Eleven months into the 50th-anniversary year of this magazine, we still just want to celebrate. And ever since we ran our “Top 50 DVDs of All Time”, you just knew we’d have to do the music side of the Sound & Vision equation. So, here they are: our “Top 50 Albums of All Time.” But wait (all together now), there’s more! Because we know you love bonus tracks, we’ve gathered 50 additional records, covering the best in live albums, jazz, classical, surround, and miscellaneous stuff.
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The Top 50 tally honors original studio albums. We didn’t take the easy way out and pad it with greatest hits and boxed sets. If the artists worked hard to create these classics, shouldn’t we work hard to put ’em in a list?
My colleagues gave me some good-natured ribbing on exactly how hard this assignment was. “What an arduous, unforgiving task,” quipped Parke Puterbaugh, “trying to condense 50 years of rock & roll history into a list of 50 albums.” Nonetheless, condense he did. Echoed our most veteran music critic, Steve Simels: “A more arduous task I can’t recall.” He then summed up: “This has been among the most exhausting and exhilarating undertakings of my entire professional life.” And we all loved every minute of it.
— KEN RICHARDSON
1: The Beatles: Revolver (Capitol)
The original label, of course, was Parlophone in England. Which brings up the most important discussion about this album’s physical format. I’m not talking LP, cassette, 8-track, or CD. I’m talking British album — as the Beatles sequenced it, George Martin produced it, and Geoff Emerick engineered it — vs. the American “version.”
Hard to believe that we still have to point that out. But when some people continue to cling to the “nostalgia” of the U.S. releases, and when Dave Marsh devotes an entire book to defending The Beatles’ Second Album, it bears repeating, again: Stay away from the old Capitols.
The programmatic and sonic liberties taken with 1966’s Revolver weren’t as egregious as in earlier botches. But only with the original will you get “I’m Only Sleeping” as the proper link between “Eleanor Rigby” and “Love You To”; only here will “And Your Bird Can Sing” give you a jolt between the piano tunes “Good Day Sunshine” and “For No One”; and only here does the burbling-guitar fade-out of “Doctor Robert” segue into the burbling-guitar fade-in of “I Want to Tell You.”
“But,” you want to ask me, “why is this the best album of all time?” Remember: All of those genre-defining songs above are on the same record. Need I really say more? Sure, I could go on about the final track. But the importance of “Tomorrow,” everyone knows.
— KEN RICHARDSON
2: Bob Dylan: Blonde on Blonde (Columbia)
Having made the transition from acoustic folksinger to electric rocker, Bob Dylan was bursting with creative energy when he recorded 1966’s Blonde on Blonde in, of all places, Nashville. Maybe it’s the fact that the crack country session players used by underrated producer Bob Johnston weren’t especially well versed in Dylan’s verse-heavy songs, but there’s a clarity and ease to the music that lends Dylan a tremendously supportive backdrop to bob and weave against. The elusive bard of the ’60s gave us much to mull over on this double LP, from lyrical carnival rides like “Absolutely Sweet Marie” and “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again” to the (count ’em) three Top 40 hits, all drastically different: “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35,” “I Want You,” and “Just Like a Woman.” But the crowning glory is “Visions of Johanna,” whose 7 ½ minutes of brilliantly evocative stream-of-consciousness poetry stillfly by after all these years.
— BILLY ALTMAN
3: The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Electric Ladyland (Reprise; Experience Hendrix)
“Produced and Directed by Jimi Hendrix.” So read the credits to 1968’s Electric Ladyland — and the key word is Directed, for this is the album that would get me on the hunt for a better pair of headphones so I could absorb all of its cinematic nuances. For almost a year, the only way I engaged this swirling cauldron of creativity was in the dark and on my Sennheiser HD420s, trying to unravel the eerie sci-fi mysteries of “1983” and “Moon, Turn the Tides.” Such intense listening sessions revealed this double album’s other sonic gems: the Hawaiian slide riffs on “All Along the Watchtower,” the cellophane-wrapped comb comps on “Crosstown Traffic,” Jimi’s multitracked gospel harmonies on “Long Hot Summer Night,” and the perpetually punishing wah-wah riff clinic on the epic closer, “Voodoo Child (Slight Return).” Man oh man, what a mind-blowing Experience.
— MIKE METTLER
4: The Rolling Stones: Let It Bleed (London; ABKCO)
This isn’t just a 1969 farewell to a decade. As a counterpart to Goodbye Baby & Amen (Stones cover photographer David Bailey’s book of portraits, published earlier the same year), it’s the sound of an era shutting down. The album opens with the aural equivalent of a pistol shot in the apocalyptic “Gimme Shelter.” And it ends with an ode to resignation, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” — which is also, in Greil Marcus’s apt phrase, the most outrageous production ever staged by a rock & roll band. In between, there’s a lot of stuff that sounds like cowboys playing the blues, a lot more stuff about sex and death and power (the Stones’ great subjects), and best of all, Keith Richards’s first solo vocal, on the utterly gorgeous “You Got the Silver.” The band’s next two studio LPs were variations on the theme; if Let It Bleed was the last gasp of the ’60s party, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main St. were the staggering home at sunrise and the subsequent hangover.
— STEVE SIMELS
5: Bob Dylan: Highway 61 Revisited (Columbia)
Even with the 2003 SACD remaster in the catalog, I still prefer the vinyl. Here’s an album that requires surface noise, to boost the electric guitars and add extra static to the drums. No one will ever confuse this 1965 set with the studio wizardry of Steely Dan, but no one has ever gotten a better sound for a live-playing band either. Of course, Dylan’s lyrics are hallucinatory and spellbinding. But Bobby Gregg’s drums, mashing through “Tombstone Blues,” are every bit as revelatory, and Michael Bloomfield’s country-flamenco picking on “Desolation Row” matters as much as whatever Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot are arguing about in the captain’s tower. (Don’t forget the organ on “Ballad of a Thin Man.”) Meanwhile, the best-sung line on the entire album just might be when Bob takes a healthy bite out of the word “good” in asking, “Don’t the moon look good, mama, shinin’ through the trees?”
— ROB O’CONNOR
6: The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Capitol)
This is the point where rock’s attention span grew from singles to albums. It was pop music’s psychic pinnacle in the year 1967, allowing the Beatles to step away from their confining identity as the Fab Four and cloak themselves in the adventurous guise of “Sgt. Pepper’s band.” With unparalleled resourcefulness, producer George Martin and the group captured these intricate songs — including Lennon and McCartney’s magnum opus, “A Day in the Life” — on nothing more than 4-track recorders. (As John noted, the album is best heard in its original mono mix.) On songs like “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and “Within You Without You,” Sgt. Pepper unlocked doors and inspired trips of all kinds. Noting the album’s vast reach, Langdon Winner sagely wrote: “For a brief moment, the irreparably fragmented consciousness of the West was united, at least in the minds of the young.”
—— ARKE PUTERBAUGH
7: The Who: Who’s Next (MCA)
Guitarist/songwriter/guiding light Pete Townshend had the good sense to abandon an unwieldy project, Lifehouse, and salvage its strongest songs for 1971’s succinct, single-disc Who’s Next. The result was the band’s most unassailably strong statement. Along with Led Zeppelin II, this was the template for ’70s hard rock: sinewy, loud, and bottomless. It offered gleaming new sounds, like Townshend’s burbling synthesizers on “Baba O’Riley” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” as well as his terse, slicing guitars. The busy rhythm section of bassist John Entwistle and drummer Keith Moon colored the spaces with rumbling thunder and roiling energy. This was also singer Roger Daltrey’s finest hour, as he tore into these tunes with gravel-throated ferocity, culminating in rock’s greatest scream. That, of course, comes near the end of “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” right before he sings, “Meet the new boss / Same as the old boss,” an anti-authoritarian adage for the ages.
— PARKE PUTERBAUGH
8: Derek and the Dominos: Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (Polydor)
We all have our own Laylas to bear. Lord knows I spent countless hours with my feverish head between a pair of speakers as yearning 1970 songs like “I Am Yours” and “Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad” both fueled and soothed my ache for another man’s woman. Eric Clapton has always used his guitar to speak for him more than words ever could, and his inarticulate speech of the heart has never been as compelling or as relatable, propelled by his ax-wielding foil, Duane Allman. Keyboardist Bobby Whitlock almost broke Layla’s spell by telling me that my favorite track — the album’s closer, the somber acoustic lament “Thorn Tree in the Garden” — was actually about his dog. But the song’s universal anguish connects it to any and all listeners, no matter the source. Layla, you’ve got me. For life.
— MIKE METTLER
9: Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin IV (Atlantic)
Back in early 1971, in the wake of Led Zeppelin III, “Since I’ve Been Loving You” was the track that my friends and I, paying dues in our high-school band, revered as The Big Zep Epic — until that November. I was the first of us to buy Zeppelin’s fourth album, and I distinctly recall saying to the others: “We can forget about ‘Since.’ Wait ’til you hear The New Zep Epic.” Yes, back then, “Stairway to Heaven” glittered like gold, and in 8 minutes it seemed to encompass everything that was good about rock & roll. It’s not Led Zeppelin’s fault that “Stairway” would become a radio retread. There’s nothing wrong with the song itself. May I advise a fresh hearing while doing nothing but sitting in a chair? And if you want even more that’s good about rock & roll, there is, of course, “Rock and Roll.” And “Black Dog.” And “When the Levee Breaks.” Not to mention every other flawless track in between, plus Sandy Denny, state-of-the-art production, immaculate musicianship, and Guitar to Die For. So, listen to the entire album anew. I just did — and still, it makes me wonder.
— KEN RICHARDSON
10: The Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground & Nico Verve (Polydor)
The cliché is that this didn’t sell a lot of copies but that everybody who bought one went on to form a band. There’s a grain of truth in that, but the album hit all sorts of people who never played an instrument (for a few months after it came out in 1967, it was the only record I heard echoing from dorm rooms at my old school), and the reason isn’t particularly mysterious: On first listen, it’s one scary record. Between John Cale’s viola drones, Nico’s Teutonic tunelessness, and Lou Reed’s stories of smack and sadomasochism, the album simply reeked of Les Fleurs du mal, as one reviewer quoted in the liner notes observed. Once you got past that, you realized that poppier moments like “Sunday Morning” and “I’ll Be Your Mirror” were beautifully observed vignettes about somebody’s real life, told with compassion and heart to burn. At which point, of course, you were a goner.
— STEVE SIMELS
11: Elvis Costello: This Year’s Model (Columbia; Hip-O)
As an unabashed Deadhead/prog-rocker, I wasn’t looking for any rock & roll saviors during the golden musical age of the ’70s. I was vaguely aware when punk reared its ugly head, but not until it became a more palatable New Wave did I see beyond my need for musical complexity — and This Year’s Model spearheaded the transition for me. That year was 1978, when Elvis Costello, the Attractions, and Nick Lowe gave a lesson in the power of spare instrumentation and production, with 2- to 3-minute songs that made you want to jump up and down despite the relatively minor role played by guitar. Even without “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea” (for which I coveted my roommate’s import LP version), it was sparkling entertainment from start to finish — perfect pop with a dash of “bite the hand that feeds me” anger, and smart, cynical lyrics throughout.
— ANDREW NASH
12: The Clash: London Calling (Epic)
Arriving at the tail end of 1979, London Calling crackled with punkish energy while pointing the way toward the more exploratory directions that New Wave would take in the ’80s. The Clash had plenty to offer on this double album, spreading its stylistic wings beyond the loud-fast punk-rock norm to encompass Sun-era rockabilly (“Brand New Cadillac”), horn-filled ska (“Rudie Can’t Fail”), march-tempo combat rock (“Clampdown”), and sweetly soulful garage rock (“Train in Vain,” which broke the band in America). The title track issued a choose-your-side call to arms, and its future-shock music — powered by Paul Simonon’s apocalyptic bass line — echoed Jefferson Airplane’s starkly anthemic “Crown of Creation.” Throughout London Calling, the guitar-wielding, justice-minded brain trust of Joe Strummer and Mick Jones proved that punk-rockers could inhabit new musical territory without sacrificing their underlying feistiness, nor their convictions.
— PARKE PUTERBAUGH
13: Nirvana: Nevermind (DGC)
Scene 1: September 18, 1991, in a New York City record-label publicist’s office. “Listen to this. It comes out next week.” Advance tape from a different record label goes into the cassette player. The first three chords of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” come forth. I shiver. Instant paradigm shift. Scene 2: September 24, 1991, release day. I cue up the Nevermind CD. Ahhhh. The world spins. Producer Butch Vig has triggered the revolution by doubling melody-maker Kurt Cobain’s vocals and guitar lines, giving the dissonant punk seeds at the heart of “In Bloom,” “Come as You Are,” and “Lithium” an accessible alt-rock edge. Scene 3: September 28, 1991, at the Marquee in New York. I watch Cobain hurtle himself face first into drummer Dave Grohl’s cymbals. Did he just decapitate himself, or the entire music industry, in one fell swoop? Oh well, whatever. Forevermind.
— MIKE METTLER
14: Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon (Harvest/Capitol)
My Sunday-morning ritual while living in rural Virginia in the early ’80s: I’d drop the needle down to “On the Run,” and just as the oscillated implosion signaled the track’s end, I’d turn it up past 11, open my window, and scramble out the door to see how far I could get before the chiming clocks heralded “Time.” Sometimes, my neighbors would poke their heads outside to see what all the fuss was about. Sometimes, my parents would yell at me to come back in and turn it down. My goal was pure: Share the pyramid of sonic wonders with everyone. I became an audio journalist to spread the gospel of great-sounding recordings, and this 1973 album remains high fidelity, first-class.
— MIKE METTLER
15: The Rolling Stones: Exile on Main St. (Rolling Stones/Atlantic; Hip-O)
Long before anyone imagined MP3s, I achieved my first illegal download by taping the entirety of 1972’s Exile off the radio onto a brown-labeled Ampex cassette. (The band even helped me out by placing the filler “I Just Want to See His Face” at the 45-minute tape-flip mark.) It seemed a perfect way to experience the most illicit-sounding Stones record. With its low-life lyrical references and murky, substance-soaked sonics, this double LP made it redundant for a generation of kids to do drugs; the Stones had already provided the contact buzz. And it somehow made sense that when I later heard the album on vinyl through a stereo system, I still could barely make out a word of “Rip This Joint” or “Tumbling Dice.” For young suburban fans, Exile was a rite of passage.
— BRETT MILANO
16: Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin II (Atlantic)
This 1969 recording gave me my first lesson in stereo. As a pre-teen, I bought the cassette version for listening on my portable Panasonic player — and I spent 3 years unknowingly listening to only the left channel. I didn’t even know that “Whole Lotta Love” had a guitar solo until the song came on the radio one day and I heard notes that weren’t on my copy of the album. The cassette also jumbled the running order, placing “Heartbreaker” at the end of Side 1 and “Thank You” at the beginning of Side 2 — which, as any dedicated fan of this album can tell you, is just plain wrong.
— ROB O’CONNOR
17: Love: Forever Changes (Elektra; Rhino)
My first brush with Arthur Lee’s complicated genius was in 1971 when Ben Edmonds put this album on the office turntable at Creem magazine, where we worked. Never mind that this was 4 years after the record’s release; it still had the power to enthrall, with its blend of state-ly symphonic arrangements, Youthquake angst, and narcoleptic, often enigmatic lyrics. Those words posed more questions than they answered, whether in the troubling blood transfusions of “A House Is Not a Motel” (which seemed to foretell Lee’s death, in 2006, from leukemia) or the chilling Cold War imagery of “The Red Telephone.” “Andmoreagain” is more medieval court song than rock song, inspired by Androulla Morenoa, who was the girlfriend of both Lee and guitarist Bryan MacLean — making material the complicated relations in this era of peace and love.
— JAAN UHELSZKI
18: Bruce Springsteen: Born to Run (Columbia)
The title song — Springsteen’s attempt to re-create “the sound of universes colliding” (as he’d famously described some of Phil Spector’s hits) — had been leaked to DJs in the months before this came out in the summer of 1975. So Bruce’s insanely faithful fans (among whom I most definitely counted myself) were primed for a masterpiece. Which we got, in spades. He may have made deeper and richer music (I still prefer The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle), but between the fuel-injected guitars of “Thunder Road” and the light-years-beyond-gorgeous street-corner romanticism of “Jungleland,” Born to Run contained, if not universes, then at least multitudes.
— STEVE SIMELS
19: The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Are You Experienced (Reprise; Experience Hendrix)
The first time I plopped this 1967 debut onto my JVC turntable, I quickly agreed that Jimi Hendrix had brought the electric guitar into an entirely new realm. But I also soon discovered that the album revealed tunes that were insanely catchy (“Purple Haze”), brilliantly bluesy (“Hey Joe,” “Red House”), otherworldly (the title track), and fire-breathing (“Foxey Lady”) because of the way Hendrix’s immensely creative guitar blended with his passionate vocals and the dynamic playing of bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell. This isn’t just the initial triumph of a guitar god, but a unique piece of rock and blues genius.
— JEFF PERLAH
20: The Beatles: Rubber Soul (Capitol)
Nobody really noticed it at the time, but 1965’s Rubber Soul was in fact the Beatles’ first album obviously conceived from stem to stern as a unified artistic statement — not perhaps a concept record in the subsequent Sgt. Pepper sense, but a consistently brilliant work in which each individual track had a similar aural signature (the rock & roll band as chamber-music ensemble). Brian Wilson called it the first rock album without filler, which isn’t far from the truth. Whether it’s Paul McCartney singing in French (“Michelle”) or John Lennon trying to describe an affair without his wife knowing about it, and getting poetry as a result (“Norwegian Wood”), the Beatles’ level of sophistication here is astounding compared with that of the vaguely punkish bar band that had recorded its debut a mere 3 years before.
— STEVE SIMELS
21: AC/DC: Back in Black (Atlantic; Columbia/Legacy)
Contrary to possible popular belief, this is not a three-song EP. Granted, if truth be told, the 13 minutes of “Hells Bells” (no apostrophe!), “Back in Black,” and “You Shook Me All Night Long” are stronger than some other bands’ entire 70-minute CDs. But headbangers old/young should be reminded/instructed that there’s much more on this 1980 record than what they hear on the radio. “Givin the Dog a Bone” (no apostrophe!), “Let Me Put My Love into You,” “Shake a Leg,” and on and on — that’s a whole lotta riffs, Rosie, with no-nonsense production by Robert John “Mutt” Lange. “Rock and Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution”: Truer words were never sung.
— KEN RICHARDSON
22: Iggy and the Stooges: Raw Power (Columbia)
As a 13-year-old kid who devoured Creem and Circus, I started to think of Lester Bangs and his compatriots as my smart-assed older brothers. And in 1973, Raw Power was the album that none of them would shut up about for months. I finally bought it sound-unheard, since even underground FM radio in the New York City area wasn’t touching it. Gearing up for a full-blast assault, I was initially shocked at how catchy and melodic the album turned out to be; it still stands as proof that great punk is, among other things, about songwriting. Still, there was enough in these songs to suggest that postadolescence was, uh, going to be interesting.
— BRETT MILANO
23: The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds (Capitol)
It’s been more than 40 years since this album appeared in 1966, and I have yet to hear a single recording from any other era, before or after, that comes close to matching it in spatial depth and texture — and this from an album crafted in mono sonics, mind you. Brian Wilson surpassed spiritual mentor Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound productions by single-handedly creating a fully three-dimensional model, exemplified by the eternal “God Only Knows.” Pet Sounds has everything from French horns, harpsichords, and bass harmonicas to theremins, bicycle bells, and yes, barking dogs. It remains not only Brian’s greatest achievement, but arguably all of 20th-century American pop music’s as well.
— BILLY ALTMAN
24: The Rolling Stones: Sticky Fingers (Rolling Stones/Atlantic; Hip-O)
As a kid in 1971, flipping through bins of LPs at Record World or Korvette’s (or some other long-gone establishment), whenever I spied Andy Warhol’s cover for Sticky Fingers, I felt uneasy. There was something about those jeans, with their real zipper, that seemed so . . . loaded. The LP itself, of course, contained some of the Stones’ best songs: “Wild Horses,” “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking,” “Bitch,” “Brown Sugar.” Then there were the slow-burn blues numbers, and even a great country song (“Dead Flowers”). If you could have only one Stones album in your collection, this should be it.
— AL GRIFFIN
25: The Who: Quadrophenia (MCA)
Whatever you think of Ken Russell’s film version of Tommy, the Who’s performances for that 1975 movie were powerhouse — so much so that, when I needed my Who fix thereafter, the relatively tame original Tommy album no longer did it for me. Instead, I turned to 1973’s Quadrophenia, which had the band at the peak of its powers: Pete Townshend’s writing was more mature, John Entwistle and Keith Moon were playing ever more frenetically, and Roger Daltrey was belting out his vocals with true rock-operatic gusto. Toss in the cool concept of the protagonist’s four identities, each associated with a different member of the band, and I was hooked. The Who never topped this one.
— ANDREW NASH
26: The Rolling Stones: Beggars Banquet (London; ABKCO)
With their finger in the wind, the Rolling Stones sensed and channeled the storms that were stirring in the counterculture. And it was on Beggars Banquet that they tore free of their follow-the-leader ties to the Beatles. They were literally diabolical on “Sympathy for the Devil” and grandly provocative on “Street Fighting Man.” After the psychedelic overkill of 1967’s Their Satanic Majesties Request (their Sgt. Pepper retort), it’s not surprising that much of this album also found the Stones embracing their stylistic roots in acoustic blues, with songs whose sly, sexual distemper and jaundiced spirits likewise suited the souring mood in the colossal bringdown year of 1968.
— PARKE PUTERBAUGH
27: The Who: Tommy (MCA)
It was the spring of 1970, and I was witnessing Woodstock — Michael Wadleigh’s film of the previous summer’s festival. (Among the editors of that film: Martin Scorsese.) Suddenly, one of the bands nearly blasted me out of my seat. “The Who,” my older brother informed me, just as they performed from their rock opera about a deaf, dumb, and blind boy. I left the theater swinging my arm like a windmill. Over time, however, I haven’t needed any air-guitar heroics or actual smashed gear to go back and appreciate Pete Townshend’s original miracle of songwriting — an album that was released only 3 months before he took the stage in front of 300,000 people at Max Yasgur’s farm. Told through Pete’s bevy of guitar styles, Roger Daltrey’s passionate singing, John Entwistle’s commanding bass, and Keith Moon’s manic yet magisterial drumming, Tommy is a truly amazing journey.
— JEFF PERLAH
28: John Lennon: Plastic Ono Band (Apple; Capitol)
1970. The bell tolls. “Mother.” Screaming. Raw. Real. Too real? Too bad. Lennon’s lyrics and vocals, naked and exposed. His guitars, gutsy and dirty. Klaus Voormann and Ringo Starr, rhythm-section simplicity. The three of them get in a mood together, letting the songs and the emotions be the stars. “I Found Out.” Angry. “Love is real / Real is love.” Tender. “God.” Stark. A revelation. Ringo’s taut tom fills, Billy Preston’s spiritual piano riffs. “The dream is over. . . .” Shocking. No veils, no compromises. Plastic Ono Band. Never plastic. Oh no.
— MIKE METTLER
29: The Doors: The Doors (Elektra; Rhino)
This 1967 debut arrived in the Summer of Love with a darkly existential sound and message that ran counter to the smile-on-your-brother tone of the times. Jim Morrison’s ingestion of literature and hallucinogens lent an unapologetic depth to his lyrical exploration of the subconscious. “Light My Fire,” written by guitarist Robby Krieger, was the hit. “The End,” an 11-minute opus by Morrison, was the shocker, touching on psychic disorientation and death. The set’s nine other, briefer songs were explosive nuggets. And today, still, the whole thing is best experienced in its powerful mono mix.
— PARKE PUTERBAUGH
30: The Beatles: The Beatles (Apple; Capitol)
Looking back to 1968, you can really hear the beginnings of their breakup musically, as all four Beatles start to pull apart from each other and head in what would be, within a year and a half, completely separate solo directions. Cases in point: Paul McCartney’s music-for-music’s-sake acoustic ditty “Mother Nature’s Son” is immediately followed by John Lennon’s in-your-face electric rocker “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey.” Then again, “The White Album” is still the Beatles, and their only double studio LP remains a true embarrassment of riches.
— BILLY ALTMAN
31: Television: Marquee Moon (Elektra; Rhino)
Television stood out from many other acts in New York’s punk/New Wave scene because its members were accomplished musicians. Their 1977 debut ranges from the beautiful ballad “Guiding Light” to jittery, driving rockers like “See No Evil” and “Friction,” all fueled by Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd’s intricate, intertwined guitars and Tom’s oblique lyrics. A remastered CD is out — but, for me, hearing this album means spinning the excellent Four Men with Beards vinyl reissue.
— AL GRIFFIN
32 Yes: Close to the Edge (Atlantic; Elektra/Rhino)
I nominate Rick Wakeman’s organ solo on the title suite — that is, the skittering Hammond that comes after the wash of church organ — as the most joyful moment in progressive-rock history. And it’s only amplified by the unearthly way the final vocal choruses melt into the stratosphere. By now, most fans know that Yes achieved that effect in 1972 by piling on overdubs and pushing their studio consoles to the limit — not to mention writing the song as they went along. Happy accident or divine inspiration? Sometimes it’s hard to tell.
— BRETT MILANO
33: The Band: Music from Big Pink (Capitol)
Released in 1968, this debut — an austere, primitive document — was a welcome foil for much of the overwrought, baroque stuff that was appearing on FM radio stations — which is where I first heard the plucky strains of “The Weight,” with all its biblical and common-sense profundity. The Band revealed the softer, soul-searching side of the ’60s, perhaps most vividly on the wrenching but lyrically beautiful “I Shall Be Released,” which mirrored the inner pain that would plague keyboardist Richard Manuel during his short life.
— JAAN UHELSZKI
34: Joni Mitchell: Blue (Reprise)
An album best heard on CD. Not only do you lose the surface noise of vinyl — so much more crucial when dealing with those tracks that are piano-based — but you can process the album in one uninterrupted sitting, allowing the 10 songs over 36 minutes to flow like the river that Joni wishes to skate away on. In 1971, her voice hadn’t yet lost the top end of its range to smoking, and she sounded excited even with life’s shortcomings.
— ROB O’CONNOR
35: The Zombies: Odessey and Oracle (CBS; Fuel 2000)
British psychedelic pop had many high points (listen to the Nuggets II boxed set for proof), but few albums of that movement compare with this one from 1968. While the hit “Time of the Season” rightly endures as an iconic track, other songs rank equally high, such as the gorgeous, Mellotron-rich “Brief Candles” and “Hung Up on a Dream.” This album, yes, “expanded my consciousness” when I first encountered it in my teens, and it still resonates today.
— AL GRIFFIN
36: Marvin Gaye: What’s Going On (Tamla; Motown)
The story of Motown chief Berry Gordy fighting tooth and nail with Marvin Gaye over this sociopolitically charged 1971 concept album remains one of the most instructive lessons in art vs. commerce. That a well-established R&B/pop star would suddenly start writing and singing about the Vietnam War, racial tensions, and urban and environmental decay was not only startling but truly courageous. That listeners responded by making the album a huge hit, and on both sides of the color line, was a fitting reward.
— BILLY ALTMAN
37: The Band: The Band (Capitol)
Maybe it was their bland name, maybe it was the simplistic cover art, or maybe it was my innate distrust of country rockers. Whatever the reason, I didn’t have much interest in a mainly Canadian group formerly known as the Hawks. Then I heard some bootleg tapes of Bob Dylan and the Band, and I rustled up this 1969 album — a borrowed cassette copy (no cover art) of a badly scratched LP. I discovered that these guys were for real, and so was country rock — and everything else the Band did.
— KEN C. POHLMANN
38: U2: The Joshua Tree (Island)
My first contact with this 1987 album began with a heated political argument. I was unwilling to admit that an Irish band could offer worthwhile commentary on America’s angst and frontier mythos. I mean, come on — rockers who are suddenly experts on U.S. foreign policy? I was familiar with the band, and even knew that the album’s working title had been The Two Americas, signaling Bono’s attempt to reconcile our fable and fact. Gimme a break. Then, like everyone else, I listened to the album. I immediately shut up. And was converted.
— KEN C. POHLMANN
39: Traffic: John Barleycorn Must Die (Island)
Anyone over a certain age will surely have to remember Midsummer Rock, a syndicated TV show that inexplicably turned up on Saturday-afternoon screens during the summer of 1970. Amid footage of a still-unknown Alice Cooper hypnotizing the crowd and Iggy Pop doing his thing with the peanut butter came a fresh-faced Steve Winwood and company, playing four songs from this just-released gem. And that was John Barleycorn in a nutshell: a glimpse of timeless pastoral beauty in the middle of a culturally chaotic time.
— BRETT MILANO
40: R.E.M.: Murmur (I.R.S.; A&M)
Some albums just have a vibe, and this 1983 debut probably has more of one than any other album of the ’80s. Partly it’s the production: Mitch Easter and Don Dixon’s soundscapes are such ’60s-centric throwbacks that Murmur sometimes seems like the second coming of “The White Album.” But mostly it’s the songs, and Michael Stipe’s singing. The whole thing has a haunted, almost Appalachian quality that’s preternaturally old; there wasn’t a record out at the time remotely like it, and there hasn’t been one since.
— STEVE SIMELS
41: Moby Grape: Moby Grape (Columbia; out of print)
Call ’em San Francisco sound giants — a psychedelic melting pot of five songwriters, three guitarists, heavenly harmonies, and hooks aplenty. At any given moment on their 1967 debut, they could veer into country, folk, blues, or honk with vintage zeal. All that, and the endearingly bent funky-tunk vision of Skip Spence, too.
42: Fleetwood Mac: Rumours (Warner Bros.)
How could two in-band romantic breakups result in such giddy music? How could studio recordings that sound so tight and precise also seem so footloose and angsty-free? Credit the band’s burgeoning creativity in 1977, of course. But also give a well-deserved nod to their co-producers, Ken Caillat and Richard Dashut, for helping to make both loving and unloving fun.
43: Big Star: Radio City (Ardent; Fantasy)
No sophomore slump here. Building on the promise of #1 Record, this 1974 cult favorite grew into being the power-pop blueprint, enhanced by the off-the-floor feel of cuts like “September Gurls” and “Back of a Car.” Both tunes are rites-of-passage covers for any band trying to master the art of catchy melodies and crunchy guitars.
44: Pretenders: Pretenders (Sire)
“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” It would be 41 long years before we’d be treated to another line like that: “But not me, baby, I’m too precious: F--- off!” On their 1980 debut, Chrissie Hynde and her boys not only rocked us but sent us reeling. And with that, the previous decade of sensitive female singer/songwriters truly seemed gone with the wind.
45: Genesis: The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (Atco; Rhino)
Did it matter that the concept wasn’t clear? No, what mattered most was that this album (along with King Crimson’s Red, issued the same month in 1974) saw musicians reaching their compositional and instrumental peak while striking new modernist ground for progressive rock. It may be Rael, but yes, it’s real.
46: The Kinks: Something Else (Reprise)
No one chronicles the rise and fall of the British Empire quite like Ray Davies. Bookended by the snide character study “David Watts” and the beautiful, career-defining “Waterloo Sunset,” this 1967 chapter opened the door for future studies in territoriality. (Blur’s “Country House,” meet your longstanding neighbor, The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society.)
47: Queen: A Night at the Opera (Elektra; Hollywood)
Hard rock, vaudeville, pop, acoustic skiffle, and much more — and that’s only Side 1, folks. Meanwhile, the other side has two epics. And when you play the whole thing, remember how, in the year of ’75, Roy Thomas Baker and the band revolutionized the art of recording.
48: Stevie Wonder: Innervisions (Tamla; Motown)
This 1973 masterwork opens with breezy funk (“Too High”) and continues with angry soul (“Living for the City”), exquisite balladry (“All in Love Is Fair”), and perfect pop (“Don’t You Worry ’Bout a Thing”) before closing with the sublime “He’s Misstra Know-It-All.” Visionary, to be sure.
49: Radiohead: OK Computer (Capitol)
Okay, dear reader, you’ve perused 48 albums by now. This one came along in 1997 to remind us just what an actual album was. And as we listened to the human/technological handiwork of Radiohead and recordist Nigel Godrich, it was wondrously difficult to find the dividing line between composition and production, between song and sound.
50: Prince and the Revolution: Purple Rain (Warner Bros.)
Sure, this was predated by 1999, but 1984 was the year when the Purple Prince genuinely became a Rain-aissance Man with his own film and its soundtrack-cum-studiofest. And while we disagree with Entertainment Weekly calling it the Best Album of the Last 25 Years, any record that ranges from the slap of “Computer Blue” to the transcendence of “When Doves Cry” deserves to be included in the royalty of the past 50 years.