Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time

OMG So freaking happy to see A Tribe Called Quest's Midnight Marauders at #201! That's amazing! I love that album so much and pray we get a great vinyl pressing of that album sometime soon! 💛🕰💚🕛❤
 
OMFG The Fugees - The Score is ranked #134! I am so happy to see that classic hip-hop album ranked so strongly on this list! I love the album dearly and it deserves that spot so much! ❤
 
OMG FIONA APPLE'S WHEN THE PAWN AT #108! Holy shit that is so well-deserved! I am so happy to see that, it's easily Fiona Apple's best album and I'm over the moon to see it get ranked so high! ♟️💎❤
 
HiFi Guy said:
I’m kind of appalled at all of the really good albums that have been moved off of the list to make room for shit albums.
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Like I am so shocked but I think it's a better list because it's more representative of critics, journalists and isn't so old-fashioned! Like you have rappers like Drake and Kendrick Lamar in the top #100 - which I think is great because they are so relevant and both have released masterpieces!
 
I AM LIVING FOR ALL OF THESE ALBUMS BEING IN THE TOP #50 OF THIS LIST!

Amy Winehouse - Back To Black
NaS - Illmatic
Michael Jackson - Off The Wall
A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory
Beyoncé - Lemonade
D'ANGELO - VOODOO
Wu-Tang - Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Aretha Franklin - I Never Loved A Man, The Way I Love You
Public Enemy - It Takes A Nation Of Million To Hold Us Back
 
I have to wonder what the point of a list like this is nowadays. I guess you could argue that there used to be some need for people to use lists like these as a way to get an idea of really acclaimed albums that might be worth diving into but with modern streaming, music exploration is just so much different and individualistic. The need for curation like that feels antiquated at best. And now Rolling Stone has a list with a Billie Eilish album from last year proclaiming it to be one of the greatest of all time? It just feels a bit like pandering, they're playing catch up to the modern landscape by including albums they know "the kids" like in an attempt to keep the boomer label away.

I think Billie's album is great and certainly very successful but to be an all-time great, when it's been out for only 18 months? It's a hard sell and that's why lists like these are bound to fail no matter what route they go. When you try to please everyone, you will end up pleasing no one - funneling the opinions of multiple people into one concrete list never ends up feeling genuine. There's no personability to it, it's just a glorified survey. I guess maybe I just the value the abilities and resources I have to carve out my own musical journey a bit too much to let Rolling Stone, a faceless publication, tell me what they consider the greatest albums of all time to be.
 
The top 20 of this list is SO MUCH MORE ACCURATE than the 2012 list! I am so happy RollingStones finally made more of an effort to come up with a list that is so much more objective! Prince, Bob Dylan, Lauryn Hill, Nirvana, Fleetwood Mac, Joni Mitchell, The Beatles, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and The Beach Boys is so accurate! 🎯

Marvin Gaye deserved the #1 spot big time and I am so happy to own the MoFi One-Step pressing of that album! Equally as happy to own the One-Step pressing of Bob Dylan's Blood On The Tracks, which was also ranked in the top 10! ❤❤❤
 
gaporter said:
I have to wonder what the point of a list like this is nowadays. I guess you could argue that there used to be some need for people to use lists like these as a way to get an idea of really acclaimed albums that might be worth diving into but with modern streaming, music exploration is just so much different and individualistic. The need for curation like that feels antiquated at best. And now Rolling Stone has a list with a Billie Eilish album from last year proclaiming it to be one of the greatest of all time? It just feels a bit like pandering, they're playing catch up to the modern landscape by including albums they know "the kids" like in an attempt to keep the boomer label away.

I think Billie's album is great and certainly very successful but to be an all-time great, when it's been out for only 18 months? It's a hard sell and that's why lists like these are bound to fail no matter what route they go. When you try to please everyone, you will end up pleasing no one - funneling the opinions of multiple people into one concrete list never ends up feeling genuine. There's no personability to it, it's just a glorified survey. I guess maybe I just the value the abilities and resources I have to carve out my own musical journey a bit too much to let Rolling Stone, a faceless publication, tell me what they consider the greatest albums of all time to be.
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I think the only right way is to accept that it’s subjective and embrace that and have people pick their favourites. With a publication as long running as Rolling Stone (or also NME our side) you have a wealth of historic writers, editors and contributors to call on as well to give generational balance. This list poses a bit to much for me.
 
gaporter said:
I have to wonder what the point of a list like this is nowadays. I guess you could argue that there used to be some need for people to use lists like these as a way to get an idea of really acclaimed albums that might be worth diving into but with modern streaming, music exploration is just so much different and individualistic. The need for curation like that feels antiquated at best. And now Rolling Stone has a list with a Billie Eilish album from last year proclaiming it to be one of the greatest of all time? It just feels a bit like pandering, they're playing catch up to the modern landscape by including albums they know "the kids" like in an attempt to keep the boomer label away.

I think Billie's album is great and certainly very successful but to be an all-time great, when it's been out for only 18 months? It's a hard sell and that's why lists like these are bound to fail no matter what route they go. When you try to please everyone, you will end up pleasing no one - funneling the opinions of multiple people into one concrete list never ends up feeling genuine. There's no personability to it, it's just a glorified survey. I guess maybe I just the value the abilities and resources I have to carve out my own musical journey a bit too much to let Rolling Stone, a faceless publication, tell me what they consider the greatest albums of all time to be.
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I was so shocked to see Harry Styles' most recent album in there.....like WHAT?!?!

And the amount of 2010's albums in the top 100 made me shocked too - like two Beyoncé albums...WHAAAAAAAAAAT! Crazy, ey!

I agree what you're saying, but I've always paid attention to RollingStones list because it is a massive music publication who are dedicated to music. I don't agree with the list but I appreciate it and I think this updated list is mind-blowing and is so much more accurate than the last list, as it's so much more accepting of albums such as a Britney Spears' album to ranking hip-hop albums as strongly as rock and soul albums!
 
Jmcg85 said:
TPAB probably the greatest rap release in the last 23 or 24years 🔥
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Agreed! Best hip-hop album ever along with Dr Dre's The Chronic 2001, Madvillainy's Madvillain, GZA's Liquid Swords, Kanye West's The College Dropout, The Notorious B.I.G.'s Ready to Die, Wu-Tang Clan's Enter The Wu-Tang and NaS' Illmatic !!! ❤
 
NathanRicaud said:
Agreed! Best hip-hop album ever along with Dr Dre's The Chronic 2001, Madvillainy's Madvillain, GZA's Liquid Swords, Kanye West's The College Dropout, The Notorious B.I.G.'s Ready to Die, Wu-Tang Clan's Enter The Wu-Tang and NaS' Illmatic !!! ❤
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Do you think that an album has had enough weight of history behind it after 5 years to be in the top 20 albums of all time? Can you can realistically decree that when it’s not even had the opportunity to transcend its era, because it’s era is still ongoing.
 
NathanRicaud said:
I was so shocked to see Harry Styles' most recent album in there.....like WHAT?!?!

And the amount of 2010's albums in the top 100 made me shocked too - like two Beyoncé albums...WHAAAAAAAAAAT! Crazy, ey!

I agree what you're saying, but I've always paid attention to RollingStones list because it is a massive music publication who are dedicated to music. I don't agree with the list but I appreciate it and I think this updated list is mind-blowing and is so much more accurate than the last list, as it's so much more accepting of albums such as a Britney Spears' album to ranking hip-hop albums as strongly as rock and soul albums!
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Fine Line is on there? Wow... that's something. And I liked that album but... wow

And I can understand what you're saying about the inclusion of more hip-hop and pop music, but that also speaks to the problem with a list like this: while some might champion Rolling Stone for updating their list to include records that more modern audiences would appreciate, the traditionalists see it as outright offensive. I think there are albums from the past decade that could go on to be considered all-time greats, and some that already have somewhat cemented that status, but it comes off to me as just feeling empty and cynical in this context. I hope that hip-hop continues to become a genre that's taken more seriously as a whole but I doubt that TPAB being included in a Rolling Stone list is going to be what makes that happen :/
 
Joe Mac said:
Do you think that an album has had enough weight of history behind it after 5 years to be in the top 20 albums of all time? Can you can realistically decree that when it’s not even had the opportunity to transcend its era, because it’s era is still ongoing.
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To Pimp A Butterfly is such an impactful album that I won't be surprised if it's ranked within the top 10 in the 2028 updated RollingStones list! To Pimp A Butterfly was that much of a strong album that is really was seen as an instant classic when it was released!
 
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