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: www.rollingstone.com)

There are 134 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 327 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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Year of Release:
1967
Appears in:
Rank Score:
51,412
Rank in 1967:
Rank in 1960s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Buy album United States
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Year of Release:
1966
Appears in:
Rank Score:
45,450
Rank in 1966:
Rank in 1960s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Buy album United States
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Year of Release:
1966
Appears in:
Rank Score:
57,374
Rank in 1966:
Rank in 1960s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Buy album United States
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Year of Release:
1965
Appears in:
Rank Score:
31,333
Rank in 1965:
Rank in 1960s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Buy album United States
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Year of Release:
1965
Appears in:
Rank Score:
30,891
Rank in 1965:
Rank in 1960s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Buy album United States
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Year of Release:
1971
Appears in:
Rank Score:
19,950
Rank in 1971:
Rank in 1970s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Buy album United States
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Year of Release:
1972
Appears in:
Rank Score:
22,760
Rank in 1972:
Rank in 1970s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Buy album United States
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Year of Release:
1979
Appears in:
Rank Score:
36,703
Rank in 1979:
Rank in 1970s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Buy album United States
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Year of Release:
1966
Appears in:
Rank Score:
27,984
Rank in 1966:
Rank in 1960s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Buy album United States
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Year of Release:
1968
Appears in:
Rank Score:
43,631
Rank in 1968:
Rank in 1960s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Total albums: 100. Page 1 of 10

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Top 500 Albums of All Time composition

Decade Albums %


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%
Country Albums %


United States 57 57%
United Kingdom 32 32%
Canada 5 5%
Ireland 2 2%
Mixed Nationality 2 2%
Australia 1 1%
Jamaica 1 1%
Compilation? Albums %
No 87 87%
Yes 13 13%
Live? Albums %
No 97 97%
Yes 3 3%
Soundtrack? Albums %
No 98 98%
Yes 2 2%

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[Rolling Stone was founded in 1967.]

Top 500 Albums of All Time ratings

Average Rating: 
70/100 (from 327 votes)
  Ratings distributionRatings distribution Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AV
where:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.

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90/100
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11/02/2021 01:16 matterhornrider  Ratings distributionRatings distribution 5392/100
 
90/100
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06/04/2021 01:49 Skroskznik  Ratings distributionRatings distribution 9492/100
 
65/100
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02/17/2021 18:31 sweetness  Ratings distributionRatings distribution 7584/100
 
85/100
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11/24/2020 21:53 sampins  Ratings distributionRatings distribution 1784/100
 
90/100
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09/30/2020 02:16 wordnat  Ratings distributionRatings distribution 1093/100

Rating metrics: Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
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This chart has a Bayesian average rating of 70.1/100, a mean average of 68.5/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 69.7/100. The standard deviation for this chart is 22.3.

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Top 500 Albums of All Time comments

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Rating:  
60/100
From 07/29/2020 16:24
pretty sweet list, beatles rule
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (1 helpful | 1 unhelpful)
Rating:  
75/100
From 07/21/2020 23:18
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.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
70/100
From 06/27/2020 15:03
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!
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
65/100
From 06/18/2020 02:17
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.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (1 helpful | 1 unhelpful)
Rating:  
75/100
From 06/17/2020 17:28
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.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +3 votes (3 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
75/100
From 04/01/2020 10:12
Great chart to start somewhere.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
70/100
From 03/15/2020 18:27
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)
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +2 votes (2 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From 01/23/2020 17:34
Seems a little... narrow minded
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
50/100
From 08/31/2019 08:41
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.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | -1 votes (0 helpful | 1 unhelpful)
Rating:  
65/100
From 08/07/2019 00:34
Not gonna argue that the Beatles aren’t great, but 4 of the top 10 seems a tad excessive
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)

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