I think what the The Rolling Stone lists, both with songs and last year with albums, the type of people you ask will give you an indication of the type of list that will come out the other end. I agree that there's an element of zeitgeist for 'Respect' that didn't exist in 2003/4 but the main reason for the elevation is they've broadened the voting audience in a similar way to the Academy Awards have.
A useful comparison point here is the Pitchfork Reader's 25th poll that was recently published, they've broken down the audience based on demographics and you can see how age, gender and geography (as well as time reading the site) mean that some cohorts have little overlap there's the Xennial Kid A vote, the young Gen-X OK Computer mixed in with Gen-Z voting for To Pimp A Butterfly and Yeezus. The mix is a wonderful thing.
I think what the The Rolling Stone lists, both with songs and last year with albums, the type of people you ask will give you an indication of the type of list that will come out the other end. I agree that there's an element of zeitgeist for 'Respect' that didn't exist in 2003/4 but the main reason for the elevation is they've broadened the voting audience in a similar way to the Academy Awards have.
A useful comparison point here is the Pitchfork Reader's 25th poll that was recently published, they've broken down the audience based on demographics and you can see how age, gender and geography (as well as time reading the site) mean that some cohorts have little overlap there's the Xennial Kid A vote, the young Gen-X OK Computer mixed in with Gen-Z voting for To Pimp A Butterfly and Yeezus. The mix is a wonderful thing.