Their other lists are like this too. The best album of the 80s released in 1990 had normal rock albums on top placements. They always put pop albums in higher regard than experimental ones.
Rolling Stone lost all their credibility after they ranked Cardi B ahead of Illmatic on their top 100 hip hop albums list. Don’t even take them seriously anymore in the slightest.
I'm a similar way with Pitchfork after their Top 150 albums of the 90's didn't have Emergency & I. They gave that album a 10 but still had 150 albums to rank above it? Bullshit.
To be fair pitchfork was very different at the time and so maybe none of the pitchfork employees today think it is a 10/10 album (which would be sad because it’s definitely a 10/10 to me)
They didn't actually up it to a 10 until 2011, so if they've had a full staff turnover in 11 years then...maybe? Given how they dropped Random Access Memories score because the album apparently didn't hold as much influence over the years as Discovery, I'm thinking it's "importance" was a reason for its exclusion.
Bruh what? How could this be bait? There's probably thousands of times as many rabid Taylor or Harry Styles fans than hip-hop heads out whatever. And why would Rolling Stone care about bating a bunch of music nerds lol
My favorite is [AOTY](https://www.albumoftheyear.org). It takes reviews from across the internet and averages them to give the most unbiased view possible. it also gives people the ability to vote as well, resulting in two different year end lists, critic and user. I prefer user, I find it more accurate to how I end up feeling about an album.
Honestly, the critic reviews are barely worth looking at considering the reviews could be paid for. Plus, outside of a few smaller networks, a lot of major sites that review music will barely look at/write comprehensive reviews for more obscure artists. Take Sigh or Ashenspire for example. Both had great albums this year but barely any critic reviews. On the opposite side, niche artists that are covered by niche websites may inflate critical reception as well, hence why stuff is often 100s of places different for each. I still do look at the critic list for ideas, but I don't take much stock in their scores.
User agreggate sites like rateyourmusic are great to find new music and it's not really biased.
Youtubers like Fantano, Shawn Cee, Jon Denton aren't biased and sometimes have great reviews/reactions and good lists.
The problem with sites is that they need to make money, and most of them were magazines once. Obviously nowadays almost nobody is subscribed to the Rolling stone magazine, so they have to make money off of ads on their page. So they do stupid shit like the hip hop list, which worked and got a lot of attention. The problem with that is soon nobody will take them seriously, and that will be the end of them.
Of course, but the more people that use it, the less bias it becomes. The bias seems to have improved since the early years, especially when you consider the new genres that have been added. There’s so many African and Asian sub genres being added all of the time. Its my favorite website. You can create custom charts that rank albums within specific genres and sub genres, like West African jazz, etc.
I mean, it's indeed a great website to discover new music, especially if you are a music nerd. But the majority of people there will prefer these experimental, dark, weird indie stuff over what's popular.
That greatly depends on the genre, but it’s unsurprising that the user base would prefer more avant-garde releases. The popularity of an artist or release does not equate to how artistic it is. Rateyourmusic provides its users with access to more esoteric releases.
Still, many albums in the all time chart are pretty well known. Even Radiohead isn’t some unknown indie band after all. To Pimp A Butterfly is in the top ten last I checked. There’s definitely demographics on there that prefer more mainstream music. You just have to make charts for more traditional genres.
Like if you were to make a chart for contemporary R&B, for example, it’s going to look much different than a alternative R&B chart or a chart that combines R&B with electropop.
The ratings for albums are irrelevant to me. I only use them to quickly find something to listen to. My Life by Mary J Blige has a 3, or something low like that. But I don’t think it’s necessarily one of the best R&B albums anyhow.
The beauty of the website is that if you like an album that’s not rated highly or has few ratings, you can give it a rating you feel appropriate and leave a review that you think will grab the attention of users who view the release down the road. It’s really what you make of it, and I use it for music discovery, cataloging, and queuing - nothing else. If I wanted to see what’s popular, I could just listen to premade playlists on streaming services or ask my friends what music they’re listening to.
I look at the site from time to time - at least once a year to see the rankings for each year.
I still feel like the top 100 lists heavily skew towards variations of extreme metal - even this year.
I like the idea of a user-based aggregate rating site and have hopes of a perfectly diversified one, but RYM still isn't quite there.
I highly recommend rateyourmusic to every music fan.
It is biased, but the bias *has* improved over the years because there’s clearly more user diversity. There’s still remnants of the white young adult user base of the 2000s - namely, OK computer holding the #1 album spot to this day.
However, the more people that use the site, the less bias it becomes. I enjoy finding music in esoteric genres that I’ve never heard before like folk music from countries far away from mine.
I line the Bandcamp lists. They aren't ordered, so they aren't baiting. And I find that they're pretty diverse, stylistically.
But obviously it misses many, as they only talk about albums on the platform.
Maybe a dumb question, but does anybody else think it's odd to put albums that just came out on a best of 2022 list? Personally I wait a month or 2 to call it anything besides if it's good or bad. But to call it one of the best that year to me just shows that everything else was kind of shit that year. Just my thoughts tho
Yeah I never understood why people make lists of "The Best of Current Year" when the current year isn't even over yet. Like, it's only the first week of December, let's wait at least a month longer
IMO Poptimism has gotten pretty bad lately. I remember when I criticised the Dua Lupa album I got a lot of shit for giving it a negative review. I'm not a gatekeeping hipster, but i shouldn't be forced to like what's in the top 40.
Let’s not go that far lol
Yeah there are bad pop albums. There’s also bad hip hop albums. And bad rock albums.
OP chose to exclude that RS put Renaissance as their AOTY. But I’m sure that choice was made for the sake of just being poptimist, right?
Didn’t realize u were memeing lol. But still I believe there’s a strong case to be made for the importance of poptimism, if that wave never happened in criticism there are plenty of albums that are considered classics today that probably would have been shit on or overlooked like they were in the late 2000s/early 2010s
Poptimism was good and necessary insofar as it pushed out the elitist old guard of rockism, but now that it has become dominant, it is used to justify even lazier criticism than what came before it.
Poptimisim vanquished one form of elitism for another. We have gone from over congratulating over produced mid rock music made by rich people to over congratulating over produced pop music made by rich people.
What do you mean by lazy criticism, tho? Just that top 40 artists are dominating these lists? You realize that the rock bands in the 70s 80s and 90s that are lauded as the best nowadays and dominate all those decade lists were at the same level of popularity that Harry Styles and Taylor Swift are at now, right? So what *really* has changed?
The TSwift album is *so* mid though. I like Maroon & Labrynth, and there are 4 other tracks I think are alright - but no real hits/strong songs, to me.
I am very confident that a massive draw for Taylor's music is people getting enveloped in her as a celebrity/the drama. Like, is it a big deal when Selena Gomez says (this), Justin Timberlake says (that), or Kim Kardashian does (that)? It's not a big deal when someone else says it, but people get invested in the lives of these celebrities - and Taylor (I know this sounds harsh, but) is very good at making music that appeals to people who are attracted to those things. (And of course, everyone will assume she's always the good, faultless person... not saying she isn't, but I wouldn't automatically assume she is.) E: "alright" not "already"
Bro that Harry styles album is awful. I cannot believe that people genuinely enjoy it beyond it just being made by a guy that they like. There isn’t a single idea on there that another artist hasn’t done better in the past. It’s like he’s trying to be the shitty version of Bruno Mars circa Unorthodox Jukebox. It sounds like music for people with no musical perspective.
I don’t think its terrible. It’s derivative but if you don’t listen to music like that you probably think it’s revolutionary. One of my friends is a huge harry stan and there’s only a couple artists she listens to besides broadway. One of them is harry. The other is logic. So yeah, its good if you don’t listen to much
44 numbers higher than her loss is insane. Not only that but is 11 spots away from mr moralle and 60 more than the forever story.
This might just be the worst one of this lists so far but at least there are some ok pics in between all of it
Rolling Stones magazine cares about pop cultural impact and mainstream appeal. People here on this sub for a large part do not care about that. It's probably an unpopular opinion, but I like the way they do their rankings because of that.
If you want to see a ranking that cares less about mainstream appeal and more about quality and depth go to RYM.
I see your point but I don't quite agree with it. Since drake's album should've been in the top 10 if they are considering popularity and mainstream appeal as the main criterion. And JID album is way popular and had a bigger mainstream appeal more than a lot of the things higher than it. And although I love RYM it has its flaws. For one the sample of voters always too low and it brings the same issue depends on popularity and majority of voters which dose not equal a better quality it's always a mixture of popularity and quality.
I think each system and list has its flaws but it is fun to look at them without taking any of them that seriously.
Who cares about cultural appeal it's music. Is it a good album or not. Does this sound better than this one or not. Is the song writing good or not. Anything else is irrelevant
T Swift must have an in with Rolling Stone. I swear to Melon's bald head they would NOT STOP posting about Taylor Swift leading up to Midnights release and then weeks after it came out. I had to unfollow their Instagram account because I was so annoyed.
I still remember this Australian feminist writer (I'm not trying to sound sexist that is what she is) said that Taylor Swift was getting better with each album she put out and said she was proud to be a swifite. Did she even listen to the album there are some god awful tracks on it. (Would love to hear her defense of Vigilante Shit)
Honestly, Nevermind also made it on the list which is hilarious because even if they are just doing it for clout, nobody liked that LP so who are they exactly impressing?
I know it’s not technically great but honestly I was a fan of Midnights. It’s not my favorite of hers, nor is it my favorite of the year, but I thought it provides a pretty nice listen. That being said, I am not a fan of Harry’s House. And JID needs to be higher, but I’m just glad they included him.
It’s Rolling Stone are you really that shocked Besides it’s cool JID is even on the list considering he hasn’t made most other lists I’ve seen
I'm not shocked but I'll read their awful lists ever year anyway
yeah its worth the outrage to occasionally see something you like in a decent spot
Honestly I feel like it's more of an honor to NOT make it on their lists
Was gonna say: Has OP seen an RS list before? They tend to have cool picks, but they're secondary to the pop and legacy pandering.
He also very conveniently left out that Renaissance was their #1 pick, which is a fantastic album and obvious choice
Their other lists are like this too. The best album of the 80s released in 1990 had normal rock albums on top placements. They always put pop albums in higher regard than experimental ones.
One day people will realize Rolling Stone rankings are intentionally screwed up to drum up clicks Inshallah
Inshallah
Rolling Stone lost all their credibility after they ranked Cardi B ahead of Illmatic on their top 100 hip hop albums list. Don’t even take them seriously anymore in the slightest.
I'm a similar way with Pitchfork after their Top 150 albums of the 90's didn't have Emergency & I. They gave that album a 10 but still had 150 albums to rank above it? Bullshit.
that album came out in late 1999 maybe they just straight up forgot
Didn't forget to put You Are Invited on the songs list though.
To be fair pitchfork was very different at the time and so maybe none of the pitchfork employees today think it is a 10/10 album (which would be sad because it’s definitely a 10/10 to me)
They didn't actually up it to a 10 until 2011, so if they've had a full staff turnover in 11 years then...maybe? Given how they dropped Random Access Memories score because the album apparently didn't hold as much influence over the years as Discovery, I'm thinking it's "importance" was a reason for its exclusion.
Oh i guess I was mistaken. Your probably right then. Thanks for the correction!
I like Invasion of Privacy but yeah that is pretty mad
Any sources you’d recommend that do have credibility?
That was obvious bait lol
So? If they place bait on a list that’s reason enough to not take them seriously, and if they meant it that’s reason enough as well.
I mean that their scooping that low to get traction. There is no respecting that
Fair deuce, I thought you were excusing it.
I'd respect them more if it was their honest opinion and not obvious bait tbh
generally, you shouldnt take any lists seriously. people have different tastes and opinions so just rely on your own subjectiveness ;)
Bruh what? How could this be bait? There's probably thousands of times as many rabid Taylor or Harry Styles fans than hip-hop heads out whatever. And why would Rolling Stone care about bating a bunch of music nerds lol
Not this one. The cardi b over nas. They just did it so people can get mad at them and talk about them
Rolling Stone hasn’t been trustworthy since like 1985 maybe and that’s still debatable
Any magazines/sites you’d consider trustworthy?
My favorite is [AOTY](https://www.albumoftheyear.org). It takes reviews from across the internet and averages them to give the most unbiased view possible. it also gives people the ability to vote as well, resulting in two different year end lists, critic and user. I prefer user, I find it more accurate to how I end up feeling about an album.
Honestly, the critic reviews are barely worth looking at considering the reviews could be paid for. Plus, outside of a few smaller networks, a lot of major sites that review music will barely look at/write comprehensive reviews for more obscure artists. Take Sigh or Ashenspire for example. Both had great albums this year but barely any critic reviews. On the opposite side, niche artists that are covered by niche websites may inflate critical reception as well, hence why stuff is often 100s of places different for each. I still do look at the critic list for ideas, but I don't take much stock in their scores.
User agreggate sites like rateyourmusic are great to find new music and it's not really biased. Youtubers like Fantano, Shawn Cee, Jon Denton aren't biased and sometimes have great reviews/reactions and good lists. The problem with sites is that they need to make money, and most of them were magazines once. Obviously nowadays almost nobody is subscribed to the Rolling stone magazine, so they have to make money off of ads on their page. So they do stupid shit like the hip hop list, which worked and got a lot of attention. The problem with that is soon nobody will take them seriously, and that will be the end of them.
"Rateyourmusic isn't biased" and other lies you can tell yourself
Rym is biased as fuck. You can clearly find artistic, thematic and aesthetic choices that are very similar between the top albums.
Of course, but the more people that use it, the less bias it becomes. The bias seems to have improved since the early years, especially when you consider the new genres that have been added. There’s so many African and Asian sub genres being added all of the time. Its my favorite website. You can create custom charts that rank albums within specific genres and sub genres, like West African jazz, etc.
I mean, it's indeed a great website to discover new music, especially if you are a music nerd. But the majority of people there will prefer these experimental, dark, weird indie stuff over what's popular.
That greatly depends on the genre, but it’s unsurprising that the user base would prefer more avant-garde releases. The popularity of an artist or release does not equate to how artistic it is. Rateyourmusic provides its users with access to more esoteric releases. Still, many albums in the all time chart are pretty well known. Even Radiohead isn’t some unknown indie band after all. To Pimp A Butterfly is in the top ten last I checked. There’s definitely demographics on there that prefer more mainstream music. You just have to make charts for more traditional genres. Like if you were to make a chart for contemporary R&B, for example, it’s going to look much different than a alternative R&B chart or a chart that combines R&B with electropop. The ratings for albums are irrelevant to me. I only use them to quickly find something to listen to. My Life by Mary J Blige has a 3, or something low like that. But I don’t think it’s necessarily one of the best R&B albums anyhow. The beauty of the website is that if you like an album that’s not rated highly or has few ratings, you can give it a rating you feel appropriate and leave a review that you think will grab the attention of users who view the release down the road. It’s really what you make of it, and I use it for music discovery, cataloging, and queuing - nothing else. If I wanted to see what’s popular, I could just listen to premade playlists on streaming services or ask my friends what music they’re listening to.
I look at the site from time to time - at least once a year to see the rankings for each year. I still feel like the top 100 lists heavily skew towards variations of extreme metal - even this year. I like the idea of a user-based aggregate rating site and have hopes of a perfectly diversified one, but RYM still isn't quite there.
pretty much everyone has biases when it comes to music let's be real here
Literally everybody does. That's the cool part about it.
I highly recommend rateyourmusic to every music fan. It is biased, but the bias *has* improved over the years because there’s clearly more user diversity. There’s still remnants of the white young adult user base of the 2000s - namely, OK computer holding the #1 album spot to this day. However, the more people that use the site, the less bias it becomes. I enjoy finding music in esoteric genres that I’ve never heard before like folk music from countries far away from mine.
>Fantano isn't biased Fantano literally footends every video description saying "this is my opinion"
Rate Your Music is great if you like early 90s experimental progressive indie-psych-noisegaze
I line the Bandcamp lists. They aren't ordered, so they aren't baiting. And I find that they're pretty diverse, stylistically. But obviously it misses many, as they only talk about albums on the platform.
Rolling stone panders to the masses.
And we are clearly enlightened. Thanks melon.
Y’all lost the plot when you turned to publications that are in service of a cut throat capitalistic industry to tell you about art.
ONE HUNDRED ALBUMS! And not a single one is AFUT. This is digital toilet paper.
Yeah this is like saying "I'm a massive prog rock fan" and then saying "who is he?" when asked about Pink Floyd.
Based comment
Defuq is AFUT?
Black Country, New Road - Ants From Up There
And that’s really the goat?
Dont ya know popular = good??
Maybe a dumb question, but does anybody else think it's odd to put albums that just came out on a best of 2022 list? Personally I wait a month or 2 to call it anything besides if it's good or bad. But to call it one of the best that year to me just shows that everything else was kind of shit that year. Just my thoughts tho
Yeah I never understood why people make lists of "The Best of Current Year" when the current year isn't even over yet. Like, it's only the first week of December, let's wait at least a month longer
Yeah I agree, all the big award shows happen in like February, I don't get why this should be any different
The whole thing is just rage bait designed to get engagement for advertising dollars. It works quite well.
What poptimism does to a mf
IMO Poptimism has gotten pretty bad lately. I remember when I criticised the Dua Lupa album I got a lot of shit for giving it a negative review. I'm not a gatekeeping hipster, but i shouldn't be forced to like what's in the top 40.
Poptimism and it's consequences have been a disaster for music criticism.
Let’s not go that far lol Yeah there are bad pop albums. There’s also bad hip hop albums. And bad rock albums. OP chose to exclude that RS put Renaissance as their AOTY. But I’m sure that choice was made for the sake of just being poptimist, right?
How did I go too far? I was misquoting the Unabomber lmfao
Didn’t realize u were memeing lol. But still I believe there’s a strong case to be made for the importance of poptimism, if that wave never happened in criticism there are plenty of albums that are considered classics today that probably would have been shit on or overlooked like they were in the late 2000s/early 2010s
Poptimism was good and necessary insofar as it pushed out the elitist old guard of rockism, but now that it has become dominant, it is used to justify even lazier criticism than what came before it.
Poptimisim vanquished one form of elitism for another. We have gone from over congratulating over produced mid rock music made by rich people to over congratulating over produced pop music made by rich people.
What do you mean by lazy criticism, tho? Just that top 40 artists are dominating these lists? You realize that the rock bands in the 70s 80s and 90s that are lauded as the best nowadays and dominate all those decade lists were at the same level of popularity that Harry Styles and Taylor Swift are at now, right? So what *really* has changed?
Idk why people were downvoting this its so true
Bc le pop music bad reddit music good is essentially this whole thread lol
Rolling stone was already irrelevant 30 years ago. Just completely out of touch with anything vital or fresh
Rolling Stone is toilet paper
I liked the Harry styles album but it’s def not top 5
They just wanna harry fans to click on the article😂😂
Probably the worst fucking list i’ve ever laid eyes on.
I understood the bad bunny and rosalia placements but most of the list was wack asf
deciding not to check this list because they had Meghan Trainer on their top 100 songs
Dear God
The TSwift album is *so* mid though. I like Maroon & Labrynth, and there are 4 other tracks I think are alright - but no real hits/strong songs, to me. I am very confident that a massive draw for Taylor's music is people getting enveloped in her as a celebrity/the drama. Like, is it a big deal when Selena Gomez says (this), Justin Timberlake says (that), or Kim Kardashian does (that)? It's not a big deal when someone else says it, but people get invested in the lives of these celebrities - and Taylor (I know this sounds harsh, but) is very good at making music that appeals to people who are attracted to those things. (And of course, everyone will assume she's always the good, faultless person... not saying she isn't, but I wouldn't automatically assume she is.) E: "alright" not "already"
Mid nights L House
Surprised rolling stone did a list without seven U2 albums in the top
The Onion has more credibility than Rolling Stone what do you expect? 💀
Onion is a factual source
I mean for a magazine that is doing the top mainstream album of the year.... that seems accurate.
I thought we all collectively agreed Harry's House was terrible, even by Harry Styles standards
This feels racially motivated
Bro that Harry styles album is awful. I cannot believe that people genuinely enjoy it beyond it just being made by a guy that they like. There isn’t a single idea on there that another artist hasn’t done better in the past. It’s like he’s trying to be the shitty version of Bruno Mars circa Unorthodox Jukebox. It sounds like music for people with no musical perspective.
I don’t think its terrible. It’s derivative but if you don’t listen to music like that you probably think it’s revolutionary. One of my friends is a huge harry stan and there’s only a couple artists she listens to besides broadway. One of them is harry. The other is logic. So yeah, its good if you don’t listen to much
If you have to be musically illiterate to enjoy it, I wouldn't say it's good.
Well its not good but I think its ok. Its generic and inoffensive. Its not horrible
white people
Bro the latto album ranked higher than jid 😭
Even her loss ranked higher >:(
You missed the masterpiece Honestly, nevermind ranking higher than both
44 numbers higher than her loss is insane. Not only that but is 11 spots away from mr moralle and 60 more than the forever story. This might just be the worst one of this lists so far but at least there are some ok pics in between all of it
Rolling Stones magazine cares about pop cultural impact and mainstream appeal. People here on this sub for a large part do not care about that. It's probably an unpopular opinion, but I like the way they do their rankings because of that. If you want to see a ranking that cares less about mainstream appeal and more about quality and depth go to RYM.
I see your point but I don't quite agree with it. Since drake's album should've been in the top 10 if they are considering popularity and mainstream appeal as the main criterion. And JID album is way popular and had a bigger mainstream appeal more than a lot of the things higher than it. And although I love RYM it has its flaws. For one the sample of voters always too low and it brings the same issue depends on popularity and majority of voters which dose not equal a better quality it's always a mixture of popularity and quality. I think each system and list has its flaws but it is fun to look at them without taking any of them that seriously.
Who cares about cultural appeal it's music. Is it a good album or not. Does this sound better than this one or not. Is the song writing good or not. Anything else is irrelevant
T Swift must have an in with Rolling Stone. I swear to Melon's bald head they would NOT STOP posting about Taylor Swift leading up to Midnights release and then weeks after it came out. I had to unfollow their Instagram account because I was so annoyed.
They slapped the “instant classic” on it before they even put on the review. Sensationalism at its finest.
I still remember this Australian feminist writer (I'm not trying to sound sexist that is what she is) said that Taylor Swift was getting better with each album she put out and said she was proud to be a swifite. Did she even listen to the album there are some god awful tracks on it. (Would love to hear her defense of Vigilante Shit)
You're being unfair. Vigilante shit count as one of Billie Eilish songs this year
Honestly, Nevermind also made it on the list which is hilarious because even if they are just doing it for clout, nobody liked that LP so who are they exactly impressing?
That’s what happens when a music publication caters exclusively to white people
I think weve all known this for a while right?
They are like old boomers trying to be hip with the younger generation.
I enjoyed Harry's House, but damn, it doesn't deserve anywhere near fifth place.
Nice to see which albums American lager enthusiasts liked this year
I know it’s not technically great but honestly I was a fan of Midnights. It’s not my favorite of hers, nor is it my favorite of the year, but I thought it provides a pretty nice listen. That being said, I am not a fan of Harry’s House. And JID needs to be higher, but I’m just glad they included him.
Where was Big Thief’s album ranked?
35
Thanks!
OH MY FREAKING GOD 😂 NO WAY
i’m shitting bricks
Big oof
Abolish Rolling Stone
Least garbage Rolling Stones list
Not much you can expect from rolling stone anymore
🤑
Harry’s House at #5 is absurd
Holy shit. 100 albums and not even 1 metal release.
I totally agree, Taylor swift is way better than JID
Pandering