A Little Background

This blog is an ongoing review of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, as published by Rolling Stone Magazine. The list that I am using is their updated 2012 list, and it can be found here (or here if you prefer pdf).

This list was compiled by people who have careers based off of music, but I may not agree with everything on or not on the list. That is one of the great things about music. While there are certain objective aspects about music that can be quantifiably ranked (album sales, quality of writing, musical complexity, etc.), much of what we love about music comes down to taste and preference. My brother and I are both bewildered that our favorite band, the Canadian rock trio RUSH, is not on this list, but U2 (ugh) made it on 5 times.

Inevitably notes like this will pop up over the course of this blog. There are some albums on the list that I am not a huge fan of. There are also a lot–and I mean a lot–of albums that I have never heard. Some I will fall in love with and others I will find absolutely terrible. Some albums may seem to have not withstood the test of time. And sometimes you, the reader, will absolutely and totally disagree with what I have to say.

So before we get started, here are a few notes on how this is going to go down:

1. I will be writing about these albums from #500 to #1
2. Blogs will be published about once a week. This is a hobby for me, not a job. Even publishing one a week this will still keep me busy for almost 10 years.
3. I will be listening to each album at least two times before writing. There is no specific reason for this, but I do want consistency in the blog (exceptions to this may be made for terrible albums and U2 (ugh)).
   Edit: Each album will get at least 3 listens. Even the ones I don’t like. I don’t get enough out of the first 2 listens to give a fair review.
4. This is meant to be fun, not authoritative! If I am poking fun at a band or album that you love, it is not meant to be cruel, and it does not mean that the album/band that you love actually does suck (though I will likely claim that it does). I’m not a music expert, just someone who enjoys music and wants to write about it in a way that I enjoy.
5. Grammar. Listen, I grammar is important, and I appreciate that. However, I am not a grammar expert and will likely have some typos and bad English word writing errors. Other times I will intentionally write in a sort of slang that may make grammar police cringe. The purpose of this blog is not to write amazing prose. It is to entertain (mostly to entertain myself, I might add).

All that being said, I hope that you enjoy.