Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
In 2003, Rolling Stone published an article describing what it considered to be the top 500 music albums of all time. This list proved to be controversial, and opposition to the list centered around the following issues:
- It was too focused upon albums by The Beatles (who had 4 albums in the top 10, including #1)
- It was too focused upon music from the 1960s and 1970s, and limited to English language albums.
- It emphasized rock at the expense of jazz, hip-hop, and certain rock genres like progressive rock.
- It contained few entries by female artists.
- It contained too many entries from the United States, despite the top ten featuring 6 entries from UK artists.
- It elected to include "Greatest Hits" and "Best of" compilations alongside regular releases.
Still, the list was influential, and supporters of bands often point to the presence of an album on the list as tantamount to inclusion in the pop-cultural canon. Even those who seriously challenge the rankings on terms of artistic merit generally accept their validity as indicators of influence and fame.
It should also be noted that, while the list purports to contemplate the 500 greatest albums of all time, it ignores entirely several major genres of music (as these are not genres typically covered by Rolling Stone). Among these are classical music, film music, showtunes, electronic music, bluegrass, and traditional music. However, all of these genres have at least some albums that were incredibly influential (Glenn Gould's second recording of The Goldberg Variations), popular (the original recording of Rent) or both (John Williams' score to Star Wars). Thus, the list cannot be said to be definitive, at least not outside the magazine's traditional areas of coverage.
A book was recently released containing the list and an introduction by "Little" Steven Van Zandt. It was a slightly different list, containing such albums as Aquemini by Outkast, and a different order, with Chuck Berry's The Great Twenty-Eight being lower on the list.