Time's 100 Best Albums of All-Time

Best of lists tend to float through the air this time of year like confetti at a wedding, with everyone pitching in. Time Magazine has offered their own version of the best of list, but rather than going with the year in review, they want to span "all time."

The short-lived Gear Magazine did such a thing back in early 1999, as if to offer a perspective on twentieth century popular music. There is no readily apparent rationale for Time choosing 2006 as a year of retrospection. Furthermore, the Gear list also acknowledged that the idea of the "album" only existed since the mid-1940s, and with all practicality, only began in the 1950s. The only real recognition that Time gives in this direction is through it's selection of a Hank Williams Best of Compilation, an artist who largely recorded singles only. However, the Time list is viewwed sort of a-historically, even though its arranged by decade. Rather than suggesting the most important/influtential albums of the decade, the Time list is comes off as more a recommendation of what to buy. Rather than trying to decide which album or album's of Elvis Presley are "important" why not just buy Elvis: 30 No.1 Hits, or Sunrise, ditto for Sam Cooke, Muddy Waters, or Phil Spector. It's like saying the Immaculate Collection is somehow more important than Like a Prayer in the larger scheme of Madonna's career and popular culture in general. We don't think anyone is out there hiding copies of Elvis: 30 No. 1 Hits under their mattress afraid of it being found by their parents.

So what does one get then in Time's 100? Given the amount of overlap between the two despite the seven year gap, there seems to be a consensus growing as to a musical "canon" for popular culture. The Beatles top the list with five albums, six (or maybe a half) if you throw in the Plastic Ono Band. Dylan's down for three and a host of groups have two: James Brown, David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, Radiohead, U2, Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis, aretha Franklin, and Prince. Hard Rockers aghast that the Stones only have two entries and Zeppelin and the Who only have one apiece (and it ain't Tommy) can take some comfort in the fact that Black Sabbath finally makes it onto such a list. Also surprising is the inclusion of Dj Shadow's Entroducing, an album that is still a perennial fave at The Daily Office. More baffling than surprising is the exclusion of the Smiths in favour of The Stone Roses. Most people would have this the otherway around.

Such lists though are often notable more for what is not on the list than on it. The compilers make much of the fact that they give Pink Floyd the snub, as they do the Grateful Dead, but more troubling perhaps is the omission of a single electronic or dance album. Jazz is represented by Miles Davis and John Coltrane, while the Ella Fitzerald Songbook is absent. Clearly Time is not a lover of jazz. Meanwhile, is one to assume that that the naming of Garth Brooks as the lone country album of the last twenty years is to agree that Time also wants to avoid the morass that is New Country? While punk is represented by The Ramones, The Sex Pistols and The Clash, one could argue for the inclusion of Iggy Pop's Raw Power or the Buzzcocks, but one has to wonder if Green Day's American Idiot would show up if the pollsters were five years younger.

Finally, 1971, a year that saw famed rock critic Lester Bangs lament the death of rock, has nine albums from it alone . . .