Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, Magazine Cover, November 2003.

The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time is the cover story of a special issue of Rolling Stone magazine published in November 2003.^[1] The list was based on the votes of 273 rock musicians, critics and industry figures, each of whom submitted a weighted list of 50 albums. Various music genres were featured in the list, including pop, rock, country, ska, punk, heavy metal, soul, blues, folk, jazz, hip hop, and combinations thereof. The accounting firm Ernst & Young devised a point system to weigh votes for 1,600 submitted titles.^[2]

The list was released in book form in 2005, with an introduction written by Steven Van Zandt. The book's list was slightly different, explained in the editor's foreword as the removal of some compilation albums and the consolidation of the two LPs of Robert Johnson's King of the Delta Blues Singers into The Complete Recordings. They also replaced Elvis Presley's The Sun Sessions with Sunrise (album) making room for eight additional albums on the list.

The list also includes many compilations such as "greatest hits" collections and soundtracks.

[edit] Top 10 albums

[edit] Artists with the most albums in the list

(Numbers in parentheses represent actual number of studio albums by the artist while the other represents the number published by artist as the list was being decided. Actual number is subject to change without update.)

• 11 The Beatles (with 4 in the top 10) – 10 of their 12 studio albums along with U.S. exclusive "Meet The Beatles!" (12)^[3]
• 10 Bob Dylan (with 2 in the top 10) – 10 of his 31 studio albums (34)
• 10 The Rolling Stones (with 1 in the top 10) – 10 of their 21 studio albums (25)
• 8 Bruce Springsteen – 8 of his 12 studio albums (16)
• 7 The Who – 6 of their 10 studio albums (11); 1 live album
• 6 David Bowie – 5 of his 22 studio albums (25); 1 compilation album
• 6 Elton John – 5 of his 27 studio albums (29); 1 compilation album
• 5 Led Zeppelin – 5 of their 9 studio albums
• 5 Neil Young - 5 of his 29 studio albums;(33)
• 5 U2 – 5 of their 10 studio albums (12)
• 5 Bob Marley and the Wailers
• 4 Pink Floyd - 4 of their 14 studio albums
• 4 The Velvet Underground has 4 of their 5 studio albums on the list.
• 4 Madonna - 3 of 8 studio albums (11); 1 compilation
• 4 Talking Heads- 3 of their 8 albums; 1 live album

[edit] Number of albums from each decade

• 1950s and earlier – 29 albums (5.8%)^[4]
• 1960s – 126 (25.2%) (with 7 of the top 10)^[5]
• 1970s – 183 (36.6%) (with 3 of the top 10)^[6]
• 1980s – 88 (17.6%)^[7]
• 1990s – 61 (12.2%)^[8]
• 2000s – 13 (2.6%)^[9]

[edit] External links

• The list on the Rolling Stone website.

[edit] References