This thread was going to be about something that I thought would engender fiery and intelligent debate...

17. Nevermind, Nirvana
62. Achtung Baby, U2
110. The Bends, Radiohead
133. Ready to Die, The Notorious B.I.G.
134. Slanted and Enchanted, Pavement

137. The Chronic, Dr. Dre
139. All That You Can't Leave Behind, U2
154. The Low End Theory, A Tribe Called Quest
162. OK Computer, Radiohead
193. Dookie, Green Day

200. The Downward Spiral, Nine Inch Nails
207. Ten, Pearl Jam
210. Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, Pavement
219. Loveless, My Bloody Valentine
247. Automatic for the People, R.E.M.

248. Reasonable Doubt, Jay-Z
252. Metallica, Metallica
256. The Velvet Rope, Janet Jackson
260. Buena Vista Social Club , Buena Vista Social Club
273. The Slim Shady LP, Eminem

oh i can't even be bothered

Nice to see Trout mask in there.

'part from that

"No alarms and no surprises..."

"lets have a heated debate"

Hint: Rolling Stone is just a magazine. It's not a societal doctrine. It has a mostly-white distribution and staff. That's what you'll get. Latin Beat probably doesn't have much Asian music in it.

2. Pet Sounds, Michael Jackson
3. Revolver, Phil Spector
5. Rubber Soul, Michael Jackson
6. What's Going On, Michael Jackson
9. Blonde on Blonde, Phil Spector
10. The Beatles ("The White Album"), Michael Jackson
11. The Sun Sessions, Michael Jackson
13. Velvet Underground and Nico, Phil Spector
15. Are You Experienced?, Michael Jackson
16. Blood on the Tracks, Phil Spector
18. Born to Run, Michael Jackson
20. Thriller, Michael Jackson
25. Rumours, Michael Jackson
28. Who's Next, Michael Jackson
31. Bringing It All Back Home, Phil Spector
32. Let It Bleed, Phil Spector
34. Music From Big Pink, Michael Jackson
36. Tapestry, Phil Spector
37. Hotel California, Michael Jackson
39. Please Please Me, Michael Jackson
42. The Doors, Michael Jackson
43. The Dark Side of the Moon, Phil Spector
44. Horses, Michael Jackson
46. Legend, Michael Jackson
47. A Love Supreme, Phil Spector
48. It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, Michael Jackson
50. Here's Little Richard, Michael Jackson
51. Bridge Over Troubled Waters, Michael Jackson
54. Electric Ladyland, Phil Spector
55. Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson
57. Beggars Banquet, Michael Jackson
60. Greatest Hits, Phil Spector
61. Appetite for Destruction, Michael Jackson
63. Sticky Fingers, Michael Jackson
65. Moondance, Michael Jackson
67. The Stranger, Michael Jackson
68. Off the Wall, Michael Jackson
76. Imagine, Michael Jackson
77. The Clash, Phil Spector
78. Harvest, Michael Jackson
81. Graceland, Michael Jackson
82. Axis: Bold as Love, Phil Spector
83. I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You, Michael Jackson
86. Let It Be, Phil Spector
87. The Wall, Phil Spector
88. At Folsom Prison, Phil Spector
90. Talking Book, Michael Jackson
91. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Michael Jackson
92. 20 Golden Greats, Michael Jackson
94. Bitches Brew, Phil Spector
96. Tommy, Michael Jackson
98. This Year's Model, Phil Spector
100. In the Wee Small Hours, Michael Jackson

RS's 1987 best album list changed my life--I went out and bought a new one or two of those records every week for over a year. And it skewed my ideas of what an album was, particularly with regards to race. If you're a not-particularly-hip music fan, RS has a huge influence. And as such has a responsibility to society, whether they accept that or not.

"It has a mostly-white distribution and staff."

Meaning? Their audience shouldn't be surprised by ANY of the choices? Then they should have called it "The Top 500 Records You Already Own." Your survey of music should be skewed to meet your audience's supposed notions race & artistry?

Besides all the staffers I know have better taste than this list would lead you to believe, especially when it comes to "black" music.

"Latin Beat probably doesn't have much Asian music in it."

But again Latin Beat doesn't pretend to present a comprensive overall view of musical history. If you're going to say that the Eagles have made a greater contribution to music than Al Green, Prince, Muddy Waters, Otis Redding and Aretha Fucking Franklin then why not just leave them off the list and stick with "What's Goin' On" and "Thriller."

It has more to do with what's appealing to the readers. It's compleely subjective. A Glenn Miller fan isn't going to admit that Jimi Hendrix is a better musician.. It's not because he's racist - he has a different point of view and likes a different style of music.

I've got no problem with consensus (OK, I have some problems, but let's set those aside), but whose consensus are we talking about here? How is it reached?

"28% of the top 100 = proportionate to US black population x 2
Not proportionate to African-American contribution to music, of course, but pretty good for rolling stone, the the reasons Dave has given." This seems beside the point, unless you're approaching this list purely from a marketing angle. Which maybe RS is, which makes the list all the more despicable.

And I like Sgt. Pepper's. I don't even have a problem with it being #1. But nothing in that dreadful description corresponds to the record that I've heard. The whole point of the album is to tweak conventional notions of greatness and importance--including the notion of THE BEATLES. Of course to acknowledge that would be to undermine Rolling Stone's entire worldview.

I know it's stupid to get worked up about Rolling Stone, but these lists do have an effect, and I reserve the right to get pissed off about the further embalming of rock history.

But if you want to properly compare and contrast:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~fsgroen/Top100's/1978PaulGambaccini.html

What's wrong with being asethetically reactionary? That seems like a form of name-calling designed to get people to change their taste.

I'll agree with that Strausbaugh fellow in that Rolling Stone really never have any cajones, it was always about what was in the spotlight at the moment. Plus their movie reviewer is quite literally the worst on the planet...

Most people who use it aren't in favor of embracing all change that is possible* (whatever that would even mean), so normally it just means "opposed to changes that I consider good."

*E.g., plenty of political progressives are opposed to various hi-tech agriculture practices.

aesthetically reactionary = insisting repeatedly that no music could EVER be as good as the music made (primarily by white people) three decades ago as a way of reinforcing that belief among thousands of subscribers/listeners who weren't alive three decades ago

Why should a "best albums" list necessarily collect "widely agreed on" albums? Shouldn't it collect the "best albums"? Obviously, that list should be agreed on by more than one person, but how wide do you have to spread the net? If a list just collects what we already know, then why bother?

Again, I like Sergeant Pepper, but tell me why it's good, rather than simply lobbing synonyms for great and timeless at me every ten years. Make it fight for the top slot. The album they describe sounds like a dried out piece of shit. If that's the consensus opinion, than the consensus is a ass.

:( I've been so looking forward to them, though! Although I will say that we have been strangely silent on end-of-year bizness, seeing as it's late November already.

*

x-post: I don't see exactly how the political meaning fits with "aesthetically reactionary."

I'm not surprised consensus faves wind up on these lists, just disappointed, because one of the reason they're so widely agreed upon is because Rolling Stone keeps ramming their greatness down our throats.

"Does anyone even read Rolling Stone anymore?

Depends who you mean by "anyone." Nobody cool or edgy maybe, but I bet still plenty of seventeen-year-old music fans who've only been exposed to the mainstream but are suckered in by these kinds of lists.

Listmaking in mainstream magazines is a cultural practice, and has effects on what people value. That's kind of an important thing, isn't it?

Is this even the consensus best Billy Joel record? Is this a typo? WTF?

Between this list and Traffic being inducted into the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame, this week is off the scale in terms of Unintentional Comedy.

Hey Keith -- that 1987 list was also essential to the formation of my musical obsessiveness -- I was in junior high and made regular pilgrimages to the public library to look for all those records, but what's both funny and sad is that this is almost the exact same list.

Yeah, I did the same. Come back ILM, all is forgiven.

Anyway, no one's commenting on the preponderance of Y chromosomes! We have to wait until Joni checks in at #30 for a little gender equality (females comprise more than 50% of the population; didn't I read that somewhere). Funny though, it took me until #36 to encounter a record I don't own - also the second female entry..

(close circuit to chris: why don't you just ask Jim Scott?)

I also remember that list....wasn't the Sex Pistol #2 with the big picture of them sticking drinking straws in their ears, Television, on that? I remember reading those and the modern lovers one and being so intrigued...I think I may still have the mag in the

xpost: what Keith said about the '87 list.

All persons	Great Britain 2001
White British		89
Other White		3	
Mixed background	1
Indian		        2
Other Asian background	3	
Black Caribbean		1
Black African		1	
Other ethnic group	1

So 28/100 doesn't seem all that racist to me. Although the claim of racism seems Americentric and guilt-laden.

I'm curious about this expectation for change, especially since I think it's more pronounced w/r/t rock lists than with anything else. Why exactly should this new list be different from the 1987 list? I think it probably should, but is it: To account for 16 years of new albums that are possibly just as good as the old ones on the list? To correct limitations of the old list with the benefit of hindsight? Or just to "shake it up"?

dave225's insistence that population data has the first fucking thing to do with what/how popular music is made is hallucinatorily stupid.

Just for an anecdotal example -- I participate in a local pub quiz every week where the patrons are half baby boomers and half 20/30-somethings (I'm 29). Almost all the music questions that get asked are baby-boomer/Rolling Stone/classic-rock stuff (at least half about the Beatles), which everyone is expected to know and appreciate (and everyone does). On the rare occassions when something gets asked about music from the past 20-years that isn't U2 or Nirvana, people get agitated, even the youngsters, who agree that music from their own generation can't compare to Beatles/Dylan/Stones -- and they believe this in part, I think, precisely because lists like this reinforce that notion. It's a drag.

(Matt -- Ha! That guy's the reason I don't wear sweaters anymore!)

And Sonny, it's not like I stay up all night worrying about Jann Wenner's taste in Billy Joel records. I just figured that since, you know, this is a board where we talk about music, taking a look at the racial make-up of a list in the world's best-selling music(-related) mag which purports to collect the Greatest Albums Ever might be something we could talk about.

Matos - I'm talking about British artists - since they make up half of the list. That means that 28/50 american artists were black. (Using Keith's numbers - I didn't actually count them.)

Keith - for what it's worth, I actually agree with you on the whole ancient canon bullshit.. Just not the distinction between black & white artists.

79. Star Time, James Brown

Ha!

I am going to listen to Sgt Pepper's this afternoon for the first time in at least a decade and see if I can enjoy it despite Rolling Stone's efforts to defun it for me.

[raises hand]

400. Illmatic, Nas

The Doors, Bridge Over Troubled Water, Tommy, The Joshua Tree, etc.

Is there really only one hip-hop record in the top 100 or did I overlook something?

Er? Is Dave225 Mr. Fricke or something?

-Goddammit, I'm talking about race still! ;) I totally agree that the top 500 list is a piece of shit. There's no way Billy Joel ever made a better record than the Go-Betweens.

This is why I always wonder about the bitching over Pitchfork. Their writers might occasionally be horrendous, but at least they're trying, from my POV. DeCurtis and pals might as well be listening to nothing but big band music for all that they have to say about the current state of the music scene. I think they learn about new music from VH-1.

Wait! "Aja" is their highest ranked Steely Dan record? "I'm Still in Love With You" over "Call Me"? "Los Angeles" over "Wild Gift"? Maybe they are best when they stick with received wisdom.

This is a pretty clever button-pusher though:

327. Jagged Little Pill, Alanis Morissette
328. Exile in Guyville, Liz Phair

And the moment someone mentioned "only one rap album in the top 100" I knew it'd be Nation of Millions. As much as I'd just like to say "give 36 Chambers or Illmatic some time in the sun already" and leave it at that, the implications of PE as Token Rap Canon Fodder seem a bit weird to me. Is it the reliance on "soul" signifiers and James Brown? The sense of rebellion that boomers like to glom onto and claim as '60s-esque? The fact that they just really think the title is fun to say? Flavor Flav's giant clock the only visual signifier of rap that they have any awareness of?

Wait - I may have missed it, but did Harris and Matos reconcile their criticisms of the list with the separately made claims that "the 1987 list changed my life"? Ok, wait ... Matos does talk about the "metastasizing" nature of this list vis-a-vis the earlier one. So is that the main complaint then; that the new one, comprising 500 instead of 100, makes their particular biases appear more egregious?

Also, what the hell is the "Zagat's Guide to Music"?

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030923/nytu019_1.html

I'm definitely with you on the notion that the blurbs should be better written and argued, present the case for each choice more interestingly, etc.

Yeah, the list definitely has its uses, and will broaden a lot of people's tastes. I overstated the limitations of it because they're so blatant.

But the top of the list has gotten way more conservative. Three Beatles in the top 5? Four in the top 10? All mid-to-late period? Only two albums (three counting Star Time) from the 90s? That really does reinforce a hierarchy.

Finally, a list we can all agree on:

http://www.ryanbuck.com/bigdick/

What does that MEAN? And where are the Beatles on this list?

My dick is so big, it has a horizon.
My dick is so big, I can fuck the ocean.

"On one hand, the editors can cover the canon faithfully, explaining yet again why the Beatles and Dylan made such great albums. Throw in some rap, disco, and techno for spice, and call it a day. In other words, create the same list everyone already knows by heart. ... But this strategy would cement Rolling Stone's utter irrelevance in the current marketplace. ... The other option for a Top 500, almost unthinkable for such a square magazine, is to be irreverent. Put the White Stripes' Elephant in the Top 10. Leave Sgt. Pepper's off the list entirely. This would be knee-jerk and disastrous. No matter how well the commentaries were written, most people would dismiss this strategy as desperate and calculated, shocking for shocking's sake."

Uh...

WHAT?

Obviously the RS editors don't know that crack is whack!

Not surprising, since Patrick Bateman was just named associate editor.

(ok, yes I am. but later tonight after I go buy some beer)

why would it be "desperate and calculated...." etc to include good, new, daring music at the top of that list (not that i'd vote the White Stripes, but that's beside the point)? cynicism criticising the new, the diverse, the changing world *yawn*. the rolling stone list *yawn*. they are not seeking to challenge the audience or to challenge its own ability to deflect the shallow criticisms against adventure and possibility because in the "knee-jerk" there is some implication against the value of new music, especially if its mildly popular in markets that are supposedly hip or cool. RS is aimed at pleasing, so it's really beside the point, i guess.

I own an LP of Sgt. Pepper's but I got it for free.

In my counting, I actually read the whole thing for the first time and holy crap I take back all my lukewarm defenses of Rolling Stone.

Elton John>Buddy Holly
All That You Can't Leave Behind>Straight Outta Compton
Linda Ronstadt Heart Like A Wheel over Master of Puppets!!!! (I own both these so I'm not just talking out of my ass, either)

(Esp. if you consider Led Zep and Black Sab the Run-DMC and Public Enemy and Metallica the Jay-Z equivalents, other than those you really never see any great metal records make these things.)

Is this actual issue out yet or just on the Web? I've got a subscription (sort of -- if should have expired two years ago and I never renewed it, yet they keep appearing in the mailbox), but that issue hasn't arrived at my door yet.

Yep, it's really fun at parties because it has a lot of hilarious stories about Nick Lowe and Randy Newman.

Read the book, motherfuckers!

*psst Keith, God wins!*

random observations gleaned from perusing this list while watching Jason Williams single-handedly beat the Sonics:

With a few exceptions, this list essentially covers the past 50 years of English-speaking pop music (yep, Keith, Buena Vista = rest of world), right? So, hip-hop is the dominant musical form of the past 25 years, right? So, there are 13 Beatles/Dylan/Stones records before the first hip-hop appearance and 21 Beatles/Dylan/Stones before second hip-hop.

Of the top 100, 26(!) come from the classic-rock top-five of Beatles(+Lennon solo)/Dylan/Stones/Hendrix/Led Zep

There is no reggae that isn't either Bob Marley or HArder They Come.

I think what might bother me most is that it isn't just anti recent music or even anti unconventional/non-mainstream music, but that the generational/classic-rock bias is so extreme that pre-Sixties rock-and-roll is just as slighted. There are more Simon & Garfunkel, Pink FLoyd, Grateful Dead, Cream/Yardbirds records here than Elvis (whose huge post-Sun hits are totally absent -- how is 30 #1 Hits or some equivalent comp not on this list? Did I overlook this? I'm flabbergasted.). Fats Domino, Coasters, Wilson Pickett, Sam & Dave, Carl Perkins, Shirelles, etc. are shut out.

What's the most surprising 90s omission: Sleater-Kinney or Tupac? (I agree with the later, but still surprised)

Much like life.

Chris, I'm not a big 'Pac guy at all, but in the scheme of what made the list he probably should have been on.

The only reggaie record I've really listened to alot, The Congos Heart of the Congos should have made it too.

ARGH! As muttered elsewhere, I just got the joke...

(but FYI: i did count cases where I don't actually have the specific record Rolling Stone referenced; for example, I own all of Al Green's 70s records on Hi, so I "counted" his Greatest Hits, even as I don't actually own that particular record. Similarly, I own all the Sly & the Family Stone records up through when George Clinton propped him up again or whatever, so I "counted" Sly's greatest disc. Oh, and I own the Muddy Waters Chess box [as well as a bunch of other ephemera], so i felt like i could count that recent 2 disc compilation set they selected. i mean, I'm sure I have everything on it. funny how this only happens with the black artists though)

Somehow, I don't think the people who compile these lists (there's one or two new ones every month) spend much time thinking about them. They're ploys for attention. And with the internet, we get deluged with lists from every magazine and website because the editors know that people will post them to the internet and we all get reminded that Rolling Stone/Spin/Blender, etc. still exist. "Go look at the website, spread the word, click on an ad, buy a copy of the magazine with the list so you can read it on your lunch break".

Nearly every music forum I read has discussed the RS list. It's a publicity tactic that works.

As for the attention this gets, I think it IS different from other lists (even if maybe it shouldn't be) because it's Rolling Stone and it still has that cachet, especially among the majority of people who don't pay that close attention to music. I.E., when I return to work next week, I'm gonna be peppered with questions from co-workers about this list who assume it's a standard-setter, in the same way I was when that despicable AFI 100 film list came out. That's one reason why this is different from the latest list of whatever on VH-1.

There are some albums on this list I am completely embarrassed not to own, so I won't get into any further details.

I mean I have Pat Travers records(Which I bought purely based on the song title "Snorting Whiskey and Drinkin' Cocaine"), and still don't own a ton of stuff on the list.

that's because he's (a) american; (b) people not into techno know who he is. ((b) also applies to the prodigy, of course, but (a) doesn't so AFA RS is concerned i guess they don't exist).

moby:techno::fugees or arrested development:hip-hop.

Who am I supposed to believe, you or Eminem?

or at least it's the fastest way to make it look really silly.