Music Thread - Rolling Stones' 500 Greatest Albums of All Time

[swede123]

Back in 2003 Rolling Stone Magazine put together a list of the 500.

Here is the Wiki article discussing the list.

Here is the list itself.

Following are the top ten albums on the list.

1. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles

2. Pet Sounds, The Beach Boys

3. Revolver, The Beatles

4. Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylan

5. Rubber Soul, The Beatles

6. What's Going On, Marvin Gaye

7. Exile on Main Street, The Rolling Stones

8. London Calling, The Clash

9. Blonde on Blonde, Bob Dylan

10. The Beatles ("The White Album"), The Beatles

Now, looking this over it seems to me the top spots on this list totally favors 60s and 70s rock, at the expense of classic rock, blues, jazz, R&B, country etc.

For example, while I certainly love The Beatles do they really deserve four of the top ten spots? And while Pet Sounds certainly has some solid stuff on it I certainly wouldn't call it a top album of all times.

I'm curious what others feel about this, what your top ten list might look like, whether genres other than rock should be represented etc.

Swede

[mrbaseball]

[ QUOTE ]
Now, looking this over it seems to me the top spots on this list totally favors 60s and 70s rock, at the expense of classic rock, blues, jazz, R&B, country etc.


[/ QUOTE ]

How old are you? You see back in the 60's and 70's there really was only one genre so to speak. Mainstream radio which featured Beatles, Beach Boys, Stones etc and a sub genre of Motown. That was it. Nothing else (jazz, country, R+B) was even on the map.

Nowadays it's all different. There are so many genres there is no mainstream anymore. The Beatles or Elvis phenominons that took a whole country by storm will never happen again because music is too fragmented for that now. Plus that era was the "album" generation. That was when albums themselves became mainstream.

That's my take anyway. A question? What's the difference between 60'/70's rock and classic rock?

[NT!]

It's hard for us young guys to understand how much each of these albums meant. Pet Sounds is one of those things that gets picked because of all the production values and whatnot at the time, I have never liked it that much either, I just let it be.

This kind of stuff is pretty meaningless and not worth worrying about... I may use this list for ideas to pick up some lesser known stuff lower down though.

NT

[NT!]

Also, I have always felt that "The Clash" is the best album by the The Clash, and that it's not really close.

NT

[swede123]

mrbaseball:

I'mm 31, so I was definitely not around when all this music peaked.

I don't understand what you are saying about country, jazz and blues not being on the map back then, as each of those genres pretty much contributed to rock and roll's formation. If you're recognizing the influence music had on later generations all these genres are hugely influential.

By classic rock I was more talking 50s stuff, Buddy Holly, Bill Haley, early Elvis etc.

NT: I definitely see your point and I don't get worked up about it at all, I merely thought it might make for a good conversation. It just surprises me that a bunch of polled musicians and music critics would focus on little else than 60s and 70s rock when there have been so much other great music made over the decades; these experts, of all people, should know about the other musical styles and their influence.

Swede

[pryor15]

Swede,

i think part of Beach Boys/Beatles thing comes from the fact that some of those albums were made in response to each other (at least, that's what I've been told), so there was this whole thing of them trying to out-do each other. it might have been those top 3, come to think of it.

the thing is, it's pretty hard to argue against any of those top 10 albums. at best, you could maybe knock Rubber Soul down a few notches and move up Miles Davis or Elvis, but really when you're talking about the top 20 albums of all-time, there isn't a hell of a lot of difference between #1 and #20.

i find it helps to look at these things in the same way you'd evaluate talent in fantasy football...look at groups of albums (say, 1-20, 21-40, etc.) and not worry about the rankings in those groups. instead wonder if something like Songs in the Key of Life (#56) is in the right grouping.

[pryor15]

also, i remember when this came out being stunned that Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was nowhere to be found.

[pauliewalnuts]

When this came out, I remember wondering how Neil Young's, Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, was only 208.

[mrbaseball]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't understand what you are saying about country, jazz and blues not being on the map back then, as each of those genres pretty much contributed to rock and roll's formation.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not saying those genres weren't influential. I'm saying they weren't popular. In fact most of that influence came from the pre-60's period and "albums" really weren't popular until the 60's. 45's and before that 78's were how music was marketed pre-Beatles. Albums were events back in the day. The release of Sgt Peppers for example was epic. The influence of an "album" has waned with the switch to CD's and even moreso with the switch to downloadable music. Album art and inserts (lyric sheets, pictures, posters etc.) were all part of the allure and overall album experience and that is now gone. But the main point is in the 60's and 70's popular music was basically what was on one or two radio stations and the Ed Sullivan show. Country and jazz had their followings but for nationwide popularity it was all rock and motown because we didn't have the fragmentaion we see today.

[Butso]

pet sounds >>> sgt peppers

sgt peppers isnt even the Beatles best album Rubber Soul is way better