The appeal of punk, which was meant to consign such bands to "the dustbin of history", has proved to be far more fleeting.The Eighties contributes 223 albums, with U2 and the Smiths displaying the greatest staying power while from the current decade 172 albums charted with Blur, Prodigy and Portishead the closest rivals to Oasis and Radiohead among contemporary acts.Despite the influence of black music on virtually all styles of rock and pop, the lists are also predominantly white. A UNIQUE symposium on the future of drug laws across the world brought more than 150 prominent scientists, sociologists and lawyers to London yesterday, writes Vanessa Thorpe. Delegates from Europe, Australia and the United States met to discuss "Regulating Cannabis: Options for Control in the 21st Century". The event was designed to take the issue into new territory and develop "blueprints for post-decriminalisation regulation". It had been billed by its organisers as the first conference to concentrate on the practical problems of administering liberalised drug laws rather than simply looking again at arguments for change."This conference marks an historic turning point," said Mike Goodman, director of Release, the UK-based drug policy organisation which co-hosted the symposium.

"We now expect the debate to shift to `How cannabis should be regulated responsibly'."Speakers included Dr Nicholas Dorn of the Institute for the Study of Drug Dependence, and Dr Geoffrey Guy, a Briton whose company, GW Pharmaceuticals, was granted a groundbreaking licence to farm cannabis for scientific research purposes earlier this year. 1 Revolver - The Beatles 2 Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - The Beatles 3 White Album - The Beatles4 Nevermind - Nirvana5 Abbey Road - The Beatles6 Pet Sounds -The Beach Boys7 Automatic for the People - R.E.M.8 Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd9 What's the Story (Morning Glory) -Oasis10 The Bends - Radiohead11 The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars - David Bowie12 Electric Ladyland - The Jimi HendrixExperience13 Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols -Sex Pistols14 The Stone Roses -The Stone Roses15 Astral Weeks -Van Morrison16 Hunky Dory -David Bowie17 Blonde on Blonde -Bob Dylan18 The Joshua Tree - U219 Rumours - Fleetwood Mac20 Rubber Soul - The Beatles21 OK Computer - Radiohead22 Velvet Underground & Nico -The Velvet Underground23 The Queen is Dead -The Smiths24 Blood on the Tracks - Bob Dylan25 Definitely Maybe -Oasis26 Highway 61 Revisited - Bob Dylan27 Exile on Main Street - The Rolling Stones28 Achtung Baby - U229 London's Calling - The Clash30 Parklife - Blur31 Wish You Were Here -Pink Floyd32 What's Going On -Marvyn Gaye33 The Fat of the Land - Prodigy34 Dummy - Portishead35 Jagged Little Pill - Alanis Morissette36 Be Here Now - Oasis37 Screamadelica -Primal Scream38 Graceland - Paul Simon39 Led Zeppelin IV -Led Zeppelin40 Forever Changes - Love41 Everything Must Go - ManicStreet Preachers42 Different Class - Pulp43 Blue Lines - Massive Attack44 Let It Bleed - The RollingStones45 Urban Hymns - The Verve46 The Wall - Pink Floyd47 Sign `o' the Times - Prince48 Kind of Blue - Miles Davis49 The Band - The Band50 Physical Graffiti -Led Zeppelin. Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, which never charted, is voted the 15th greatest album of all time and Forever Changes by Love, which after 30 years still hasn't reached one million sales, makes number 40 in the list.The Top One Thousand Albums Of All Time is published by Virgin Publishing at pounds 16.99 on Tuesday.. The highest placed rap album is Public Enemy's It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back (131).High sales do not automatically translate into critical success and artists such as Celine Dion and Cliff Richard appear nowhere in the list.On the other hand, the cultish English singer-songwriter Nick Drake, who committed suicide in 1974 and sold no records at all during his lifetime, is listed among the top 50 artists at number 49. Only eight of the top fifty artists are black - Jimi Hendrix (14), Miles Davis (16), Marvin Gaye (23), Prince (27), Michael Jackson (28), Stevie Wonder (34), Bob Marley (35) and John Coltrane (46). The only soul albums to make the top 100 albums are Marvin Gaye's What's Going On followed by Michael Jackson's Thriller and Stevie Wonder's Songs In The Key Of Life.

by Oasis was the best Beatles album since Let It Be and the influence was so obvious and the debt so huge that has clearly contributed to their resurgence," he said.The Sixties contribute 226 albums to the list led by the Beatles and Bob Dylan, although statistically the most popular decade is the Seventies when 315 of the top 1,000 albums were made. "There is no doubt that the Beatles were the most influential band ever but the way they have been lionised by people like Noel Gallagher has refocussed attention on them What's The Story... Alanis Morrissette's Jagged Little Pill, one of the biggest selling albums of the nineties, leads the way at 35, followed by Joni Mitchell's Blue (53), Hounds of Love by Kate Bush (59), Patti Smith's Horses (88) and Little Earthquakes by Tori Amos (98).Allan Jones, the former editor of Melody Maker and now editor of the monthly Uncut, attributes the Beatles' dominance among the MTV generation less to parental influence and more to the reverence paid to the sixties by contemporary Britpop bands. Almost every entry from a teenager had at least one Beatles album on it."The all-time top ten list is completed by The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, Automatic For The People by R.E.M. and Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon with What's The Story (Morning Glory) by Oasis and Radiohead's The Bends at nine and ten.The Beatles also secured the most individual entries in the Top 1,000 with 14 albums followed by Frank Sinatra and Miles Davis (13 each) and Bob Dylan (12).Advocates of girl power will be disappointed that just five of the top one hundred albums are by female artists.