# RS best 500 albums of all time **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** music\ **Created:** [September 22, 2020, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rs-best-500-albums-of-all-time/921241 "2020-09-22T14:35:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rs-best-500-albums-of-all-time/921241/41 "2020-09-23T16:23:08Z")
Those are all good points, Treppenwitz. Do you see a pattern? All your examples are British acts, and to my mind, the list is a bit to US heavy. Not also are British bands underrepresented, but also the rest of the world, for example Krautrock. Only one entry each for Can and Kraftwerk (and for the impressive oeuvres of both bands, one album each is not enough), but no Neu!, no Cluster, no Tangerine Dream, no Faust, no Amon Düül II. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rs-best-500-albums-of-all-time/921241/42 "2020-09-23T16:42:33Z")
Yeah - I realised they were all British acts _after_ I had posted. It’s a US publication, so a degree of US-centricism (if there is such a word) is not so surprising. I think the one album each for Can and Kraftwerk may be part of the “fair shares” thing. What I saw that I particularly liked was that many artists, who I thought unlikely to make the list despite being deserving, were actually on there. To name a few: Sparks Belle and Sebastian The Flying Burrito Brothers The White Stripes Parliament Funkadelic Dr John Eno …and quite a few others. Like I said, I like it. This list has failed to annoy me (much). j ETA - I just realised Eels are not on the list either - so there’s a notable omission which isn’t British! ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rs-best-500-albums-of-all-time/921241/43 "2020-09-23T16:47:18Z")
Oh, I concur, I also like the list, it’s very interesting and introduced me to many albums from the last 20 years I wasn’t familiar with. But of course, everybody has their quibbles with such lists. There’s very little electronica, no house nor techno, but all in all it’s ok. ETA: for example, two I miss: Underworld (maybe Beaucoup Fish or Dubnoheadwithmybassman) Air - Moon Safari ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rs-best-500-albums-of-all-time/921241/44 "2020-09-23T17:04:02Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > (and for the impressive oeuvres of both bands, one album each is not enough) Okay, but it’s the 500 Greatest Albums, not 500 Albums By Great Artists. A Kraftwerk album has to be defended on its merits as literally better than all the other albums ever recorded in the history of popular music except for no more than 499 of them. I think there is a really easy argument to be made that Kraftwerk is OVER-represented on the list. I acknowledge their influence as a band, but even a record like “Trans Europe Express” or “The Man-Machine” is significantly behind a lot of other albums in terms of its impact at the time, popularity, generating hit singles, musicianship… I can probably name dozens of albums that didn’t make this list I think are better than any one Kraftwerk album. It’s inevitable, it seems to me, that a band not as great as another could get an album onto this list while the greater band doesn’t. If a musical act just happened to fit all their genius onto one album, well, there you go. Lorde is on the list, #460; maybe it’s a great album and it sold many copies, but Lorde is not one of the 500 greatest artists of all time, and isn’t even in the top 1000. But if that album deserves it, it deserves it. In terms of having an influence on the overall direction of popular music, Kraftwerk is in the top 500 artists of all time, no doubt. But that’s a different list, right? A list like this has to make mistakes because there’s no way a single human could possibly do this, so you have to have a group reach consensus, and that will never, ever work perfectly. I mean, I think everyone here will agree that Led Zeppelin IV, Tapestry, Automatic for the People, and Back in Black should be up there. **You don’t even have to like those albums to know they belong on the list.** Their sheer impact tells you everything you need to know. But what, really, is the difference between the 452nd greatest album of all time and 1,477th? Is “The Black Parade” by My Chemical Romance really better than “Tails” by Lisa Loeb? Or should it be replaced by Tom Petty’s “Southern Accents,” or is he already on the list too many times (three) and we need to get the Hip on there with “Day for Night?” Pearl Jam’s “Ten” is on the list - wait, is it actually superior to “Vitalogy”? Beats me. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rs-best-500-albums-of-all-time/921241/45 "2020-09-23T17:09:27Z")
I really don’t want to fight it, but in one decisive point we differ, RickJay: in my opinion, Kraftwerk is one of the maybe five most influential bands in history, on par with the Beatles, the Stones or Velvet Underground, so I feel they’d deserve more than one entry, when guys like the Beatles, the Stones, Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Aretha Franklin and Neil Young all have (deservedly) four or more. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rs-best-500-albums-of-all-time/921241/46 "2020-09-23T17:14:49Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > I really don’t want to fight it, but in one decisive point we differ, RickJay: in my opinion, Kraftwerk is one of the maybe five most influential bands in history, on par with the Beatles, the Stones or Velvet Underground, so I feel they’d deserve more than one entry But again, it’s entirely possible to be very _influential_ and not have one particular album better than the 501st of all time. It is also possible to be not particularly influential and have a great album. Grunge didn’t actually last very long, but Nevermind really is a great album. Five hundred albums is a REALLY small number. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rs-best-500-albums-of-all-time/921241/47 "2020-09-23T17:20:48Z")
Having looked at the whole list in slight detail, I think the list is pretty good. It is a list of albums, which the article calls “as relevant as ever” in a bit of wishful thinking. There are a few artists on the lists I don’t know and will seek out. Some names I **like** are almost certainly over-represented - Kanye with 4 or 5; OutKast with 3; Pavement with 2. (500 albums is a fairly small number, so why overegg the pudding?) I liked seeing The Stone Roses, Manu Chao, Charles Mingus, Loretta Lynn… but the general paucity of jazz, country, techno, world and Latino music speaks to the priorities of the magazine. The Top 100 almost looks out of order. Many will decry the absence of yacht rock. I was pleased to see some great albums I perceive as lesser known. There are many important omissions, and lists like this will never be perfect, or close. Charles Mingus and John Coltrane are by no means my favourite jazz musicians - did I miss Miles? ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rs-best-500-albums-of-all-time/921241/48 "2020-09-23T17:24:01Z")
Yeah, you missed him, Miles had “Bitches Brew” and “Kind Of Blue”. ETA: and for yacht rock (which I find a despicable category for one of my favorite bands to lumped in with, but they always are), there are Steely Dan’s “Can’t Buy A Thrill” and “Aja”. I would have picked “Katy Lied” instead of CBAT. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rs-best-500-albums-of-all-time/921241/49 "2020-09-23T17:44:19Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > but the general paucity of jazz, country, techno, world and Latino music speaks to the priorities of the magazine. Among other omissions, the list is almost all English-language music. Which is inevitable for a list in an English-language magazine made by English-speaking critics. I hope it’s not literally the best albums of all time, because that would mean that none of the albums that have yet to be recorded will ever come up to the level of these. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rs-best-500-albums-of-all-time/921241/50 "2020-09-23T18:03:58Z")
For reference, this is the RS top 10 from their 2003 list: 1. The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper 2. The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds 3. The Beatles – Revolver 4. Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisted 5. The Beatles – Rubber Soul 6. Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On 7. The Rolling Stones – Exile on Main St. 8. The Clash – London Calling 9. Bob Dylan – Blonde on Blonde 10. The Beatles – The White Album This list had just 3 women and 12 people of color in its top 50. The current list has 7 and 24 respectively. Only 2 - What’s Going On and Pet Sounds - appear in both top 10s. mmm ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rs-best-500-albums-of-all-time/921241/51 "2020-09-23T18:34:56Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > Only 2 - What’s Going On and Pet Sounds - appear in both top 10s. Interestingly, they dropped four Beatles albums off the top ten, but then put a different one, Abbey Road, onto it. That’s a weird one to explain. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rs-best-500-albums-of-all-time/921241/52 "2020-09-23T18:46:59Z")
Does anybody know the background of how the list was established? Did they do a survey in their pool of RS journalists, or was it an extended pool? Was there any reader’s input? ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rs-best-500-albums-of-all-time/921241/53 "2020-09-23T19:11:45Z")
> [@Dogginit](#): > > Depeche Mode “Violator” #167 > Daft Punk “Discovery” #236 > Kraftwerk “Trans Europe Express” #238 None of those are top 50. > [@RickJay](#): > > behind a lot of other albums in terms of its impact at the time, Why “at the time”? I’d think impact over time is a better measure. Some of these are already mentioned, but the Chemical Brothers, Joy Division/New Order, Prodigy & Underworld are pretty big omissions. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rs-best-500-albums-of-all-time/921241/54 "2020-09-23T19:16:11Z")
What a shit list - not in what’s on it but in what’s left off - _nothing_ by _anyone_ on Creation or Mute, and the only 4AD albums on there are two Pixies and the shittiest Cocteau Twins one. The only Rough Trade one is The Raincoats (and The Smiths slipped in on Sire). ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rs-best-500-albums-of-all-time/921241/55 "2020-09-23T19:20:02Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > What a shit list - not in what’s on it but in what’s left off - _nothing_ by _anyone_ on Creation At least “Loveless” (the album that allegedly almost bankrupted Creation) and “Screamadelica”. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rs-best-500-albums-of-all-time/921241/56 "2020-09-23T19:23:22Z")
Aah, I missed those because they listed them as motherfucking Sire, same as the Smiths. And I know it goes against the tide, but _Isn’t Anything_ is better than _Loveless_. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rs-best-500-albums-of-all-time/921241/57 "2020-09-23T19:35:25Z")
Joy Division #s 308 and 211 New Order # 262 Prodigy and Underworld are fair points. ETA: Also second your point about impact over time. Bands that had precious little impact at the time: the Velvet Underground, The MC5… j ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rs-best-500-albums-of-all-time/921241/58 "2020-09-23T19:46:38Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > But no Dark Side of the Moon? Can that be true? It’s at #55, according to the text version of the list that @NDP provided. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rs-best-500-albums-of-all-time/921241/59 "2020-09-23T19:58:47Z")
> [@Yookeroo](#): > > Why “at the time”? I’d think impact over time is a better measure. That counts too. That’s what I’ve meant when talking about “influence.” Both must be considered. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rs-best-500-albums-of-all-time/921241/60 "2020-09-23T20:05:05Z")
Thanks for the text list. I’m confused Massive Attack made it twice and agree with @RickJay’s omission of Chemical Brothers, Prodigy, etc. (more so than The Hip even if we agree on their best album). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rs-best-500-albums-of-all-time/921241.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rs-best-500-albums-of-all-time/921241.md?page=4)