I’d be remiss if I pretended noteworthy rankings of history's best music came only from the likes of Rolling Stone, Spin and Pitchfork. Pretty Americentrist, also.
So, England, Britain, United Kingdom, wherever whatever, show me your ways. You’ve ostensibly produced the most influential bands in popular music history, after all. If we’re going pound for pound, tune for tune, shit, the amount of great music produced by the li’l ol’ United Kingdom embarrasses the big ol’ USA.
Okay, I’ll turn to New Musical Express (NME for the hurried). Started in the 1950s as an “inkie” determined to imbue the very musical craft with much-deserved dignity, by the 1980s it ruled as the most venerable music mag in the U.K. In late 2013, some sixty years after issue one, dozens of former and current NME writers were summoned to compile the 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time.
(Yes, I know Uncut also does 500 Greatest Albums lists, but they do them so frequently, it rather dilutes the potion.)
My verdict? About a fifth of the list is great stuff, two-fifths is piffle. Present on the list is AM by the Arctic Monkeys, a platter only one month old at the time of publication. Need I say more? (I need not say any of this, really. Still and yet, here I am. You too. Let’s continue.)
For a summation of the legendary culture clash I experienced whilst analyzing NME’s idea of greatness, this list is just like a television set: the higher you go, the worse the view. The Queen is Dead at number one…better than Revolver! Is This It pulls in at the fourth spot…better than The Velvet Underground & Nico! Oasis, the Stone Roses and Pulp in the top 10, ho yes, I can taste the savory beans with every click of the keys.
Let me not downplay, diminish, degrade or denigrate the overall quality of English music: Bowie pulled down 10 albums, Beatles 7, PJ Harvey and Radiohead 5 each, 4 for the Stones. I may pick a nit here and there, but far be it from my lame ass to deny those aforementioned artists their place in paradise. As an American, though, I’ve become attuned to and adverse to extreme nationalistic pride.
To let NME tell the story, both Blur and the National have put out as many classics as the Who, Nirvana, Nick Cave and R.E.M. (4). The Beach Boys and the Beastie Boys are on equal footing (3), as are Jay and Kanye, Kings of Leon and Kraftwerk, Manic Street Preachers and Michael Jackson. Also responsible for three unmissable albums: Prince, the Pixies, Pavement, Public Enemy and Pulp. Sonic Youth and Suede. Velvet Underground and the Verve! Oasis, thank you goddesses, managed only two.
Pride blinded the NME to the many joys of soul, funk, disco and metal. Patti Smith’s seminal Horses is the highest-rated album by a woman (12), and I’ll conclude by saying, oh would I have loved to be a spider on the bathroom of either Gallagher brother’s mansion when they read that.
Last month, Apple Music—a streaming service, mind, a streaming service and nothing more—announced their 100 Best Albums of All-Time, released over ten days in chunks of ten records per day. This “modern love letter...(a)ssembled with the help of artists and experts” was thus not simply constructed for maximum engagement, it was promoted that way as well.
Setting aside what an butt-chafing week that was on social media, the content left the churn more soup than butter. Billie Eilish at all, much less 30? Frank Ocean at 5? Lauryn Hill the best, okay, just because I disagree doesn’t mean I don’t understand. The good taste to deem Abbey Road the Fab’s finest doesn’t excuse the omissions: James Brown, Sly Stone, Willie Nelson, Billie Holiday. Nor will I let slide the glut of music released in the last decade: seventeen, more than every other decade bar the 1990s and 1970s. Gross, Apple.
While typing up the introductory post of this series, I received a text from a pal familiar with my project. Said pal brought tidings of great aggravation: Paste, a late ‘90s arrival which went from site to mag to site again, had just let loose The 300 Greatest Albums of All Time.
Great.
Except, maybe?
Paste throughout the years struck me as a very even-handed site, its writers prioritizing fairness over personality. The only of its lists I ever revisit (or remember, really) is a thorough, wildly-flawed ranking of every MST3K episode. In retrospect, I recognize this relative ignorance as a positive; free of preconceptions, I could absorb the Paste 300 without a sneer or snort. My eyes wouldn’t roll; my heels wouldn’t rock. The experience, if I may be so predictable as to make a food reference, felt akin to trying mayo on a grilled cheese.
“The criteria for what constitutes a ‘great album,’ to us, falls someplace in-between influence and timelessness,” Paste states, as exquisite an explanation as I can imagine. None of which precludes the inclusion of artists guaranteed unknown to most Paste readers. I don’t mean X-Ray Spex or the Raincoats, I mean Deulgukhwa, Shin Joong Hyun and Fishmans. The hope is, rather than bitch and moan about pandering or peacocking, bewildered readers will seek out said acts and form their own opinions.
For every Britney Spears and Carly Rae Jepsen shoving me towards the precipice of disgust, so came a Steely Dan and Fiona Apple to redirect my emotions into a more ideal direction. The crowning of Songs In the Key of Life will age especially fantastically when Rolling Stone follows suit in another five or so years. (Not so much Live Through This over Nevermind. At least with deeming Off the Wall over Thriller, I can see the sense behind it, although I may disagree.)
Tomorrow…these self-styled arbiters of awesome also had opinions about individual songs….
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