Yes, Rolling Stone Magazine is at it again with a new version of subject, that is on the newsstands now. Some think there is a bias in the list, others dismiss it as a marketing stunt. So my question is simple, and numerical, how many of these albums do you actual;y currently own, in any media form. All who answer with '500' will get to go to New York and be an unpaid intern at Rolling Stone for five years, no expenses paid.
It's apparent that when setting themselves up as a prominent oracle covering contemporary music, RS chose to rely on poorly informed opinions when putting together the "greatest 500 albums" list. They put up multiple titles from Miles Davis and Coltrane and listed albums of Stan Getz and Ornette Coleman... when you have more than 490 slots left to fill, you gotta' be pretty damn ignorant not to list any records released by their peers. Opinions aside, their list omits many albums that shaped the evolution of jazz and rock. Their assessment is very inaccurate and poorly serves readers and a lot of recording artists. Last I heard, we still get to speak truth to power to some degree and are generally at liberty to point out incompetence when we see it. Ranking albums and artists is inherently kinda' dumb, (trying to quantify something that is largely qualitative). The best we can can probably hope for is that the morons at RS can learn from their mistakes.
These lists are really nothing to get excited about. Every person alive would come up with a different list of the 500 best.
If you are expecting a lot of post bop jazz to show up in a Rolling Stone 500 best, I'm not sure what you're thinking. Your time would be better spent reading DownBeat. Can you imagine Bob Dylan or the Stones showing up in a DownBeat best of? By chance, there's a Critic's Poll on DownBeat right now.
Check out the list, if there's something there that you like, read the review. If not, put it back in the rack and go home and listen to that death metal band you like so much and congratulate yourself on your good taste.
There is always Amazon for people who wish to be amateur reviewers. You can review individual albums and you can make up your own best of lists, and they'll be published on the web for the whole world to see. Don't get mad, have a go at it yourself.
As far as I'm concerned, this is about as useful as asking my 80-year-old father to name his 500 favorite rock records (and, just to be clear, he's not a rock fan).
500 gives Rolling Stone enough room to do A LOT better: -Their list has multiple titles from Miles Davis and Coltrane, has one Stan Getz and one Ornette Coleman (way before his peak). LIST DOES NOT HAVE: Charles Mingus Thelonious Monk Eric Dolphy Charlie Parker Cecil Taylor Albert Ayler Duke Ellington Roland Kirk Art Ensemble of Chicago Bill Evans Dave Brubeck Gil Evans Don Ellis Sun Ra John Zorn Henry Threadgill Don Cherry Anthony Braxton Oliver Nelson Oscar Peterson Keith Jarrett Cannonball Adderley Sam Rivers Lee Konitz Paul Desmond Personal taste aside, RS failed to competently assemble another list.
The list has multiple titles from Roxy Music, Brian Eno and Pink Floyd and has single albums from Kraftwerk, Suicide, Sonic Youth, Captain Beefheart and My Bloody Valentine. LIST DOES NOT HAVE: King Crimson ELP Yes Can (omission of Can is a sub zero I.Q. act of pants shitting) Van der Graaf Generator Henry Cow (or any Fred Frith) Amon Duul II NEU Soft Machine National Health Camel Gong Terje Rypdal Gentle Giant Weather Report Mahavishnu Orchestra (maybe even dumber than the Can omission) Brand X Magma Chrome
List has multiple titles of Metallica, Black Sabbath AC/DC, Kiss, Def Leppard, Mott The Hoople, MC5, The Stooges, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, Aerosmith, one Van Halen record and a Peter Wolf record. LIST DOES NOT HAVE: Deep Purple Scorpions Thin Lizzy Judas Priest Rory Gallagher Humble Pie Kansas James Gang Spirit Blue Cheer Blue Oyster Cult Captain Beyond Wishbone Ash Uriah Heep Megadeth Motorhead Pantera Slayer Patto UFO
The list does contain two Frank Zappa records, but both came out before 90% of his recorded output and well before the bulk of his best compositions were released.
Can't stomach going into detail about the whole list, but it seems likely that the first 500 discs thrown on the floor by a gang of chimps in a record store might have about the same ratio of slick formulaic flotsam. Thinking RS assembled a good list of the 500 greatest albums is kind of like thinking Geo. W. Bush was a good president.
These lists usually end up being more of a list of the most popular 500 albums of great, but overplayed and way too familiar music. My top albums tend to be less well known and I play them sparingly to avoid ruining them for me. I want a top 500 list from a credible source where I dont recognise any of the names.
I guess RS including non rock albums including jazz, country hip hop, soul and others is thier way of saying there is more to music than rock. Gee, whoda thunk it?
Rolling Stone and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame are also heavily biased towards mainstream music forms that derive from or resemble American roots music forms, like the blues primarily.
Even "art" rock bands like Yes, Genesis, The Moody Blues, Porcupine Tree Roxy Music and others that strive to break traditional music forms regularly largely get left by the wayside.
OF course Rolling Stone is biased towards a particular genre and demographic, ie rock music and baby boomers. What else would one expect?
Maybe they should just do the 500 greatest ROCK albums of all time. That's probably the extent of which they are qualified to make any sort of judgement.
Or one can say that at least they attempt to bring other genres into their rock/boomer centric world. That's pretty noble of them I would say. OR more likely, necessary to remain relevant in any shape or form still these days. :-)
I would not read anything more into it than that though. It is what it is.
Not too many cuz don't give a single snap at all weather the album is included there or not. Their criteria and mine on judging the top album more likely completely opposite. Didn't find any word about Zappa there WTF? Count me out.
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