

When we beginning did the RS 500 in 2003, people were talking about the “ death of the album. ” The album —and specially the album let go of — is more relevant than ever. ( As in 2003, we allowed votes for compilations and greatest-hits albums, chiefly because a well-made compilation can be equitable as coherent and meaning as an LP, because compilations helped shaped music history, and because many enormously important artists recorded their best influence before the album had arrived as a big format. )
Of course, it could still be argued that embarking on a project like this is increasingly difficult in an era of streaming and break up sample. But that was region of what made rebooting the RS 500 fascinate and fun ; 86 of the albums on the list are from this century, and 154 are new additions that weren ’ thymine on the 2003 or 2012 versions. The classics are calm the classics, but the canon keeps getting bigger and better .
Written By
Jonathan Bernstein, Pat Blashill, Jon Blistein, Nathan Brackett, David Browne, Anthony DeCurtis, Matt Diehl, Jon Dolan, Chuck Eddy, Ben Edmonds, Gavin Edwards, Jenny Eliscu, Brenna Ehrlrich, Suzy Exposito, David Fricke, Elisa Gardner, Holly George-Warren, Andy Greene, Kory Grow, Will Hermes, Brian Hiatt, Christian Hoard, Charles Holmes, Mark Kemp, Greg Kot, Elias Leight, Joe Levy, Angie Martoccio, David McGee, Chris Molanphy, Tom Moon, Jason Newman, Rob O ’ Connor, Park Puterbaugh, Jody Rosen, Austin Scaggs, Karen Schoemer, Bud Scoppa, Claire Shaffer, Rob Sheffield, Hank Shteamer, Brittany Spanos, Rob Tannenbaum, David Thigpen, Simon Vozick-Levinson, Barry Walters, Jonah Weiner
Reading: The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
Read more: Top 10 Best Songs of All Time