More Rolling Stone Fallout

I know there are many people who will look at Rolling Stone’s “100 Best Albums of the 2000s” and think something along the lines of “all of these albums are great albums and deserving of being on this list” or “Get Rich or Die Tryin’ changed my life”.  People are entitled to whatever opinion they have, but sometimes in our music buying ways I think we place too much emphasis on an artist’s or band’s popularity and less on that artist’s or band’s art they’re releasing to us.  This list feels like the former.

I won’t deny that the Killers’ Hot Fuss deserved to be here; it does, because in the two years that followed its release the band released several killer singles (“Somebody Told Me”, “Mr. Brightside”, “Smile Like You Mean It”) and had an influence on a few bands that followed, even if the rest of the album didn’t reach the standards of those songs.  On the other hand, I have a hard time justifying Stadium Arcadium by the Red Hot Chili Peppers being as high as it was on the list (#74).  The Chilis have been a favorite band of mine for a long time, but even I can’t deny that their sound has been more or less the same since their last great record, Californication, came out.  Stadium was more about quantity than it was about quality to me.  There were few catchy tunes where I thought “Wow, they haven’t dropped a beat from Blood Sugar Sex Magix!”  Large chunks of it sounded like Kiedis was droning lyrics and Frusciante was noodling on guitar.  Had that album been edited down to one disc instead of two with the best tracks on the table, I would have argued the exact opposite.

I thought some of the album choices for certain artists were off.  For instance, the Rolling Stone list had Attack & Release (#83) from one of my current favorite bands, the Black Keys.  I like that album a lot (it did have “I Got Mine” and “Strange Times”), but if I were to choose any album of theirs for this list, it would be Rubber Factory, which had more quality songs (this could be a case where they selected the more popular album than the more artistic album, but I digress).  Another is indie band the Hold Steady’s Almost Killed Me (#99); I would have put Separation Sunday, which received better reviews and essentially started the trilogy of albums that created more buzz around them.  Beck’s Sea Change album (#17) was good but didn’t have nearly the popularity as Guero did, and Guero had better singles.  They put Electric Version (#79) from the New Pornographers in but not Twin Cinema.  Some stuff just didn’t make any sense.  And why in the world did they include Rated R (#82) from Queens of the Stone Age and not include Songs for the Deaf.  Songs for the Deaf single-handedly changed my opinion of rock music in the middle of the decade (I could love it again).

There were albums and artists I felt Rolling Stone did right in including.  Kanye West has four albums on here; two of them are landmark rap albums (The College Dropout @ #10 and Late Registration @ #40), and one of them didn’t get nearly the credit it deserved (808s and Heartbreak @ #63 kicked off artists’ love of auto-tune, for better and worse).  Jay-Z has his two best from the period:  The Black Album (#14) and The Blueprint (#4).  Radiohead has four albums here; Kid A is #1, and I have a hard time wrapping my mind around that.  Kid A was a good record but not a landmark record, especially for them.  I wouldn’t even put Kid A in the top four of albums they have released, let alone #1 on a “Best of” list.

I was also happy with some of the surprise artists on here—Amadou & Mariam, The Hives, Yo La Tengo, Elliott Smith.  The albums they chose for these artists (with the exception of The Hives’ Veni Vidi Vicious) I might take exception with to another better record, but those are quibbles.  Spoon gets Kill the Moonlight in at #51, and I was glad to see Britt Daniel and company get recognition. 

This all leads back to one of my points from earlier, which is Rolling Stone needs to commit to an audience (those infatuated with pop culture) and just leave the other audience to find their own magazines (the indies).  By trying to add a little color through putting some indie albums on their list, they think they can appeal to a wider audience.  In reality, they’re missing out on a ton of albums that more deserve to be on here than the Only by the Night’s and Kid A’s of the music world.  The more I read their lists, the more disenchanted with them I become.  I love their music coverage, but the lists are just conversation pieces, not recommendations for music to hear.