Ranking Rolling Stone Magazine’s Top 500- An Exploration by AAL2014

From AAL2014 12/25/2023 07:10

12/25/23- 2 in the morning.

Merry Christmas. To myself and whoever may see this.

Just now returning to this chart after breezing through the last 150 or however many albums and not updating.

Coming down to the wire as I’m currently about to crack the top 25. My most recent listen was #27 Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), one of my favorite albums of all time. It held up, to put it simply.

Making some adjustments and will return with a more intensive recap as I reach the end or possibly the top ten.

From AAL2014 05/14/2023 17:47

Mother’s Day Sunday, May 14th, 2023.

Only now realizing to keep up with my on-going commentary. I thought I would be well finished by this point when I started, but for a handful of different reasons, that’s not exactly the case.

As of now, I’ve passed the half way mark and just updated the list by adding albums from 231-240, some absolutely essential records.

This definitely started out as a fun chart idea to go along with a personal listening goal of hearing all 500 albums from the updated Rolling Stone magazine list, but as time has passed, this chart has become one of my very favorites to work on.

A big part of that is, especially over half way through the 500 now, how difficult it is to figure out which records get cut. I’ll probably end up making parts 2, 3, 4, and 5 charts to illustrate the many great records (and a few not so great) that are missing my take on Rolling Stone’s top 100 albums.

On to the next, I’ll report back after the 200 mark.

From AAL2014 05/14/2023 17:38

This comment was written a while back but just now posting it on 5/14/23, Mother’s Day!

Sunday, July 3rd, 2022. Just now getting through the next batch of 100. Falling behind a little on getting through the list before November rolls back around, but still very much enjoying the process. More listening stones overturned through these last 100, and I’m appreciating more sounds and genres more thoroughly.

Punk rock, especially in its early stages with budding sounds of proto-punk, art-punk, and glam rock, is scattered all over this portion. X-Ray Spex to Wire to X to Roxy Music to the New York Dolls.. all artists with albums I was able to check out through this process and I’m appreciative of that sound more than ever.

The quality of these records collectively went up from the last 100 and there weren’t quite as many head scratchers of choices as the 400’s, however.. I’m sorry to say, albums like Aaliyah’s and Kelis’s did nothing for me.

This last group from 399-300 once again allowed for some much needed revisits to records like On The Beach, Norman Fucking Rockwell!, and The Black Parade. All sorts of albums I didn’t realize were so vital and so close to being favorites already. Shit, even with my adoration of Rush and Moving Pictures (a record that should be 250 slots higher), I was blown away with what a solid full listen with headphones did for my love of that record. My love for /MuCore masterpieces Madvillainy and In The Aeroplane Over The Sea blossomed too. Absolutely a rewarding process.

I look forward to seeing what the 200’s have in store.

Some stats for the records 400-301:

87 unique artists added to the list

1950’s- 3 albums
1960’s- 10 albums
1970’s- 34 albums
1980’s- 15 albums
1990’s- 15 albums
2000’s- 13 albums
2010’s- 10 albums

66/100 albums I hadn’t previously listened to.

From AAL2014 01/23/2022 04:23

Saturday, 01/22/22 . I made it through the first batch of 100 records from 500-401 and have continued into the 300’s.

I’ve really been enjoying this process so far, even sitting through the pretty terrible records was fun for the experience. I gained a lot of knowledge along the way and plenty of new potential favorites, the majority of these records I had never listened to before. With a couple albums (Paul Simon s/t, Alice Coltrane), I was able to give a much needed “after a long time” listen and came away loving them even more.

Some stats for the records 500-401:

95 unique artists
2 by various artists
10 different nationalities
6 by mixed nationality artists

1950’s- 3 albums
1960’s- 13 albums
1970’s- 23 albums
1980’s- 10 albums
1990’s- 17 albums
2000’s- 15 albums
2010’s- 9 albums

85/100 albums I hadn’t previously listened to