Screw Apple Music For Not Including Country in Their Top 100 Albums

Get pissed. Get mad. Be personally offended as a country music fan that on Apple Music’s recently revealed “Best 100 Albums” of all time, there isn’t a single actual country music album to be found. Apple Music basically just told you as a country fan to go f – – k yourself.
Forget the foundational importance of country to American music. Forget its appeal worldwide through international superstars such as Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, and Willie Nelson. They couldn’t even lift a single finger to find even one true country album to cite and even attempt to placate country fans, or offer them a symbolic token. That’s how much Apple Inc. thinks about you and country music.
On May 13th, the mega technology company started revealing what it considers its 100 greatest albums of all time, culminating in the revelation of the Top 10 on Wednesday, May 22nd. It was on Wednesday that we could verify not a single country music title was given mention. The only thing that comes close is Golden Hour by Kacey Musgraves at #85, which ironically, was Kacey’s big pop crossover.
But there’s no Red Headed Stranger by Willie Nelson, no Live at San Quentin by Johnny Cash, no O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack. You don’t even have Modern Sounds in Country Music by Ray Charles. And before you go blaming “woke” Apple Inc. specifically, appreciate that all of these titles would have made for very open-minded and progressive picks from the country realm, and including just one or two albums probably would have staved off this controversy entirely. But they couldn’t be bothered.
It really seems like the only way it is possible to field this list and not include a single country title is a purposeful effort to exclude the country genre. How else could this happen except intentionally? Any effort to assemble the “Best 100 Albums” would have to include at least a cursory glance at country’s contributions if it was vetted and workshopped in any serious manner.
Apple Music does have a country division, and has multiple “shows” as part of it. But if you’ve ever interfaced with them, you understand that they many of them are just as much about undermining what country music is as opposed to promoting it, like their “YeeDM” show with DJ Telemitry. Some might also remember their My Kind of Country competition from last year on Apple TV. As Saving Country Music observed at the time,
“The simple fact is corporations like Apple use programming like My Kind of Country as a smoke screen. It is the equivalent to sticking a ‘Black Lives Matter’ sign in your corporate office window, while at the same time bilking the public via insane markups on iPhones made with what is tantamount to slave labor in China in factories where they have nets around the buildings from all the workers jumping off, while they mine cobalt for their batteries in Africa via people dying from exposure every day and making pennies on the dollar to ensue egregious corporate profits continue to pour in.”
It’s an important point of order to understand that no company, publisher, or individual is in a position to definitively decree what the “best” albums in music or any specific genre are, not Apple Music, or Saving Country Music. They can only decree their personal opinions. But to not include any titles from one of the five most popular genres of music that happens to be the most popular at the moment shows the kind of hubristic approach many of these technology companies take to not just music, but life.
Across the board, American institutions downgrade, downcast, and look down their noses at everything country music. Especially when you combine it with Americana and roots music, country is a massive industry. Yet The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR and other institutions don’t employ country reporters, they put their pop and hip-hop writers on the country beat, regularly resulting in false reporting and misnomers.
Ultimately, the exclusion of country on Apple’s Best 100 list is the result of the continued echo chambering of the modern mind. As opposed to people questioning their own beliefs or making an effort to see outside of their reality bubble, they insulate themselves from anything counter to their own established thoughts. That’s how you can overlook an entire genre of music if you’re Apple.
In the meantime, folks from all across the musical spectrum are incensed over this list as well. It served few if anyone’s purpose. It went over about as well as Apple giving everyone a free U2 album they didn’t want a few years back. Chris Willman at Variety asserts that the list actually meant to rile the public up instead of serve them, while pointing out himself,
“As far as modest efforts toward genre tokenism go, the list establishes that there was apparently never a single great country album recorded, ever, until Kacey Musgraves went pop with “Golden Hour.” The great concept albums Willie made in the ‘70s? Or anything by Dolly or Loretta in the culture-moving moments when they were real forces in feminism for a generation of American women? Sure, they were good, but they weren’t Lorde at 16.”
But respectfully, this Apple Best 100 Albums list shouldn’t just be cast off as clickbait. It should be seen as wishcasting. This is the reality that Apple Music and its editorial board of Nile Rodgers, Maggie Rogers, Zane Lowe, and Ebro Darden want. They want a reality without country. And that’s a reality that country fans should stand up against and oppose.
May 23, 2024 @ 11:27 am
This is coastal elitism combined with incredible ignorance and just plain fucking stupidity. Apple Music can go to hell.
May 24, 2024 @ 2:34 pm
Yeah, Apple can go to hell! That’s kind of fun to say. I’m purely a Mac/iPhone/iPad guy but I stopped all use of iTunes and Apple Music at least 15 years ago because, well, their music services and software suck. So, it’s really no surprise that their musical tastes and music biases also suck. Apple should stick to what it does well, and music is just not in their wheelhouse. Go to hell, Apple Music. ????????
June 14, 2024 @ 7:03 am
The main reason I moved from Spotify to Apple was to escape the constant drone of country music. Thank you Apple.
May 23, 2024 @ 11:27 am
The Rolling Stones list that people tend to go to is similar, but they at least have The Band in their Top 100.
May 23, 2024 @ 11:33 am
Wrote an article when Rolling Stone updated their “500 Best Albums of All Time” list about how classic country had been marginalized on it. We see it across the board from these institutions.
https://savingcountrymusic.com/classic-country-diminished-in-new-rolling-stone-500-best-albums/
May 23, 2024 @ 7:33 pm
Those lists are just click bait. The best albums are the ones you personally listen to over and over.
May 23, 2024 @ 11:30 am
This is even worse than any list from Rolling Stone, and that’s saying something. Apple can go to hell
May 23, 2024 @ 11:38 am
Just start pumping out ‘Top 10 Software Company’ lists and omit Apple every single year.
May 23, 2024 @ 11:44 am
Honestly, I want to be mad, but the list is just so offensive that it’s hysterical. I can’t imagine someone looking at this list and going “this looks right” and it makes me laugh to think of it. If the list was done a little bit more competently, I would be angry, but this level of incompetence is too funny. This is “The Room” of top 100 lists. Cleary made by 22-year-old hipsters who’s only knowledge of music pre-2000 comes from albums they listened to in high school to act more sophisticated.
May 23, 2024 @ 11:48 am
Apple CRUSHES it!!
Crush! | iPad Pro | Apple
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntjkwIXWtrc
May 23, 2024 @ 11:58 am
These lists are always going to be controversial. But Apple’s list has a strong bias towards pop and hip-hop at the expense of everything else.
Zero country albums is a complete joke.
But do you notice that there are also no albums representing the Blues, Bluegrass, or Americana?
The Apple List is very focused on a narrow spectrum of music.
May 23, 2024 @ 12:00 pm
Lists like this are almost always arbitrary and reflect more often the taste and preference of those who curate it than any objective marker, like say influence or beauty. I mean really, how many people even know who Lauryn Hill is compared to these other acts at the top? It’s not only Country who is marginalized but also Jazz, comprising only 3% of the albums. No Frank Sinatra’s In the Wee Small Hours, No Ray Charles, no Ella Fitzgerald- frankly a terrible list with too many rap albums
May 23, 2024 @ 12:28 pm
I’m not sure how anyone can be anything other than amused or bemused by that dumb ass list.
I’ll die laughing if Apple responds to the criticism with a top 100 country albums list that has Cowboy Carter at #1.
May 23, 2024 @ 12:31 pm
Trash list as always. Rolling Stone’s list(s) sucked, this one is no different. Bunch of coastal elite SJWs who know fuck all about music outside of their pitiful little bubbles trying to claim authority. Fuck em.
May 23, 2024 @ 12:49 pm
I may have missed it but what was the selection criteria? Downloads? Then streaming. Just curious if it was based on what’s been consumed over time.
May 23, 2024 @ 1:22 pm
Has nothing to do with sales, streams, or downloads. It was a group of “experts” assembled by Apple, with an editorial board of Nile Rodgers, Maggie Rogers, Zane Lowe, and Ebro Darden.
May 23, 2024 @ 2:57 pm
Well, there’s your explanation.
May 24, 2024 @ 2:37 pm
“Experts.” Bwah-ha-ha-ha. Ohhh, that’s a good one. They said “experts.” ???? … Experts.
May 23, 2024 @ 1:41 pm
In the war of critical “rockism” vs. “poptimism”, country music always loses. There are certainly some great albums on that list but, at the end of the day, the editorial opinion of a corporate digital music retailer that serves only its shareholders is of no concern to me. I bet there’s a link to stream/purchase all the albums on that list, directly from Apple Music? Cha-ching!
May 23, 2024 @ 1:42 pm
Ridiculous by apple! Though I get tired of all the coastal elite comments. I live on the coast and love country. I’m no elite but I don’t like being lumped in any more than people in “ fly over country” like being stereotyped either.
May 23, 2024 @ 8:02 pm
I tend to agree with you about the “coastal elite” comments, though I know what people mean, and perhaps this is one of the rare instances where it’s probably true. Still, there are many great country music fans and artists on both coasts and everywhere else, and regionalism is a bad habit in music and everything else.
Ironically, a year or so ago, an artist made a video mocking me, and kept using the term “coastal elites” in the video like that is something I would say. I’ve never used that term in my life except in discussions like this.
May 23, 2024 @ 1:59 pm
If only someone would do a top 500 country album list (a good one, not like RS).
May 23, 2024 @ 2:20 pm
Here you go, Julie:
1. Hag, Rainbow Stew Live at Anaheim Stadium
2. Joe Ely, Lord of the Highway
3. Marty Stuart, This One’s Gonna Hurt You
4. Tom T. Hall, In Search of a Song
5. Yoakam, Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc. Etc.
6. Lucinda, Car Wheels
7-500. You’re on your own, pardner.
May 23, 2024 @ 5:56 pm
I’ll go a little broader to highlight all the genres that Apple missed:
1. Allman Brothers Band, “Live at the Fillmore East”
2. Willie Nelson, “Red Headed Stranger”
3. Waylon Jennings “Waylon Live”
4. Flatt & Scruggs “Foggy Mountain Banjo”
5. AKUS — either “New Favorite” or “Lonely Runs Both Ways”
6. Tyler Childers “Purgatory”
7. Sturgill “Metamodern Sounds”
8. Jason Isbell “Southeastern”
9. Robert Johnson “King of the Delta Blues Singers”
10. Big Mama Thornton with the Muddy Waters Band
11. Tedeschi Trucks Band “Revelator”
12. “Oh Brother Were Art Thou” Soundtrack
13. Uncle Tupelo “No Depression”
14. Son Volt “Trace”
15. SRV “Texas Flood”
May 23, 2024 @ 6:38 pm
Beyonce made it on the list twice but no Van Halen, SRV, or Allman Bro’s….
If a man made this he needs to have his nuts surgically removed.
May 24, 2024 @ 4:12 pm
Glendel, those are some great choices. Special shout out for Joe Ely and Lucinda!
May 24, 2024 @ 7:46 pm
Marty Stuart, This One’s Gonna Hurt You
30-plus years after I first heard this album, I still think it’s absolutely spectacular, for both Marty’s originals and the covers.
May 23, 2024 @ 2:59 pm
Maybe Trig will post a thread and we can all offer lists or parts of lists.
May 23, 2024 @ 2:55 pm
This is your new mission. Country music has arguably been saved (and I understand your argument that it is an ongoing exercise). We have a large selection of successful and popular country music now outside of the trashy Nashville version of the genre.
But it is still not respected as a genre on the level with hip hop, rock and pop, despite its popularity. That is the new mission. There is no reason why Childers, Sturgill et al . shouldn’t be considered up there with the greatest popular musicians of our era, but you simply wouldn’t get that perspective from a national multi-genre music critic. I would personally put Sturgill on a level with Thom Yorke, Trent Reznor and Kendrick Lamar as beacons of creativity within their genres.
May 23, 2024 @ 3:33 pm
For what it’s worth, jazz was also under represented. It seems like blues got the same inclusive treatment as country. So no blues, no country, and only the jazz titles of a concussed liberal arts undergrad (not that Coltrain or Nina Simone aren’t good….)
Since when have ‘experts’ been so proud of themselves for obviously lacking expertise?
May 23, 2024 @ 4:29 pm
Who gives a shit what Apple says are the “Best 100 Albums” anyways
I would never look at them for finding my music input. My Spotify AI DJ has me figured out, and of course SCM for my new music and Country Music News
Thanks Trig.
May 23, 2024 @ 5:37 pm
Back in Black was #90. That is all you need to know that the list is trash.
May 23, 2024 @ 5:46 pm
I listen to country music not because of what others think, but, rather because of how it enriches my life, inspires and motivates me. Who cares how others rank it – especially Apple.
May 23, 2024 @ 5:56 pm
It’s impossible to have a greatest album list covering multiple genres like this and not have it come out so hilariously lopsided. But I also get that popular music of the past 30 years wasn’t directly influenced by rock albums from the 60’s. This is why lists like these don’t work.
The greatest album ever is The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill??
I found this also hilarious:
17 What’s Going On Marvin Gaye
18 1989 (Taylor’s Version) Taylor Swift
19 The Chronic Dr. Dre
20 Pet Sounds The Beach Boys
How are they even measuring greatness? They are just incongruently inserting mordern pop albums into previous ‘boomer’ lists of the greatest albums. Daft Punk is above Led Zeppelin II? Kate Bush is far above Steeley Dan’s Aja? They don’t even understand the history of black music by not including the rocking chair album from Howlin’ Wolf or Born Under a Bad Sign by Albert King. The only good that could come of this is maybe a few younger people looking up these older bands on Spotify and youtube. Otherwise this is only good for a laugh.
May 23, 2024 @ 6:20 pm
Yikes all the old white men in the room ???????????? this publication always sounds like a whiney toddler. ????????????
May 23, 2024 @ 7:31 pm
Impressed. Didn’t know young folks had the attention span for anything beyond a 5 second TikTok. Keep it up!!!
May 23, 2024 @ 7:10 pm
The idea of getting angry about a list put together by a tech company for marketing and entertainment purposes strikes me as silly.
I offer my congratulations to Carole King: The only traditional, melodic, pre-millenium white solo singer to make the Apple list.
And sorry, it seems Elvis has really left the building.
May 24, 2024 @ 11:07 am
Agreed. I don’t see the value in getting upset about “best of” and “top___” lists. It’s all subjective. Albeit, since this is a country music blog, it makes for a relevant post. But personally offended? No.
May 23, 2024 @ 11:06 pm
Are we sure that Apple knows country music exists?
May 24, 2024 @ 2:22 am
Autechre – Chiastic Slide
Ween – The Mollusk
Neutral Milk Hotel – In the Areoplane Over the Sea
Ian Noe – Between the Country
May 24, 2024 @ 2:28 am
what was the criteria for this
maybe it’s a sign that the so called culture makers don’t actually like country music outside of “beyonce”
May 24, 2024 @ 2:34 am
I’m an Apple Music subscriber and I consistently find the “Essentials” lists of country stars show that whoever compiles them knows next to nothing about the artist in question.
May 24, 2024 @ 4:54 am
I guess I can be an “expert” too and I ate an apple yesterday. So, here is the definitive top 10. The criteria for placement is best stuff ever.
1. Appetite for Destruction
2. Grateful Dead – American Beauty
3. Willie Nelson – Teatro
4. Sick of it All – Scratch the Surface
5. Corb – Horse Soldier
6. Bright Eyes – Lifted
7. Kristofferson – A Moment of Forever
8. Melvins – Stoner Witch
9. Ryan Adams – Heartbreaker
10. Whiskeytown – Faithless Street
May 24, 2024 @ 5:50 pm
I’ll disagree on the beat Bright Eyes album. I know it’s the popular one but I’m Wide Awake has to be their best one. Also Down in the Weeds doesn’t get enough love either.
May 24, 2024 @ 5:55 pm
That is to say though, I agree with Bright Eyes having a top ten album of all time, just disagree on the choice.
May 24, 2024 @ 12:19 pm
Meh, they are just trying to sell shit, and their algorithm determined classic country music fans don’t spend enough money on their platform.
Hopefully it’s because we are spending money directly with the artists we love. Concerts, merchandise, etc.
May 24, 2024 @ 12:52 pm
Turns out I am an “expert” as well. These are the top 10 best albums ever. My criteria is a bunch of nonsense that only I feel is what is important. It is all subjective and their list is from people that like a specific kind of music. The sample sucks!
1. GNR – Appetite for Destruction
2. Willie Nelson – Teatro
3. Grateful Dead – American Beauty
4. Corb Lund – Horse Soldier
5. Sleep – Sleep’s Holy Mountain
6. Sick of It All – Scratch the Surface
7. Ryan Adams – Heartbreaker
8. Bright Eyes – Lifted
9. Shaver – Tramp on Your Street
10. Kristofferson – A Moment of Forever
May 24, 2024 @ 1:21 pm
Trigger, I realize this is your job… and country needs more people willing to stand up and speak up for it. This list is so boring, and has so little thought put into it that I almost wish you didn’t write this article. Because I read SCM daily I saw this list and am now dumber for it. I wish I never saw it. There are so many things to say… but no one thinks Lemonade by Beyoncé is a top 10 album of all-time. Not even Beyoncé or Jay-Z think that. I could go on forever. Garbage list!!
May 24, 2024 @ 1:48 pm
Trigger, wonder if you knew anything about that new Texas Trio album? Sounds like a Western Swing sound especially with Jason Roberts in it.
May 24, 2024 @ 4:25 pm
It was on my release radar and it’s being considered for review.
May 25, 2024 @ 6:27 pm
Thanks!
May 24, 2024 @ 3:34 pm
i’m an old guy. that’s cool, right? also a songwriter/keyboardist/producer. i should know more than the average bear, maybe?
i was watching jeopardy (again, old), and the 3 youngsters couldn’t name “the girl in the song” in Born To Run. i’m screaming at my TV like i’m watching a ball game- “WENDY, YOU IDIOTS, WENDY!!”
these are the people making these lists. the beatles are irrelevant, and it won’t be too long before everyone who witnessed that time, and, more importantly, felt it, will be dead.
these lists are like the sun. don’t look at ’em. no good can come of it.
May 24, 2024 @ 5:09 pm
Why am I blocked from reading the Morgan Wallen article?
May 24, 2024 @ 5:48 pm
Explanation here:
https://savingcountrymusic.com/saving-country-music-suffers-cyberattack-over-morgan-wallen-article/
May 24, 2024 @ 6:06 pm
I had to deal with that stuff myself. Sorry you had to deal with it too. You don’t deserve that.
May 24, 2024 @ 6:57 pm
Man, fuck apple. It’s the service I use cause I have an iPhone and it’s easily integrated but this annoyed me more than it should. I actually looked at it twice cause I was sure I was overlooking something. Nope. Not only the disrespect with this list, no Willie, no Johnny, no o brother soundtrack. Not even modern stuff like Stapletons traveller or Childers purgatory. Hell at this point I’d settle for Morgan wallen or Luke combs (who I like more than I probably should). Even Stevie ray vaughn and so many essential blues albums were passed by. Guess it’s not surprising from a company that doesn’t even have a designated bluegrass page, even though it’s one of the oldest music forms out there. Just ridiculous, and it really shouldn’t matter. City folk that couldn’t name more than 2 haggard tunes tellling us what the best albums are, the fuck outta here. Friday night cold beer rant over.
May 24, 2024 @ 7:44 pm
Well, do keep in mind that this is the same company that thought everyone would be bowled over by a free U2 album.
May 24, 2024 @ 9:51 pm
yoo hoo?
May 25, 2024 @ 6:04 am
Apple’s editors, like its employees, are mostly hipsters from urban west coast areas. They don’t list any country music because they don’t listen to it. Even if they made an attempt, the list would have most likely included some mainstream artists that have crossed over into their preferred genres like Morgan Wallen, Sam Hunt, or someone liberally outspoken like Maren Morris or Kasey Musgraves lol.
That’s why I always avoid these “Top” lists. They will always be biased by the opinions of the creators. Even had Apple included Country, their selections would have most likely been as derided as excluding them has been. Music, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
Another not well thought out marketing ploy by Apple right after the crush debacle.
May 25, 2024 @ 6:42 am
looks like Bad Bunny (?) is better than the Band , the Byrds or the Grateful Dead
May 25, 2024 @ 7:41 am
Another excerpt from Willman’s piece:
And then we’re to believe there was actually a voting bloc that selected an album most people have never heard of, Burial’s “Untrue,” over, say, “Rubber Soul.” Yet everyone understands why it has to be there: electronic music must be represented. It wouldn’t stand out if there was virtually anything else on the list that seemed like fun, oddball or truly culty choices.
May 26, 2024 @ 7:45 pm
I love Apple Music, and love lists, but this is the stupidest list and project I’ve seen yet.
May 26, 2024 @ 9:30 pm
I get that this is “Saving Country Music” and what sorts of music the site pushes but throwing this tantrum and then insisting that Kacey Musgraves album doesn’t count as country seems really silly.
You’re talking about an album that won the Grammy, CMA, and ACM awards for Country Album of the Year. It also won Grammys for Best Country Song and Performance.
Sure, it’s not traditional country and certainly doesn’t belong on a top 100 albums of all time list, but for the intents of a streaming corporation choosing a “country” album this one has all the qualifications it needs.
May 28, 2024 @ 2:07 am
I much prefer lists that rank just one artist’s albums against each other. So, here, for fun,
A Random Fan’s Top 10 Kris Kristofferson albums (excluding his debut album and The Silver Tongued Devil & I)
10. Broken Freedon Song: Live From San Francisco
09. Jesus Was A Capricorn
08. Repossessed
07. Border Lord
06. Live at the Phil⁶harmonic
05. Spooky Lady’s Sideshow
04. Third World Warrior
03. This Old Road
02. A Moment of Forever
01. To The Bone
May 28, 2024 @ 10:02 am
I was more angry at the Rolling Stone’s country list which had Shania Twain and Taylor Swift in the top 10. And that list didn’t generate the same fervor as this article over Apple’s clickbait did. That list was directly about country music.
Apple Music has their agenda.
May 28, 2024 @ 10:05 am
The Rolling Stone article was published on Friday when this site was under a DDoS attack and couldn’t publish articles or be accessed at all. I might have something on the Rolling Stone list at some point, but critiquing other’s lists isn’t something that is a top priority.
June 1, 2024 @ 7:54 am
This is a great example of cultural snobbery. Pure and simple cultural snobbery. Music made for “country folk” isn’t art, they say, and it doesn’t represent a true “culture.” I remember being raised in schools to believe that “culture” was something other folks from other places had, but not me, a southern rural working-class boy. I didn’t grow to appreciate other genres—indeed other cultures!—until I was able to know and appreciate my own.
It’s weird. If someone says “I love all genres except country,” they are still considered open-minded. If someone were to say “I love all genres except hip-hop,” then they are close-minded and reactionary. Out of touch.
For all of you saying this list doesn’t matter, I disagree. It doesn’t matter to you, maybe. But somewhere some kid explores this list, forming their opinion on what American music is and should be. And they do so at the exclusion of country music. It’s a shame.