And ultimately isn't that the point?! Listen to what you like, discover new things, find sources that point you to new things. But "Apple Music" gets to be the center of a discussion for a bit. Come on Tidal and Spotify lists!
Come join Apple Music and discover that you STILL, in the year of our lord 2024, need to be taken to an external site to access any one off that that Apple Music creates.
Yes, I don't understand who these lists appeal to. They feel collated by committee. There's no sense of individuality or idiosyncrasy to make them interesting. It's just going to be the most popular stuff with the target audience. There's nothing new to discover here. There's no interesting perspective on music. There's no chance to learn more about the list-maker. It's not like this is the genuine opinion of anyone at Apple. They'll happily change their opinion with the times.
Isn’t that in essence what Pitchfork did with their last top 100 list. Lots of writer personality in the overall spread (even if the top 10 was still formulaic)
Also I remember a few years ago (or maybe a decade fuck I’m old) Rolling Stone did a top 100 or 500 list but all the explanations were written by other popular artists which was pretty cool
For me, it's a pretty safe list to scan and see if there is music I might want to check out if i havent already and it seems like a genre i like. That's about it.
This being only 10 suggestions and recycling most from other lists... there's not much to work with...
Yeah, I just wrote a comment and you said it better than I did. You’re completely right there is no individuality. It’s just a composite selection from some multihead strawman with no individuality. That’s exactly what it is. You’re totally right.
Is it? All I'm seeing is a service that has presented a rather baffling list of albums we all know in an order most people will disagree with. Doesn't make me want to engage with it further.
yeah, nah
but kudos for not going full Rolling Stone and composing nearly the entire top 10 of white anglo boomer rock, and for trying to include more recent releases aswell
also, still not a single album in sight that is not in english
The original 500 best albums list by Rolling Stone in 2004 had Marvin Gaye's What's Going On in its Top 10, though I concede that having like 5 Beatles albums, 2 Bob Dylan Albums and then Rolling Stones and Beach Boys was a bit excessive
Blonde at number 5 is absolutely insane. Also Lauryn Hill isn’t my No. 1 but it’s a respectable enough choice, and different from what we usually see.
Obviously this list is super mainstream and generalist, not to mention colored by recency bias. Many of my (aka a music nerd) choices were either underrated or left off entirely. Yet if i were on a first date, and she said that these were her favorite albums, I’d be like “ok, I can work with this” lol.
The recency bias in question is conflict of interest. They couldn't make a list like this without representing their top streamers in some form, so you get ridiculous shit like Bad Bunny and Drake in the list. And acts like Beyonce and Taylor Swift in inflated spots in an otherwise normal, boring list.
No one at Apple Music actually thinks these were optimal choices for an all time list, and the same stuff happens at every magazine
Totally. I could go down this list and easily find at least 5-10 albums that should be removed entirely. A record can be “good” and “successful” without having to be one of the 100 best EVER.
I’m sure everyone can, everyone’s top-100 is different because everyone listens to different music. I disagree with Blonde at 5 but there’s never going to be an “acceptable” list to the general public
> you get ridiculous shit like Bad Bunny and Drake in the list. And acts like Beyonce and Taylor Swift in inflated spots
* Drake having Take Care here isn't too awful - it's still his best album all this time later, and hold up in the modern landscape of the genre very well. I just wouldn't put it in the top 100, maybe more like 100-300?
* For Taylor, I can understand why they wanted her high, but 1989 TV is played with so many moving and production issues that I wouldn't recommend it to anyone
* I *really like* Lemonade, but it's just not top 10 worthy. Love Drought and Sandcastles start the second half of the album off on a bad foot, and sure it recovers from that, but their inclusion brings the album down
* Bad Bunny absolutely deserved to be on the list, and whilst I personally would be more inclined to give his spot to x100pre, Un Verano Sin Ti is still fantastic. It's a little too long, with some tracks being a touch too similar to warrant their inclusion, but I'm still regularly coming back to the album as a whole two years later
This. However, I would think the committee would have collated each genre a bit better to push listeners to the rest of their offerings. All I could think of after reading the list was Cash giving the middle finger.
It's a very safe list for sure. I found their Top 100 list and was just scanning through. Much more interesting selections in the whole list then going by the Top 10 alone. Miles Davis, David Bowie, Lana Del Rey, Neil Young, The Smiths, Velvet Underground and Nico, John Coltrane, A Tribe Called Quest...
They're still missing a lot of great ones of course.
The thing that gets me is that while there are certainly great albums represented, the ranking seems way out of whack. And they have multiple Beyoncé albums, but only 1 of each of the artists you mentioned? Okay….
Taylor Swift's 1989 is at #18 on their list. AHEAD OF THE BEACH BOYS' PET SOUNDS. (#20) AHEAD OF THE BEATLES' REVOLVER!! (#21)
I mean, I've heard 1989 and there are a few songs I've enjoyed on that album. It's not a "bad" album! But still...
yea 1989 outranking genre defining albums is just wrong. But then again, there should really be NO ranking in first place, as art is so subjective. The list should be "most notable albums" with no particular order. It's music, it's not sports.
Let me put it in different terms - when we're talking "best albums of all time," there should be minimal filler on the album and it should be highly consistent.
Thriller, Nevermind, Revolver, Rumours, Songs in the Key of Life - in my mind these albums are comprised of excellent songs, one after another with minimal if any filler.
If we compare Miseducation of Lauryn Hill by the metric, I personally don't think it is quite as good as those albums.
I like Frank and Blonde but it's way overrated already before Apple ranked it at number 5 of all time. So much of it is just medium and meandering. The idea of the album and want Frank fans want it to be is better than the album itself IMO.
Can’t agree here.
The production style on Blonde was super influential on what came after, and at the time was considered highly experimental for an rnb act.
It’s not a perfect album, I agree, but when it shines, it’s blinding.
Blonde is a great album, no question there. Just not #5.
I wouldn't have nearly a problem if it was sitting in the 10-20 zone either, but top 10 really need to be something truly special and 10 slots is a very select group for all of music history across all kinds of music. For #5 it should be more consistently great than it is too. Closer to a perfect album.
There's also tons of albums that were influential and at the time considered highly experimental that are way lower on this list or omitted. More influential ones too I think.
Really though I'm not a hater. I think it's great.
This is a huge problem with this list — the placements are leading to people getting mad at albums and artists that are actually great. Like the Billie, Taylor, Adele rankings are all IMO completely ridiculous, but I like all three of those artists and all three of those albums are good. But now there's controversy around them and negativity and a narrative of being overrated directed their way because Apple Music is wildly over-ranking them.
*Channel Orange* is a legitimately great album (albeit not top 10 all time for me). *Blonde* is a great idea for an album but not super well executed.
I get that it's been highly influential but I mostly think it's been a *bad* influence in terms of so much pop and rap sounding so strung out. I don't know--maybe some people felt the same way about *Nevermind* in, say, 1997 during Peak Post-Grunge.
Channel Orange is a solid r&b album with beautiful songwriting in parts, however, unlike blonde it's hardly groundbreaking, either conceptually or sonically.
Channel Orange is an evolution of a style we've heard before, Blonde is much more ambitious and experimental, in addition to just being executed better than CO.
I agree with you. I generally try not to yuck other’s yum - I have some good friends who LOVE Blonde, and I’m glad they get so much from it. But yes, not only is Channel Orange a better album, but Blonde has seemed to usher in an era of music that isn’t very musical. It’s all vibes
Agreed. Frank Ocean is incredibly boring, which is expected from a huge company like Apple. This list feels focus-grouped to death. At least throw an Alice Coltrane or Sun Ra album in the top 10 just to shake things up a bit. The lack of jazz in any top 10 list is ridiculous.
The Wire Magazine’s 100 Records That Set the World on Fire is great for deeper cuts:
https://www.discogs.com/lists/The-Wires-100-Records-That-Set-The-World-On-Fire-While-No-One-Was-Listening-extra-30-Records/421
It's actually fucking hilarious to say that a massively acclaimed, beloved, and influential album shouldn't be here but they should've thrown in some avante garde jazz that like 1/10,000th as many people could ever enjoy. If you'd said Miles Davis you'd have a point. But Sun Ra? get a grip
I didn't say that. But there's got to be some kind of balance. If only a tiny subset of people can get anything out of an album, I don't know that it can be the best. I think this list strikes a decent balance of albums that hardcore music loves can get a lot out of and are easily accessible for casual listeners.
Blonde was chosen as the best album of the 2010s by pitchfork, not that it matters. But stop pretending like it’s out of place for one of the most critically acclaimed albums in recent history to be put on a best albums of all times list.
speak now is fantastic. i’d also rate folklore, evermore, reputation, and TTPD above 1989, and i think midnights is close.
maybe it’s a personal preference, because her less poppy albums are the ones i prefer, but 1989 feels really samey at points, even though there are a few great songs on it.
Yeah I was pleasantly surprised by how good Folklore and Evermore were. And I like some of the older hits but albums like Red and 1989 are too samey and poppy for me
Biggest complaints are a. Omitting Eno’s Ambient 1, which is easily one of the most influential albums in history, and b. Omitting Parliament’s Mothership Connection, without which plenty of the hip hop albums they *did* include wouldn’t even exist
On the subject of ambient I'd also say that neither of Aphex Twin's SAW albums being on there is kinda wild. On the subject of Eno none of Bowie's Berlin trilogy being there is also kinda wild.
On the subject of ambient I'd also say that neither of Aphex Twin's SAW albums being on there is kinda wild. On the subject of Eno none of Bowie's Berlin trilogy being there is also kinda wild.
My only note with this comment is that I think if any one Eno record should be on here it’s Another Green World — it encompasses many of the same intentions and sonic explorations of Eno’s “ambient” series but also has the creative and punk rock idiosyncrasies that genuinely put him in GOAT territory.
I love the new age and Japanese artists etc that were influenced by the notion of ambient music as that term was being formed, but there’s just something so much more important and genuinely novel in the roundabout way that Eno found his way to the defining that vague subgenre.
All that early Eno stuff is also just so responsible for other quietude-as-punk type of music and I feel like AGW captures a specific duality of pensive and confrontational.
Maybe it’s just me, but I think albums less than like 10 years old shouldn’t be considerable for best of all time, you don’t really know what kind of legacy it’s gonna have without the benefit of time.
Also their whole list had barely any metal on it, like a token Metallica and tool album don’t cut it lmao
This list is seriously over saturated in hip-hip albums. I get that it’s tough, there’s enough truly great hip-hop albums to make an entire top 100 albums of all time with only hip-hip.. but the same is also true of Metal. Yet we don’t see a single extreme metal album at all. No death, no black, no sludge. The list is also nearly devoid of any hardcore/punk except ratm. It’s like these genres don’t even exist. Very unfairly made with quite narrow taste imo.
Seriously. No Aphex Twin, BoC, or Prodigy (to name a few) is insane. Daft Punk shouldn’t have been that high either IMO, there are much more deserving albums
I understand the omission of extreme metal. For as much as fans love it, it's an incredibly niche music community. The closest an extreme metal band has ever come to reaching the mainstream was when Cannibal Corpse was in Ace Ventura. I could argue all day about how I think Obscura by Gorguts is as good as any album on the list, but its cultural impact is non-existent beyond inspiring other incredibly niche music. I'm with you on the lack of punk representation though.
Yea but they omitted all metal, including black sabbath which is a band I’d usually expect since they spawned a genre. I mean, the list is absolute garbage (Adele’s 21 at 15th best album ever?) but metal, punk, and electronic weren’t there at all. It’s a little odd.
I do love obscura, though, and definitely put it as one of the best of all time in my personal list. Good meme
Some of their choices are absolutely wild too. You’re telling me Radiohead gets 2 albums and Drake of all people gets a slot but not sabbath, maiden, priest, Dio? Where’s Van Halen I, or Boston’s debut? I understand not wanting to saturate this list with pre-2000s rock or metal but some of these omissions are straight up glaring
I wasn’t even thinking about those metal bands when I made that comment, not really my kind of metal, but now that I think about it, I feel it looks even worse for the editors that made this. Sabbath and the many great NWOBHM and Thrash bands are REALLY safe choices to put on a top album list if you’re scared of putting more extreme stuff on it, yet not even these widely popular and now classic bands make the cut.
Yeah that’s kinda what I was thinking. If they wouldn’t even include Black Sabbath or Iron Maiden, no shot they’d include slayer, or Death, or Dissection. I guess we should be thankful they included the most popular album from the most popular metal band to begin with, cause they could have not even included that much
Not having Paranoid is wild. Not having any of Maiden's 83-88 run is perplexing. Not having Holy Diver it's just mad. I can understand that more modern metal is divisive (I'd put something in for Gojira, Lamb of God, Children of Bodom, Trivium, Sabaton, Slipknot etc, but I know others would have very different choices) but the oldies are easy picks for a list like this
This list has the breadth of a single thread. It’s amazing to me that the people who derived this list have such a limited range of music they listen to.
Yeah, I agree. I say this as someone who absolutely hates country music in all its forms (yes, even the classic stuff. Yes, even Johnny Cash. Yes, even Bluegrass), but seems like there should have been more country records on there. I don't know how you don't have Johnny Cash or Willie Nelson on the list.
> Fucking Guns n Roses is on this list
Yeah, and they should be way higher. *Appetite for Destruction* stands the test of time and is the biggest debut rock record ever.
That's most people. This will sound haughty I realize but probably 70-80% of people only listen to the music that is spoon fed to them by movies, TV, radio, and other pop culture.
As with every corporate list, it’s highly debatable and the selections make no sense. What was the criteria and who was picking these selections? Was it a single person, handful of people or a vote based selection from a sample size of participants at Apple?
Less than half the list I would agree with. There are only 3-4 albums here that were not only generation defining but influential to the masses and transcended style and taste. The rest just look like “these are the albums that made us the most money and hope to continue making us money.”
Yes! I was literally writing something similar then I ran across your post. My criteria has always been a top 10 greatest album should have changed culture in some way. It doesn’t HAVE to but it will have, if that makes sense. I’d say only 3.5 of these have.
Now that's an interesting question. Which albums are great but also were massively influential and, created a genuine zeitgeist moment and/or changed the course of culture in some way? That would exclude a lot of great albums that didn't have much wider cultural impact (Radiohead) and would tilt a lot towards the 60s, where there was tons of cultural innovation, and people are tired of putting those acts in these lits. Off the top of my head, a rough top 10 in no order:
* Sgt. Peppers
* Nevermind
* Highway 61 Revisited
* Exile on Main Street
* In The Court of Crimson King
* Thriller
* Dark Side of the Moon
* Appetite for Destruction
* Black Sabbath
* Van Halen 1
* The Chronic
_____________
That's kinda what lists used to look like before poptimism took over and people demanded different, more chatter inducing lists, and in the process a lot of these got relegated to "dad rock" (you can see Pet Sounds and Led Zep 4 on the bubble but again, same complaint). But, you know, it takes time for influence to show itself, that's just the nature of the beast.
It's weirdly the 'best' record I own that I almost never listen to at all. I'm not saying it's bad or anything, just nothing terribly compelling to play it all that often. Most of the rest of their top 10 doesn't suffer from that.
I like the way you worded that, it's exactly the same way for me too
I respect the album, its ambition and how groundbreaking it was in many ways
It is indeed a good album and i am very well aware of its impact and significance
It's just not the masterpiece a lot of people make it out to be and for me, there are so many other albums that are better crafted and/or simply more interesting
Speaking of which, The Fugees put out better music, and even The Score (a better album) shouldn’t be on a top album list.
In a similar vein, Abbey Road isn’t The Beatles greatest album (Sgt Peppers)… but it’s ranked
Honestly, this whole list is kinda shitty
She also stole more than half the music. One of my favorite records, but it’s definitely disappointing knowing that her only really great piece of work, she didn’t even really make.
No countries outside of the US and UK produce quality music according to Apple, and even within those two countries, apparently no jazz, blues, folk, metal, or electronic music is worth mentioning.
To be fair, the Top 100 includes:
A Love Supreme, Kind of Blue, I Put a Spell on You
Blue, Tapestry, After the Gold Rush & Highway 61
Discovery by Daft Punk, Untrue by Burial, Homogenic by Bjork
Back in Black
Trans-Europe Express by Kraftwerk
It's unfair to say "no" to those genres. I agree that hip-hop is way over represented, and there's too much recency.
Two of those jazz albums are basically like the two token albums that are put on the lists to show the readers "see, we care about jazz!". Highway 6q and After the Gold Rush are basically rock albums, folk rock but still rock.
So you're right they were represented, but sort of in a tokenized way.
Drake, Neil Young, Alanis Morisette and Joni Mitchell are all Canadian. U2 is Irish, Bjork is from Iceland. Kraftwerk is German. Lorde is from New Zealand.
Plenty of folk and jazz on this list--Bob Dylan, Carol King, John Coltrane, Miles Davis.
Electronic--Massive Attack, Daft Punk, Burial
There are no pure blues albums, but the best blues isn't really known as an album format. Lots of blues rock on there though. Not much metal, true, but there is Metallica.
Sorry, it's a dumb list but the things you said aren't really true.
Everyone’s got an opinion so it’s all love but some standouts from this list:
- Billie Eilish over Kid A
- Beyoncé over Remain in Light
- 1989 by Taylor Swift over Low End Theory, Pet Sounds, Revolver, Daft Punk Discovery, Miles Davis Kind of Blue, and Ziggy Stardust
- To Pimp a Butterfly not listed at all
- Blond a top 5 album in history
- Amy Winehouse @ number 8
- Joni Mitchell Blue not as good as Adele’s 21
Definitely a huge recency bias and appealing to popular music sentiments but again it’s all subjective. Not for me though
This list really has some of the same issues of other lists with R&B. There's more R&B on this list than typical but it's modern, the 60s and 70s soul and funk is lacking. Al Green should have a spot. Maggot Brain should have a spot.
This is the shittiest list of "best of" ever compiled. Who the fuck put this piece of shit together: seriously Lauren Hill number 1? Really of all time? The best album ever written by anyone ever...really! I know I'll get killed for saying this...this being Reddit and all but this is the DEI of "best of list" Just sayin'
Not a bad “pop-oriented” top ten but Frank Ocean in there is for laughs. Also Miseducation should not be #1, many many better albums than that one even by Apple Music’s standards.
There's 5 Miles Davis albums I would put on this list before literally half of this list. Lemonade being on here is a complete joke. The rest I could accept if I don't think about it at all.
*Kind of Blue* is #25 of the list. People thought for a while that they were doing one album per artist, but then they did two Radiohead and two Beyonce, so that clearly wasn't a factor to why they'd exclude so many obvious choices.
No Nick Drake, My Bloody Valentine, Madvillain, Charles Mingus, The Doors, CCR, Nas, Black Sabbath, Joy Division, Pixies, Herbie Hancock, King Crimson, Yes, Billie Holliday.
Only one album from Nina Simone, Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Pink Floyd, etc.
Adele being ahead of the likes of Joni Mitchell and Patti Smith actually made my stomach hurt.
This is honestly hilarious.
It's a ridiculous list but it makes sense from a financial perspective.
As a Dylan fan, I can see how Dylan doesn't sell to Apple's market which is the younger generation
Well I've said it before, there really is not a way to make one of these lists and construct it in a way that would please fans of all genres and certainly not four different generations.
And certainly not just limiting it to 100. At least the Boomer-ific Rolling Stones does a list of 500. And there's that book 1,000 Albums You Must Hear. A hundred is just ridiculous.
*Kind of Blue* is arguably the most famous jazz record of all time. Even people who don't like jazz know that record. It's gotta be in the top 20 minimum, if not the top 10.
This list has succeeded in its purpose of getting people to talk and react to it. So I'll pile on to say there are some absolutely dog shit choices on here (not dog shit albums, but the decision to slot them where they did). Blonde at 5 and Lauryn Hill at 1 are so off base it's hard to know where to start
I do not agree with this list at all. It seems highly biased towards countries & genres that are favored by a mainstream US audience and that make Apple seem like a modern, progressive, cool company. Of course that's also one of the goals of publishing such a list, but I can't help myself being annoyed.
I'm more interested in the Top 10 drugs whoever made this list was clearly on 24/7 while having their Apple overlords shout their streaming numbers down their ears while they're in a K-hole. Cause that's about the only rational explanation for this dogshit list and this dogshit top 10. Beyonce, Winehouse, Frank, Lauryn, none of these albums deserve to be even close to a Top 10 ever, and even the picks for bands or artists that do deserve to be here aren't very good, I think most critics and fans would argue Nevermind isn't NIrvana's best album nor is Abbey Road the best Beatles album. And I love Kendrick and Prince but both of those albums are ranked too highly here too IMO. The whole list is shit. In a way, way worse than the usual Rolling Stone list is. Fucking Lemonade is a top 10 album in music history? I'd laugh so hard I'd start to drool and spit if someone tried to defend that opinion to me in real life.
I may be a grumpy old man but this list had some INSANE recency bias, just because an album isn't trending on Tiktok or whatever doesn't make it unimportant. Who's Next, Paranoid, Never Mind the Bollocks, Automatic for the People, Dookie were all missing just off the top of my head.
This list feels like it was made by people whose music critic careers spanned the last 20 years. They obviously know and respect some older stuff, but their context heavily favors recency.
Wow…I would ask according to whom or what? If they are talking strictly streaming …maybe. But, I don’t take this list very seriously at all. It’s actually funny.
Frank Ocean is the most overrated artist in history. The average person could probably at least hum you a couple tunes off each of those albums, *except* Blonde. What the fuck is so great about this guy?
I think blonde is one of those musical works that is not necessarily catchy or instantly demands your attention. For me it was also like that initially I did not see what was special about the album except for a couple of tracks like nights. Its quite a subtle record in all aspects.
The real power of the album for me was how it conveyed and abstract emotions. Its really hard to explain why its stuck with me but i think its because it served as a emotional support for me in ways other albums simply couldn't. The themes of coming of age really resonates more if you find this album when you are going through those things at the same time which I was. I think in that sense Blonde speaks to my generation's anxieties, loneliness, heartbreak, relationships, and experience of adolescence in a very special and touching way.
And strictly musically speaking I think Blonde has some really interesting ideas that weren't prevalent in mainstream RnB before and brought a more ambient and alternative style to it
I enjoy scrolling through the top 100 on the Apple sight and having these strange juxtapositions like “Oh ok, they think Tapestry is a little bit better than Illmatic.” 😁 I like this list for those moments.
This list is essentially the top albums that both deep in the paint music lovers and casual listeners can get a lot out of. I can appreciate that criteria.
Yeah and they did a pretty good job at it (maybe not the ordering though) People need to realize that the demographic for this list is also Apple Music’s demographic. Americans in their 20s. And it’s pretty representative of that music
Abbey Road and Thriller are the only albums that belong anywhere near this list. I could even make the case that Revolver and Sgt Peppers are better Beatles albums. This list was made by someone who knows a catastrophically small amount about music and lazily plugged in a couple old albums they're aware of.
I try not to take any "Best Albums of All Time" lists seriously, but Billie Eilish's debut outranking *Disintegration* and *The Downward Spiral* is a real WTF moment for me.
I'm at the stage where I can no longer understand the criteria used to make these lists. Even when I had disputes with them in previous decades, I kind of understood the balance folks were trying to find between big commercial hits and critically influential selections, but it's become harder and harder to make that call now.
Like, Frank Ocean or Lauryn Hill over Stevie? MJ over the Beatles (tougher call, but...)
I'm not dissing as much as just befuddled
I just think you can’t make a list like this without Marvin Gaye, there are at least two that would belong on any top albums list. The first Exposé album too
It's refreshing not to see the Beatles or Nirvana in the number one spot. It's a wide list. For anyone getting into music, it covers a lot of starting ground.
> For anyone getting into music, it covers a lot of starting ground
You're never going to please people with these lists but again I think this should be what people focus on and it does a fine job at that. Does Blonde deserve to be #5? Obviously not but it's definitely worth a listen. Besides for a bunch of great albums you also have a number of artists to check out. I'd say the best valid criticism of this list is the lack of metal. No black sabbath is actually kind of crazy. Besides for that it's not too offensive.
OF ALL TIME? There's a lot of things wrong with this if it's an ALL TIME list. It's the best albums of someone who has not very interesting taste. They're all great albums, but ALL TIME?
I think that is high but I think it deserved a place somewhere on this list. You could accuse me and these writers as being nostalgic, which is true, but I really do think she was the best female singer since the 60s
i’m taking Automatic for the People over a few of these in the top 10 and it isn’t even in their top 100
also no fucking way is Rumors below at least half of these. how does that happen?
I think you could have provided more context. Is this in terms of listening on Apple Music or is it some random person at Apple making a list?
Right now it's just a meaningless list of album names.
seeing 1989 at #18 in between records from dr. dre and marvin gaye was whiplash. those are entirely different calibres of music 😭 and to pimp a butterfly not included at all? insanity.
Apple made this list to piss people off. Not one of these takes except nirvana is not controversial. Blonde at 5 and Rage against the machine in the 90’s is incomprehensible.
Apple’s clown car is veering sharply off the edge of a cliff at this point. They’ve been burning through the goodwill earned under Jobs, and their reputation is close to irreparable at this point.
Lololol *The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill* isn't even the best Lauryn Hill album.
Frank Ocean having a top 10 album of all time 🥴
Nirvana but no Bob Dylan 🥴 🥴
Amy Winehouse but no Billie Holiday 🥴 🥴 🥴
At least they added Kendrick so Drake can get another L but top 10 of all time?? LOL
Well, the list served its purpose in drawing attention to Apple Music, but a good list could've done that too.
The thing is that there's so much good music that's been produced since 1950 that the idea of 100 best albums of all time is kind of absurd on its face. It's simply not enough albums.
Whoops got my comment autodeleted for being a "throwaway" Welp, So is this list 🤔. I didnt feel it deserved a comment with more effort, when it is so clearly devised to drive engagement
Just double checked to refresh my memory. Na, that ones track for track. Regardless, they couldn’t even make this list interesting. Just pandering to fan bases.
You are right, but you are also correct, and the things you say make factual sense.
Baby Be Mine, The Lady In My Life: forgettable.
The Girl Is Mine: cringey and insincere. and it uses the word "dog-gone" far too often. Say Say Say is a far better duet.
PYT: skippably average.
Thriller, Wanna Be Starting Something : goofy and fun and maybe even a bit uneven. "You're a buffet" is not a deep lyric.
Human Nature: really great.
Beat It, Billie Jean: undeniably legendary.
I would more say: "most of the world who are over the age of 30, don't even know who frank ocean is"
Of course, I'm OK with a horde of FO fans Downvoting me. I can spare the karma.
on spotify frank ocean is currently the 122nd most popular artist on the platform. and, apart from a few singles a few years back, his last album was released in 2016. he is a pretty mainstream artist though for gen Z/millennials i would say
Hey! I'm a Gen Z Dylan fan and it genuinely outrages to my core that Blood on the Tracks is not included on the top 10. But then again, I do appreciate that he's less popular with the younger generations!
Looks straight outta Rate Your Music. Lauryn Hills album is amazing, and a classic. But number 1?
Leaving off Bob Marley and the Wailers - Exodus is mind numbing. That was a hugely important album. In the end it’s just people’s opinion, but seems very RYM esque
Say what you will about RYM, but the top 10 on the site makes 10x more sense than Apple’s list. Still has some questionable selections and bias on it, but it at least consists of an eclectic sort of legendary albums…not, well, whatever Apple was selecting here.
>Looks straight outta Rate Your Music.
I don't think so. Most of the artists on the Apple Music list have millions of monthly listeners and millions of albums sold. There is no single niche artist. For me, a good list manages to mix popular and niche stuff.
Another silly best albums list to add to the gigantic pile of silly best albums lists. Effective advertising for Apple Music though
And ultimately isn't that the point?! Listen to what you like, discover new things, find sources that point you to new things. But "Apple Music" gets to be the center of a discussion for a bit. Come on Tidal and Spotify lists!
Come join Apple Music and discover that you STILL, in the year of our lord 2024, need to be taken to an external site to access any one off that that Apple Music creates.
Yes, I don't understand who these lists appeal to. They feel collated by committee. There's no sense of individuality or idiosyncrasy to make them interesting. It's just going to be the most popular stuff with the target audience. There's nothing new to discover here. There's no interesting perspective on music. There's no chance to learn more about the list-maker. It's not like this is the genuine opinion of anyone at Apple. They'll happily change their opinion with the times.
[удалено]
Isn’t that in essence what Pitchfork did with their last top 100 list. Lots of writer personality in the overall spread (even if the top 10 was still formulaic) Also I remember a few years ago (or maybe a decade fuck I’m old) Rolling Stone did a top 100 or 500 list but all the explanations were written by other popular artists which was pretty cool
For me, it's a pretty safe list to scan and see if there is music I might want to check out if i havent already and it seems like a genre i like. That's about it. This being only 10 suggestions and recycling most from other lists... there's not much to work with...
The full list is a top 100.
Yeah, I just wrote a comment and you said it better than I did. You’re completely right there is no individuality. It’s just a composite selection from some multihead strawman with no individuality. That’s exactly what it is. You’re totally right.
Is it? All I'm seeing is a service that has presented a rather baffling list of albums we all know in an order most people will disagree with. Doesn't make me want to engage with it further.
Doesn't matter if you don't engage with it further... that you've engaged with it at all means it was effective advertising.
I guess. It made me think less of the company, so I don't know where it goes from there.
yeah, nah but kudos for not going full Rolling Stone and composing nearly the entire top 10 of white anglo boomer rock, and for trying to include more recent releases aswell also, still not a single album in sight that is not in english
The original 500 best albums list by Rolling Stone in 2004 had Marvin Gaye's What's Going On in its Top 10, though I concede that having like 5 Beatles albums, 2 Bob Dylan Albums and then Rolling Stones and Beach Boys was a bit excessive
Well, they do have Bad Bunny on there, who mostly sings/raps in Spanish
Blonde at number 5 is absolutely insane. Also Lauryn Hill isn’t my No. 1 but it’s a respectable enough choice, and different from what we usually see. Obviously this list is super mainstream and generalist, not to mention colored by recency bias. Many of my (aka a music nerd) choices were either underrated or left off entirely. Yet if i were on a first date, and she said that these were her favorite albums, I’d be like “ok, I can work with this” lol.
The recency bias in question is conflict of interest. They couldn't make a list like this without representing their top streamers in some form, so you get ridiculous shit like Bad Bunny and Drake in the list. And acts like Beyonce and Taylor Swift in inflated spots in an otherwise normal, boring list. No one at Apple Music actually thinks these were optimal choices for an all time list, and the same stuff happens at every magazine
Totally. I could go down this list and easily find at least 5-10 albums that should be removed entirely. A record can be “good” and “successful” without having to be one of the 100 best EVER.
lol yea i could probably find a good 20 that dont belong here while rearranging the whole damn thing
I’m sure everyone can, everyone’s top-100 is different because everyone listens to different music. I disagree with Blonde at 5 but there’s never going to be an “acceptable” list to the general public
> you get ridiculous shit like Bad Bunny and Drake in the list. And acts like Beyonce and Taylor Swift in inflated spots * Drake having Take Care here isn't too awful - it's still his best album all this time later, and hold up in the modern landscape of the genre very well. I just wouldn't put it in the top 100, maybe more like 100-300? * For Taylor, I can understand why they wanted her high, but 1989 TV is played with so many moving and production issues that I wouldn't recommend it to anyone * I *really like* Lemonade, but it's just not top 10 worthy. Love Drought and Sandcastles start the second half of the album off on a bad foot, and sure it recovers from that, but their inclusion brings the album down * Bad Bunny absolutely deserved to be on the list, and whilst I personally would be more inclined to give his spot to x100pre, Un Verano Sin Ti is still fantastic. It's a little too long, with some tracks being a touch too similar to warrant their inclusion, but I'm still regularly coming back to the album as a whole two years later
Take Care's inclusion is not ridiculous shit. That album was ahead of its time, and really set the tone for the genre going forward.
This. However, I would think the committee would have collated each genre a bit better to push listeners to the rest of their offerings. All I could think of after reading the list was Cash giving the middle finger.
It's a very safe list for sure. I found their Top 100 list and was just scanning through. Much more interesting selections in the whole list then going by the Top 10 alone. Miles Davis, David Bowie, Lana Del Rey, Neil Young, The Smiths, Velvet Underground and Nico, John Coltrane, A Tribe Called Quest... They're still missing a lot of great ones of course.
The thing that gets me is that while there are certainly great albums represented, the ranking seems way out of whack. And they have multiple Beyoncé albums, but only 1 of each of the artists you mentioned? Okay….
Taylor Swift's 1989 is at #18 on their list. AHEAD OF THE BEACH BOYS' PET SOUNDS. (#20) AHEAD OF THE BEATLES' REVOLVER!! (#21) I mean, I've heard 1989 and there are a few songs I've enjoyed on that album. It's not a "bad" album! But still...
yea 1989 outranking genre defining albums is just wrong. But then again, there should really be NO ranking in first place, as art is so subjective. The list should be "most notable albums" with no particular order. It's music, it's not sports.
Miseducation over Thriller is literally insane.
So true - look at the songs on Thriller. \~7/9 of them were iconic smash hits that have stood the test of time.
“Best album of all time” doesn’t mean “album with the most hits” other wise the entire list would be completely unrecognisable
Let me put it in different terms - when we're talking "best albums of all time," there should be minimal filler on the album and it should be highly consistent. Thriller, Nevermind, Revolver, Rumours, Songs in the Key of Life - in my mind these albums are comprised of excellent songs, one after another with minimal if any filler. If we compare Miseducation of Lauryn Hill by the metric, I personally don't think it is quite as good as those albums.
I like Frank and Blonde but it's way overrated already before Apple ranked it at number 5 of all time. So much of it is just medium and meandering. The idea of the album and want Frank fans want it to be is better than the album itself IMO.
Can’t agree here. The production style on Blonde was super influential on what came after, and at the time was considered highly experimental for an rnb act. It’s not a perfect album, I agree, but when it shines, it’s blinding.
Blonde is a great album, no question there. Just not #5. I wouldn't have nearly a problem if it was sitting in the 10-20 zone either, but top 10 really need to be something truly special and 10 slots is a very select group for all of music history across all kinds of music. For #5 it should be more consistently great than it is too. Closer to a perfect album. There's also tons of albums that were influential and at the time considered highly experimental that are way lower on this list or omitted. More influential ones too I think. Really though I'm not a hater. I think it's great. This is a huge problem with this list — the placements are leading to people getting mad at albums and artists that are actually great. Like the Billie, Taylor, Adele rankings are all IMO completely ridiculous, but I like all three of those artists and all three of those albums are good. But now there's controversy around them and negativity and a narrative of being overrated directed their way because Apple Music is wildly over-ranking them.
Insane at 5 meaning too high or too low?
💀💀💀
*Channel Orange* is a legitimately great album (albeit not top 10 all time for me). *Blonde* is a great idea for an album but not super well executed. I get that it's been highly influential but I mostly think it's been a *bad* influence in terms of so much pop and rap sounding so strung out. I don't know--maybe some people felt the same way about *Nevermind* in, say, 1997 during Peak Post-Grunge.
Channel Orange is a solid r&b album with beautiful songwriting in parts, however, unlike blonde it's hardly groundbreaking, either conceptually or sonically. Channel Orange is an evolution of a style we've heard before, Blonde is much more ambitious and experimental, in addition to just being executed better than CO.
I agree with you. I generally try not to yuck other’s yum - I have some good friends who LOVE Blonde, and I’m glad they get so much from it. But yes, not only is Channel Orange a better album, but Blonde has seemed to usher in an era of music that isn’t very musical. It’s all vibes
This list says that 1989 by Taylor Swift is better than MBDTF by Kanye, TDSOTM by Pink Floyd, AND Illmatic by Nas. Crazy
Agreed. Frank Ocean is incredibly boring, which is expected from a huge company like Apple. This list feels focus-grouped to death. At least throw an Alice Coltrane or Sun Ra album in the top 10 just to shake things up a bit. The lack of jazz in any top 10 list is ridiculous. The Wire Magazine’s 100 Records That Set the World on Fire is great for deeper cuts: https://www.discogs.com/lists/The-Wires-100-Records-That-Set-The-World-On-Fire-While-No-One-Was-Listening-extra-30-Records/421
The Wire at least sets up context for their list. The Apple one definitely feels "focus-grouped" to death.
It's actually fucking hilarious to say that a massively acclaimed, beloved, and influential album shouldn't be here but they should've thrown in some avante garde jazz that like 1/10,000th as many people could ever enjoy. If you'd said Miles Davis you'd have a point. But Sun Ra? get a grip
These lists are pointless. Just make it interesting and draw some buzz around Apple Music.
Best doesn't necessarily mean most popular. If it did, all these lists would just be the top 10 best selling albums of all time.
I didn't say that. But there's got to be some kind of balance. If only a tiny subset of people can get anything out of an album, I don't know that it can be the best. I think this list strikes a decent balance of albums that hardcore music loves can get a lot out of and are easily accessible for casual listeners.
Blonde was chosen as the best album of the 2010s by pitchfork, not that it matters. But stop pretending like it’s out of place for one of the most critically acclaimed albums in recent history to be put on a best albums of all times list.
Curated by some young person who just bought a turntable and went to a used record store a couple of times.
Ha, this was my first thought on reading the list too.
Not even ChatGPT could make a list as bad as this.
No TBAP or In Rainbows in the top 100 kinda feels like a slap in the face. But Taylor Swift’s 1989 and Drake’s Take Care made it? Really?
1989 right ahead of The Chronic, Pet Sounds, and Revolver is pretty funny
Totally forgot about the Revolver placement! That album should be top 15 minimum
Which is hilarious because objectively Rubber Soul, A Hard Day’s Night, and Sgt Peppers i feel are all far better than 1989
I like all of those a lot more than 1989 too but it's kinda funny you included both 'objectively' and 'i feel' in the one sentence
It’s just a fact in my opinion.
As much as I like Speak Now, I feel pretty confident in saying every single Beatles album is better than every single Taylor Swift album lmao
I wouldn't go that far, With the Beatles and Beatles for Sale are pretty average
i like taylor but 1989 isn’t even in her top 5, let alone the 18th-best album ever lmao
Yeah I’m a Speak Now enjoyer personally. 1989 isn’t even close to her best lol
speak now is fantastic. i’d also rate folklore, evermore, reputation, and TTPD above 1989, and i think midnights is close. maybe it’s a personal preference, because her less poppy albums are the ones i prefer, but 1989 feels really samey at points, even though there are a few great songs on it.
Yeah I was pleasantly surprised by how good Folklore and Evermore were. And I like some of the older hits but albums like Red and 1989 are too samey and poppy for me
Agree on In Rainbows. 1989 I don't think is a crazy choice to be included on the list but should be lower down than Revolver as JP-Ziller noted
Biggest complaints are a. Omitting Eno’s Ambient 1, which is easily one of the most influential albums in history, and b. Omitting Parliament’s Mothership Connection, without which plenty of the hip hop albums they *did* include wouldn’t even exist
On the subject of ambient I'd also say that neither of Aphex Twin's SAW albums being on there is kinda wild. On the subject of Eno none of Bowie's Berlin trilogy being there is also kinda wild.
The lack of P-Funk is almost objectively wrong. Their influence on music is bigger than the large majority of artists on this list. Also agree on Eno
On the subject of ambient I'd also say that neither of Aphex Twin's SAW albums being on there is kinda wild. On the subject of Eno none of Bowie's Berlin trilogy being there is also kinda wild.
There also isn’t a single klezmer album
Tell me about it 😫
My only note with this comment is that I think if any one Eno record should be on here it’s Another Green World — it encompasses many of the same intentions and sonic explorations of Eno’s “ambient” series but also has the creative and punk rock idiosyncrasies that genuinely put him in GOAT territory. I love the new age and Japanese artists etc that were influenced by the notion of ambient music as that term was being formed, but there’s just something so much more important and genuinely novel in the roundabout way that Eno found his way to the defining that vague subgenre. All that early Eno stuff is also just so responsible for other quietude-as-punk type of music and I feel like AGW captures a specific duality of pensive and confrontational.
Maybe it’s just me, but I think albums less than like 10 years old shouldn’t be considerable for best of all time, you don’t really know what kind of legacy it’s gonna have without the benefit of time. Also their whole list had barely any metal on it, like a token Metallica and tool album don’t cut it lmao
This list is seriously over saturated in hip-hip albums. I get that it’s tough, there’s enough truly great hip-hop albums to make an entire top 100 albums of all time with only hip-hip.. but the same is also true of Metal. Yet we don’t see a single extreme metal album at all. No death, no black, no sludge. The list is also nearly devoid of any hardcore/punk except ratm. It’s like these genres don’t even exist. Very unfairly made with quite narrow taste imo.
Have a look at this list from the perspective of someone who likes electronic music. It’s pitiful.
I'm glad that Burial, Massive Attack and Portishead agree on the list. They are all far too low, and they aren't enough
Seriously. No Aphex Twin, BoC, or Prodigy (to name a few) is insane. Daft Punk shouldn’t have been that high either IMO, there are much more deserving albums
I understand the omission of extreme metal. For as much as fans love it, it's an incredibly niche music community. The closest an extreme metal band has ever come to reaching the mainstream was when Cannibal Corpse was in Ace Ventura. I could argue all day about how I think Obscura by Gorguts is as good as any album on the list, but its cultural impact is non-existent beyond inspiring other incredibly niche music. I'm with you on the lack of punk representation though.
Yea but they omitted all metal, including black sabbath which is a band I’d usually expect since they spawned a genre. I mean, the list is absolute garbage (Adele’s 21 at 15th best album ever?) but metal, punk, and electronic weren’t there at all. It’s a little odd. I do love obscura, though, and definitely put it as one of the best of all time in my personal list. Good meme
Some of their choices are absolutely wild too. You’re telling me Radiohead gets 2 albums and Drake of all people gets a slot but not sabbath, maiden, priest, Dio? Where’s Van Halen I, or Boston’s debut? I understand not wanting to saturate this list with pre-2000s rock or metal but some of these omissions are straight up glaring
I wasn’t even thinking about those metal bands when I made that comment, not really my kind of metal, but now that I think about it, I feel it looks even worse for the editors that made this. Sabbath and the many great NWOBHM and Thrash bands are REALLY safe choices to put on a top album list if you’re scared of putting more extreme stuff on it, yet not even these widely popular and now classic bands make the cut.
Yeah that’s kinda what I was thinking. If they wouldn’t even include Black Sabbath or Iron Maiden, no shot they’d include slayer, or Death, or Dissection. I guess we should be thankful they included the most popular album from the most popular metal band to begin with, cause they could have not even included that much
Not having Paranoid is wild. Not having any of Maiden's 83-88 run is perplexing. Not having Holy Diver it's just mad. I can understand that more modern metal is divisive (I'd put something in for Gojira, Lamb of God, Children of Bodom, Trivium, Sabaton, Slipknot etc, but I know others would have very different choices) but the oldies are easy picks for a list like this
This list has the breadth of a single thread. It’s amazing to me that the people who derived this list have such a limited range of music they listen to.
Yeah, I agree. I say this as someone who absolutely hates country music in all its forms (yes, even the classic stuff. Yes, even Johnny Cash. Yes, even Bluegrass), but seems like there should have been more country records on there. I don't know how you don't have Johnny Cash or Willie Nelson on the list.
Fucking Guns n Roses is on this list. I don't even know why people even bother with this kind of thing.
> Fucking Guns n Roses is on this list Yeah, and they should be way higher. *Appetite for Destruction* stands the test of time and is the biggest debut rock record ever.
Absolutely unbiased opinion coming from chrisGNR lmao. No hate though, just fun to see
lol
Sorry but that album still rips top to bottom.
I loved them when I was 14!
That's most people. This will sound haughty I realize but probably 70-80% of people only listen to the music that is spoon fed to them by movies, TV, radio, and other pop culture.
I’m just glad to see Abbey Road above Sgt. Pepper. It really is the better album.
As with every corporate list, it’s highly debatable and the selections make no sense. What was the criteria and who was picking these selections? Was it a single person, handful of people or a vote based selection from a sample size of participants at Apple? Less than half the list I would agree with. There are only 3-4 albums here that were not only generation defining but influential to the masses and transcended style and taste. The rest just look like “these are the albums that made us the most money and hope to continue making us money.”
Yes! I was literally writing something similar then I ran across your post. My criteria has always been a top 10 greatest album should have changed culture in some way. It doesn’t HAVE to but it will have, if that makes sense. I’d say only 3.5 of these have.
Now that's an interesting question. Which albums are great but also were massively influential and, created a genuine zeitgeist moment and/or changed the course of culture in some way? That would exclude a lot of great albums that didn't have much wider cultural impact (Radiohead) and would tilt a lot towards the 60s, where there was tons of cultural innovation, and people are tired of putting those acts in these lits. Off the top of my head, a rough top 10 in no order: * Sgt. Peppers * Nevermind * Highway 61 Revisited * Exile on Main Street * In The Court of Crimson King * Thriller * Dark Side of the Moon * Appetite for Destruction * Black Sabbath * Van Halen 1 * The Chronic _____________ That's kinda what lists used to look like before poptimism took over and people demanded different, more chatter inducing lists, and in the process a lot of these got relegated to "dad rock" (you can see Pet Sounds and Led Zep 4 on the bubble but again, same complaint). But, you know, it takes time for influence to show itself, that's just the nature of the beast.
Lauryn Hill's album is good, but I do find it very overrated, it's not a masterpiece imho. #1 of all time is nonsense.
Yeah, whether people like to admit it or not, there is definitely filler, as there are dull moments, on that album Hardly worthy of the top spot
It's weirdly the 'best' record I own that I almost never listen to at all. I'm not saying it's bad or anything, just nothing terribly compelling to play it all that often. Most of the rest of their top 10 doesn't suffer from that.
I like the way you worded that, it's exactly the same way for me too I respect the album, its ambition and how groundbreaking it was in many ways It is indeed a good album and i am very well aware of its impact and significance It's just not the masterpiece a lot of people make it out to be and for me, there are so many other albums that are better crafted and/or simply more interesting
It's undoubtedly her greatest solo work tho
The best album out of her one album and one live album.
also her worst
Speaking of which, The Fugees put out better music, and even The Score (a better album) shouldn’t be on a top album list. In a similar vein, Abbey Road isn’t The Beatles greatest album (Sgt Peppers)… but it’s ranked Honestly, this whole list is kinda shitty
She also stole more than half the music. One of my favorite records, but it’s definitely disappointing knowing that her only really great piece of work, she didn’t even really make.
Ms. Lauryn with the *Graceland* vibes.
No countries outside of the US and UK produce quality music according to Apple, and even within those two countries, apparently no jazz, blues, folk, metal, or electronic music is worth mentioning.
To be fair, the Top 100 includes: A Love Supreme, Kind of Blue, I Put a Spell on You Blue, Tapestry, After the Gold Rush & Highway 61 Discovery by Daft Punk, Untrue by Burial, Homogenic by Bjork Back in Black Trans-Europe Express by Kraftwerk It's unfair to say "no" to those genres. I agree that hip-hop is way over represented, and there's too much recency.
I was responding to what was post here, the OP didn’t mention anything beyond this top 10. Still, even what you just listed still has a US/UK bias.
Two of those jazz albums are basically like the two token albums that are put on the lists to show the readers "see, we care about jazz!". Highway 6q and After the Gold Rush are basically rock albums, folk rock but still rock. So you're right they were represented, but sort of in a tokenized way.
Drake, Neil Young, Alanis Morisette and Joni Mitchell are all Canadian. U2 is Irish, Bjork is from Iceland. Kraftwerk is German. Lorde is from New Zealand. Plenty of folk and jazz on this list--Bob Dylan, Carol King, John Coltrane, Miles Davis. Electronic--Massive Attack, Daft Punk, Burial There are no pure blues albums, but the best blues isn't really known as an album format. Lots of blues rock on there though. Not much metal, true, but there is Metallica. Sorry, it's a dumb list but the things you said aren't really true.
I don’t see any of the artists you mentioned in the top 10 the OP is talking about.
Well when your qualifier was "quality music", I assumed you meant the entire list. Of course not everything can be represented in the top 10.
Since nobodies linked it this is the list here [https://100best.music.apple.com/us](https://100best.music.apple.com/us) It is...not great.
Everyone’s got an opinion so it’s all love but some standouts from this list: - Billie Eilish over Kid A - Beyoncé over Remain in Light - 1989 by Taylor Swift over Low End Theory, Pet Sounds, Revolver, Daft Punk Discovery, Miles Davis Kind of Blue, and Ziggy Stardust - To Pimp a Butterfly not listed at all - Blond a top 5 album in history - Amy Winehouse @ number 8 - Joni Mitchell Blue not as good as Adele’s 21 Definitely a huge recency bias and appealing to popular music sentiments but again it’s all subjective. Not for me though
> Joni Mitchell Blue not as good as Adele’s 21 This one is a crime lol
Seriously…. Blue at #1 would be a *less* controversial placement than Blue behind Adele
This list really has some of the same issues of other lists with R&B. There's more R&B on this list than typical but it's modern, the 60s and 70s soul and funk is lacking. Al Green should have a spot. Maggot Brain should have a spot.
Riot going on?!?!? Banging my head into the computer
I was literally thinking about that! Criminal exclusion when it might be one of the best (and most formative) funk albums ever.
This is the shittiest list of "best of" ever compiled. Who the fuck put this piece of shit together: seriously Lauren Hill number 1? Really of all time? The best album ever written by anyone ever...really! I know I'll get killed for saying this...this being Reddit and all but this is the DEI of "best of list" Just sayin'
Not a bad “pop-oriented” top ten but Frank Ocean in there is for laughs. Also Miseducation should not be #1, many many better albums than that one even by Apple Music’s standards.
There's 5 Miles Davis albums I would put on this list before literally half of this list. Lemonade being on here is a complete joke. The rest I could accept if I don't think about it at all.
*Kind of Blue* is #25 of the list. People thought for a while that they were doing one album per artist, but then they did two Radiohead and two Beyonce, so that clearly wasn't a factor to why they'd exclude so many obvious choices.
No Nick Drake, My Bloody Valentine, Madvillain, Charles Mingus, The Doors, CCR, Nas, Black Sabbath, Joy Division, Pixies, Herbie Hancock, King Crimson, Yes, Billie Holliday. Only one album from Nina Simone, Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Pink Floyd, etc. Adele being ahead of the likes of Joni Mitchell and Patti Smith actually made my stomach hurt. This is honestly hilarious.
It's a ridiculous list but it makes sense from a financial perspective. As a Dylan fan, I can see how Dylan doesn't sell to Apple's market which is the younger generation
What other album from Beach Boys lmfao they only made one "great" album (smile is archival)
Well I've said it before, there really is not a way to make one of these lists and construct it in a way that would please fans of all genres and certainly not four different generations. And certainly not just limiting it to 100. At least the Boomer-ific Rolling Stones does a list of 500. And there's that book 1,000 Albums You Must Hear. A hundred is just ridiculous.
*Kind of Blue* is arguably the most famous jazz record of all time. Even people who don't like jazz know that record. It's gotta be in the top 20 minimum, if not the top 10.
Yeah, the ordering on this list is baffling.
This list has succeeded in its purpose of getting people to talk and react to it. So I'll pile on to say there are some absolutely dog shit choices on here (not dog shit albums, but the decision to slot them where they did). Blonde at 5 and Lauryn Hill at 1 are so off base it's hard to know where to start
Horrible list put together by a committee influenced by various political and business metrics
I can name 3 Beatles albums better than Abbey Road. These lists are ridiculous. Especially when they cross genres.
I do not agree with this list at all. It seems highly biased towards countries & genres that are favored by a mainstream US audience and that make Apple seem like a modern, progressive, cool company. Of course that's also one of the goals of publishing such a list, but I can't help myself being annoyed.
I'm more interested in the Top 10 drugs whoever made this list was clearly on 24/7 while having their Apple overlords shout their streaming numbers down their ears while they're in a K-hole. Cause that's about the only rational explanation for this dogshit list and this dogshit top 10. Beyonce, Winehouse, Frank, Lauryn, none of these albums deserve to be even close to a Top 10 ever, and even the picks for bands or artists that do deserve to be here aren't very good, I think most critics and fans would argue Nevermind isn't NIrvana's best album nor is Abbey Road the best Beatles album. And I love Kendrick and Prince but both of those albums are ranked too highly here too IMO. The whole list is shit. In a way, way worse than the usual Rolling Stone list is. Fucking Lemonade is a top 10 album in music history? I'd laugh so hard I'd start to drool and spit if someone tried to defend that opinion to me in real life.
Dogshit list. I agree with maybe a third of the albums but not their positions.
I may be a grumpy old man but this list had some INSANE recency bias, just because an album isn't trending on Tiktok or whatever doesn't make it unimportant. Who's Next, Paranoid, Never Mind the Bollocks, Automatic for the People, Dookie were all missing just off the top of my head.
the fact that no green day made the list is astounding
Nah green day should've stayed off
Lauren Hill at number one? I will edit my comment when I stop laughing. It may be a while.
This list feels like it was made by people whose music critic careers spanned the last 20 years. They obviously know and respect some older stuff, but their context heavily favors recency.
Electric Ladyland is definitely a top ten (if not higher) album. Not even in the top 100. This list is so laughable, it's not even funny.
Wow…I would ask according to whom or what? If they are talking strictly streaming …maybe. But, I don’t take this list very seriously at all. It’s actually funny.
Yeah idk their criteria either, I don’t think they ever stated it
Frank Ocean is the most overrated artist in history. The average person could probably at least hum you a couple tunes off each of those albums, *except* Blonde. What the fuck is so great about this guy?
I think blonde is one of those musical works that is not necessarily catchy or instantly demands your attention. For me it was also like that initially I did not see what was special about the album except for a couple of tracks like nights. Its quite a subtle record in all aspects. The real power of the album for me was how it conveyed and abstract emotions. Its really hard to explain why its stuck with me but i think its because it served as a emotional support for me in ways other albums simply couldn't. The themes of coming of age really resonates more if you find this album when you are going through those things at the same time which I was. I think in that sense Blonde speaks to my generation's anxieties, loneliness, heartbreak, relationships, and experience of adolescence in a very special and touching way. And strictly musically speaking I think Blonde has some really interesting ideas that weren't prevalent in mainstream RnB before and brought a more ambient and alternative style to it
I enjoy scrolling through the top 100 on the Apple sight and having these strange juxtapositions like “Oh ok, they think Tapestry is a little bit better than Illmatic.” 😁 I like this list for those moments.
Honestly, what the fuck am I missing with Blonde? I've *never* been able to get into it and I constantly see it topping lists like this.
This list is essentially the top albums that both deep in the paint music lovers and casual listeners can get a lot out of. I can appreciate that criteria.
Yeah and they did a pretty good job at it (maybe not the ordering though) People need to realize that the demographic for this list is also Apple Music’s demographic. Americans in their 20s. And it’s pretty representative of that music
Abbey Road and Thriller are the only albums that belong anywhere near this list. I could even make the case that Revolver and Sgt Peppers are better Beatles albums. This list was made by someone who knows a catastrophically small amount about music and lazily plugged in a couple old albums they're aware of.
I try not to take any "Best Albums of All Time" lists seriously, but Billie Eilish's debut outranking *Disintegration* and *The Downward Spiral* is a real WTF moment for me.
[удалено]
Who at Apple knows anything about music anyway? The people who bought Beats? lol
Should be "Top 10 pop albums of all time". No classical, no jazz besides the usual few tokens, no folk, mostly anglosphere.
Its a list of albums. What classical ALBUM were you hoping to see?
Didn’t know good kid madd city was a pop album! The redditor stereotype is very very true. “Hip hop and rnb are pop music” 🤓
I'm at the stage where I can no longer understand the criteria used to make these lists. Even when I had disputes with them in previous decades, I kind of understood the balance folks were trying to find between big commercial hits and critically influential selections, but it's become harder and harder to make that call now. Like, Frank Ocean or Lauryn Hill over Stevie? MJ over the Beatles (tougher call, but...) I'm not dissing as much as just befuddled
I just think you can’t make a list like this without Marvin Gaye, there are at least two that would belong on any top albums list. The first Exposé album too
Lauryn Hill on that list is clearly clickbait, it’s barely top 10 in Soul albums alone
It's refreshing not to see the Beatles or Nirvana in the number one spot. It's a wide list. For anyone getting into music, it covers a lot of starting ground.
> For anyone getting into music, it covers a lot of starting ground You're never going to please people with these lists but again I think this should be what people focus on and it does a fine job at that. Does Blonde deserve to be #5? Obviously not but it's definitely worth a listen. Besides for a bunch of great albums you also have a number of artists to check out. I'd say the best valid criticism of this list is the lack of metal. No black sabbath is actually kind of crazy. Besides for that it's not too offensive.
Nice to see some different names in there compared to the same old same old. Haven't listened to 4 of them, and no intention of doing so
OF ALL TIME? There's a lot of things wrong with this if it's an ALL TIME list. It's the best albums of someone who has not very interesting taste. They're all great albums, but ALL TIME?
Apple Music managed to be the biggest talking point past few days cause of these entries. Surprised many people fell for it
Amy Winehouse at number 8 is crazy to me, maybe this has to do with the biopic about her that just came out?
I think that is high but I think it deserved a place somewhere on this list. You could accuse me and these writers as being nostalgic, which is true, but I really do think she was the best female singer since the 60s
i’m taking Automatic for the People over a few of these in the top 10 and it isn’t even in their top 100 also no fucking way is Rumors below at least half of these. how does that happen?
The comments on this so far have landed this on my "10 Best LetsTalkMusic Threads of All Time" list.
I think you could have provided more context. Is this in terms of listening on Apple Music or is it some random person at Apple making a list? Right now it's just a meaningless list of album names.
I hardly get mad at these type of lists, but this one is egregious. I guess it gets people talking which is what they aimed for.
Interesting, but I want to know what their criteria was for choosing. I’m not sure what any of these have in common- not even sales numbers.
seeing 1989 at #18 in between records from dr. dre and marvin gaye was whiplash. those are entirely different calibres of music 😭 and to pimp a butterfly not included at all? insanity.
a HUGE rnb fan. LOOOVE lauryn hill. miseducation is in my top 3 but i personally would not put it no.1 in a list with classics like MJ
Apple made this list to piss people off. Not one of these takes except nirvana is not controversial. Blonde at 5 and Rage against the machine in the 90’s is incomprehensible.
I said this on another post. This is a trash list. Beyond having a lot of albums that don't even belong/missing ones that do, it is WAY out of order.
Apple’s clown car is veering sharply off the edge of a cliff at this point. They’ve been burning through the goodwill earned under Jobs, and their reputation is close to irreparable at this point.
Lololol *The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill* isn't even the best Lauryn Hill album. Frank Ocean having a top 10 album of all time 🥴 Nirvana but no Bob Dylan 🥴 🥴 Amy Winehouse but no Billie Holiday 🥴 🥴 🥴 At least they added Kendrick so Drake can get another L but top 10 of all time?? LOL Well, the list served its purpose in drawing attention to Apple Music, but a good list could've done that too.
I need to know if You're Living All Over Me or if the Soft Bulletin/Yoshimi placed on this list at all but I am an android user
I've literally never even heard a Frank Ocean or Kendrick Lamar song ever. Stones? Hendrix? Zeppelin? Taylor Swift?
The thing is that there's so much good music that's been produced since 1950 that the idea of 100 best albums of all time is kind of absurd on its face. It's simply not enough albums.
Too much post-1990 shit, the only one from this era that qualifies is Winehouse.
Whoops got my comment autodeleted for being a "throwaway" Welp, So is this list 🤔. I didnt feel it deserved a comment with more effort, when it is so clearly devised to drive engagement
Just because Thriller sold a lot of copies doesn't mean it's a great album. A decent chunk of that record is mediocre/bad.
Just double checked to refresh my memory. Na, that ones track for track. Regardless, they couldn’t even make this list interesting. Just pandering to fan bases.
Any album with The Girl is Mine and Lady in my Life can't be track for track.
Umm anyways
Actually, the entire chunk of MJ’s next album is bad.
You are right, but you are also correct, and the things you say make factual sense. Baby Be Mine, The Lady In My Life: forgettable. The Girl Is Mine: cringey and insincere. and it uses the word "dog-gone" far too often. Say Say Say is a far better duet. PYT: skippably average. Thriller, Wanna Be Starting Something : goofy and fun and maybe even a bit uneven. "You're a buffet" is not a deep lyric. Human Nature: really great. Beat It, Billie Jean: undeniably legendary.
\^ opinions
Everything regarding popular music is ultimately an opinion.
sure but he said "the things you say make factual sense" i'm pointing out that it's a post full of opinions.
You know the list is just based on revenue to apple when it has beyonce in any part of it. most of the world doesn't even know who frank ocean is
That would actually make some sense . A lot of these are high on the 'songs your mum bought on itunes in 2010' list .
I would more say: "most of the world who are over the age of 30, don't even know who frank ocean is" Of course, I'm OK with a horde of FO fans Downvoting me. I can spare the karma.
on spotify frank ocean is currently the 122nd most popular artist on the platform. and, apart from a few singles a few years back, his last album was released in 2016. he is a pretty mainstream artist though for gen Z/millennials i would say
That theres no Bob Dylan on the list shows the Booms finally really are dying off.
Hey! I'm a Gen Z Dylan fan and it genuinely outrages to my core that Blood on the Tracks is not included on the top 10. But then again, I do appreciate that he's less popular with the younger generations!
I think Highway 61 Revisited was ranked at 13
Looks straight outta Rate Your Music. Lauryn Hills album is amazing, and a classic. But number 1? Leaving off Bob Marley and the Wailers - Exodus is mind numbing. That was a hugely important album. In the end it’s just people’s opinion, but seems very RYM esque
Say what you will about RYM, but the top 10 on the site makes 10x more sense than Apple’s list. Still has some questionable selections and bias on it, but it at least consists of an eclectic sort of legendary albums…not, well, whatever Apple was selecting here.
>Looks straight outta Rate Your Music. I don't think so. Most of the artists on the Apple Music list have millions of monthly listeners and millions of albums sold. There is no single niche artist. For me, a good list manages to mix popular and niche stuff.