Rolling Stone adds dance music albums to ‘500 Greatest Albums of All Time’

Rolling Stone’s most popular, and controversial, list has been rebuilt from scratch, including in it some of dance music’s finest albums. The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time was originally published in 2003 and received a minor update in 2012, but now 17 years after its inception, it has undergone a complete transformation.

To craft the new list, Rolling Stone received Top 50 Album lists from more than 300 artists, producers, critics, and music industry figures, and then ranked them. The resulting list includes 86 albums form this century, and 154 albums that weren’t on the 2003 or 2012 instalments.

‘What’s Going On’ by Marvin Gaye takes the number one spot, followed by The Beach Boys’ ‘Pet Sounds’, Joni Mitchell’s ‘Blue’, Stevie Wonder’s ‘Songs in the Key of Life’, and The Beatles’ ‘Abbey Road’ rounds out the top five.

Electronic music is also notably present on the list, with artists such as Robyn coming in at number 196, Daft Punk with two appearances, at number 236 and 295, Kraftwerk at 238, Massive Attack also with two appearances, at 241 and 383, Brian Eno at 308, and DJ Shadow at 329. View their rankings below.

383 – Massive Attack, ‘Mezzanine’
329 – DJ Shadow, ‘Endtroducing…..’
308 – Brian Eno, ‘Here Come the Warm Jets’
295 – Daft Punk, ‘Random Access Memories’
241 – Massive Attack, ‘Blue Lines’
238 – Kraftwerk – ‘Trans Europe Express’
236 – Daft Punk, ‘Discovery’
196 – Robyn, ‘Body Talk’

Commenting on the update, and the ever-changing landscape of music, Rolling Stone writes:

“No list is definitive — tastes change, new genres emerge, the history of music keeps being rewritten.”

Whilst the list might be controversial, it’s great to see more electronic albums be recognised. View the full list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time here. If you’re looking for an exclusively electronic album ranking, you can view our greatest albums from 2010-2019 here.

Image Credit: Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash