Collection

Artrockstore Gallery displays a curated collection of Artists and Albums dating from the beginnings of Rock & Pop music in the mid 20th Century, up to the present day. There are currently over 3,000 featured artists and 25,000 albums in the collection. New discoveries are being added every day.

Genres

The music genres fall within the broad spectrum of Rock & Pop music. Of course, individual Artists and Albums may cut across many genres. The music genre classifications we use are:

Ambient, Art-rock, Blues, Classical, Comedy, Country, Dance, Dub, Electronic, Exotica, Experimental, Folk, Funk, Fusion, Goth, Hip-hop, Indie, Industrial, Jazz, Kosmische, Latin, New-wave, Metal, Modern Classical, Poetry, Pop/Rock, Post-punk, Post-Rock, Prog, Psych, Punk, Reggae, Rockabilly, Soul, Stage/Screen, Techno and World.

We do not attempt to categorise works into sub-genres, for example within Metal and Hip-hop music there are a multitude of sub-genres. For simplicity Artrockstore uses broad-based classifications to minimise the number of genres.

Selections

The collection is not simply a list of the most popular or highest selling Artists and Albums. The method for selecting which Albums are included is based on three criteria: iconic status, critical reviews, and album ratings.

Iconic Status

Is the Album regarded as a forerunner of a particular style of music which has proven to be greatly influential upon other Artists in establishing a trend, style or movement in music?

Critical Reviews

Is the Album considered by fellow Artists, Music Academics, Music Critics and Music Fans to be artistically distinctive? Sources for Critical Reviews include the following:

Allmusic, RYM, The Quietus, Rolling Stone, Record Collector, Discogs, NME, Pitchfork, The Guardian, NY Review, The Times, The ABC, AOTY, TheNeedleDrop.

Album Ratings

Has the Album received high ratings across a range of respected music publications? Artrockstore sets a rating benchmark of 3.5 stars and above (out of 5.0) as a basis for inclusion. Sources for Album Ratings include the following:

Allmusic, RYM, Record Collector, Discogs, AOTY

Origin

Many "Greatest Albums" lists lean toward works from the USA and UK. Artrockstore strives to include works based on merit regardless of an Artist's country of origin. Currently the collection has Artists and Albums from 68 countries, including African, Asian, Middle Eastern, South American and Oceanic countries, which tend to be overlooked in US and Euro-centric surveys.

Gender

Artrockstore strives to include works based on merit regardless of an Artist's gender. It's fair to say that women have historically been under represented with respect to their contribution to music. Artrockstore makes efforts to highlight the work of female Artists while maintaining consistent criteria for musical merit.

Label

Artrockstore is record company and label independent. We include releases from all major labels, indie labels and self-published works. Bootleg releases are not included. Wherever possible the album artwork displayed is the first-issue vinyl release from the country and label of origin.