Rolling Stone overhauls album ranking, Kanye stars

Placing two of his album's on the magazine's “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” list.


Reuters April 28, 2012

LONDON:


Three Kanye West albums have made it on to the latest edition of Rolling Stone magazine’s authoritative “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” list, placing him among the greats of popular music.

The big beneficiary was US hip-hop star West, who saw 2005 album Late Registration, The College Dropout (2004) and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010) make it to the top 500.


In total, 30 albums were added and 30 taken away, with the casualties including several artists well-represented on the list already and whose “lesser” albums have now been dropped.

Asked whether the relatively low position of recently released albums reflected a barren period for great rock and pop, Christian Hoard, a senior editor at Rolling Stone, replied: “My personal opinion is no. Music is as inspirational as it’s ever been. Things get clearer as the years pass. If you held this poll in 10 years, say, Arcade Fire could be a lot higher and the same could be said of Kanye West.”

Canadian band Arcade Fire’s Funeral is among the 30 additions, as is British act Arctic Monkeys for their 2005 hit Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not.

Radiohead features twice — for Amnesiac (2001) and In Rainbows (2007), Jay-Z is added for The Black Album (2003), Lil Wayne makes it with Tha Carter III (2008) and the late Amy Winehouse for Back to Black.

Among those dropping out to make way for the additions were The Beach Boys (Sunflower), David Bowie (Changesone), Elton John (Elton John) and Madonna (Music).

The first change to the previous list comes at number 59, leaving the Beatles to dominate the top 10. The Fab Four feature no less than four times in the first 10; at number one (Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band), three (Revolver), five (Rubber Soul) and 10 (The White Album).

Three acts have 10 albums each on the list — the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan — and the oldest album on the list is from 1952 (The Anthology of American Folk Music).

Only 40 albums released since 2000 feature, compared with 187 from the 1970s.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 29th, 2012.

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