Well, I suppose I've been listening too much to the likes of Sonic Youth or Talk Talk and now even Pavement seems mainstream to me. Still, it is a good deal more accessible the most other indie classics. Also, music lists need to be interesting. If you're going to make the same old boring list with all the classic rock albums and no surprise selections, no obscure favourites or hate'em-or-love'em controversial picks don't make one at all.
of course some albums (the likely suspects) are gonna pop up on a number of lists. How would they get to be as acclaimed as they are if they didn't? :) Can't have every list being drastically varied and such!
What's the deal with the R.E.M. albums? Document and Out of Time over Murmur and Automatic for the People? Document I can live with, but Out of Time? Bizarre...
The 00's is an absoloute joke. Most of them are just old compilatiosn. Which for one are not even albums, and when will RS and Time learn that it's 2006 and not 1979 FFS!!!
have to do with anything? They're broken down by decades, so each decade is represented. Looks like the 70s have more albums than the 80s + 90s, but the music overall probabluy was stronger- it's tough to be as innovative and fresh as time goes by, after all.
Although I agree with most of your comments, I don't think this list is so bad. Since it's not from a music magazine, I think it's OK with a predictable list. After all, these are great records and a lot of people reading TIME have probably not heard about all of them before.