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{{Use American English|date=August 2023}}{{Use mdy dates|date=August 2023}}{{Short description|Recurring magazine music ranking}}{{DISPLAYTITLE:Rolling Stone{{'}}s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time}}"The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is a recurring opinion survey and music ranking of the finest albums in history, compiled by the American magazine Rolling Stone. It is based on weighted votes from selected musicians, critics, and industry figures. The first list was published in a special issue of the magazine in 2003 and a related book in 2005.BOOK, Levy, Joe, Steven Van Zandt, Van Zandt, Steven (Introduction by), Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, First Paperback, 2005, Wenner Books, New York, 1-932958-61-4,weblink 2024-04-17, limited, Internet Archive#Text collection, Internet Archive Book Reader, Related news articles:

• NEWS, December 11, 2003, The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, Rolling Stone, 937, 83–178, Straight Arrow, 0035-791X, 1787396,
• WEB,weblink 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, July 1, 2010, Rolling Stone, May 31, 2009,

Critics have accused the lists of lending disproportionate weight to artists of particular races and genders. In the original list, most of the selections were albums by white male rock musicians, with the top position held by the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). In 2012, Rolling Stone published a revised edition, drawing on the original and a later survey of albums released up until the early 2000s. Another updated edition of the list was published in 2020, with 269 new entries replacing albums from the two previous editions. It was based on a new survey and did not consider the surveys conducted for the 2003 and 2012 lists. The 2020 list featured more artists of color and female artists, topped by Marvin Gaye's What's Going On (1971). It received similar criticisms as the previous lists.WEB, Bonnie, Stiernberg,weblink Does the World Really Need Another 'Greatest Albums of All Time' List?, InsideHook, September 23, 2020, September 28, 2020, Another revision was published in 2023.MAGAZINE,weblink The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, Rolling Stone, December 31, 2023, January 1, 2024, Since 2020 Rolling Stone has also produced a weekly podcast called Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums, which, according to magazine, is based on an "updated version of Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums list".WEB, Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums,weblink's-500-greatest-albums, 8 February 2024, Amazon Music, The podcast is hosted by Brittany Spanos, a staff writer at the magazine.MAGAZINE, Spanos, Brittany, 17 November 2020, 500 Greatest Albums Podcast: Taylor Swift on How 'Red' Changed Everything For Her,weblink 8 February 2024, Rolling Stone, en-US, WEB, 2021-12-31, Rolling Stone's '500 Greatest Albums' podcast discusses how Shakira reshaped Latin pop,weblink 2024-02-08, HOLA, en-US,

Background

File:The Beatles members at New York City in 1964.jpg|thumb|The BeatlesThe BeatlesThe first version of the list, published as a magazine in November 2003, was based on the votes of 273 rock musicians, critics, and industry figures, each of whom submitted a ranked list of 50 albums. The accounting firm Ernst & Young devised a point system to weigh votes for 1,600 submitted titles. The Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band topped the list, with Rolling Stone{{'}}s editors describing it as "the most important rock 'n' roll album ever made".BOOK, Sawyers, June Skinner, Read the Beatles: Classic and New Writings on the Beatles, Their Legacy, and Why They Still Matter, 2006, Penguin, New York, {{google books, y, EIgR8wbhPDoC, |isbn=978-0-14-303732-3|page=97}} The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds (1966) was ranked second in recognition of its influence on Sgt. Pepper.BOOK, Jones, Carys Wyn, The Rock Canon: Canonical Values in the Reception of Rock Albums,weblink 2016, 2008, Routledge, Abingdon, UK, 978-0-7546-6244-0, 57, The list also included compilations and "greatest hits" collections."It's Certainly a Thrill: Sgt. Pepper Is Best Album", USA Today, November 17, 2003.An amended list was released as a book in 2005, with an introduction by guitarist Steven Van Zandt. Some compilation albums were removed, and Robert Johnson's The Complete Recordings was substituted for both of his King of the Delta Blues Singers volumes, making room for a total of eight new entries on the list.{{full citation needed|date=September 2020}}{{refn|group=nb|The Complete Recordings was reinstated to the list in the 2012 edition.{{citation needed|date=September 2020}}}}On May 31, 2012, Rolling Stone published a revised list, drawing on the original and a later survey of albums up until the early 2000s.MAGAZINE, 500 Greatest Albums of All Time,weblink May 31, 2012, Rolling Stone, October 24, 2016, It was made available in "bookazine" format on newsstands in the US from April 27 to July 25. The new list contained 38 albums not present in the previous one, 16 of them released after 2003. The top listings remained unchanged.{{citation needed|date=September 2020}}File:Marvin Gaye (1973).png|thumb|Marvin GayeMarvin GayeMost of the albums on the initial lists were by white male rock musicians. Among the top 50 rankings, only 12 entries were by artists of color, none of whom were female, and only three albums by white women figured in the top 50.On September 22, 2020, another revision of the list was published. It drew upon a new survey conducted with "more than 300 artists, producers, critics, and music-industry figures", including:MAGAZINE,weblink The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, September 22, 2020, Rolling Stone, September 22, 2020, {{div col|colwidth=15em}}

• Craig Kallman
• Daft Punk
• Beyoncé
• Taylor Swift
• Billie Eilish
• H.E.R.
• Tierra Whack
• Lindsey Jordan
• Adam Clayton
• The Edge
• Raekwon
• Gene Simmons
• Stevie Nicks
• Radiohead

{{div col end}}Each voter was asked to submit a ranked list of 50 favorite albums.MAGAZINE,weblink Who Voted for the 500 Greatest Albums?, September 22, 2020, Rolling Stone, April 30, 2020, This time, the list included more musicians who were female and people of color, with many such artists represented at higher rankings than on the previous lists.WEB, September 22, 2020, Rolling Stone updated its Top 500 Albums of All Time list so it's no longer just white dudes,weblink September 28, 2020, Consequence of Sound, en-US, 86 of the entries were 21st-century releases. One hundred fifty-four new entries were not on either of the two previous editions, and rap albums figured three times as much.WEB, Henderson, Cydney, September 22, 2020, Beach Boys, Beatles, Beyoncé top Rolling Stone's new 500 Greatest Albums of All Time,weblink October 24, 2020, USA Today, en-US, Marvin Gaye's What's Going On (1971) was featured at the number one spot.The 2023 revision was created using the same method as the 2020 list.

Reception

The original Rolling Stone 500 was criticized for being male-dominated, outmoded and almost entirely Anglo-American in focus.Biron, Dean. 2011. Towards a Popular Music Criticism of Replenishment. Popular Music & Society, 34/5: 661–682.Schmutz, Vaughan. 2005. Retrospective Critical Consecration in Popular Music: Rolling Stone's Greatest Albums of All Time. American Behavioral Scientist, 48/11: 1510–1523. Writing in USA Today, Edna Gundersen described the list as predictable and "weighted toward testosterone-fueled vintage rock". Following the publicity surrounding the list, rock critic Jim DeRogatis, a former Rolling Stone editor, published Kill Your Idols: A New Generation of Rock Writers Reconsiders the Classics in 2004. The book featured a number of critics arguing against the high evaluation of various "great" albums, many of which had been included in the list.({{ISBN|1-56980-276-9}})Jonny Sharp, a contributor to NME{{'}}s own 500 greatest albums list, described the 2012 Rolling Stone list as a "soulless, canon-centric [list] of the same tired old titles", adding: "looking at their 500, when the only album in their top 10 less than 40 years old is London Calling, I think I prefer the NME's less critically-correct approach."WEB, Sharp, Johnny, Mission Impossible: My 'NME 500 Greatest Albums' Voting Hell,weblink The Quietus, January 1, 2020, October 24, 2013, Responding to the 2020 revision, Consequence of Sound{{'}}s Alex Young wrote that the lesser representation of white male rock musicians was "the biggest takeaway". According to CNN's Leah Asmelash, "The change represents a massive shift for the magazine, moving to recognize more contemporary albums and a wider range of tastes."WEB, Leah Asmelash, Rolling Stone places Marvin Gaye at the top of its new, less rock heavy list of the best albums ever,weblink September 28, 2020, CNN, September 23, 2020, Conversely, Jonathan McNamara of The Japan Times criticized the list for underrepresenting Asian and non-Anglophone artists, stating that "It seems a shame then that Rolling Stone{{'s}} musical brain trust of writers and industry contributors [...] didn't take the opportunity to hold up albums from the world's non-English-speaking artists and bands."WEB, McNamara, Jonathan, 2020-09-30, Ten Japanese albums that Rolling Stone missed on its '500 Greatest Albums of All Time' list,weblink 2021-01-03, The Japan Times, en-US,

Statistics

Number of albums from each decade

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Artists with the most albums

The following table lists the artists who had at least three albums included on at least one edition of the list (71 artists in total).{| class="wikitable sortable" style="font-size:0.95em; line-height:1.5em;"