Alex at A List a Day tells us that Rolling Stone has put their list of the top 500 albums of all time on line.
The number one pick: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. RS opens their discussion with:
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is the most important rock & roll album ever made, an unsurpassed adventure in concept, sound, songwriting, cover art and studio technology by the greatest rock & roll group of all time.
Folks who were not present when this album hit the airwaves may disagree but I won’t argue the choice. There is plenty to nitpick among the next 499.
Slightly changing the subject, this list speaks to recorded work which is something different then what a band presents in live performance (aside from the lip synchers).
If the list was the ‘N Greatest Bands of All Time’ then a bands live work would play a significant, perhaps dominant, role in the ranking.
Today, I listen primarily to recordings of live performances and seldom play the 100s of studio albums and cds (many from the above list) in my collection. The studio work while often technically superior too often lacks the energy, emotion and creativity that good live bands bring to the stage show after show (yea, the best live bands often blow it).
And, to pick on some live performers a bit, doing the same show over and over isn’t going to rank you very high. Also, thumbs down to the ‘supergroups’ that tour once every 2, 3, or 4 years and repeat the same show 20 times…they have lost their creativity.
Sing it, Brother Steve! My wife converted me to the light of the Grateful Dead, Hot Tuna, et al, who never play the same show twice. Amazing to see how they just let chemistry do its thing.
Most bands today don’t have the chops to do that sort of thing.
The new 12/31/78 DVD has been spinning every day for the last week or so at our house……
I do agree with most of the albums in the top 500, but not all of them. Personally surprised that neither Johnny Winter or Edgar Winter have at least one album each listed. For Edgar Winter I think Roadwork by Edgar Winter’s White Trash should be on the list. For Johnny Winter I think that his Second Winter album should be on the list.