The Top 20 Albums of All Time
http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/yradish/15499/
This list of The Top 20 Albums of All Time is as much about the business of music sales as it is about the quality of music--and the Y! Radish admits that much in his article.
All 20 albums come from a 23-year time span, starting with the Beatles' Abbey Road and White Album in 1968 and ending with Nirvana and Metallica in 1991. Nine of the Top 20 albums are from the 1970s and six are from the 1980s.
Does that mean there was no great music before 1968 or after 1991? Of course not. But before 1968 there simply weren't enough people buying albums to make it on this list--they were buying 45s. And after 1991, music sales for any single album dropped because there were so many more albums to choose from.
Also, country music took off in the 1990s. Shania Twain, Garth Brooks, and the Dixie Chicks are on the list of 72, but they haven't been around long enough to make it on the Top 20 list. They haven't been around long enough to have the staying power necessary for the formula he uses. And by the 2000s, digital file sharing began to decrease overall album sales.
So, this list is really a history of the LP concept album--the 10-12 songs on two sides of vinyl that people would listen to with friends at a party or while doing homework. Just as the LP album put AM radio and the 45 single out of business beginning in the late 1960s, the compact disc, and then the MP3, put the LP out of business as a music format by the early 1990s.
This list of The Top 20 Albums of All Time is as much about the business of music sales as it is about the quality of music--and the Y! Radish admits that much in his article.
All 20 albums come from a 23-year time span, starting with the Beatles' Abbey Road and White Album in 1968 and ending with Nirvana and Metallica in 1991. Nine of the Top 20 albums are from the 1970s and six are from the 1980s.
Does that mean there was no great music before 1968 or after 1991? Of course not. But before 1968 there simply weren't enough people buying albums to make it on this list--they were buying 45s. And after 1991, music sales for any single album dropped because there were so many more albums to choose from.
Also, country music took off in the 1990s. Shania Twain, Garth Brooks, and the Dixie Chicks are on the list of 72, but they haven't been around long enough to make it on the Top 20 list. They haven't been around long enough to have the staying power necessary for the formula he uses. And by the 2000s, digital file sharing began to decrease overall album sales.
So, this list is really a history of the LP concept album--the 10-12 songs on two sides of vinyl that people would listen to with friends at a party or while doing homework. Just as the LP album put AM radio and the 45 single out of business beginning in the late 1960s, the compact disc, and then the MP3, put the LP out of business as a music format by the early 1990s.
posted by Daniel | 5:21 AM
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