Rolling Stones New 500 Greatest Albums of All Time

[Brocklock]

The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time

To remake our greatest albums list, we tabulated Top 50 Albums lists from more than 300 artists, producers, critics, music-industry figures.

www.rollingstone.com

Like usual most of the stuff I really love is lower or in musical genres that doesn't get recognized in lists like this geared mostly towards well popular music. A lot of the top 50 ranked albums are shoulder shrugs for me with some predictable recency bias. I'll say it too, I think I like five Radiohead albums more than OK Computer, but at least Kid A was the highest ranked album by them.

I do like these types of big lists to try to gather a bunch of old albums to listen to, so I wasn't gonna complain too much until I scrolled across a John Mayer album that is higher than "Damaged" by Black Flag and the self titled album from The Stooges.

 

[909]

Opened this, saw that II was ranked 495, and instantly closed it. There is no planet on which that is ONLY the 495th greatest album of all time.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Opened this, saw that II was ranked 495, and instantly closed it. There is no planet on which that is ONLY the 495th greatest album of all time.

LOL... I saw that and was like WTF? and then The Stooges' self-titled album was 488 and was like WTFH?!?

 

[Brocklock]

Uh if yall think that's bad, they have Billie Eilish over Blondie's self titled and ehrm My Chemical Romance at 361.

Black Sabbath's self titled album might be one of the most important and influential albums in rock music history and it's 355. A Coldplay album is ranked ahead of Sabbath's Self Titled, Doggystyle by Snoop, Let It Be by The Beatles, Siamese Dream by The Smashing Pumpkins, Another Green World by Brian Eno, Rhythm Nation by Janet Jackson, and Dirty Mind by Prince.

Wait wasn't Yeezus by Kanye considered a disaster and a punchline? And why is it at 269 above all those aforementioned albums as well as Van Halen's Self Titled, White Light/White Heat, Post by Bjork, Sweetheart of the Rodeo by The Byrds, Curtis by Curtis Mayfield, Houses of The Holy by Zeppelin, and Nirvana Unplugged?

Okay this list deserves to get blasted in the face with a massive steamy shit. These writeups are so smug and I think the person writing them has never heard some of the genres they reference. Calling The Dixie Chicks Thrash Metal with Fiddles might be the dumbest thing I ever read and Pitchfork was trying to call Taylor Swift a goth artist recently. I will soldier on and continue to bitch my thoughts.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Random 'okay, then' thoughts

Bjork's "Post" is 289. Nirvana's "MTV Unplugged" is 279, which I think is actually really high despite my enjoyment of the album. Tracey Chapman's Self-Titled seems a little low at 256.

LL Cool J's "Mama Said Knock You Out" feels criminally low at 246 but they dumped a ton of hip-hop super low on this list.

Tapping out again at Little Richard's "Here's Little Richard" being 227.

 

[Brocklock]

There's a Harry Styles album on this at some point. I think a Drake album is top 50 too so yeah. So much poppy rap and overhyped stuff from the last 10 years. I'm still confused by My Chemical Romance. I'm not okay (I promise).

I guess this was chosen by over 300 people ranging from producers, critics, and industry figures. And more importantly musicians such as Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Stevie Nicks, The Edge, Raekwon, Beyonce, and Gene Simmons.

All this list has taught me that these music people need to listen to Spiderland by Slint (and maybe more music outside of Pop, Rap, R&B, and Country) because there's no way there's 500 albums better than that. On the plus side Loveless by My Bloody Valentine had a decent showing in the 100's.

 

[Valeyard]

Fucking christ.

Greatest hits collections don't belong on a list like this. That's lazy and cheating.

 

[Valeyard]

I know these lists are designed to make people like me furious but holy shit is there some pandering.

 

[Broward83]

Yo, I'm not a major music person like some on the board, but fuck this list. II is a GENERATIONAL album. The fuck you ranking it at 495?! A lot of older / deceased artists seem to have been dumped into the low end of this list too. Fuck Rolling Stone.

 

[Mickey Massuco]

yeah i'm not gonna go through this list.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

greatest hits being on this instantly invalidate it. If they put a twist on it like doing them Unplugged then it is one thing but a straight up GH is ridiculous.

 

[King Kamala]

I'm not going to expend any emotional energy on these boomer trolling (or boomer music lover trolling) Rolling Stone lists.

Although this was helpful in the sense that opening this thread reminded me to take my Lexapro.

 

[Brocklock]

Actually they are trying to desperately appeal to zoomers which is even worse. I'd take some obscure 70's fart rock over Billie Eilish and Harry Styles.

 

[King Kamala]

A desperate appeal to Zoomers in my mind is the same thing as trolling a boomer. Although tbf, there is probably Xer trolling in there too.

 

[Valeyard]

The anger caused by lists like this is a nice relief from modern times for me. But yes, greatest hits or comps kill any legitimacy. Can't be that hard for someone, somewhere to listen to a Bob Marley record that isn't Legend.

 

[Brocklock]

Yeah getting angry about a bullshit list from a dinosaur publication that hasn't been relevant in like 30 years is so much more relaxing than all the other depressing things that make my blood boil. Also, I have been relistening to a bunch of 70's classics cause of this list.

 

[Valeyard]

What sucks the most for me, skimming it again, is that because of this list there is now stuff I can never give a fair chance to. I'm sure that Billie Eilish album is nothing special, but I at least would've entertained the notion of hearing more of it a week ago than I do now.

 

[Brocklock]

I'll do the deep dive when she releases a Nu-Metal album.

 

[Mickey Massuco]

Billie Eilish collab with Munkee and DJ Lethal.

 

[Valeyard]

People really like her and it confuses me. I've only really dug one song ("when the party's over" is good, don't care), but the rest is just Nu Avril.

She was just my example on the grounds I would 100% rather consider listening to a Billie Eilish album all the way through than a Harry Styles.

 

[Brocklock]

Billie Eilish collab with Munkee and DJ Lethal.

Aaron Lewis and Billie Eilish singing in harmony over that sounds heavenly.

 

[Gary]

I'm actually kind of surprised a lot of people have been paying attention to this, since outside of their political takes (which-correct me if I'm wrong-aren't as "yay the Democratic Party!" as they used to be) are barely relevant at this point. Like, I doubt zoomers have subscriptions to it or anything.

Re: Black Sabbath's debut being rated so low-Rolling Stone has always had an antipathy towards metal, as has most old media empires. This is the magazine that infamously gave "Reign in Blood" a one star review, and it's ironic to me that guys like Jann Winner (who likely plays a large part of this not so hidden disdain for the genre) still do this while more new media empires-like it or not-don't come off as embarrassed when it comes to covering metal. Like, Pitchfork gave the last Power Trip album a Best New Music badge and write articles praising classic Iron Maiden albums. Metal in general isn't considered embarrassing to like, especially now, and lists like this will be forgotten within a few weeks (if that even).

 

[King Kamala]

Yeah. Rolling Stone still seems sheepish about praising the safest, most universally liked hard rock bands like AC/DC and Led Zeppelin. They would literally rather sexualize a terrorist than admit metal is worth serious critical discussion.

 

[909]

No Deep Purple either lol.

 

[Brocklock]

They put a Motorhead album in the 400s. No Priest or Maiden though.

 

[alkeiper]

According to the article, they compiled the list by gathering everyone's Top 50. The trick is when you make a list like that, everything beyond the first fifty is kind of worthless from a ranking standpoint. It's just whatever one or two people happened to rank high.