Classic Country Diminished in New Rolling Stone 500 Best Albums
It’s very easy to pick apart any given person’s or periodical’s “Greatest of All Time” list, especially these days when consuming lists like these seems to be less about filling the holes in one’s knowledge base (which they’re intended to do), and more about inducing arguments when they don’t validate one’s personally-held opinions, with most readers laser focused on what isn’t included on a list as opposed to what is.
But it’s worth noting that Rolling Stone‘s new updated version of their “500 Best Albums of All Time” significantly diminishes iconic titles from the classic country canon. Originally published in 2003, and then freshened in 2009 and 2012, a media outlet that has since launched its own country music subdomain seems to be okay giving actual country music a downgrade.
Not only are albums like Willie Nelson’s Red Headed Stranger—which is considered by many to be the greatest country music album of all time—knocked down the list by over 50 places on the revised list, albums like Willie’s Stardust, Johnny Cash’s American Recordings, and Steve Earle’s Guitar Town were taken off the list entirely. Even stuff that’s more on the country rock side that you would expect to appeal to the Rolling Stone set took a slashing. The Byrds Sweetheart of the Rodeo lost some 150 spots, and Grievous Angel by Gram Parsons got axed entirely.
What got added from country? A grab bag of very recent titles like Taylor Swift’s Red, Golden Hour by Kacey Musgraves, Shania Twain’s Come On Over, and Chief by Eric Church. Meanwhile there is nothing from country music’s Class of ’89, really nothing from the 80’s and 90’s in general despite that time period in country experiencing a huge resurgence at the moment, along with nothing from legends such as Waylon Jennings, George Jones, or Charley Pride. Sure, this is not a list of names, but of albums. But since list makers made the lazy decision to include Greatest Hits compilations in the mix, you would expect maybe something from these names to make it in.
Meanwhile there were a few classic country titles that did receive an uptick, including Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, and Loretta Lynn, as list makers were clearly looking to emphasize the female influence in country, especially with some of the newer titles entered. Miranda Lambert’s The Weight of These Wings made it in as well. Out of the eight “country” albums added in the revised list, seven were from women, and all but one were from the modern era.
As far as any titles from the independent country and roots realm? About the only one you can point to would be Jason Isbell’s Southeastern, which came in at #458. With the way Sturgill Simpson’s Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, and Purgatory from Tyler Childers have shaken the music world beyond country, you were hoping for some interest in them perhaps, or Adobe Sessions from Cody Jinks, or Diamonds and Gasoline from the Turnpike Troubadours, though granted these titles are much more obscure. But no dice.
Of course Rolling Stone is always going to cater more to the rock mentality of music, and that’s understandable. But it seems like overall, country still didn’t get its due. Out of 500 selections, only 15 could you label as actual country, or that were country titles released on country imprints, or only 3%. Factoring albums from the greater roots world with titles from folks like John Prine, Lucinda Williams, and Jason Isbell, it still only gets you to 6% of entries.
Below you can see all the country titles from the most recent update of Rolling Stone‘s 500 Best Albums, including what albums got diminished or eliminated, as well as what was upgraded and added, broken down by country titles and then roots adjacent titles.
Country Albums Downgraded:
• Johnny Cash – At Folsom Prison – Downgraded from #88 to #164
• Ray Charles – Modern Sounds in Country Music – Downgraded from #015 to #127
• Hank Williams – 40 Greatest Hits – Downgraded from #94 to #132
• The Byrds – Sweetheart of the Rodeo – Downgraded from #120 to #274
• Willie Nelson – The Red Headed Stranger – Downgraded from #183 to #237
• The Flying Burrito Brothers – The Gilded Palace of Sin – Downgraded from #192 to #462
• Jerry Lee Lewis – All Killer, No Filler (mostly country) – Downgraded from #245 to #325
• Willie Nelson – Stardust – Downgraded from #260 to out of the Top 500
• Grateful Dead – Workingman’s Dead – Downgraded from #264 to #409
• Johnny Cash – American Recordings – Downgraded from #366 to out of the Top 500
• Gram Parsons – Grievous Angel – Downgraded from #425 to out of the Top 500
• Steve Earle – Guitar Town – Downgraded #482 to out of the Top 500
Roots Album Downgraded:
• Allman Brothers Band – At Fillmore East – Downgraded from #49 to #105
• The Band – Music From Big Pink – Downgraded from #34 to #100
• The Band – The Band – Downgraded from #45 to #57
• Various Artist (incl. Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis) – The Sun Records Collection – From #311 to out of the Top 500
• Richard & Linda Thompson – Shoot Out The Lights – #332 to out of the Top 500
• Richard & Linda Thompson – I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight – #471 to #485.
Country Albums Upgraded:
• Patsy Cline – The Ultimate Collection – Upgraded from #235 to #229
• Dolly Parton – Coat of Many Colors – Upgraded from #301 to #257
• Merle Haggard – Down Every Road (1962-1994) – Upgraded from #477 to #284
Roots Albums Upgraded:
• Lucinda Williams – Car Wheels on a Gravel Road – Upgraded from #305 to #98
• John Prine – John Prine – Upgraded from #452 to #149
• Grateful Dead – American Beauty – Upgraded from #261 to #215
• Lynyrd Skynyrd – (Pronounced ‘Lĕh-‘nérd ‘Skin-‘nérd) added at #381
• Lucinda Williams – Lucinda Williams – Added at #426
• Jason Isbell – Southeastern – Added at #458
Country Albums Added:
• Taylor Swift – Red at #99 (officially released as a country album)
• The (Dixie) Chicks – Fly at #224
• Kacey Musgraves – Golden Hour at #270
• Shania Twain – Come On Over at #300
• Gillian Welch – Time (The Revelator) at #348
• Eric Church – Chief at #419
• Loretta Lynn – Coal Miner’s Daughter at #440
• Miranda Lambert – The Weight of These Wings at #480
September 24, 2020 @ 10:49 am
The first thing I do before I listen to any new music is check what Rolling Stone has to say about it.
Yeah, right. People still buy that magazine?
September 24, 2020 @ 10:59 am
Same magazine that put one of the Boston Marathon Bombers on the cover. These idiots have less credibility than CNN, if that’s possible.
September 24, 2020 @ 12:19 pm
100% ^
September 24, 2020 @ 5:05 pm
It’s actually not possible, but your point isn’t lost on me.
September 25, 2020 @ 9:14 am
Right. Becuase no villian has ever been on the cover of a magazine before.
September 25, 2020 @ 9:33 am
Speaking as someone from Boston:
Fuck. Rolling. Stone.
September 24, 2020 @ 11:02 am
Look, I don’t expect people to have the same music taste as me. But it’s clear that there’s a bias against country music. And quit frankly, any list of the “best albums of all time” that doesn’t include Waylon’s “Honky Tonk Heroes.” Is a sham anyways.
September 24, 2020 @ 12:09 pm
Honky Tonk Heroes!!!!! F Rolling stone!
September 24, 2020 @ 3:43 pm
Truer words have rarely been spoken.
September 24, 2020 @ 4:12 pm
No Garth, Strait, jackson, Black or Luke Combs record breaking music ?
September 24, 2020 @ 11:03 am
Rolling Stone coverage of country music has been piss-poor for a few years now. Too many puff pieces, and any time they do lists like this, country always gets the shit end of the stick, or is just talked about in an idiotic way (ie, their “50 Rock Albums Every Country Fan Should Own” list, where they said American Beauty is “too ruminative” to actually be country. Horseshit).
About the only person I see doing consistently good work for them in country (and I don’t give a fuck if her name is taboo around these parts, credit where credit is due) is Marissa Moss. Every now and then she falls into the puff piece trap, but by and large her work for RS is well-informed and treats country like an actual art form and not just as an “other” to rock or any different genres.
September 24, 2020 @ 11:06 am
Every time I get drunk I rant about how Gram Parson is overrated. But, the Red Headed Stranger downgrade hurts. And what a missed opportunity for Simpson, Childers, and Jinks. And Revolution is Miranda’s best album.
September 24, 2020 @ 11:21 am
MMSCM from Sturgill has had far more impact than any of those adds. With the exception of Loretta.. Let’s face it Coal Miners Daughter was a force in itself (although the movie is a huge reason)
September 24, 2020 @ 6:03 pm
Not more than Southeastern. Southeastern was the catalyst of so much of what we see know.
September 24, 2020 @ 6:01 pm
Yes. Gram Parsons mostly sucks and is incredibly overrated. He is only remembered at all now because his girlfriend Emmylou Harris took up his cause after his death and has continued to promote his thin legacy. There really isn’t much there. Hickory Wind is a great song, but lots of people have written one great song. Apart from Hickory Wind, I haven’t heard much else that is worth listening to.
September 25, 2020 @ 5:46 am
naw, the flying burrito brothers are one of the best bands ever.
September 24, 2020 @ 11:07 am
Is the Duke Lacrosse team on the list?
September 24, 2020 @ 11:16 am
Take a look at the 300 contributors. I counted three I recognized from country music and five guys whose first name is DJ.
September 24, 2020 @ 12:33 pm
Pinto, you could have seen young Dierks Bentley cover Waylon, and the now late DJ AM, on the same day one yr at lollapalooza. Tho that’s probably not what you meant in your comment.
September 24, 2020 @ 11:26 am
It feels like like traditional “rock” albums also took a beating on this revised list. Much heavier toward rap, hip-hop, and modern R-and-B.
September 24, 2020 @ 11:35 am
As an Eric Church fan, I have Chief as his fourth best album behind Sinners, Carolina and his best Mr. Misunderstood. I liked it when it came out and Over When It’s Over might be his best song (Hello Joanna for the first time), but I would much rather have Mr. Misunderstood. Songs like Mistress, Mixed Drinks, Round Here Buzz, Kill A Word, HMO and Record Year still hold up better in my mind today that Drink In My Hand, Keep On, I Got Stoned, etc.
September 24, 2020 @ 11:46 am
Aside from Willie, you can make a strong case that every one of the country artists included does not even have their best album represented. It’s a matter of taste of course, but “At San Quentin” is pretty universally seen as the superior record from Cash’s prison set. “Coal Miners Daughter” and “Coat of Many Colors” feel like they were picked for the recognizable title track rather than the cohesive work. a Greatest Hits compilation from Merle Haggard?
I understand what they were trying to do with “Chief.” But even though I’m partial to it because it includes a song I inspired, there were better options.
September 24, 2020 @ 11:52 am
Where is Merle Fn Haggard? Especially when you have greatest hits on there!
September 24, 2020 @ 12:08 pm
No Greatest Albums list should ever include greatest hits compilations. And there’s plenty of them in this list.
September 24, 2020 @ 12:12 pm
I agree but if you are including them, how the f do you leave Merle out?
September 24, 2020 @ 1:19 pm
And with respect to all other country artists but Merle Haggard is the greatest album catalog in all of country music. The worst Merle haggard record is very good. So many classic records and they chose a greatest hits package.
September 24, 2020 @ 1:13 pm
I think what we are seeing here is that that the country additions on the list are what gets seen as what’s most important to wider pop culture now. This is particularly what’s most accessible to younger generations. The Folsom Prison record being first is what plays the most prominence when tv mentions important things about Johnny Cash. The same is true with Coal Miner’s Daughter particularly because in that case there is a movie by that name.
I find it most interesting that Merle Haggard is rising in importance and that what’s represented here is a compendium of his career. When I was young the controversies of the day blunted his influence out of country music.So there weren’t really albums that were standouts in pop culture. But it makes sense that people discovering him in more recent decades find a compendium and see who he was past “Okie from Muskogee.”
September 24, 2020 @ 1:17 pm
An addition to this thought is that I believe Merle Haggard is being remembered as a great song writer and great American character more than for any single work.
September 24, 2020 @ 2:21 pm
To be fair, the Haggard box is a bit more than a greatest hits – there’s four discs of stuff there. I do think his studio albums from that era are particularly strong too though – Mama Tried, Same Train, a Different Time, and A Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World especially. More so than the Dolly and Loretta inclusions, which strike me as really good but typical for the time country records.
September 24, 2020 @ 6:05 pm
I agree on overall quality, but Greatest tends to consider measure of impact, and Chief is Church’s most recognizable album. It’s only better than Outsiders and Desperate Man, imo.
September 24, 2020 @ 11:38 am
Rolling Stones’ lists are increasingly absurd. I don’t think it’s just that they are rock-centric though that’s certainly part of it. It’s that it’s based on arbitrary criteria that their group of judges pick rather than any sort of objective or historical standards. So it becomes more about the current zeitgeist among the elite rather than anything else.
And there we do have some key points. John Prine, Merle Haggard, and Dolly Parton have all increased in importance recent years as their influence on key younger artists has increased. I think those three are probably the seminal song writing influences these days. The Grateful Dead has become more important as well so I am somewhat bemused by their slight uptick with one album while another drops off. It might just be that no Dead album is as important as Dead concert tapes.
This ,at least, is not as ridiculous as the “100 greatest guitarists” list. In that they managed to include Willie Nelson but totally ignore Merle Travis and Maybelle Carter. Now I kind of agree with Willie and can understand missing he importance of Maybelle because she lacked the pizzazz that makes guitar players famous. But missing Merle Travis who invented country guitar and has the most important technique in country and folk music named after him is a mind blowing oversite.
September 24, 2020 @ 12:06 pm
Don’t always agree with you Baker, but no argument on Merle Travis! My great country guitarist list includes him and Joe Maphis and Larry Collins. The 3 that are sadly most overlooked by far.
September 24, 2020 @ 2:54 pm
You seem to be laboring under the misapprehension that Rolling Stone is written by people who really know something about the “music” part of the word “music.”
September 24, 2020 @ 11:08 pm
LOL! I think then lean more on the stone part as in they were Stoned when they came up with their list. The funny thing is I know of NO young people who read that magazine. So trying to appeal to people who don’t care seem silly.
But as I said elsewhere here I know somebody who used to work on these lists and he said it is orchestrated to create the least amount of offense to the boradest number of people.
September 24, 2020 @ 11:50 am
I don’t like that greatest hits can make it. I wish Trigg would do one for country. I know you did one for the tens. You may already. Jone’s “I am what I am” is a damn fine album that is missing. Waylon Live is the greatest or second greatest country Live album that belongs on that list.
September 25, 2020 @ 10:13 am
Amen to “I Am What I Am.”
September 24, 2020 @ 11:52 am
Thanks Rolling Stone I’m sure everyone will fuckin listen to you.
September 24, 2020 @ 11:52 am
25 essential albums from yours truly
1: Merle Haggard, My Love Affair with Trains
2: Kenny Price, Happy Tracks
3: Doug Kershaw, Easy
4: Texas Shorty and John Hartford, Old Sport
5: Peter Ostroushko, Blue Mesa
6: Banjo Dan, the Catamount is Back
7: Mark O’Connor, Heroes
8: The Liverpool Fishermen, Swallow the Anchor
9: Michael Cleveland and Flamekeeper, Fired Up
10: Dropkick Murphys, Blackout
11: Daniel Romano, if I’ve only one time asking
12: Tennessee Mafia Jugband, Poor Leroy’s Almanack
13: Randy Travis, a man ain’t made of Stone
14: Statler Brothers, Short Stories
15: Makem and Clancy, the makem and Clancy collection
16: Jethro Burns, bye bye blues
17: Steve Martin, the Crow
18: Glen Campbell, Walking in the Sun
19: Earl Scruggs review, Live! From Austin City Limits
20: Lynn Morris, Mamas Hand
21: Pistol Annies, Hell on Heels
22: Riders in the Sky, Sade Pals
23: Weird Al, Off the Deep End
24: Clancy Brothers and Lou Killeen, best of the vanguard years
25: Tom T Hall, Magnificent Music Machine
These are 25 albums that I find myself playing over and over again and just really enjoying them
September 24, 2020 @ 12:02 pm
Good list! I love that Daniel Romano album!
September 24, 2020 @ 12:26 pm
What has The Dropkick Morons got to do with country I will let you off on the Clancys and Makem. At least they inspired a whole new generation of Irish traditional music. The new breed simply said that enough was enough. Makem and the Clancys were simply MOR Irish music. Boring. The Dropkick Morons can’t even say that much.
September 24, 2020 @ 10:39 pm
Banjer Dan?! Are you a Morro bay guy? He sets up all the jams around here?
September 25, 2020 @ 4:20 am
Actually I’m from Michigan! But as a banjer man myself I respect good pickers!
September 24, 2020 @ 11:16 pm
Ooo Lynn Morris… And appreciate the title “essential” not greatest. It avoids all the pedantic bickering Rolling Stone seems to enjoy.
September 25, 2020 @ 9:16 am
Do or Die was way better than Blackout! But other than that, solid list.
September 24, 2020 @ 11:53 am
Dear Trigger, will you please stop getting annoyed at totally irrelevant things. Rolling Stone is one of those things. It is a magazine that is full of its own importance and comes complete with a plethora of writers that are even fuller with their own importance. Chief asshole being Griel Marcus. R.S. never had any interest in country music from its inception. It only began that interest when they discovered a market that would be silly enough to buy the magazine. Yes, all those bro country loving idiots. So please ignore it. I know you believe in bringing this to our attention but all you are doing is reminding us that the bloody thing still exists.
September 24, 2020 @ 11:59 am
Everyone has his or her own opinion, but as soon as I scanned the top 100 and saw virtually no country albums, I immediately came to his site to get Trigger’s thoughts.
September 24, 2020 @ 12:10 pm
Indeed Derek. If they would simply say greatest rock albums, or jazz etc. However I can only imagine the idiots who came up with this list. 500 albums. Jesus. And to arrive at that number would have had to listen to at least 5000. Do the maths, Derek. Some of them most be geriatrics by now. It is a magazine I never liked. I remember it being launched and always thought it and it’s writers to be very pompous. I suppose that makes me a geriatric.
September 24, 2020 @ 12:15 pm
dear paddy fuck off Trig dont have to do a God damn thing but sit around and wait to type
ya sissy
September 24, 2020 @ 12:45 pm
I take it that you are one of the idiots I am referring to.
September 24, 2020 @ 12:08 pm
And another 25 albums I really enjoy and hope everyone listens to (since I had so much fun with the first 25)
I’m not ranking these, it’s just albums I like a lot that are more obscure specifically
1: Merle Haggard, Songwriter
2: willie and Waylon, WWII
3: willie and Merle, Django and Jimmy
4, Porter Wagoner, Unplugged
5, Vern Gosdin, Rough around the Edges
6: George Jones, one woman man
7: willie, Willie before his time
8, Jason Boland, squelch
9, Grandpa Jones, live
10: Takeshi Terauchi, Nippon Guitars
11: Herman’s hermits, no milk today
12: Marty Stuart, this ones gonna hurt you
13: Back to the 60s volume 5
14: Shoji Tabuchi, fiddlin around
15: Ray Stevens, Beside Myself
16: Nicholas James and the Bandwagon, Tall tall tales
17: John Denver, all aboard
18: the incomparable Charley Pride
19: Glen Campbell, light years
20, Gordon lightfoot, Don Quixote
21, Hank jr, America the way I see it
22, Scotty Stoneman live in LA
23: Leahy Live
24: Bobby Hicks, Texas crapshooter
25: Clinton Gregory, Freeborn Man
September 24, 2020 @ 12:38 pm
that marty stuart album is in my personal top 5 of all time of any genre of album. the moment high on a mountain top starts gets me every time, as does when marty finally wakes up.
September 24, 2020 @ 12:10 pm
I would be tempted to look at the list but I am afraid of getting severe eye strain from rolling my eyes repeatedly
September 24, 2020 @ 12:20 pm
Seeing “Music From Big Pink” at #100 and Taylor Swift’s “Red” at #99 eats away at my soul.
September 24, 2020 @ 12:23 pm
Was the artist’s political affiliation and race a factor in determining whether they made the list?
September 24, 2020 @ 12:38 pm
It’s really sad such an iconic magazine like Rolling Stone caved into pressure to fit into today’s world & sell subscriptions by displacing classic country AND classic rock that helped mold our culture to make room for cheesy pop ,& disposable flash in the pan rap that most people who bought it at the time don’t remember or care to hear again.
September 24, 2020 @ 3:00 pm
”It’s really sad such an iconic magazine like Rolling Stone caved into pressure to fit into today’s world & sell subscriptions by displacing classic country AND classic rock that helped mold our culture to make room for cheesy pop ,& disposable flash in the pan rap that most people who bought it at the time don’t remember or care to hear again.”
this . ….you couldn’t have summed it up better
September 24, 2020 @ 1:09 pm
So a list pushed by a desire to conform to SJW attitudes as to avoid cancel culture.
Hard pass.
Maybe they can write another story about UVA or the Duke Lacrosse team.
September 24, 2020 @ 2:04 pm
I enjoy reading the bad descriptions RS gives for each of the Country albums they include – on the one for Red Headed Stranger, the writer states ‘Nelson had penned the song “Red Headed Stranger” years before, on a drive back to Austin after a Colorado ski trip’ – nope, no he had not.
September 24, 2020 @ 2:43 pm
RS=BS Thats my math formula for today.
Trigs already done many album lists on this site. Theres no way any of us could ever agree on the top country albums of all time. Waaay too many to choose from and so many differing tastes among the readers of this site. I appreciate that Fuzzy decided to share some of his favorites. My own list would be ridiculous to even attempt. So heres a few in my collection that I think are particularly great, not necessarily game-changers or heavily awarded or most sold, just albums I think are exceptional in quality.And most of these are not obscure. In other words, known albums that sold well in mainstream country music. And nothing too modern in this list either.
1. A Taste of Yesterdays Wine- Haggard and Jones
2. Chiseled in Stone- Vern Gosdin
3. Dont Close Your Eyes- Keith Whitley
4. Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs- Marty Robbins
5. The Pressure is On- Hank Jr
6. Truck Drivin Son of A Gun- Dave Dudley
7. Alabama- My homes in Alabama
8. The Grand Tour-George Jones
9. This Time- Dwight Yoakam
10. Highways and heartaches- Ricky Skaggs
11. Will The Circle Be Unbroken- Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
12. Diamonds and Dirt- Rodney Crowell
13. Me and Bobby MvGee- Kristofferson
14. Castles in The Sand- David Allan Coe
15. Slide off of Your Satin Sheets- Johnny Paycheck
16. Mountain Soul- Patty Loveless
17. The New South- Hank Jr
18. Live in Texas-Johnny Bush
19. Tougher Than leather- Willie Nelson
20. Little Sparrow- Dolly Parton
21. Unchained-Johnny Cash
22. Whatcha Gonna Do With A Cowboy- Chris Ledoux
23. Tokyo Oklahoma-John Anderson
24. BR549
25. Waylon Live-Waylon Jennings
26. Elite Hotel- Emmylou Harris
27. Stardust-Willie Nelson
28. Pancho and Lefty- Willie and Merle
29. Thats The Way Love Goes- Haggard
30. Hillbilly Deluxe- Dwight Yoakam
31. The Spectacular Johnny Horton
32. Honky-Tonk Man-Johnny Horton
33. Wanted-The Outlaws
34. Tanya Tucker self titled
35. Ocean Front Property- George Strait
36. Ten-Asleep At The Wheel
September 24, 2020 @ 11:11 pm
I like that list. I find Emmylou Harris VASTLY underrated int the mainstream. And I think Trio should’ve been on RS list.
I am surprised RS did not include Wanted – The Outlaws considering it’s impact n sales and what not.
September 25, 2020 @ 4:31 am
Trio was great. I have that one on vinyl as well. Id say Emmylous first 6 albums are all great, not to mention her Live at The Ryman record!
September 25, 2020 @ 7:21 pm
Certainly TRIO should have been on the list, not simply because of its huge star wattage, but becasue Dolly, Linda, and Emmylou made an album of completely traditional country music at a time (1987) when Nashville was still stuck in something of a countrypolitan phase. But according to the album’s producer George Massenburg, who had long worked with Linda, Nashville’s initial reaction was one of absolute loathing….at least until it sold three million copies, of course.
September 24, 2020 @ 2:51 pm
”A grab bag of very recent titles like Taylor Swift’s Red, Golden Hour by Kacey Musgraves, Shania Twain’s Come On Over, and Chief by Eric Church.”
just more pop pandering by R.S. they’ve bought in .
the ‘magazine’ embarrasses itself with its ignorance of and lack of respect for the COUNTRY MUSIC genre and its history .
September 24, 2020 @ 2:52 pm
Yawn.
Trig, it would be interesting to have an open thread where readers could post their top ten albums in response to this typical Rolling Stone nonsense.
You could also post an open thread as “The Alternative Country Music Award” show. Post a poll. You have an audience, and it might present the living alternative to all the corporate schlock.
September 24, 2020 @ 4:35 pm
I was just thinking the same thing after reading some of the other commenters lists.
September 24, 2020 @ 11:14 pm
I would love to see other people’s lists. I am really sorta new to the genre considering my age. But the stuff I learn about in the comments I almost always enjoy more so than whatever mainstream is pedaling.
September 24, 2020 @ 2:55 pm
And how far up did Brandi Carlile move?
September 24, 2020 @ 3:01 pm
Just a reminder Rolling Stone is the Magazine that blasted Rush’s Moving Pictures album while a few years later gave The Who a glowing 5 Stars for Its Hard and praised the phoned in Join Together rip-off I’ve Known No War as the best song on the album. Anyone who thinks this magazine has any knowledge is probably the same person that claims to own ocean front property in Arizona
September 24, 2020 @ 3:35 pm
The additions tell most of the story.
I can remember the last time I read a RS Top List.
3 or 4 years ago, I caught one of their Top 100 Drummers of all time lists. Opened it, saw Travis Barker at #97, thought “man, that seems low”, scrolled down to #96, saw Meg White’s name, and immediately closed the tab.
Never looked at another since.
September 24, 2020 @ 11:24 pm
The fact that list did not include Buddy Harmon was all it took for me to ignore it. Oh but wait they don’t count session musicians because people would not know who they were as people don’t read liner notes anymore.
September 24, 2020 @ 3:40 pm
A few observations just from looking at #401-500:
I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight is at #485 (too low, but they’re still on there).
And if you’re including the Thompsons, the Allmans and The Band in the roots category, shouldn’t Linda Ronstadt (Heart Like a Wheel at #490), Bonnie Raitt (Nick of Time at #492), Creedences (Cosmo’s Factory at #413) and even Sheryl Crow’s self-titled (#475) also be included? Not to speak of their majesties Bob Dylan and Neil Young.
September 24, 2020 @ 4:23 pm
I agree there are some other titles that could be included under “roots,” including a couple of Tom Waits records that were removed in the new list. But I think when you talk about CCR, Neil Young, and Bob Dylan, they’re still better categorized in the classic rock canon. I more just wanted to represent the movement with certain albums that are more country adjacent or country relevant. The Thompsons, The Allmans and The Band were much more foundational to the formation of a specific “Americana” genre, with The Band basically being the impetus for a designation between rock and country. But again, these things can be argued fairly back and forth. I was trying to avoid that argument.
As for Linda Ronstadt, the previous list had a Greatest Hits album on it, and the new one brought in “Heart Like a Wheel.” Again, I just didn’t want to bog down in explanations and cross-referencing.
I don’t think Sheryl Crow’s self-titled album deserves to be in the discussion of country or roots. But for some strange reason, she sure has injected herself in this space.
September 24, 2020 @ 4:50 pm
Actually Trigger, their last listing had HEART LIKE A WHEEL much higher up on the list, at #164. Forgive me if this sounds cynical, but I guess they needed to drop it down to make way for Taylor Swift (who still isn’t. and likely never will be, in Linda’s vocal class, country or otherwise). It’s dumb, of course, because this was not only the album that established Linda’s career, but also helped to inspire the female country music book of the 1990s (again, even though Linda never thought of herself as a country singer in the strictest sense of the term). And it was also the first time that a female artist had a #1 pop and #1 country album, plus a #1 pop single (“You’re No Good”) in Billboard Magazine during the same reporting week (February 15, 1975).
September 24, 2020 @ 5:11 pm
They had Linda Ronstadt at #164 on their previous list update from 2012, but it wasn’t “Heart Like a Wheel,” it was “The Very Best of Linda Ronstadt.” The “Best Of” title has now been eliminated, and “Heart Like a Wheel” was added at #490.
You could definitely look at this as yet another downgrade, taking Ronstadt from #164 to #490. But since it’s not the same album, it’s not a great side-by-side comparison.
Either way, it’s another artist from the roots world significantly downgraded.
September 24, 2020 @ 11:21 pm
How the hell do you DOWNGRADE Lind who but the fourth album went Platinum every single album she released until the very last one. Yeah I know the list is not about sales except it is about sales… clearly for some of their picks.
Heart Like A Wheel and Prisoner In Disguise is the great double album that was never a double album. Those two albums back to back for me are insuperable. But if forced I’d give Heart Like A Wheel the edge only because it was first and because it features on of the ultimate female FU songs. But yeah that is a downgrade.
I surprised they didn’t kill three birds with one stone and pick the Trio record.
September 24, 2020 @ 5:18 pm
I appreciate your explanations, they are mostly valid. Totally agree about Waits. Still, Dylan’s John Wesley Harding (#337) is one of my all-time favorite country albums. I don’t think it’s any less country than, say, Workingman’s Dead. And you should give poor Sheryl a break, she’s got a little bit of a rootsy thing going on there too.
September 25, 2020 @ 5:38 am
I dunno – ’67 Dylan in particular has much more in common with The Band (for obvious reasons) than it does any example of ‘classic rock’ bands than from the same year. It’s only really in the context of music like John Wesley Harding or The Basement Tapes (and the first two Band albums, which were surely born from the same ferment) that the term even makes sense or has any external value.
September 24, 2020 @ 3:41 pm
If they were going to include a Taylor Swift album, they should have featured “Speak Now” instead. It is far more country (though still much more pop than her first 2 albums), and it is probably her best album thus far from a songwriting perspective.
September 24, 2020 @ 3:50 pm
Downgrading Cash and adding Shania Twain? C’mon man.
September 25, 2020 @ 10:21 am
‘Nuff said.
September 24, 2020 @ 4:01 pm
Red Headed Stranger is at #237.
September 24, 2020 @ 4:14 pm
Obviously a terrible, rap-heavy list. Just off the top of my head, The Black Crowe’s Southern Harmony Musical Companion, Charlie Daniel’s Fire on the Mountain, Marshall Tucker’s Searchin’ for a Rainbow should be on there.
Lynyrd Skynyrd is the greatest American rock band of all time. Four of their five albums before the plane crash should be on there. Also, completely leaving Bob Seger off is absolutely ridiculous. Live Bullet is the greatest live album ever released, in any genre.
September 24, 2020 @ 6:47 pm
“Also, completely leaving Bob Seger off is absolutely ridiculous.”
^
September 24, 2020 @ 4:40 pm
They included Kacey Musgraves’ Golden Hour, which is in my personal top 20 of favorite albums of all time, of all genres, so I’m happy.
September 24, 2020 @ 5:09 pm
It’s Rolling Stone. The Top 500 will be every Bruce Springsteen album ever released plus a few other albums. This is a surprise?
September 24, 2020 @ 5:16 pm
10 Rolling Stones albums and 10 Bob Dylan albums.
September 24, 2020 @ 11:26 pm
I actually think if it were not for the f act Cobain committed suicide every pick would be NIrvana. And The Beatles with Miles Davis tossed in to show they black people made other music besides hip-hop and funk.
September 24, 2020 @ 5:15 pm
LOL Rolling Stone. RS slagged on a solid half of those albums when they were released. Their lists are a sad joke.
September 24, 2020 @ 5:32 pm
Excluding the post 2000 albums, the list is really “What do people in Greenwich Village and Haight-Ashbury think are the greatest albums of all time? Those stupid, deplorable hicks in the middle of country and their shitty redneck music can go to hell. We can’t completely ignore them, because, damn, there are a lot of mouth-breathers who bought their albums. So, as much as we hate to do it, we’ll throw them no more bones than we absolutely have to, just to maintain an air of objectivity. Pretty soon, when they are dead and gone (it can’t come soon enough,) the list will be British Invasion, hippies, and rap, exclusively. “
September 24, 2020 @ 5:34 pm
Please don’t go over to their website and give them any traffic. This stuff is by design. To create anger and create site traffic. Leave them alone and let RS continually slide further along into the trash bin of modern media. Don’t let RS make dollars off of us.They already despise us so don’t feed the monsters.Starve them instead.
September 24, 2020 @ 7:25 pm
But it’s too appealing to read up on the status quo…sorry…..cough….I mean….the “counter culture” man. Seriously though, imagine being them…a historically classic rock magazine in 2020 trying to appeal to a younger crowd and still hold on to some old readers all while parroting the same talking points you can get from moveon, ‘Now This,’ or other clickbait Facebook political drivel….all for clicks to sell to their mainstream corporate advertisers. I’d say Trigger’s got a much better gig than that shit show. And the difference in quality speaks for itself. I’ve maybe given them 2 clicks in the last 2 years and wouldn’t even notice if they fell off the face of the earth. In other words, IDGAF enough about their list to even look at it.
September 24, 2020 @ 6:11 pm
Women nicely represented on the list. Everyone happy now?
September 24, 2020 @ 10:57 pm
I am acquainted with somebody who has worked on these lists for RS in the past and he said the rules and qualifiers are laughable. He also said it is NEVER about the actual greatest but about offending the least number of people while also trying to sound smart.
Just wait when enough years go by The Beatles will slide WAY down the list.
September 25, 2020 @ 6:22 am
So true Bear. It’s all political and social statements.
September 25, 2020 @ 10:10 am
John Lennon wrote a song with the “n” word in the title. They’ll probably get around to cancelling him by then along with Patty Smith too.
September 25, 2020 @ 10:33 am
I’ve seen people get riled up when folks sing Oliver’s Army at karaoke. You get to the line “one less white n—–“… and the gates of hell open up… LOL! Well… “people”… if I’m being honest in my area its white ladies getting offended.
September 25, 2020 @ 8:14 am
Sexism is FINALLY over!!
THANK YOU ROLLING STONE!
September 24, 2020 @ 6:19 pm
No love for Heartache Medication?
September 24, 2020 @ 6:22 pm
Miranda is pretty awesome!!! House that Built Me, Bluebird – such timeless hits
September 24, 2020 @ 6:32 pm
There are very few albums which are cohesively perfect and are not just a collection of songs. I’m not sure if that necessarily makes them the “greatest,” but in my mind, they are “perfect” seamless albums. I view these albums as the perfect:
David Allan Coe – Compass Point
Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Black Crowes – The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion
Buckcherry – Buckcherry
Mickey Newbury – Looks Like Rain
Traveling Wilburys – Vol. 1
There are probably a few others I am forgetting right now.
September 24, 2020 @ 9:18 pm
Surprised by the lack of love for Gram Parsons. He is the reason I follow country music today. Gilded Palace is a fantastic work. The Byrds would have never made Sweethearts of the Rodeo without him.
Yes, he was flawed… and made some selfish and disastrous decisions… but his musical legacy and mystique put many artists to shame. Visit Joshua Tree… and tell me otherwise.
October 30, 2020 @ 2:38 pm
Not me; you’re 100% correct. The more I listen to Gram Parsons the more I hear. Passionate vocals, intriguing lyrics and phrasing, and a broad understanding of American music. An exceptional musician.
September 24, 2020 @ 10:48 pm
Rolling Stone magazine hasn’t been relevant for more than 20 years. It’s a leftist rag that sucks the cocks and asses of left-leaning artists. It’s basically a giant circle jerk with Jann Wenner leading the charge. Look at the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame, it’s a complete joke. Other than hipsters, why would anyone care what these pinskulls have to say?
September 24, 2020 @ 10:54 pm
How does one justifiably downgrade Ray Charles? Oh right to appeal to the masses who don’t know there music history. I know this is personal opinion here but without Ray Charles much of the album on the list DO NOT exists period. And that alone stand for greatness.
I have a feeling country got downgraded because the nitwits were afraid of backlash from the mainstream since country music is know considered the defacto genre of racists and bigots by mainstream talking heads, blow hards, and uneducated masses.
Sorry about that tirade but as a country music fan who has family ties to the genre going back to the 1920s this stuff irks me. And living in northern CA being open about such leanings toward country music doesn’t often bode well in these times.
September 24, 2020 @ 11:02 pm
Also Taylor Swift beating the Dixie Chicks… is amusing I would’ve thought we’d have to wait a few more years before we can considered anything that recent “the greatest”, especially at #99. (LOL)
And Shania Twain…. GTFO how i n and critical reality is that bloated album great. It has some decent pop leaning song for sure. I bopped to a few of them. But it the grand scheme it is as great as Paula Abdul’s “Forever Your Girl”.
It seems like they picked some random stuff in the hope of appeasing the 90s nostalgia. But there were far better actual country records released in the 90s.
September 24, 2020 @ 11:34 pm
Now having looked at the actual list and the top 20 HOLY $#%#% is that pandering in the worst of ways. They couldn’t outright leave The Beatles and others but man oh man is that list questionable by any critical standard of greatest.
20. Radiohead, Kid A
19. Kendrick Lamar, To Pimp a Butterfly
18. Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited
17. Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
16. The Clash, London Calling
15. Public Enemy, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
14. The Rolling Stones, Exile on Main Street
13. Aretha Franklin, I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You
12. Michael Jackson, Thriller
11. The Beatles, Revolver
10. Lauryn Hill, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
9. Bob Dylan, Blood on the Tracks
8. Prince and the Revolution, Purple Rain
7. Fleetwood Mac, Rumours
6. Nirvana, Nevermind
5. The Beatles, Abbey Road
4. Stevie Wonder, Songs in the Key of Life
3. Joni Mitchell, Blue
2. The Beach Boys, Pet Sounds
1. Marvin Gaye, What’s Going On
The fact that jazz is entirely absent as is blues and country I find disgusting and justs add to the pandering I feel. And only two women in the top 20 and neither of them are Billie Holiday or Ella. Even if you argue greatest is different from influential this list is a pandering joke.
And they are still sucking on the teat of Nirvana I see.
September 25, 2020 @ 4:15 am
It’s important to consider that this list was aggregated from the lists of 300 critics and artists, rather than a more cohesive list from an editorial team (not that I think the RS list would be any better if they had compiled it themselves). Their choices furthermore reflect the fact that they as a general body have very little sense of perspective where country (or indeed jazz or blues) is concerned. I can understand the omission of Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holliday from the top 20, though – in general, they’re best served by compilations. Aretha Franklin was a pretty good albums artist, though I don’t know what makes I Never Loved a Man the Way I Loved You an absolute standout. Blue is a tremendous album – don’t really care to think where it goes in any ranking system, but it is absolutely top shelf.
September 25, 2020 @ 5:55 am
all those albums are awesome. there are three women (five if you include fleetwood mac’s contributors) in the list. and nirvana is awesome, although in utero is the better album imo.
September 25, 2020 @ 8:21 am
I agree I’ve always liked in utero better
September 25, 2020 @ 3:52 pm
I think that the absence of jazz might be because LP albums were not commonplace in the jazz era, as they only gained steam in the 60s with the advent of rock.
On the other hand, I do believe that Rolling Stone tends to overemphasize a narrow time window and narrow genre style in their “Best Of” lists. It probably is due to the fact that they were established as a rock and roll magazine dedicated to covering 60s rock.
September 25, 2020 @ 1:55 am
Since country music is a “white genre” and the new list is insanely “woke” and virtue signalling like a klaxon on meth, then yea, out with the country, in with the R&B. This list has always been a sort of a marketing gimmick and a way to present a made-up mission statement by pointing out rediscovered or first-discovered albums as if the editors of Rolling Stone grew up listening to albums that had zero circulation until someone resurrected them 20, 30 or 60 years later. It’s the same vibe, but now they have elevated many hip-hop/RNB albums because BLM. Something had to give and by removing country albums it’s a two-fer, you enhance your virtue signalling on one hand and it’s apparently the crowd that would least send you angry letters.
September 25, 2020 @ 5:56 am
rock n roll is pretty white medium too, bub.
September 25, 2020 @ 7:37 am
Contemporary Rock and roll, yea. But it has its roots in blues and later rhythm and blues. Also, Rolling Stone can’t really ignore rock and indie rock while they can sideline country.
September 25, 2020 @ 3:45 pm
I would argue that R&B from the late 50s through the 80s was a subset of rock n roll. Of course, pop music in general was rock dominated at the time.
Hard rock has been heavily white since the late 60s, though.
September 25, 2020 @ 2:23 am
This list is so silly. Did they even listen to the albums?
September 25, 2020 @ 8:19 am
The entire list is predicated on the following:
Race
Politics
Orange Man Bad
September 25, 2020 @ 3:32 am
…Fly but not Home?
What in the damn hell?
But yeah, Metamodern is another very conspicuous absence…but I haven’t given a flying fuck about Rolling Stone’s lists since they ranked Bob Dylan as the 7th greatest “voice” of all time.
September 25, 2020 @ 5:35 am
From a personal point of view I think it is impossible to have a best of all time list. People from the sixties will have a different point of view from people in the nineties and so on. I picked the sixties because I think this was when RS started. So no offence to the pre sixties. Also a country fan will have a totally different outlook from say a hip hop fan. A better chart would be a best of the previous year and have it simply committed to a certain brand of music. Country magazines and sites committed to country, Americana to Americana and so on. RS suffers from the fact that they try to be everything to everybody when in fact nobody gives a shit about it. It was okay for a few years at the beginning but it then began to think they were bigger than the music they were writing about. Their writers became boring and they thought they were the artists. If people were to just ignore it life would be better. These days RS does not know what it wants to be. Music mag, political mag, film mag. You name it, it has an opinion. Or it thinks it does. Does it inspire anybody, I don’t think so.
September 25, 2020 @ 6:37 am
Any Country Music list called important (regardless of its title) compiled by any so called expert (no matter how many idiots are involved) that doesn’t include Mickey Newbury’s “San Francisco Mabel Joy” near the top is not only unimportant it’s also stupid.
Rolling Stone should just stick to politics. It clearly has no business being in the music business.
September 25, 2020 @ 7:01 am
These lists depend on where your focus is. RS is a rock publication.
I gather they have nothing from Louis Armstrong, Luciano Pavarotti, Wynton Marsalis or Yo Yo Ma, either.
September 25, 2020 @ 8:26 am
Hey Trigger, I think you should turn SCM into a printed publication. I would subscribe to that.
September 25, 2020 @ 10:00 am
Only if I wanted to hemorrhage time and money and reach significantly less people. I have thought about this in the past. But when I discovered 95% of print publications have ceased print operations, it seems like a space it would be suicidal to enter.
September 25, 2020 @ 2:18 pm
I was thinking like a 1 issue per year pre order kind of thing. But I get what you’re saying
September 25, 2020 @ 3:26 pm
It’s a different world.
A print publication–a monthly– would sit around, unchanged for a whole month, and 2–or maybe 3 months later, you’d see feedback, in the form of a few selected “letters to the editor.” Would be hard to sell people on that concept, now.
September 25, 2020 @ 8:50 am
I seek out Rolling Stone for country music reviews about as often as I seek out Joe Biden for the answers to questions on Jeopardy.
September 25, 2020 @ 9:14 am
Best to me implies good performances, songwriting, instrumental virtuosity, etc.
Greatest implies groundbreaking, transversal impact, influential value, etc.
So Great deserves recognition–even begrudging–even if it is not considered good, let alone Best.
So for instance ‘Come On Over’ could possibly rate on a Greatest list, but not by a long shot on any Best list I would endorse.
John Knowles may be one of the Best guitar pickers of all time, but without the span of influence Chet Atkins had he would not be considered on a Greatest list, I wouldn’t think.
This list I guess tries to be a little of both? But it is stated to be the Greatest of All Time.
I would eliminate from consideration anything produced in the last 5 years, short of Jesus’ own vanity EP. Greatness takes time. Other than that I can’t comment on much of this list. But it does appear self serving and has many picks of the inside baseball variety. Consider the source. It is probably going to get me to listen to that Suicide recording, lol.
September 25, 2020 @ 9:17 am
I agree, they should do 50 top albums by genre.
Metal, EDM and industrial are really under-represented. (What, no Ministry? No Chemical Brothers who pioneered a new genre?) and how they managed to have multiple albums by Kanye West and only one by Rihanna is just aaaaaarrrgh what were they thinking.
And while they included some relatively obscure stuff I love they didn’t include the three albums that meant the most to me in life, Joan Jett Bad Reputation Gwen Stefani Love Angel Music Baby and Motley Crue Too Fast For Love.
Also enough with every single album from the Beatles and Bob Dylan they were not THAT great.
So the punchline is, there are undoubtedly fans of every musical genre hating on this list at this very moment. There is no way to do it right.
Still happy about Kacey Musgraves though…..
September 25, 2020 @ 10:16 am
Putting a Taylor Swift album on the list immediately devalues the undertaking.
September 25, 2020 @ 10:23 am
And if that wasn’t enough to know it was a joke, you were assured when Golden Hour leapt over Weight of These Wings by almost 200 places. It’s a great album, but already top 300? Calm down Rolling Stone. That and Grammy’s, I don’t know why WOTW doesn’t get the recognition an effort of that magnitude should get.
September 25, 2020 @ 11:19 am
Caaaaaauuuse Golden Hour is a way better album? Weight of these Wings isn’t even Miranda’s best album. And I really like her. Revolution should be on there not Weight of these Wings.
September 25, 2020 @ 10:32 am
Holy Cow. I’ll have to look at this new list more carefully, but that treatment of Music From Big Pink is borderline criminal. Hugely influential across generations and genres. To say there are 99 better albums is insane.
September 25, 2020 @ 10:51 am
Not the biggest Stapleton fan in the world and there are albums that were neglected/disrespected that I care about much more than this one; but I just find it absurd to add “Golden Hour” and “The Weight of these Wings” to this list and leave off “Traveller”. Like it or not, that’s been the single biggest album in country for the last 5 years and is also just a better album than those two. If you’re trying to add more recent albums from the mainstream to your list, “Traveller” would be where to start. The “Golden Hour” obsession by critics in particular never ceases to amaze me. It’s just simply an average album, not even Musgraves’s best.
September 25, 2020 @ 2:43 pm
Shotgun Willie! That was a turning point for Willie. Listening to it right now. Best thing here is all the good suggestions and lists offered by everyone.
September 25, 2020 @ 8:28 pm
Rolling Stone’s writers get younger and classic country fans get older. Imagine what this list will look like in 10 years. Cash who? Luke Bryan, yeah.
September 28, 2020 @ 5:20 pm
One of my two favorite albums that never seem to make any list is “This Time” by Dwight Yoakam,” “A Taste of Yesterday’s Wine” by Merle and George, and “Ocean Front Property” by George Strait.
July 18, 2023 @ 7:55 am
I listen to the rolling stones beggers broughet & let it bleed 20 times in 6 days trying to figure if these are great albums like r.s. says they are I couldn’t remember 1 song from these albums great? hell they are not even good Alan Jacksons Don’t rock the Jukebox and Vince Gills I Still Believe in You should at least be in the top 100 of r.s. list the fact they are not even in the in the top 500 makes this list a total joke !