Monday, June 12, 2017

Rolling Stone Magazine's 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time

It's been 14 years since "Rolling Stone" magazine compiled its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time.  Most of the complaints about the list are that it's Baby Boomer-centric (and I can't argue with that), but is that a bad thing?!  That's open to discussion.  Jann Wenner's tastes have always baffled me, and in fact remind me more and more often that his magazine is the best of a weak lot... Crawdaddy?  CIRCUS?!?!  (Check out this blog post, which features a terrible commercial for Circus.  Publisher Jerry Rothberg has no business on-camera... "do you know the faaaaacccccts").

Anyhow, RS also compiled a 100 greatest LP list (1987) and a 200 greatest (1997), so aren't they due?  In 2012, the 500 greatest was updated with 38 new albums, 16 of which came out after the original list.  I guess they wanted to seem relevant or something (and then they published it in a BIG, FAT, PRINTED BOOK instead of making it available in an easy-to-navigate online format).  I don't know enough about the revised list, but I would love to see them go all the way to 1000... not unlike the "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die" list.

All that being said, there are several disks I never see on any of these lists, which should be.  To wit:

-Magical Mystery Tour (The Beatles, 1967): I make a case for this in this video (at the 36:30 mark, or so).
-Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, Ltd. (The Monkees, 1967)
-A Wizard, A True Star (Todd Rundgren, 1973)
-Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus (Spirit, 1970)
-On the Threshold Of a Dream (Moody Blues, 1969)
-Nashville Skyline (Bob Dylan, 1969)
-Tug of War (Paul McCartney, 1982)
-Ringo (Ringo Starr, 1973)
-33 1/3 (George Harrison, 1976)


As a bonus, since I don't know where else to put it, here's the catchy opening "theme" (if you can call it that) from The Beatles ABC-TV cartoon series:

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