# What is the best Herbie Hancock album?

> He has played acoustic hard bop, wild synth funk and a turntable-scratching pop smash, often within a few years. Pick the era that still sounds like the future.

*By YPB Team · Published October 18, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-herbie-hancock-album*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Head Hunters** — score 1000/1000
   The 1973 funk-jazz landmark with Chameleon, often rated his masterpiece.
2. **Maiden Voyage** — score 814/1000
   The 1965 modal jazz classic with its nautical title track.
3. **Feets, Don't Fail Me Now** — score 781/1000
   A 1979 disco-funk album that was one of his biggest chart sellers.
4. **Mr. Hands** — score 642/1000
   A 1980 album that bridged jazz-funk with R&B and fusion.
5. **Possibilities** — score 642/1000
   A 2005 duets album with pop and rock artists.
6. **My Point of View** — score 597/1000
   A 1963 hard-bop session with Hank Mobley, Grant Green and Donald Byrd.
7. **Mwandishi** — score 546/1000
   A 1971 experimental electric jazz album with his sextet.
8. **Inventions and Dimensions** — score 546/1000
   A 1963 trio-plus-percussion album showing his early taste for freer rhythm.
9. **Sunlight** — score 423/1000
   A 1978 album that put the vocoder at the centre of his sound.
10. **Thrust** — score 423/1000
   The 1974 follow-up to Head Hunters, featuring Actual Proof.
11. **Fat Albert Rotunda** — score 423/1000
   The 1969 soul-jazz soundtrack for the Bill Cosby TV special.
12. **River: The Joni Letters** — score 349/1000
   His 2007 Joni Mitchell tribute, which won the Grammy for Album of the Year.
13. **Man-Child** — score 349/1000
   A 1975 funk album with guests including Stevie Wonder and The Headhunters.
14. **Round Midnight** — score 349/1000
   The 1986 soundtrack to the Bertrand Tavernier film, which won him an Oscar.
15. **Secrets** — score 349/1000
   A 1976 funk-fusion record built on clavinet and synthesizer grooves.
16. **Takin' Off** — score 349/1000
   The 1962 Blue Note debut that produced the hit Watermelon Man.
17. **Future2Future** — score 349/1000
   A 2001 electronic and drum-and-bass flavoured return to his Rockit experiments.
18. **Sextant** — score 349/1000
   A 1973 electronic, synthesizer-heavy album of spacey fusion.
19. **Gershwin's World** — score 263/1000
   A 1998 tribute to George Gershwin with a wide range of guests.
20. **Empyrean Isles** — score 263/1000
   A 1964 Blue Note album featuring Cantaloupe Island.
21. **Speak Like a Child** — score 263/1000
   A 1968 Blue Note album with a distinctive three-horn voicing, praised as an overlooked gem.
22. **The Imagine Project** — score 263/1000
   A 2010 global collaboration album of reworked songs, Grammy-winning in 2011.
23. **Future Shock** — score 0/1000
   The 1983 electro album with the hit Rockit, which brought turntable scratching to a mass audience.

Tags: music, jazz, herbie hancock