[A] The list you cite, "2020 Rolling Stone 500 Ballot Exercises," was just that. I probably have a couple dozen similar exercises scattered about the website. They were never intended as having any lasting value. The only ones I've ever returned to are my original "database," built around 2000 (based on an earlier text file, since lost, but going back to the late 1980s), which I've maintained regularly (despite its poor design), and the "1,000 Albums" piece you also cite, which I compiled in 2008 but have since added a few albums to (most recently in 2020). Most of these exercises are just checklists: I start with someone else's list, then check off which records I have heard, note my grades, and try to listen to some of the records I had missed (sometimes updating the lists for a while, but never more than a few months).

I've never bothered indexing these lists, because I don't see them as having any lasting value. The only reason I've updated the "1,000 Albums" list is because I offer a link to it on my music index page, having found it useful to refer people to. But such a list was never authoritative, even at the time (when I had 15,000 albums graded, less than half of my current 35,000), not could it be. Ratings are just approximations, and are rarely comparable. Even a compulsive listmaker like myself can hardly be expected to be consistent (let alone complete), even in the moment, let alone over time.

The Rolling Stone exercise winds up with 50 non-jazz, 50 jazz, 50 artist compilations, and 30 various artists compilations, so 180 albums. I can't quite reconstruct the logic there, but the final note on omitted artists (The Beatles? Bob Dylan? Billie Holiday? Elvis Presley? Tabu Ley Rochereau? The Rolling Stones? Stevie Wonder? Charlie Parker?) seems to argue strongly that any core collection this small is way too small.

What I don't see is any evidence that my opinions changed much at all. Nor could they: while I've played many of these records again and again over the years, I'm simply incapable of keeping them all in my head and dynamically adjusting and rebalancing the list continuously. I seriously doubt that anyone is, or could ever be, especially as the task gets ever more daunting. (Also note that the RS lists, like the "1,000 Albums," are sorted alphabetically, despite the numbers, which as I note are only there to help me count.) So I'm selecting, but not sorting. What I can assure you is that every album on either list is very good, provided you have any taste for the genre at all. I'm pretty sure I could say the same thing about larger possible lists, certainly through 3,000, probably through 5,000. But for that, look into the database, especially the A-lists.

I should also note that while I've added some albums to the "1,000 Albums," the "Notes" appear to be unchanged from 2008. Regarding John Rockwell, I should have written them more carefully. I've only met him a couple times, although he was always been so friendly and engaging it feels like I know him better. The "last time I checked" was a lunch in the late 1970s, when we compared record collection sizes. As best I recall, Robert Christgau had 5,000, while Rockwell had 10,000. The difference was that Rockwell covered classical music as well as pop. As far as I know, Rockwell has never had a website. While the Village Voice allowed their writers to retain their copyrights (which is why we were able to include nearly everything on the Christgau website), Rockwell wrote for the New York Times, which retains ownership of everything. So there's not much by, or on, Rockwell online, but I did find this: A Music Critic's Soho Loft With Floor-to-Ceiling CDs, dated Mar. 5, 2026, which suggests that Rockwell has kept well ahead of the rest of us, although maybe at 85 he, too, is looking to downsize.

[A] My initial answer was "probably not." While I listen to more stuff than most people, I almost never listen to an album that isn't sent to me, or that I haven't found out about through some more or less reputable source. I've listened to a fair amount of what used to be called World Music because I've found some useful guides to some of it, like Robert Christgau's explorations of African music, or more recently in-depth investigations of Brazilian music by Rod Taylor and Brad Luen (who's also way ahead of me on K-pop). In cases, like Spanish, where I can't follow the language, my interests focus on rhythm (or jazz), which helps with cumbia and salsa, but even there my ears are pretty limited. From Argentina, I like Piazzolla, and some jazz musicians (Barbieri, Nebbia). But I've sampled "rock en español" very lightly, and found little I liked (or disliked, but I'm fairly indifferent these days to most Anglo-American rock). But whereas "probably not" wasn't a very interesting answer, I can now point to my brief review of a well-regarded Soda Stereo album, a group I was alerted to by a reader (possibly you?). While I don't doubt its reputation, that didn't inspire me to check out more of their albums, or for that matter more "rock en español." For all I know, they're as big in Argentina as Oasis is in the UK, and perhaps deservedly so (in both cases, although Oasis never really broke through in the US, unlike an earlier generation of Britpop bands).