--- title: "Rolling Stone Top 500 Albums, Part 1 — Kapell" description: "Notes from the first 50 albums from Rolling Stone's Top 500 Albums" canonical: "https://kapell.fm/blog/2026-08-01-rolling-stone-part-1/" published: "2026-08-01" --- Essay August 1, 2026 # Rolling Stone Top 500 Albums, Part 1 Using Kapell for last-to-first listening of Rolling Stone's Top 500 albums has yielded some surprises. Cory G Watson Building Kapell, one credit at a time I am making Kapell to be more connected to music. Being a hip-hop “head”, I’m also well versed in the jazz, soul, and gospel contributions to that genre. My day-to-day stays in the rap, r&b, and neo-soul area but I want to be well rounded! I’ve decided to listen to [Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time](https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-albums-of-all-time-1062063/), bottom to top. In fact, it’s kinda why I’ve been making Kapell. I learn about every album and track along the way. I’ll start by explaining how I use Kapell to listen. First, the rules! ## Rules To hold myself accountable I follow a few rules: - Give the album a shot, even if it’s wildly out of genre - Read about the album and tracks to connect to the people/time - Listen to at least the first 3 songs before getting too judgey - Background listening is fine, and sometimes, preferred - Use the session as an opportunity to [improve Kapell’s enrichment soures](https://kapell.fm/docs/when-enrichment-is-empty/) so others benefit. ## Make a Crate Step one is to [make a Crate](https://kapell.fm/docs/crates/). Why a Crate? Because Crates default to *not being added to your recent listening history*. This doesn’t cause Apple Music to ignore it, but it does improve your more common “throw something on” sessions by not thinking you want to start from a ’50s doo-wop album on your next drive to the gym. 10 albums in the crate is arbitrary, but feels tractable so that when I’m in the middle of an album I don’t care for the task still feels surmountable. I hope to make this process automated in the future with pre-made crates for notable “lists”. ## Listen! Open the crate and click “Play”. Kapell hides the nav sidebar to avoid distractions and off we go. I commonly do other tasks, occasionally flipping to Kapell to read or pull a thread. It’s not uncommon for me to end up full-fat Wikipedia, YouTube or Discogs as I listen. I’d love for Kapell to bring me *everything* but then again if I’m actively listening what’s the harm? So workflow out of the way, what did my first 50 albums say? ## The Notes It’s easy to think that the bottom of a list of 500 would be poor, but this is the best 500 of **all albums** so while they all had their high points I’ve selected some special ones for notes: - 499: [Chaka Khan & Rufus’ *Ask Rufus* (on Kapell)](https://kapell.fm/l/album/am/1443809905) was *great* from end to end and revealed a sample in [J. Cole’s St Tropez (on Kapell)](https://kapell.fm/l/album/am/1600766204?track=5622464079120741526) I’d never known. - 493: [Marvin Gaye’s *Here, My Dear* (on Kapell)](https://kapell.fm/l/album/am/1440850217) started off with a bang when I learned that his divorce settlement with his ex-wife required him to make two albums and per *her* the royalties. It never stopped being great. - 489: Apple does not have Phil Spector’s *Back to Mono* - 488: I was “who are [The Stooges (on Kapell)](https://kapell.fm/l/album/am/393789238)” and after a few songs realized this was Iggy Pop and had a fun time. - 487: [Black Flag’s *Damaged* (on Kapell)](https://kapell.fm/l/album/am/117018235) was… interesting but I really wish I could delete it from Apple’s history so they never suggest anything like it again. - 480: [Miranda Lambert’s *The Weight of These Wings* (on Kapell)](https://kapell.fm/l/album/am/1166241178) starting of surprisingly good, but I got bored halfway through. - 475: At some point I binned Sheryl Crow into the not-worth-my-time column but her self-titled album [*Sheryl Crow* (on Kapell)](https://kapell.fm/l/album/am/1440920951) was a reminder she’s good at what she does. - 468: My experience listening to [The Rolling Stone’s *Some Girls* (on Kapell)](https://kapell.fm/l/album/am/1440816775) is proof that this project was worthwhile, as it was fantastic. - 464: I was looking forward to [The Isley Brother’s *3+3* (on Kapell)](https://kapell.fm/l/album/am/1030452445) and was not disappointed. - 460: I couldn’t have told you anything about Lorde outside of Royals, but fuck me if [*Melodrama* (on Kapell)](https://kapell.fm/l/album/am/1429662346) wasn’t a ride. Hats off to [Jack Antonoff (on Kapell)](https://kapell.fm/l/artist/am/45397259). - 456: Do I have to say anything about [Al Green’s *Greatest Hits* (on Kapell)](https://kapell.fm/l/album/am/1203896404)? Well, I will: Magic. - 450: [Paul and Linda McCartney’s *RAM* (on Kapell)](https://kapell.fm/l/album/am/1823063486) was really lighthearted and eclectic. I’m not from the era of the Beatles and have never really listened them aside from the hits. I tend to find Beatles fans insufferable, so maybe I’ve avoided it for the wrong reasons. # Conclusions My experience with these 50 albums was *exactly* what’d I’d hoped for when starting this project. I highly recommend it! Kapell — for macOS Press play. Meet the band. A deeper way to play the Apple Music® library you already have — the credits, samples, and history, surfaced as the music plays. Buy it once, own the whole thing. No subscription. [Download](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kapell/id6779394524) [See other journal entries](https://kapell.fm/blog)