The most "influential" rock albums

Mad About Drums

Pollyanna's Agent
Following Aydee's thread about the most influential jazz albums and the Pollyanna's The birth of heavy metal thread, it inspired me to do one about rock albums.

Rock albums were the music I listen to as a teenager, and it's still one of my favorite music nowadays, even though I have listen and develop a taste for many other style of musics.

I have a few contenders in mind...

Deep Purple - Machine Head

Led Zeppelin - IV

Jethro Tull - Aqualung

Uriah Heep - Salisbury

The Beatles - Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band

There's many more I could list here, but I'll let you do that yourself :)
 
all great ones mentioned.....I'll add

Elvis Presley - Elvis Presley

Chuck Berry - after school session

the Who - My Generation

Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath

KISS - Alive!

Rush - Moving Pictures

Sex Pistols - Nevermind the Bullocks

the Police - Outlandos d'Amour

NIrvana - Nevermind

the Clash - London Calling

the Beach Boys - Pet Sounds

Patti Smith - Horses

the Velvet Underground - Nico
 
I'm sure you deliberately missed out "Dark side of the Saturn" Henri ;)

Yes I did Andy, the whole idea of the thread is to list "influential" albums... not my favorite album of all time :)

However, Pink Floyd's Dark side Of The Moon is another worthy contender...
 
Gvda's list covers a lot, I'd add:
DMB - Under the Table and Dreaming
Phish - Rift

Then these probably led to most modern metal:
The Misfits - Static Age?
Guns n' Roses - Appetite for Destruction
Metallica - Master of Puppets
Death - Human (or maybe something earlier like Leprosy or Spiritual Healing)
Minor Threat - Minor Threat
Helmet - Meantime
NIN - Pretty Hate Machine
Meshuggah - Destroy Erase Improve
Dream Theater - Images and Words
some Black Metal album... Bathory? Venom? I dunno...
 
IMO...

AC/DC - Back in Black
Black Sabbath - Master of Reality
Zep - BBC Sessions
Allman Brothers - Live at the Filmore East
Bad Co. - Bad Co.
Ted Nugent - Ted Nugent
The Beatles - Ummm, yep
Cream - Fresh Cream
Pink Floyd - Wish you Were Here

Edit: I guess I listed albums that influenced me instead of the greater history/future of Rock n Roll itself....I'm gonna leave 'em though, if that's ok....
 
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The Misfits - Static Age
Guns n' Roses - Appetite for Destruction
Metallica - Master of Puppets
Minor Threat - Minor Threat
Helmet - Meantime

how could I miss these..... absolutely
 
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin II
AC/DC - Back In Black
Bad Religion - Stranger Than Fiction
I'd love to throw a clutch album on this list, but it's too difficult to pick JUST one.
 
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin II
AC/DC - Back In Black
Bad Religion - Stranger Than Fiction
I'd love to throw a clutch album on this list, but it's too difficult to pick JUST one.

I love everything Clutch has ever done......but when Blast Tyrant came out I could not help but feel like they had tapped into a vein that was vital to rock music at the time
 
Van Halen-S/T
Motorhead- Ace of Spades
Ozzy-Blizzard of Ozz
Sex Pistols-Nevermind the Bollocks
 
the list is endless but here is my shot at it...

1. Alcatrazz "no parole from rock and roll"
2. Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the moon"
3. Van Halen "everything with DLR"
4. Dead Kennedys "fresh fruit for rotting vegatables"
5. Naked Raygun.... every album
6. Devo "are we not men"
7. Led Zeppelin cant choose just one
 
Hard to pick just a few.
The Beatles, obviously, but really, their entire catalog more than just any one album.

The Who, certain their fist album, but Tommy has to be in there, as would Live at Leeds, but Who's Next can't be left out.

Rush, I might replace Moving Pictures with 2112, but Moving Pictures did sell 8 times more copies.

Zep, it's easy to make a case for IV, but you could also make a solid case for 1.

I'd say U2 War album has a case to be included.

Fleetwood Mac's Rumors perhaps.

And of course, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. Although I would personally pick Wish You Were Here instead.
 
Perhaps if you define your definition of "Rock". In my own version some of the above would be labeled Punk or Heavy metal, not Rock. Am I being too picky?
You did say rock.
 
Perhaps if you define your definition of "Rock". In my own version some of the above would be labeled Punk or Heavy metal, not Rock. Am I being too picky?
You did say rock.

every album named so far is absolutely a rock album

what is punk, and metal?.....it's rock music

"rock" is the most broad musical umbrella that exists and you cut put nearly anything and everything under it
 
I'm a total Zeppelin head. I have all there albums (except The Complete Led Zeppelin - why purchase all the music over again) and they have had the greatest musical influence on me - and not just on the drums.

The album that pulls it all together for me is Presence. Probably their least liked and their poorest selling album. But it's full of complete utter rawness that just speaks to me. IMO, a rare (yet precious) quality in an accomplished band.

Achilles Last Stand - Whoa!!!
 
Deep Purple Machine Head
Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon
Aerosmith Toys in the Attic
Rush 2112
Bad Company Bad Company
Rolling Stone Sticky fingers
Beatles Seargent Pepper (tough to choose but Day in the Life pushed me over the endge)
Van Halen Van Halen
Led Zepplin II
Eagles Hotel California
David Bowie Ziggy Stardust
Fleetwood Mac Rumours
Allman Brothers Fillmore
Yes Fragile
 
every album named so far is absolutely a rock album

what is punk, and metal?.....it's rock music

"rock" is the most broad musical umbrella that exists and you cut put nearly anything and everything under it

Exactly. Everyone from Willie Nelson to Miles Davis can fit under there.


I can't think of too many records that haven't already been mentioned. Pretty much everything by Led Zeppelin and The Beatles, 'Words of Love' by Buddy Holly, and perhaps Frampton Comes Alive
 
I'm out of my element so please be easy on me...

Foghat - Fool for the city

Kiss -Destroyer

REO - Live / Hi Infidelity

Styx Cornerstone & Pieces of 8

Whatever album Free Bird is on

Foreigner - Double Vision

Heart - Dog & Butterfly

Journey - Escape & Captured & Frontiers
Now you can poke fun at the suggestions....
 
It's difficult to know how to interpret "influential." In what way? I'd say that Chuck Berry's "Maybellene" was influential, as was Buddy Holly's "That'll Be the Day."

If it's albums we're talking about then certainly the Beatles first album, whatever it was called, but also "Revolver" and "Rubber Soul." Those two, along with Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited" and "Blonde on Blonde," changed the way bands would sound forever. Bands still try to sound like that to this very day, that intimate acoustic/electric/in-the-studio sound.

Was "Sgt. Pepper" really all that influential? Not that I could ever tell. Maybe as far as album covers were concerned.

The first Jimi Hendrix album, "Are You Experienced," was hugely influential, in that it raised the bar for at least two generations of young musicians, and changed forever the way the electric guitar would be played. That was a true musical event, one that just doesn't come along very often.

I do think that, for better and/or worse, punk, by way of the Ramones first album, was a major influence on rock music. I remember it as being something like a breath of fresh air when I first heard it; it was wild and fun and very much like the bands that put out singles like "Louie Louie" back when I was a kid. But it lowered the bar so much that to this day you hear young people that can't play a damn thing getting up on stage and sounding like shit.

So these, the Beatles, Bob Dylan Jimi Hendrix, and the Ramones, are the four biggest influential entities I've seen emerge in rock music during my life, a life which, I'll be the first to admit, hasn't been entirely focused on rock music at all.
 
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