool facts in this book about musicians.