Well, this was an interesting list to revisit. Rolling Stone magazine first published their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time issue in 2003, and again in 2009. I bought an Australian copy of the magazine that published the list as it stood in 2012. That list has been updated a few more times since, most recently in December 2023. I took that update and my magazine and compared the pair. A lot can change in eleven years, and there were a fair few surprises!
The first change is the No.1 spot. In 2012 it was The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Not my favourite Beatles album, but I can see why it’s as revered as it is. In 2023, the top spot went to Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On. Again, a pretty good album, I like it a lot; heck, I own a copy. But best album of all time? Nahhh. Maybe it’s just resonating with a lot of people at the moment because of all the turmoil in the world. Now, these poll things change over time, sure, so maybe Sgt. Pepper’s… is still in the Top 10, or at worst, Top 20, you think? Nope. It now resides at No.24! That’s a bit rich, don’t you think? To add insult to injury, The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds album was in the No.2 spot in 2012, and it remains there in 2023! I have never really got why that album is as loved as it is. Again, I own a copy of it, but there’s like, four, maybe five really good songs, and the rest is a bit naff. I guess at the time it was groundbreaking, but I just don’t see why.
Sitting at No.4 is Stevie Wonder’s bloated Songs in the Key of Life, which is up from No.57 in 2012. That’s a pretty big jump. Not sure where all the love has come from for that album, which has some absolute classic tracks, for sure (again, I own it on vinyl, including the little 7” disc), but it’s too long and self-indulgent in places. It doesn’t belong in the Top 20, let alone Top 5.
The Beatles finally get a nod at the fifth position with Abbey Road, again above Sgt. Pepper’s… and Revolver. Nope. It’s a great album absolutely, but it doesn’t outdo Revolver in my humble opinion. Abbey Road sat at No.14 in 2012, so I don’t know, maybe a lot of people bought the T-shirt in that time? Nirvana’s Nevermind comes into No.6, up from No.17; whatever. More T-shirts. Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours jumps into the seventh spot, previously in the 26th spot. I can appreciate that album growing in popularity, particularly with the sad passing of Christine McVie in 2022.
Excitingly, the eighth position goes Purple Rain by Prince and the Revolution which was catapulted up from the 76th spot it held in 2013. What a leap! It’s a pretty amazing record and possibly has been reappraised since his tragic death in 2016, but the album remains as fresh and vibrant as it did over forty years ago. Possibly a little higher than I’d put it, but all good.
Now, sitting at No.9 in the new poll is Bob Dylan's excellent Blood on the Tracks album, up from the 14th spot. As much as I dig this record, there are at least five other Dylan releases I would rank above it; and two of those albums were in the Top 10 in 2012: Blonde on Blonde (No.9) and Highway 61 Revisited (No.5). Not only are they better albums, they deserve higher rankings than the 18th position Highway 61 got, and the 38th (!!) spot for BoB. That's some mighty big drops, and totally undeserved as well. Both should be Top 10, and I'm quite floored by those falls.
Rounding out the 2023 Top 10 is another big surprise. All the way from No.314 in 2012, it's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill!! I guess I should have expected that album to poll well considering it topped the 100 Best Albums list according to Apple Music in May this year. It just flaws me. I guess I should listen to it, but it's not really my bag, I don't think. It must have struck a significant note or two with the odd person out there.
Anyway, here's the two Top 10s next to each other:
9. Blood on the Tracks BOB DYLAN (1975)
8. Purple Rain PRINCE AND THE REVOLUTION (1984)
7. Rumours FLEETWOOD MAC (1977)
6. Nevermind NIRVANA (1991)
5. Abbey Road THE BEATLES (1969)
4. Songs in the Key of Life STEVIE WONDER (1976)
3. Blue JONI MITCHELL (1971)
2. Pet Sounds THE BEACH BOYS (1966)
1. What's Going On MARVIN GAYE (1971)
On the subject of female artists, I was also pleased to see Back to Black by Amy Winehouse shoot up from the 451st position to No.33 - one of the biggest jumps! I was quite late to the party with Amy Winehouse, and I only listened to that album after she had already passed. It's so good. She had such a great voice. What a waste. It was great to see Aretha Franklin's wonderful I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You album nearly hit the Top 10 in 2023, with the album moving from the 84th spot to No.13! I would have preferred to see that in the Top 10 over Blue or Nevermind or Songs in the Key of Life. Definitely over Lauryn Hill, but I can't really judge, as I've not listened to it. Something I will rectify in the future. In addition to that jump, Aretha's 1968 record Lady Soul also moved up from No.85 into the 75th spot. She also scored two new entries with Amazing Grace (No.154) and Young, Gifted and Black (No.388), giving her four albums in 2023 as opposed to only two in 2012.
While Tom Petty enjoyed just one entry in 2012 with his Damn the Torpedoes album with the Heartbreakers, two of his solo albums made the 2023 cut. Full Moon Fever sat at No.298, and the wonderful Wildflowers record hit the 214th spot. Damn the Torpedoes moves up in 2023 into No.231 from No.315, so all three Petty entries sit between 200-299. The brilliance of Daft Punk is finally recognised as well, with their last album Random Access Memories hits No.295 and Discovery holds the 236th spot.
A big surprise to me was not the fall of both Janet Jackson albums that polled in 2012, but a new entry for her in 2023. The Velvet Rope fell from No.259 down to the 318th spot, and Rhythm Nation 1814 dropped from the 277th spot to No.339. However, her third album Control (1986), entered the 2023 list at No.111! Pretty high debut for a record that didn't even appear in 2012! What has she done for us lately? Nasty girl...
There was quite a shift towards R&B and hip hop/rap in general as well, with rises going to Jay-Z, OutKast and the Wu-Tang Clan. The latter actually had one of the biggest leaps forward with Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers jumping from No.387 to the 27th spot! In 2012, OutKast had Aquemini at No.500 and Stankonia at No.360 - fast forward to 2023, Speakerboxx/The Love Below lands at the 290th spot, Stankonia hits No.64 and Aquemini is in the 49th spot!
Jay-Z enjoyed three albums in both polls, with all three climbing the list in 2023. The Black Album jumped from No.349 to No.155, Reasonable Doubt from No.252 to No.67 and The Blueprint moved from the 250th position to the 50th. Huge movements! Kendrick Lamar stormed the 2023 list with three new entries, his 2015 album To Pimp a Butterfly landing the highest position for a debut at No.19! He also hit the 115th spot with his earlier album good kid, m.A.A.d. city and No.175 with 2017's DAMN.
What about Kanye, I hear you think? Well, he had the distinction of having one of only two albums from the 2010s poll in 2012, with 2010's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The other album was the 2011 box set of The Beach Boys' Smile sessions which sat at No.381 - it would be replaced by Brian Wilson's 2004 Smile in 2023, holding the 399th spot.
Getting back to Kanye, he goes from having three albums in 2012 to six entries in the 2023 update. Not only does he have one of the highest number of appearing albums, his first one doesn't poll until No.269, which is 2013's Yeezus. His next two entries make their debut on the poll, 2008's 808s and Heartbreak which lands at No.244 and 2007's Graduation appears in the 204th position. The remaining three Kanye albums all move up the list, with 2005's Late Registration barely changing, from the No.118 to the 117th spot. 2004's The College Dropout leaps from No.298 to the 74th position, and the aforementioned My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy screams into the Top 20, moving into No.17 from the 353rd spot it had in 2012. Pretty impressive. Not a big Kanye fan, me, but he must do it for a lot of people.
In the 2012 poll, three artists polled higher than anyone else, with ten albums each: Bob Dylan, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Let's look at how each act fared in 2023. We've already seen some of the carnage in the Top 10. Here's how Dylan polled in 2012, which actually gave him eleven albums including The Basement Tapes:
That's pretty good, right? His classic trilogies are both there, fully represented, which are The Electric Trilogy from 1965-66 and his revival period of 1997-2006. We know how that worked out for the Top 10, but what happened to the rest of his albums? And did Rough and Rowdy Ways make an appearance? Read on, for 2023:
Wow. Dylan lost three albums! Desire is gone, and so too are Modern Times and Time Out of Mind, the latter is possibly my favourite Dylan album! Not that fussed about Desire's absence, but that's a massive drop. Going from No.174 to not even rating. Of the three album's in Dylan's 1997-2006 trilogy Love and Theft is my least favourite, and it still held on! The only Dylan album to move up the poll was Blood on the Tracks. That's pretty mindblowing. If you discount The Basement Tapes, Kanye and Dylan polled the same number of albums. That don't sit right.
Let's look at The Beatles next. They had ten albums in the 2012 list, which were:
Okay, let's contrast that with the 2023 update:
Some very interesting changes here! The first appearance occur in the same order, but all have moved up the poll. The Meet the Beatles! album is the first time people living in the US at the time were able to buy a full length long player from the mop-tops. Released at the height of Beatlemania, it is a truncated version of their second UK album With the Beatles with the addition of I Saw Her Standing There, I Want to Hold Your Hand and This Boy. Bizarrely, it dropped from No.53 all the way down to the 197th spot in 2023. I guess less people remember the album now. Faring worse was their UK debut album Please Please Me, which held the 39th spot in 2012, and no longer appears at all! I always thought it polled higher than necessary, but that's one way to fix it, I guess. So, The Beatles hold nine spots in the 2023, only losing that one album. The last five albums on both lists are the same, just ordered differently. All five were in the Top 20 in 2012, in 2023 only two remained. Those five are usually THE Beatles albums that most fans revere, but I'm shocked at Sgt. Pepper's fall from the top.
Now, it's time for The Rolling Stones. Here's their 2012 haul of ten positions:
Alright, now let's see how they did in 2023:
Now, this is the most drastic cull of the three! Only five albums remain! Aftermath held the 109th spot, and is now gone! Also in exile (nyuk nyuk) are Out of Our Heads, The Rolling Stones, Now!, Between the Buttons and Tattoo You. Wow, what a trim! The remaining entries all fall, with Some Girls close to leaving the 500 altogether after a drop of nearly 200 positions! Let It Bleed and Exile on Main St. remain the big favourites, although they both drop a bit. Wow. Kanye beats the Stones, but The Beatles are still on top, and clear winners of the three. Another big winner in 2012 was Bruce Springsteen, who scored eight entries with these:
How did The Boss fare in 2023? Let's see:
So, not as harsh a cull as the Stones, but The Boss loses three albums, Tunnel of Love, The Rising (one of my faves!) and The River. The last five from 2012 remain in 2023, but in a different order, although Born to Run is still the clear favourite. So, Kanye vs Bruce = Kanye wins with six albums!
Another heavy hitter in 2012 was The Who! They managed to nab seven spots, so let's have a butcher's at their entries that year:
Okay, now for the 2023 picks:
A similar trend to the last few acts, losing the bottom three of their seven previously polling albums in 2023, and each of the remaining records settling for lower positons. Now, I wonder how Bowie fared? I think he got four or five in 2012. Let's see:
In 2023, Bowie landed these albums:
Now, that's interesting! Except for the Ziggy album, everything jumps up a few places, with Station to Station leaping 272 places! Possibly my favourite Bowie record that one, with Low a very close second. I love the fact that Aladdin Sane is no longer in the list (overrated, much?!?) and Scary Monsters has a place in its stead. A much better album! Yeah, very happy with the 'Changesbowie'. How about Neil Young? That's a good question! To the polls! First, 2012:
The newer poll in 2023 gave them these positions:
The same four albums polled both years with Dirty Mind falling 120 places in 2023. The other three albums all moved into higher spots, with Purple Rain cracking the Top 10, as you've already seen. Another iconic band with a few entries in 2012 was Led Zeppelin. Here's their haul that year:
They polled the same four albums in 2023:
The Banana Album still polls highest, and remains in the Top 50, but the self-titled gets a big 173 places jump up, while Loaded falls down 132 spots. WL/WH remains in a similar position. I don't know, it seems bizarre to me that this band gets four albums in both years, but nothing for Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. Now, how about those albums that went by the wayside in 2023? Obviously, with some many new additions, some records had to go. Let's have a look...
The highest charting album from the 2012 poll to disappear is the Elvis Presley album Sunrise, which held the 11th spot! Released in 1999, the album was a 2CD set of his output during the famous Sun Studio sessions in the fifties. It has possibly been replaced by the 1976 compilation The Sun Sessions which held the 78th position in 2023.
Second highest album on the chopping block is The Complete Recordings of Robert Johnson, which sat at No.22 in 2012. His 1961 collection King of the Delta Blues Singers appears in the 374th position in 2023 though, so maybe it was a similar fate of the Elvis one; just a replacement and realignment. I've already mentioned the disappearance of The Beatles' Please Please Me, so that leads us to the Bob Marley and the Wailers 1984 compilation Legend. It always annoys me when greatest hits albums make these lists. They're not albums, they're collections; they haven't gone through the same kind of creative process! Happily, the aforementioned Legend is banished from the 46th spot, not reappearing in 2023. Interestingly, their album Natty Dread is also gone from the 2012 list, which took out the 181st position, as is Burnin' which was at No.319. The two remaining Marley & Co. albums are the excellent Catch a Fire (falling from No.126 in 2012 to No.140 in 2023) and Exodus, which leapt up from No.169 to the 49th spot!
Another hugely influential album totally missing from the 2023 list is Captain Beefheart's 1969 monsterpiece Trout Mask Replica, which was produced by Frank Zappa. It held the lofty position of No.60 in 2012, but it would seem that its star has indeed extinguished. Also gone entirely is Zappa himself, who held two positions in 2012 with The Mothers of Invention: Freak Out! at No.246 and We're Only In It For the Money in the 297th spot. All three no longer rank in 2023!
Seminal UK eighties darlings The Smith lose three albums in 2023! In 2012, they had The Smiths at No.473, Louder Than Bombs at No.369, Meat is Murder at No.296 and The Queen is Dead at No.218. Come 2023, only The Queen is Dead remains, jumping up into the 113th spot. That's very interesting, as a similar, but more undeserved, fate befell Elvis Costello, who also had three albums fall out of the 2023 list. 2012 saw positions for Armed Forces (475th), My Aim is True (168th), Imperial Bedroom (166th) and This Year's Model (98th). Rather than gaining ground, his only remaining album This Year's Model dropped down into No.128, and I just can't believe My Aim is True no longer polls. That's my favourite piece of E.C.!
Sixties UK supergroup Cream vanish from the 2023 poll entirely. In 2012, they held No.205 with Wheels of Fire, No.114 with Disraeli Gears and Fresh Cream made the 102nd spot. Not a mention in 2023, despite all three albums making the Top 250. This might possibly be a consequence of Clapton's outspoken views on COVID and lockdowns, because his solo records disappear in 2023 as well. He had 461 Ocean View Boulevard at No.411 and Slowhand in the 325th in 2012; poof! Gone in 2023. So too was the Blues Breakers album with John Mayall that made No.195 in 2012. However, the Derek and the Dominoes sole record Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs hangs in there, falling from No.117 down into the 226th position.
Elton John held five albums in the 2012 poll, but is left with only two in the recent list. There is no room for Tumbleweed Connection (No.458), Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (No.158) or 1974's Greatest Hits album (No.136) in 2023. Honky Château moves up from No.359 into the 251st spot, and the classic Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album falls from the 91st and out of the Top 100, landing at No.112! Poor Elton! Glad to see another compilation get culled, but GYBR should poll higher than that. Banished from the 500 entirely is singer/songwriter Jackson Browne, who held three positions in 2012. He had For Everyman at No.450, The Pretender at No.391 and Late for the Sky in the 436th spot. All gone in 2023!
So, all up, 162 albums from 2012 got the chop in the updated list for 2023; and here they are:
19. To Pimp a Butterfly KENDRICK LAMAR (2015)
32. Lemonade BEYONCÉ (2016)
89. Baduism ERYKAH BADU (1997)
108. When the Pawn… FIONA APPLE (1999)
115. good kid, m.A.A.d. city KENDRICK LAMAR (2012)
133. Hejira JONI MITCHELL(1976)
137. 21 ADELE (2011)
148. Channel Orange FRANK OCEAN (2012)
154. Amazing Grace ARETHA FRANKLIN (1972)
158. Mama’s Gun ERYKAH BADU (2000)
162. Different Class PULP (1995)
170. Folklore TAYLOR SWIFT (2020)
175. DAMN. KENDRICK LAMAR (2017)
183. Brown Sugar D’ANGELO (1995)
187. AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted ICE CUBE (1990)
200. Diamond Life SADE (1984)
216. Either/Or ELLIOTT SMITH (1997)
236. Discovery DAFT PUNK (2001)
239. Criminal Minded BOOGIE DOWN PRODUCTIONS (1987)
254. Head Hunters HERBIE HANCOCK (1973)
258. The Hissing of Summer Lawns JONI MITCHELL (1975)
265. Wowee Zowee PAVEMENT (1995)
275. Curtis CURTIS MAYFIELD (1970)
277. The Diary of ALICIA KEYS (2003)
295. Random Access Memories DAFT PUNK (2013)
298. Full Moon Fever TOM PETTY (1989)
300. Come On Over SHANIA TWAIN (1997)
304. Just As I Am BILL WITHERS (1971)
311. On the Beach NEIL YOUNG (1974)
317. Lady in Satin BILLIE HOLIDAY (1958)
333. Still Bill BILL WITHERS (1972)
336. Avalon ROXY MUSIC (1982)
340. Doggystyle SNOOP DOGGY DOGG (1993)
346. AM ARCTIC MONKEYS (2013)
351. SOS SZA (2022)
354. Germfree Adolescents X-RAY SPEX (1978)
358. Sour OLIVIA RODRIGO (2021)
362. Never Too Much LUTHER VANDROSS (1981)
367. If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late DRAKE (2015)
370. Tha Carter II LIL WAYNE (2005)
374. King of the Delta Blues Singers ROBERT JOHNSON (1961)
377. Fever to Tell YEAH YEAH YEAHS (2003)
380. Mingus Ah Um CHARLES MINGUS (1959)
383. Mezzanine MASSIVE ATTACK (1999)
399. Smile BRIAN WILSON (2004)
410. Wild Honey THE BEACH BOYS (1967)
419. Chief ERIC CHURCH (2011)
421. Arular M.I.A. (2005)
423. I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One YO LA TENGO (1997)
426. Lucinda Williams LUCINDA WILLIAMS (1988)
430. Un Verano San Ti BAD BUNNY (2022)
432. Confessions USHER (2004)
439. Sex Machine JAMES BROWN (1970)
443. Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) DAVID BOWIE (1980)
444. Extraordinary Machine FIONA APPLE (2005)
445. Close to the Edge YES (1972)
446. Journey in Satchidanada ALICE COLTRANE (1971)
450. Ram PAUL & LINDA McCARTNEY (1971)
451. First Take ROBERTA FLACK (1969)
459. Man on the Moon: The End of the Day KID CUDI (2009)
465. Best of the Classic Years KING SUNNY ADÉ (2003)
476. Kimono My Place SPARKS (1974)
486. Continuum JOHN MAYER (2006)
496. Dónde Están los Ladrones SHAKIRA (1998)
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