1 | TV on the Radio: Dear Science

2 | Bob Dylan: Tell Tale Signs — The Bootleg Series Vol. 8

3 | Lil Wayne: Tha Carter III

4 | My Morning Jacket: Evil Urges

5 | John Mellencamp: Life, Death, Love and Freedom

6 | Santogold: Santogold

7 | Coldplay: Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends

8 | Beck: Modern Guilt

9 | Metallica: Death Magnetic

10 | Vampire Weekend: Vampire Weekend

11 | Fleet Foxes: Fleet Foxes

12 | Guns n' Roses: Chinese Democracy

13 | Blitzen Trapper: Furr

14 | Ryan Adams and the Cardinals: Cardinology

15 | The Black Keys: Attack & Release

16 | Randy Newman: Harps and Angels

17 | B.B. King: One Kind Favor

18 | Lucinda Williams: Little Honey

19 | Erykah Badu: New Amerykah: Part 1 (4th World War)

20 | Kings of Leon: Only by the Night

21 | Kaiser Chiefs: Off With Their Heads

22 | Jockson Browne: Time the Conquerer

23 | Conor Oberst: Conor Oberst

24 | Girl Talk: Feed the Animals

25 | The Magnetic Fields: Distortion

26 | Mudcrutch: Mudcrutch

27 | Brian Wilson: That Lucky Old Sun

28 | The Knux: Remind Me in Three Days...

29 | Bon Iver: For Emma, Forever Ago

30 | Duffy: Rockferry

31 | MGMT: Oracular Spectacular

32 | Jamey Johnson: The Lonesome Song

33 | Ne-Yo: Year of the Gentleman

34 | Stephen Malkmus: Real Emotional Trash

35 | Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!

36 | The Hold Steady: Stay Positive

37 | Nine Inch Nails: The Slip

38 | Ra Ra Riot: The Rhumb Line

39 | Taylor Swift: Fearless

40 | Jonas Brothers: A Little Bit Longer

41 | AC/DC: Black Ice

42 | David Byrne and Brian Eno: Everything That Happens Will Happen Today

43 | Nas: Untitled

44 | The Raconteurs: Consolers of the Lonely

45 | Be Your Own Pet: Get Awkward

46 | The Academy Is...: Fast Times at Barrington High

47 | Of Montreal: Skeletal Lamping

48 | Raphael Saadiq: The Way I See It

49 | Hot Chip: Made in the Dark

50 | No Age: Nouns

At least they got the number one right. (Does the Bob Dylan album really count?)

i thought about including bob dylan in mine, but it's just way too long to be enjoyed as an album, i feel. there's a lot of unreleased stuff on it though, so i would think it might be fair game.

i'd make fun of them putting the jonas brothers on there, but i've never heard them, so i guess that wouldn't really be fair.

Does Rolling Stone ACTUALLY think half of those albums on the list are the best of 2008? I honestly have no idea how some of these lists are compiled.

4 of their albums made my top 20.

Jonas Brothers, Mellancamp and No Age all on the same list. You gotta give 'em credit for originality, but still, really all over the place and just plain weird.

I expected this list to be topped by either Coldplay or Kings of Leon. You gotta hand it to Rolling Stone to find a way to sneak Bob Dylan on to the list even when he didn't release an album this year.

Next year's Rolling Stone album of the year:

Working On A Dream - Bruce Springsteen

Dylan is going on my list, not least to fuck over that terrible Bon Iver working a similiar field.

I don't believe their editors honestly liked the Jonas Brothers. That's like a weird form of tokenism, or reverse snobbery. And I definitely don't believe they liked them more than Byrne and Eno.
Oh, and I also think it's kind of awesome how they always have Bob Dylan on every list they publish.

The joans brothers...WTF, Is this a joke or a new ploy by Disney?

I can reconcile with Rolling Stone including kings of leon, AC/DC, Randy Newman and john mellancamp. But when they include artists like the jonas brothers while leaving out portishead, deerhunter and hercules and the love affair.

If you all actually listened to the Bob Dylan album, you'd know why they put it at #2. It actually feels like an album as opposed to a collection of outtakes.

Right Kulturtrager?

Damn straight Prof.

Mr. Zimmerman does it again.

Well, I definitely agree about the Dylan. It's fabulous. Some of his best work, I think, is found in this collection. But that's what this is... a collection. A compilation.

Do music zines put greatest hits on year end lists? Nope.

quote:

Do music zines put greatest hits on year end lists? Nope.

I've seen music zines/magazines put soundtracks on their year end lists. Those are just compilations.

There's a difference between a bunch of songs put on a CD, and an album. Dylan's new one feels like an album, hence its inclusion I think.

Come on, it's Rolling Stone, they have a mandate that basically says they have to seek to please everyone regardless of their music taste. I always just try to find one or two things I can enjoy on their list, and in this case it's the inclusion of the criminally underrated Furr

A respectable list from Rolling Stone?! I don't know, but 12/50 is nothing to sneeze at. Ra Ra Riot, Blitzen Trapper, Black Keys and No Age are some pretty notable inclusions.

weird list, atleast they got erykah badu on the list, first time i ve seen that on all these lists.

And RS continues to crawl further up Bob Dylan's ass.

Their lists are so formulaic. The top 10:
Hip, contemporary indie artist, who it would be "uncool" not to acknowledge them, and by ranking at #1 asserts their editors hipness.
Dylan.
Rapper their readers would know of and who it's cool for "indie" and "rock" fans to like (a role usually occupied by Eminem, Kanye or Jay-Z).
Rolling Stone demographic-friendly rock band (had to be either MMJ or Kings of Leon).
Rock legend (usually Springsteen, but Mellencamp is a like-for-like substitution).
Hip, contemporary female pop artist (the M.I.A. role).
Coldplay (bonus points for the Eno association).
Hip "alternative" artist their readers would know.
Metal legends.
Hip, contemporary indie artist that is now mainstream but still have indie-cool points for their readers (had to be either Vampire Weekend or MGMT).
I suppose all the lists are like that, but Rolling Stone's lists always seem to have been spat out by a computer.

This one of those lists that's ostensibly trying to please everybody, but ends up only pleasing fans of the weaker albums on the list.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goathouse,

quote:

Originally posted by cuneyt81:
Jonas Brothers, Mellancamp and No Age all on the same list. You gotta give 'em credit for originality, but still, really all over the place and just plain weird.

Not weird, just a list from a magazine that's unsure of it's identity...it's still the boomers first source of info on Rock n' Roll...so it's a given that more older rockers(Mellencamp)/or rockers with a more classic style that will appeal to aging boomers (My Morning Jacket) are going to get stronger due than on more contemporary sites like Pitchfork. Then, with regards to their younger readers...they seem torn between trying to appeal to the more conventionally minded (a market they can capture) vs. promoting the best of the indie scene, which provides cache, but who's audience they lost decades ago to Spin and then the webzines.

I usually like their lists because their not afraid to champion solid efforts that weren't of or ahead of the moment, but have to admit, this list felt pretty weird first time I looked at it also.

Should be noted, with regard to Evil Urges, that they declared it the "Breakout Album of the Year" in the winter, so high ranking here is probably in part an personal attempt to validate a bad prediction.

Or:

quote:

Originally posted by goathouse's jolliness:
This one of those lists that's ostensibly trying to please everybody, but ends up only pleasing fans of the weaker albums on the list.