The New Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums List • Page 5

Oh yeah of course lol.

Idk, they had some 2019 on there haha

 

Fine Line came out 12/13/19 lol

 

I know but if I think they were including 2020 then folklore's omission will make my brain explode (and the inclusion of Harold without a peep about Niall Horan's latest, but I digress)

 

HMMMM. Are you saying Niall's is on the same level as Fine Line? Haven't heard anything about his stuff

 

Now this I did not expect! I love folklore, but I’m not even ready to decide where it lands on my TS ranking, let alone all-time. Pretty sure Red is always going to be my fav of hers, though.

 

Glad Donuts is on there.

 

Also in the camp of people who loved the AP thread for the previous list, as well as being a person that thinks these are fun springboards for discussions. Not saying I agree or disagree either way, but I'm kind of surprised Emotion didn't sneak on here as one of the more recent inclusions.

 

Nobody on this earth was more surprised about this than me, trust me. I thought it was physically impossible.

 

I'm happy to see, among others,Golden Hour, Blonde, Red, Weight of These Wings, Black Parade, Melodrama & Norman Fucking Rockwell (yes it deserves it) as far as newer picks (among others).

I love Fine Line a lot, but it is definitely kind of funny to have it on here. It's the definition of an album I listen to because it's a ton of fun, but not groundbreaking in any way. Billie Eilish feels like something that I could see going either way in 10-15 years when we look back on it. I understand including it though.

It's always a little funny when almost all a bands albums are included. Yes the Beatles are amazing idk if we need to say it 12 different times though. Would be more interesting to limit it to 3-5 albums from an artist max and open up more space for others.

As far as omissions, I think Janelle Monáe deserves better. And I'm not surprised but would've loved a Paramore album to sneak on. (And about 1000 others)

 

I feel like every Bob Dylan album was on here

 

This is so funny

 

my favorite pop album of all time

 

Wow!

 

Blackout is amazing

 

Golden Hour and Southeastern both sneaking in there were nice surprises.

 

illmatic went from No. 402 in 2012 to No. 44 today.

That’s a wild jump, haha.

 

It was 402 in 2012!!!?? good god i hope those people aren't still talking about music for a career.

 

Craig is right!

 

Honestly Craig usually is!

 

No Sufjan at all? Illinois or Carrie & Lowell should be on this list!

 

Definitely Carrie & Lowell

 

I think if you are going to choose recent albums to put on here, a smaller artist or band putting out a fantastic record a la either of Big Thief's records from last year, either of the two Julien Baker/Phoebe Bridgers records, etc. would have been much cooler and made more sense. I like the Harry Styles record, it just isn't a record people called great/one of the greatest when it was released and as time has gone on.

 

Lots of choices I strongly disagree with which is no shock. Strangely the one that made me double take most was New Day Rising being the Husker Du record. Alywas thought Zen Arcade was (rightly) considered the band's opus. I can listen to lo-fi all day (Zen Arcade included) but New Day Rising is just ear-bleedingly difficult to listen to, and it falls off a cliff after the first six songs. After that I only like Books About UFOs.

Another random thought: Tom Waits seems to have fallen off the radar a lot in the past decade. From 200-2011 he seemed like a major influence on music, from our favs like Brian Fallon to Modest Mouse and many more. He had two albums around the top 10 of the Pitchfork 80s list. his 2011 album is still AOTY on rateyourmusic. But as "indie" moved into a pop/RnB direction his stature has plummeted. Swordfishtrombones went from 11th to nowhere on the new P4k 80s list. Rain Dogs is criminally low here. I consider Waits' songwriting absolutely timeless but recent events are proving that not to be the case as far as "the culture" is concerned.

Finally, shocked to see a Rolling Stone list with Joshua Tree so low. Seems like the 100-200 range was where a lot of hugely influential 80s indie/alt-adjacent records landed (Disintegration, Daydream Nation etc etc)

 

Absolutely agree, Pet Sounds has a few great songs but I've never thought it was incredible. Listening to Abbey Road, or Highway 61 Revisited, Born To Run, Purple Rain etc I liked them a lot more but also thought 'I can see why this is so revered'. Beach Boys I just don't get. Even when all the popular bands were like Grizzly Bear etc and obviously cribbed from Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys the album never clicked with me. I wonder if too much emphasis is put on the fact that album pushed The Beatles to new heights. But mostly I just wonder if it's because Pet Sounds is the USA's entry into the classic rock canon whereas so many of the great bands of that era from the Beatles and Stones to Led Zep etc etc were all from the UK...

 

I said this on Twitter, but I do wonder what the "canon" will look like as lists like this continued to be remade 10, 20, 30 years into the future. As the history of recorded popular music continues to expand, it's harder to contain it in a list like this, and it seems like some artists just don't get as much love from younger generations. The hits Waits and U2 took on this list seem indicative of that, along with R.E.M., Billy Joel, and probably plenty of others. There are some staples that seem to get passed down from generation to generation pretty reliably, but others sort of fade. I wonder what will happen to the legacies of some of those artists as the years go on and more and more stuff from the 2000s and on filters onto these lists. I already think there's some insane recency bias going on with a few of these picks.