[samdjstephens]

Is there such a thing as an objective album ranking? Especially when you consider the shifting landscape of music over time. Actually forget the shifting landscape of music, consider the shifting landscape of people - theres been significant generational change since 2003, doesn't it make sense that albums move up and down the ranking as their relevance increases or decreases? It doesn't surprise me at all that Marvin Gaye would have gone up the ranking.

edit: I think it's also worth asking the question of what role race played in the degree to which an artist or group was heralded "at the time".

[coldtea]

>Is there such a thing as an objective album ranking?

No, but there's such thing as a "somewhat objective album ranking".

>Actually forget the shifting landscape of music, consider the shifting landscape of people - theres been significant generational change since 2003, doesn't it make sense that albums move up and down the ranking as their relevance increases or decreases?

Not when it hasn't change that much for 3 decades prior...

>It doesn't surprise me at all that Marvin Gaye would have gone up the ranking.

As if Marvin Gaye represents some new taste/genre? It's as old or older as a lot of the stuff it went above in ranking.

And it's not like 2020 sensibilities are somehow closer to Joni Mitchel's Blue suddenly over, say, Velvet Underground (which, iirc, got dropped in ranking).

[CydeWeys]

> No, but there's such thing as a "somewhat objective album ranking".

Is there? Can you expand on the methodology? All the somewhat objective ranking methodologies I can think of rely on data sources such as top-sellers lists, which would result in not a ranking of best albums but rather of highest selling ones. "Best" is inherently subjective in my estimation. About the best you can do for that is figure out which albums the largest number of people would consider best (but now you have absolutely massive familiarity and sampling biases to contend with).

[samdjstephens]

> No, but there's such thing as a "somewhat objective album ranking".

I wouldn't disagree with that, I'm sure all of the various versions of this list by RS are "somewhat objective"

> Not when it hasn't change that much for 3 decades prior...

That's an interesting point - but look at the last decade: western society has been going through some turmoil, change is happening faster in some areas

> As if Marvin Gaye represents some new taste/genre? It's as old or older as a lot of the stuff it went above in ranking. > > And it's not like 2020 sensibilities are somehow closer to Joni Mitchel's Blue suddenly over, say, Velvet Underground (which, iirc, got dropped in ranking).

I think Marvin Gaye is more relevant to modern tastes (and therefore universal tastes) than the Beatles, for example. But yes, that doesn't explain all, or even most, of the shift in the rankings.

[SECProto]

>No, but there's such thing as a "somewhat objective album ranking".

What objective criteria do you think should be used to do the ranking? Number of chord progressions used? Variety of instruments on the album? Lingual diversity? Or maybe the inverse of one of these criteria would be better? Point being, even choosing an evaluation criteria is subjective.

The only semi-objective criteria I can think of would be the number of other albums/musicians it influenced - but this is basically a meta-ranking.

Aside, for the record, I wouldn't have Sgt Pepper anywhere near my top ten "greatest albums", but What's Goin On and Pet Sounds can stay.