We really needed something new to talk about, and Rolling Stone magazine obliged this week with a redone-from-scratch update of its “500 greatest albums” list. 

Since we live in one of the world’s greatest historical music cities, and because we did indeed really need something else to talk about, the Memphis 10 is taking the bait this week, breaking format for something more like the Memphis 10s. 

You may or may not be surprised to find that Memphis doesn’t loom quite as large on this list as it does in pop music history writ-large, or larger. 

The Essential Memphis Library: Al Green’s ‘Call Me’

This is an album list and Memphis is, historically, more of a singles town. The Rolling Stone list does include individual-artist singles compilations, which allows for essential one-piece-at-a-time work from Memphis or Memphis-connected artists such as Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and blues legend Robert Johnson. But the bias here is more toward studio albums, and also more toward post-Sixties music not made by the Beatles/Stones/Dylan axis. (This is how Drake shows up twice and Fats Domino not at all.)

Given those biases, I’d say the list is pretty good. If it gets more questionable the deeper it goes, as potential future ephemera leaps over established classics, that’s just how these things tend to work. On to the Memphis spelunking.

The Rolling Stone Real Memphis 10

The top 10 albums by then-contemporary Memphis artists on the Rolling Stone list, with the Rolling Stone ranking in parenthesis:

1. “The Sun Sessions” – Elvis Presley (No. 78): Presley’s career-launching, culture-shifting earliest sides, in their best, if now harder-to-find form.

2. “Otis Blue” – Otis Redding (No. 178): Redding’s best studio album. 

3. “Third/Sister Lovers” – Big Star (No. 285): Reduced to a duo of Alex Chilton and drummer Jody Stephens, in collaboration with producer Jim Dickinson. A studio tour de force and alt-rock talisman. 

4. “I’m Still in Love With You” – Al Green (No. 306): One of Green’s two truly classic classic-era albums. 

5. “From Elvis in Memphis” – Elvis Presley (No. 322): Elvis’ back-to-the-Southern-sound return to Memphis after a decade in Hollywood, cut at American Sound Studio.

6. “All Killer, No Filler” – Jerry Lee Lewis (No. 325): A two-disc career overview that starts with his Sun sides. 

7. “Elvis Presley” – Elvis Presley (No. 332): Elvis’ studio-album debut after signing with RCA, with a mix of Memphis, Nashville and New York recordings. 

8. “Radio City” – Big Star (No. 359): The band’s purest “power pop” album, and a foundational text for similarly inclined bands that followed. 

9. “Hot Buttered Soul” – Isaac Hayes (No. 373): His second album, and one that made Hayes an unexpected and perhaps unprecedented solo star. 

10. “Call Me” – Al Green (No. 427): Green’s other classic classic-era album. (And the one I prefer.)

Also listed: Redding’s “Dictionary of Soul” (No. 448), Green’s “Greatest Hits” (No. 456) and Big Star’s “#1 Record” (No. 474).

The Rolling Stone Memphis-related Top 10

The Top 10 albums on the list either recorded in Memphis by visiting artists or from artists with notable Memphis connections who weren’t then living in or working from the city.

1. “I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You” – Aretha Franklin (No. 13)

2. “Lady Soul” – Aretha Franklin (No. 75)

3. “Dusty in Memphis” – Dusty Springfield (No. 83)

4. “Take Care” – Drake (No. 95)

5. “John Prine” – John Prine (No. 149)

6. “Amazing Grace” – Aretha Franklin (No. 154)

7. “At Folsom Prison” – Johnny Cash (No. 164)

8. “Forever Changes” – Love (No. 180)

9. “Wowee Zowee” – Pavement (No. 265)

10. “Live at the Regal” – B.B. King (No. 299)

Also listed: “If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late” – Drake (No. 367), “King of the Delta Blues Singers” – Robert Johnson (No. 374) “Young, Gifted and Black” – Aretha Franklin (No. 388), “Proud Mary: The Best of Ike and Tina Turner” (No. 390), “That’s the Way of the World” – Earth, Wind & Fire” (No. 420), “Southeastern” – Jason Isbell (No. 458), “Moanin’ in the Moonlight” – Howlin’ Wolf (No. 477).

Notes: Franklin was born in a little house on South Memphis’ Lucy Avenue but moved away while still a toddler. Similarly, Love’s Arthur Lee and Earth, Wind & Fire’s Maurice White have Memphis roots but formed their bands elsewhere. The Canadian rapper Drake (yes, “Take Care” is ridiculously high on the list) has Memphis family roots, but is not from or of Memphis. Cash, King and Turner all launched their careers in Memphis, but they were expats when these records were made. This is mostly also true of Howlin’ Wolf, but “Moanin’ in the Moonlight” does contain some music he cut in Memphis. Isbell attended the University of Memphis as a stopover on a journey from Alabama to Nashville. Finally, Springfield and Prine both cut their albums at Memphis’ American Studio, though Springfield actually recorded her vocals in New York. Pavement’s “Wowee Zowee” (an oddball pick to be sure, though I’m a fan) was cut at Memphis’ Easley Recording. 

The Missing 10

What Memphis or meaningfully Memphis-connected records could have made Rolling Stone’s list but didn’t? There are good arguments to be made for the Memphis-raised, Orlando-forged Justin Timberlake, whose absence given some other recent mega-pop entrants is actually a little surprising. And Three 6 Mafia’s influence looms large over contemporary hip-hop, though I personally can’t work up much enthusiasm to stump for any of their albums. So, here are my picks for 10 Memphis records that Rolling Stone missed:

1. “The Sun Years” – Johnny Cash: The most egregious oversight. Elvis and Jerry Lee’s Sun sides are represented and Carl Perkins’ absence is regrettable but understandable. But Johnny Cash’s Memphis music – songs such as “I Walk the Line” and “Folsom Prison Blues” – are among the most essential American music. Truth be told, even more essential than “At Folsom Prison.” 

2. “Two Steps From the Blues” – Bobby “Blue” Bland: The great soul-blues album. Recorded after the former Beale Streeter had left the local scene, but still Memphis music. Related: Johnny Ace’s posthumous “Memorial Album,” another Beale Streeter who hit the road from a Memphis launching pad. 

3. “White Blood Cells” – The White Stripes: Cut at Easley Recording, and a better representative for Memphis’ indie/alt-rock recording boom than Pavement’s included “Wowee Zowee.” This is the album that made the Detroit duo stars, and carries some palpable Memphis influence in its union of blues and garage-punk. The Stripes are only represented on the Stone list by the follow-up, “Elephant,” at No. 449. A decade earlier, they would have loomed larger. “Elephant” has a fuller sound, but the rougher charm of “White Blood Cells” is truer to what made the band special.

4. “You Got My Mind Messed Up” – James Carr: Not only was Memphis soul more than Otis Redding and Al Green, it was more than Redding’s Stax and Green’s Hi Records. Here, on the smaller Goldwax label, is a classic soul studio album that boasts the genre’s arguable peak in “The Dark End of the Street.”

5. “The Best of Booker T. & the MGs”: The Stax house band’s signature groove is essential on its own terms, best heard in compilation form.

6. “30 #1 Hits” – Elvis Presley: If the house were burning, I’d also grab the three Big E records that Rolling Stone includes before I grabbed this, but I’d sure miss “Don’t Be Cruel.” Five hundred is a big number, and needs to make room for the definitive pop recordings of – Beatles and Michael Jackson aside – the biggest pop star of them all.

7. “The Best of Sam & Dave”: Stax’s Sixties hit-making machine, giving voice to Hayes & Porter’s classic compositions, here heard in an in-the-moment (circa 1969) collection.

8. “Straight From the Heart” – Ann Peebles: Stax’s Carla Thomas may be the deserving queen of Memphis soul, but Hi’s Peebles was arguably the better album artist, and though this 1972 album doesn’t include her signature hit, “I Can’t Stand the Rain,” I’d argue it’s her best album.

9. “The Belle Album” – Al Green: Sure, three Green albums is ample representation, but it still leaves you one album short of the core collection. This is it. 

10. “Pleased to Meet Me” – The Replacements: If you’re only going to include one album by Minneapolis’ Replacements, I do think Rolling Stone got it right with 1984’s “Let it Be.” But this made-in-Memphis 1987 album, with Memphians Dickinson and Chilton as producer and muse, respectively, follows closely behind. A representative of Ardent Studios’ major post-Big Star work. Or, for an alternate pick, maybe ZZ Top’s made-at-Ardent 1983 blockbuster (and still pretty good record) “Eliminator.”

OK, fine, since you asked

To compile this list, Rolling Stone solicited Top 50 lists from “more than 300 artists, producers, critics, and music-industry figures.” I guess my ballot was lost amid our recent post-office doldrums. 

Well, it’s too late to count and I’ll spare you a full 50, but I will take the excuse here to go halfway. A couple of self-imposed restraints: No artist repeats and, to make a more interesting list (also perhaps a Rolling Stone consideration) no single-artist compilations, with one exception that is absolutely essential to me. I noted the Rolling Stone list ranking in parenthesis. All but two of my Top 25 made their Top 500, and one of two misses is extremely esoteric. Standing caveat: Any list like this would change a little any time you make it.

1. “Sign O’ the Times” – Prince (No. 45)
2. “Call Me” – Al Green (No. 427)
3. “The Great Twenty-Eight” – Chuck Berry (No. 51)
4. “Exile on Main Street” – The Rolling Stones (No. 14)
5. “The Velvet Underground” – The Velvet Underground (No. 143)
6. “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back” – Public Enemy (No. 15)
7. “Highway 61 Revisited” – Bob Dylan (No. 18)
8. “The Indestructible Beat of Soweto” – Various Artists (No. 497)
9. “There’s a Riot Goin' On” – Sly & the Family Stone (No. 82)
10. “Lucinda Williams” – Lucinda Williams (No. 426)
11. “London Calling” – The Clash (No. 16)
12. “3 Feet High and Rising” – De La Soul (No. 103)
13. “Rust Never Sleeps” – Neil Young (No. 296)
14. “Exile in Guyville” – Liz Phair (No. 56)
15. “Born in the U.S.A.” – Bruce Springsteen (No. 142)
16. “Rumors” – Fleetwood Mac (No. 7)
17. “Let it Be” – The Replacements (No. 156)
18. “Dig Me Out” – Sleater-Kinney (No. 189)
19. “The New York Dolls” – The New York Dolls (No. 301)
20. “Late Registration” – Kanye West (No. 117)
21. “Music From Big Pink” – The Band (No. 100)
22. “Have Moicy!” – Michael Hurley/The Unholy Modal Rounders/Jeffrey Fredericks & the Clamtones (Not listed)
23. “Revolver” – The Beatles (No. 11)
24. “Decoration Day” – The Drive-By Truckers (Not listed)
25. “Talking Book” – Stevie Wonder (No. 59)