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

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: www.rollingstone.com | Original URL 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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Compilation
Buy album United States
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Year of Release:
1991
Appears in:
Rank Score:
232
Rank in 1991:
Rank in 1990s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Buy album United States
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  • iTunes
  • Spotify
  • #Sponsored
Year of Release:
1963
Appears in:
Rank Score:
2,689
Rank in 1963:
Rank in 1960s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Total albums: 2. Page 1 of 1

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The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time composition

Decade Albums %


1930s 0 0%
1940s 0 0%
1950s 1 1%
1960s 22 22%
1970s 32 32%
1980s 14 14%
1990s 18 18%
2000s 6 6%
2010s 7 7%
2020s 0 0%
Country Albums %


United States 65 65%
United Kingdom 22 22%
Canada 7 7%
Mixed Nationality 3 3%
Jamaica 2 2%
Australia 1 1%
Compilation? Albums %
No 96 96%
Yes 4 4%
Live? Albums %
No 99 99%
Yes 1 1%
Soundtrack? Albums %
No 98 98%
Yes 2 2%

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[Rolling Stone was founded in 1967.]

The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time ratings

Average Rating: 
56/100 (from 54 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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60/100
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04/12/2023 18:37 chavaloricardin  Ratings distributionRatings distribution 1583/100
 
95/100
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11/09/2022 17:13 peate754  Ratings distributionRatings distribution 3181/100
 
40/100
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10/15/2022 10:41 animals0809  Ratings distributionRatings distribution 5793/100
 
35/100
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09/27/2022 21:43 Phileas  Ratings distributionRatings distribution 635/100
 
100/100
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09/26/2022 12:19 Yannick1398  Ratings distributionRatings distribution 697/100

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 56.5/100, a mean average of 51.3/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 52.4/100. The standard deviation for this chart is 26.5.

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The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time comments

Showing latest 10 comments | Show all 22 comments |
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Rating:  
35/100
From 09/27/2022 14:59
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
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) | +2 votes (3 helpful | 1 unhelpful)
From 03/28/2022 19:05
What's Going On? No really, what is going on?
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
5/100
From 03/10/2022 16:36
Propaganda.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | -2 votes (1 helpful | 3 unhelpful)
Rating:  
5/100
From 09/17/2021 02:48
zzzzzz
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +2 votes (3 helpful | 1 unhelpful)
From 08/31/2021 17:24
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
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) | +4 votes (7 helpful | 3 unhelpful)
Rating:  
30/100
From 05/03/2021 06:37
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)
Rating:  
30/100
From 05/02/2021 15:13
Better than the 2012 list, but not by much.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (1 helpful | 1 unhelpful)
Rating:  
10/100
From 04/27/2021 09:26
Too political... Lauryn Hill in the top 10 ... nope.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +5 votes (8 helpful | 3 unhelpful)

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