Top 500 Albums of All Time
by Rolling Stone (2012)

From babyBlueSedan TOP 100 COMMENTER 01/08/2014 06:18 | #100203

Yes, there are too many compilations. Yes, it's too biased towards older artists. And yes, there's too much Beatles, Dylan, Zeppelin, and Stones. But as a starting point for music, this is the place to go. Don't go to NME, don't go to Pitchfork, go here. Because if I've never heard a single piece of music before, do I want to hear albums from the last few decades or albums that influenced all those albums? Probably the latter. I don't think Rolling Stone intends its list to be a place to find obscure albums - it intends to be a document of music that has been defined as the "best" by both critics and the public alike.

That said, it does fail to give suggestions for someone well versed in the classics. But is a "greatest" list supposed to do that? Shouldn't a "greatest" list feature primarily albums that everyone knows. Sure post-rock and slowcore and ambient music might be technically better or more emotionally challenging or whatever, but a "greatest" list from a major publication that is read by rock and pop lovers isn't going to feature such dangerous picks. Doing so means it loses its credibility as a "greatest" list. No matter how great some ambient post-metal concept album by an all-female band from Bhutan is, if an album isn't known by a majority of music critics, it shouldn't be on a major publication's "greatest" list. It can certainly be on an individual person's "favorites" list, but not on a major magaizine's.

Lastly, I feel compelled to point out something about this list based on comments about a lack of variety. Rolling Stone's top hip-hop album is at number 48 (Public Enemy), about 50 spots higher than BEA's. Rolling Stone's top album by a non-white artist is at number 6 (What's Going On). BEA's is at 29 (although two thirds of the Jimi Hendrix Experience was white - the first completely non-white album is Kind of Blue at 45). There are 8 albums featuring non-white artists in Rolling Stone's list before the first on BEA's. The first album featuring a woman is the Velvet Underground and Nico on both lists (12 and 13), but the first album featuring a primarily female artist on BEA is Blue, outside the top 100 (to be complete, Dummy is in the 90s). Rolling Stone has 6 albums by female artists in the top 100 (and Plastic Ono Band, wasn't sure whether to include that or not). I'm not saying Rolling Stone's list is better (I like BEA's way more, that's why I'm here), but you can't fault them for being two "samey" or too stuck in the past when their list is actually pretty diverse comparitively.

Although it's still very English-centric, but again, as a list of "popular" albums...

I do not care for a lot of the comments about the obviously dated taste of the RS editors. Great music ages well. But I do object the inclusion of so many Best-Of albums. They do diminish the true legacy of great artists, and they have no business being on an BEA list.

From 9999 TOP 100 COMMENTER 04/08/2015 16:16 | #139106

Where are the Beatles? They forgot the Beatles!

From Mercury TOP 100 COMMENTER 03/08/2013 22:21 | #67471

This list was really important to me when I first started listening to albums when I was 14, 15 years old. Now it still holds a certain special place in my heart. Buuuut now that I look at it newly I see there are some stupid greatest hits rated way to high. It's like RS really felt they needed to pay dues to essentially singles artists from the 50s and early 60s so they included greatest hits records by Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry etc very high. Those musicians are amazing and deserve huge amounts of respect, but as far as albums go they are lacking. Inclusion of these greater hits records is a bit forced. Otherwise, yes the list is pretty conservative. But what else can you expect from RS? It's still an okay list. London Calling at #8 I was happy about. And I personally think Dylan is the GOAT so I love that he is well represented here.

It's not a bad lists, but I feel like their shouldn't be so many compilation albums as they aren't actual albums; they're just a collection of songs taken from the artist's previous albums. There's also a few weird choices when it comes to the placement of these albums, like putting Led Zeppelin's debut album before Led Zeppelin 2 & 4. There's also a surprising lack of albums by David Bowie & there's very little diversity in terms of genre. Something else I've noticed is that there's very few albums on this list that weren't released in the years between the 60's and 70's. While that's understandable as the 60's & 70's were easily the best years for music, there's only about 15 albums from the 80's, 90's, & 2000's, and a lot of those are compilation albums.