RYM
1. The Beatles - Revolver
2. Radioead - OK Computer
3. The Beatles - Abbey Road
4. The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground & Nico
5. Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited
6. Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
7. Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
8. Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
9. David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust...
10. The Beatles - The Beatles [White Album]
AM
1. The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
2. The Beatles - Revolver
3. Nirvana - Nevermind
4. The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground & Nico
5. The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
6. Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde
7. The Rolling Stones - Exile on Main St.
8. Marvin Gaye - What's Going On
9. Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks
10. The Clash - London Calling
Which 10 would you take to the desert island, AM's or RYM's?
AM, definitely, though I would miss Kind of Blue.
Switch out Never Mind the Bollocks & Blonde on Blonde with Kind of Blue & Highway 61, that would be great.
I think I'd take RYM though I'd miss Sgt. Pepper's, Pet Sounds, and London Calling like crazy. But The White Album should provide tons of entertainment, there's just so much stuff on there.
RYM. I'd miss Pet Sounds but OK Computer, Abbey Road, DSOTM and Kind of Blue is too good to pass up.
I would also take RYM. In my opinion, it comes down to OK Computer, Abbey Road, and Wish You Were Here combined are better than Pet Sounds and London Calling.
AM
AM no question. I love OKC and Highway 61, but they're no Sgt. Peppers or Nevermind. Also, I don't like Pink Floyd, so the two punk albums are much better for me.
AM, definitely. I'd have no use for those two Pink Floyd albums, and I'm so bored with OK Computer. Not sure about Kind of Blue, either. So definitely AM.
RYM
1. The Beatles - Revolver
2. Radioead - OK Computer
3. The Beatles - Abbey Road
4. The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground & Nico
5. Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited
6. Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
7. Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
8. Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
9. David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust...
10. The Beatles - The Beatles [White Album]
AM
1. The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
2. The Beatles - Revolver
3. Nirvana - Nevermind
4. The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground & Nico
5. The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
6. Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde
7. The Rolling Stones - Exile on Main St.
8. Marvin Gaye - What's Going On
9. Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks
10. The Clash - London Calling
1 album I don't much care for on each (OK COMPUTER and NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS...) but I like BOLLOCKS better so AM gets the nod. Plus as a huge Beach Boys fan, I gotta have my PET SOUNDS.
Can I have RYM #1-5 and AM #6-10?
Wait, Wish You Were Here is the 8th best album of all time to the RYM community? haha what a joke. And don't get me wrong, I love that album.
I'd take RYM, despite it having three Beatles albums (which is either one or two too many in a top 10, depending on the day) and the presence of Wish You Were Here, which as Sean points out, is a bit suspect -- even though the album is one of my favorites, it's not top 10 material.
I think it's interesting to compare the two lists; heck, the two sites for that matter. AM and RYM... it's like professional criticism vs. personal criticism.
It begs the question:
If you had to pick between a list of 10 albums generated as the result of purely professional critical consensus, or 10 albums generated as a result of purely personal critical consensus... (I'm being a bit idealistic here that both sites, AM and RYM, operate on this premise, which they don't) ... AND YOU HAD NO IDEA WHAT EACH LIST CONTAINED ... which list would you choose?
What's with kids these days and prog rock? That's so weird.
I don't know if this surprises you, but I would actually go with RYM. But if the lists had been made longer I'm sure I would have chosen AM instead.
RYM is interesting because it's based on thousands of ratings by people over the years so I think it's legit. Progarchives is like RYM but it's only for Progressive Rock to Proto-Prog albums in which many of the same albums are on AM.
AM
For me, you can set up an item for item comparison that AM wins, except for the last comparison which doesn't really count because it's one I am neutral to versus one I actively dislike.
Blonde On Blonde > OK Computer
Exile > Highway 61
London Calling > Abbey Road
Nevermind > Ziggy Stardust
Pet Sounds > White Album
Sgt Pepper > Kind of Blue
What's Going On > Dark Side Of The Moon
Bollocks <<< Wish You Were Here
(VU = VU, Revolver = Revolver)
Difficult choice but... AM!! (since I couldn't possibly survive on a desert island's BEACH WITHOUT PET SOUNDS... ;) )
Checking my top 10, along with VU & Nico, which is in both lists, there are 2 (Sgt. Pepper and Pet Sounds) on AM, and 1 (Dark Side of the Moon) on RYM, so AM wins
RYM and it's not even close. AM contains, imo, five of the most overrated albums of all time (Nevermind, Sgt. Pepper, What's Going On, Bollcoks, and London Calling).
OK Computer, Kind of Blue, Ziggy, Abbey Road and the White Album more than make the RYM list worth it.
AM without a doubt. Pet Sounds seals the deal anyway, but I also prefer the list as a whole.
The AM top ten is quite special to me also; I can remember when I started at #2 (I was attracted here since Pet Sounds was my favourite album) and listened through the top 100 albums for the first time over a summer a few years ago. Lots of those albums are connected in strange ways for me now, where I'd have put 2 or 3 on my iPod and gone for a long walk along the coast, and they'd all clicked with me in a short space of time. Marvin Gaye's What's Going On and Patti Smith's Horses for instance: completely different, yet I'll always associate the two of them from listening to them together for the first few times. Weird.
AM by far, though i wish i could take abbey road instead of sgt peppers.
Does anyone know why the rankins don't always match up with the ratings on Rate Your Music. For example, it's showing OK Computer as the number 2 album of all time with a rating of 4.37, but Abbey Road as number 3 with a rating of 4.44.
I believe that it is a weighted average (also based on number of votes), so OK Computer probably has more votes than Abbey Road and thus is higher.