In November 2003, Rolling Stone magazine ranked the greatest albums of all time and extended its list out to a whopping 500. Here are the top 20:
- Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles
- Pet Sounds, The Beach Boys
- Revolver, The Beatles
- Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylan
- Rubber Soul, The Beatles
- What’s Going On, Marvin Gaye
- Exile on Main Street, The Rolling Stones
- London Calling, The Clash
- Blonde on Blonde, Bob Dylan
- The Beatles (”The White Album”), The Beatles
- The Sun Sessions, Elvis Presley
- Kind of Blue, Miles Davis
- Velvet Underground and Nico, The Velvet Underground
- Abbey Road, The Beatles
- Are You Experienced?, The Jimi Hendrix Experience
- Blood on the Tracks, Bob Dylan
- Nevermind, Nirvana
- Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen
- Astral Weeks, Van Morrison
- Thriller, Michael Jackson
The list is pretty widely criticized by readers, and I think a few of the common complaints are founded. One is that the list is very heavily American. Though the top 20 is pretty balanced between British and American bands, there is a steady dropoff on British rock as the list goes on.
Pink Floyd, and most anything progressive, is given the shaft on the list while punk seems to reign supreme. I’m not a big fan of most prog rock, and not very educated on the genre, so I’m not going to stick up for it too much.
Odd is the treatment of jazz on the list. There are only a few albums on the list. A bit Miles, a bit Coltrane, but not much beyond that. Jazz is a segment of music as deep as rock and roll is, so it might’ve been more appropriate to either cut out jazz albums or devote more of the list to it.
Another thing I want to talk briefly about is Beatles albums. I believe that Revolver would have been the number one on the list if it had been made a few years later. Revolver is now a little bit more “in style” while people are slightly more down on Sgt. Pepper’s.
In my mind, though Rubber Soul tops them both. There is no album whose musical achievments I respect more than Rubber Soul.
I’d also like to say that The White Album is WAY too high up on the list. It’s too unfocused and gimmicky, even though it’s got some real stunners on there. For all the Beatles love on the list, Help! is far too low (#332). The album is significantly more enjoyable overall, in my opinion, The White Album (#10), Please Please Me (#39), and Let It Be (#86). With essentially every other Beatles album on the list, it’s a complete joke that Magical Mystery Tour isn’t honored.
I have my nitpicks with the list, but nothing overall to keep me from recommending it. Nobody’s ever going to completely agree on what the best albums are, but Rolling Stone proposes a pretty good choices.
The best part about the list? It’s got little articles about each one of the albums. You could be reading this for days and not get through everything. It’s very anecdotal and informative, a good read. I’ve been working on it for months and still haven’t gotten all the way to the end.
Perhaps the best way to view the list, then, is not an authoritative ranking of the best albums, but an overview of 500 great albums, replete with intersting stories and solid writing. Take a look.
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