NME's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time

The old and dusty U2 fan in me is screaming like a screamapillar. How could someone dare to pick just one U2 record in a Top 500 albums of all time chart? Relegating it at #424? And it's not even Achtung Baby! Well, that's not the only blasphemy of this NME Top 500, a very recent chart (october). So recent that it even already includes some 2013 albums, like Arctic Monkeys' AM and Daft Punk's Random Access Memories.

NME staff made some very different choices from the famous Rolling Stone's Top500 (spotified a long time ago, I should update it...) and from any usual strongly-sixties-oriented all time list: here we have far more British artists, more contemporary bands and some really bold moves, like putting Rolling Stones out of the Top 20 (and Arctic Monkeys, Strokes, Arcade Fire, Pulp, PJ Harvey and My Bloody Valentine in).

At the end, I kind of like it. You may not agree with NME choices (I don't agree with many of them...), but this list has the pleasant sound of a kill-the-old-idols manifesto. In a retromaniac world like the one we're living in, filled with oh-so-boring voices repeating that 60s and 70s were better and that we're all doomed, it's good to meet a different vision of the things. So, at least for one playlist (a 374-hour long one), fuck the screamapillar and welcome to a Britannia-ruled fantasy.

Enjoy (below the playlist, I put some more data, stats and comparisons between NME and RS chart)

NME'S THE 500 GREATEST ALBUMS OF ALL TIME

(5854 tracks, 374 hours, 470 albums available on Spotify, from #500 to #1)

EXTRA DATA AND STATS

You can browse the full NME 500 list here.

How many albums NME Top500 share with Rolling Stone Top500?

The full charts, I don't know. But in first 50 positions I counted just 18 shared superclassics: 

Revolver by The Beatles

Velvet Underground & Nico by Velvet Underground & Nico

White Album by The Beatles

Horses by Patti Smith

Nevermind by Nirvana

It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back by Public Enemy

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust... by David Bowie

Exile on Main Street by The Rolling Stones

What's Going On by Marvin Gaye

Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys

Abbey Road by The Beatles

Blood on the Tracks by Bob Dylan

Forever Changes by Love

Never Mind the Bollocks... by Sex Pistols

London Calling by The Clash

Rubber Soul by The Beatles

Innervsions by Stevie Wonder

Rumours by Fleetwood Mac.

And they definitely do not agree on the #1: Rolling Stone picked The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (#87 on NME chart), while NME chose The Smiths' The Queen Is Dead (#218 on Rolling Stone's).

Further visual evidence of the difference between the two charts: albums distribution by years (Top100).

Rolling Stone Greatest 500 (top 100 albums)

NME Greatest 500 (top 100 albums)

Finally, NME500 albums I haven't found on Spotify: 

#492 Hidden (These New Puritans)
#443 Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle (Bill Callahan)
#401 20 Jazz Funk Greats (Throbbing Gristle)
#386 Revival (Gillian Welch)
#373 There's No Place Like America Today (Curtis Mayfield)
#372 Big Black (Atomizer)
#365 Fresh Fruit For Rotten Vegetables (Dead Kennedys)
#337 The Grey Album (Danger Mouse)
#297 Ege Bamyasi (Can)
#279 Trout Mask Replica (Captain Beefheart & His Magical Band)
#264 Please Please Me (The Beatles)
#253 Exile On Main St. (Pussy Galore)
#231 The Chronic (Dr. Dre)
#227 Imagine (John Lennon)
#197 Back In Black (AC/DC)
#195 A Hard Day's Night (The Beatles)
#191 Elastica (Elastica)
#173 Led Zeppelin III (Led Zeppelin)
#169 Don't Stand Me Down (Dexys Midnight Runners)
#142 Histoire de Melody Nelson (Serge Gainsbourg)
#138 Illinois (Sufjan Stevens)
#133 John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band)
#120 3 Feet High and Rising (De La Soul)
#106 Led Zeppelin IV (Led Zeppelin)
#87 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (The Beatles)
#83 The Band (The Band)
#59 In Rainbows (Radiohead)
#43 Rubber Soul (The Beatles)
#34 Abbey Road (The Beatles)
#9 White Album (The Beatles)

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