First of all, I suppose I should defined exactly what I mean by "work."  It's fairly simple, actually: a musical work is a piece or pieces of music as first produced for the public in its most complete form.  What I'm really saying is that by work I mean an individual piece of "classical" music (a symphony or suite), a complete dramatic work (opera or musical), or a complete album of rock or jazz.  So, I hope that's fairly clear.  I've also limited myself to things I physically own in one form or another.

Second, as I said above this is my own personal top 100.  I make no pretense about these being the 100 best works, or that they are the most illustrative of a particular musical form or genre.  They are simply the ones that do it for me on a personal level.  You know those discussion of "desert island discs" that show up now and then on Usenet?  Well, these are mine, on a grander scale.  I'll try to explain why I chose each one.  

Finally, all of this is based, as is everything on my site relating to music, on my personal tastes and opinion.  If your favorite artist/band/composer is left off, or is underrepresented, there are several possible reasons why.  First, I may have never heard of that artist (or don't own any of his works), and thus cannot comment one way or the other.  Second, I may own a work by that artist and enjoy it from time to time, but there just wasn't room enough on the list.  After all, I've only taken a handful of the Yes, Rush, Genesis, etc. discs that jam my CD racks and put them on the list.  Third, I may have heard of the artist and simply don't like them.  Deal with it. 

If you'd like to comment on the list, feel free to drop me a line.  As usual, please don't send hate mail.  So, without further ado, here we go, in alphabetical order by work title: