Talk:The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Erased that mini-article criticising the list...

I have one question... I remember "Dookie" by Green Day being on the list (somewhere around 190-ish?), but it's not here? Am I mistaken in my memory, or is it intentionally left off, or just an innocent mistake? Thanks.

It's at #193, both on Rolling Stone's site, and on this list. --Arcadian 15:03, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Wouldn't a Green Day album have been released after 1970? this is not acknowledged in the intro! Monkeyduck 17:45, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

...and with quadrophenia at like 260 something, that should tell you everything. Paradoxically, I'd like to actually add a complaint that the list is too British. For a country of what, 60-70 mil, the Brits are way out of proportion compared to the Germans, Americans, Australians, and pretty much everyone else. Yeah, they were the home of some of the best, but for goodness sakes, how can you say America is overrepresented in comparison when there's 5 times the population!
  Australia has 20mil :| BurningZeppelin 01:55, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Weird Explanation

Anyone else having trouble understanding this explanation: "This list only contains artists who had at least 3 albums on the list and include the ones only at time of publication"


While I understand the criticism that this list is very British/American biased, I do not understand how Kraftwerk is the only non British/American album on the list? What about the Buena Vista Social Club?63.237.92.180 15:04, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I guess cause the list was getting really crowded with artists with 1/1 or 1/2 albums. That'll teach The Sex Pistols to only release one album...J.T. 01:28, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright issue

Hi. I came to know this page through the translated page on Japanese Wikipedia which is recently created.

I have a question regarding the copyright status of this list.

I see U.S. courts have several cases dealing with copyrightability of works such as this list. For example, Eckes v. Card Prices Update (736 F.2d 859) was in part about the copyrightability of a list of premium v. non-premium baseball cards. And the Court's opinion says the following:

We have no doubt that appellants exercised selection, creativity and judgment in choosing among the 18,000 or so different baseball cards in order to determine which were the 5,000 premium cards. Accordingly, we believe that the Guide merits protection under the copyright laws.

I am not familiar with how this list was compiled. And if it was simply a result of a poll or sales figures, it might be okay. It would not be a product of creative activity. But if a group of experts got together and created this list, then this list could quite possibly be their copyright (or the Roling Stone's).

I checked their list on the web, but I could not find any information regarding the selection process. What I did find, though, was that their web page displays some ads. That seems to make this page a bit harder than otherwise to defend as a fair use. This page seems to undermine their page's commercial value if people can access a free version hosted here (or elsewhere by wikipedia mirrors).

Hope someone could respond. Thanks. Tomos 04:22, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not a lawyer, but this is a blatant copyvio as far as I am concerned. A list such as telephone numbers may not be copyrightable in the US, but a list of the 'best' albums compiled by experts surely is. The Rolling Stone site says ©, and they make money off advertising as you say. I've added a copyvio template. --kingboyk 23:54, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
The introduction doesn't seem to be a blatant copyright violation? I am totally unable to find that text on the webpage You gave. feydey 02:04, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
No, indeed. I've never done a copyvio template before so I assumed I would have to blank out the entire article. If you wish to restore the introduction go right ahead. --kingboyk 05:15, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I think what should be done is anything salvageable or new content should go to List_of_Rolling_Stone's_500_Greatest_Albums_of_All_Time/Temp, until the matter is resolved. Sorry, as I said I'm new to this. --kingboyk 05:16, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I find it interesting, and rediculous that Pink Floyd's "Dark side of the moon", the greatest album of all time to many, failed place anywhere near the top on this list.

[edit] What about the book?!

Shouldn't it be mentioned that Rolling Stone Magazine published a book with a slightly different order last year?

[edit] What copyright Infringement?

Are you guys serious?! You cannot copyright a list of album titles! The list was NOT compiled by experts anyhow, in the sense that it was a poll conducted and including votes from not just experts, but artists, producers etc. alike! What's the problem here?

Guys, hold up here. Are you seriously saying that this list a copyright infringement? C'mon, what kind of precedent are you setting? So what about these lists then:
and then of course what about the other lists in the Rolling Stone series:
There are many more examples of these kinds of lists and none of these are a copyright infringement. Could somebody please show me where this is breaching copyright, if not kindly remove the tag and restore the list.
This user finds copyright paranoia disruptive.
-- Ianblair23 (talk) 22:04, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
As I see the problem is that RS paid people to make desicions what albums are the best, so they have the copyright on the list. The list is not arbitrary, or compiled alphabetically or by sales figures. Also the other possible copyvios do not mean this list is in public domain. P.S. Top 100 Selling Albums of the 1970s is a list with no creative input, so it's not under copyright. feydey 00:21, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
That was my point entirely. Indeed I'd imagine that it doesn't even matter if they paid people. They compiled the list with expert input, it's a subjective list not a factual one, therefore to my non-lawyer eyes it's copyright. It was my duty to tag it as such since the Wikimedia foundation is short of money as is without getting sued as well! Now at least we can have a proper discussion about it and hopefully a lawyer will speak up too. --kingboyk 05:14, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I am under the opinion that US copyright laws are extremely idiotic and need to be rethought by the government. In Australia, there is no such thing as 'applying for copyright' or someone asking "is that copyrighted?" Once you have made something, it is yours and there is no need to register for copyright, you are the legal owner and have full copyright.

I'm not sure about US law, but if you are concerned about this article, link to the god dam original location. It's not hard.

--BigglesTheGreat 06:46, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

RS's list would be copyrighted, but it would be fair use to use an excerpt of the list--in USA Today's write-up, they give the list's top 10, which seems about right. Nareek 21:18, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

And then once you have ten, people are going to want to expand to twenty. Don't, please. This article is not a list, it's an article about a list, and the list itself is easily available via an external link. The article needs to encourage people to add substantive content. Mentioning where albums ranked should be limited to places where it's a natural part of the discussion, as is already beginning to be done. --Michael Snow 01:18, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
It's a bit like saying that an article about Hamlet should include no quotes from Hamlet, because it's an article about a play, not a play--and because if you quote anything from it, people are going to want to quote the whole thing. Surely we can keep that slope from getting too slippery. There is no legal reason why we shouldn't provide readers with an excerpt, and there's nothing unencyclopedic about it either--just as there was nothing un-newspaperlike in USA Today doing the same thing. Nareek 04:14, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
You should note that I did not say we "should include no quotes" from the list. In fact, I recommended quoting the list in places where it's appropriate for the discussion. But there needs to be an editorial reason to quote it, otherwise people should just go to the external link where they can get it from the horse's mouth. "Just because I can" and "Well, I feel like copying part of the list" are not appropriate justifications. Wikipedia policy strongly favors free content, so if you want to claim fair use in order to add non-free content, you better have a good argument for it.
Naturally, the precise order of some of the top albums might be a place where critics would focus a lot of their attention. So incorporate some of that discussion into the article and this will take care of itself. --Michael Snow 06:29, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
The justification is that I think you would give readers a much better idea of what the subject of the article is like by providing a brief excerpt than by not providing an excerpt. But let's see what other folks have to say. Nareek 07:20, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Top Ten?

The part at the bottom about the top 10 seems wrong. There is no Sly and the Family stone on the top ten?

The top ten are Beatles, Beach Boys, Dylan, Marvin Gaye, Clash, Stones

[edit] Deletion

  • If there is no list (and I accept there can be no list, even though i think that is ridiculous) should this article be deleted? It is not particularly interesting to have an article saying "Music magazine X made a top 500 songs list...", since it is not a particularly revolutionary thing for a music magazine to do. There is only so much "substantive information" that can ever be added, none of it interesting or encyclopaedic. We don't need an article about every article ever printed in Rolling Stone, which is essentially what this is. Nothing unique or special about it, compared to either other Rolling Stone articles or other music magazine top X lists. Why do we need it? Jdcooper 16:43, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
The list is helpful as an NPOV way of establishing that various rock albums are taken seriously. Having an article about the list rather than linking to it from the albums directly allows us to contextualize it a bit. Nareek 13:21, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
How is it NPOV to have an article about Rolling Stone's list, and ignore the other similar lists that have been made by other music magazines. That asserts a POV emphasis on Rolling Stone's list as more valuable. Maybe we could rewrite this to remove the Rolling Stone bias and talk about greatest album lists in general, and their importance to the music industry and individual artists? Jdcooper 15:32, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I think the page should remain, although it would benefit from some rewriting. Rolling Stone is one of the most famous and credible sources on rock music, and this list represents a huge moment in the magazine's life, where its essence is captured, summarized, and presented to the world. I think a case could be made that this event is worth noting on wikipedia, and the argument that it justifies a wikipedia entry for every rolling stone article (or every magazine "best of" list) is a bit far-fetched.

My biggest problem with this article is the extent to which it tries to present the list as opinionated, limited in genre, and non-definitive. These aspects are implicit in the nature of the list; it is a rock and roll journal, and hence the list should emphasize rock acts; it deals with "best" albums, meaning it is inherently opinionated; and, as a collection of opinions, it is obviously not "definitive". Why the author thought it was necessary to make these points explicit is beyond me, but it weakens the article. Gyllstromk 17:33, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Criticism"

It is not enough to point out things wrong with the list. Opinions are like arseholes, everyone has one, and they are all full of shit. We must include RELIABLE SECONDARY SOURCES to back up these criticisms or they cannot stay. This would presumably be articles criticising the list from other reputable music magazines, online or otherwise, and not just miscellaneous blogs or someone's livejournal. Please help sort this problem out, its a major problem with the article at the moment. Jdcooper 17:25, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Most if not all of the criticisms can be reframed as factual observations--if you remove the word "too" from them, you're halfway there. Nareek 18:18, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Yeah but then if they aren't criticisms at all and just factual observations then how do we decide which factual observations are interesting, and which omitted bands are worthy of mentions? Jdcooper 18:43, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

As Gamaliel said in his edit summary, "the section is called "criticism", not "facts about the list". what is needed is not verification or citation of these facts, but that there was criticism of the list on the basis of these facts)". This is the reason, for example, that the statistics at the bottom of the article do not need citations, because their validity can be seen just by looking at the list. How is it an obvious fact that "the list is too America-centric"? That is the individual opinion of whoever first put that sentence in the article. Someone else might think it is not America-centric enough? The fact that it is in the "criticism" section, and not "arbitrary-selected facts about the list" is crucial here. What's more, i have had a look around, I can't find any sources to back up any of these criticisms (which is annoying, because i know i have read some), if these can't be found in a couple of days the section shouldn't really stay, the tags have been up for quite a while now. Jdcooper 17:13, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

As I said, I think that much of the section could be reframed as facts about the list rather than criticisms. I haven't had much WP time lately, otherwise I would have done it. Nareek 22:25, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
"Facts about the list" would be inherently POV, technically there are infinite "facts about the list", so the exact nature of the facts included could not help but show the bias of the person adding them, and to identify some facts as more important would also probably count as original research. A criticism section is completely fine, there was a lot of criticism (as there naturally would be for a high-profile subjective feature such as this), and very useful, but it just needs to be sourced. Jdcooper 23:30, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I think this article is much improved since the last time I looked at it. I just want to note for the record that WP is all about selecting which facts out of the infinite number of facts out there are significant. If that's OR, than all of WP is OR. Nareek 11:42, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

  • It is better now because we took the original research out. Selecting which facts are significant is the job of community consensus, but for something to be a fact it must be sourced, with the "criticism" section wasn't. WP is sourced, and is therefore not OR. OR is POV presented as significant fact. Jdcooper 17:33, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Velvet Underground

While I wish Squeeze had never been made as much as the next person, it was, and I reckon it counts as a Velvet Underground album, as per the Velvet Underground article, so the 4/5 figure is correct. Jdcooper 00:37, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I was asked to state my opinion. You can't just pick which albums you want to count. 'Squeeze' was released in 1973 and is an official studio album and is not on the list, so 4/5 is correct. J.T. 17:08, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, The Who are listed with Keith Moon and without, could it be changed to 4/4 (with Lou Reed) in a similar way? Kingcobweb 21:50, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Modern Lovers

Do The Modern Lovers count as having a one hundred percent ratio? I know Jonathan Richman kept using the band name on subsequent albums, but with no original members besides him. It was credited as "Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers." On allmusic.com and on wikipedia, they count their debut studio album as their only one. 14:24, 29, June 2006


You may recall that Wikipedia only considered those artists with at least three albums; therefore, The Modern Lovers, with only one album as you say, would not be considered.63.237.92.180 15:01, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Zeppelin

In the percentage list, they have 5/8; however, I'm pretty sure they have 9 albums (which makes 5/9, .5555(REPEATBARPLZ), or 55.555(REPEATBARPLZ)%. Is Coda not being counted or something? Sykil 11:30, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Eminem

For Eminem, does the 8 Mile Soundtrack count as an album? Otherwise, his percentage would be 3/3. J.T. 19:44, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't see why it would. There's only 2 songs on it that are his, or something like that. Cine 10:23, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rolling Stones

The Stones have released 25 albums of original music in the U.S. and 23 in the UK so which should count for this article?

[edit] Guns N' Roses

In the "Artists with the most albums in the list" list, it says that GN'R has "5 with 2 in the top ten", which either is a huge mistake, or I have misunderstood something. They have no albums in the top 10. --Pueben 06:42, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Smiths

Their self-titled debut, Meat Is Murder, The Queen Is Dead, Strangeways Here We Come are the studio albums -- Hatful of Hollow, The World Won't Listen, Louder Than Bombs are non-greatest hits compilations. This would make their representation at the most 4/6 (if you don't want to count TWWL, since it's been mostly substituted in most markets by LTB), & not 4/5. If you wanted to count Rank, it would be 4/8. This needs to be fixed, though I'm not sure who should verify this, so I'll wait. Anthonylombardi 11:54, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Wait, apart from MIM, TQID and the self titled, what other albums made the list? Strangeways doesn't have it on its page, neither do the others. And if it is Strangeways, I think the list should be 4/4.
MIM, TQID, LTB, & the self-titeld debut are each on there -- SHWC isn't, neither is TWWL or HOH, so it should be 4/7; if you count Rank, then it's 4/8. Since there are plenty of other live albums included (i.e. Nirvana's Unplugged in New York), I am going to take the liberty of changing it to 4/8 & 50% right now. If anyone would like to change it, please reply here & let me know what's going on. Anthonylombardi 08:53, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Incorrect Listing

I know this is the wrong place to post it, but this is the most appropriate place I can think of. #344 is listed as being the album "Berlin" by Lou Reed. But if you check the website, #344 is "Piece of My Heart" by Big Brother and the Holding Company. In fact, no Lou Reed solo album is anywhere on that list (mistakenly, IM-not-so-HO). So, uh... how do you change that?

[edit] Copyright

The list itself isn't copyrighted at all. What is copyrighted though is the book. It's a massive book and each album has a little article written about it and also why it was picked for that position. It is these essays on the albums that are copyrighted. But even them we would be able to "quote" on this page, just like any other book. The list cannot be copyrighted for use here any more than a list of songs on the back of an album can be copyrighted for use here. And almost every album page on wikipedia has a list of songs taken from the back of the album. JayKeaton 12:11, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Contributors

The List is not the work of God, it's a composite of 273 people's lists. I think the most important piece of information of all is missing here: WHO WERE THE PEOPLE WHO MADE THE LIST? 273 people were deemed important enough to have their top 500 made part of the project, and I think we should include an at-least partial list of who they were, particularly the most well-known of them and the ones who are affiliated with the magazine.

[edit] statistics

someone should add: "First Albums".

[edit] The Beatles' American Albums

Since The Beatles have an American release included on the list, I think all of their pre-Sgt. Pepper's American releases should be factored into their album percentage — since they were the same albums with differing tracklistings. If Meet the Beatles is included, then obviously the differing American releases (again, before Sgt. Pepper's) should most definitely be factored in as they were eligible for consideration. If there are no objections within a week, I will take the liberty upon myself to fix this. ——Anthonylombardi 10:06, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../t/h/e/Talk%7EThe_500_Greatest_Albums_of_All_Time_a280.html"