Introduction - 1000 Greatest albums of all time
In this blog I am going to listen to, and review, the 1000 greatest albums of all time. That's the plan. I expect it to take roughly 5 years.
The obvious question is - 1000 greatest albums of all time, according to whom? Well firstly, most definitely, not according to me. Most of my favourite albums are not in this list, and most of this list is albums that I have not heard before. My list has been created by combining the Rolling Stone list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, the NME list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, and the top 500 albums on Ranker. I would have liked to include the top 500 best selling albums worldwide of all time also, but could only find information on about the top 50.
So, from these sources, there are some obvious biases that come into effect. For all three, nostalgia plays a significant role, but I don't mind that, as it is with the test of time that albums show their worth. For both Rolling Stone and NME there is a certain journalistic frame of mind, which tends to favour the shocking, the angry and the rebellious. Rolling Stone is better than NME in that regard (to my mind) in that their list embraces albums from a broad selection of genres, and reaches back in time further than I expected. However, there is an expected US-centric bias to their list. NME have definitely favoured the punk and the reactionary, and has a particular disdain for mainstream, easy listening and possibly even rock as a general rule. There is also a UK-centred bias, but it was in fact for this UK flavour that I particularly included NME. as a Brit, I wanted to make sure that British acts got a fair (or possibly even unfair) chance. Finally, Ranker, is generally less high-brow and more populist, by its very nature (it runs on public voting). The numbers of votes are not massive, but it was the best source of this kind I could find. To my mind, Ranker showed its own form of bias, with particular acts being unusually over-represented, as if the Ranker community has managed to mobilise particular fan bases to upvote their music. One such act is The Ramones. However, this could equally well be displaying a bias on my behalf, not realising how important and significant The Ramones really are.
I wanted to undertake this mammoth task, pretty much for my own amusement, and had to get a list from somewhere, so this was the best I could come up with, in my own opinion. Ideally I would have tapped into some form of metacritic, but metacritic unfortunately doesn't reach back in time before the creation of metactitic, so that would disclude most of the albums on this list.
I confess that I did massage the list, a little. In particular I removed some albums, all of which were compilations. I tried to remove compilation "greatest hits" albums where most, if not all, of the content, was covered by the inclusion of the original studio albums. This process was a bit hit-and-miss, not all compilation albums were removed, and when I went through the culling process there were albums that I did not register as compilations.
One of the other major anomalies is that for some bands in the 50s and 60s (particularly The Beatles) there was a tendency to release different collections of songs under different names in the UK and in the US. This is annoying, but I have tried to roll with it as best I can. I don't think that I have accidentally included any albums twice, under different titles.
So the resulting list has many things that you would expect. The top reaches of the list are populated by such acts as Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Stones, The Doors and so on, but actually it is a diverse list covering many genres, many eras and a whole lot of creativity.
And the point - well, like I said, for my own amusement really. This gives me a reason to step out beyond my listening comfort zone, to become more knowledgeable about music, and to spout off my opinion. In each review I will approach it in a way to hopefully give any hapless readers an honest appraisal of the album, so you can judge whether you want to check it out for yourself.
And if you feel up for it, why not come along for the ride. I will try to provide links where you can listen to the albums for yourself. Why not join me in my 5-year mission to boldly listen where many, many people have listened before. Open your ears, open your mind, let's go exploring.
Rolling Stone: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-156826/outkast-aquemini-2-155441/
Dan, I really like the approach of listening to albums generally revered by others and sharing your thoughts. I do have a 'my top 50 albums' kind of series linef up, but may well join you in this listening journey.
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