[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 .