Minnesota’s own Prince and Bob Dylan landed a total of three entries in Apple Music’s new 100 Best Albums list, a self-proclaimed “modern 21st-century ranking of the greatest records ever made” that’s set the internet ablaze during its rollout over the past 10 days.

As someone who has written about music for my entire professional career, I’ve compiled any number of best-of lists over the years. I was also one of the more than 300 people invited to share my own picks for Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, which is probably the highest profile of such lists out there.

Ross Raihala

I fully understand both the appeal and the absurdity of such endeavors. The word “greatest” can mean any number of things, from biggest sales (a measure of sheer popularity) to artistic accomplishment (a metric impossible to measure). The album as a format was invented in 1948 and the notion that the 76 years worth of LPs that followed can be whittled down to a mere 100 of the “best” is obviously ridiculous.

RELATED: Prince and Bob Dylan land in the Top 10 of Rolling Stone’s new ranking of the 500 greatest albums of all time

Also, it’s kind of rich for Apple to proclaim itself the arbiter of taste when it comes to albums. In 2001, the company introduced the iPod, which took aim at destroying the very concept. Thanks to MP3s, and later streaming, listeners could easily pick and choose songs from here and there. There’s nothing wrong with that at all, but there’s a huge difference between spinning a series of tunes and listening to an album in full. (It’s worth noting that the still-growing comeback of vinyl LPs has roughly coincided with the rise of streaming services.)

But, of course, the ridiculousness of these lists is also what makes them so fun to argue about. With that in mind, here are some of my thoughts.

Before I start, though, Apple has been somewhat opaque in revealing its methodology here beyond its official line that it was “crafted by Apple Music’s team of experts alongside a select group of artists, songwriters, producers, and industry professionals.” Maren Morris, Pharrell Williams, J Balvin, Charli XCX and (of all people) Mark Hoppus are among the artists Apple has said contributed to the project. Apple also made it clear that it’s an “editorial statement, fully independent of any streaming numbers.”

Prince and Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan smokes as he faces the media during a press conference at the Hotel George V in Paris, France on Monday, May 23, 1966. He was to appear on Tuesday at the Paris Olympia music hall. Beside him is a puppet. (AP Photo/Pierre Godot)

OK, then, Minnesotans. Prince’s masterpiece “Sign o’ the Times” landed at No. 51, ahead of two wildly adored and acclaimed rock albums, the Rolling Stones’ “Exile on Main Street” and Guns ‘N Roses’ “Appetite for Destruction.” “Purple Rain” made it to No. 4, a fitting place for a record that changed everything. If it hit the top of the list, few would question it. (The Purple One is one of just five acts with two albums on the list, joining the Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Beyonce and Radiohead.)

As for Dylan, his landmark “Highway 61 Revisited” made it to No. 14. That would be fair enough if Dylan had two albums on the list, but since he only had one, choosing it over “Blood on the Tracks” is a real head scratcher. While Dylan has denied it’s a divorce album, pretty much everyone else — including his own son Jakob — knows that’s exactly what it is. It’s so raw and intimate and honest, anyone who has experienced emotional turmoil can understand that it’s one of the most important pieces of art from the 20th century.

The bottom 10

Apple Music began revealing the list, 10 songs each day, on May 13. The bottom 10 selections speak volumes about what Apple got right and what it got wrong. It includes some disparate, yet vital, acts performing at their peak: Eagles (“Hotel California,” No. 99), Travis Scott (“Astroworld,” No. 98), Rage Against the Machine (“Rage Against the Machine,” No. 97) and Usher (“Confessions,” No. 95).

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It was also a pleasant surprise to see Robyn’s seminal “Body Talk” — a record dear to the heart of many a gay Gen-Xer — make it in at No. 100. And due to his start as the pretty boy leader of Wham and his ongoing series of unforced errors as an adult, George Michael never really got his proper due in this country until his 2016 death (the same year we lost Prince and David Bowie). Follow the instructions in the title of his No. 91-ranked “Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1” to understand what a genius the guy was.

On the other hand, Lorde’s “Pure Heroine” at No. 96? It’s a fine effort for sure, but its ultimate legacy seems to be that the artist was just 16 years old when she made it. And I get that Apple attempted to give nods to many genres, but naming the obscure electronic act Burial’s “Untrue” at No. 94 in favor of, say, anything by Aphex Twin is an odd choice.

Missing titans

Eddie Vedder, Matt Cameron and Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam perform on stage as American Express Presents BST Hyde Park, in Hyde Park on July 08, 2022 in London, England. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)

Odd choices abound throughout the list.

Get a load of the acts that didn’t make the cut: the Who, Pearl Jam (aka the American Who), Queen, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen, Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Police.

Beyond the Clash (“London Calling,” No. 35), punk is ignored, meaning no Fugazi, no Ramones, no Television, no Sex Pistols, no Stooges, no Green Day.

And since the idea of an album being something more than just a collection of songs didn’t really take hold until the late ’60s, many early titans got skipped, like Little Richard, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry.

Black artists

One thing that probably stands out among the also-rans I just rattled off, they’re almost all white men. What Apple’s list gets right is its strong representation of Black artists. Nearly all popular music of the past 70 years has roots in genres created and/or popularized by Black people, including jazz, rhythm and blues, gospel and country.

I’m totally cool with losing the likes of the James Taylors of the world in favor of OutKast (“Aquemini,” No. 41), Public Enemy (“It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back,” No. 34), Sade (“Love Deluxe,” No. 61), Erykah Badu (“Baduizm,” No. 64) and Drake (“Take Care,” No. 47). Wait, maybe not Drake.

Soundtracks

The inclusion of more soundtracks beyond “Purple Rain” would have been nice. Certainly there’s a place for much-loved monster sellers like “Saturday Night Fever” or “The Bodyguard.” (Early disco, which was largely created by Black and queer people, is notably absent from the list.) It also seems at least one Broadway cast recording should be there, given “Hamilton,” “West Side Story” and “Rent” stand among the many obvious choices.

Countless quibbles

Apple’s list gives countless entry points for quibbles about who did make it, particularly if one gets mired in the rankings. Sure, Billie Eilish’s “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” was a game changer, but does it really deserve to be No. 30 when Carole King’s “Tapestry” is at No. 38? Would anyone consider Led Zeppelin’s finest effort “Led Zeppelin II” (No. 27)? Yeah, Kacey Musgraves’ “Golden Hour” (No. 85) is terrific, but it’s the rare entry from a country artist (who veered toward pop on the record) on a list lacking Dolly Parton, Garth Brooks, Brandi Carlile, Loretta Lynn, Eric Church and Shania Twain.

Lauryn Hill performs during the 51st session of the Carthage international Festival in the Roman theatre in Carthage, a seaside suburb of the Tunisian Capital on July 21, 2015. (Getty Images)

Perhaps the biggest surprise of all is sitting at the very top of the list, Lauryn Hill’s “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.” It absolutely deserves all of the acclaim it has received, from its record-breaking 10 Grammy nominations and five wins to its blockbuster worldwide sales.

But in many ways it also destroyed Hill, who was sued over the album’s credits — some combination of the label and Hill herself insisted it be presented as a Prince-style one-woman show — and spent many subsequent years in hiding while trying to raise her family and deal with her own mental illness. She has never released a proper second album and has earned, fairly or otherwise, a reputation as an erratic and unreliable live performer. It is, perhaps, a bittersweet victory.

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The uptick in offensive production from center Taylor Heise has been clearly evident. So, too, has the standout goaltending from Maddie Rooney and Nicole Hensley.

But one underlying factor not to be overlooked that has brought Minnesota to within two wins of becoming the first Professional Women’s Hockey League champion has been the team defense that has forwards, defenders and goaltenders working as one cohesive unit to shut down opponents.

Minnesota registered its third shutout in its past five playoff games on Tuesday to even its best-of-five PWHL finals series with Boston at 1-1. It has gained home-ice advantage in the series heading into Game 3 on Friday night at Xcel Energy Center behind a united front that is all about effort, commitment and communication.

“Our entire team has refocused on what is the strength of our team, which is not giving up a ton of goals,” Minnesota center Kelly Pannek said. “That extends to every person, not just the goalies. When we’re playing the right way we’re on the proper side of pucks.

“The last handful of games we’ve done a really good job of relying on each other and trusting each other when appropriate. And when we’ve needed a big play we’ve gotten it.”

Pannek, Heise, Grace Zumwinkle and Kendall Coyne Schofield — among others — have been conspicuous in making strong plays on the backcheck in recent games to shut down a potential scoring threat.

“It’s the difference in games this time of year,” Pannek said. “Every little play matters; you never know when that extra stride you take catches you up to someone. And if that bounce or stick play or that backcheck can be the difference in the game.

“You have to get excited for those small-detail plays. They are plays that happen all the time all over the ice, but sometimes they get overlooked by the goals or the assists or the massive saves by our goaltenders.”

Minnesota coach Ken Klee said the team has focused all season on playing well away from the puck and gave credit to the players for buying into that approach.

“At this level we know the habits we need to play with,” Coyne Schofield said. “We know the detail our game has to have to be on the right side at the end of the game. Whether it’s on a backcheck, a 50-50 battle, being on the right side of the puck, it’s those little things that you come back to the room and ask yourself if you did all those things.

Minnesota goalie Nicole Hensley (29) watches as defender Lee Stecklein (2) and Boston forward Lexie Adzija (8) chase the puck during the second period of Game 2 of a PWHL hockey championship series, Tuesday, May 21, 2024, in Lowell, Mass. (Mark Stockwell / Associated Press)

“In playoff hockey, when one of those boxes aren’t checked you usually aren’t on the right side. We’ve been doing all those little things well, finding that extra gear.”

Minnesota coaches and players alike rave about the role defender Lee Stecklein has played in the team’s defensive success. The 30-year-old Roseville native routinely leads Minnesota in minutes played and is called on to play in every situation.

“She’s the ultimate leader and obviously a great hockey player,” Klee said. “The girls gravitate to her — how hard so works, the way she takes care of herself. When she’s on the ice the entire team has more confidence.

“We call her the ‘Big Unit’ for a reason, because she can control the play.”

Coyne Schofield considers Stecklein to be “the backbone” of the team.

“She holds the crew together on and off the ice,” Coyne Schfield said. “The minutes she plays each night and the way she plays those minutes. You’re not seeing headlines about No. 2, but in our room you are. We know we’re not having success without her.”

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Five generations of the Cooper family have worked the aisles of Cooper’s Foods in St. Paul and Chaska, but the legacy has come to an end. The Coopers, who closed their 107-year-old Chaska store in early March, announced this week that their last store on St. Paul’s West Seventh Street will soon shutter.

“With a heavy heart I am sharing that our family will be closing our last remaining grocery store,” wrote Sara Cooper, in a May 19 Facebook post. “We have been honored to serve the West Seventh community since 1992.”

An official closing date was not announced.

The grocery’s departure from the West Seventh location, between St. Clair Avenue and Michigan Street, leaves the surrounding neighborhood with limited options for fresh produce, at least in convenient walking distance. A downtown Lunds and Byerlys grocery on 10th Street is about two miles away, and the Mississippi Market grocery co-op on East Seventh Street is three miles away. The site kept late-night hours.

Cooper’s Foods’ Highland Park location in the Sibley Plaza strip mall on West Seventh closed in 2017, though an Aldi supermarket opened there following a major remodeling of the strip mall two years later.

Interviewed shortly before the Sibley Plaza location shuttered, Gary Cooper said shrinking sales, difficult union negotiations, record-keeping related to the city’s then-new sick-leave mandate, the decline in strip mall tenancies and the store’s pension liabilities were of no help.

“I’m a 71-year-old man,” he said at the time. “If I can figure out a way to help somebody get in there and keep that store operating, I’ll do it.”

In an interview this February with Southwest News Media, Gary Cooper said competition from big box stores had taken a bite out of sales in the Chaska location, which closed March 2.

St. Paul City Council Member Rebecca Noecker posted to social media Thursday that she was saddened by the grocery’s departure from West Seventh Street and had contacted the city’s economic development team.

“We are ready to assist in making sure this part of W. 7th Street remains vibrant and provides amenities the neighborhood needs,” Noecker wrote. “For me and for so many community members, Cooper’s has been not only a lifeline for fresh food but also somewhere you’d always connect with a friendly face.”

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