FEATURE:
What’s Going On
PHOTO CREDIT: @thevoncomplex/Unsplash
Rolling Stones Revised 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time: Which Would Be in Your Top-Five?
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I do love a good albums ranking list…
and the best one out there, I think, is Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ever list. They have revised it now so that Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On is at the top. I guess, after such a political year which has seen Black Lives Matter pushed into everyone’s consciousness, the album of 1971 resonates hard today. This new list, whilst it will stir some debate, I think it is not only a fascinating look at some great albums many of us might forgotten about, but it has got people talking about their favourite albums and whether Rolling Stone’s top-ten is right or not. The Times reported the news that has got many music fans debating:
“In what amounts to an act of public penance America’s most celebrated rock music publication has proclaimed that the greatest album ever made was actually a soul record.
A comprehensively revised edition of Rolling Stone’s popular 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list has a new number one: Marvin Gaye’s plaintive 1971 protest album What’s Going On.
It replaces Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles, which topped the original list selected in 2003 and the slightly tweaked and updated version in 2012, but has been relegated to the lowly status of the 24th best album in history. It is now only the third best Beatles record, behind Abbey Road at 5 and Revolver at 11.
The revamped list was created after Rolling Stone asked for input from more than 300 producers, critics, industry executives and musicians, including Beyoncé, Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish, half of U2, Raekwon of the Wu-Tang Clan, Gene Simmons, and Stevie Nicks.
IN THIS PHOTO: Billie Eilish/PHOTO CREDIT: Austin Hargrave
The result is a list that is far more diverse, both musically and in terms of the musicians, than before, with 154 new entries, 86 albums from this century and a much greater representation of women and non-white artists. The online music magazine Consequence of Sound called it “a long overdue overhaul that better reflects who we are and who we want to be as a society”.
Rolling Stone was started in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner, a university drop-out aged 21, and within a short time came to be regarded by many Americans as an essential tool for understanding modern life. That legacy meant Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time acquired pantheon status for readers after it wasfirst published.
The overwhelming dominance of rock albums made by white, typically male, performers, also gave it an increasingly dated appearance set against today’s kaleidoscopic music environment
Rolling Stone said that “tastes change, new genres emerge, the history of music keeps being rewritten”. It added: “The classics are still the classics, but the canon keeps getting bigger and better.”
There was just one album by a female artist in the top 30 in 2003: Joni Mitchell’s Blue. Now, with more than 300 journalists, industry figures and artists voting, including Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, who may have helped vote their own albums into the top 500, there are five.
IN THIS IMAGE: The cover for Kendrick Lamar’s 2015 album, To Pimp a Butterfly
The Beatles, for the last five decades the undisputed gods of best album lists, have only one, Abbey Road, in the top ten. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, formerly Rolling Stone’s greatest album ever, has slipped to a shocking number 29.
Hip-hop, now the world’s most popular genre, features heavily, with Kendrick Lamar’s 2015 state-of-the-nation epic To Pimp A Butterfly at 19.
No list is definitive, and the canon of classic albums will always change with the times, which is why a lot of progressive rock fans will be dismayed to discover that Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon did not even make the top 50.
“One distinction from the old list is that there’s not one objective history of popular music,” Rolling Stone’s reviews editor Jon Dolan said.
Sometimes, however, you do wonder if the rock’n’roll baby was thrown out with the bathwater. 1967’s psychedelic rock masterpiece Forever Changes by Love was listed as the 40th best album of all time in 2003. Now is the 180th. Has it really got worse with age?”.
I am glad Joni Mitchell’s Blue made it to number-three, and Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life is at number-four. It is great that there is a female artist in the top-five, and I am surprised there are not more women in the top-twenty - Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is one of only a few. That album actually beat out The Beatles’ Revolver, and the band only got as high as number-five with Abbey Road.
I do like how some more contemporary albums have overtaken classics, and Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly of 2015 is at number-nineteen. Whilst articles like Rolling Stone’s are good clean fun, it does actually raise a point as to how some albums gain new relevance over time and how others can age badly. The fact some of The Beatles’ very best did not crack the top-five is not a reflection of its value in 2020, but more the fact that other albums speak more loudly and have acquired new nuance. A lot of conversation took place after Rolling Stone published their revised feature, and it made me think what people’s top-five albums would be – I am not sure I would even have a top-five-hundred! Like the new list, I think a couple of albums in my top-five are there because they have grown stronger through the years and, in a year when nostalgia is as important as political activation and awareness in terms of many people’s musical lures, a couple of albums would be higher. Kate Bush’s The Kick Inside will always be top, and I have written about that a lot. I would keep Paul Simon’s Graceland at number-two, as it is an album I listened to a lot when I was young, but the songcraft and beauty of the album is as strong now as it was back in 1986! Whilst Jeff Buckley’s Grace, and Radiohead’s The Bends would have been in my top-five, I think they have moved just out. Oddly, I would put the Traveling Wilburys’ Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 in the top-five.
That album was released in 1988, and they were a supergroup consisting of George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, and Tom Petty. Their fantastic debut sound so gentle and uplifting; the songs are simple, yet they stick in your head and lift the heart. Madonna’s Ray of Light has always been in my top-twenty, but I would move it as high as a top-five place, not only as she is directing her own biopic soon; I have also been revisiting her albums a lot. I love her 1983 eponymous debut, but Ray of Light of 1998 was a high school favourite that saw Madonna embark on one of her biggest musical transformations. The songs are phenomenal, and William Orbit coming in as a producer adds something new to Madonna’s palette. The order of albums might change, and I am sure that, as time goes by, other albums will come into the top-five. I would also include Steely Dan’s Pretzel Logic in the mix. I was also considering Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique as it is an album that I adore. I have included Steely Dan so high up because, again, this is a childhood album but one where the sheer quality of songs stands up today. It is strange how we can have a favourite album that will never always remain so, but then the rest of the top-five or ten alters as we get older. It would be interesting to see what other people think and whether their favourite albums selections have changed much this year. I am fascinated by Rolling Stone’s new rankings, as it opens up questions and makes me think about albums becoming more popular or meaningful based on the passing of time and how various years shape up. This year has been a trough one, but I have taken great comfort in albums that mean a lot to me. Some have grown in estimation and wonder and, all things considered, I really…
CAN’T explain why.