rolling stone's 500 greatest albums of all time

Hotel California is reasonably solid in an Eagles way and contains two other big hits. Wouldn't be near my top 50 albums though, except maybe if I had to pick 50 mainstream rock albums from the 70s.

In the same vein here's another RS Top 500 list... their Worst Reviews of All Time! Sharing because I find it quite insightful considering the platform (RYM) and lack of a known name (who exactly is schmidtt, anyone know?). At first it looks like he's just picking beefs with reviews he thinks they got wrong, but his broad thesis that star ratings are dictated by Wenner and $$$ soon becomes apparent. The argument won't be novel to anyone on this board, but this contains a lot of value being a case-by-case study. IMO it's a worthwhile read for anyone interested in "criticism of criticism"... not your typical RYM list. Sorry if it's been shared already.

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/schmidtt/rolling_stones_500_worst_reviews_of_all_time__work_in_progress_/1/

Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967)

Rating: Mixed
"The record as a whole is another matter - I don't think I could ever tolerate all of it. There are three brilliant songs, one good one, three qualified bummers, and three are the flaming shits." (Arthur Schmidt, 3/9/68 Review)

The Beatles
Abbey Road (1969)

"...Side two is a disaster...The slump begins with "Because," which is a rather nothing song...the biggest bomb on the album is "Sun King," which overflows with sixth and ninth chords and finally degenerates into a Muzak-sounding thing with Italian lyrics. It is probably the worst thing the Beatles have done since they changed drummers. This leads into the "Suite" which finishes up the side. There are six little songs, each slightly under two minutes long, all of which are so heavily overproduced that they are hard to listen to..."

Neil Young
After the Gold Rush (1970)

Rating: Unfavorable
"Neil Young devotees will probably spend the next few weeks trying desperately to convince themselves that After The Gold Rush is good music. But they'll be kidding themselves. For despite the fact that the album contains some potentially first rate material, none of the songs here rise above the uniformly dull surface. In my listening, the problem appears to be that most of this music was simply not ready to be recorded at the time of the sessions. It needed time to mature. On the album the band never really gets behind the songs and Young himself has trouble singing many of them...The song "After The Gold Rush," for instance, reminds one of nothing so much as Mrs. Miller moaning and wheezing her way through "I'm A Lonely Little Petunia In An Onion Patch." Apparently no one bothered to tell Neil Young that he was singing a half octave above his highest acceptable range. At that point his pathos becomes an irritating bathos. I can't listen to it at all." (Langdon Winner, 10/15/70 Review)

I'm glad I wasn't around when those reviews had any relevance

Oh and it all goes downhill from there... if anyone's skeptical of the list being simply picking on a glorified zine, I suggest skipping to the late-90s/early-00s, where the "reappraisals" based on sales really get into their prime... if you're enthralled by the Hootie/DeRo (ptew) story, here it is again, album by album, from an outsider's view.

No idea why I just subjected myself to this little 'break' but here are the Top 40 albums I Don't Really Like (All That Much) based on the revised 2012 edition of this list, from their #1 upwards (reordering them would take too long):

1. The Beatles, 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'
2. The Beach Boys, 'Pet Sounds'
3. Elvis Presley, 'The Sun Sessions'
4. Bob Dylan, 'Blood on the Tracks'
5. Bruce Springsteen, 'Born to Run'
6. Michael Jackson, 'Thriller'
7. John Lennon, 'Plastic Ono Band'
8. Stevie Wonder, 'Innervisons'
9. U2, 'The Joshua Tree'
10. The Who, 'Who's Next'
11. Joni Mitchell, 'Blue'
12. Ramones, 'Ramones'
13. The Band, 'Music From Big Pink'
14. David Bowie, 'The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars'
15. Carole King, 'Tapestry'
16. The Beatles, 'Please Please Me'
17. The Sex Pistols, 'Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols'
18. The Band, 'The Band'
19. Public Enemy, 'It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back'
20. Al Green, 'Greatest Hits'
21. The Beatles, 'Meet the Beatles!'
22. Elvis Presley, 'Elvis Presley'
23. Stevie Wonder, 'Songs in the Key of Life'
24. Guns N' Roses, 'Appetite for Destruction'
25. Phil Spector, 'Back to Mono (1958-1969)'
26. Michael Jackson, 'Off the Wall'
27. Billy Joel, 'The Stranger'
28. AC/DC, 'Back in Black'
29. John Lennon, 'Imagine'
30. Bruce Springsteen, 'Born in the U.S.A.'
31. Dusty Springfield, 'Dusty in Memphis'
32. Stevie Wonder, 'Talking Book'
33. Elton John, 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road'
34. The Who, 'Tommy'
35. Bob Dylan, 'The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan'
36. Elvis Costello, 'This Year's Model'
37. James Taylor, 'Sweet Baby James'
38. Ramones, 'Rocket to Russia'
39. David Bowie, 'Hunky Dory'
40. Derek and the Dominos, 'Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs'

...which takes us to #117. Could be better, could be worse. I also skipped a dozen albums I have yet to hear.

Here's a more browser-friendly link to the full list:

https://musicbrainz.org/series/8668518f-4a1e-4802-8b0d-81703ced6418

what you got against stevie?

Too smooth, too cheerful.

when i saw this thread come up i wondered if they revamped their list again like they did in 2012... after all, it's only a matter of time before they re-do it and Frank Ocean's Blonde cracks the top 200 or something

Pet Sounds?! Blood on the Tracks?! Innervisions?! Blue?! Ramones?! Tapestry?! Please Please Me?! It Takes A Nation?! Songs in the Key of Life?! Dusty in Memphis?! Talking Book?! This Year's Model?! Rocket to Russia?! Hunky Dory?!

your silence speaks volumes, pomenitul

The Stevie reasoning is weird, but whatever. I can, if I really stretch my brain, find a reason someone could conceivably dislike most of these, but

20. Al Green, 'Greatest Hits'

How is this possible?

and again, no answer. pomenitul offers ZERO defense. there is none.

I don’t rate him very highly as a singer and I find his songs kind of bland, there’s never any edge to them.

Anyway, be the challlop you want to see in the world and attempt this little experiment yourself.

Btw I don’t hate any of these albums (well, almost), I just enjoy them way less than I ‘should’.

i was jk, sorry! sometimes i get way too committed to the character. i appreciate these challops. though some of them are incredibly gutsy

No, please, do go on, we’ve all got our little part to play!

and I was just, uh, confirming your choices

when I look at the entire RS list my mind glazes over and I no longer like anything

Wait, you don’t like Elvis? Is it physically possible to not like Elvis?

i like a lot of these albums but there is something depressing about seeing the exact same titles lined up over and over again. i mean, i love pet sounds, i have plenty of fond personal memories attached to specific songs on that album, i even love the goofy cover photo, but i'm not sure we're doing it any favors by sticking it at the top of every damn list, yknow?

pomenitul's hatelist is somehow worse than RS's list...

Don’t knock it till you try it! (Sort of.)

it's ok to dislike things and pom dislikes singers

Only some singers, thank you very much.

I refuse to believe that the majority of us genuinely enjoy almost every single album on that list up until, say, #200.

Besides, you also need to consider the 80-odd titles I do like.

Tbf, you made a point of listing the ones you don't.:P

😈

I think in the top 100 the only albums I don’t like at all are the Guns n Roses and the Sex Pistols ones.

Van Morrison and U2 albums in the top 100 I don’t hate but don’t really understand the appeal either. They seem highly overrated to me.

Astral Weeks is all-time and always will be imo, Moondance is pretty good too. The rest I can do without.

Anyway, you clearly have a bone to pick with the Irish.

wow that is an awful lot of rong+facepalm+wtf in a 2-line post xp

people not liking stuff is fine, picking Moondance and Astral Weeks as better than any of the list of unapproved LPs above is... looking for a nice word than "wrong" here.

Everyone who disses my list without submitting to the crucible is RONG by default.

Hey I specified I don’t hate the u2 and Van Morrison albums. I even like some of the songs in there.

The only ones I can’t stand from there are GnR and Sex Pistols

Honestly knowing myself only hating 2 out of 100 albums is a pretty good ratio.

Yeah but do you *really* enjoy all 98 of those? Like I said upthread, of the 40 I listed, I only really hate maybe about 5 tops, it's more a matter of feeling like I don't quite get everything there is to get in most of those instances.

I mean at this point of my life I probably would only listen and rate highly around 10 out of 100 albums in there. The rest are overplayed beyond meaning now or I can see why they’re considered important but don’t really vibe with them.

I guess I wasn’t sufficiently forthcoming about my criteria. Most of the albums I didn’t list are those I’d be happy to hear again.

Maybe a POX albums would be better then.

As in the 10 albums you'd retain out of the 500?

Top 100, but yeah top 500 works too but it’s probably harder to pick only 10 out of 500.

If we're sticking to the top 100, I guess I'd go with:

The Doors – The Doors
The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Are You Experienced?
Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin IV
Miles Davis – Kind of Blue
Pink Floyd – Dark Side of the Moon
Radiohead – Kid A
The Rolling Stones – Exile on Main St.
Sly & The Family Stone – There's a Riot Goin' On
Van Morrison – Astral Weeks
The Velvet Underground & Nico – The Velvet Underground & Nico

No more than one album per act.

And I can't believe there's no Black Sabbath at all in their top 100, smh.

Kid A is not in the top 100?

Sticking to the top 100 this would be my pox

#35 David Bowie
#58 Captain Beefheart
#69 Curtis Mayfield
#75 Led Zep
#80 Zombies
#82 Jimi Hendrix
#89 Dusty Springfield
#95 Creedence
#99 Sly & the Family
#100 Frank Sinatra

It is, somewhat unexpectedly (at #67). Yet OK Computer is not.

xp

Mayfield, Creedence and Zombies would def make my POXX.

Huh? I got Billy Joel at 67 and Kid A at 428. But I am looking at the list on the opening post. I guess it got updated.

Yep, I've been working with the revised 2012 edition:

https://musicbrainz.org/series/8668518f-4a1e-4802-8b0d-81703ced6418