Popular music has always been inextricably linked to the notion of cool. Whether that be looking cool, sounding cool or by not giving a flying fig about anything else and doing exactly as you please (very cool). Sometimes, it has been all three to create cool music.

And while cool can often be a spurious and amorphous object, some elements endure. What we have for you here, therefore, are the 20 coolest albums of all time. A contentious claim? No doubt. But we assure you, your record collection is seriously lacking in kudos without these records...

20. New Order: Power, Corruption & Lies (1983)

Melding dance and rock has never been the easiest of exercises. However, on their second album, New Order finally cracked it. Emboldened by what they’d seen – and heard - in New York’s energetic clubs, the band created the perfect fusion between machine-led grooves and human beauty. At a time when most British ‘indie’ groups were looking ever inward, New Order spread their wings and embraced the ecstatic stirrings in electronic music. Their home town of Manchester has certainly never been the same since.

'Key track:'' Your Silent Face

19. Frank Sinatra: In The Wee Small Hours (1955)

Frank Sinatra’s comeback and reinvention in the 1950s established a template that rock’n’roll would gladly emulate. But of more interest for would-be hipsters was the idea of a concept album. Having split from Ava Gardner, Sinatra poured himself into a series of thematic recordings that evoked the utter desolation only the end of a love affair can bring. At the age of 40, and parading a natty line in sharp suits, it’s arguable that The Chairman of the Board never looked cooler too.

Key track: Mood Indigo

18. Talk Talk: Spirit Of Eden (1988)

Talk Talk’s first albums, especially It’s My Life and The Colour of Spring, were supreme examples of avant electro-pop. On their fourth album, Spirit of Eden, Mark Hollis’ outfit went even further, into territory generally populated by jazz musicians. The freeform nature of the sonic soundscapes in evidence were lapped up by both the burgeoning downtempo/chill out movement and those bands that would later be deemed post-rock. The likes of Sigur Ros, Portishead and Radiohead have all paid testament to its gauzy, trance-like versatility.

Key track: Eden

17. Elvis Presley: Elvis Presley (1956)

Before Elvis there was nothing. Not completely true – as our list demonstrates – but John Lennon’s oft-quoted line does highlight what a catalyst the boy from Tupelo, Mississippi was for rock’n’roll. And if it’s the music’s first heady rush you’re after, The King’s debut album captures it and more. From the opening Blue Suede Shoes to energetic interpretations of Tutti Frutti and I Got A Woman, this is seminal stuff. Iconic cover too.

Key track: Blue Suede Shoes

16. Prince: Sign ‘O’ The Times (1987)

Double albums are, by their very nature, unapologetic contradictory affairs. Rock’n’roll was meant to be short, sharp and direct. Records that take up four slabs of vinyl (ask your dad) can’t achieve this. What they can deliver, however, is lurid invention; a space in which an artist can fully express their vaulting ambition. Sign ‘O’ The Times is such an album – everything Prince was notorious for packaged in one (or two if you want be pedantic) remarkable record. No other album came close to capturing the late Eighties maelstrom.

Key track: Sign ‘O’ The Times

15. James Brown: Live At The Apollo (1963)

James Brown had many sobriquets: The Godfather of Soul; Mr Dynamite, Soul Brother Number One… but on his best album, Live At The Apollo, the most applicable is The Hardest Working Man In Show Business. You can smell the sweat cascading down the Harlem walls, as Brown lays down the roots for funk, hip hop, disco and every other black music worth its dancing trousers, in an extraordinary and generous display of visceral sonic power.

Key track: I’ll Go Crazy

14. Robert Johnson: King Of The Delta Blues Singers (1961)

If popular music could be said to have a mythical father figure it is Robert Johnson. The story goes that he sold his soul to the devil in order to become a master blues guitar player. This Faustian story casts a long shadow over rock’n’roll and the flip side of fame – Johnson himself was murdered at the age of 27, thus becoming the original member of the 27 Club. However, this 1961 collection of recordings made in the Thirties explains the reason for Johnson’s voluble musical influence. Delta blues with a raw sexual energy, without it the likes of the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and co would have sounded very different.

Key track: Cross Road Blues

13. Public Enemy: It Takes A Nation Of Millions (1988)

Hip hop began as a means of getting people to dance at block parties. A decade after its inception, however, and thanks to the incendiary Public Enemy it sounded like the angriest music ever made. Their debut album, Yo! Bum Rush The Show, served notice of their intent, but it was on that record’s follow-up that their manifesto – both political and sonic – really came together. The production is a dense wall of sound, the lyrics righteous and taut. A revolutionary album in every sense.

Key track: Don’t Believe The Hype

12. Beastie Boys: Paul’s Boutique (1989)

After the furore that surrounded their debut album, Licensed To Ill, it was tempting to dismiss the Beastie Boys as attention-seeking brats. Which partly goes to explain why so many missed out on the luminous excellence of their follow-up, Paul’s Boutique. Ushering in the next decade’s magpie musical tendencies, the album is an excitable masterclass in sampling and multi-layered beats. It also demonstrated that Mike D, Ad Rock and MCA were actually skilled hip hop luminaries in it for the long haul.

Key track: Hey Ladies

11. Kate Bush: The Kick Inside (1978)

The poise, grace and the sheer breadth of talent displayed on Kate Bush’s debut album, belies the fact that it was released when Bush was just 19. Propelled by the inordinate success of her first single, the staggering Wuthering Heights, The Kick Inside is a magical blend of dramatic rock and gentle balladry. Today, it sounds completely captivating, back then it must have seemed as though it was beamed in from another world.

Key track: The Man With The Child In His Eyes

10. Kraftwerk: Trans Europe Express (1977)

Four Germans who resembled a pack of studious bankers doesn’t seem the most promising of musical beginnings. But everything about Kraftwerk turned convention on its head. Having emerged from the Krautrock movement, they truly found their voice on the synthesiser-led Autobahn. This success was replicated on Radio-Activity, before they issued their robotic pop magnum opus, Trans Europe Express. A formative influence on everything from hip hop to house and techno, this album – like all of Kraftwerk’s dazzling canon – still sounds like nothing else.

Key track: Trans Europe Express

9. Iggy & The Stooges: Raw Power (1973)

Despite those unfortunate insurance adverts Iggy Pop remains one of music’s all-time fascinating characters. By embodying all of rock’n’roll’s contradictions he pervades his work with a wilful lunacy. None more so than on The Stooges’ final album, Raw Power. A glorious, messy and deranged parting shot, its swaggering nihilistic rock provided punk with a sonic template from which to fire its equally dangerous arrows.

Key track: Search & Destroy

8. David Bowie: Blackstar

Devastating in its timing, Blackstar will always be remembered as the album Bowie released when he knew he wasn't going to be around much longer. While this could - and should - shroud these songs in darkness, the swagger and Jazz-tinged menace the album has resonates far beyond this being Bowie's final record.

Key track: Lazarus

7. Stevie Wonder: Innervisions (1973)

Of course it could easily have been Music of My Mind, Talking Book, Fulfillingness’ First Finale or Songs in the Key of Life, the albums that directly preceded and followed Innervisions. This run of five albums, in which Wonder displayed the full gamut of his talents as producer, arranger, composer and, of course, musician, is arguably the finest in the history of recorded music. Why Innervisions, then? It’s the most cohesive body of work in an unparalleled career.

Key track: Living For The City

6. David Bowie: Low (1977)

Picking the coolest chap in music might seem like a thankless task, but David Bowie makes it easy. No one has displayed such musical dexterity or confounded as many critics as the man christened David Jones. Low, the first of his so-called Berlin Trilogy, is a case in point. Utterly out there in terms of brutal electronic minimalism and yet driven by a pop aesthetic, it spoke to everyone from Joy Division to the Human League in giving rise to the electro-pop revolution of the late Seventies and early Eighties.

Key track: A New Career In A New Town

5. The Rolling Stones: Exile On Main St (1972)

Everything that straight society considered wrong (ie what makes it so freaking great) with rock’n’roll is encapsulated in the Rolling Stones’ finest moment, Exile On Main Street. Led by Keef, the Stones constructed a double album that haphazardly, and in endearingly louche fashion, touched upon country rock, soul, gospel and blues. The pace of the album is slower than on previous Stones albums – all that high living on the French Riviera no doubt – and the music takes its time to reveal its bountiful charms, but its ragged glory is the exact source of its clout. And for that we are truly grateful.

Key track: Torn and Frayed

4. Massive Attack: Blue Lines (1991)

It’s impossible to overstate how important Massive Attack’s debut album was. Arriving after the first flush of acid house, it was a uniquely British take on what was hitherto ostensibly black American music – hip hop, rare groove, soul, funk and the like. Its symphonic grandeur, deft cut’n’paste aesthetics and resolutely street imagery spoke to a generation of club kids. It also helped usher in every musical movement from trip hop to drum’n’bass and broken beat to dubstep.

Key track: Unfinished Sympathy

3. Pixies: Doolittle (1989)

The Pixies’ second (proper) album is that rare beast: a record that got journalists and fans alike delivering all manner of critical hosannas upon its release, and one that evokes even more praise today. Alongside REM and Sonic Youth, Pixies did most to revitalise American rock in the late Eighties and Doolittle was the apogee of their stellar career. An acknowledged influence on Nirvana, it combined underground credibility with hooks-a-plenty.

Key track: Monkey Gone To Heaven

2. The Clash: London Calling (1979)

Sometimes familiarity can dull an object’s freshness. That is certainly not the case with London Calling. Displaying a sonic bravado that shamed many of their peers, The Clash decided to reach for the stars with their third album. They achieved this by simultaneously reaching back to rock’n’roll’s varied roots – such as rockabilly, ska and R&B – and looking to the future. As such it’s a magnificent and innovative call to arms, and one that hasn’t lost any its lustre down the years.

Key track: Clampdown

1. The Beatles: Revolver (1966)

Before 1966, it was tempting to think of rock’n’roll as a fad whose time would eventually fade. Three albums released that year put paid to that ludicrous notion. Firstly, the Beach Boys’ astounding Pet Sounds; secondly Bob Dylan’s majestic Blonde on Blonde, and, finally, the Beatles’ Revolver. All three legitimised the idea of the album as a valid artform and reduced the single to mere ephemera. Revolver remains the coolest of the triumvirate by dint of combining wild studio experimentation with bold ambition and melodic accessibility. Quite simply, an album for all ages.

Key track: Tomorrow Never Knows

READ MORE: The best album covers of all time