You can get polled out after a while. Survey upon survey upon questionnaire upon questionnaire about what's good, what's better and what's best. There has been a rash of these polls in the last nine months, the most fatuous being by Q magazine, which found that Radiohead's OK Computer was the best album of all time (I think not). The problem always lies with the sampling, which is typically too small to be representative of the general population - younger respondents skew the results by saying The Chemical Brothers are better than Bob Dylan (handy tip: they're not) whereas older ones bang on endlessly about dinosaurs like Cream, Hendrix and, horror of horrors, Jethro Tull. You also get the motivated types who are singularly determined to get Captain Beefheart or Arthur Lee's Love into the top ten.

The most recent survey, commissioned by Virgin, whose results were released this week, avoids these problems by polling on both sides of the Atlantic (for a change) and using a fairly huge sample (200,000 people). They also did something which hasn't been done before, and which is well overdue, by also asking people what the worst albums of all time have been, and also the most over-rated albums of all time. There's also an acknowlegement of the different genres of music by including separate categories for soul/R n'B and Indie/Punk. Always guaranteed to get a "heated debate" going, here's the result for the Top Ten albums of all time:

1. Revolver The Beatles

2. Sgt. Pepper The Beatles

3. The White Album The Beatles

4. Nevermind Nirvana

5. Abbey Road The Beatles

6. Pet Sounds The Beach Boys

7. Automatic For The People R.E.M.

8. The Dark Side Of The Moon Pink Floyd

9. What's The Story (Morning Glory) Oasis

10. The Bends Radiohead

Let the debate commence: No problem at all with the multitude of Beatles albums in there, they are the best band ever and no mistake. Nice to see Pet Sounds holding up so well, but the Oasis inclusion is a travesty when you consider all the other albums that could have been considered (Dylan, Clash, Stone Roses, Rolling Stones, Byrds etc;). R.E.M. are a very good band, but their album just doesn't hold up over 12 tracks, whereas as least people had the good sense to realise that Radiohead's The Bends is a superior piece of work to OK Computer.

On a more enlightening note, here are the Top Five Worst Albums of All Time:

1. Lord Sutch And His Heavy Friends Lord Sutch

2. Metal Machine Music Lou Reed

3. Having Fun With Elvis On Stage Elvis Presley

4. The Transformer Man William Shatner

5. Initiation Todd Rundgren

No sympathy at all for Lord Sutch, he deserves it. But poor Lou Reed - the whole point of Metal Machine Music was that he was contractually obliged by his record company to release an album, and not being on the best of terms with them, he gave them an album of guitar feedback songs. The point is that Lou Reed's album was intentionally bad, whereas all the others thought they were making a significant contribution to musical development. Interesting to note that William "Star Trek" Shatner was once signed to Alan McGee's Creation label (home to Oasis, Primal Scream et al). Poor Todd Rundgren; the man has done some amazing stuff in his time and is one of the most under-rated talents of his generation, but as bad as this album is, I can think of many more I'd put in before it (and most of them Irish, funnily enough).

And on to my favourite category, the Top Five Most Over-rated Albums Of All Time - there's a subtle distinction between this and The Worst Of category, but the funny thing is that these following five (with the exception of one) would also be on my Five Worst Albums Of All Time List. They are:

1. Brothers In Arms Dire Straits

2. Rumours Fleetwood Mac

3. Hotel California Eagles

4. Bat Out Of Hell Meat Loaf

5. Bridge Over Troubled Water Simon And Garfunkel

How sweet that over-rated list sounds - I really wouldn't put Paul and Art in there, if only because of their excellent vocal harmonies and occasional half-decent tune. Just for the laff of it, I submitted my own Top Five Worst And Overrated Acts Of All Time (1998 Mix) to the judges, which was;

1. Simply Red

2. M People

3. The Lighthouse Family

4. The Beastie Boys

5. Ocean Colour Scene/Cast/Kula Shaker and particularly Reef

We're running out of space - so here, quickly, are the Top Five Soul/R n'B albums of all time: 1. What's Goin' On Marvin Gaye, 2. Thriller Michael Jack- son (which is neither soul nor r'n'b, it's predominantly disco pop, but never mind), 3. Songs In The Key Of Life Stevie Wonder, 4. Otis Blue Otis Redding, 5. Bad Michael Jackson. And the Best Five Indie/ Punk albums Of All Time were: 1. What's The Story (Morning Glory) Oasis, 2. The Bends Radiohead, 3. Never Mind The Bollocks The Sex Pistols, 4. The Stone Roses The Stone Roses, 5. OK Computer Radiohead.

Virgin are releasing a book on their survey which will be in the bookshops later in the autumn.