The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
by Rolling Stone (2020) United States

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. "The classics are still the classics, but the canon keeps getting bigger and better".
(Official website: https://www.rollingstone.com | Original URL Help Warning: The address at the original source was valid at the time the chart was added, but may have changed afterwards. )
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Year of Release:
1971
Appears in:
Rank Score:
18,508
Rank in 1971:
Rank in 1970s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Top rated album (85/100 - 1976 votes)  85 (1,976 votes)
Comments:
Year of Release:
1966
Appears in:
Rank Score:
36,872
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Rank in 1960s:
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Average Rating:
Top rated album (88/100 - 3315 votes)  88 (3,315 votes)
Comments:
Year of Release:
1971
Appears in:
Rank Score:
15,686
Rank in 1971:
Rank in 1970s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Year of Release:
1976
Appears in:
Rank Score:
15,627
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Average Rating:
Top rated album (85/100 - 1383 votes)  85 (1,383 votes)
Comments:
Year of Release:
1969
Appears in:
Rank Score:
54,738
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Rank in 1960s:
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Average Rating:
Top rated album (92/100 - 4671 votes)  92 (4,671 votes)
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Year of Release:
1991
Appears in:
Rank Score:
36,404
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Rank in 1990s:
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Average Rating:
Top rated album (87/100 - 4367 votes)  87 (4,367 votes)
Comments:
Year of Release:
1977
Appears in:
Rank Score:
29,741
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Average Rating:
Top rated album (87/100 - 2681 votes)  87 (2,681 votes)
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Year of Release:
1984
Appears in:
Rank Score:
15,462
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Rank in 1980s:
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Average Rating:
Comments:
Year of Release:
1975
Appears in:
Rank Score:
19,966
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Average Rating:
Top rated album (87/100 - 2222 votes)  87 (2,222 votes)
Comments:
Year of Release:
1998
Appears in:
Rank Score:
5,956
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Average Rating:
Comments:
Total albums: 100. Page 1 of 10
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The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time composition

TitleSourceTypePublishedCountry
ƵnotMⅡne」Los 100 mejores discos de la historia IICustom chart2025Unknown
Top 100 Greatest Music AlbumsMadrockerOverall chart2019
Top 100 Greatest Music AlbumsP H DiasOverall chart2012
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100 Best Albums - 2024 EditionApple MusicOverall chart2024United States
Top 500 Albums of All TimeRolling StoneOverall chart2005United States
Top 500 Albums of All TimeRolling StoneOverall chart2003United States
The 100 Greatest Albums of All TimeConsequence of SoundOverall chart2022United States
Top 100 Albums (Online Amalgam)musicologist97Custom chart2019
Most Acclaimed Music AlbumsImaybeparanoidCustom chart2015Unknown

The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time similarity to your chart(s)


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TitleSourceTypePublishedCountry
Top 500 Albums of All TimeRolling StoneOverall chart2003United States
NME 's 100 Best Albums Of All TimeNew Music ExpressOverall chart2003United Kingdom
100 Best Albums - 2024 EditionApple MusicOverall chart2024United States
A total of 45 charts from Rolling Stone are available; the 3 most recent of this type are highlighted below.
TitleSourceTypePublishedCountry
Top 500 Albums of All TimeRolling StoneOverall chart2003United States
Top 500 Albums of All TimeRolling StoneOverall chart2005United States
Top 500 Albums of All TimeRolling StoneOverall chart2012United States

The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time ratings

Average Rating: 
56/100 (from 57 votes)
  Ratings distribution Help 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.

Showing latest 5 ratings for this chart.  | Show all 57 ratings for this chart.

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RatingDate updatedMemberChart ratingsAvg. chart rating
 
40/100
 !
01/26/2025 14:36 timosbuecherei  Ratings distribution  670/100
 
80/100
 !
01/25/2025 14:08 SomethingSpecial  Ratings distribution  1,08785/100
 
15/100
 !
01/09/2025 22:30 C0NB9NN  Ratings distribution  2085/100
 
60/100
 !
04/12/2023 18:37 chavaloricardin  Ratings distribution  1683/100
 
95/100
 !
11/09/2022 17:13 peate754  Ratings distribution  3080/100

Rating metrics: Help 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).
(*In practice, some charts can have several thousand ratings)

This chart has a Bayesian average rating of 55.6/100, a mean average of 49.5/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 51.5/100. The standard deviation for this chart is 26.4.


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The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time comments

Showing latest 10 comments | Show all 31 comments |
Most Helpful First | Newest First | Positive Sentiment First | Longest Comments First
(Only showing comments with -2 votes or higher. You can alter this threshold from your profile page. Manage Profile)

Rating:  
20/100
From 06/07/2026 20:09 | #314832
Una basura de corrección a la lista original, pero bueno, no se puede esperar mucho de la Rolling Stone.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
40/100
From 01/26/2025 14:35 | #307226
I prefer the List from 2003
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
35/100
From 09/27/2022 14:59 | #289994
I thought the pick for number one, while not my favourite, is as great as can be. And the presence of rap albums in the top spots is totally justified as it is the music of the times. I'm too ignorant on the subject to pretend to know which rap albums are great. What I found issue with is the ranking of the music I know about, relative to one another. In my opinion they had it almost upside down.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From 05/30/2022 04:36 | #285806
I love over 80% of these but this list doesn't seem honest. How can someone appreciate Beatles/Floyd/Stones/Radiohead and rank Revolver at 11? Dark Side Of The Moon at 55???? I seriously don't believe that anyone can even be capable of appreciating them and ranking them so low. They don't even have Wish You Were Here or In Rainbows in the top 100.... WOW. I had to go back and forth through it like 4 times to confirm no Wish You Were Here and I was LITERALLY reeling when I saw Dark Side Of The Moon at 55.

That being said, the sentiment that this is "part of a forced left wing agenda" is stupid. This is the mindset of those people, "This list by the staff of a magazine is part of A DEMOCRAT [sic] PLOT." Seriously, lmfao. You might think this list is stupid and it just might be, but do you know what's dumber? I'll give you 3 guesses.

It's really hard to rank rap against rock and it's totally fair to just alternate in a list like this: rap, rock, rap, rock, rap, rock.... At work I play full albums and personally prefer to change genres every album - I've probably gone entire days where every album I played was actually on this very list. It's not "woke" or "political" to put a rap album amidst a bunch of incomparable rock albums that you personally love. What else are you going to do when you love both rap and rock, listen to them about as often as each other, and can't compare them? WTF else are you going to do?

To think that you'd have to be "forcing" black artists' albums on this list is insulting and proves that you're the racist that people tell you that you are. You actually thought that this couldn't be anyone's taste? That it MUST be forced, b/c that's the only way black artists could get ranked so highly? You're sick and delusional. Oh well, I'm not getting through to any of you. There's a reason the average conservative IQ is 8 points lower.

Back on topic. The list isn't THAT bad. All of the albums on it that I know are among not only my favorites, but the favs of multiple people I know. This list's only crime is that the order is often bewildering.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (3 helpful | 2 unhelpful)
From 03/28/2022 19:05 | #283546
What's Going On? No really, what is going on?
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +2 votes (2 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
5/100
From 03/10/2022 16:36 | #282640
Propaganda.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | -2 votes (1 helpful | 3 unhelpful)
Rating:  
5/100
From 09/17/2021 02:48 | #273832
zzzzzz
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +2 votes (3 helpful | 1 unhelpful)
From 08/31/2021 17:24 | #273128
The worst list I’ve ever seen. Too political. You can’t apply diversity to quality in art. Part of the forced left wing agenda
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +3 votes (7 helpful | 4 unhelpful)
Rating:  
20/100
From 06/05/2021 22:35 | #270404
They managed to sneak a contemporary black female’s album into the top ten. But at the expense of Kind of Blue, and A Love Supreme, and a host of others. Sorry Miles and co. The quota was full. Shame on you, Rolling Stone. Let’s see if as many people in 50 years time are still listening to the miseducation of whatserface as there are people still buying copies of Kind of Blue today.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +5 votes (9 helpful | 4 unhelpful)
Rating:  
30/100
From 05/03/2021 06:37 | #269294
We all knew the list was about to suck when we saw that Funeral was number 500. So, they met expectations
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +3 votes (4 helpful | 1 unhelpful)

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