RS Top 500

Didn't know if this was worth a new thread so putting it here. Noticed that RollingStone put up a revised top 500 to reflect the 00s more than the previous top 500. Not a whole lot of changes at the top. Noticed that both The Bends and Kid A were rated higher than OK Computer; I wouldn't think that was the consensus. Also noticed Elvis' The Sun Sessions is now in the top 11.

Anyway, here's the link: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-20120531

Thumbed through this at cvs the other night; the first Arcade Fire album is just inside the top 150.

Actually I tell a lie: it's in @#151.

Oh, so this is its own issue then? I thought it was just some online exclusive.

And because I'm bored to tears, I give you the top ten albums from 2000-2010, according to the new RS 500 list:

Radiohead - Kid A @ 67
Kanye West - Late Registration @ 118
Arcade Fire - Funeral @ 151
The Strokes - Is This It @ 199
Bob Dylan - Modern Times @ 204
Green Day - American Idiot @ 225
Eminem - Marshall Mathers LP @ 244
Jay Z - The Blueprint @ 252
Eminem - The Slim Shady LP @ 275
U2 - All That You Can't Leave Behind @ 280

so what are the major differences between this and 2003/2004 list?

American Idiot? You have got to be kidding me.

I think they re-voted and included 2003-2010 releases. I'm kind of skeptical though. Is there really that many people who think Sgt Pepper is the greatest rock album ever in 2012? I'm fine with the Beatles landing the top spot for various reasons, but that album would seem to be more polarizing.

You missed that Peter Wolf album from 2002 that snuck in the bottom fifty in the old list and somehow (cough, Jann, cough) stuck around.

They claim now that the list was made by working some math magic via combining the old results with the ballots from their "Best of The 2000s" poll.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-songs-of-all-time-1224767/

new top 500 songs list, significantly improved on representation of black artists but still a deeply goofy list in typical rs fashion. "royals" at 30 lmao & did the elton john biopic drastically inflate his critical standing or something?

lmao "dynamite" made it there surely can't be anything more embarrassing than that

most 'lol modern rolling stone' pick is harry styles though

I both get the urge to ensure the last ~10-15 years has representation in the top 100 and think it's completely ludicrous that these songs have enough consensus among the RS staff that they're as good as any song ever written.

gtfo with royals

it's especially a problem bc their taste really nosedives across the last two decades, before that it's all very canonical obviously & not that interesting. when it gets more distinctively modern rolling stone and they start throwing in harry styles and "fix you" of all coldplay songs and "dynamite" as the worst possible token pick etc. it's very strange

and even "dancing on my own" is decent but nowhere near as good as this list says it is

"why is the rolling stone website so broken" - a question i have been asking for most of my life

most 'lol modern rolling stone' pick is harry styles though

Yep. Enough already, Rob Sheffield!

I've only got a glancing familiarity with the more recent stuff, so can't judge, but looking at the top 25, it's pleasing that "Waterloo Sunset" came ahead of "Bohemian Rhapsody", despite the fact that there was no terrible recent biopic called Waterloo Sunset.
This list and last year's album list show they've really changed their method from the old "here's your recent favourite at number 495, now be quiet" process.

He finally stopped playing “Teen Spirit” for good — taking his own life on April 5th, 1994.

oof

Waiting for this list to load on my phone makes me want quit the internet. Wtf is embedded in this page?

xp wtf

"royals" at 30 lmao

loooool

"So What" coming in at 492 is pretty funny.

He finally stopped playing “Teen Spirit” for good

It reads better if you imagine George Jones reciting that.

daddy yankee's "gasolina" coming in at #50 is fantastic, justifies the whole thing

"get ur freak on" in the top ten is like. . . i mean, this is a joke, right?

should be higher, true

Do people really still think "Runaway" is Kanye's best song?

did the elton john biopic drastically inflate his critical standing or something?

"Tiny Dancer" is significantly higher than any Elton John song on the 2004 list, but he has fewer songs overall.

ELTON JOHN ⬇️

2004
136. Your Song
242. Rocket Man
347. Candle in the Wind
380. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
387. Tiny Dancer

2021
47. Tiny Dancer
149. Rocket Man
202. Your Song
371. Bennie and the Jets

— John M. Cunningham (@jmcunning) September 15, 2021

The Who's stock seems to have fallen pretty far. Or farther.

Grande released “Thank U, Next” a little more than a year after her concert in Manchester, England, came under attack

It was 18 months later... NBD, I guess, but why fudge the timeline? (It reads like they wanted to write about "No Tears Left to Cry," but it didn't make the list.)

Surprised Schubert didn't make it. So many canonical songs.

“ave maria” ffs

lolz imagining JYP forcing ITZY and TWICE to sit in a room and make them rank Steely Dan and Fleetwood Mac songs pic.twitter.com/CtBWdvVrKH

— Patrick St. Michel (@mbmelodies) September 16, 2021

also why the hell is the voters list presented so terribly

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/500-greatest-songs-voters-list-1225358/

“ave maria” ffs

srsly

Strictly speaking, they have ranked recordings of songs rather than songs themselves.

Fischer-Dieskau robbed

They sort of seem to think they ranked “albums”:

Voters were asked to submit ranked ballots listing their 50 favorite songs of all time. Votes were tabulated, with the highest-ranked album on each list receiving 300 points, the second highest 290 points, and so on down to 44 points for number 50. More than 4,000 albums received at least one vote.

A text search reveals that those words are just left over from last year's album poll. I wouldn't want Rolling Stone to try too hard to correct the boilerplate text from an article published 12 months ago, that kind of fussy attention to detail is what killed rock music.

Bob Dylan: From 12 songs to 7, and tumbled from the #1 spot. The new list is the better one.

they should've just published Greg Dulli's list

Sadly, they seem to have removed that wonderful sentence from the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” blurb (I’ve seen ppl clowning on it, with screenshots, so Twitter has proof it existed).

Are the individual ballots available somewhere?

I love seeing the writing credits for these songs. Had no idea "Flava In Ya Ear" incorporated a Carpenters sample. (At least, I assume it does, given the Paul Williams/Roger Nichols credit.)

As is usually the case with critics "all-time" polls, you can see the stratification by different levels of popularity in the more recent material vs the older material. More recent songs predominantly come from the "semi-popular" strata where most critical darlings reside, whereas older songs have more of a barbell distribution of very popular stuff and very obscure stuff. Over time people's antipathy to the most recent very popular songs (whether due the taint of association with their current fanbase or simply overexposure) will fade and the cream of the mega-popular songs will receive their critical due. Likewise over time, some obscure tracks from today that prove influential or ahead of their time will become more widely known and appreciated. But as of right now, the fanbase of these songs is too small and splintered to place them in a poll of this type.

How dare you not poll this: 50 Best Songs of All Time According to Rolling Stone's BRAND NEW, 100% Revamped Top 500

Sadly, they seem to have removed that wonderful sentence from the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” blurb (I’ve seen ppl clowning on it, with screenshots, so Twitter has proof it existed).

It's in the 2004 blurb also. Many of these blurbs seem to be edits of the older ones.

Wait, what is that exactly?

what the fuck pic.twitter.com/mge9t057y2

— bring on the dancing horses (@inthefade) September 15, 2021