Rolling Stone's new "500 Greatest Albums"

[CondorCat]

Rolling Stone Magazine has released a new: "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list.

About every decade they produce such a list with previous editions in 2003 and 2012. The new "500 Greatest Albums" clearly emphasizes diversity and includes many more black, hip-hop, and women artists. Some 86 albums are now from the 21st Century.

You may find your old favorites dropped down a few notches. Examples: Previously Beatles "Sgt. Pepper's" was the #1 album; it has dropped to #24 now. Kanye West has 6 albums in the Top 500 -- Led Zeppelin (5), Pink Floyd (4). Everybody's favorite, Taylor Swift, even has a Top 100 album.

The Wikipedia page has a breakdown of the list by decades and artists.

I'm OK with the rankings. Lists are lists. Rolling Stone Mag hasn't been relevant in a long time. It's probably overdue 20-30 year-olds have their favorite albums listed. Maybe I'll give some of the albums I've ignored a chance.

 

[WildcatFan1982]

I think 300 people took part in the poll to create it. No one will ever be able to create a perfect list, but people will whine anyway.

 

[WildcatFan1982]

also, I don't really dislike Billie Eilish, but I think it is stupid something that recent is on this list. You know how many albums I've owned in my life that were just the greatest thing ever that now I never listen to? Back in the early 90s you'd better believe I'd have put the Spin Doctors on this.

and lol yes I realize I contradicted my previous post

 

[FtWorthCat]

Bob Dylan - "Blonde on Blonde" is my #1, #38 on their list.

 

[toll_booth_guru]

Lauren Hill edging out...REVOLVER at # 10! It was hard to look past all the crappy rap albums to find Rubber Soul or any Sun Studios albums (Presley, Cash, Perkins, Lewis). These genres should not be mixed any more than nursery rhymes should be considered alongside Ulysses or The Sound and the Fury.

 

[P19978]

You lost me at "Rolling Stone magazine..."

 

[kyeric]

I think 300 people took part in the poll to create it. No one will ever be able to create a perfect list, but people will whine anyway.

That's part of the idea behind it. Get it out there, create "controversy" over the picks and get more clicks/readers.

 

[Tskware]

Haven't looked at the list, and no doubt there is a lot of new music that deserves to be recognized. My God, how many more times can we listen to "Classic Rock" that was stale by the end of the 70s???

Having said that, I bet I have never heard any music or the artists that are now 20% of the Top 500 of all time. Just way past the age where I GAF (but unlike Pete Townsend, I do not hope to die before I get old)

 

[-BBH-]

It's trash per usual.

 

[It'saDoneDeal]

DSOTM not even top 50? Lol, okay.

 

[gamecockcat]

Watched a YouTube video the other day with Rick Beato who was/is a highly-sought after producer. He took the current Top 10 and made musical comments about each song: key/chord progression, lyrics, production values, tempo, what stood out to him (good and bad). It was instructive and interesting.

About 7 of the 10 songs had NO ACTUAL instruments on the track. All electronically created keys, drums, strings, synths, etc. - not a single real instrument. Even the few that had a real guitar on the track, it was mixed way down and had a ton of effects on it to make it sound like something other than a guitar. He heard quite a bit of AutoTune on most tracks. Several/many of the top songs had either the same beat or the same drum sound (or both). Several had the same drum beat/sound as hits from a year ago when he did a similar video. Thought 'WAP' was trash - no chord progression, lots of electronic beats, not original, etc. I coulda told him that without even listening to it!

What I came away with was that much of today's popular music is basically a factory production with similar tempos, beats, structures, instrumentation, etc. Using the tech of today, one doesn't need to be able to write, play or sing musically - it can all be created and fixed in the studio.

I haven't kept up with music very much since the late 80s other than a few groups that have caught my ear in the past 30 years. But, trying to come up with the top 500 albums of all time when the music business is completely changed from 20, 30+ years ago seems pointless. Today's music is all about getting airplay in a rave club and being downloaded. There is no incentive to producing an album's worth of good songs - just get one or two that are downloadable and you're gold. 'Classic rock' era was about selling albums and touring. Today's music hardly even needs the 'artist' to participate in the creation, only in the marketing. While some artists of yesteryear spent literally months and months creating the classic music of that era.

To me, doesn't make any sense to force a comparison between rap, Bilie Eilish and the Beatles into some sort of list. It's too different to be compared.

 

[It'saDoneDeal]

There is no incentive to producing an album's worth of good songs - just get one or two that are downloadable and you're gold. 'Classic rock' era was about selling albums and touring. Today's music hardly even needs the 'artist' to participate in the creation, only in the marketing. While some artists of yesteryear spent literally months and months creating the classic music of that era.

To me, doesn't make any sense to force a comparison between rap, Bilie Eilish and the Beatles into some sort of list. It's too different to be compared.

There are plenty of amazing artists today out there pouring their lives into it and making important music. There's just so much out there now you've got to be motivated to find it, whereas when we're growing up if it wasn't on FM radio you didn't know about it. When I was 16 before music streaming took off I probably listened to a handful of bands at one time, same as everyone else. Now I've probably listened to 50+ different bands this past month. But yeah, there are still artists out there putting out amazing work. I mean, Bon Iver literally tinkered around over 5 years to make one of the songs for their new album:



Popular music to a lot of extent has always been kinda trash and trying to get the teenage girls swooning and the teenage boys thinking you're king shit. I doubt that will ever change.

 

[gamecockcat]

There are plenty of amazing artists today out there pouring their lives into it and making important music. There's just so much out there now you've got to be motivated to find it, whereas when we're growing up if it wasn't on FM radio you didn't know about it. When I was 16 before music streaming took off I probably listened to a handful of bands at one time, same as everyone else. Now I've probably listened to 50+ different bands this past month. But yeah, there are still artists out there putting out amazing work. I mean, Bon Iver literally tinkered around over 5 years to make one of the songs for their new album:

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Popular music to a lot of extent has always been kinda trash and trying to get the teenage girls swooning and the teenage boys thinking you're king shit. I doubt that will ever change.

I agree with your thought but, in my opinion, most of the 'artists' who spend blood, sweat and tears making important music don't even register on the sales charts or, unless you have Spotify or satellite radio, airwaves. Which, in my mind, begs the question 'how important is the music if almost no one hears it?'. While plenty of crap music was popular during FM radio's heyday, you'd still often hear important artists' work alongside the fluff. Nowadays, it's pop or classic rock or country and hard to find anything else without satellite.

What surprised me most about the Beato video was how homogenized and soulless popular music has become. It literally seems like it's being produced on an assembly line and whichever boy band/pop starlet/rave/EDM artist's turn it is gets the next product.

 

[P19978]

how homogenized and soulless popular music has become. It literally seems like it's being produced on an assembly line and whichever boy band/pop starlet/rave/EDM artist's turn it is gets the next product.

x10 trillion.

"Soulless" is the perfect description.

BB King wouldn't get a sniff of attention if he started out today... and he has more soul than the whole Top 40 combined.

 

[MudererofCrows]

Pop music has always been produced assembly line and catered to the masses. The Brill Building from the 60’s comes to mind.

Yes sometimes that music rises above and becomes true high art but it’s no different today then it was 50 years ago. People just get old and uncool and not as tuned in.

There was a study done a couple years ago that said once people reach like 32 or 33 they stop seeking out new music and just listen to what’s familiar and comfortable to them. I try to listen to new stuff (I’m 39) but I’d be lying if I said most of my regular music rotation isn’t just the same bands and artists I’ve always listened to.

 

[electricdreammachine]

I stopped reading when Lauren Hill was top 10 and ahead of Appetite for Destruction and Boston’s debut album.

 

[ukwizard]

Did George Lucas get a hold of Sergeant Peppers and make some of his famous changes to cause it to drop so far?

80s pop was best pop music ever was and ever will be.

 

[Jeff Drummond]

Did George Lucas get a hold of Sergeant Peppers and make some of his famous changes to cause it to drop so far?

80s pop was best pop music ever was and ever will be.

You didn't like him adding a rap bridge to Lucy or the house remix of A Day In The Life?

 

[Irish Beck]

Shew that top 10 is hot garbage. Rumours & Abbey Road is fine but Marvin Gaye at #1? Holy ish.

 

[Mojocat]

The treatment of Elvis Presley is interesting. The history of pop/rock music in America, at least in the 20th century, all comes down to 2 acts - Elvis and The Beatles. Those two were the Big Bang. They stand alone. Through the 70s and 80s, Rolling Stone on Elvis reflected the sentiments of its old guard, guys like Greil Marcus and Dave Marsh. Presley was “the spiritual leader of a generation”; and “Elvis is the last thing we’re all going to agree on.” Well, maybe not. Over time, Elvis the Caricature is the impression too many have - too fat, too drugged, too Southern. And those jumpsuits! At some point, the electricity and genius of Elvis gave way, now he’s a fat guy on velvet paintings in trailers. We’re tearing down statues of the founding fathers - I guess nothing lasts forever. Maybe he was the last thing we’ll all agree on......

 

[CondorCat]

What surprised me most about the Beato video was how homogenized and soulless popular music has become. It literally seems like it's being produced on an assembly line and whichever boy band/pop starlet/rave/EDM artist's turn it is gets the next product.

I like Beato's YouTube videos on "What Makes This Song Great".

It's crazy you can make music now without playing instruments: Vocal, sampling, computer FX & synth, drum machine trap beat, all gridded out to millisecond perfection, auto-tuned, and over-produced.

"No musical instruments were harmed making this song!"

 

[MudererofCrows]

Elvis was a great performer no doubt. But his contributions to music are way overblown.

 

[gamecockcat]

Elvis was a great performer no doubt. But his contributions to music are way overblown.

I think his contribution was more about attitude than about music in retrospect. His guitar player, Scotty Moore, was damn good, though, and many guitarists have mentioned him as an influence to their playing.

 

[MudererofCrows]

I think his contribution was more about attitude than about music in retrospect. His guitar player, Scotty Moore, was damn good, though, and many guitarists have mentioned him as an influence to their playing.

Scotty Moore was good but the thing about Elvis is that he didn’t do anything that black artists hadn’t already been doing for years previously. He just took black music and black imagery and made it consumable for white audiences. At least early on.

He most def shifted away from that “unsafe” energy he had originally that took a lot from the black artists he listened and watched coming of age in Memphis. A lot of arguments why that was...Tom Parker influence, social critics saying he was acting “too black”, wanting to appeal to a more mainstream audience, etc.

but hey I was always a Jerry Lee Lewis fan more than Elvis anyway. So what do I know.

 

[CB3UK]

Everyone gets their influences from somewhere. Elvis took what many black artists had been doing and made it better.

Same for the Stones, Zep, etc.

People always take the lazy approach and just whine that whitey took black's music.


How is what happened with music any different than the inverse of basketball?


We invented it and blacks eventually took ahold of it and made it their own. And we celebrate that. They made it better. Ive got all manner of ole blues a d jazz recordings. Most of them sound like crap until we start getting into the 50s TBH. Whites took the blues and made them better. Why is it so hard to just acknowledge that for some people?

 

[Mojocat]

John Lennon: “Before Elvis, there was nothing.”

Rolling Stone: “Elvis Presley was an American music giant of the 20th century who single-handedly changed the course of music and culture.”

The number of people about whom such things might be said, by credible people, can be counted on one hand.....