50 Best Albums of All Time According to Rolling Stone's BRAND NEW, 100% Revamped Top 500

As usual for lists like this, I think the bottom half is more interesting than the top half. At least, it has more albums that make me curious to check them out. The top half is mostly stuff I already have settled opinions about or that I know to be outside my wheelhouse.

On a positive note they're still reserving deep 300-400 list space for the three '70s Big Star records.

doesn't look like anyone's dumped all 500 of these into a spotify playlist, tempted to do it myself but i just know I'll get to like #165 and start having profound regrets about the time it's taking.

There might be a handful of people here interested in Christgau's list (also his wife's).

https://robertchristgau.substack.com/p/lists-on-lists-on-lists?r=1jtu0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=copy

Glad Wussy's on there. I used to think they'd catch on eventually, headed for the day they'd start showing up on all-time lists, but I doubt it; Wussy cultdom will probably go out with Christgau.

This can only mean one thing: the time has come to poll Xgauleiter's list.

Predictably, his top 50 is as soporific as all the others and Carola Dibbell's is no better (I did scoff @ the Moldy Peaches tho, so props for that moment of controlled chaos, I guess).

That was useful, thanks

Eminem, The Marshall Mathers Album

This made me chuckle (not its inclusion, the way he rendered the title)

Moldy Peaches is pretty lol

that's a v xgau list

pleased to see debarge

Pleased to see Orchestra Baobab, also one of my favorites.

A lot less jazz than I expected on the xgau list. Kala the best album of the century? Really? Guess I’d better finally give it a listen.

It wasn’t ranked in order of preference but I still prefer Xgau’s list to the awful RS 500 list. Aggregates lead to mediocrity.

These things are checklist for newbies. It was for me. Not a bad thing as I kept that issue of RS around for years when I was a teenager in the 80s. I have a hard time thinking that a teenager really gives a flip now. The pop music continuum has been blown up into a million playlist universes. It's just all just old shit now.

Otm

The radio station I had on in the car this morning had a one-minute story on the list, which I suppose counts for something, although it's mostly just the news filling space off the wire (I mean, off their Twitter feed). According to the story, Madonna's not on the list? Surely I misheard.

I did, or they messed up: she's on there three times.

Maybe they were arbitrarily focused on the Top 50 (a la my Zep error above)

For reference, here is Xgau list of A+ records, he picked a different Wussy album! https://www.robertchristgau.com/get_gl.php?g=A%2B

“Wussy” should be disqualified by their name alone. Sorry, fam

I think the lists still have a purpose — mainly, arguments

Yeah, but while we're arguing about Sgt. Pepper's drop or Miseducation's leap, [insert undersung band/genre/album] is receding further and further into oblivion.

Referring to the Top 50 only, yes...I think he picked the right Wussy album, based on the CD-90 I play in the car; think the first four or five songs are from the debut (including "Airborne," still their greatest).

Xgau list is very safe and boring - note: this doesn’t mean it is a bad list - with some notable exceptions: latin playboys, orchestra baobab and Tom Ze.

I don’t know why he just went with that A+ list. It’s miles better imho.

“Why he didn’t just use that” is what I meant... sorry for my bad english.

when i see you smile

lots of people who like Kind of Blue — maybe even own it — unfortunately don't listen to much else when it comes to jazz

which has exactly zero to do with whether its a great record

Never said it wasn't a great record — it is. But there are better jazz albums out there, and how would anyone know that without exploring more. It drives people crazy when Sgt. Pepper or whatever is anointed as the greatest pop record ever as if it's an international consensus. So why accept that consensus so quickly for Kind of Blue when it comes to jazz? Especially, when you consider the fact that jazz musicians have been making records since 1917. Miles has a lot more competition than the Fab Four.

OTM

Tbh, I often feel like lists that do rank Sgt Pepper as the greatest album ever made should take that position to its logical conclusion and liberally sprinkle dense psychedelic and progressive pop throughout the list. Piper at the Gates of Dawn in the top 5, Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack and Freak Out in the top 50 at least, give some props to Procol Harum; some Elephant 6 when you want to keep things more up to date.

Lists that rank Kind of Blue as top jazz album should similarly be packed with meditative modal jazz and minimalism.

Tbf, it does make a kind of sense that pop/rock fans might genuinely prefer modal jazz to swing or bop.

I've listened to lots of jazz albums. KOB is my favorite.

It's not that it isn't a great ablum or shouldn't be some people's favorite album or that "real" jazz people don't like it or that the tunes don't get played all the time at jams sessions and such, it's just that... what is it again?

There's a pressure to, the deeper you get into a genre (or just an artist), not have your favorite(s) be the same as a dilettante's

It's like betting on the favorite.

I've listened to more reggae than 99.5% of humanity. Legend was the 1st reggae "album" I ever heard. I still love nearly every song on it, but it's too polished and shiny for my tastes and wouldn't make my top 10 of reggae albums. Marley wouldn't make my top 10 favorite reggae singers. But I totally understand why people who don't listen to much reggae would pick it and him as #1. Crossover appeal baby! It's great music AND it's more similar to what they already like AND it's more likely to be stumbled upon than, say, Heart of the Congos or On the Beach or 2 7s Clash or Good All Over. I think the frustration comes from a good place: "there's so many other great albums in a genre I love, I wish it was easier for people to stumble across some of them, and a placement in a Rolling Stone list would be a good one for that to happen".

Right, well said. For me it's like why even bother to go to the trouble to put that one on there at all, enough with the charade.

Anyway I am on the downside of the parabola of wanting to see aggregrate lists, the maximum point being around that same Sight and Sound poll Eric mentioned.

Tbc, I have zero problem with KoB on these lists! "Freddie Freeloader" is one of my go-to jam tunes, or was when there were jams. Also, Sgt Pepper is the best pop album.

If anything, I want people to commit more.

i'd honestly kinda love to see piper at the gates of dawn in the top 5

yea, i dont think that 'kind of blue' is the 'legend' of jazz. it's not too polished or shiny; it was a landmark record with a singular sound that at once epitomizes jazz essence and stands apart from it. It makes sense it has a more immediate appeal to people who don't listen to jazz, but it's very much ... jazz, undiluted. jazzbo's argument feels like knowledge flexing or something

its why im frustrated by the low placing for 2pac. .. its reflective of the values of critics and which strands & legacies & traditions of rap they're willing to take seriously and which ones they downplay or minimize ... kind of blue is an album w that kind of representative power imo while also being extremely listenable

Maybe it's just too pretty for some jazz heads idk. Or doesn't fulfill the "challenging" requirement that some ppl love jazz for.

My sense is once Parker and bebop arrived, jazz heads were skeptical of anything that the public at large liked and was pleasant to listen to

I said well daddy don't you know that things go in cycles
Way that Bobby Brown is just ampin like Michael

LOL, reminds me of something a bartender at the Green Mill once said about listeners who treated jazz like "egghead" music: "there's nothing wrong with TUNES."

Shirley Collins to thread!

I have no problem with Kind of Blue topping any jazz list. So what if it certain listeners gulp it down like easy-listening? The Searchers and Vertigo were potboilers to some. They can all function on that level, but that's more on the audience's failure to see or listen beyond the surface.

yea its a pretty ~profound~ listen frankly idk why rock music is allowed to be profound and accessible but jazz has to be a walled garden to be good

It doesn't. No one said this. Jazzbo only said it wasn't his number one and you lot are accusing him of gatekeeper snobbery obscurantism.