rolling stone's 500 greatest albums of all time

Keith, I can't reproduce the voter list here (skimming, I see Moby, Paul Shaffer, Eric Weisbard, the Edge, Rick Rubin, Carole King, Yoko Ono), but it seems to me like there was an honest attempt at what the kids today call inclusiveness. EPMD would not be on here without someone in editorial pulling for more rap voters.

I'd also love to see the same results from the same voters but with different methods and math. As it is, any of the Top 500 had to appear on at least five different ballots, encouraging consensus picks over passionate idiosyncracy.

And while I'm at it, I'd love to see the complete ballots!

1. Michael Jackson, Thriller (20)
2. Janet Jackson, Rhythm Nation 1814 (275)
3. Michael Jackson, Bad (202)
4. Madonna, Like a Prayer (237)
5. Michael Jackson, Off the Wall (68)
6. Whitney Houston, Whitney Houston (254)
7. Otis Redding, The Dock of the Bay (161)
8. Prince and the Revolution, Purple Rain (72)
9. Prince, Sign 'o' the Times (93)
10. TLC, CrazySexyCool (377)

http://babelogue.citypages.com:8080/pscholtes/stories/storyReader$29

Also, if this issue makes me finally break down and buy Exile on Main Street, or makes a Stones fan discover Professor Longhair or the Minutemen, those immediate and happy effects would seem to me to be as powerful as the gradual and sad effect of '60s supremacist thinking.

MTV2 recently (?) had a feature on "the 22 Best CDs, like, ever", which was interesting in that it used the specific media format itself to limit things to a primarily mid '80s-onward milieu. Granted, this meant that we got a list with Live on it.

I sympathize, Michaelangelo, I just think the main sadness I have about the list has to do with things it can't control:

-the fact that so much great non-English music has no way to be heard here by critics, never mind RS's illustrious voters...

-that there were just less records made in the '60s, so a consensus was easier to reach (plus, you know, demographics and shit)...

-that London Calling is only slightly longer than the average filler-padded CD these days...

-that I can't explain to Keith that What's Going On is a great record without making references to pot smoke, depression, or "being black in America" (only two of which I know anything about)...

-that there are records as good as, say, the Monks' Black Monk Time (which I just heard for the first time this year), and the best I can hope for is that I'll eventually hear them and add them to my oh-so-seminal-and-influential Top 100 list...

Shams and Be Ashamed...
My Bloody's Loveless is top 50 material.
PiL's Metal Box needs to be in the top 150.
Massive Attack's Blue Lines at 395?

Ignored?
Underworld's Dubnobasswithmy or Second Toughest
Teenage Fanclub's Bandwagonesque.
American Music Club's Everclear
Lisa Germano Geek the Girl
Gang Starr Moment of Truth for chrissake

Yeah, I reek of my generation with these picks, but that's my two sense.

Not to say that a late-era Roxy singles compilation wouldn't be absolutely amazing.

And why is Pavement apparently so magnificent whereas the Smiths are what, over one hundred albums lower?

Massive Attack made it on, to whomever was complaining about a lack of electric music on this list. Full-on electronica is mostly a singles medium, though, and the artists mostly aren't old enough to release silly Greatest Hits albums.

Side note: The Human League's "Dare" definitely deserves a spot.

By the way, is Screamadelica on there anywhere?

AWFUL.

No Aphex Twin.
No Can.
No Slayer.

I think they picked the right Kraftwerk album.
Massive under representation of anything other than typical ROCK cannon
crap in the upper numbers.

Sandinista is on this list; this album blows.

Only one Sonic Youth album; 3 Radiohead shitfests.

COLDPLAY?????????????????????????????

Zepplelin rules!!!

reason enough to igore the list.

Butterfly is a vocal and lyric masterpiece. It didn't chart even between 400's and 500's.

Rolling Stone truly hates her.

1. Ænema
2. Lateralus
3. 10,000 Days
4. Undertow
...

All these albums NEED to be on the list

How many of the top 100 albums from this list have you heard? (Thought about making a poll, but can't be bothered.)

I've heard 92 out of the top 100 (tho I'm only intimately familiar with about 80 or so of them -- can never remember what the James Brown albums sound like, and I never really *got* Trout Mask Replica no matter how many times I've heard it).

84, and 55% of the 500

http://www.listsofbests.com/list/5413/compare/duggie2

Why does Wikipedia feel the need to mention how such-and-such album fared on this list?

42 out of 100 for me, but i blame rolling stone's inclusion of albums like "hotel california" and "20 golden greats" at least partly for my failing grade. like, i've heard a couple buddy holly comps before, and i've heard hotel california like a billion times, but never the full album, and never that specific compilation.

Starting from 500 and working up and then stopping around halfway.. It doesn't appear to be such a bad list.

87/100, and more like 99/100 if you account for hearing all the songs on an album on other comps/mixes/radio etc. I've never listened to the Allman Brothers, that's the only one of which I'm completely ignorant (I know some of the singles off other albums).

37/100

wikipedia feels the need to mention how a lot of things fared on a lot of lists, snrub

96/100 for me (i like pie).

oddest choice of the top hundred: the Billy Joel disc.

blame rolling stone's inclusion of albums like "hotel california" and "20 golden greats" at least partly for my failing grade. like, i've heard a couple buddy holly comps before, and i've heard hotel california like a billion times, but never the full album, and never that specific compilation.

I can see what you mean about the Buddy Holly comp but Hotel California is a studio album. Hearing the biggest hit single a billion times obv != knowing the album. (My count would be much higher than approx. 47 if I could do this.)

(Also, I'm exhausted and insomniac and thus bitchy and pedantic.)

95/100

yeah i just assume that the album is shit, and that the only reason it's on the list is because of the title track. i could be wrong, maybe it's a solid album. did you know the eagles' greatest hits is the best selling album ever in the united states?

95/100 and 419/500. I was raised on classic rock.

i own, ironically, 50/100. i could add probably around 12 albums that i know but don't own.

if i did the whole 500, however, my average will probably go up.

19 i think