About this Dataset

Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time

The RS 500 was assembled by the editors of Rolling Stone, based on the results of two extensive polls. In 2003, Rolling Stone asked a panel of 271 artists, producers, industry executives and journalists to pick the greatest albums of all time. In 2009, we asked a similar group of 100 experts to pick the best albums of the 2000s. From those results, Rolling Stone created this new list of the greatest albums of all time.

Source: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-156826/outkast-aquemini-2-155441/

UPDATED with Rolling Stone Album Rankings

Added album rankings from Rolling Stone. h/t Data is plural. A visual essay from The Pudding looks at what makes an album the greatest of all time, and shares the data they put together for the essay.

A new visual essay from The Pudding compares Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” lists from 2003, 2012, and 2020. A methodology note says the project began with a spreadsheet by Chris Eckert and eventually led the authors to develop a dataset of their own. Theirs lists every album in the rankings — its name, genre, release year, 2003/2012/2020 rank, the artist’s name, birth year, gender, and more — plus each year’s voters. [h/t Jason Kottke]

What are the characteristics of artists and genres popular at different times?

Data Dictionary

`rolling_stone.csv`

variable	class	description
sort_name	character	Name used for sorting
clean_name	character	Clean name
album	character	Album name
rank_2003	double	Rank in 2003. NA if album not released yet or not in top 500.
rank_2012	double	Rank in 2012. NA if album not released yet or not in top 500.
rank_2020	double	Rank in 2020. NA if not in top 500.
differential	double	2020-2003 Differential. Negative value if it went down in the chart. Positive value if it went up.
release_year	double	Release Year
genre	character	Album Genre
type	character	Album Type
weeks_on_billboard	double	Weeks on Billboard
peak_billboard_position	double	Peak Billboard Position
spotify_popularity	double	Spotify Popularity. NA if not on Spotify.
spotify_url	character	Spotify URL. NA if not on Spotify.
artist_member_count	double	Number of artists in the group
artist_gender	character	Gender of the artist(s). Male/Female if it's a mixed-gender group.
artist_birth_year_sum	double	Sum of the artists birth year. e.g. for a 2 member group, with one person born 1945 and another 1950, the value is 3895.
debut_album_release_year	double	Debut Album Release Year
ave_age_at_top_500	double	Average age at top 500 Album
years_between	double	Years Between Debut and Top 500 Album
album_id	character	Album ID. NOS at the beginning of the ID if not on Spotify.

Tables

Rolling Stone

@kaggle.joebeachcapital_rolling_stones_500_greatest_albums_of_all_time.rolling_stone

92.09 KB
691 rows
21 columns


CREATE TABLE rolling_stone (
  "sort_name" VARCHAR,
  "clean_name" VARCHAR,
  "album" VARCHAR,
  "rank_2003" DOUBLE,
  "rank_2012" DOUBLE,
  "rank_2020" DOUBLE,
  "differential" BIGINT,
  "release_year" BIGINT,
  "genre" VARCHAR,
  "type" VARCHAR,
  "weeks_on_billboard" DOUBLE,
  "peak_billboard_position" BIGINT,
  "spotify_popularity" DOUBLE,
  "spotify_url" VARCHAR,
  "artist_member_count" DOUBLE,
  "artist_gender" VARCHAR,
  "artist_birth_year_sum" DOUBLE,
  "debut_album_release_year" DOUBLE,
  "ave_age_at_top_500" DOUBLE,
  "years_between" DOUBLE,
  "album_id" VARCHAR
);