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Yes, Apple’s 100 Best Albums List Is Ridiculous and Exists Almost Expressly to Make You Mad
As long as it prompts you to stream something, Apple's 100 Greatest Albums list is fine with making you angry with its randomness and recency bias.
To quote the Internet in the hours since the final top 10 was released: I demand satisfaction, sir!… on behalf of the Who, Sly and the Family Stone, Frank Sinatra, Van Morrison, Tom Petty, Dua Lipa, Paul Simon with and without Garfunkel, Johnny Cash, Fiona Apple, Ray Charles, Shakira, Queen, Willie Nelson, Al Green, ABBA, Elvis Presley, Elvis Costello, Janelle Monae, Billie Holiday, Liz Phair, Alicia Keys, R.E.M., Juanes, Randy Newman, Curtis Mayfield, Childish Gambino, Ella Fitzgerald, Leonard Cohen and effin’ Kylie… Just to put it back into the rock realm for a moment: What chance did the Who, one of the key album acts of all time, have of landing “Tommy,” “Who’s Next” or “Quadropenia” on the list, when those opuses had to man up and face the clearly superior 21st-century likes of the Strokes and Arctic Monkeys? Leaving the host org’s obvious commercial considerations out of it, it’s reasonable to say that any survey that cuts across this wide a swath of genres and generations is inadvisable, this late into the history of popular music.
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