The New Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums List • Page 19

Here's the RS top 10, for the record.

1 | Marvin Gaye | What's Going On | 1971
2 | The Beach Boys | Pet Sounds | 1966
3 | Joni Mitchell | Blue | 1971
4 | Stevie Wonder | Songs in the Key of Life | 1976
5 | The Beatles | Abbey Road | 1969
6 | Nirvana | Nevermind | 1991
7 | Fleetwood Mac | Rumours | 1977
8 | Prince and the Revolution | Purple Rain | 1984
9 | Bob Dylan | Blood on the Tracks | 1975
10 | Lauryn Hill | The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill | 1998

 

I want to go and crunch the numbers for how many of the Apple 100 was made after 2000, because it sure seemed like one-third or more. There are more albums from the 2010s in the top 10 than any other decade. Elevating recent stuff into the canon definitely seems like it was the goal of this exercise, now that we have the full list.

 

Wild!

 

rolling stone is a publication that appeals to olds and Apple Music is a streaming service that appeals (or trying to appeal) to youths so the top tens make sense

 

What’s the worst of the ten? Back to Black? Lemonade?

 

Songs in the Key of Life is probably my least favourite of Stevie's incredible 5 album run in the mid-70s. I think
Music of My Mind, Innervisions, Talking Book & Fulfillingness are better records. Songs in the Key of Life does have the coolest title of all of them though.

 

I like Back to Black, but it feels the least justified, IMO. An enjoyable retro soul album elevated to absolutely insane degrees because the artist who made it died tragically young.

That said, it feels early to list any of those 2010s albums so high. Not sure how solid the arguments are for those three over a whole bunch of what was in the 11-30 range.

 

GKMC (which I do not like) and Blonde (which is okay) have warranted a little bit of a pass because of how much they have a stranglehold on the youth. Like 25 kids quoted “Ivy” in the yearbook this year. Top 10 ever? 50 even? No shot, but I get it. I truly don’t get the Lemonade love, but people online do keep insisting it’s a masterpiece.

Back to Black is the wildest to me because it’s been around for a while and really has not ever etched itself into the zeitgeist as a classic, at least from what I’ve seen.

 

I have not listened to Lemonade since 2016, and really did not like it back then. Probably due for a revisit.

Back to Black seems to do very, very well on lists like this. But it's bizarre to see it rank above literally every other album from the 2000s, when I can't recall a single person or publication making that argument back in 2009.

 

I really can’t get over putting the Taylor’s Version of 1989 in there and not the original record itself. Not like I think the original belongs there either, but it feels like such pathetic pandering so they don’t get their inbox flooded by bored teenage stans.

 

That really seems like a "We want people to go stream this one" move. Similarly, they put the deluxe version of the Kendrick album on there. It's annoying, especially to purists like us, but I think it might come with the territory of having a streaming service building a list like this.

 

Gotta be because it links to that specific album, right? Couldn't imagine the uproar with the Swifties if they linked to the OG Scooter version

 

Good take Craig

I know personally that AM has some of the most talented writers but it’s a bummer that there is never a byline (from someone who wrote nearly a hundred album bios and track by tracks for them)

 

very funny to imagine a j cole album being one of the absolute best of all time

 

Fiona should have definitely been on this list and maybe Joanna Newsom too (and once again no Sufjan is a crime)

 

The Fiona thing is interesting, because it really seemed like Pitchfork and other pubs were throwing down the gauntlet for Bolt Cutters to be the defining masterpiece of the 2020s, but I don't hear people talk about it that often. I'm curious what will top mid-decade lists when those start dropping in a few months.

 

I def would've put When the Pawn... in the top 10

 

Some clarity on how the list was made

 

My guess is Punisher

 

Yeah, that kind of feels like the “informed everything that came after” pick.

 

Weird, wild stuff

 

Lemonade easily

 

No Sufjan anywhere on the list is extremely confusing to me

 

There should be something on there that represents the indie folk era that came about and blossomed in the 2000s/2010s/2020s like Sufjan or Fleet Foxes or Iron & Wine or Wilco or the newer generation like Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, Big Thief, Waxahatchee

There also should have been something to represent the indie rock era heralded by women that came about in the 2000s/2010s. Like Courtney Barnett, Angel Olsen, Sleater-Kinney, Mitski, St. Vincent, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, etc. At least one album to represent both eras would have been nice.

 

The thing about the 2000s indie era is that the default pick for that five years ago would have been Funeral, which would 100 percent have made this list. But Arcade Fire have done such a tremendous amount of damage to their legacy in the past decade that they end up falling out of lists like this, and there’s no real consensus “runner-up” for what that album signified. As a result, Is This It and Kid A end up as the picks from that early Pitchfork period, even though both kind of preceded the boom you’re talking about.