A list of the 100 greatest and most influential albums compiled by Time magazine has five Beatles selections, but nothing by Pink Floyd.

Sergeant Pepper, Abbey Road, The White Album, Revolver and Rubber Soul are all on the list, published in the current issue of Time.

The 1970 album John Lennon, by the Plastic Ono band also is included, with the comment that "Lennon's writing was never sharper, and his still-underrated singing stands with rock's finest."

But Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, one of the bestselling albums of all time and one that continues to get airplay 33 years after it was recorded, didn't make the cut.

"And that's how it should be," Time scribes write in their introduction to the list, which is categorized by decade rather than by degree of influence.

Other prominent no-shows — The Doors, Elvis Costello and Jay-Z. 

Each selection is accompanied by a written justification and a podcast that tells readers how the selection committee decided.

Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell has one album, Blue, and Canadian rocker Neil Young has After the Gold Rush.

The list covers a range of musical styles, from Delta blues and country, to rock and hip hop.

Thus The Clash's London Calling appears in the same decade as Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colors.

The 1950s has four selections, Kind of Blue by Miles Davis, Here's Little Richard by Little Richard and two Frank Sinatra recordings, Songs for Swingin' Lovers and In the Wee Small Hours.

But Hank Williams and Elvis Presley appear, inexplicably, in the 2000s, with Elvis at the Sun and Elvis 30 No. 1 Hits, recorded in the 1950s but released in 2004, and The Essential Hank Williams Collection, recorded before the advent of the long-playing album but released in 2005, both making the list.

Similarly, posthumous collections from Bob Marley and Muddy Waters are chosen ahead of albums they recorded in their lifetimes.

In more modern choices for the 2000s, Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP, Kanye West's The College Dropout and Radiohead's Kid A were also on Time's list.

The greatest number of albums was from the 1970s, with Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols bumping shoulders with Fleetwood Mac's Rumours and Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road up against Black Sabbath's Paranoid, which is honoured as "the birthplace of heavy metal."