EVERY 'EVERY DAVID BOWIE ALBUM RANKED' RANKED
Every ranking, from worst to best!
Starting a website to accompany the SECRET SAUCES fanzine, I thought about other music websites and what sort of stuff they publish. I don't particularly care for writing reviews, and I certainly don't care for giving anything a rating out of 10. I noticed that most sites love to publish ranked lists of an artists' discography - it's an epidemic in music journalism alongside the creeping use of Chat GPT-written slop, and clickbait shite (see Alternative Nation).
Ranked lists get engagement on social media. It's likely why these rankings have such 'hot takes' or blatantly shit opinions - outraged readers take to the comments to tell 'Ultimate Dad Rock' or whoever that their list is terrible, sparking further arguments in the comments. Before you know it, the post has hundreds of comments and is boosted on everyone's feeds, generating more clicks to a hideously designed website with more adverts than writing.
I want a piece of that action, but I don't want to rank my favourite Bowie albums because I simply can't do it. I couldn't say what my number one is, because it could be at least 10 of them. I want my ranking millions, though, so I will be a ranker and rank other rankings. Here we go...
13) MATT HAS AN OPINION
'David Bowie Albums Ranked', by Matt Has An Opinion, 13 March 2020
Matt Has An Opinion is a small site that I had previously never heard of, and I would feel bad about slagging it off if his list wasn’t so shit: Matt Has A Shit Opinion. The rankings are broken down into ‘Terrible’, ‘Bad’, ‘Meh’, ‘OK’, ‘Good’, ‘Great’, ‘Amazing’ and ‘All-Time Great’, which is a feature not commonly seen on your usual ranking. However, you will be incensed to see Matt’s Opinion.
According to Matt, the worst is 1993’s The Buddha Of Suburbia in which he says “let’s just forget this album exists… completely and utterly abysmal”. Wow. In the ‘Bad’ category is 1980’s classic album Scary Monsters, at #20. Matt concedes that he’s “going to get a lot of hate for this one”, and I do hate him for this one. He says, “the stretch of songs from 'Teenage Wildlife' to 'Because You’re Young' has to be one of the worst runs of 4 songs in Bowie’s career”. Absolutely insane behaviour.
2013’s excellent comeback album The Next Day (#17, in the 'meh' category) is “not really an album I’d choose to listen to”, according to Matt. For 1973’s ‘Aladdin Sane’ (placed at #14, in the ‘ok’ category), Matt says “the title track’s piano solo is just plain annoying”. Matt’s opinions are too terrible to pay much further attention to, but I will let you know that he places 1976’s ‘Station To Station’ at #1.
Exploring Matt Has An Opinion further, I can see he also ranked all of Muse’s albums. Anyone who is a fan of Muse knows that they haven’t released a good album since 2006, so seeing him put Showbiz and Hullaballoo Soundtrack at the bottom, and label The Resistance as ‘amazing’ further proves that Matt’s Opinions aren’t worth shit. I’m sorry Matt, but I hate your opinions.
12) RETURN OF ROCK
'David Bowie Albums Ranked', 3 June 2020
Return Of Rock is a site that is obsessed with ranking things, with a banner on the top with ‘band rankings (albums), band rankings (songs), ‘albums ranked’, and ‘all time rankings’. They fucking love it, the absolute rankers!
The Bowie ranking, however, is a slapdash affair with chunks of text copy-and-pasted from Wikipedia and a baffling ranking system that only lists a top 10. At #10 is Blackstar, which is awarded a 10/10 off the bat, calling their ranking system into question. Similarly, Scary Monsters at #8 is “my favourite album he ever made” and of Hunky Dory at #3: “if there must be one classic David Bowie album, I have to give it to Hunky Dory”. The #1 spot, The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, is given the “full five stars”.
I don't understand your ranking system, Return of Rock!
Further confusion comes as Aladdin Sane (#6) is a review of the packaging of the 2 CD 30th anniversary edition and Station To Station (#5) uses a picture that is not the artwork of the album.
This is a careless, piece-of-shit ranking clearly thrown together to generate traffic to their awful ad-stuffed website, but is still somehow less offensive than Matt’s ranking.
11) ULTIMATE CLASSIC ROCK
‘David Bowie Albums Ranked Worst To Best’, by Bryan Wawzenek, 11 Jan 2016
For ranking obsessives Ultimate Classic Rock, a Bowie album ranking is their bread and butter. This was published on the 11th January 2016, which was the day that the news reports of Bowie’s death were first published.
This ranking begins with the tired cliché hated most by Bowie fans: “rock’s greatest chameleon”, which will no doubt elicit the “chameleons blend in, Bowie stood out!” response from Bowie-fanatic readers. Off to a bad start, but according to Wawzenek, Bowie’s worst album is 1987’s Never Let Me Down, which is a common opinion and one shared by Bowie himself.
1974’s Diamond Dogs, a firm fan favourite, appears at #14 and Wawzenek says: “Bowie would better hone his "plastic soul" skills for his next record, on which he'd focus his efforts on the music and not some silly post-apocalyptic cartoon”. Get fucked!
Bowie’s final LP Blackstar was released just 3 days before this ranking was published, and appears at #12 on Wawzenek’s list.
The #1 spot is 1977’s Low, the first instalment of the ‘Eno trilogy’, with Wawzenek stating: “it’s Bowie’s masterpiece”. I don’t disagree that Low is a masterpiece, but I believe Bowie had several other masterpieces.. including Diamond Dogs. Next!
10) JUNKEE
'Every David Bowie Album Ranked From “Worst” To Best', by Joseph Earp, 21 July 2020
Joseph Earp opens his ranking for Junkee with a disclaimer: “let’s be clear from the outset: David Bowie never released a single bad album”. Then immediately he follows it up with “the man was a chameleon”. Oh dear.
He rates Tin Machine II as the worst, saying “by the time its 13 tracks are over, listeners will walk away with the distinct sense that they have been cheated”. That’s not very nice.
The 1967 debut ranks at #25, labelled as “bizarrely saccharine and toothless”. Stop being mean, Joseph!
Blackstar ranks at #4, Outside at #8 and The Next Day at #9. These are undoubtedly great albums and it is always nice to see a list rating them highly, but it will always be strange to see that at the expense of “Heroes” at #12 or Lodger at #18.
Earp claims that Blur owe their entire sound to the exploding choruses of ‘Fantastic Voyage’ and ‘Look Back In Anger’ from Lodger, which is clearly untrue, but fails to mention the Lodger song they did actually rip off, ‘Boys Keep Swinging’ (Bowie and Brian Eno are credited as songwriters on Blur’s 1997 single ‘M.O.R.’ as a result). Anyway, Station To Station is #1 on this ranking.
9) FAR OUT
‘Ranking all of David Bowie’s albums in order of greatness’, by 'Staff', 4 April 2021
The ranking from clickbait-kings Far Out proclaims 1972’s The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars to be Bowie’s greatest and 1999’s ‘hours…’ his worst. They show a lot of love for 2016’s Blackstar, which takes the #3 spot. Curiously, Far Out ranks 1989’s Tin Machine highly at #13, yet 1991’s superior Tin Machine II at #20. This list bafflingly rates Tonight at #19 and says that the album “saw one of the finest Beach Boys covers of all time”, going on to say that Bowie’s version of the Pet Sounds classic ‘God Only Knows’ is “one of the definitive covers of the California band.” What the fuck?! It is an awful cover. This ranking is written by ‘Staff’ - it is unsurprising that no one wanted to put their name to such wack opinions. I rank this ranking low not only because of such opinions, but also because I don’t like Far Out magazine.
8) AV CLUB
'Happy Birthday, David Bowie: Ranking his 20 best albums', by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, 8 January 2023
What do you get a man who has got it all for their birthday? What greater 76th Birthday present for David Bowie is there than Stephen Thomas Erlewine ranking his 20 favourite Bowie albums for AV Club and labelling him the ‘Chameleon of Rock’ in the sub-headline?
This ranking takes a more positive spin, and chooses not to label anything as ‘worst’, simply listing their favourite 20. However, AV Club’s website is riddled with adverts like your dad is riddled with hemorrhoids, and I can’t even see the ranking. I can see Pin Ups at #15 (far too high) and Diamond Dogs at #14, and then hundreds of adverts for PureGym and Fiverr. Sort it out, AV Club. I don’t care enough about this list to get an ad-blocker up or to view it on the Wayback Machine to see it properly. Sorry Stephen, I’m sure it’s a great ranking.
7) SCREENRANT
‘Every David Bowie Album Ranked, Worst To Best’, by Joe Anthony Myrick, February 13 2025
A recent release in the ‘Bowie ranked’ genre, Screenrant’s ranking immediately annoys by ranking Bowie’s 1967 debut album as the worst. It’s not for everyone to be fair (I love it, personally), but worse than Never Let Me Down? Myrick states that this album is more a product of Bowie’s influences than his own voice. OK, but listing The Beatles as the influence on the album and not Anthony Newley? Ranking 1973’s covers album Pin Ups at #24 redeems the list for a while - the only non-essential Bowie album from ‘69 to ‘83. Myrick rates 1999’s ‘hours…’ higher than most at #19, but says it’s ‘Bowie’s only dated project’. I know he’s ranked them here, but has he heard Tonight and Never Let Me Down?! It is nice to see love for '90s Bowie with The Buddha Of Suburbia ranked at #13 and Outside at #8 - they are great records overlooked by many. But ranked above The Man Who Sold The World, Diamond Dogs and Aladdin Sane? Hmmm.
Bowie’s final LP, Blackstar takes the #1 spot on this ranking. I won’t argue with that as I understand that many Bowie obsessives have a very personal relationship to that record, listening to it obsessively while grieving his passing. It would certainly rank highly for me if I were to do a ranking (I won’t).
6) CONSEQUENCE
'Ranking: Every David Bowie Album from Worst to Best', by Blake Goble, Cat Blackard, Pat Levy, Lior Phillips and David Sackllah, 8 January 2018
This list from Consequence (The Music Site Formerly Known As Consequence Of Sound), is written by five of their writers, unlike most of these rankings which are written by just one. However, it is edited and presumably ranked by Senior Staff Writer Blake Goble. The list innovates the genre, as Consequence are known to do, with categories: ‘That Is a Fact’, ‘Sound and Vision’, ‘Someone’s Back in Town’, ‘Ch-Ch-Changes’, ‘In A Most Peculiar Way’ and ‘After All’ breaking down their views on each album such as its album art and trivia under these lyrical reference headings.
Consequence ranks ‘hours…’ as the worst, a common theme of these rankings. However, #27 and #26 are 1993’s The Buddha Of Suburbia and the 1967 debut LP. According to Consequence, Tonight and Never Let Me Down are better than those two, Earthling, Reality and Tin Machine. I’m not feeling this list much. It is nice to see 1991’s (not 1989 as Consequence says) Tin Machine II rank high-ish at #17. Blackstar at #8 and Outside at #7 rate higher than all-time classics Station To Station (#16), Young Americans (#15), Aladdin Sane (#13) and Lodger (#12). A bold move, but it is nice to see Outside getting love. With the rest of the top 10 taken up by RCA-era classics, Consequence rates The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars at #1.
5) SPIN
‘Every David Bowie Album, Ranked’, by Al Shipley, 25 June 2022
Spin’s ranking of Bowie’s albums reckons 1971’s Hunky Dory is the best, and also believes 1999’s ‘hours…’ to be the worst. Blackstar gets in the top 10, at #8. Al Shipley is clearly not much of a Tin Machine fan, with the two albums reaching #24 and #23 on his ranking, and the sub-headline reads ‘The good, the bad and Tin Machine’. At least he recognises that Tin Machine II is better than the first Tin Machine record. Interestingly, this list is the only one that includes the album Toy in its ranking, which was an album intended for release in 2001 but officially unreleased until 2021. Toy ranks at #21, according to Al Shipley.
4) GOTHAMIST
‘UPDATED: Every David Bowie Album Ranked’, by Ben Yakas, 8 Jan 20
This is a curious entry into the Bowie ranking canon... Gothamist had published a ‘definitive list’ ranking the Bowie albums in 2015, and updated their list on January 8th 2016 - the day of the release of what would be Bowie’s final album Blackstar, and two days before he died. It will be interesting to see an album ranking and view of Blackstar not informed by the news of his death, though for such a dense album I am curious to see if Ben Yakas gives it a fair appraisal on the day of its release. I certainly loved it on release day, but I’m not sure I would have been able to include it in a ‘definitive list’ so quickly. Let’s see...
Yakas informs us that the two Tin Machine albums will not be included in this list, it is a purely solo Bowie list. He also says that Bowie has made “three out-and-out terrible albums”. According to him, those are the 1967 debut, 1987’s Never Let Me Down and 1984’s Tonight. I can see that Gothamist have gone for a Matt Has Opinions-style breakdown of ‘the bad’, ‘the flawed’, ‘the good’, ‘the exceptional’ and ‘the best’, though Scary Monsters is in ‘the best’ category at #6. Take that, Matt! The Top 3 are taken by the 1976-1977 albums of Station To Station, Low and “Heroes”.
Blackstar is in the ‘exceptional’ category at #11, with Ben saying “this is an album that might seem even mightier in a few years”, which is certainly reflected in subsequent rankings of Bowie’s albums.
3) STEREOGUM
'David Bowie Albums From Worst To Best', by Aaron Lariviere, 22 March 2013
This is an early entry into the Bowie Ranking canon, coming just a couple of weeks after the 2013 comeback album The Next Day was released, so Blackstar is not included. This ranking is indicative of the general consensus of Bowie’s catalogue before so much of it was reappraised in the wake of The Next Day, the V&A exhibition and of course, Blackstar and his death two days after its release.
Stereogum puts Never Let Me Down at the bottom, but The Buddha Of Suburbia, ‘hours…’ and the 1967 debut not far behind. Offensively, at #23 is both Tin Machine and Tin Machine II, which are not afforded the dignity of their own entries. At the time of this ranking being published, Tin Machine II was long out-of-print and unavailable on digital platforms. Perhaps Lariviere was lumping it in with the first Tin Machine record because he’d never heard Tin Machine II?
This list ranks the then-recently released The Next Day at #14 with lots of positive comments. There are no wild surprises or ‘hot takes’ past this, with the remainder of the list being Let’s Dance and the RCA-era albums (sans Pin Ups, placed at #18). The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars is at #1.
2) THE STUDENT PLAYLIST
'FROM WORST TO BEST: David Bowie albums', by Ed Biggs, Jan 8 2017
“In honour of what would have been the great man’s 70th birthday”, Ed Biggs of The Student Playlist ranks Bowie’s albums from worst to best, excluding the Tin Machine albums and bafflingly, The Buddha Of Suburbia. The bottom five are consistent with most rankings - Never Let Me Down, 1967 debut, Tonight, 'hours...' and Pin Ups. No arguments from me really, but I do love the 1967 Deram album. While I couldn’t realistically rank it higher than many subsequent masterpieces, it deserves more love than these rankings give it.
The excellent Space Oddity from 1969 and The Man Who Sold The World from 1970 mingle with Bowie’s 90s and 00s output towards the bottom, though 1995’s Outside just scrapes into the Top 10.
Blackstar is at #8 and Low is at #1 with the caveat “In truth, there are at least four David Bowie records that one could put together a completely convincing argument for being his best album.”. Make that at least 12 but sure, fair enough.
Credit to Ed, it’s not a bad list and there are no baffling comments to be found but the exclusion of The Buddha Of Suburbia is curious. And no Tin Machine? Goodbye, Mr. Ed.
1) YOUR OWN RANKING
It goes without saying that there is no right or wrong ranking - I couldn't do it, and I wouldn't want to either. With at least half of Bowie's albums, the one I am currently listening to is my favourite. If you do feel the need to rank your favourite albums by an artist then congratulations... you are correct in your ranking! Just please do not feel the need to be a full-on ranker and share it with the world, especially if it is in a 'tier list' format, or if you are ascribing numerical ratings to each album Pitchfork-style:
"Do you like Young Americans?"
"Yeah, it gets an 8.7 from me".
Enjoy the music.