Rolling Stones Top 500 Albums Of All Time

[ZiprHead]

Inspired by the Rush catalog thread, I took some time to re-read the Rolling Stone magazine list of the 500 greatest pop albums of all time. A fascinating look at the history of popular music. Inspired me to seek out some albums to check out.

While reading though, I came across this:


I had to make it small enough to capture so if you cannot read it, it says: "According to keyboardist Dr. Fink, the title track was inspired by Bob Seger – when Prince was touring behind 1999 [see No. 163], Seger was playing many of the same markets. Prince didn't understand his appeal but decided to try a ballad in the Seger mode."

Bob Seger? BOB FUCKING SEGER?!?

 

[funinspace]

I scanned thru the ungainly web pages when you posted it on Jimmy's thread. I am probably going to look back at it some more as it was interesting. I can see a hint of Bob Seger in Purple Rain now that they pointed it out, so I'm not sure what your consternation is about...

I hadn't realized just how many David Bowie albums would be in there, along with Bruce Springsteen. One thing I would gripe about a bit with the list, is so many listings from the Beatles, especially on some of the earlier stuff. Even though I like the Beatles, I think much of the older albums are over rated.

Ironically, I don't think I saw Rush get an album on the Rolling Stones top 500 listing. At least one of my favorite bands, Queen, got Night at the Opera on the list. I also thought best of albums were kind of a cheat on the list.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Do they have Brittany Spears' latest album on that list? If not, it's biased bullshit that's not worth looking at.

 

[funinspace]

Do they have Brittany Spears' latest album on that list? If not, it's biased bullshit that's not worth looking at.

Well, I think I did see "Oops, I Farted Again" on the list

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Do they have Brittany Spears' latest album on that list? If not, it's biased bullshit that's not worth looking at.

Well, I think I did see "Oops, I Farted Again" on the list

That's good. The hit song Incoherent Babble While Hopped Up on Meth was an instant classic and it would have been criminal for them to overlook it just because she's "untalented" and "can't sing" or whatever other bullshit excuse they might have pulled out of their asses.

 

[rousseau]

I scanned thru the ungainly web pages when you posted it on Jimmy's thread. I am probably going to look back at it some more as it was interesting. I can see a hint of Bob Seger in Purple Rain now that they pointed it out, so I'm not sure what your consternation is about...

I hadn't realized just how many David Bowie albums would be in there, along with Bruce Springsteen. One thing I would gripe about a bit with the list, is so many listings from the Beatles, especially on some of the earlier stuff. Even though I like the Beatles, I think much of the older albums are over rated.

Ironically, I don't think I saw Rush get an album on the Rolling Stones top 500 listing. At least one of my favorite bands, Queen, got Night at the Opera on the list. I also thought best of albums were kind of a cheat on the list.

I'd guess a list like this also factors in the significance of the music in the era it was released. A lot of the Beatles early stuff sounds mundane today, but in it's time it was a radical departure from a lot of what people had heard before. In the same way Louis Armstrong's Trumpeting from the 20's sounds derivative by today's standards, but during the decade it was played it was blowing people away.

Art is funny like that, in that if you're too progressive you won't have impact, if you're not progressive enough you won't have impact. The Beatles in the early 60's hit the sweet spot and became a huge influence on popular music.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I'd guess a list like this also factors in the significance of the music in the era it was released. A lot of the Beatles early stuff sounds mundane today, but in it's time it was a radical departure from a lot of what people had heard before. In the same way Louis Armstrong's Trumpeting from the 20's sounds derivative by today's standards, but during the decade it was played it was blowing people away.

Art is funny like that, in that if you're too progressive you won't have impact, if you're not progressive enough you won't have impact. The Beatles in the early 60's hit the sweet spot and became a huge influence on popular music.

Which raises a good question about the make-up of lists like this. Should they be the most influential albums, so you kind of need to know the cultural context in which it was released to fully appreciate why it was included, or should it be the albums who's music has best stood up to the test of time and they're ranked as the best because solely because of the songs on them and you don't need to know anything more about them than the playlist?

 

[rousseau]

I'd guess a list like this also factors in the significance of the music in the era it was released. A lot of the Beatles early stuff sounds mundane today, but in it's time it was a radical departure from a lot of what people had heard before. In the same way Louis Armstrong's Trumpeting from the 20's sounds derivative by today's standards, but during the decade it was played it was blowing people away.

Art is funny like that, in that if you're too progressive you won't have impact, if you're not progressive enough you won't have impact. The Beatles in the early 60's hit the sweet spot and became a huge influence on popular music.

Which raises a good question about the make-up of lists like this. Should they be the most influential albums, so you kind of need to know the cultural context in which it was released to fully appreciate why it was included, or should it be the albums who's music has best stood up to the test of time and they're ranked as the best because solely because of the songs on them and you don't need to know anything more about them than the playlist?

I'd argue that the only way a list like this makes sense is to put the albums in the proper context. Based on pure technical skill, variety, emotional impact, and a bunch of other factors a lot of the music released in the last 20 years is clearly superior to that released before-hand, but a lot of it wouldn't exist without the music that came before.

The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Velvet Underground completely changed the landscape of popular music, so artists like David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, and Seger would later be viable. So really the only way you can compare two albums from different eras is via the cultural impact they had at the time they were released.

The catch-22 is that music is so easily made and recorded now and the industry has been around for so long that the market is saturated with genres, and sub-genres that are all derivatives of something that came before. This is to the extent that making the same type of impact that groups from the 60s did is almost impossible, even if your records are really good. So 'best-of' lists are probably always going to be weighted toward the origins of the rock era.

 

[funinspace]

Which raises a good question about the make-up of lists like this. Should they be the most influential albums, so you kind of need to know the cultural context in which it was released to fully appreciate why it was included, or should it be the albums who's music has best stood up to the test of time and they're ranked as the best because solely because of the songs on them and you don't need to know anything more about them than the playlist?

I'd argue that the only way a list like this makes sense is to put the albums in the proper context. Based on pure technical skill, variety, emotional impact, and a bunch of other factors a lot of the music released in the last 20 years is clearly superior to that released before-hand, but a lot of it wouldn't exist without the music that came before.

The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Velvet Underground completely changed the landscape of popular music, so artists like David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, and Seger would later be viable. So really the only way you can compare two albums from different eras is via the cultural impact they had at the time they were released.

The catch-22 is that music is so easily made and recorded now and the industry has been around for so long that the market is saturated with genres, and sub-genres that are all derivatives of something that came before. This is to the extent that making the same type of impact that groups from the 60s did is almost impossible, even if your records are really good. So 'best-of' lists are probably always going to be weighted toward the origins of the rock era.

I would generally agree with what you said, but I'll explain my Beatles comment a little further. Went I said 'over rated' I meant it in terms of the times and the impact. I don't see how having 2 kissing cousin Beatles albums makes them both having much so impact. I agree that it is hard to make the same impact as the 1960's in the 21st century. However, The Beatles were also influenced by the likes (per Wiki) of Little Richard and Chuck Berry who each only got one listing. Another person mentioned as influencing the Beatles, Elvis Presley got 3.

First, yes I bothered to cull the list for it:
#1 Sgt. Pepper
#3 Revolver
#5 Rubber Soul
#10 The White Album
#14 Abby Road
#39 Please Please me
#53 Meet the Beatles
#307 A Hard Days Night
#331 Help
#392: Let it be

Is ‘Revolver’ that much different than ‘Rubber Soul’? Is ‘Meet the Beatles’ that much different than ‘Please Please Me’? Is Help’ that much different than ‘A Hard Days Night’? Personally, I would nix 3 of these 6 albums from the listing in a heartbeat.

 

[blastula]

I looked through the list and I can't disagree with a single entry nor omission.

 

[Horatio Parker]

I had to make it small enough to capture so if you cannot read it, it says: "According to keyboardist Dr. Fink, the title track was inspired by Bob Seger – when Prince was touring behind 1999 [see No. 163], Seger was playing many of the same markets. Prince didn't understand his appeal but decided to try a ballad in the Seger mode."

Bob Seger? BOB FUCKING SEGER?!?

That's an interesting connection that would never had occurred to me.

BTW, anyone see/hear Princes solo on "My Guitar Gently Weeps" at the R&R Hall of Fame? Supposedly at rehearsal Prince sad he didn't know the tune, and Tom Petty said, "So WTF are you here?". So Prince showed him...

Solo starts at 3:27...

 

[rousseau]

I had to make it small enough to capture so if you cannot read it, it says: "According to keyboardist Dr. Fink, the title track was inspired by Bob Seger – when Prince was touring behind 1999 [see No. 163], Seger was playing many of the same markets. Prince didn't understand his appeal but decided to try a ballad in the Seger mode."

Bob Seger? BOB FUCKING SEGER?!?

That's an interesting connection that would never had occurred to me.

BTW, anyone see/hear Princes solo on "My Guitar Gently Weeps" at the R&R Hall of Fame? Supposedly at rehearsal Prince sad he didn't know the tune, and Tom Petty said, "So WTF are you here?". So Prince showed him...

Solo starts at 3:27...

Speaking of Prince, what's your opinion on the overall quality of his discography?

I tried to go through it in it's entirety a few months ago, and his sound which was at first pretty stunning, eventually bordered on mundane and tedious. Like the Bill Evans of funk/rock fusion.

 

[Horatio Parker]

Speaking of Prince, what's your opinion on the overall quality of his discography?

I tried to go through it in it's entirety a few months ago, and his sound which was at first pretty stunning, eventually bordered on mundane and tedious. Like the Bill Evans of funk/rock fusion.

Not qualified to say…I've never bought a record of his.

Very talented hard working guy, I like a lot of his stuff(that I've heard). Some of his mixes strike me as murky, however.

Like Funkadelic, he mixed some rock into his r&b.

 

[rousseau]

Speaking of Prince, what's your opinion on the overall quality of his discography?

I tried to go through it in it's entirety a few months ago, and his sound which was at first pretty stunning, eventually bordered on mundane and tedious. Like the Bill Evans of funk/rock fusion.

Not qualified to say…I've never bought a record of his.

Very talented hard working guy, I like a lot of his stuff(that I've heard). Some of his mixes strike me as murky, however.

Like Funkadelic, he mixed some rock into his r&b.

I bought and read the magazine Rolling Stone released after he died (and Time, but haven't read that one yet). Based on the brief history in it I got the same impression. He was a musical prodigy as early as his high school years (IIRC his dad was a musician as well, which seems common in these cases), and it didn't take him long before he became a superstar. I also got the impression he was more self-centred and unaware than he realised, but aren't we all?

After going through most of his albums you could tell that the technical skill was there, and that there was a certain sound he liked, but all things considered his catalogue seemed a bit one-dimensional. Maybe just a product of the profit motive, who knows.

 

[J842P]

Not qualified to say…I've never bought a record of his.

Very talented hard working guy, I like a lot of his stuff(that I've heard). Some of his mixes strike me as murky, however.

Like Funkadelic, he mixed some rock into his r&b.

I bought and read the magazine Rolling Stone released after he died (and Time, but haven't read that one yet). Based on the brief history in it I got the same impression. He was a musical prodigy as early as his high school years (IIRC his dad was a musician as well, which seems common in these cases), and it didn't take him long before he became a superstar. I also got the impression he was more self-centred and unaware than he realised, but aren't we all?

After going through most of his albums you could tell that the technical skill was there, and that there was a certain sound he liked, but all things considered his catalogue seemed a bit one-dimensional. Maybe just a product of the profit motive, who knows.

I think it's rare to find artistic genius and a lack of being self-absorbed. Not saying it doesn't exist, but it's rare in my reckoning.

 

[Horatio Parker]

Not qualified to say…I've never bought a record of his.

Very talented hard working guy, I like a lot of his stuff(that I've heard). Some of his mixes strike me as murky, however.

Like Funkadelic, he mixed some rock into his r&b.

I bought and read the magazine Rolling Stone released after he died (and Time, but haven't read that one yet). Based on the brief history in it I got the same impression. He was a musical prodigy as early as his high school years (IIRC his dad was a musician as well, which seems common in these cases), and it didn't take him long before he became a superstar. I also got the impression he was more self-centred and unaware than he realised, but aren't we all?

After going through most of his albums you could tell that the technical skill was there, and that there was a certain sound he liked, but all things considered his catalogue seemed a bit one-dimensional. Maybe just a product of the profit motive, who knows.

Well, he was really an 80's guy, and the 80's haven't worn so well.

Most artists are one dimensional. Style is something you try and get away from, if you're lucky. If you're unlucky, you don't get to try.

 

[Ford]

Speaking of Prince, what's your opinion on the overall quality of his discography?

I tried to go through it in it's entirety a few months ago, and his sound which was at first pretty stunning, eventually bordered on mundane and tedious. Like the Bill Evans of funk/rock fusion.

I haven't heard everything, but for me, his quality dipped a bit when he stopped being beholden to Warner Brothers. And that's tough, because generally speaking I'm on board the "record companies are bad entities that stifle creativity in the name of consumerism" train.

Problem with Prince is that he was not just prolific, but very self-indulgent. If you'd handed him a bunch of money and a year to produce new music, he'd put out a new album every week, a new persona every month, and a bunch of new side projects that he'd swear wasn't all him. And if that very long Kevin Smith video is to be believed, Prince surrounded himself with people who were basically incapable of telling him "no, that's a terrible idea."

 

[bilby]

I knew that the Rolling Stones were prolific, but I would have guessed that (even including compilation albums and box sets) they wouldn't have released as many as 100 albums in total, much less 500.

Or is there an apostrophe missing from the thread title?

 

[ZiprHead]

BTW, anyone see/hear Princes solo on "My Guitar Gently Weeps" at the R&R Hall of Fame? Supposedly at rehearsal Prince sad he didn't know the tune, and Tom Petty said, "So WTF are you here?". So Prince showed him...

I remember seeing a list of top ten guitarists of all time from Guitar Player magazine, IIRC. Prince was on that list.

 

[ZiprHead]

I knew that the Rolling Stones were prolific, but I would have guessed that (even including compilation albums and box sets) they wouldn't have released as many as 100 albums in total, much less 500.

Or is there an apostrophe missing from the thread title?

Heh. Would it have made a difference?