Here’s some more, some just names, some albums I love:
-For early rock don’t forget to include Bill Hailey and the Comets, Chuck Berry, and Buddy Holly and the Crickets.
The Beatles - White Album
-Anything you can lay your hands on from Motown: Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson (with or without the Miracles), the Four Tops, the Temptations, the Jackson Five, Stevie Wonder, to name a few.
Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack (you mentioned you don’t like disco, but this is THE album of the 70s–if you’re gonna get just one…)
Grease soundtrack
Guess Who - American Woman
Sly and the Family Stone - Greatest Hits
-Anything album you can find by Buddy Guy
AC/DC - Back In Black
Meatloaf - Bat Out Of Hell
Duran Duran - Rio
Billy Idol - Rebel Yell
The Cars - Heartbeat City
The Go-Gos - Beauty and the Beat
Pat Benetar - Tropico
Blondie - Parallel Lines
Tina Turner - Private Dancer
Prince and the Revolution - Purple Rain
Prince and the Revolution - Sign O’ The Times (yeah, so I like Prince)
Madonna - Like A Virgin
Michael Jackson - Thriller
Bruce Springsteen - The River
Miami Vice soundtrack
Janet Jackson - Rythm Nation
U2 - The Joshua Tree
Genesis - Abacab
Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
Miami Sound Machine - Primitive Love
Bryan Adams - Reckless
Queen - The Game
Van Halen - 1984
Robbie Robertson (self titled)
Deep Purple - Made in Japan.
Rod Stewart (yes!) - Every picture tells a story
Supertramp - Crime of the century
Talking Heads - Remain in light
Human Legue - Dare
John Hiatt - Riding with the King
John Cougar Mellencamp - Scarecrow
Neil Young - Harvest + Rust never sleeps
Genesis - Selling England by the Pound
Bowie - Pinups´+ Alladin Sane + Young Americans + Low
New Tork Dolls (debut album)
Guns’n’Roses - Apetite for destruction
Zepppelin I, II, III, IV. You really need all of them.
Peter Gabriel I - IV
Oh I could go on. I’ll check in w/ 90’s stuff later.
Um, okay, some of this “essential music” really sucks,IMHO, but if you want to understand every left-of-center rock group since the Beatles, you should without question understand The Velvet Underground. They only put out four albums, so the strain on your wallet shouldn’t be much to get their whole ouevre, but if you only want to try one album, make sure you get The Velvet Underground and Nico. It’s got a big Andy Warhol-banana on the cover and the words “Peel slowly and see.” Greatest…album…ever!
Seriously, though, my personal adoration of the Velvets aside, that is an extremely important album for the history of rock’n’roll, but so are all their albums, and each one sounds different than the other three. I just felt that they needed to be mentioned here.
The Melody Maker list was compiled by head-up-their-arses critics, hence no progressive rock (Pink Floyd, Led Zep, Genesis, Yes, Rush), stacks of politically correct whining by The Smiths & Morrisey, early Manic Street Preachers (a minority interest at best, and I like the later Manics), lots of Britpop - the Stone Roses, Pulp, Blur. The Pet Shop boys are in at 45 and 75 with the same album - Actually. I hope it’s just a typo!
The list was not compiled by fans, who vote with their wallets, but critics, who vote with their politics, and so is unlike any of the selections in this thread.
My choices - Dark Side of the Moon and Led Zep IV should make any top ten/hundred list. They are innovative, hugely popular and set new standards. Most of my other preferences would not be popular enough to make a top “n” list, so I won’t offer them.
God, you can’t live without the Velvet Underground and Nico
[Jack Black in High Fidelity]It’s gonna be OK[/Jack Black]
Also, make sure you get yourself the following:
Something by the Ramones (Rocket to Russia?)
Something by New Order
Joy Division - Closer
Lou Reed - Transformer
The Pixies - Surfer Rosa or Doolittle
The Beastie Boys - Licensed to Ill or Paul’s Boutique
Run DMC - Raising Hell
De La Soul - Paul’s Boutique
The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
Something by The Cure (The Head on The Door? Pornography?)
Pavement - Slanted and Enchanted
Sunny Day Real Estate - Diary
Bjork - Post
U2 - The Joshua Tree or Achtung Baby
R.E.M. - Murmur, Fables of the Recnstruction or Automatic for the People
Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation
Public Enemy - It takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
I’ll third this. Hell, this is a MUST-OWN. If I could only own one cd, this would be the one. If I had to choose the most influential album ever made, this is the one. And should I recommend any album on the SDMB, this is the one. Reading over this thread, I realized I hadn’t listened to it in a while, and am enjoying it as I type.
Anyway, As far as Zep goes, I’ll concur with an earlier poster that zep II is needed. Nobody has mentioned much from the 50s, so I’ll offer the suggestion that you get a Buddy Holly compilation. His music sounds as fresh as ever, and it was light-years ahead of his 50s contemporaries (including Elvis) IMHO. Equally amazing is the pure volume of amazing music he managed to create before dying at the age of 22(!). After becoming a Holly fan as a teenager in the 80s, I was SHOCKED to learn that he was only 22 when he died. I figured he’d had a decade or so to accomplish so much… It’s still stunning to me that he did it all within a few short years.
I second alot of albums already named. You can’t go wrong with Sonic Youth, REM, Neil Young, Zep, etc.
More:
Rap: Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five (Even if you don’t like rap this is worth listening too, simply because Flash is pretty much the first rap guy).
Punk: Bad Brains - I Against I Black Flag - In My Head (Good for Depression) Gang of Four - Entertainment!
Proto-Punk: the Stooges - Raw Power or Funhouse Velvet Underground - White Light/White Heat
Other: Television - Marquee Moon (where The Strokes got their sound) Allman Bros. - Live at the Fillmore East Santana - Abraxas
Yes- 90125 Jethro Tull- Thick as a Brick Manfred Mann- The Roaring Silence The Alan Parsons Project- Tales of Mystery and Imagination Pink Floyd- Dark Side of the Moon Tangerine Dream- Poland Mike Oldfield- Tubular Bells 2
Yup…let’s just say I’m opting in as a spokesman for Prog…
Some IMO essential stuff that hasn’t been mentioned:
My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
The most beautiful album EVER. MBV kickstarted the whole shoegazer scene in '88 with Isn’t Anything, but this is their masterpiece. It has lush, multi-layered arrangements of feedback and droning guitars so beautiful they’ll make you cry. Kevin Shields spent years in the studio producing this, and it really shows.
Can - Ege Bamyasi
The best krautrock album by the best krautrock band. Just owning this album will make you a cool person.
Slint - Spiderland
A lot of people will tell you that this album is just pretentious wank, screw 'em. It has mumbled vocals that sometimes turn to a scream, start/stop dynamics that seem to be there just to throw the listener off, and it’s often downright creepy. It creates a dark, chilling soundscape and… yeah. Something like that.
The Jam - All Mod Cons -or- Sound Affects
Essential punky mod revival. Power chords and pop melodies. Whee.
Jesus and Mary Chain - Psychocandy
Sweet-as-sugar melodies over blistering feedback a la Velvet Underground. It was really influential for the 80’s college cock.
The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses
One of my favourite pop albums ever, though it could be the memories it evokes or something like that. This is guitar pop at its finest. Some amazing hooks here. Go get it. Now.
Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure
This is my favorite Roxy Music album, as this was recorded right before Brian Eno left the band. There’s a lot of tension between Brian Eno and Bryan Ferry on the album – Eno wants to experiment with sonic textures and stuff, while Ferry wants to play slick glam-pop. I like this more than any of the stuff they did apart, I think they needed each other to balance each other and not get too self-indulgent.
