"You've Heard of 'Simply Red'?

"You've Heard of 'Simply Red'? Meet 'Hopelessly White'" - So a couple of weeks ago, Rolling Stone came out with their periodic vanity exercise, their Top 500 Albums of All Time.

Whenever you do a Top (pick a number) album list, you're filtering things through your own preconceptions and experiences. My list does no different (we'll get to that later). When you are an editor at Rolling Stone, you're filtering it through your background as an upper-middle-class, Ivy-League ex-hippie who still smells the gunpowder from Kent State.

I was going to let the poll - like most everything else from the increasingly-irrelevant Rolling Stone - pass without comment. The only list that rtruly matters is my own - or, for your purposes, yours.

But Plain Sedalina unloaded on the poll:

I scan this list and think, "Omigod those people at Rolling Stone are fossils!" This isn't the 500 greatest albums, it's a hagiography of Sixties cultural icons.

(Note to Sedalina: Ipse Rolling Stone)

Where's all the electronica and hip hop? (Or for that matter, more country?)

There's an even more important question here. Let's see if you find it before we get to it.

Let's start the list:

1. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles

2. Pet Sounds, The Beach Boys

3. Revolver, The Beatles

4. Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylan

5. Rubber Soul, The Beatles

Right off the bat - three out of the Top Five are Beatles? Sure, they were a great band, but this is a little myopic...

But no, that's not the big problem. Keep looking.

6. What's Going On, Marvin Gaye

7. Exile on Main Street, The Rolling Stones

8. London Calling, The Clash

9. Blonde on Blonde, Bob Dylan

All great albums, to be sure. But...

...well, keep looking.

10. The Beatles ("The White Album"), The Beatles

This is the - no, the most overrated album of all time.

But still not the problem.

11. The Sun Sessions, Elvis Presley

12. Kind of Blue, Miles Davis

Remember this...

13. Velvet Underground and Nico, The Velvet Underground

14. Abbey Road, The Beatles

15. Are You Experienced?, The Jimi Hendrix Experience

So at 12 we have a jasz artist whom the sixties generation blessed with hip-itude, and a deconstructor of the blues and guitar revolutionary.

But...

...well, we're getting warm.

16. Blood on the Tracks, Bob Dylan

17. Nevermind, Nirvana

18. Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen

Should have been #2 or #3. And Darkness On The Edge of Town doesn't turn up at all. Bastiches.

But that's not the problem. Keep looking...

19. Astral Weeks, Van Morrison

20. Thriller, Michael Jackson

21. The Great Twenty-Eight, Chuck Berry

KAPOW!

So it took us 21 places to get to any of the black artists that actually created pop music as we know it!

Sure, they toss off the obligatory bluesmen like Robert Johnson (27) or Muddy Waters (38), and the always-fashionable R'nB guys like James Brown (24) - but where's Bo Diddley (he turns up at #214)? Little Richard (50)? Where are any of the doo-wop groups that also put early rock and roll in front of the mainstream audience?

However, at least Berry beat out:

22. Plastic Ono Band, John Lennon

...which, unaccountably, beat out:

23. Innervisions, Stevie Wonder

24. Live at the Apollo (1963), James Brown

And while we're on the subject:

13. Velvet Underground and Nico, The Velvet Underground

42. The Doors, The Doors

43. The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd

58. Trout Mask Replica, Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band

Four of the most overrated albums ever made - and the single worst band (The Doors) ever to become a mass cult.

Hm. I might have to work on one of these, just to show Rolling Stone who's boss...

(Post title via J.D. Considine)

Posted by Mitch at December 12, 2003 04:59 AM