Apple Music's Top 100 Albums of All Time is a Disaster | Reaction 

Why is Joe constantly referring to the Rolling Stone list as if Rolling Stone were still a meaningful publication?

Wow. No Sly and at the Family Stone, no Smokey Robinson, no Supremes, no James Brown, no Grand Master Flash, no Elvis Costello, no Who, no real punk, no Wish you were here, no shoegaze, no Sticky Fingers, no Eno, no Jeff Beck. No thank you.

I thought it was really, really hard to come up with a list that makes even less sense than the one from Rolling Stone magazine, but Apple really put an effort into it and succeeded. Some absolutely ridiculous choices and placings.

A simple solution for Apple would have been to make the list "Since 1980", or even "Since 1990". The last 44 or even 34 years gives ample choices without disrespecting the OG's.

Forty of these albums should not have sniffed a Top 100 list.

The Apple Music Board said: "We are making an editorial statement". Another way to say that is: "We hate Rock, and this list proves it".

I can't fathom how they can call it "greatest of all time" it should be called "our favorite albums of all time"

The list screams of 'we have to make sure twitter doesn't call us too male, white or out of touch let's make it unassailable on those fronts, once we've got that, we'll sprinkle in some of my Dad's albums'

So, there's not: 1) Bridge Over Troubled Water 2) Damn The Torpedoes 3) Synchronicity 4) Stone Roses (debut) 5) Van Halen (debut) 6) Odessey And Oracle 7) Beggar's Banquet 8) Blood On The Tracks 9) The Cars (debut) 10) Paranoid or Black Sabbath 11) Moving Pictures 12) Moondance 13) Who's Next 14) Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Ok.

So, did rock and roll like not ever happen ? 🫤

Akin to giving a child a telescope and limiting them to a very tiny portion of the universe. I'm embarrassed for them.

No Bon Jovi or hair metal, and no corporate country. Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Rumours and Aja are all there. I can live with this list, but Lauryn Hill at #1 is a head scratcher.

I'm just glad that the list is finished so that the discourse around it finally stops flooding every social media website I use. No hate towards you guys btw, this video was very reasonable and not overly dramatic like what I've seen everywhere else. Maybe I'm just getting old and apathetic, but I don't get why so many people are acting like it's the end of the world when their favorite album is outside of the top 20. At the end of the day it's a meaningless list thrown together by a billion dollar corporation to drive engagement and get people to talk about them. And it definitely worked Personally, my biggest complaints are the exclusion of Black Sabbath and Joy Division/New Order, and Kacey Musgraves being the sole country representation (why is she here but not Johnny Cash?). Also I think it would've been better if they only had 1 entry per artist. Overall, not the best list imo but it could've been worse. Hopefully it turned some people onto some great music that they otherwise wouldn't have known about

This list lacks respect for history. It's an embarrassment.

Terrible list it’s missing Ween - The Pod

Looks like some of those recently fired DEI staff members from colleges got jobs making lists for Apple Music.

Oh man, please listen to Untrue by Burial. I’m not sure if it will be either of your cups of tea, but it really is just an incredible album. Really creative use of sampling and a great breakup album

Highly recommend checking out Burial's Untrue. It's tagged as dubstep, but worth noting the definition of the genre shifted radically in the early 2010s. It's nothing like Skrillex or any of those artists. Very cool, dark and subtle. Expertly produced.

I wonder if the original version of 1989 was what the list makers picked but a higher up made them substitute Taylor's Version so that they didn't piss off Taylor.

Man, the lack of Astral Weeks hurts. So many weird choices but that one is just bonkers.

The creators of this list are out to lunch

I would never place ‘The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill’ ahead of ‘The Score’ on any list.

This list is so wild I can't even. How can they be so right but then also so wrong?

Guess I can't comment on a list where I haven't heard any of the albums lol

Shocked there’s no room for New Kids On The Block, S Club 7, One Direction, Milli Vanilli or the Cheeky Girls’ debut….

- Hotel California ranked at 99 with Usher ranked above it?!?!?! C’mon man, this list is bllsht!!! I’m already out!!!

Yeah, they really need to stop calling these lists "greatest" or "best" of all time. They are the nothing more than the favorite albums of the specific people voting for them.

Easily the worst list of this type I have ever seen and most of these lists are weak.

- I'd place Off the Wall or Bad over Thriller. - No White Album or The Bends on a top 100 list is ridiculous. - I wouldn't expect these albums to be on there but they're some of my personal favs: English Beat - I just Can't Stop It Fine Young Cannibals - The Raw and The Cooked Built to Spill - Keep It Like a Secret Ariel Pink - Mature Themes Shabazz Palaces - Black Up

Those 90s and OOs ( cds ) are to long. If there are 3 throw away songs by definition they cant be anywhere near the top 100

I don't they got the topic. The topic is the TOP 100 OF ALL TIME! Let me repeat the key words - ALL TIME! There are a few albums that qualify, but the majority are not worthy to be on this list. If you pay Apple for this, you're getting ripped off!

No one will ever be completely happy with these lists. They're fun to debate about though. Putting the newer albums on this list is a marketing tool. I remember laughing in the 2000s seeing a mass array of Emo albums being put on these greatest of all-time lists 😂😂 Of course, I knew then what I see now, that Emo wouldn't be recognized in the future.

Arctic Monkeys one step ahead of Velvet Underground & Nico was a real knee-slapper.

I Hope you Guys do ur Top 100 Album Soon, The World Need It Now More Than Ever🙏

Maybe Google, General Electric, Tesla, General Motors, and Mercedes should put a list out.

A lot of recency bias on that list.

What an appalling list! Number 1 is a joke. It does make one valid point though: you guys need to get your heads around the importance of Kraftwerk. How many of the albums on that list were influenced by the crazy German guys? Joy Division weren’t on the list. Shame! 😊

Another great entertaining video boyz!!! The only critique is to be more clear what you mean when you say higher or lower (I know Jason stopped to clarify a couple times). Higher on the list? Meaning a lower number? Or lower on the list meaning a higher number!!! Confusing I know. Keep up the great work

Love you guys, but I find your persistent and total lack of appreciation for Kraftwerk disturbing: Just put your personal taste aside for one second (you’ve proven that on several occasions*) and at least give them credit for their MASSIVE influence on popular music. Again, myself, I can’t stand Dylan and could never bring myself to put a record of his on for pleasure - but I can acknowledge how damn important he was. Actually, when it comes to influential musical acts, I‘d put Kraftwerk third, behind The Beatles and him. And NO, that’s definitely not national bias talking. 😝 Anyway, everyone out there who feels like I‘m totally wrong, take it up with Andy Edwards here, cos he’s explained all these points way more brilliantly and detailed than I ever could. 😉 *excellent case in point: THE VELVET UNDERGROUND & NICO!

Listen Without Prejudice has some nice cuts on it. What we really need is pop music broken into about 30 categories, and the top 1,000 of all time within each of those 30 categories. 30K total.

I hate all these lists. The only list that makes any sense is my own.

Some thoughts: Why is simplistic rock often higher regarded than technical or heavy? As someone who can appreciate both. I don't get it. I understand that new artists come in. New genres get higher recognition. Different styles come in and out of fashion... But shouldn't quality of the music be main focus? I respect that albums sell lots and I respect that an album invented something... But neither makes them automatically amazing.

The whole thing is pretty bad but the top 20 is just horrendous. Jason made a good point about artists vs. albums. It seems like they chose their favorite artists and then somewhat arbitrarily selected one of their albums to include.

Apple Music should never make list of best anything, period.

I understand the list makers trying to diversify across the music spectrum but, in my opinion, they produced a list with an abundance of albums that haven't stood the test of time. I mean, there are certainly some true classics here, but there are a bunch of newer records that are really just "safe" choices. A lot of these albums are not particularly original. There's a kind of edginess that the best albums have that may not click with listeners for a few years. Or, it isn't until much later that you realize how original it was for the time and you can see its influences. A lot of these newer records are too recent to have settled in.

i hate using the word "woke", but once i waddled through the list, i found it incredibly woke and uninspiring. but oh well. most top 100 lists i just laugh at anyways.

Where in gods name is Tool on these lists? Dark Side of the Moon and Pet Sounds less of a musical achievement than Taylor Swifts best effort! Lauryn Hill, Amy Winehouse and Adele higher than Bob Dylan’s only entry. Hard to stomach that Like a Rolling Stone has less of a pop in modern times than Frank frikkin Ocean and his “Nikeeeeeeeeees” These are the new dark ages people! What a disappointment this new millennium has been.

A totally crappy list. And they put a lot of shit in it that probably no one will even remember in 15 years time.

Any list that includes any music from the insanely overrated Taylor Swift is by definition, null and void. Unless the category is Top albums full of unmemorable songs. You listen to one of her songs and you have forgotten it, by the time the song ends - sometimes before the song ends.

Thanks for taking the time to go through the list. When Apple unleashed iTunes (2001), with its $0.99-per-song formula, the unintended consequence was the death of the album. The music industry shifted markedly to be a singles-based medium. Yes, singles have always been important, but albums are where artists would strive to make "a big statement." Given this, how can so many from Apple's list be from the last 20 years? (Of course, the irony that Apple invented the album's demise with iTunes can't be lost on anyone.) The other question I'd ask is "how long does it take for an album to be considered a classic? A year? Five years? Ten?" Sure, there's such a thing as an instant classic, but I think albums need time to prove their mettle and stand the test of time. There are albums on this list that are 50+ years old (and many more missing!) that we still discuss to this day. Will we still be discussing Lorde, say, in 50 years time? Lana Del Rey?

A rule of thumb for judging art is give it 15-20 years to see if it stands the test of time. You can't tell while you're living in it. I love The Cure's Disintegration ... but would never have put it on a best of all time list in 1989. That's ridiculous. What's even more ridiculous is 25 rap albums and 1 post punk and 1 metal album. These people live in a very very small internet bubble.

Burial - Untrue is regarded as a very influential album, especially in the electronic music scene. Not in my top 100, but I can definitely understand why it would make the list.

Hilariously bad . They must be trying to emulate Rolling Stone's formula for making lists , Cheers !

woof is right The List is Simply Click Bait

Lists are shit really aren't they? Either predictable sacred cows or inclusions that annoy people.

And how is apple ranking these ? Is it by influence , popularity , critical acclaim I don’t understand . Some inclusions on here are very misplaced . Blond at number 5 ? Come on

I guess this list is based on streaming volumes rather than critical acclaim or quality

i listened to the podcast each day for each group of 10 albums, and it was clear that they wanted this list to be "modern" and have more records from the past 30 years. They also said they had an agenda to include more Hip Hop and Rap, since they consider that to be the dominant genre from the past 25 years. so it's just not a list for anyone over the age of 30. No Police, Van Morrison, REM, Peter Gabriel, The Who, and no Graceland. Just a crazy list.

Sad to see the omission of Who's Next, Led Zep IV, Sticky Fingers (or Exile), Parallel Lines, Imperial Bedroom, Deja Vu (or Harvest maybe), Blonde on Blonde or Blood on the Tracks (better if not more significant than Highway 61), Sergeant Pepper or Rubber Soul (the White Album probably too weird), Unknown Pleasures etc ...but given where we are culturally, and the fact that the list is American, probably not surprising.

Some albums I think are missing: Faith no more- Angel dust System of a down- Toxicity Black Sabbath- Sabbath bloody sabbath (or any of their other albums) Dr. Dre- 2001 Iron maiden- Number of the beast Gorillaz- Plastic beach Frank Zappa- Hot rats Gojira- From mars to sirius Aphex Twin- Richard D. James album Devin Townsend- Ocean machine Between the buried and me- Colors Death grips- The money store Herbie Hancock- Head hunters Smashing pumpkins- Meloncoly Korn- Issues

I'm surprised Queen didn't make the list. Apple music skews younger but if there is one Boomer band that remains extremely popular with the cool kids, it's probably Queen.

Missing Television - Marquee Moon...

I'd put 10 Beatles albums before Hotel California.

Giving Dummy anything less than 4 stars is dumb. Stuart

'Blood On The Tracks is not a great album'. That's the kind of thing this emoji was invented for: 🤯

I can never usually understand the "old man/cloud"-type moaning about all-time album lists, but this Apple one is particularly stupid. I know lists usually try and reflect "what's popular now and how we got here", a bit of revisionism and retrofitting etc; but the desperation is strong with this one. For a while now there's been an almost-complete eradication of punk/post punk & alternative, as well as the squashing down of classic rock, singer/songwriters and so on. I do generally applaud the destruction of sacred cows and anything that annoys grumbly old men like me, but there comes a tipping point where a list is so short-sighted it's of no earthly use to anyone. Also! no Marquee Moon, Maggot Brain, Zen Arcade, Unknown Pleasures, Ramones, Nevermind the Bollocks, White Album, Led Zep 4, Sticky Fingers, Who's Next... No Black Sabbath, James Brown, Leonard Cohen, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Zappa, King Crimson, Creedence, Chuck Berry, no Elvises, no Neil Young... Two albums to represent all of jazz, one for metal, no country...even the wrong Kendrick one. I'd have had more respect if the list was pretty much all exactly as it was, but the top 2 were something completely random like Alice Coltrane's Journey to Satchidananda and Van Halen 1. I could go on but I have already boomered myself to death.

No Soundgarden superunkown, pearl jams ten, jeff Buckleys Grace or literally ANY Fiona friggin Apple album????

Honestly although some picks were stupid asf(Taylor swift, frank ocean, artic monkeys, etc) it’s not that bad of a list as y’all were making it.

I don’t get why they did this. How does trafficking in this kind of attention-seeking behavior benefit the music streaming part of their business? I bet some people canceled their Apple Music membership over this 😂

No Black Sabbath, Smashing Pumpkins, King Gizzard, Charles Mingus, Chuck Berry, Funkadelic, the doors, the who, Living Colour, Nick Cave, Lou Reed, Slayer, Frank Zappa, Deep Purple, Fugazi, Jethro Tull, Thin Lizzy, Van Morrison, Iron Maiden, John Lee Hooker, King Crimson, Yes, Dire Straits, Al Green, the Roots, Sepultura, Rush, Ohio Players, Fela Kuti, Ali Farka Toure, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Prodigy, this list is a great bullshit

You can expect to be served legal papers within the next few days. Listening to you guys go through that list gave me a stroke. But seriously. I haven't heard at least half those albums. The last 25 years of mainstream music has been a wash of nothing to me. To me rap is a bunch of garbage that all sounds the same. There might be ten albums in that list that I would include in a top 100. No Sgt Pepper? No Sticky Fingers? Only 1 Zep album? No Deep Purple? No Black Sabbath? No freaking Kinks? What the fuck man?

The kids are coming....for our lists!

Absolutely terrible list. Probably computer generated based on what's culturally acceptable. No Moondance, Astral Weeks, Quadrophenia, Grace, Van Halen I/1984, Paranoid, Who's Next, Bridge over Troubled Water, Blood on the Tracks or anything by Ray Charles, The Doors, Elliot Smith? The Chronic, Beyonce, Taylor Swift and these no name singers ahead of Revolver and Pet Sounds is truly insane. Those are indisputable top 10s of all time whatever you think of either artist. These artists are just getting put in because of the generation not because they deserve it. All the boomer music is getting trashed by Gen Z - Beatles, Stones, Zep, Hendrix, has lost a lot of recognition from even 15 years ago when I was in college when I remember everyone seemed to at least respect it.

Lauren Hill wasn't that good when it came out and it isn't that good now. Its main merit was that it was surprisingly good for a Fugees solo side project. That's it. Now its the greatest album of all time....

Greatest disappointment about the list is its largely US/ UK myopia. This was a golden opportunity to introduce several classic albums/ sounds from around the world to curious listeners but it was largely squandered. Hopefully they course-correct when they do their singles list.

I can't think of an appropriate word to describe how bad this list is.

“17000 spots too high” should be on a hype sticker on that Solange album from now on

It would be fun if you dug up an old "all-time greatest something or other" from maybe the 90s and reacted to that!

No Zeppelin 4?!?! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Totally agree with Jason about Jagged Little Pill. Most of the singles are great, but the album is pretty meh.

This is not a very good list who put this list together I think they need to go back and reexamine good and great albums

Saying that people don't respect the 60s is very accurate. I'm a Gen Zer and not a lot of them my age would even care about the 60s as much as me. I'm on the minority side of loving music past the 00s. I am very critical for just about everyone. No manner if they are old or young. I criticize everybody. That's just the way I am. Whenever I go to a store with vintage material, I feel like I'm a kid in a candy store. I love seeing old signs of the 50s and 60s and singing Let's Go to the Lobby.

Where the fuck is the ramones ?!?!

He hates Lana?? Lana is the one who gave the people he’s talking about inspiration and influence… lol

Good comments, and I mostly agree. The list is very US centric and very narrow in terms of generes. But, could there ever be a good list? It essentially boils down to personal taste. Attempts at being objective usually fails because facts are hard to find. How do you prove something is more influential than something else for instance? It's all hearsay.

Appetite for Destruction above any Black Sabbath is mad. I notice on the genres I like that Apple really have dropped the ball here.

I could see In Da Club and Royals making a top 5000 songs list but to have 50 cent and Lorde make top 100 albums is insane nevermind Solange. Purple Rain in top 4 pretty good but shame about the 99 other terrible calls.

Behind this list are the same people who vote at the Grammys

I think it's time you guys did a corrective top 100 albums and it can't all be Jason's songwriters nor can it be Joe's metalheads. But you have plenty of solid picks in your AOTYs to compile a compelling list. As for Apple? Well, it's defined by today's musical taste and who SHOULD be included. You mentioned a lot of artists missing - I would like to add The Pixies, The Stone Roses Nick Drake, Queen, Lou Reed, Prefab Sprout, Todd Rundgren, John Lennon, Supertramp, Pearl Jam. There's way too many rap albums. In fact, not that many white artists of the 21st century apart from the commercially successful ones (Lady Gaga, Lana Del Ray, Taylor Swift, Adele, etc...). Arctic Monkeys and The Strokes are the only white male artists from the 21st century. I could go on but I shouldn't be surprised.

Not a rap fan so yup this is bad for me and not in a cool Jackson way.

90's rap is the only kind I can tolerate. It wasn't oversaturated with too many beats and stupid noises. Plus, (and MUCH more importantly) no one thought that rapping in a voice that sounds like you have BRAIN DAMAGE was ACTUALLY cool!!!

Disappointed you gave a big thumbs down for Trans Europe Express. That album is my No. 1 for 1977. Awesome, influential and important album.

burial ABSOLUTELY deserved to be on here

Besides a few silly choices like 1989 I thought it was an interesting list. I'm fine with its recency bias. I'm tired of all-time lists where half of the albums are boomer rock.

No 90's rock pretty much unrepresented on this list.

I think Joe gets too hung up on these two words placed closely together: post and punk. I think he’d enjoy more than he realizes. He is a stubborn fella, that one! Nearly as stubborn as Jason with his anti hip-hop stance. Love you guys anyway! We need a Bob Dylan type series for both of you with the aforementioned genres. Please think about it. James Murphy said: “I Can Change”

Alicia keys showing all of her awards yesterday after apple music released their top 100

Even as someone who "gets" Bad Bunny, reducing all of spanish music to him and (in the RS list) just one of the best salsa singers is condescending as hell. Lots of people here are mixed on that album.

This list is a joke.

Where are… Simple Minds? Pixies? King Crimson? New Order? Lloyd Cole? Mingus? The Band? The Sex Pistols?? It’s a ridiculous list.