Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums Music Club

I actually downloaded the previous Top 500 list years ago and burned through quite a few of them. It turned me onto a lot of albums I otherwise would probably never have listened to. I also listened to a lot of crap like Captain Beefheart so it evened out. If there's one thing I learned from that attempt though it's this; try as I might, I just don't care for The Rolling Stones.

But Little Richard is so damn cool. This album is great too.

I found the album on youtube if any of you old folks don't do Spotify like me.

www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLowQCq3Ss89iNsiSM0_jyTd21KWIopVQ_

Speaking of bonus tracks, here’s an alternate version of Miss Ann. Much better in my opinion. Doomsday/Dracula, any thoughts?

Well they can't all be hits.

My first exposure to Little Richard did come from that weird stretch in the 90s when he basically became a performer for children.  I think he did that expecting it would spread his music to a new generation but in a lot of ways it kind of made them take him for granted and not realize how much of an innovative and explosive performer he was in his heyday.  It wasn't until MUCH later in life that I realized how far back his career went and that he was a contemporary of Elvis and Chuck Berry and that he probably moved the genre forward even more than they did.

I'll always have a soft spot for Casper

As I had mentioned earlier, Little Richard has always been someone that was easy to take for granted when he was in fact an incredibly innovative artist.  Like, you look back and you hear these stories about white parents freaking out about Elvis and Bo Diddly and it's hard to get what they found so offensive about them but when you look at some of the older footage of Little Richard you can at least slightly better understand why the squares would view rock and roll as being this wild and sort of sexually aggressive music given how emphatically the dude is wailing. 

Elvis was still prone to singing ballads and the like which the Sinatra crowd could sort of half understand, but Little Richard really seemed to go for the throat with each song.  Listening to this album you start to see that Richard he was pretty fully formed right from the beginning of his career.  

The album is forever remembered for two singles: Tutti Frutti, which leads off side one and Long Tall Sally, which leads off side two.  The latter song is the best song on the album, a song that really makes you want to kill invisible aliens in the jungle.  Tutti Frutti is a song that I'm pretty sure was used to sell fruit flavored candy to kids in the 90s but whose original pre-recording lyrics were about homosexual sex (Tutti Frutti, good booty
/If it's tight, it's all right/And if it's greasy, it makes it easy).  That was of course cleaned up to "Tutti Frutti, aw rooty" with "aw rooty" essentially meaning "All righty" but the wild rock was still there.  

Lesser singles here include Slippin' and Slidin' and Jenny Jenny, and the one that was probably the biggest discovery was probably Ready Teddy, which as these almost a cappella breakdowns where he really seems to be in a groove.  The album does suffer a bit from a lack of variety and I can kind of see that as an issue with his larger career.  Dude was maybe a bit of a one-trick pony.  That combined with a rather ill-timed conversion to born-again Christianity probably did hamper his career and kept him from truely thriving outside of that initial Rock-a-billy explosion, but he definitely left his mark.

Is there a pop song with a greater longetivity than Tutti Frutti?

I just got done with Zoom drinks and I'm blasting it.

This is my third time through the album since Drac's post.

I played piano for 10 yrs growing up and somethings always impressed me about a rock pianist, in any form. The way he plays- it's indebted to blues, yes.... but its jazz. He's clearly improvising shit on the spot. It's delightful.

Like Neverending, I'm a Playlist junkie. Everytime I'd go to a poker game with friends, I'd always be working on a Playlist in the month leading up. Adding mostly new songs to me to the list, getting to 100 songs max, and re-whittling it down on my commutes.

I'm gonna introduce a segment to my review posts.

Lesser-Known Songs from this Album that have made my playlist:

True, Fine Mama
Ready Teddy

Feel free to add your selections and I'll create a collaborative Spotify Playlist for us all.

Drac, do you know if there's a nonclickbait layout of the list anywhere?

Led Zeppelin’s first appearance on the list is in the 58 spot with Led Zeppelin IV. There are many, many albums in 1-57 that aren’t as good as Led Zeppelin IV and that isn’t even their best album.

And Joni Mitchell at #3? Fleetwood Mac at #7? Please tell me these aren’t ranked.

I see they’re still overrating Pet Sounds.

Nirvana at #6? lol.

Prince is not better than Michael Jackson.

Public Enemy does not have the greatest rap album of all time.

For fucks sake. They put Biggie in the Top 25. They couldn’t have swapped it with Public Enemy? They had to insult our intelligence.

Sgt Pepper went from #1 (or was it #2) to #24. Abbey Road and Revolver are now seen as better.

Is Lemonade really Beyoncé best album? I’ll take Destiny Child over solo career Beyoncé.

Dr. Dre at #37. Oh... my... God. Give me a list of everyone who voted for Public Enemy so I can beat them up, door to door, Jay and Silent Bob style.

Nas at #44. And they still have the balls to say Public Enemy is better.

Aquemini is the best Outkast album? I must have missed the meeting in which this was decided.

I must be blind or something cause I haven’t seen Eminem yet but Eric B & Rakim are at 61.

NWA at 70. 70. Apparently, Eric B & Rakim are better than NWA.

Drake made the Top 100. Drake?

Queen at 128. 128? Really? ... Really?

Oh, hey, there’s Eminem. At 145. 145. I owe PG Cooper an apology. This has surpassed his Disney list as the worst list I’ve ever seen.

Why is Rolling Stone obsessed with Aretha Franklin? All her albums are scattered throughout this list. She has one song that people give a shit about. But, you know, Eminem has the 145th greatest album of all time.

D’Angelo made the list. D’Angelo. You know. The naked guy from that one video. Do Zoomers even know who D’Angelo is? When D’Angelo walks down the street, do people even recognize him?

Michael Jackson’s Bad is the 194th greatest album of all time. Every single Aretha Franklin album is better than Michael Jackson’s Bad.

Eric B & Rakim crack the Top 100. But 209 is the best that Run DMC can do.

Randy Newman made the list. Ahead of Frank Sinatra. Is he on Twitter? Someone should let him know.

I love how they have compilation albums for some artists but not for others. They could have spared us so many Aretha Franklin albums.

Another D’Angelo album? D’Angelo is having sex with someone at Rolling Stone.

Billie Eilish made the list.

Tupac at 436. So let me get this straight. Prince > Michael Jackson and Biggie > Tupac. I’m glad this was finally settled.

Britney Spears made the list. For her 2007 album. Wow.

Ram is Paul McCartney’s best album. Dracula, I toldja that album was popular now.

Juvenile at 470. They’re just trolling us now.

Born This Way is Lady Gaga’s best album. Hot take.

Arcade Fire cracks the list at 500.

So I see Billie Eilish but not Lizzo? Britney Spears but not Christina Aguilera? Lady Gaga but not Katy Perry. Man, could have solved this if you didn’t put every damn Aretha Franklin album on the list.

Not if you’re gonna put Tupac at #436. Apparently, the Pet Shop Boys are better than Tupac.

I’d be curious to see who voted for this. Who votes in Britney Spears and then picks the album she did in the middle of a very public mental breakdown. That’s some serious trolling. Or someone really loves the movie Hustlers.