The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time

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The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time was the cover story of a special issue of Rolling Stone magazine published in November 2003. The list was based on the votes of 273 rock musicians, critics and industry figures, each of whom submitted a weighted list of 500 albums. Several music genres were featured in the list, including rock, blues, jazz, hip hop, and combinations thereof.

The list was released in book form in 2005, with an introduction written by Steven Van Zandt. The book's list was slightly different, with the addition of such albums as Aquemini by OutKast. The order was also rearranged, with Chuck Berry's The Great Twenty-Eight being lower on the list.

The list's apparent generational bias toward the 1960s and 1970s prompted a response. Following the publicity surrounding the list, rock critic Jim DeRogatis, a former Rolling Stone editor, published Kill Your Idols: A New Generation of Rock Writers Reconsiders the Classics (ISBN 1-56980-276-9) in 2004. This featured a number of younger critics arguing against the magazine's high evaluation of various "classic" albums, including DeRogatis taking on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which had been Rolling Stone's top choice.

A clear limit of the list is that, as other similar lists from Rolling Stone, it suffers from a strong British-American bias, and only one album produced in a non-English speaking country is included in it: "Trans-Europe Express", by the German band Kraftwerk (#253).

An interesting note is that there are only six songs from any album in the top 10 albums that appear in the top 100 of Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time: Like a Rolling Stone (#1), What's Going On (#4), London Calling (#15), In My Life (#23), God Only Knows (#25), and A Day in the Life (#26).

1 Statistics
2 External links

[edit] Statistics

[edit] Top Ten Albums

1. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles
2. Pet Sounds, The Beach Boys
3. Revolver, The Beatles
4. Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylan
5. Rubber Soul, The Beatles
6. What's Going On, Marvin Gaye
7. Exile on Main Street, The Rolling Stones
8. London Calling, The Clash
9. Blonde on Blonde, Bob Dylan
10. The White Album, The Beatles

[edit] Artists with the most albums in the list

1. The Beatles (11, with 4 in the top ten)
2. Bob Dylan (10, with 2 in the top ten)
2. The Rolling Stones (10, with 1 in the top ten)
4. Bruce Springsteen (8)
5. The Who (7)
6. David Bowie (6)
6. Elton John (6)
6. Led Zeppelin (6)
9. The Byrds (5)
9. Neil Young (5)
9. Otis Redding (5)
9. Bob Marley (5 with 4 listed as Bob Marley and the Wailers)
9. U2 (5)

[edit] Artists with the highest percentage of their catalogue in the list

This list only contains artists who had at least 3 albums on the list and include the ones only at time of publication

The Jimi Hendrix Experience (3/3), Nick Drake (3/3), The Stooges (3/3), Eminem (3/3), Big Star (3/3), and The Velvet Underground (with Lou Reed) (4/4)
The Beatles (11/13) - 85%
The Police (4/5) - 80%
The Who (with Keith Moon) (7/9) - 77.78%
Led Zeppelin (6/8) and Cream (3/4) - 75%
The Who (7/11) - 64%
Bruce Springsteen (8/13) - 62%
Nirvana (3/5) and Simon and Garfunkel (3/5, excluding their Greatest Hits album) - 60%
U2 (5/10), The Smiths 4/8, Talking Heads (4/8), Roxy Music (4/8), Radiohead (3/6), The Doors (3/6), and The Clash (3/6) - 50%
The Rolling Stones (10/23) - 47%
Creedence Clearwater Revival (3/7) and Michael Jackson (3/7) - 43%

NOTES

An American Beatles album, Meet the Beatles, appears on the list. The Beatles' early albums were released in different forms in the UK and US, with widely-variant tracklists, plus different titles and cover art. Since the UK versions have been officially released on CD and the US have not, UK are generally considered to be the "true" albums. This is the only American version of a Beatles album to be included, making the ratio especially complicated to determine. The UK equivalent of this album is with The Beatles.
The Velvet Underground statistic (4/5) is much debated, due to the fifth album Squeeze which does not include founding member singer/songwriter Lou Reed and thus is not conisdered a "true" Velvet Underground album by many. All four of Reed's Velvet Underground albums appear on the list, making the percentage of that incarnation 100%.