A Small Affirmation, and Some Listing Quibbles

      Rolling Stone, that great paean to the trendy and the inane, has thoroughly shocked me by including in the "50 Best Albums of 2003" the latest releases from (of all people) those old-timers Johnny Cash, the Reverend Al Green, and Van Morrison. Unfortunately, the Stone website doesn't provide a list, instead you have to click through one-by-one to see each entry on the list; what a pain in the ass. You can start the list here, with that oh-so-talented 50 Cent. I also like RS's description of Morrison's What's Wrong With This Picture? as "the hangover album of the year."

      Also from RS, there's their somewhat spurious list of the 500 Greatest Albums of the "rock" generation, though the list includes such non-rockers as Ray Charles, Muddy Waters, Aretha Franklin, and so forth. The thing I hate: the continued enervation of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which still seems to me to be one of the most vastly overpraised albums of all time. I'm not trying to diss the Beatles per se, but we continue to live in a culture that ceremonially fellates the spirit of John Lennon to the detriment of many artists that I think more significant and more influential. Here's the Top 25, with my own notes:

1. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles (inevitable... sigh)
2. Pet Sounds, The Beach Boys (last list I saw of this ilk, this was #1; didn't agree with that either)
3. Revolver, The Beatles (C'mon....)
4. Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylan (Fair enough.)
5. Rubber Soul, The Beatles (But, of course... Slurp, slurp, slurp.)
6. What's Going On, Marvin Gaye (Fair enough. We still miss ya, Marvin.)
7. Exile on Main Street, The Rolling Stones (Fair enough.)
8. London Calling, The Clash (Not my cup o' tea, but understandable.)
9. Blonde on Blonde, Bob Dylan (Fair enough. It's easy to forget how profound Dylan's influence really was.)
10. The Beatles ("The White Album"), The Beatles (I'd have thought this would have been higher; but here we are again...)
11. The Sun Sessions, Elvis Presley (I thought this would have been higher.)
12. Kind of Blue, Miles Davis (I'm surprised this wasn't in the Top 5)
13. Velvet Underground and Nico, The Velvet Underground (Iffy. Maybe 'round 25-30...)
14. Abbey Road, The Beatles (Okay, 5 in 14. Gimme a freakin' break. And their poop was burnished gold.)
15. Are You Experienced?, The Jimi Hendrix Experience (Top 10 contender, really.)
16. Blood on the Tracks, Bob Dylan (About right. Maybe a tad higher...)
17. Nevermind, Nirvana (Hugely influential, but crap. Maybe Top 40 or 50.)
18. Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen (About right. Maybe a tad high.)
19. Astral Weeks, Van Morrison (Used to be in the Top 5 all the time. This really seems low, and that's not my Van-Fan-ness speaking. This album used often to rank at #1.)
20. Thriller, Michael Jackson (I still hate this album, but you can't deny it's influence; I'd have thought top 15 or so...)
21. The Great Twenty-Eight, Chuck Berry (About right. Maybe a tad higher?)
22. Plastic Ono Band, John Lennon (Fuck off.)
23. Innervisions, Stevie Wonder (Fair enough.)
24. Live at the Apollo (1963), James Brown (Definitely should have been higher.)
25. Rumours, Fleetwood Mac (Hugely influential, great album, but 25 seems high; 40, perhaps?)

Some strange things to note here:

      Born to Run is an okay choice, but I would have thought Nebraska would have been up there somewhere in its place.

      As much as I loathe him now, it's a bit surprising that Rod Stewart's Every Picture Tells A Story has now been seriously demoted.

      Bob Marley doesn't register until #45, which I find surprising, as I do the low level given to Never Mind The Bollocks, even though I'm no fan of the album.

      Hotel California is ranked at #37, which was panned by Rolling Stone when it was released.

      Not one of the Top 25 is a solo-female album, and the female presences are marginal. The first female solo album is deigned to be Joni Mitchell's Blue at #30. The uteri will be protesting this.

      Robert Johnson is not in the Top 25? P'shaw.

      Achtung Baby! (#62) ranks higher than Moondance (#65)? Methinks not; the former had some real clunkers on it; the latter is a near-perfect album.

      Sticky Fingers is also relegated to the 60s; odd.

      Aretha's Lady Soul doesn't come up until #84, and that just seems wrong.

      The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan only peeks into the Top 100 at #97, and this seems to be a serious underassessment.

      Ray Charles' landmark Modern Sounds... doesn't even scratch the Top 100: it lands at 104, in a mind-boggling placement, especially considering that it is/was one of the most significant albums of all time.

      B.B. King's Live at the Regal is relegated to #141, behind Dr. Dre of all bleedin' people, which seems significantly out-of-step with critical opinion.

      And where the hell is Corey Hart???? Okay, I'm just kidding on that one... ;-)

I could probably go on forever with this, and this is all -- as much as possible-- side-stepping my own opinions in favour of general critical surveyance. Further proof such lists are, indeed, highly questionable. I long for the day when people can begin to get some critical context on the Beatles. I know, I know-- probably not in my lifetime...