50 Best Albums of All Time According to Rolling Stone's BRAND NEW, 100% Revamped Top 500

Meanwhile, Abbey Road isn’t even the best album with that cover... amirite??

Zero Nas albums
Zero Brandy albums

very weird

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy already seemed like the solid consensus pick for Kanye's best album, but The College Dropout remains my favorite.

― birdistheword, Tuesday, September 22, 2020 7:34 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think Late Registration is the consensus of like, rap fans who don't live on RYM/Reddit

I would enjoy a Rolling Stone Top 500 that was created by reviewing the play history of all the contributors' electronic devices and streaming services and assigning each album a point score based on the frequency that tracks from it appear (and maybe bonus points each time an album was played in its entirety). Then rank the albums by total points scored.

Obviously the Joshua Tree would be #1 but I can't say what spots 2-500 would look like!

Damn, no R.E.M.? RS proclaimed them the '80s greatest best, so yeah, surprising. Murmur, Automatic for the People and Document would have seemed like sure bets, none I'd argue with.

I've grown to appreciate Trout Mask Replica a lot more over the years, and that came with my growing appreciation of blues, free jazz and avant-garde jazz of the '60s as well as Tom Waits and much of the music Beefheart inspired. It was an album I respected more than I liked it, but I've grown to love it. I love those other albums mentioned too, and they are certainly more accessible, but I still would go with Trout Mask Replica.

Louis Armstrong's complete work with the Hot 5's and 7's should arguably be in the top 5, but again, I wouldn't have it in isolation as if that work mattered that much and virtually no other jazz was worth mentioning in the top 50. I don't expect polls like this to ever fully integrate jazz with other forms of popular music. Imagine if that was the case though. With the presence of compilations being highly beneficial to, say, country and blues, the top 50 would probably look more like a permanent exhibit enshrined in the Smithsonian. I don't mean that as a knock, but I don't think that's what the editors at Rolling Stone was hoping to publish.

Are you sure bc it's kind of boring

xp

I haven't heard that RHCP EP but it's probably better than Abbey Road btw.

you won't be laughing when you die and can't get into heaven because you don't know the words to Exit

If you're going to include one Gaga album, who in the heck would choose Born this Way over The Fame Monster?

Lorde's Melodrama strikes me as another weird choice, though looking it up I see it got more general acclaim than I thought.

i would choose born this way over fame monster

(i did not rank a gaga album)

Murmur, Automatic for the People and Document would have seemed like sure bets, none I'd argue with.

The first two are there, but not particularly high (and the third fell off the list).

Oh, this video of Tetras is p cool. What do you guys think of Xenakis's sax quartet XAS? It feels like an outlier in his catalogue but I always liked it in its own way.

xpost maybe I'd better give Born This Way another listen.

There is no world in which Born This Way belongs in the top 500 of anything. I don't even dislike it, but just...no.

they've got the right Outkast album on there. still say wrong Kendrick (I'm still a 'good kid m.a.a.d city' dude but like them all.

Biggie's Life After Death shoulda made it too. it is that good.

xpost Born This Way is a very good album and I enjoy it but it's got filler and its highs don't reach the highs of some of these other albums.

Lily otm that Fame Monster is better

Voted London Calling. I tried to get into What's Going On earlier this year and couldn't quite do it. For something in that vein I much prefer Curtis Mayfield's Curtis.

Oh shit I actually meant to post a performance of 'Peaux' from Pléïades (hence the 'literal banging' part):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91uYVXQ3DU0

But Tetras rules too.

The other day I was tempted to start a thread about how baffled I am by sax quartets, almost without exception (Helena Tulve's Öö being one of them). But I haven't heard XAS so maybe it'll win me over?

xps

The other day I was tempted to start a thread about how baffled I am by sax quartets, almost without exception (Helena Tulve's Öö being one of them).

Have you tried listening to the World Saxophone Quartet? Because they were fantastic.

Rova are good too.

I would enjoy a Rolling Stone Top 500 that was created by reviewing the play history of all the contributors' electronic devices and streaming services and assigning each album a point score based on the frequency that tracks from it appear (and maybe bonus points each time an album was played in its entirety). Then rank the albums by total points scored.

― avellano medio inglés (f. hazel), Tuesday, September 22, 2020 8:54 PM (twenty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Feeling strongly that this is how we should compile the definitive ILM hot 100. Hope y'all are prepared for a canon-busting ballot consisting of SAWII, a couple Basia albums, and the Monkees' Pool It!. And no, I'm not joking.

Expose, Dying Fetus, Peter Cetera, and Richard Marx dominated my ballot

Tbh, I often feel like lists that do rank Sgt Pepper as the greatest album ever made should take that position to its logical conclusion and liberally sprinkle dense psychedelic and progressive pop throughout the list. Piper at the Gates of Dawn in the top 5, Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack and Freak Out in the top 50 at least, give some props to Procol Harum; some Elephant 6 when you want to keep things more up to date. Maybe picking Abbey Road as the best is more honest for a list that does whatever RS lists are supposed to do.

I'll check them out, thanks, unperson and Sund4r. As a general rule, I much prefer the sax in a jazz/free improv setting, and either solo or accompanied by (an)other instrument(s) for the sake of timbral variety.

xps

^Tropicalia would def be represented on that list btw. xp

wait hold on, i'm just noticing something

HOW IN THE FUCK DID KANYE BEAT WU-TANG

I even like that album but jfc

ODB never ran for president.

Yeah, I was sort of coasting on Amy Winehouse being the most egregious inclusion in the top 50 but it's clearly Kanye.

then where's Eric B and Rakim!!????!!

Wu Tang more psychedelic despite Kanye sampling KC and Mike Oldfield/Jon Anderson.xps

idk, that Amy album is truly one of my favs though.

Ok Computer should be above Kid A, buuuut....not by a lot, necessarily

and sometimes my mood changes on that

I like Kid A more than OK Computer and at the same time recognize it ranking higher is corniness of the highest order.

ODB never ran for president.

as if *being* big baby jesus isn't better than merely running for president

yeah, Sharon Batts and PowerSource wrote their letter to Jesus, not the President

I vote for "I Can't Wait" as the next nat'l anthem, easily.

yo yo MIami

Was just reading the list in chronological order... noticed a few cool selections I wouldn’t have necessarily expected, like The Raincoats and Fever to Tell.

is Marley's Legend big anywhere besides America? just echoing the lol at a greatest hits album being on here

Wait, why is that corny? It's their best imo. xp re Kid A

Kid A was my first midnight release purchase ever

OK Computer is unironically the best album of all time and nothing anyone says or does will ever change that.

Turning Chopin's Em Prelude into an anthem for Romeo and Juliet is kind of great but also supremely corny.

Ha, as if I knew that when I picked it up at the age of 12.

OMG, this whole time I've been reading "Legend" and thinking "Exodus" and wondering what people were getting upset about.