ESA raised this in a round about way with the OK Computer thread, so this is a follow on from that.

In countering the thinly veiled's view that I should be letting my young children listen to 'the classics' as well as the stuff I listen to on a day to day basis (mostly in the car), I've been buying up the odd 'classic' here and there. An obvious examples is Pet Sounds. This appears to be uniformly acknowledged as a Top 10 album of all time, but at least half of it is gloomy dreck interspersed with the cheerful beach tunes we know and love.

I would imagine a lot of 'classics' from the past are awarded their status based on how ground breaking they were at the time (song writing, production, cultural context) whereas it is harder to stand out now.

In that context, IS it ok for records like OK Computer to be considered as in the top (say) 10 of all time?

TL;DR