Top 500 Albums of All Time by Rolling Stone (2012) 
Rolling Stone is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California. These are their best albums of all time. Rolling Stone is an American magazine devoted to music and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco in 1967. In 2003, Rolling Stone published an article describing what it considered to be the top 500 music albums of all time. In 2012, this list was updated and released in book form.
(Official website: https://www.rollingstone.com)
There are 133 comments for this chart from BestEverAlbums.com members and Top 500 Albums of All Time has an average rating of 70 out of 100 (from 325 votes). Please log in or register to leave a comment or assign a rating.
There is a more recent chart by Rolling Stone in which rank scores have been awarded - The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time by Rolling Stone (2020) .
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Top 500 Albums of All Time composition
Decade | Albums | % | |
---|---|---|---|
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1930s | 0 | 0% | |
1940s | 0 | 0% | |
1950s | 3 | 3% | |
1960s | 35 | 35% | |
1970s | 43 | 43% | |
1980s | 11 | 11% | |
1990s | 6 | 6% | |
2000s | 2 | 2% | |
2010s | 0 | 0% | |
2020s | 0 | 0% |
Artist | Albums | % | |
---|---|---|---|
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The Beatles | 7 | 7% | |
Bob Dylan | 5 | 5% | |
The Rolling Stones | 4 | 4% | |
Led Zeppelin | 4 | 4% | |
Stevie Wonder | 3 | 3% | |
The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 3 | 3% | |
Aretha Franklin | 2 | 2% | |
Show all |
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Top 500 Albums of All Time similarity to your chart(s)
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Other all time overall charts
Other charts by Rolling Stone
Year charts
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The 100 Best Albums of 2024 | Rolling Stone | 2024 year chart | 2024 | ![]() |
The 100 Best Albums of 2023 | Rolling Stone | 2023 year chart | 2023 | ![]() |
Top 100 Music Albums of 2022 | Rolling Stone | 2022 year chart | 2022 | ![]() |
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The 50 Best Albums of 2020 | Rolling Stone | 2020 year chart | 2020 | ![]() |
50 Best Albums of 2019 | Rolling Stone | 2019 year chart | 2019 | ![]() |
50 Best Albums of 2018 | Rolling Stone | 2018 year chart | 2018 | ![]() |
50 Best Albums of 2017 | Rolling Stone | 2017 year chart | 2017 | ![]() |
50 Best Albums of 2016 | Rolling Stone | 2016 year chart | 2016 | ![]() |
50 Best Albums of 2015 | Rolling Stone | 2015 year chart | 2015 | ![]() |
50 Best Albums of 2014 | Rolling Stone | 2014 year chart | 2014 | ![]() |
50 Best Albums of 2013 | Rolling Stone | 2013 year chart | 2013 | ![]() |
Best Albums of 2006 | Rolling Stone | 2006 year chart | 2006 | ![]() |
Best Albums of 2005 | Rolling Stone | 2005 year chart | 2005 | ![]() |
Decade charts
Title | Source | Type | Published | Country |
---|---|---|---|---|
100 Best Albums of the 2010s | Rolling Stone | 2010s decade chart | 2019 | ![]() |
100 Best Albums of the 2000s | Rolling Stone | 2000s decade chart | 2011 | ![]() |
100 Best Albums of the Nineties | Rolling Stone | 1990s decade chart | 2010 | ![]() |
100 Best Albums of the Eighties | Rolling Stone | 1980s decade chart | 1989 | ![]() |
Overall charts
Title | Source | Type | Published | Country |
---|---|---|---|---|
Top 500 Albums of All Time | Rolling Stone | 2003 | ![]() | |
Top 500 Albums of All Time | Rolling Stone | 2005 | ![]() | |
Top 500 Albums of All Time | Rolling Stone | 2012 | ![]() | |
The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time | Rolling Stone | 2020 | ![]() |
[Rolling Stone was founded in 1967.]
Top 500 Albums of All Time ratings

where:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
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Showing latest 5 ratings for this chart. | Show all 325 ratings for this chart.
Rating | Date updated | Member | Chart ratings | Avg. chart rating |
---|---|---|---|---|
90/100 ![]() | 11/02/2021 01:16 | matterhornrider | ![]() | 92/100 |
90/100 ![]() | 06/04/2021 01:49 | ![]() | ![]() | 92/100 |
65/100 ![]() | 02/17/2021 18:31 | sweetness | ![]() | 84/100 |
85/100 ![]() | 11/24/2020 21:53 | sampins | ![]() | 84/100 |
90/100 ![]() | 09/30/2020 02:16 | wordnat | ![]() | 93/100 |
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This chart has a Bayesian average rating of 70.1/100, a mean average of 68.4/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 69.7/100. The standard deviation for this chart is 22.4.
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Top 500 Albums of All Time comments
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pretty sweet list, beatles rule
A very "boomer" canon, with a criteria that seems to be about 50% mainstream critical consensus + 50% commercial impact. Because of that, it sometimes feels too limited in time scope, but not limited enough to be peculiar and interesting.
Still, the emphasis on rock & roll pioneers is laudable and the majority of these albums are indeed great and deserve to be celebrated.
Very Good Picks Overall. As others have pointed out, this list has far too many compilations and greatest hits which hardly qualify as good records. In addition, this is some obvious boomer sh#t because most of the music is from the 1970s (and 60s). Many complain of the overwhelming amount of Beatles records near the top of the list but I actually don't mind this so much; indeed, from 1965-1969 the Beatles arguably made some of the greatest records of all time. However, with the inclusion of pre-1965 Beatles records in the list, I agree that it becomes a tad ridiculous. In conclusion, my biggest complaint is: NOT ENOUGH JAZZ!
Sorry for this but there's too much Beatles up the top, did these reviewers sit down for coffee with Paul Mccartney? A lot of good choices for me, but the order itself seems a bit all over the place.

500 albums list is definitely not an easy task even for a big magazine like the Rolling Stone. This is probably the best 500 albums list I've seen. Even though I don't agree with the large amount of Beatles records in the top 10. Good to see Bob Dylan up there though. In my opinion, Highway 61 is much better than Sgt. Pepper or Pet Sounds.
Great chart to start somewhere.

The thing with charts made by a lot of people is that you'll get strange results with 3 Beatles albums in the top ten, because no one can agree on which is the best Beatles album.
Correction, 4 Beatles albums (I was checking whether I had exeggerated it, quite the contrary)
Seems a little... narrow minded

Comments for this chart seem to have disappeared, (temporary glitch I suppose). Coming back to this chart after several months I now look at it in a slightly different light. This chart is an attempt to define the musical influences and importance over the last 70 years using an odd mix of artists and albums, the compilations contain influential material but should not themselves be considered as albums and as their release dates are far later than the music they contain, distort the time composition chart. As I said before these are not the greatest albums, they are however probably the most influential. Some of them I would not even listen too as they have been superseded as other artists have further developed the sound and style. Some have commented that there are no new albums in the list, it's a hard fact that modern music is way too derivative, over-produced, computer processed and full of stupidly simple lyrics, (not that lyrics are of high importance in my view, many lyrics make no sense, they just rhyme). There has been nothing new or influential since Kid A according to Rolling Stone. I happen to think they are right. Newer albums appear on the chart simply because they are the best of a bad bunch for the latest era, (shoot me down). I know people who look upon music before the year 2000 as some kind of old-fashioned 'dad' music for old people, music they would not consider listening to because it's for old people it's not 'hip'. This is of course as ridiculous as fashion itself, the albums from the 60's, 70's etc were created by the youth of the day. So are these the 'Greatest Albums'? No, but they are the most influential are are well worth checking out.
Not gonna argue that the Beatles aren’t great, but 4 of the top 10 seems a tad excessive
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