Top 3000 Albums of All Time
If you have been reading my reviews about Acclaimed Music’s Top 3000 Albums of All Time, then congratulations, you have listened to 1% of the entire list. Although a lot of ground has been covered, there’s a long way to go, yet. Nonetheless, having crossed this small threshold, I want to re-iterate the reasons I’m reviewing this list of albums, as much for myself, as for you.
Top 3000 Albums of All Time
I’ve listened to a little over half this list (ballpark of 1700 albums), from tried and true rock to more obscure genres like Bulgarian Folk and Pre-Industrial Ambient, not to mention the first Punk album ever and so much more. The more I listen, the more I’m convinced that greatness is not objective; it doesn’t exist unto itself. This may be common knowledge intellectually, but practically, it’s a different story.
We’ve entered an age of weaponized opinions: think pieces, clickbait, and editorials all meant to give legitimacy to opinion as facts. It’s made the world, if not a worse place, then a lot more complicated. Opinions are not facts; opinions are stories; and it is increasingly common for people to use facts to be right, rather than to provide an alternative point of view.
So, moving forward, I want you to know that I’m not right; I’m not the final voice. There should be no final voice. These are my thoughts, my story, and my feelings. There is nothing objective about them. I love a huge portion of this list and that grows regularly, the more I listen. I also hate a lot of records on this list. The further on we go, the more hateful I will be. I want you to know that I don’t consider my opinion definitive. By hating some of the greatest albums of all time, I can establish my point concretely.
The more I listen, the more I’m convinced that greatness is not objective; it doesn’t exist unto itself.
In the end, I want you to think for yourself. I want you to be conscientious, and formulate your opinions and allow those opinions to be valid, not right. I want harmony, and harmony requires tension; it requires balance. We have 2,970 records to talk about, and agreement isn’t satisfying, but neither is arguing.
Before I go, I want to leave you with the following thought—the following riff—to chew on as we descend from the mountain’s peak: the sun is not responsible for the beauty of the sunset. The sun is not responsible for a hot summer day; it is not responsible for cold winters. The sun never moves. It is the earth, in all its complicated beauty, spinning crazily along its axis, that does those things.
We’ve seen 30 suns so far, let’s see how the other 2,970 hold up.
Thank you for reading, until I finish this list.
Eric
