I’ve been listening to the recently released Abbey Road 5.1 mix lately, so I’ll pick that. There aren’t many artists that go out on top with a work like that.
Pink Floyd: Animals
Songs from the Wood is an overlooked gem.
Never Turn Your Back on a Friend not only has no weak spots, the album title is delightfully ambiguous. But, lamentably, no one has heard of that band.
Of course this is the correct answer.
Close second: ‘Back in Black’ AC/DC
My go-to answer is usually “Exile on Main Street”, but Derek & The Dominos “Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs” is right up there too…not a bad tune on that one either.
Many of mine have been sniped…but here are some that don’t get enough love and I’ve recently rediscovered as feeling fresh as the day they were stamped…
Joe Walsh - Barnstorm
Cheap Trick - Dream Police
Social Distortion - Social Distortion
This post reminds me again that this thread is a great inspiration for my playlist (or anybody’s). Though I know most of the usual suspects mentioned, there are still white spots in my musical map. So I always wanted to check out Joe Walsh and Social Distortion, and this gives me a good hint at where to start.
I’m a huge VH and Zep fan, but I will go with a slightly different definition of Rock…
Outlandos d’Amour
Reaching forward a bit, I found Grave Dancers Union by Soul Asylum to be excellent all the way through. It has a quality I describe as “comfort music”, which does not mean that it is pleasant or inoffensive but that it evokes the sense of a bygone era, bringing some relief to these severely damaged present days.
And how could no one have mentioned A Space in Time by Ten Years After, which is solid as a rock.
I fondly remember that album, it’s just like you described. It was the album of the month in Musikexpress and I bought it because of that review, not even knowing THE single “Runaway Train” or any other song. I hadn’t even ever heard of the band before. But I remember that many people in the alternative scene (which just had begun to go massively mainstream after Nirvana’s smash) hated it and cried “Sellout!”, not remembering that countless earlier bands also had begun in punk and developed their music into something subtler later in their career.
They keep on bringing it down in YouTube, you might have to search for it, but David Bowie “Life at Santa Monica 1972” is the best bootleg rock and roll I have ever heard. Listen loud, specially “I’m waiting for my man”, around 56’. Mick Ronson at his best. Of course the OP is right and there are not only no right answers, my answer could change a lot from one day to the next. There are days where I would consider even Leonard Cohen to be rock. That is my answer today. Many other answers given ring a bell too. I fell in good company.
Told you my opinion might change: today I am for Dead Kennedys “In God We Trust Inc.” Raw!
Yes. It is. Excellent tunes that album has.
Pretenders - self titled first album
Kinks
One for the road.
I thought this was decided - Tonio K. - Life in the Food Chain - - YouTube
"Steve Simels at Stereo Review proclaimed it “the greatest album ever recorded”.
Tonio K. was/is Steven Krikorian. See wiki for a biography.
Another one that will rock with out a lot of love -
Captain Beyond - Thousand Days of Yesterday.
Zeppelin IV or Wish You Were Here
Yes’s *Fragile *& Beatles Abbey Road are strong contenders as are Dark Side of the Moon & *Animals *by Floyd and Crosby, Stills & Nash.
Always and forever my answer will be Quadrophenia.
I’d vote for Cream - Wheels of Fire, but they were a jazz trio. 