I'd say yes and no. On the one hand, there are always those instances where "consensus picks" get where they are not because they're great, but because they're solid enough to be mentioned by a quorum of voters, and a list that's essentially the result of groupthink kind of has to have those picks. And I know that some of my questioning this stuff is a result of feeling kind of alienated by Death Cab For Cutie being "approved" by people who I sort of consider my peers and Ne-Yo not. But what really surprised me was the lack of curveballs. Sure, this could be due in part to my immersion in these debates, but I was genuinely struck, at least on the Blender list, at how those albums that didn't fall within the seeming "default" genre of critic-approved Authentic Music wound up being something of a default pick—Metallica was the metal album of choice, Taylor Swift country, Usher (inexplicably) the R & B selection, etc. Pretty much any example of deviation was in a way completely expected (save perhaps Randy Newman), an odd occurrence in a year that was marked by a lot of talk about how there was "so much music out there." (And on another personal note, there are a bunch of albums that, to me, sounded interesting and existed sorta under-the-radar: The Academy Is... and Solange, to name two. Also that the Portishead album got ignored by both publications whose lists we covered today is something that, frankly, boggles the mind.)

Maybe I'm starting to feel that the big bolt-from-heaven omnibus lists, despite providing so much fodder for arguments and pageviews, need a little more contextualization, like how they're put together or even just like some sort of "here's what almost made it" sidebar. (Hey, being reminded of those just-below-the-radar artists would have the added bonus of jogging memories in a time when the promotion of most cultural phenomena seems to stop at 12:01 a.m. on said phenomena's release date.) To its credit, Blender does have something like a billion song selections scattered throughout its year-end issue; hell, maybe the curated-playlist idea will trump the best-album-rundown one in the end, what with attention spans these days being shorter than ever.

I worry that this whole post is super-inside-baseball (even if people love arguing over the lists themselves), and I should back away from the computer since I'm going to have to return within 40-ish hours or so to talk about Chinese Democracy. But I suspect that someone out there might have an opinion—the Top Five Problems With End-Of-Year Listmaking, even? Ha ha ha.

Earlier: "Blender" Would Like To Remind You That It Really Enjoys Lil Wayne's Music

(P.S.: Yes, I know that I use emphasis quotes too much. Sorry about that.)

First, the list, along with the release date of each single:

1. Britney Spears - Baby One More Time (1/12/99)
2. Eminem - The Real Slim Shady (6/30/00)
3. Backstreet Boys - I Want It That Way (6/29/99)
4. N*Sync - Bye Bye Bye (3/14/00)
5. Christina Aguilara - Dirrty (10/15/02)
6. Kid Rock - Bawitdaba (2/15/00)
7. Beyonce feat. Jay-Z - Crazy in Love (6/15/03)
8. Usher feat. Ludacris and Lil Jon - Yeah (10/5/04)
9. Blink-182 - What’s My Age Again (10/17/00)
10. OutKast - Hey Ya! (9/15/03)

Those release dates are important, because they define the parameters of the era. Britney's video is not only atop the chart, it's first chronologically, debuting in January 1999—or, when TRL really became important. That era continued through 2003; in 2004 the only entry is "Yeah," which isn't really a TRL video so much. (Even the 2003 entries seem questionable.) But the seven clips that debuted between 1999 and 2002 run absolutely do owe their successes to TRL.

Let's focus on the pop acts—Britney, NSync, Backstreet—for a second. The pop aesthetic was easy to parody—the participants even did so themselves sometimes—but this is just evidence of how powerful it was, how coherent and logical a style. It seemed to evoke a particularly American vision of perfection, everything white and clean, everyone moving together, the music not just making hits but containing hits: that sound you hear at every section change in "Bye Bye Bye" (or at the beginning of the chorus of Britney's "Oops...I Did It Again") is an orchestra hit, ostensibly the biggest sound imaginable (check it on your Casios). It's all over these songs. It did what pop is supposed to do: it sounded big and impossible and new, and it alienated those outside its target demographic. To listen to any of these songs is to feel like there is a gigantic army of jumpsuit-clad teenagers, all connected, all puissant, marching together toward something-or-other, making you feel like you were part of a fantastic movement of being awesome.

And the other songs did, too. They might seem out-of-place now, but Blink-182 was a minor punk band before TRL seized on its latent pop tendencies and turned its three members into the kind of people who you care about when their plane crashes. The myth was that Kid Rock and Eminem excited a different group of people than did Britney and Justin, but that was just part of the game: Ultimately, all the music on TRL was pop.

But more importantly, what made that music pop was TRL, and its five-year run may turn out to be the last stretch of time in which musical tastes could be dictated by a single authority. TRL seized on this new aesthetic and popularized it; instead of methodically building up a fanbase, an aspiring star could just get on the show (and have a great song) and launch a career. A lot of people would discover the artist simultaneously, and even as the song filtered down to radio and word-of-mouth transmission, TRL endured as the ultimate source.

Now, however, authority is diffused. A song becomes big because there's a dance video on YouTube, or because a band has built up a critical mass of emo fans, or because it's released a lot of respected mixtapes. An artist doesn't try and get a song on TV so much as she tries to get people to come to her MySpace. (The only exception to this would seem to be American Idol, but it's not really dictating tastes; instead of picking their favorite song, viewers pick their favorite artist, and then the winner is assigned a song that labels hope everyone will like. That likability still has to come through diffuse authority; witness, for instance, how many Idol runners-up have fared better than winners.) A new release is now just one more event in an ongoing celebrity narrative told by many sources and interpreted by readers on a daily basis, whether the gossip be large-scale stuff about teenpoppers or the endless churn of Internet gossip about R&B singers, rappers, and punk rockers. The single-source model still survives in niches—like Radio Disney—but as a primary driver of the charts, its days seem to be numbered.

The consequence for pop, it seems to me, is a loss of togetherness, that bigness and importance that defined the TRL era. If your first exposure to a song is a link your friend sent you rather than watching it on national television while millions of others do as well, it seems somehow insincere for that song to take on the regalia of impossible newness. You know someone has heard it before if only because your friend sent you the link; your relationship with it is more personal, more about your reaction and your connection to other fans you know personally. That's nice, but it's very different from the kind of pop we're used to thinking about. You can even see the transition in this list. "Yeah" is a good song, but it's a small song too, made up of few small sounds (no orchestra hits here) and accompanied by an avowedly regional rapper. That's what pop sounds like now, mostly. Much as we may have complained about it at the time, in retrospect the TRL era may look like a last hurrah, one final glorious supernova before the whole thing collapsed in on itself.

Idolator Live-Blogs The "TRL" Finale [Idolator]

Your Boy guessed that this week’s Rolling Stone would have been the special “ha ha, our candidate won, blow it your ass if you don’t like it” edition, and as such would bear the image of the President-elect on the cover for what would have been the fourth time this year. Thus, YB wasn’t inclined to be the hundred millionth person to contribute to an ocean of commentary regarding the election.

And to be sure, the Nov. 27 issue includes “Requiem for a Maverick,” Matt Taibbi’s National Affairs column, in which he describes John McCain’s comportment in the last months of the race as such, “with Sarah Palin on his arm and Karl Rove’s cock in his mouth.” YB supposes that it’ll be a little while before “progressives” decide its okay to like McCain again, although perhaps the Senator will be in no hurry to hug up to RS after articles like this.

But Editor/Publisher Jann S. Wenner employed uncharacteristic restraint w/r/t to Obama, and instead chose as this issue’s cover centerpiece “The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.” And thank goodness for that, as YB much prefers throwing pseudonymous spitballs at the mag’s self-appointed role as popular music’s canon-keeper to finding himself agreeing with Mr. Wenner’s limousine liberal posturing. Here ‘tis, in all its terribly predictable glory.

YB will only briefly note that he suggested this spring that the mag cool it with compiling lists of the greatest guitarists and greatest guitar songs, and instead emphasize, among other things, singers. Which isn’t to say that producing a list of vocalists, typically the musician in a recording with which the average listener will best identify, is particularly bold.

Unlike May’s “100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time” compendium, this list was not picked exclusively by a bunch of RS staffers and selected freelancers. According to an explanatory note therein, 178 individuals—121 artists (15 of whom are ranked on the list, and one of whom is the father of an RS staffer), 18 RS staffers, 24 music biz machers and 15 non-RS journos and academics— were asked to “list his or her favorite singer of the rock era.” (That contradicts the package’s “of all time” claim, don’t it)

Furthermore, “those ballots were recorded and weighted according to methodology developed by the accounting firm of Ernst and Young, which then tabulated and verified the results for Rolling Stone.” That kind of settles it, huh? If anyone suggests that the list reflects RS’ institutional predilections, then the imprimatur of a respected accounting firm will shut down any debate: this is true consensus, if one arrived at by music biz elites WHO are in collusion with the mag anyhow.

But! Ernst & Young also verified the mag’s 2003 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Therein, ranked at No. 432, was Peter Wolf’s Sleepless, released in 2002. The list ranked neither any J. Geils Band records, nor Wolf’s first solo record, 1984’s Lights Out. This seemed mucho fishy to YB: it strained credulity that an album unnoticed by anyone outside Wolf’s core of diehard fans would make it into a list otherwise composed of albums that could credibly fit various definitions of "classic." Of course, Wolf is a longtime Wenner crony, and Wenner has been known to crowbar his friends’ work into his mag’s various canon-building exercises. What's more, the capsule review of Sleepless was probably written by Mr. Wenner, who has been known to write album reviews himself when staffers resist his whims.

Anyway, the list in this issue is apparently free of monkey business: YB can only point to Art Garfunkel, ranked at No. 88, as a possible beneficiary of Wenner’s interference. But while he’s a Wenner pal, he sang the original version of a pop-gospel standard known and loved by your grandma, your mailman and possibly your five-year old nephew, so YB won’t cry foul.

And of course, Prince is the only performer in the list’s top 30 to have debuted in the last thirty years—Bono follows two places behind at No. 32. Post-Springsteen, Boomer-approved artists like Kurt Cobain (No. 45), Bjork (No. 60), Axl Rose (No. 64), and Thom Yorke (No. 66) all place behind YB’s beloved Jeff Buckley (No. 39).

YB guesses that most of RS’ respondents who voted for Whitney Houston (No. 34) and Christina Aguilera (No. 58) and Mary J. Blige (No. 100) are of the “her music is terrible, prefabricated slop, but that bitch can SANG” variety. And Morrissey, a guy who’s been treated with near-Springsteenian levels of reverence in the United Kingdom but has been long considered by RS as far, far too removed from the mag’s preferred notions of “rock and roll” to earn its full-throated advocacy, gets at in No. 92—this is probably due to his increasing influence over the likes of the Killers, Conor Oberst, and Phil Anselmo.

But YB is most pleased to report that Steve Perry, a man who introduced Sam Cooke’s melismatic stylings to thousands of poodle-headed prom-goers while in a band that RS and fellow baby-boomer gatekeepers regarded as a particularly vile communicable disease from 1978 to 1985, is rated at No. 76. Ah, the wonders bestowed by including an unjustly maligned pop-gospel standard in the final scene in the final TV program most beloved by the petit bourgeoisie! If David Chase had gone with, say, “One on One,” then Daryl Hall would have likely appeared on the list in Perry’s stead.

But wherefore art thou, RS BFFs Sting, Eddie Vedder, Elvis Costello, Billy Joel, and Jackson Browne? The latter two pen paeans to Ray Charles (No. 2) and John Lennon (No. 5), so YB assumes that both aren’t cheesed off about not being included.

YB has made it a standard practice not to cry like a little girl that his fave artists are not included on this list or that. He’ll just say that he’d rather RS emphasize the vastness and variety of the history of music, and not continually present one canon-building exercise after another. For instance, Mr. Wenner wasn’t evidently satisfied with his pre-existing wretched pit of favor-trading, so RS presented this redundant package in 2004.

But YB's preferences are not foremost in the minds of Mr. Wenner and his underlings. “The Greatest Singers of All Time” has been mentioned twice on Howard Stern's show in two days, has been picked up all over the place, and is probably starting an argument in a bar somewhere as YB writes.

7. '80s Pop Star

Unless that star is Julie Brown, in which case you're excused.

6. "Adult Slipknot Jumpsuit"

At $44.99, this pretty superfluous jumpsuit is $15 more than any of the masks it's designed to complement. PT Barnum lives!

5. "Adult Midget Rocker"

See, you put your real feet in the "foam amplifier with attached boots". No, really.

4. Courtney Love (for kids)

Oh sure, the page claims it's Alice In Wonderland, but that eyeliner? Those shoes? That pigeon-toed stance? You can't fool me, Halloween Express.

3. Rock Out With Your Cock Out

Because it's not as funny as Longuini And Meatballs.

2. Amy Winehouse

Last year's joke. Besides, she's taking her fashion cues from M.I.A.'s clothing line these days.

1. Riot Girl (for kids)

Bikini Kill For Grade Schoolers cassette not included.

Pink Floyd’s 1979 album, “The Wall,” eventually sold 23 million copies in the United States.

No, it didn't, I grumbled to myself. It's a double-album—by RIAA math, that means it sold about 11.5 million. SNARL!

There are many things wrong with the Recording Industry Association of America’s system for certifying albums gold, platinum, multiplatinum, and (now) diamond. There’s the counting of records shipped, not sold; I’ve seen discs certified platinum that have actually SoundScanned fewer than 700,000 copies. On the other side of the ledger, there are discs that are under-certified because of the RIAA’s outmoded system requiring labels to request certification—short-changing dozens of classic Motown artists, for example.

But nothing in the RIAA metals methodology sticks in my craw more than double-counting. It’s the biggest scam in record-industry self-tallying, and the main reason it’s infuriating is the very example cited above: journalists and music fans the world over use the RIAA’s certs as their yardstick for all-time album sales. It’s basically a total distortion of rock history.

When you buy one copy of a double album, you give that album two sales toward its RIAA total. Buy a five-disc box set, and your sale is multiplied by five. So while, say, Houses of the Holy had to sell one million copies in 1973 to go platinum, the four-disc Led Zeppelin box set had to sell just 250,000 in 1990 to get the same certification.

Never mind the most basic illogic of this system: the length of a disc has changed in the conversion from vinyl to CD, for one thing; and you can’t buy just one disc of a set, so why should each disc be counted as if it’s an individual sale? Even the industry’s seemingly more reasonable rationale—that a more expensive set deserves a higher certification—doesn’t hold up, because the multiple-counting happens regardless of what you actually paid. For example, OutKast’s 2003 smash Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, priced by BMG and most retailers as a single-disc item, gets double-counted by the RIAA even though many people paid under $12 for both discs.

Garth Brooks famously milked the double-counting system a decade ago by putting out numerous low-priced multidisc releases—a $10 live set, boxes of his old albums remastered—in his (failed) quest to pad his career total and take first place on the all-time list of most-certified acts from the Beatles. (Who, to be fair, have also benefited mightily from double-counting—we’ll get to the White Album in a minute.)

In my writings over the years, when I’m covering something about an all-time best-selling album, I use my own revisionist version of the RIAA’s Top Sellers List to rank albums. (No editor has corrected me yet.) But I shouldn’t be alone on this. Let’s share the revisionism, shall we?

To help set a new standard for all music journalists—we at Idolator are nothing if not public-interest-minded—here’s the corrupt RIAA list (26 places, due to a tie), and below, what a proper Top 25 24 list would look like. Numbers on the left are platinum level. As you see, once you get past the eternal Top Three, there's a lot of shifting around.

THE RIAA-APPROVED, CORRUPT ALL-TIME LIST
29 Their Greatest Hits 1971–1975, The Eagles
27 Thriller, Michael Jackson
23 Led Zeppelin IV, Led Zeppelin
23 The Wall, Pink Floyd
22 Back in Black, AC/DC
21 Double Live, Garth Brooks
21 Greatest Hits Volume I & Volume II, Billy Joel
20 Come on Over, Shania Twain
19 The Beatles (White Album)
19 Rumours, Fleetwood Mac
17 Boston
17 The Bodyguard, Whitney Houston (Soundtrack)
17 No Fences, Garth Brooks
16 Cracked Rear View, Hootie & the Blowfish
16 Greatest Hits, Elton John
16 Jagged Little Pill, Alanis Morissette
16 Hotel California, The Eagles
16 1967–1970, The Beatles
16 Physical Graffiti, Led Zeppelin
15 1962–1966, The Beatles
15 Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen
15 Appetite for Destruction, Guns 'N Roses
15 Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd
15 Saturday Night Fever, The Bee Gees (Soundtrack)
15 Greatest Hits, Journey
15 Supernatural, Santana

THE REVISIONIST, SENSIBLE ALL-TIME LIST
29 Their Greatest Hits 1971–1975, The Eagles
27 Thriller, Michael Jackson
23 Led Zeppelin IV, Led Zeppelin
22 Back in Black, AC/DC
20 Come on Over, Shania Twain
19 Rumours, Fleetwood Mac
17 Boston
17 The Bodyguard, Whitney Houston (Soundtrack)
17 No Fences, Garth Brooks
16 Cracked Rear View, Hootie & the Blowfish
16 Greatest Hits, Elton John
16 Jagged Little Pill, Alanis Morissette
16 Hotel California, The Eagles
16 Physical Graffiti, Led Zeppelin
15 Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen
15 Appetite for Destruction, Guns 'N Roses
15 Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd
15 Greatest Hits, Journey
15 Supernatural, Santana
14 Ropin' the Wind, Garth Brooks
14 ...Baby One More Time, Britney Spears
14 Greatest Hits, Simon & Garfunkel
14 Backstreet Boys
14 Metallica
14 Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf

Who loses in my system? Billy Joel, obviously—and double albums in general. Not a single double-disc would make my “real” Top 25, and only one would make a Top 50: The Wall, at 11.5 million copies, would rank 43rd in my system.

The Beatles are also losers—as a Fabs fan, I do find it a little depressing that all three of their titles drop out of the Top 25. But that is counteracted by my annoyance every time I read a lazy journalist claim that the White Album is “the Beatles’ all time best-selling album.” Much as I love that 9.5 million–selling, 19-times-platinum record, that’s a total perversion of history—any Beatles fan with half a brain knows it’s the 12 million–selling Abbey Road (which would rank 30th in my system in a 13-way tie).

On the plus side, the bottom rungs of my Top 25 round out the genres on the list to include more straight pop (Britney and Backstreet) alongside all the Boomer rock.

Of course, a real, true-to-life list would use SoundScan totals instead of platinum tallies to rank the top U.S. sellers. (At the very least, it would eliminate all those multiway ties between albums at the same certification level.) But that’s not going to happen, thanks to SoundScan being less than two decades old and the total lack of actual sales data for albums before the 1990s. And it would mean negating a system that’s more than four decades old. I don’t see anyone sending back their framed platinum records, no matter what change of heart the RIAA might have.

Nonetheless, I hereby implore fellow music writers to use this list from here on. Not just because it conforms with, y’know, reality, but because it punishes the double album, one of rock’s worst inventions. Let’s face it—virtually all of them could stand to be cut down, anyway.

1975 - Bruce Springsteen, "Born To Run"
1976 - Thin Lizzy, "Jailbreak"
1977 - Hall & Oates, "Rich Girl"
1978 - Althea & Donna, "Uptown Top Ranking"
1979 - The Slits, "Typical Girls"
1980 - Squeeze, "Another Nail In My Heart"
1981 - Scritti Politti, "The 'Sweetest' Girl"
1982 - Michael Jackson, "P.Y.T."
1983 - OMD, "Genetic Engineering"
1984 - Prince, "The Beautiful Ones"
1985 - The Cure, "Close To Me"
1986 - Janet Jackson, "When I Think Of You"
1987 - Terrence Trent D'Arby, "Wishing Well"
1988 - Pebbles, "Mercedes Boy"
1989 - Neneh Cherry, "Buffalo Stance"
1990 - Lisa Stansfield, "All Around The World"
1991 - The La's, "There She Goes"
1992 - Sugar, "If I Can't Change Your Mind"
1993 - Belly, "White Belly"
1994 - Mary Lou Lord, "Some Jingle Jangle Morning"
1995 - Edwyn Collins, "A Girl Like You"
1996 - Space, "Female Of The Species"
1997 - Yo La Tengo, "Autumn Sweater"
1998 - Liz Phair, "What Makes You Happy"
1999 - Fiona Apple, "Fast As You Can"
2000 - OutKast, "B.O.B."
2001 - 2 Many DJs, "Magnificent Romeo"
2002 - Kylie Minogue, "Love At First Sight"
2003 - R. Kelly, "Step In The Name Of Love (Remix)"
2004 - Annie, "Chewing Gum"
2005 - Sleater-Kinney, "Rollercoaster"
2006 - The Raconteurs, "Steady, As She Goes"
2007 - Bat For Lashes, "What's A Girl To Do?"
2008 - Ida Maria, "Oh My God"

Earlier: A Long Listmaking Exercise For A Long Weekend

1975 - Aerosmith, Toys In The Attic
1976 - Aerosmith, Rocks
1977 - Wire, Pink Flag
1978 - Van Halen
1979 - The Raincoats
1980 - Various artists, Wanna Buy A Bridge? comp
1981 - Motley Crue, Too Fast For Love
1982 - Michael Jackson, Thriller
1983 - Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Dazzle Ships
1984 - Prince and the Revolution, Purple Rain
1985 - The Jesus & Mary Chain, Psychocandy
1986 - Janet Jackson, Control
1987 - Guns N' Roses, Appetite For Destruction
1988 - Pixies, Surfer Rosa
1989 - Faith No More, The Real Thing
1990 - Mother Love Bone, Apple

(This is the point where things started getting tough, like three-solid-contenders-per-year tough.)

1991 - Soundgarden, Badmotorfinger
1992 - Unrest, Imperial ffrr
1993 - Afghan Whigs, Gentlemen
1994 - Pram, Helium
1995 - Helium, The Dirt Of Luck
1996 - Olivia Tremor Control, Music From The Unrealized Film Script Dusk At Cubist Castle
1997 - Built To Spill, Perfect From Now On
1998 - Pulp, This Is Hardcore

(Here the toughness subsides. Draw your own conclusions as to why.)

1999 - Mr. Bungle, California
2000 - PJ Harvey, Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea
2001 - Aveo, Bridge To The Northern Lights
2002 - Ikara Colt, Chat And Business
2003 - S Prcss, MNML
2004 - Dogs Die In Hot Cars, Please Describe Yourself
2005 - Celebration
2006 - Scritti Politti, White Bread, Black Beer
2007 - Siobhan Donaghy, Ghosts
2008 - Erykah Badu, New Amerykah Vol. 1

A thing to do. [bg5000]

1983 (2 albums)
5. Madonna, Madonna
94. Synchronicity, The Police

1984 (6 albums)
1. Purple Rain, Prince and the Revolution
41. Legend, Bob Marley and the Wailers
72. 1984, Van Halen
75. Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen
79. Let It Be, The Replacements
83. Learning to Crawl, The Pretenders

1985 (3 albums)
16. Rain Dogs, Tom Waits
32. Life's Rich Pageant, R.E.M.
84. Low-Life, New Order

1986 (5 albums)
8. Graceland, Paul Simon
38. Raising Hell, Run-DMC
53. King of America, Elvis Costello
73. The Queen is Dead, The Smiths
88. So, Peter Gabriel

1987 (4 albums)
30. Appetite for Destruction, Guns N' Roses
61. Paid in Full, Eric B. & Rakim
63. The Joshua Tree, U2
100. Faith, George Michael

1988 (2 albums)
55. It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back, Public Enemy
58. Surfer Rosa, The Pixies

1989 (4 albums)
14. Disintegration, The Cure
22. 3 Feet High and Rising, De La Soul
43. Paul's Boutique, Beastie Boys
54. Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814, Janet Jackson

1990 (1 album)
18. People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm, A Tribe Called Quest

1991 (4 albums)
3. Achtung Baby, U2
67. Metallica
78. Vs., Pearl Jam (NB: Pretty sure they mean Ten here, since Vs. came out in 1993)
86. Loveless, My Bloody Valentine

1992 (2 albums)
57. Harvest Moon, Neil Young
66. The Chronic, Dr. Dre

1993 (3 albums)
42. Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), Wu-Tang Clan
47. Exile in Guyville, Liz Phair
91. Siamese Dream, Smashing Pumpkins

1994 (10 albums)
11. MTV Unplugged in New York, Nirvana
28. Illmatic, Nas
36. CrazySexyCool, TLC
40. Ready to Die, The Notorious B.I.G.
60. Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, Pavement
70. My Life, Mary J. Blige
77. Dummy, Portishead
81. The Downward Spiral, Nine Inch Nails
82. Grace, Jeff Buckley
99. Live Through This, Hole

1995 (2 albums)
35. Jagged Little Pill, Alanis Morissette
68. Wrecking Ball, Emmylou Harris

1996 (6 albums)
17. Odelay, Beck
20. Tidal, Fiona Apple
39. Sheryl Crow
45. If You're Feeling Sinister, Belle and Sebastian
51. The Score, Fugees
87. All Eyez on Me, 2Pac

1997 (5 albums)
24. Come On Over, Shania Twain
26. Time Out of Mind, Bob Dylan
46. Homogenic, Björk
62. OK Computer, Radiohead
93. Either/Or, Elliott Smith

1998 (3 albums)
2. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, Lauryn Hill
44. Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, Lucinda Williams
59. Ray of Light, Madonna

1999 (3 albums)
23. The Soft Bulletin, The Flaming Lips
92. The Writing's on the Wall, Destiny's Child
74. Play, Moby

2000 (7 albums)
12. Stankonia, OutKast
15. The Marshall Mathers LP, Eminem
37. The Moon & Antarctica, Modest Mouse
64. Mama's Gun, Erykah Badu
76. Heartbreaker, Ryan Adams
89. Bachelor No. 2, Aimee Mann
96. Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, PJ Harvey

2001 (5 albums)
7. The Blueprint, Jay-Z
34. Is This It, The Strokes
71. Rock Steady, No Doubt
90. Toxicity, System of a Down
97. Britney, Britney Spears

2002 (5 albums)
25. Turn On the Bright Lights, Interpol
48. American IV: The Man Comes Around, Johnny Cash
49. A Rush of Blood to the Head, Coldplay
56. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco
85. Home, Dixie Chicks

2003 (6 albums)
13. You Are Free, Cat Power
19. Dangerously in Love, Beyoncé
65. Elephant, The White Stripes
69. Give Up, The Postal Service
95. Trap Muzik, T.I.
98. Transatlanticism, Death Cab for Cutie

2004 (4 albums)
4. The College Dropout, Kanye West
6. American Idiot, Green Day
27. Funeral, Arcade Fire
29. Breakaway, Kelly Clarkson

2005 (1 album)
21. The Emancipation of Mimi, Mariah Carey

2006 (2 albums)
31. FutureSex/LoveSounds, Justin Timberlake
80. Back to Basics, Christina Aguilera

2007 (5 albums)
9. Back to Black, Amy Winehouse
10. In Rainbows, Radiohead
33. As I Am, Alicia Keys
50. Sound of Silver, LCD Soundsystem
52. Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, Spoon

Arranging the list makes the fact that what EW is actually presenting is little more than what a friend of mine called "literally a list of 100 albums" a bit more glaring. And there are a couple of other unwitting revelations as well:

Institutional memory is a fleeting thing. While 1994, with its 10 worthy albums, was apparently the year that Entertainment Weekly's writers really got into their record collections, looking at the average number of placing albums per year reveals something odd: The '80s averaged 3.7 albums a year on the list, the '90s 3.9 a year, and the '00s 5 per year. Has this decade really been that great for new releases? Or is the bloom of newness still on that Kelly Clarkson album, and when EW makes its next version of this list in 20 years it'll be lost to time, and therefore relegated to the same also-ran status of, say, Cyndi Lauper's She's So Unusual?

The closer you get to the present day, the more you see how music has fragmented, and how the professional-writer class has turned away from the mainstream. There were a lot of critically respected rock albums—in genres like metal, emo, and even pop-rock—that came out in the '00s, but you wouldn't know it from these picks. The rock leanings of EW's writing staff, which are pretty "Hey, I went to college"-ish to begin with, lean ever further indie-ward the closer you get to the present day; with a couple of tweaks and clean versions of albums thrown in, this list could be easily retitled "Top 100 Albums Every College-Rock DJ Should At Least Check Out Before She Gets Her Own Show."

Sure, at its core it's pretty dumb, but it's hard not to think that this list also represents another stage in the death of the listicle that Matos mentioned earlier today, as well as a sign that maybe EW's music writers should pull themselves out of the indie-yuppie ghetto and check out, I don't know, Decibel or AbsolutePunk or Nah Right for some listening tips. But the glaring problems with this list don't mean that people won't type until they're blue in the fingers about how OK Computer was lower than Jagged Little Pill—so EW will come out smelling like lots of pageviews anyway. Hooray?

The New Classics: Music [EW]

42. Morrissey, Your Arsenal

"Morrissey appears topless and vulnerable, neither dispelling nor confirming rumours surrounding his sexuality as his posture is effete while his body toning is masculine. His microphone looks extremely phallic too."

28. Herbie Mann, Push Push

"Flouting his thick curly chest hair and ominously holding his flute as if it's some kind of sex toy, to us at least, it's stomach-churningly cheesy. Mr Mann seems to be pleased with himself. The dirty bugger."

26. Lords Of Acid, Crablouse

"A curious male naked form, with a female hand seemingly coming out of nowhere and grabbing the genital region, it's just plain baffling."

15. Red Hot Chili Peppers, Abbey Road EP

"We just wonder what they're hiding?"

13. Prince, Lovesexy

"The site [sic] of Prince unclothed is enough to send many-a-woman or gay man weak at the knees, and that's exactly what we got back in 1989: the pint sized music icon completely bollocks naked."

8. Rolling Stones, Sticky Fingers

"The well-endowed chap in question is apparently Joe Dallesandro and not Mick Jagger who is apparently hung like a mouse."

7. Kevin Rowland, My Beauty

"While many claimed it was merely a publicity stunt, the former Dexys man denied saying he was trying to display his 'soft, sexy, feminine side'. It sold about two copies upon its 1999 release. Literally."

1. Liars, It Fit When I Was A Kid

"Although we don't think Angus Andrew and co are into sexing each other up, they sure look like they're enjoying themselves."

Naked men! So funny! Within this group, there are arguably three covers (Morrissey, Prince, Rolling Stones) where male nudity isn't taken as absurd, intentionally or otherwise. The same can't be said of most the boob, butt, and beaver shots that compile the rest of the list. So what would a list that didn't find chest hair inherently ridiculous include? Al Green's Greatest Hits? Raw Power? Uhh, umm... a little help?

Sex Sells: The 50 Dirtiest and Sexiest Album Covers Ever!! [Gigwise]

8:24 P.M Okay, something weird's going on. It's only a half-hour, and no Davey—just Morgan Freeman and some clips from Singin' In The Rain. We'd better Google this.

8:25 P.M. Ah, now we get it.

9:57 P.M. The Sixth Sense over Goodfellas?!? Are they effing kidding us?

In 1977 and again in 1987, British radio and TV personality Paul Gambaccini surveyed an array of U.S. and European broadcasters and rock critics to determine the "Top Rock 'n' Roll Albums of All Time." To no one's surprise, the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band topped both polls handily—in '87*, by what Gambaccini called "a bigger margin than ever."

You'd think that, just by polling people exactly 10 and 20 years after Sgt. Pepper, Gambaccini was tipping off the panel to honor the Class of '67's most revered album. But actually, few of Gambaccini's pollees placed Pepper at No. 1—Pepper's win was the result of its ubiquitous, obligatory placement somewhere in most of the media personalities' top tens. In his 1987 book presenting the latest poll results, Gambaccini was openly disappointed that his own No. 1 album, the Beatles' 1966 masterwork Revolver, didn't even come close to the top tier:

This poll is obviously not fixed: the favourite album of the author of this volume has dropped a few places [since 1977 —from #4 to #17]. May he point out just a few highlights of this awe-inspiring long-player? ... [W]hat platter contains on a single side a work of sublime art that will live for centuries, "Eleanor Rigby," a good-time singalong like "Yellow Submarine," a standard such as "Here There and Everywhere," and bitter social commentary in the vein of "Taxman"? ... Anyone for a recount?

It's too bad Gambaccini didn't conduct a third poll in 1997, because he might've turned up results he'd like better.

In 1998, the publishing arm of Richard Branson's Virgin empire released the results of what it called "the most comprehensive sampling of musical tastes ever conducted." With some 200,000 U.S. and U.K. voters participating, Revolver trumped Pepper for No. 1, for the first time in any major music poll. That may have looked like a fluke, but an update to the Virgin poll after the turn of the millennium showed no challenge to Revolver at the top despite lots of change on the list's lower rungs. Then, in 2001, VH-1 polled hundreds of musicians, executives and journalists for a TV special, 100 Greatest Albums, and it produced a similar result: Revolver at No. 1, Pepper way down at No. 10.

One year after that, Rolling Stone polled its readers—for once, talking to the college kids it covets in addition to the Boomers it worships—and Revolver eked out a win over the No. 3-ranked Pepper (and No. 2-ranked Nevermind). These days, only Rolling Stone's critics and industry pals are propping up Pepper—it topped the magazine's much-hyped 2003 "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list. But otherwise, in any poll of people not directly influenced by Jann Wenner, Revolver beats Pepper regularly. Even Rolling Stone is starting to quietly acknowledge this—its latest Album Guide (2005) features a Beatles essay by Rob Sheffield that confesses, "Revolver has steadily climbed in public estimation. These days, Revolver has earned its reputation as the best album the Beatles ever made, which means the best album by anybody."

This should be massive news among rock geeks and keepers of the Boomer canon. So why isn't it? In movie circles, there's been some low-boil debate recently over whether the more populist The Godfather will someday surpass the critic-worshipped Citizen Kane as filmdom's undisputed Greatest Movie; it hasn't happened yet, but if Godfather ever tops a major poll, you can bet there'll be headlines trumpeting it. But what's happening in the rock canon is like Orson Welles's Kane getting beaten by Welles's own Magnificent Ambersons; no one's making much of the changing of the guard, because the Fab Four are defeating themselves.

The fact is, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band at 40 is, as a piece of art, none the worse for wear. It hasn't changed. We have.

For starters, Americans have only had 20 of the last 40 years to properly judge Revolver. EMI's 1987 release of the Beatles catalog on compact disc standardized the group's pre-Pepper albums in favor of their British versions, rectifying Capitol USA's egregious mid-'60s chop-shop editions of the group's first seven LPs. The last album to suffer at Capitol's hand was Revolver, which lost three tracks in its original 1966 U.S. release - all songs by John Lennon ("I'm Only Sleeping," "Doctor Robert," "And Your Bird Can Sing"). As Sheffield points out in the Album Guide, the restoration of the Lennon songs was fundamentally important in Revolver's appraisal by the general public.

However, I'd argue that making Revolver 100% whole was helpful but not really essential. Ask a fan of Revolver to tell you what they love about it, and they won't gas on, Pepper-style, about thematic unity and the spirit of the times, man. They'll talk about the songs. Take another look at the Gambaccini quote above, in which he runs down that killer tracklist. Or watch VH-1's segment on Revolver that closes its "Greatest Albums" special - it features the usual array of famous talking heads, and each of them has a favorite tune: Art Garfunkel extols "Here There and Everywhere"; Chuck D hypes "Got to Get You Into My Life." Revolver earns props from its fans not as an album qua album, but as a supremely fortuitous collection of songs. In terms of breadth of songs, Revolver is almost as wide-ranging as The White Album, but on a single disc, in under 35 minutes.

In short, it's the Beatles' greatest mixtape. Which makes Revolver perfect for the mixtape era. And that other record, not so much.

Lost in all the hype you're hearing this month about how Pepper made the album important is the business impact of that pop happening. Sgt. Pepper was, for the '60s music biz, the killer app. It wasn't the first album to read like an album (thank you, Frank Sinatra and Brian Wilson), it was just the most successful—just like Apple's iPod wasn't the first MP3 player, it was just the one that captured the public's fancy.

Pepper made the album, not the single, the standard unit of measure for popular music. Once the industry saw, in 1967, that long-playing albums with no singles could sell as well as or better than 45s, the whole emphasis changed. Music was meant to be heard, enjoyed, judged and, most important, purchased at length. Labels built their economic foundation around people's willingness to buy bundles of songs more often than they paid for individual ones.

That's a pretty dubious legacy. The big fight between the music industry and its customers over the last decade—starting with the elimination of the single and exploding with the rise of Napster and file-sharing—can be laid at the feet of Sgt. Pepper, the album that made greedy label bosses think they could sell song bundles forever.

Pepper, as art, doesn't really deserve this legacy: it has its strengths—a great sense of mood, if not coherence; the cover art; Ringo's best-ever vocal performance; "A Day in the Life" —and it's easy for post-Boomer critics to beat it up too much.

Still, the rise of the once-underrated Revolver is an understandable reaction to decades of Pepper-is-God propaganda; one day, Gen-Z kids might get sick enough of Nevermind hype to adopt another Nirvana album (it's already starting with In Utero). More to the point, it's understandable that modern rock fans, especially young ones, would feel closer to the Beatles album that feels less like an ornate arts-and-crafts project and more like a chopped-n-screwed iPod playlist.

Final note: Your guest Idolator still prefers Pepper to Revolver. What can I say? It was the first non-Sesame Street album I adopted as my own.

* The '87 Gambaccini poll is an amusing '80s time capsule. Among the poll's anointed 100 discs were Huey Lewis & the News's Sports, Don Henley's Building the Perfect Beast, and one of U2's most flaccid albums, The Unforgettable Fire. And all five original MTV VJ's are on the panel; J.J. Jackson's favorite record is Roxy Music's Avalon—that old smoothie!

As the 2006 year-in-music critical polls continue to roll in, our cranky kvetching continues to roll out. Today, we look at best-album picks from three national heavy hitters—Rolling Stone, Spin, and The AV Club—and give our take on each list's hits and misses.

Rolling Stone (#1: Bob Dylan, Modern Times)
THE GOOD: Sonic Youth's solid Rather Ripped at No. 3.
THE BAD: No one who puts Stadium Freaking Arcadium near the top of its list deserves to get all self-righteous about putting Bob Dylan at No. 1. We're just saying.
THE SURPRISE: Not one, but two hip-hop albums in the top 10. Sure, they're from critical darlings Clipse and Ghostface, but still—baby steps.

Spin (#1: TV On The Radio, Return To Cookie Mountain)
THE GOOD: The only magazine willing to back up its "My Chemical Romance are the best talk" with top-10 placement; Welcome to the Black Parade hit No. 5, behind TV On The Radio, The Hold Steady, the Arctic Monkeys, and Ghostface.
THE BAD: A My Morning Jacket live album at number eight? That's almost more inexcusable than the Interpol mimeographers in Editors making the list at all.
THE SURPRISE: Double-dip cover boy Brandon Flowers is probably getting pissy about the Killers being snubbed (on a 40-place list!) as we type this.

AV Club (#1: The Hold Steady, Boys And Girls In America)
THE GOOD: Finally, the indie kids of America have another place to turn when they need their taste confirmed.
THE BAD: Midlake's No. 3 ranking is defended with the phrase "okay, it sounds like the Eagles."
THE SURPRISE: Ricardo Villalobos' Balkan epic Fizheuer Zieheuer, at No. 18, is first sign of consensus-cracking.

The NME best-of-06 list is out, and if you're the one person who didn't think the Arctic Monkeys would hit No. 1, well, aren't you a sucker. The top 10 (via I Love Music):

10 My Chemical Romance - Welcome To The Black Parade
9 Kasabian - Empire
8 The Strokes - First Impressions of Earth
7 The Long Blondes - Someone To Drive You Home
6 Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
5 CSS - Cansei De Ser Sexy
4 Hot Chip - The Warning
3 Muse - Black Holes and Revelations
2 Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
1 Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not

Oh, NME! Your Kasabian-boosting is just so cute. We're still not buying it on this side of the pond, though.

NME [nme.com]

Number of hip-hop artists: 4. But that's only if you count Timbaland, Danger Mouse, and Ryan Adams.
Earliest point in the list when we said, "Whaaaa?": No. 8, occupied by the Corgan-biting Silversun Pickups. (Seriously, who voted for those jokesrs? We want names.)
Artists who, it seems, made the list based on anticipation over what they might do in 2007: 4. It's never too early to get that blog buzz going!
Percentage of Cat Power commenters who used a play on the title of The Greatest in their description of the record: 100.
Number of Track Marks-featured bands on the list: 0. We're a little surprised that "Weird Al" Yankovic didn't make the cut.
Number of Zune-featured artists on the list: 1.
Number of deluded commenters decrying the Strokes' absence from the list: 1.
Description that never made us want to listen to music again: "Their 'Ghostface Observatory' mashup, which combines Ghostface with Ghostland Observatory, is easily the greatest mashup I've ever heard."

The Top 40 Bands in America - 2006 Edition [Information Leafblower]

The All-TIME 100 Albums [Time, via Paper Thin Walls]

10) Thom Yorke - The Eraser
09) Sufjan Stevens - The Avalanche
08) Hot Chip - The Warning
07) Midlake - The Trials of Van Occupanther
06) Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
05) Neil Young - Living With War
04) Joanna Newsom - Ys
03) Comets On Fire - Avatar
02) Scritti Politti - White Bread, Black Beer
01) Bob Dylan - Modern Times

Fun facts: The highest-ranking hip-hop album was Ghostface's Fishscale, which came in at No. 23; the reissues list was topped by a four-disc Elektra Records retrospective; and there are still critics willing to be apologists for Kasabian, whose latest album squeaked in at No. 44. And there was no singles round-up for this mag, no doubt because its critical roster is made up of serious music consumers. Hmph.

Uncut [uncut.co.uk]
Uncut's 2006 EOY List [I Love Music]

1 Goodbye My Lover, James Blunt; 2 Angels, Robbie Willams; 3 I've Had The Time Of My Life, Jennifer Warnes and Bill Medley; 4 Wind Beneath My Wings, Bette Midler; 5 Pie Jesu, Requiem; 6 Candle In The Wind, Elton John; 7 With Or Without You, U2; 8 Tears In Heaven, Eric Clapton; 9 Every Breath You Take, The Police; 10 Unchained Melody, Righteous Brothers

Yes, that's "Every Breath You Take" at No. 9—because there's nothing like giving someone the message that they'll be stalked all the way past the grave. Do you think we can blame Diddy for this?

Blunt Tops The Charts At Funerals [mirror.co.uk, via No Rock&Roll Fun]

Our Favorite Shop [Stylus]
[Image of Spaceboy Music from Spaceboy Music's MySpace page]

Long ago, before the Internet and YouTube came along, you actually had to work to prove how untalented you were. Becoming famous was much more difficult back then, and there were but a handful of venues in which amateur musicians—people who insisted they were going to make it big, much to their friends' and families' chagrin—could strut their stuff. If they were really lucky, maybe they could get a few minutes at an open-mic night; but for most of them, the only way to follow their ill-advised dreams was by appearing on their local public-access television station. Anyone could get a show, it seemed, and all you needed was a clunky microphone, a cameraman, and a 4 a.m. time-slot to be able to watch yourself on television.

Thanks to the aforementioned YouTube (and bad-taste archivists like TV Carnage), we now have access to hours upon hours of off-key cover songs, poorly constructed raps, and Jazzercise-like dance moves. After the jump, Idolator happily shares five of its favorite low-budget beauties. Each one of them is inspiring in its own little way—a reminder of what happens when people can't outgrow their childhood fantasies of being a rock star. Enjoy, and if you like what you see, find an old soundstage and record your own bid for infamy. Who knows? Maybe one of you could be the next "Hairdresser."

5. Unknown, "New York, New York"

You probably think we're making fun of the accents here, but we're not. No, what we love about this clip is the loud, erratic clickety-clack refreain of whatever instrument this woman is playing, not to mention the look of joyfully befuddlement every time she plays it. "New York" is mind-bogglingly charming; if it had been released in the Giuiliani era, crime would have hit an all-time low.

4. Zuma Dogg, "Freestyle Battle Rap"

The acid-trail visual effects and Naughty By Nature-style gesticulations seem straight out of 1992, but the 50 Cent and Web site shout-outs prove otherwise. Very possibly filmed in a mall.

3. Unknown, "Hairdresser"

Made famous by the great TV Carnage—whose video series tipped us off to some of these P-A discoveries—"Hairdresser" is best viewed with a friend. That way, for the next three weeks, you can repeatedly crank-call or text "Hairdresser!" to one another at inopportune moments of the day. And note that while the artist isn't credited here, a review of the lyrics indicates that her name may be Tease-A-Louise. Can anyone from ASCAP or BMI help us out on this? (Someone did—see an update, below).

2. Jan Terri, "Losing You"

We can only wonder whatever became of Terri, who apparently had enough funding to not only write and warble this hook-deprived song, but also to rent a limo for her video and launch her own vanity-project record label (which she named, natch, JT Records). Whether lip-synching in the park or riding on the back of a motorcycle, Terri looks completely uncomfortable in every single frame of this breathtaking commitment to bad performance.

1. Sondra Prill, "Pump Up The Jam"

Where does one start with a clip like this? Everything you could possibly want in a low-rent early-'90s cover-song video is here: The mullets. The awkward on-the-beach work-out scenes. The assaultive vocal stylings. Prill is the queen of bad, the dutchess of middling (she has more than 20 videos archived on YouTube), and a genuine human wonder. She may be No. 234,123 on YouTube (we're guessing), but she's No. 1 in our hearts.

UPDATE: Thanks to Jonno, who notes:

For from being a mere "unknown", the artiste reponsible for "Hairdresser" is the sublime Lucille Cataldo - she's identified as such on the original "Stairway to Stardom" clips on YouTube posted by Sharpeworld earlier this year (which seems to be where TV Carnage found them), as well as in an NPR piece on the series last spring.

(A note to our new friends from Collegehumor.com: Greetings! We hope you like what we see; if so, we also suggest taking a look-see over here, here, and here. Enjoy!)

Note: By "party," we mean "night that you spend sitting in a corner, wondering why no one would try and defend the genius of Wham! to you."

tlist: T-shirts [t-lists.com]