In our special issue “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time” (which you can order here) ROLLING STONE presents the masterpieces of music history.
The list in this issue is the result of two unique surveys by the American ROLLING STONE: In no other ranking were so many musicians, artists, critics and industry people surveyed (almost 400), whose sheer competence is as impressive as their celebrity – and probably only send in their participation form in such a gigantic survey. A notary’s office was even entrusted with the supervision of the evaluation.
German readers will note that the proportion of soul and country is higher than usual in German rankings – and that generally popular albums are preferred over canonical but rather difficult works. This is also due to the fact that the pop critic, the unknown being, didn’t have that much to say in this jury. For the few instances of American editions of albums (the Beatles and Stones) differing from European ones, we have attempted to match (and shown the European covers). The inclusion of best-of albums and anthologies may seem irritating. Above all, they represent the work of “old masters” whose songs were often published in scattered form.