I’ve talked to friends and co-workers until blue in the face about the greatest Classic Rock and Roll albums of all time. I have created a website (which is now gone) ranking my opinion of the greatest 100 albums of all time and now I bring the Question that has no clear cut answer to StraightDope. For the sake of time conservation I’ll keep this to the top 10 albums…
Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band (The Beatles)
Led Zeppelin 4 (Led Zeppelin)
Pet Sounds (The Beach Boys)
Are You Experienced? (Jimi Hendrix)
Born to Run (Bruce Springsteen)
Dark Side of The Moon (Pink Floyd)
Rubber Soul (The Beatles)
Who’s Next (The Who)
Led Zeppelin 2 (Led Zeppelin)
Paranoid (Black Sabbath)
Hit me with some feedback opinion breeds thought, thought breeds intelligence…
Some good tracks, but their first album was much more influential.
In such a short list I’m reluctant to add another Pink Floyd album, but I’d include The Wall. It stands on its own right, and is arguably the last great/iconic classic rock album. There have been landmark albums since (e.g., Nevermind), and classic rock bands have had later hits, but nothing after 1979/82 comes close.
Yeah that’s the problem with a short list, to be honest as far as Pink Floyd is concerned I thought long and hard about weather to put The Wall or Dark Side, I chose DS, but I agree that its a toss up.
If forced to chose one, I’d say DSoTM eclipses (heh) TW by a fair amount. While my personal listening-order preferences may differ (I’d probably save Animals first, though it wouldn’t be an easy choice), DSoTM just … is. Words fail in describing why one is more pantheonic than another. I’m sure XKCD has done something on comparing infinities, but I can’t find it.
Animals and Wish You Were Here are my favorite Floyd albums but I think Dark Side is the “greatest” because of it’s marketability, to this day you can’t walk around a highschool or college and not see atleast one person wearing a Darkside T-shirt or Hoodie. Maybe its not a great reason to say it’s greater than another album, but that’s my reasoning. If it has remained that relivent through all these years it must be the greatest by Floyd. Right?
It’s funny you brought up revolver because I switched out Revolver and Rubber Soul at the last second. The best Stones candidates are probably Exile On Main or Let It Bleed.
Had a couple hour drive this past weekend and found a couple CD’s at a garage sale just before I left. Hadn’t listened to either completely in a long time and they sounded good.
Montrose - Montrose
Robin Trower - Bridge of Sighs
A couple others worth mentioning are the first releases from Boston and Van Halen.
I like everything on your list (even though I may the only person who thinks Hendrix is over-rated and would not have AYE? on my personal list.) My favorite there is Born to Run, but I can’t claim that it’s the best of the bunch. I might swap in the White Album for Sgt Pepper too.
I am in 100% agreement that Hendrix is over-rated, I think that Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Stevie Ray Vaughn are all better guitarists than Jimi, Hendrix was the greatest showman to ever pick up an instrument, which along with his early death turned him into an immortal rock god. His life/death emulated rock and roll to a “T”, so people tend to take that and run with it without really listen to the other greats play their guitars.
Clapton Is GOD.
Clapton *was *God. For maybe a couple of years. This probably needs its own thread. I am a guitar player, have been for 45 years. I loved Clapton when I was a teenager and learned a lot of his stuff. But in hindsight, he had some great moments but didn’t move the art form forward. Hendrix is greatly appreciated by guitarists but maybe not so much by the general public. The thing we like about him is the whole new approach to the instrument and the level of expressiveness that made it seem like the patch cord went right into his heart without the need of the intervening six strings. Jimi changed the landscape of rock guitar, redefining it.
Jimmy Page broke ground and paved the way for modern metal, so also deserves praise.
Stevie was great. But please. There would have been no Stevie Ray Vaughn had Hendrix not come first.
“Disraeli Gears” - Cream
“Sympathy for the Devil” - Rolling Stones
“Surrealistic Pillow” - Jefferson Airplane
“American Beauty” - Grateful Dead
“Crosby, Stills & Nash” and “Deja Vu” - Crosby, Stills, Nash (& Young)
“Harvest” - Neil Young
“Court & Spark” - Joni Mitchell
“Pearl” - Janis Joplin
“L.A. Woman” - the Doors
“Horses” - Patti Smith
“the B-52s”
“London Calling” - the Clash
“Let It Bleed” - the Replacements
“Louder Than Bombs” - the Smiths
Don’t get me wrong I LOVE Jimi Hendrix. Love is the only word for it. The only argument that I can make is that there is a pretty big difference, in my mind, between who is “better” and who is “greater”. Jimi Hendrix is the “Greatest” of all time, he shaped the art if playing the guitar more than anyone before or since, and has inspired more young musicians to pick up a guitar than probably anyone else for any instrument ever, Mozart and Hendrix are on the same level as far as Greatness, and Inspiration are concerned. What I meant to convey when I said he was overrated is from a “Best of all time” standpoint, rather than the greatest. If we are talking about who the Best of all time is, my list looks a whole lot different, Steve Vai is my #1, then guys like Yngwie, Joe Satriani, ect. the Best of all time is probably some 15 year old Japanese kid that we will never hear of, but the greatest is and always will be J-I-M-I.
No Beatles or Zeppelin in an all-time classic rock album list, is that even allowed lol?
I had a hard time not tossing Disraeli Gears on my list, but top 10 is just such a small sample size to cut all of Rock and Rolls great albums down to.