I don’t think this one’s been mentioned yet and my apologies if I browsed over the previous posts in this thread and missed someone else suggesting it before me but no doubt about it: AC/DC-Highway To Hell. This was truly the apex of their “hard blues” stuff before they moved on to the markedly different (at least to me, I mean sure they still had the juvenile over-the-top satanic lyrics, I don’t think they’d legally be AC/DC without 'em…) more polished harder closer-to-metal sound of “Back In Black.”
I’m almost surprised there isn’t some fringe element of AC/DC fans/geeks out there who bash everything after and/or including “Back In Black” era AC/DC while adoring everything before it -starting with “Highway To Hell” much in the same way many Metallica fans have derided/disowned everything after and often including “Black Album.” Heh. Let me say I guess it’s a good thing there’s not this fringe element and, don’t get me wrong, I do like plenty of songs AC/DC put out during the 80’s but none of it did it for me like “Powerage,” “Let There Be Rock” and “Highway.” To me personally, while I see why people see everything they’ve put has sounded the same I think it rings truer after Black Album and that their 70’s stuff had a certain funky quality to it different than the later stuff.
“Highway” was definitely the best, though. Don’t get me wrong I can easily knock back a few and lose myself in “Powerage” or “Let There Be…” but “Highway” has more of my personal favorites than those two combined and is the total package while listening to “Let There Be…”, for example, I usually prefer to play Go Down, skip to the title track, maybe Bad Boy Boogie, and finish out with Overdosed On You. Listening to the whole Highway album though is a listening experience all its own.
Sorry didn’t mean to veer too far off course with AC/DC worship.
How about for a newer album, BLS- “Blessed Hellride.” Has its own special funky hard sound ala the way the aforementioned AC/DC had its own funky hard sound back in the day.
Others:
Robin Trower-“Bridge Of Sighs”
Robin Trower-“King Biscuit Flower Hour”
Pink Floyd-“Dark Side Of The Moon”
Trapeze-“Medusa”
Led Zep 1
Metallica-“Master Of Puppets”