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

Link:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-albums-of-all-time-1062063/

kind of blue too low

great new no. 1 though

No Pink Floyd in the top 50 is just criminal imo.

astral weeks got crowded out of the top 50 which is just too much imo

Last-minute decision to punish Van's covidiocy iirc.

think i'm gonna vote for voodoo, which is prob the most daring and correct new addition here

What a crock of shit this is. Complete with the obligatory jazz album — Kind of Blue of course. What's Going On isn't even the best Marvin Gaye album.

pvmic

the best marvin gaye album is i want you but that's not the point of a list like this. what's going on has an aura bigger than the music contained on it (and that music itself has a pretty massive aura, it's one of the most dense and colorful listening experiences around)

kind of blue is perfect, it should always be on a list like this, i don't particular care that it's the token jazz record, god knows it earned it

Always interested to see how recent albums get integrated into the canon.

Here are the 2010s albums in the top 500 (could be an interesting poll on its own):

491. Harry Styles, 'Fine Line' (2019)
484. Lady Gaga, 'Born This Way' (2011)
480. Miranda Lambert, 'Weight of These Wings' (2016)
472. SZA, 'Ctrl' (2017)
460. Lorde, 'Melodrama' (2017)
459. Kid Cudi, 'Man on the Moon: The End of the Day' (2019)
458. Jason Isbell, 'Southeastern' (2013)
447. Bad Bunny, 'X 100pre' (2018)
442. The Weeknd, 'Beauty Behind the Madness' (2015)
419. Eric Church, 'Chief' (2011)
397. Billie Eilish, 'When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?' (2019)
395. D’Angelo and the Vanguard, 'Black Messiah' (2014)
393. Taylor Swift, '1989' (2014)
382. Tame Impala, 'Currents' (2015)
367. Drake, 'If You're Reading This It's Too Late' (2015)
346. Arctic Monkeys, 'AM' (2013)
328. Vampire Weekend, 'Modern Vampires of the City' (2013)
321. Lana Del Rey, 'Norman Fucking Rockwell!’ (2019)
315. Rosalía, 'El Mal Querer' (2018)
312. Solange, 'A Seat at the Table' (2016)
295. Daft Punk, 'Random Access Memories' (2013)
270. Kacey Musgraves, 'Golden Hour' (2018)
269. Kanye West, 'Yeezus' (2013)
230. Rihanna, 'Anti' (2016)
213. Fiona Apple, 'The Idler Wheel' (2013)
196. Robyn, 'Body Talk' (2010)
175. Kendrick Lamar, 'DAMN.' (2017)
148. Frank Ocean, 'Channel Orange' (2012)
137. Adele, '21' (2011)
115. Kendrick Lamar, 'good kid, m.A.A.d city' (2012)
99. Taylor Swift, 'Red' (2012)
95. Drake, 'Take Care' (2011)
81. Beyoncé, 'Beyoncé' (2013)
79. Frank Ocean, 'Blonde' (2016)
32. Beyoncé, 'Lemonade' (2016)
19. Kendrick Lamar, 'To Pimp a Butterfly' (2015)
17. Kanye West, 'My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy' (2010)

lol at putting a greatest hits album in yr top 50

Ranking Voodoo that high and Black Messiah that low is just o_O (full disclosure: I love both, but prefer the latter).

feeling like maybe in 20 years anti will be in the top 50

voting for kanye

in the presidential election, not this poll

xxp RS pointed out that The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill jumped from #312 (on the 2003 list) to #10.

Is there a way to view the whole list on one page?

kind of blue is perfect, it should always be on a list like this, i don't particular care that it's the token jazz record, god knows it earned it

This is exactly why I hate seeing it on these lists, again and again. It's so predictable and yes, a token choice. This is Rolling Stone. Just be honest and make a list of pop and rock, and don't pretend you also listen to jazz because you have Kind of Blue or Time Out in your collection. Kind of Blue is great, but it wouldn't even make my Top 30 of greatest jazz albums. Bitches Brew had a much bigger impact on rock and funk, anyway.

Honestly, this is about as OTM a top 10 as I've ever seen from them, given all the forces at work.

Even tho it should be Innervisions at #4 instead of SitKoL.

Confessions from a listoholic ... the amount of pleasure this re-ranking gives me matching up with how fulfilled the 2012 version of the Sight and Sound list of top movies did kind of confirms to me that I've reached the peak age where those controlling the canon are in line with my own tastes, and it's probably only downhill from here.

xpost Feel like if it was actually called SitKoL we would have entered a soul/prog new age decades ago.

If we stick to the top 10, I don't care for nos. 2-4 at all. So far, the RYM list best matches my own preferences by a significant margin.

I'm guessing Sheffield threatened to quit if they didn't put a Harry Styles record in the top 500.

I did my best to diversify the proceedings.

My pick Gaye was In Our Lifetime fwiw

I've reached the peak age where those controlling the canon are in line with my own tastes, and it's probably only downhill from here

*new list is released in twenty years' time*

"What the--?"

"Well after the combination of the virus that took out the algorithms and the actual virus that took out the programmers of the algorithms the only song anyone could remember was "Old Town Road.""

No Chuck Berry or James Brown in the Top 50. But Kanye's at #17.

This is Rolling Stone. Just be honest and make a list of pop and rock, and don't pretend you also listen to jazz because you have Kind of Blue or Time Out in your collection. Kind of Blue is great, but it wouldn't even make my Top 30 of greatest jazz albums. Bitches Brew had a much bigger impact on rock and funk, anyway.

Fuck this actual list, but to be fair, RS currently has Hank Shteamer on staff and he might be the most jazz-knowledgeable editor they've ever had. He knows his shit, for real. I agree that RS-the-institution is not a jazz-friendly zone by any measurement, but he's done a lot to change that since he's been there. I mean, they interviewed Anthony Braxton last year!

jazzbotm

also pet sounds is fine but enough already

I Want You > In Our Lifetime > What's Going On > Here My Dear > Let's Get It On

I rolled my eyes at seeing What's Going On in the top ten, let alone first place, groaned when I saw Ziggy Stardust as highest-ranking Bowie (what, is this STILL 1987?); but the shock was Lauryn Hill. The euphoria waned quickly after 1999, deservedly.

I rolled my eyes at seeing What's Going On in the top ten

???? why

also pet sounds is fine but enough already

The distressingly cloying melody lobby has yet to be dismantled.

Kind of Blue is great, but it wouldn't even make my Top 30 of greatest jazz albums

see this kind of holier-than-thou taste calculus is my least favorite part of digesting lists like these. kind of blue, a perfect record, wouldn't make your top 30 greatest jazz albums? damn u r an original

Brad otm. I wouldn't omit Beethoven's 9th from a top 30 classical compositions of all time list just for the hepcat cred.

Oooooooh, Sgt. Pepper took a drubbing!

my biggest o_O is amy winehouse slotting in ahead of all the albums she ripped off was inspired by

it’s rolling stone, that the beatles don’t even appear until no. 5 is genuinely incredibly to me

incredible*

???? why

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson),

Not my favorite Gaye by any stretch, and it's made every one of their lists.

I don't know why but there's something about this 'aging boomer Googles info on acclaimed albums from the last three decades of popular music and hastily inserts new entries he probably hasn't actually listened to in their entirety/at all' list that's more depressing than the original.

There is no rational reason for that Kanye album scoring above every single Kendrick album. Even at its release, half of it was a mess.

(shouts to nephew in the other room) 'Hey Skyler, do the kids still like that Eminem album?'

It's a sign of RS's p4k-ification.

xp

groaned when I saw Ziggy Stardust as highest-ranking Bowie (what, is this STILL 1987?); but the shock was Lauryn Hill. The euphoria waned quickly after 1999, deservedly.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, September 22, 2020 11:44 AM (three minutes ago)

Yeah, Miseducation as the best hip-hop album of all time is p bizarre. I like Ziggy and think it's slid into being underrated at this point (at least on ILM), but it is weird to see the artifacts of canons past still clinging on, especially, for me, Legend.

Also Graceland but nothing from the entire continent of Africa (or Brazil, or etc.) is ew gross, though I didn't bother looking at the full list

see this kind of holier-than-thou taste calculus is my least favorite part of digesting lists like these. kind of blue, a perfect record, wouldn't make your top 30 greatest jazz albums? damn u r an original

I'm holier than thou because I happen to love and listen to a lot of jazz? Does the same apply for anyone who loves and listens to a lot of rock/pop, and perhaps doesn't think Sgt. Pepper is one of the top 30 albums? Kind of Blue is maybe fifth or sixth on my list of favorite Miles Davis albums. He released many brilliant albums including Jack Johnson, Bitches Brew, In a Silent Way, Sketches of Spain, Porgy and Bess, Miles Ahead, Cookin', Relaxin; and many more. KoB became a big hit partly because it was so easy to listen to, and it sounded cool in the background. Some of his other major works are more challenging and rewarding, I think.

It's a sign of RS's p4k-ification.

xp

― sock solipsist (pomenitul), Tuesday, September 22, 2020 11:59 AM (one minute ago)

eh, isn't it more that the fundamentally rockist trope of the singular, often troubled artist-genius is crucial to what RS is? see also Lauryn Hill for that matter

porquenolosdos.gif

voted Songs In The Key Of Life today cuz I have really been feeling that one lately

i'm sorry, is that person's last name white???? absolutely DISGUSTING, check your privilege.

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hi, yes. hello. this post is satirical. thx for reading, i love you.

keep Austin weird

love you, mo.☮

Support live music in Austin.

I considered that Kid A wouldn't have made top 20 if it were released in 1999, and they snuck it in so they could have something representing that decade. Its release was certainly an event though, one that may have felt more tangible to the voters than OKC's slow ascent.

The Bends is the album that won them actual permanent listeners, showed the MTV crowd that they weren't just the "Creep" band, and could write lots of quality pop songs (singles like "Just", "High and Dry", "Fake Plastic Trees", et al). OK Computer I think is the album that made fans diehard 'Head heads. dropping a weird 7 minute song with a quirky video as the lead single, expanding the sonic palette, and then "Karma Police" being omnipresent for a bit after it got released as a single. It definitely didn't retain everybody that joined with The Bends (my stupid local paper gave OKC a shit review and couldn't believe they "stooped so low" as to add "electronic music influence"), but probably expanded the base from fans of proggier, less immediate stuff.

I do also remember Kid A being a huge event. A small amount of it was hyperbole regarding how different the album was going to be, overplaying the "experimental" nature of the album (tbh I don't think "experimental" even is an accurate term for it - they really just added additional genres into their mix). I think I had an early table-waiting shift the next morning but I gave up the sleep to make a 90 minute round trip to buy it at midnight, and listen to it once before bed. I do miss those days.

think I played it and went on DALnet the next day to harass people who said negative things about it.

ad-rock treated the list with the seriousness it deserved: https://uproxx.com/music/beastie-boys-ad-rock-fake-albums-rolling-stone/

ultimate spinach in the top ten. nice.

Lol

Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

40. Khia — Thug Misses

ikr, way too low

Everyone's favorite movie critic weighs in

a hundred million billion trillion monkeys typing for a hundred million billion trillion years would come up with the complete works of shakespeare *and* the complete scripts of anthony fantano before they came up with a string of 12 words as perfectly on brand as "a masterful blend of harmoniousness, the thing that the angry Left forbids." i am in awe.

Hedging and throwing my vote to Songs in the Key of Life.

Ramones

"Pastime Paradise" rules.

that album side: i wish, knocks me off my feet, pastime paradise, summer soft, ordinary pain. i could write books about that album side. if i could write symphonies, i could write symphonies about that album side. if i had any idea what string theory is, i could probably explain string theory based on that album side. etc.

that album side: i wish, knocks me off my feet, pastime paradise, summer soft, ordinary pain. i could write books about that album side. if i could write symphonies, i could write symphonies about that album side. if i had any idea what string theory is, i could probably explain string theory based on that album side. etc.

(i can even double post about that album side!)

i love "Knocks Me Off My Feet". it's just an immaculate transition from that verse to that chorus.

"Ordinary Pain" also awesome. it's just funny that i heard the album so late that after the first side I was sitting htere counting how many hip hop songs had jacked beats from/interpolated songs from that album

an immaculate transition from that verse to that chorus

yes

i used to sing that at karaoke night but only if I was a little tipsy cos the high note would only be there then

remember fifteen years ago when we were all hating on this list

that list of 2010s albums jaymc posted on 9/22 bugs me.

not the albums themselves; there are lots of good ones on there

but am i crazy for wishing RS could at least squeeze a couple of smaller artists in there?

smallest artists on that list are, who, Rosalia and Isbell? both of whom are pretty big!

are we to believe that out of the 40ish best albums of the 2010s, not a single one was made by an artist who plays venues with capacities under 1,000?

i realize this is a niche thing, i just hate that, idk, like The Beths (just as an example) basically have no shot at being on this list.

No “Light Up Gold,” no credibility.

literally all I'd have wished for in an updated RS list is for Pet Sounds to drop 20 places, but here we are

Haha, this was the thread that sparked the Xenakis listening project.

I voted for Kind of Blue in the end, btw.

but am i crazy for wishing RS could at least squeeze a couple of smaller artists in there?

RS didn't game the results, 500 some odd people voted

I fell in love with songs in the key of life around the same age as my uncle did, i remember my grandmother telling me how she knew the album by heart because he played it all the freakin time when he was around 14

xpost alright, fine ... ppl like popular artists, turns out

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Don’t forget to vote in this historical poll that will determine the fate of ILM’s Tacit Canon for the next twenty years.

Screw the canon revisionists - I'm voting Sgt Peppers.

Could have been my choice on another day

I surprised myself and went with VU & Nico.

Couldn’t choose between VU, Ramones, or T Heads, so went for Miles.

I voted for the VU too. Exile would be second for me...bold picks!

Pretty sure I voted for Nation of Millions, obviously, but as the years go by I think the first Ramones LP might be overtaking it

NYC bias makes me wonder about whether other people more or less unconsciously voted based on geographical proximity.

I voted for Nation of Millions. I was 16 when it came out and I can't even describe how hard it hit me. I listened to that record basically every day that summer, and through most of my junior year of high school. Saw them live that year, too, with Stetsasonic, EPMD and Big Daddy Kane opening. What a time to be alive, as old people say.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I prefer the original order tbh.

I can't object to any of the albums with 0 votes.

I object to 2 of the 3 that won.

Great three-way tie!

Putting To Pimp a Butterfly over The Chronic, Low End Theory, Enter the Wu-Tang and Illmatic is such a hilarious decision

1. Marvin Gaye, 'What's Going On' 0

Take that, Rolling Stone.

Butterfly not even my favorite Kendrick album lol

ilm list is an improvement. 5 votes for Ramones as GOAT was the biggest surprise.

the write-in vote for Bathtub Shitter was surprising