http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20207076_20207387_20207337,00.html

Due to some of the tripe on the list (Amy Winehouse, Beyonce, friggen Mariah Carey), I can't call it a good list. However, it is interesting and I like some of the left field picks...that don't suck like the aformentioned three.

SInce EW is a major commefcial publication, you had to expect that a few choices would be left-field or very commercial, acts who don't usually fare all that well on such albums lists (Beyonce, Mariah Carey, Shania Twain and... Christina Aguilera?) But other than that, it's not a bad list- varied and definitely full of some great records.

Like a Prayer was shafted, but Ray of Light is present, so not a total loss. And, the Madonna debut album set the pace for all dance-pop to follow, so nice to see that one cited.

Slush - You sound like a music snob. Music doesn't have to be by white rock bands to have merit.

Kelly Clarkson would b another. Her single was big-time acclaimed for its year, but not her album.

come on now, some of these are very odd- but, hey, that makes em fun to criticize. :)

Oh Lord- I just noticed another one- the Britney album? Sweet Jeezus.

I notice it's always the pop/mainstream acts who get criticized for inclusion. Bias!

I actually like Kelly Clarkson and Beyonce...singles. I think their albums suck as a whole. Hell, I even like some Britney singles (okay, maybe just one), but this list is implying that "Britney" is better than "Automatic for the People" (which wasn't included).

But since apparently I only like white rock bands (news to me), I'll make sure to start a diatribe about how all the hip-hop albums on there like Illmatic (my #7 album of all time) should be removed. Maybe I need to amend all my posts to say "I like black music too" so people don't throw assumptions around.

Didn't Kanye West once say, "Slush doesn't care about black people"?

(ducks)

You know, I wanted a clever rebuttal, but this is all I could come up with:

I totally posted the wrong video. I was too busy listening to Michael McDonald's Motown album to pay attention:

what a joke. Its like there purposely putting classics besides terrible top40 albums just so they can sleep tonight. YOU SOLD OUT ETW....BIG TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!

First Off! I dont thing it's even up fpr dicusion in this particular bracket that OK COMPUTER should hold the number 1 position, and Arcade Fire's Funeral should at least be top 5.

NEON BIBLE
KID A
AMNESIAC
HAIL TO THE THIEF
YOSHIMI BATTLES THE PINK ROBOTS
RETURN TO COOKIE MOUNTAIN
NEBRASKA
SWORDFISH TROMBONES
MULE VARIATIONS
DESERTERS SONG

I could go on forever about the entries that deserved a mention more

worst list ive ever seen

Amy Whinehouse if far from tripe. She made the top 10 list for 07 and she'll probably rank higher if the list ever becomes updated.

Interesting list, although it is kinda weird to see "In Rainbows" way above "OK Computer". Both around the 70th spot would have been fine by me.

Of course there are some obvious omissions, but at least it's something different for a change.

Go Prince!

Its like there purposely putting classics besides terrible top40 albums just so they can sleep tonight. YOU SOLD OUT ETW....BIG TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!
Like I said, bias. You don't think mainstream CDs should even make a list, which shows you are more exclusive and judgmental than anyone.

Like I said, bias. You don't think mainstream CDs should even make a list, which shows you are more exclusive and judgmental than anyone.


How do you explain that obscure CDs don't make the list?

Sold out???? Isn't that what this magazine is all about? I was suprised out how good it was for Entertainment Weekly standards. I expected nothing less but was pleasantly suprised by some of the albums that were included on the list. You can't expect much for a magazine with Heidi and Spencer on the cover. Whoever they are.

mainstream pop albums- Madge is a regular presence on a lot of these but then again, she has more respect from the rock press, I s'pose, just because of the type of artist she's been and her musical chameleon approach.

It's the ones that literally are left-field selections- I have a lot less of a problem with an album like Emancipation of Mimi appearing on such a list compared to the Britney album- (since Mimi got a little bit of acclaim). Same for Kelly Clarkson- good enough pop album, but it's a left-field chpice for this type of list (it was the single that was very acclaimed).

Some *really* dumb inclusions there. And Alicia Keys' new album over Songs In A Minor? Wow. And In Rainbows over OK Computer?

Then way too much pop inclusions just so the readers recognize more of them and don't complain.

And Lauryn Hill at #2? She is so completely overrated it's absurd.

There are plenty of mainstream albums that belong on the list. But how do you put Life's Rich Pageant as the #1 REM album?

Songs In A Minor belongs on the list, but not freaking As I Am. There's plenty of mainstream that deserves to be listed, but with the tripe they tossed on this list they might as well have added the Spice Girls.

Oh, and one more thing.

If they were going to include Mariah Carey, shouldn't they have picked a Mariah Carey album with *any of her classics*? The album with "Always Be My Baby" and the one before that actually have some bona fide quality songs on them.

My thoughts..

Top 10: It's my bias showing but I think it's hard to call any album 3 years or less old "best" of the past 25. I just don't feel like it's had enough time to settle in and make you love it or loathe it properly. Casting that aside, I'd probably jettison 4 and 7 in favor of something like Jurassic 5's QUALITY CONTROL and Blackalicious' NIA if we're just trying to represent hip-hop.

I'd ditch the Clarkson..I like some individual tunes from it and it's OK but nothing I think of as "stellar". If they want a left-field pop pick that's not singled out, I'd go with Sheryl Crow's debut TUESDAY NIGHT MUSIC CLUB which in my opinion is a much stronger album overall than the self-titled in spite of the unfortunate "na na" song.

I'm glad they included the Dixie Chicks but I'd toss HOME in favor of FLY.

George Michael's FAITH is also a nice choice. I think it's actually a bit better than the more critically supported LISTEN WITHOUT PREJUDICE.

T.I., Britney and the Aguilera album are terrible picks. (Aguilera's the best of the 3 but that bloated double album doesn't present her the best, they could have gone with STRIPPED for that.)

Justin Timberlake is much worse than Christina. At least Xtina has those incredible pipes. Justin is all fluff and remixers trying to make him sound sexy. He's as sexy as the girls from Romeo Void singing "I Might Like You Better." I like Sheryl Crow's 2nd far better than her debut. It's much catchier and bluesier.

My two cents: I just picked up the issue of EW in which this list appears. It's their 1,000th issue, and the idea is that they've picked the top 100 movies, TV shows, albums, and books--plus some other stuff--since 1983 (the year the magazine started, I suppose).

There are some problems with all the lists.

First of all, they admit that for each musical artist (or movie director, or author) they include only one, or at most two, entries. Fair enough--it's their list--but that should be kept in mind.

Just to give you an idea, there are a lot of great movies on the movie list in there...but Titanic is #3. Dirty Dancing is on the list. And by my count, there are only four non-English language films (the highest ranked is Wings of Desire, at #28, right behind The Bourne Supremacy and Aliens...the others are Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Y Tu Mama Tambien, and In the Mood for Love).

The book list includes The Da Vinci Code, and does not include Foucault's Pendulum (or anything else by Eco). Nuff said.

In other words, the lists aren't terrible, but they include some questionable choices, almost all of which skew mainstream.

Spoiler alert: their top picks in the other lists are:

MOVIES: Pulp Fiction
TV: The Simpsons
BOOKS: The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

(At least all of those are defensible.)

it was limited to 1 (at most 2) per act.

Re Mariah Carey- if we're talking about her best albums, Emancipation would be one of them. That, or Butterfly- or her debut. The others? Nah. Emancipation is one that actually got more year-end acclaim than any of her albums- nothing new, really, just that she did her usual better than she had in a long time.

It was so nice of EW to postpone this pretentious filler issue of lists in order to pay their respects to Tim Russert. Oh wait, they never did that :-(

Simpsons is defensible if you assume it ended around 1995 or so. ;)

But, Songs In A Minor vs As I Am.

Both are mainstream, but Songs In A Minor is R&B/Soul whereas As I Am is just pop songs. The former is distinctive and beautiful, the latter is indistinct and overpolished. They went with As I Am because it's the Alicia Keys album on their reader's minds right at this moment.