[whatok]

Really funny/sad that these guys as well as others have historically downplayed rap and other black music, felt the need to placeholder some in recent years, and now have the audacity to act like Kanye's MBDTF is the 17th greatest album of all-time. Meanwhile, Sketches of Spain no longer even ranks in the top 500.

[ilamont]

Rolling Stone basically downplayed or ignored everything that wasn't "classic rock" or its close cousins until about 1990. They along with most radio stations really were a tool of the U.S. record industry for years, and didn't pay attention to what was bubbling up on the street and in the clubs until it hit them in the face.

An important moment in pop music history was when the charts switched to actual sales data instead of what record store managers claimed were the top selling albums. This happened in 1991. All of a sudden:

... SoundScan’s data collection returned the power to the people, the genuine fans who buy and listen to music. Twenty-five years ago, the firm started counting how Joe Music Fan was spending his bucks, instead of listening to a record store manager’s easily corrupted opinion.

It turned out that people were buying a lot more metal, hip-hop, country, R&B and alternative rock albums than the old system claimed. The change on the charts was immediate. The change in the industry was almost as fast. Artists that had been relegated to their genre pools (from Nirvana to Ice Cube to Garth Brooks) were now free to swim in the mainstream.

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/billboard-soundscan/

Rolling Stone was forced to change their coverage, although the "best of lists" have always reflected the tastes of their editorial staff, which has been slower to come around.

[runawaybottle]

There’s a massive overcorrection going on here. None of this feels sincere.

[peruvian]

They stuck to their "dad/classic rock + some 90s/early 00s rock + the three jazz/soul albums everyone knows" until the ad revenue wasn't there and they're trying to overcompensate for it.

[bryanrasmussen]

some of it feels sincere generational shift. Like Prince and Michael Jackson and Lauryn Hill, but Aretha Franklin which I might consider to be a needed correction does not feel like a generational shift - other than the new generation thinking previous generations undervalued women of color etc. which I guess they also did so, hard for me to judge the sincerity, although there sure is a lot of stuff I think really?

[ryandrake]

But 2003-2012 hardly changed at all, which makes sense. I wouldn’t expect 8-9 years to drastically change a decades-old album’s quality. How does a 50 year old album suddenly go from 30th to 3rd? Did the content suddenly change?

It looks like they just used a random number generator for 2020. I would love to read the article where they explain what changed about all these albums since 2012.

[bryanrasmussen]

since I have absolutely no knowledge regarding Joni Mitchell whatsoever I have no idea what could have changed her status, since I know nothing about her it does easily come to mind to suspect it is because people decided to reevaluate women artists, and she came up on top.

However in the case of some people that I do know about other non 'political' motivations might come out, for example Purple Rain jumped 68 spots to come up #8 which strikes me as totally understandable based on these things:

1. Maybe people who choose these things now have more representatives of the 80s-90s generation than before.

2. His killer show at the Super Bowl really made people who had perhaps forgotten about him re-appreciate him.

3. He died recently and that kind of thing also tends to give you a big bump.

#3 reason also applies to Fleetwood Mac since Mick Fleetwood died recently, and there does seem to have been a big critical reevaluation in the past year regarding Rumours (and Fleetwood Mac used to be loathed by the Rock press in the previous generation, so if more of their opponents disappear it just might lead to their re-evaluation)

other examples -

I think critical reevaluations of this sort often have to do with someone reminding the public of themselves, perhaps through death but also perhaps by doing something kick ass, so -

Aretha Franklin https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/arts/music/aretha-frankli... might get a big lift from the kind of performance she gave there.

I could go through and find other examples, but yes in a lot of cases I think what?! I just don't understand the reasoning (unless it's let's do a big reevaluation to make things more fair and we really need to put this great album down so we can bring this great album up). And in some cases like Joni Mitchell I really have to just drop it because I'm not well enough informed to really have any idea .

[jeffbee]

Why is Miles even in this list, though? What universe of music is under consideration? I see Coltrane but not Parker or Brubeck? It does not seem like Kate Bush and Miles Davis can be meaningfully ranked.

[CydeWeys]

In theory it's all music that's under consideration, but in practice it's mostly western, English-language music that has been recorded since the widespread adoption of LP vinyl records starting in the late 1940s (before that recorded music was simply too niche, expensive, and low sound quality). Also, consider that modern music didn't really become what it is today until the Elvis revolution in the late 50s (which is why almost nothing on this list pre-dates the 60s). So Parker and Brubeck are suffering by these metrics.

[Apocryphon]

808s and Heartbreak being on a best of list at all, let alone albums of all-time, seems like a mistake.

[tptacek]

I don't particularly like MBDTF or Kanye for that matter but it was the P&J #1 pick for 2010.