Someone once told me that one definition of madness is when you do the same thing over again but expect different results.
And if that’s true, then I’m the maddest person I know.
If you’d be so kind as to bear with me, I believe I have a special new triple-tier list system (lystem?) as I attempt once again to grasp for the ever-elusive Platonian form of the perfect rock and roll music library.
This time, I decided to simplify things by limiting everyone to one-disc CDs and exclude any multi-disc sets and various artist compilations. I also tried to favor the album over the artist -- that is, as opposed to trying to represent each artist with a disc that had the most number of hits or represented the most sides of their sound or style, I instead tried to favor which album made the most cohesive statement, regardless of the number of hits. This criteria helped push the music more towards cohesion, and thus, more towards art; Marvin Gaye may have had countless great singles for Motown, but none hold together like What’s Going On -- and the same could be said for the Who’s early singles and Who’s Next, or Van Morrison’s radio hits and Astral Weeks. Similarly, I tried to go for the album that was most respected by critics and fans, as opposed to albums that sold better and/or have more signature songs -- hence Aerosmith is represented by Rocks, as opposed to Toys in the Attic, and Metallica is represented by Master of Puppets, as opposed to their self-titled “Black Album.”
As what often happens with me, I began this list in one way -- a 100-disc list of the essential rock and roll library -- but soon found myself making parallel lists -- a fuller 200-disc list and then a tighter 50-disc list -- on either side of the main one. For the sake of my own curiosity (and/or, perhaps, sanity), I put all of the lists into one using color-coding, resulting in a unique three-in-one list: In the list below, the black entries represent the list of the 50 essential CD library, to which you can add the red entries to make the 100 essential CD library, and then finally the blue entries for the 200 essential CD rock and roll library. The idea was that, the smaller the list, the more essential the discs, and vice-versa for the larger lists. Thus, Jimi Hendrix’s Are You Experienced is on the 50 list, Electric Ladyland is on the 100 list, and Axis: Bold as Love is on the 200 list because Experienced is generally better regarded than Ladyland, and so on; as the total numbers grow, so too does the space proportionally available for each artist.
I have also annotated everything, borrowing largely from my old list of 300, and making sure the dates at the end are accurate. When there is one date, it is the year the album was released; when there are three, the first two are the range of time in which the recordings were originally released and the third is the year in which this compilation was released. I included the record label to make the list more complete; when an album was listed under several (which seems to be the new norm in our conglomerate record industry era), I tried to default to the one that was most direct to the artist -- in most cases, this was the smaller label under which the artist released their material, as opposed to the larger umbrella company that loomed over it (hence The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is listed under Ruffhouse Records, as opposed to its parent Columbia -- and when there was conflict between labels for international reasons, I tried to default to the artist’s native country’s label (hence the early Beatles albums are listed under the UK Parolphone, not the American Capitol label).
And finally, I did my best as usual to veer towards the general consensus (or my idea of it) as opposed to my own personal favorites. I believe the resulting meat-and-potatoes list(s) is/are democratic in nature, tight, focused, and to the point -- in other words, just like the best rock and roll music.
The Essential Rock and Roll 50/100/200.
1. AC/DC: Back in Black. Just as AC/DC on the brink of international stardom with their 1979 breakthrough Highway to Hell, lead singer Bon Scott died from alcohol poisoning. The group briefly considered disbanding, but probably realized that doing so would let the devil win, so they hired new lead singer Brian Johnson, and completed the set of songs already begun before Scott's death. With its stark title, black cover, and tolling bell of “Hell’s Bells” that begins it, this could be seen as a mourning tribute to Scott’s death, but with cuts like the infectious “You Shook Me All Night Long” and the storming title track, this was a hedonistic celebration of life. (Atlantic, 1980)
2. Aerosmith: Rocks. They would have bigger and more popular albums, but Aerosmith would never release a better album than this. “Last Child” and “Back in the Saddle” are the classics, “Rats in the Cellar” and “Nobody’s Fault” are the barnstormers, and “Home Tonight” is the power ballad closer. A whole generation of hard rockers -- including Slash, James Hetfield, and Kurt Cobain -- cut their teeth on this record, made just around the time that Aerosmith could look back and call themselves “America’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band” with a straight face. (Columbia, 1976)
3. Afrika Bammbaataa and the Soulsonic Force: Planet Rock. Pioneering hip-hop from one of the true innovators of the turntables. The title track was the anthem, with its Kraftwerk-sampling beats that brought the story of electronic music up to that point full-circle, but it was the wonderful “Looking for the Perfect Beat” that set the course for hip-hop’s future while the music was still in its infancy. (Tommy Boy, 1986)
4. The Allman Brothers: Live at Fillmore East. The most popular American band of their day (if not of all-time) shows off the prowess of their original line-up. Lead guitarist Duane Allman’s searing electric slide work steals the show, but it’s brother Gregg Allman’s vocals and organ that push everything along with a rough fury. Rounded out by Dickey Betts’ second lead guitar, Berry Oakley’s sizzling bass, and the unique double percussion of Jai Johanny Johanson and Butch Trucks, this was one of the most talented and powerful bands ever assembled, captured live and raw just before the fall. (Capricorn, 1971)
5. The Animals: The Best of. The Animals were England’s hardest rhythm and blues group, covering dire blues songs convincingly (“House of the Rising Sun,” “Boom Boom”), before turning their brooding sound inward (“Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” “We Gotta Get out of This Place,” and “It’s My Life”). But when they check their bravado at the door to put on a psychedelic mask in an effort to keep up with their peers, they lose their way and go from one of the toughest bands in rock and roll to one of the weirdest. (MGM, 1964-1970/2004)
6. The Band: Music from the Big Pink. Bob Dylan’s backup band for his revolutionary 1965-66 tours break out on their own, turn down their instruments, and all but create the modern “classic rock” sound. After so many years on the road, their songs told of an America that they knew well, but always remained just out of reach -- a strange, constantly reviving, and almost religiously mystical country. Includes “The Weight,” a quasi-crusade/odyssey about the burden of sin, the devil walking the earth, and Crazy Chester’s dog. (Capitol, 1968)
7. The Band. The Great American Novel as a rock and roll album, written by four Canadian musicians and an Arkansas drummer who could play mandolin and yodel. They sang about the land (“Across the Great Divide”), dancing (“Rag Mama Rag”), love affairs (“Up on Cripple Creek”), the woods (“Whispering Pines”), the sea (“Rockin’ Chair”), natural disasters (“Look Out Cleveland”), badmen (“Jawbone”), servitude (“Unfaithful Servant”), before finally finding salvation in the union (“King Harvest (Has Surely Come)”). Best of all was “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” rock’s finest song about the Civil War, in which a southern man named Virgil Caine tries to balance his personal pride with his land's defeat. “Now I don't mind chopping wood, and I don't care if the money's no good,” he sings, “You take what you need and you leave the rest, but they should never have taken the very best...” (Capitol, 1969)
8. The Beach Boys: Sounds of Summer. With Brian Wilson in charge and the Brothers Wilson on harmonies, California goes from a state of the union to a state of mind and the results speak for themselves: Songs about surfing (“Surfin’ USA”), girls (“Help Me Rhonda”), cars (“Shut Down”) surfing girls (“Surfer Girl”), cruising around town in search of surfing girls (“I Get Around”), and bragging to surfing girls about your car (“Little Deuce Coup”). After a detour into some post-Pet Sounds reconfiguring both good (the fascinating “Heroes and Villians”) and bad (the embarrassing comeback “Kokomo”), everything ends where it should: “Good Vibrations,” which remains the finest-arranged song of all-time. (Capitol, 1962-1988/2003)
9. The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds. Brian Wilson gives up the road for the studio and digs deep inside his feelings about love and loss, resulting in a lush, landmark album that explored the deeper insecurities lurking just underneath the Beach Boys’ most joyous records. With “Wouldn't It Be Nice” and “Sloop John B,” this had some of their best pop arrangements, while “God Only Knows” was their finest ballad; but it was Brian Wilson's eerily prophetic “I Guess I Just Wasn't Made for These Times” that brought the two together, right before the neuroses took over, the drugs got out of hand, and Wilson lost his way. (Capitol, 1966)
10. The Beastie Boys: Paul’s Boutique. Three rap-party pranksters from New York City remake themselves into cutting-edge MCs, slick, sly, and full of allusions -- “It’s all mixed up like pasta primavera/Why’d you throw that chair at/Geraldo Rivera” -- to name but one of what must be hundreds. And with the endless barrage and overlaying of samples (my fav: “The Sounds of Silence,” which features the crowd rusting from the beginning of Sgt. Pepper with "The End" from the end of Abbey Road mixed over it), I also hear them reinventing American freedom through rap music. (Capitol, 1989)
11. The Beatles: 1. A history of the ’60s by the band that defined it, in 27 number one singles or less. (Apple, 1962-1970/2000)
12. The Beatles: Rubber Soul. The Beatles digest a lot of pot, folk music, and Bob Dylan and come up with a largely acoustic and introspective album exploring love (“The Word”), hate (“Think for Yourself”), politics (“Nowhere Man”), girls (“Michelle”), and death (“In My Life”) -- and still find time to burn a house down while introducing the sitar to rock and roll (“Norweigan Wood (This Bird Has Flown)”). Mature, experimental, and groundbreaking, this was their (and rock’s) first masterpiece, although the real shock would be where they would take it from here. (Parlophone, 1965)
13. The Beatles: Revolver. John discovers acid, Paul discovers classical music, George discovers Eastern meditation...and Ringo discovers that singing about a Yellow Submarine can lead to a hit single. It is the sound of a growing Beatles, independent enough to begin to forge their own visions, but still united enough to support each other when mapping these visions out. Or, in the case of “Tomorrow Never Knows,” looping them over and over again, as John led them up a mountaintop. Their finest album. (Parlophone, 1966)
14. The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The ultimate statement of the Beatles -- and, as it turned out, rock and roll -- as a singly defined unit, just before the misguided Magical Mystery Tour, the brilliant fracturing of “The White Album” and the troubled fracturing of the “Get Back” project. As the late music critic Ian MacDonald wrote, song-for-song, this was not their strongest record -- that would be Revolver -- but Sgt. Pepper surpassed Revolver in spirit. What made it so significant and profound is also what keeps it locked in its time, but where some hear a dead-end, I hear an era of excitement and joy -- and a music with limitless possibilities. Their most influential album. (Parlophone, 1967)
15. The Beatles: Abbey Road. After the collapse of the “Get Back” project, the Beatles regroup for one final swan song, with each member contributing music that ranks with the best of their career: John’s storming “Come Together” and haunting “Because,” George’s brilliant “Something” and “Here Comes the Sun,” and Ringo’s playful “Octopus’s Garden.” Saying goodbye was mostly Paul’s territory, as his epic “long medley” on the second side measured the weight each must carry, as balanced by the love that has been made and the love that has been taken. Their best produced and most accomplished album. (Apple, 1969)
16. Beck: Odelay. Mark Twain’s deadpan humor, as swallowed by William Burroughs and given two turntables and a microphone. Brilliant, accomplished, visionary, influential -- and you could dance to it too. (DGC, 1996)
17. Chuck Berry: The Definitive Collection. As has been written, Chuck Berry is the musical rock upon which rock and roll rests; with songs like “Maybellene,” “You Can't Catch Me,” “Too Much Monkey Business,” “Roll Over Beethoven,” “Brown-Eyed Handsome Man,” “School Day,” “Rock and Roll Music,” “Sweet Little Sixteen,” “Johnny B. Goode,” “Around and Around,” “Carol,” “Memphis, Tennessee,” “You Never Can Tell,” “Promised Land,” “No Particular Place to Go,” and over a dozen more, this isn’t just the Chuck Berry songbook -- this is the rock and roll songbook. (Chess, 1955-1975/2006)
18. Big Star: #1 Record/Radio City. Named for a supermarket and shooting for stardom with the title of their first record (which failed to make the Top 200), they would call their music “power pop,” but really this was just a young band from Memphis doing what the city has always done best: Turning young ambition into great pop music. Although they barely registered nationally during their short career, time has redeemed them as America’s most influential underground group since the Velvet Underground. These are the two albums on which they made their legend, as future members of bands like R.E.M., the Replacements, and Wilco hung onto their every note. Contains the luscious “September Gurls,” which is easily the greatest song to never make the pop charts. (Stax, 1972-1974/1992)
19. Bjork: Debut. Don't let the title fool you -- by the time that Bjork released Debut, she already had one solo album and a half dozen years with the Icelandic indie darlings the Sugarcubes under her belt, and her experience and confidence shows. Opening with the stunning “Human Behavior,” her powerful “trick” voice (to borrow from early descriptions of the similarly slippery-voiced proto-country singer Emmett Miller) surveys the scene like an alien who's just landed on Earth: “If you ever get close to a human/And human behavior,” she begins, “Be ready to get confused...” The rest of the album validates these words, as she works her way through a variety of sounds and textures, ranging from syncopated synthesizers to bare harp strings, before laying down her cards in “Aeroplane”: “How come out of all the people in the world/Only one can make me complete?” It was all at once quite weird, profound -- and very sexy. (One Little Indian, 1993)
20. Black Flag: Damaged. The chief architects of hardcore punk define the music on this, their debut album. Lead singer Henry Rollins hollers his way through the band's constantly fluctuating tempo that sound like he was singing over a Ramones tape being eaten by a tape deck. But the result is powerful, undeniable, and utterly timeless, which perhaps speaks to both the confines of the genre as well as the band’s mastery of it. (SST, 1981)
21. Black Sabbath: Paranoid. Arriving just six months after their eponymous debut album, Black Sabbath released their masterpiece and the first great (if not the great) heavy metal album. The songs were built around enormous riffs that powered classics like “War Pigs,” “Iron Man,” and the title track, the latter of which was the group's only Top 10 hit in the UK as well as their only song to chart at all until 1978. “Happiness I cannot feel,” shouted lead singer Ozzy Osbourne with venom, long before he became a pop-culture punchline, “and love to me is so unreal.” Thousands of angst-filled teenage boys heard these words and agreed with them -- and then formed their own bands to prove it. (Vertigo, 1970)
22. Blondie: Parallel Lines. CBGB’s band most likely to succeed does just that, pushing punk into pop and pop into disco. (Chrysalis, 1979)
23. David Bowie: Hunky Dory. Bowie's first masterpiece, featuring a hit (“Changes”), an epic (“Life on Mars?”), and three ritualistic killings of the father (“Andy Warhol,” “Song to Bob Dylan,” and the Lou Reed rave-up “Queen Bitch”), before returning to the strangeness (“The Bewlay Brothers”) from which he had come. (RCA, 1971)
24. David Bowie: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Rock and roll’s most promising new face makes his bid at rock and roll stardom with this, a loose concept album about an alien who comes to Earth to save the planet and becomes the biggest rock star in the world. He then has the audacity (and brilliance) to change his name to Ziggy Stardust and try to live his fantasy out in the real world, riding high on his moonage daydream in the UK, until the grand project finally collapsed in a rock and roll suicide somewhere in the heart of an unconquerable America. People lamented when he announced his retirement from the business, but it turned out to be just Ziggy’s retirement -- David Bowie still had a long ways to go. (RCA, 1972)
25. James Brown: 20 All-Time Greatest Hits! The history of African American pop music in the rock and roll era on shuffle, as sang by the man who pushed it the hardest and carried it the furthest. From early R&B (“Please, Please, Please”) to classic soul (“It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World”), vintage funk (“I Got the Feelin’”), and proto-rap (“The Payback”) -- although the best of the music (“I Got You (I Feel Good),” “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,” and “Get up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine”) brought elements of all of the different styles together. (Polydor, 1956-1976/1991)
26. James Brown: Live at the Apollo. Rock and roll's greatest performer begs, borrows, and steals his way through the hits on which he first made his name, bringing his audience to such a frenzy that the record almost plays like a duet between them; what was just another night at the Apollo for James Brown is the definitive live document of rock and roll for us. (King, 1963)
27. Ruth Brown: Rockin’ in Rhythm: The Best of Ruth Brown. Although largely forgotten today, Ruth Brown was the Aretha Franklin of the 1950s. She helped to shape Atlantic Records’ unique blend of pop and R&B in hits like “Teardrops from My Eyes,” “5-10-15 Hours,” and “Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean,” while her role as the label’s first consistent hit maker (the label has been called “the house that Ruth built”) allowed Atlantic to stay in business, which in turned opened the door for the likes of Ray Charles, Wilson Pickett, and...Aretha Franklin. (Rhino, 1949-1959/1996)
28. Jackson Browne: Late for the Sky. Released a few weeks after the Watergate scandal forced Nixon to resign, Jackson Browne captured the mood of jadedness and disillusionment that spread across the ’60s generation like a cancer. It was an understated, brooding record that attempted to build a community by pointing out that everyone was so isolated in themselves, they failed to realize that everyone else around them is isolated too. (Asylum, 1974)
29. Jeff Buckley: Grace. The great white hope of Columbia Records’ conjures many voices in his ambitious debut, effortlessly weaving together shades of Billie Holiday, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, and Tim Buckley, his late father, who died of a drug overdose in 1975 at the age of 28; three years after Grace came out, Jeff's own voice was silenced when he drowned in the Mississippi River at the age of 30. From there, his legend only grew, and by the time I worked in a record store less than a decade after his death, Grace was one of the few albums that everyone could agree on -- hipsters, preps, metalheads, and stoners alike. And it also didn't hurt that the girls all thought he was sexy. (Columbia, 1994)
30. Buffalo Springfield: Again. This classic album is pretty much split down the middle between Stephen Stills’ mainstream pop (“Rock and Roll Woman,” “Bluebird,” “Sit Down I Think I Love You”) and Neil Young’s haunting ballads (“I Am a Child,” “Expecting to Fly,” “Broken Arrow”), with one Ritchie Furay song thrown in (“Kind Woman”) for good measure. (Atco, 1967)
31. The Byrds: Greatest Hits. The hard truths, contradictions, and confusion of the 1960s rendered into shimmering pop beauty courtesy of folk-rock’s premiere group -- and the jingle-jangle of Roger McGuinn’s electric twelve-string guitar. (Columbia, 1967)
32. Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band: Trout Mask Replica. Howlin’ Wolf meets Ornette Coleman at a battle of the bands in which the bands are battling with themselves. (Straight, 1969)
33. Ray Charles: The Best of Ray Charles: The Atlantic Years. Gospel, blues, and R&B are shaped into a wholly (holy?) new music, as songs like “I’ve Got a Woman,” “Hallelujah, I Love Her So,” and “What’d I Say” provide the soul of what was to become soul music. (Rhino, 1953-1959/1991)
34. Ray Charles: Genius: The Ultimate Ray Charles Collection. Along with the best American musical geniuses, Charles was about bringing different genres of music together as opposed to remaining within one; here, one can find him dipping into R&B (“Hit the Road Jack”), country (“I Can't Stop Loving You”), pop (“Georgia on My Mind”), instrumentals (“One Mint Julep”), and even patriotic ballads (“America the Beautiful”), but always reinventing them in his own inimitable style. (1954-1976/2009)
35. The Clash [U.S. Edition]. By substituting some lesser album tracks with songs that had only been released as singles in the UK, this album is a virtual greatest hits of the music upon which the Clash built their legend as the self-proclaimed “The Only Band That Matters.” Hear them play rock and roll on their own terms, redefining the past (“I Fought the Law”), present (“London's Burning”), and with the punk/reggae fusion “(White Man in) Hammersmith Palais,” give a hint of their creative future. (CBS, 1977-1979/1979)
36. The Clash: London Calling. Beginning with the title track’s visions of rock and roll Armageddon and ending with a secret track that became a surprise pop hit in the States, this was punk rock remade into a history of rock and roll music, served on two records for the price of one. The Only Band That Mattered effortlessly mixed rockabilly, pop, ska, and reggae, in music that spoke of easy good times and hard political truths, brand new Cadillacs and Stagger Lee, capitalist consumerism and illegal drugs -- without ever straying too far from their punk roots. (CBS, 1979)
37. The Coasters: The Very Best of. The clown princes of rock and roll, and the most durable outlet for legendary songwriters Leiber & Stoller. Things get off to a deadly serious start with “Riot in Cell Block Number #9,” but quickly go into a more lighthearted direction -- “Searchin’,” “Young Blood,” “Charlie Brown,” and their masterpiece, “Yakety Yak.” In a lesser group’s hands, these might have been flat novelty songs, but for the Coasters, it’s just pure rock and roll, through and through. (Rhino, 1954-1961/1994)
38. Sam Cooke: Portrait of a Legend: 1951-1964. The definitive chronicle of the finest voice to ever grace a rock and roll record, covering his transformation from gospel to pop and R&B (and back), climaxing with the phenomenal “A Change Is Gonna Come,” the finest soul record ever made. (2003)
39. Elvis Costello: This Year’s Model. Elvis Costello once famously said that his chief motivations for songwriting were “revenge and guilt,” and they can best be heard on this record, his first with his backing band the Attractions. Powered by punchy guitar and organ riffs, Costello comes into his own as songs like “No Action,” “Pump It Up,” and “Radio Radio” assault the listener’s ear like punk but linger there like pop. (Radar, 1978)
40. Cream: Disraeli Gears. Eleven tracks of Cream on top, just before the musicianship gave way to the self-indulgence. (Reaction, 1967)
41. Creedence Clearwater Revival: Chronicle: The 20 Greatest Hits. Foregoing the technicolor dreamworld of psychedelic rock and roll, CCR leader John Fogerty went for real-life, down-to-earth honest American dirt. It would prove a seemingly endless terrain as CCR became one of the most prolific groups of all-time (back-to-back classics Bayou Country, Green River, and Willie and the Poor Boys were all released in 1969), the highlights of which are collected on this much-loved singles compilation. Songs like “Bad Moon Rising,” “Down on the Corner,” and “Lookin’ out My Back Door” all sounded like instant standards that had been around for centuries, emerging from the Mississippi River alongside water songs of pride ("Proud Mary"), celebration (“Green River”), and weariness (“Who’ll Stop the Rain?”). But it was their biggest trip away from home and into the poor boy hell of the Vietnam War in “Fortunate Son” where they sounded the loudest, boldest, and, as dissenters, the most American. (Fantasy, 1968-1976/1976)
42. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: Déjà Vu. Neil Young makes his debut in the late-'60s supergroup and the result is their finest hour. Here are their most commercial hits (“Teach Your Children,” “Our House”) are interspersed with a sense of ’60s idealism (“Almost Cut My Hair,” “Everybody I Love You,” and the centerpiece cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock”), which was quickly fading right as this album was hitting the shelves; only Young's haunting ballad “Helpless” seems to have a finger on what was about to come. (Atlantic, 1970)
43. The Cure: Staring at the Sea: Singles. The birth of UK alternative rock, as articulated by the red lips of the proto-goth Robert Smith in songs that were classic (“Boys Don't Cry”), bizarre (“The Love Cats”), danceable (“Close to You”), and politically incorrect (“Killing an Arab”). (Fiction, 1978-1985/1986)
44. De La Soul: 3 Feet High and Rising. De La Soul revolutionized rap music by turning down the beats and vocals and turning up the samples and irony. In songs like “The Magic Number” and “Me, Myself, and I,” the group delivers rhymes in a more laidback and jazzy style, reaching back beyond funk music to rap’s roots as a secret language of hidden meanings and inside jokes, spoken by hipsters and understood by a select few. (Tommy Boy, 1989)
45. Derek and the Dominoes: Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. The greatest British guitarist (Eric Clapton) joins forces with the greatest American guitarist (Duane Allman) for a set of music so powerful and tortured, the band imploded just as quickly as it had arrived. The record's impending sense of doom was no joke: In the years following its release, Allman died in a motorcycle accident, bassist Carl Radle died from drugs and alcohol abuse, Eric Clapton almost died from drug abuse, and drummer Jim Gordon went to prison after murdering his mother with a butcher knife; only organist Bobby seemed to make it out unscarred -- his autobiography is due out later this year, so perhaps it will shed some light on any dealings with the devil made by others that he was able to avoid. (Atco, 1970)
46. Bo Diddley: The Definitive Collection. The originator of the beat that bears his name, as well as its master -- for all of the thousands of people who took the rhythm from Buddy Holly and Johnny Otis down through the Rolling Stones, the Stooges, Bruce Springsteen, and Eric Clapton, no one could out do Bo Diddley's first hit, “Bo Diddley,” not even Bo Diddley himself. (Geffen, 1955-1966/2007)
47. Fats Domino: My Blue Heaven: The Best of. They called it rock and roll, but this was the music that Fats Domino had played all along -- a rolling New Orleans brand of rhythm and blues that provided thousands of young white teenagers with a safe first step into the uncharted territory of African American popular music. His first breakthrough hit on the pop charts, “Ain’t It a Shame,” would also provide the first breakthrough hit for both Pat Boone and Ricky Nelson, but songs like “Blueberry Hill” and “Walkin' to New Orleans” remained untouchable for all who tried to reach for them. (EMI, 1949-1961/1990)
48. The Doors. With “Break on Through” at the beginning, “The End” at the end, and “Light My Fire” as the centerpiece in the middle, this was the Lizard King’s finest hour: Smack-dab in the middle of the Summer of Love, this album was perched right behind Sgt. Pepper on the charts, a brooding forewarning and a definitive chronicle of sex, drugs, and rock and roll in a ’60s era that was just on the verge of coming apart. (Elektra, 1967)
49. Dr. Dre: The Chronic. Dr. Dre grabbed an unknown rapper named Snoop Doggy Dogg and took the chief goals of rock and roll -- sex, drugs, alcohol, money, and power -- and turned them up until his music became an almost impenetrable force of violence, obscenities, hedonism, anger, and revenge. For young African Americans, it was the watershed of the burgeoning West Coast gangsta rap sound; for young white Americans, it was the perfect soundtrack to Mailer-esque White Negroism; but for everyone else (namely the parents, the cops, the government, and other figures of authority) it was dangerous noise to be condemned. But of course that only further reinforced its power. (Death Row, 1992)
50. The Drifters: The Very Best of. The smoothest of the vocal groups -- thanks in part ambitious kids like Carole King and Phil Spector running around, which guaranteed top-notch songwriting as well as innovative arragements. Is it possible to put strings on a doo-wop record -- and have it sound completely natural? One listen to “There Goes My Baby” shows that the answer is yes. But of course, the efforts of the writers and producers can only go so far; it’s the Drifters themselves who take songs like “This Magic Moment,” “Save the Last Dance for Me,” and “Up on the Roof” and fill them with excitement and warmth. (Rhino, 1959-1964/1993)
51. Bob Dylan: Bringing It All Back Home. Bob Dylan goes electric, some three months before he infamously “plugs in” at the Newport Folk Festival. With a folk crown of thorns on his head, the Beatles catching his ear, and rambling on his mind, Dylan leaves the folksinger behind and returns to the teenage punk who idolized Elvis Presley and Little Richard. Here, Dylan teases his audience by going from electric to acoustic, confronting them with a bold and raucous electric side before providing a more familiar-sounding acoustic side. All the attention went to the rock music, and for good reason -- musically it sounds like a junk store falling apart and lyrically it’s the same way, a thousand different roads going in a thousand different directions at once, but all firmly rooted in the simplest of garage-rock blues. With music this vital, it was easy to forget about the album's second side, which is saying a lot considering that it contained songs like “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “It's All Over Now, Baby Blue.” (Columbia, 1965)
52. Bob Dylan: Highway 61 Revisited. From the beginning firing shot of the snare that opens "Like a Rolling Stone" through to the extended surrealism of “Desolation Row” that closes it, this is Dylan’s finest hour, as he uses journeys, jokes, and allusions to remake America with restlessness in its heart and the highway as its spine. (Columbia, 1965)
53. Bob Dylan: Blonde on Blonde. Locking himself in with the finest Nashville studio musicians of the day, Dylan took his electric music the farthest, stretching out over two tireless records of music. While the sound was more polished, the surrealism remained, with epics like “Visions of Johanna” and “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again” rubbing up against pop songs like “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” and “Just Like a Woman,” pushing Dylan’s music just to the edge of what would soon be known as psychedelic rock. (Columbia, 1966)
54. Bob Dylan: Blood on the Tracks. One decade after going electric, Dylan provides his finest post-’60s album, a half-acoustic, half-electric record that jockeyed back and forth between the two, with equal parts love and confusion, anger and regret. “Tangled Up in Blue” was among his finest narratives, “Simple Twist of Fate” was among his finest ballads, and “Shelter from the Storm” was among his finest folk songs, but I keep coming back for “Idiot Wind,” a runaway horse of a record that is one of the angriest -- and most rocking -- things that Dylan ever waxed. (Columbia, 1975)
55. The Eagles: Hotel California. America’s most popular band surveys the country from the other side of American expansionism: The paradise-in-hell of “Hotel California.” “They call it paradise, I don't know why,” Don Henley sings wearily in the final lyrics of the album’s final song, “The Last Resort,” “You call someplace paradise, kiss it goodbye.” (Asylum, 1976)
56. Eminem: The Marshall Mathers LP. What if one of the most intelligent people in America was also one of its angriest? With Dr. Dre working the controls, Eminem’s second album provided an answer, spewing a mountain of bitterness, hatred, and ridicule while establishing himself as one of the finest (and most surprising) MCs to pick up a mic. (Aftermath, 2000)
57. Brian Eno: Another Green World. Between his tenure with art rock innovators Roxy Music and producing artistic and commercial breakthroughs for David Bowie and U2, Brian Eno released this, an iconoclastic set of experimental music and sounds that all but single-handedly created ambient music. In its own unsuspecting way, this was music as innovative as the Velvet Underground and as subversive as the Stooges. (Astralwerks, 1975)
58. Eric B. and Rakim: Paid in Full. “I ain’t no joke--” Rakim declares at the start of this record: “I used to let the mike smoke/Now I slam it when I'm done and make sure it's broke,” keeping up the pace in an unrelentless flow filled with slick turns and clever double and triple inner-rhymes, all over the innovative cutting and mixing of Eric B. No one had ever rapped this fast or tirelessly before (you can practically hear Chuck D taking notes), as Rakim makes good on every single boast he makes about his skills. Often referred to as the pinnacle of the Golden Age of Rap, it was an early indicator of just how sophisticated this so-called street music could be. (4th & B’way, 1987)
59. The Everly Brothers: All-Time Original Hits. A rare album that includes both their ’50s hits at Cadence Records and their ’60s hits at Warner Brothers, the Everlys take the tight country harmonies of their roots and turn them into some of rock and roll's earliest (and most deceptively simple) classics: “Bye Bye Love,” “Wake Up Little Susie,” and the ridiculous “Bird Dog” are the rocking hits, but it’s the tender ballads like “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” “Devoted to You,” and “Let It Be Me” where the foundation of modern pop harmony took shape, as teenagers like Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson, Paul Simon, and Art Garfunkel listened over and over again, dissecting the sound and putting it back together again as their own. (Rhino, 1957-1962/1999)
60. Fleetwood Mac: Rumours. State-of-the-art pop/rock just before the rise of disco; a chronicle of confusion, regret, and backstabbing that played so infectiously to an entire generation, Bill Clinton would use one of its most famous cuts, “Don’t Stop,’ as the anthem for his successful bid for the presidency in 1992. And like the affair-ridden emotions that inspired much of this album’s music, the first baby-boomer commander-in-chief would prove that he also knew a thing or two about mixing business and pleasure while on the job. (Warner Brothers, 1977)
61. The Flying Burrito Brothers: The Gilded Palace of Sin. When Gram Parsons quit the Byrds with bassist Chris Hillman, it was to form this, the first modern country-rock band. Parsons built his legend on songs like “Christine’s Tune,” “Sin City,” and the beautiful “Wheels,” but it was the surprising soul covers of Aretha Franklin’s “Do Right Woman” and James Carr’s “The Dark End of the Street,” that proved this seemingly limited new genre held no boundaries. (A&M, 1969)
62. The Four Tops: The Definitive Collection. Single-handedly cancelling out all of the joy and optimism of the biggest acts of the Motown roster -- especially their chief rivals the Temptations and sometime collaborators the Supremes -- the Four Tops captured the Sound of Young America after the party had ended and you were left alone in the dark of your bedroom. Lead singer Levi Stubbs didn’t so much perform the songs as he did have them rip his heart out; one only needs to listen to the much-celebrated “doom trilogy” of “Reach Out, I’ll Be There,” “Standing in the Shadows of Love,” and “Bernadette” -- three consecutive singles from 1966-1967 that kick off this set -- to feel all of the pain, drama, and angst of teenage romance. (Motown, 1964-1972/2008)
63. Aretha Franklin: I Never Loved a Man The Way I Loved You. On what some consider the greatest soul record ever made, Aretha Franklin broke the mold with her Atlantic Records debut. Everywhere were the footsteps of others -- the opening call-to-arms of Otis Redding’s “Respect” (Redding would later refer to it as the song “that little girl done stole from me”), the closing hymn of Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come,” and a masterful reading of Ray Charles’ “Drown in My Own Tears” in between -- but this was first and foremost Franklin’s record, as she pushed the fervor of church into the bedroom and, in songs like the title track, made every note of it her own. (Atlantic, 1967)
64. Aretha Franklin: Lady Soul. Franklin’s second masterpiece, released just before her career lost focus in a sea of overwrought performances of scattershot material. Once again, she takes on the music of soul legends -- James Brown’s “Money Won’t Change You,” Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready,” and Ray Charles’ “Come Back Baby” -- and more than holds her own. If she is truly the Queen of Soul, this is the album that anointed her crown. (Atlantic, 1968)
65. Gang of Four: Entertainment! Cutting-edge post-modern rock and roll, in which every instrument is pitted against each other while the singer surveys a bleak capitalist wasteland. And yet, in songs like “Damaged Goods,” it was also very catchy and surprisingly danceable. (EMI, 1979)
66. Marvin Gaye: Super Hits. Hear Motown’s most versatile and influential singer transform from a slick pop singer (“Stubborn Kind of Fellow,” “Pride and Joy,” “How Sweet It Is (to Be Loved by You)”) into one-half of soul’s greatest guy-and-girl duo (“It Takes Two,” “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” “Your Precious Love”), and then Motown's biggest star (“I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” which was Motown’s best-selling single up to that time), only to turn inward into a scruffy philosopher (“What’s Going on,” “Mercy, Mercy Me (The Ecology)”) and then back into the slickest pop singer of them all (“Let’s Get It on”). Bold, innovative, and timeless stuff, charted by one of the music’s true legends. (Motown, 1962-1969/1970)
67. Marvin Gaye: What’s Going on. The African American Sgt. Pepper, which would prove more enduring than the original. Looking back at the ’60s from the other side (both in terms of race and time), Gaye turns his album into a sermon about war, drugs, and the environment, climaxing with a vision of God before descending back into the earthly ghetto of “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler),” in which he takes the oldest form of African American music -- the fieldworker’s holler -- and turns it inside-out to reveal a broken ghetto wasteland. (Tamla, 1971)
68. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five: Beat Street: The Best of. The most influential group of early rap who perfected the party music until 1982’s epic “The Message,” in which the party stopped, and the group went outside to survey the urban wasteland that the music up to that point had sheltered them from. (Rhino, 1980-1985/1994)
69. The Grateful Dead: Live/Dead. The definitive live band’s first -- and, as many would have it, best -- live album. The 23-minute epic opener “Dark Star” is perhaps in its definitive version, but it’s the hot workout the late organist Ron “Pig Pen” McKernan gives “Turn on Your Lovelight” that reaches back into the blues, lets it simmer, and then brings it to an exuberant boil that is pure, joyful rock and roll. (Warner Brothers, 1969)
70. The Grateful Dead: American Beauty. The definitive live band makes their definitive studio album, with many songs that would become centerpieces of their epic sets: “Sugar Magnolia,” “Box of Rain,” “Friend of the Devil,” “Ripple,” and “Truckin’,” which summed up the band's past, present, and future in seven words: “what a long, strange trip it’s been...” (Warner Brothers, 1970)
71. Al Green: Greatest Hits. Picking up the torch in the ’70s after Sam Cooke in the ’50s and Otis Redding in the ’60s, Al Green was the last classic soul singer in rock and roll. The original album provided a perfect summation of his greatest period, as he croons, shouts, and pleas his way through classics like “Tired of Being Alone,” “Let's Stay Together,” and the monumental “Love and Happiness” -- his peak years before he went astray and gave up soul music in favor of his immortal soul. (Hi, 1971-1973/1975)
72. Guns N’ Roses: Appetite for Destruction. After some half dozen years in the desert, these bad boys from Los Angeles whipped hard rock into shape with songs of fully-charged hedonism like “Welcome to the Jungle,” “Paradise City,” and “Sweet Child o' Mine,” the only “power ballad” that doesn't suck. Axl Rose’s bombastic vocals got all of the attention, but it’s Slash’s near-liquid electric guitar work that runs the show. (Geffen, 1987)
73. PJ Harvey: Rid of Me. After establishing herself with the powerful indie debut Dry, Harvey turned up the volume and emotion and created an album filled with crunchy tension that explodes into distorted refrains, courtesy of a production job done by -- who else? -- Steve Albini. It sounded like punk but was built like metal, as her band drove the songs in hard, unified riffs, as her voice rose from a mumble to a holler in music that sounded like Patti Smith pinch-hitting for Exene Cervenka. (Island, 1993)
74. The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Are You Experienced [U.S. Version]. The greatest guitarist of all-time releases the greatest debut album of all-time, as he redefines the possibilities of both what a guitarist and an album could be. The songs are so good that it plays like a virtual greatest hits LP, featuring “Purple Haze,” “Hey Joe,” “The Wind Cries Mary,” “Fire,” and “Foxey Lady.” This wasz the album is so good that it is one of the few byproducts of psychedelic rock that sounds just as good in the era as it did in its own. (Reprise, 1967)
75. The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Axis: As Bold as Love. Released only about six months after Experienced, Axis finds Hendrix at a crossroads between the more single-oriented music of his first album and the more experimental music that was to come. While it falls short of matching his first album (but then again, no one could’ve done that), its best music loses itself in the elements with songs like "Spanish Castle Magic," "Castles Made of Sand," and "Bold as Love." Best of all was "If 6 Was 9," a meditation on the universe that contained Hendrix's most perfect set of lyrics: "If 6...Turned out to be 9...I would not mind...I would not mind." (Reprise, 1967)
76. The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Electric Ladyland. For the first and only time in his short career, Hendrix was given virtual free reign in the studio, unlimited by time or money. The result was a near solo effort (only drummer Mitch Mitchell was used on the final mixes -- Hendrix overdubbed most of bassist Noel Redding’s tracks, much to Redding’s chagrin) with extended jams and medleys that explored his life obsessions of science fiction fantasy and hard-edged Delta blues. It wasn’t a concept album per se, but it was as close as Hendrix would ever get. Features a cover of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower,” an electric workout of hellfire, sound, and fury that reduced Dylan’s original to what sounded like a demo version. Dylan certainly got it -- and after hearing Hendrix’s version, he never played it on an acoustic guitar again. (Reprise, 1968)
77. Lauryn Hill: The Miseducation of. From doo-wop to hip-hop, with plenty of pop, soul, and shades of reggae thrown in between, ex-Fugees singer Lauryn Hill went down to Tuff Gong Studios in Jamaica and recorded an album that encompassed the entire stretch of modern western black music (with a surprise hit cover of Frankie Valli's “Can't Take My Eyes of You” that her prowess with white pop as well). She then fell out of sight and became a recluse, overwhelmed and exhausted by what she had created -- but then again, after taking an entire people's music on their shoulders, she had good reason to be. (Ruffhouse, 1998)
78. Hole: Live Through This. A star-making record for Courtney Love, who seemed finally ready to step out of her husband Kurt Cobain's shadow, until he killed himself four days before the album's release. Rough, tough, and unapologetic, critics and fans were able to take it as excellent music on its own terms, although I've heard at least one idiot claim that the album was secretly ghost-written by Kurt Cobain. (DGC, 1994)
79. Buddy Holly: The Definitive Collection. In a career that lasted less than three years, Buddy Holly wrote, recorded, and toured relentlessly before his infamous death in a plane crash at the age of 23. While Holly is one of the rare artists who seems to have never recorded a bad song (along with the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and a few others) -- his complete studio discography takes up at least six full discs -- this CD skims the cream on the top, providing an overview of his 18 biggest hits in his lifetime. Fans could squabble forever over what isn’t included, but it’s hard to notice with everything that is: “That’ll Be the Day,” “Not Fade Away,” “Oh Boy!,” “Rave On,” “It's So Easy,” “Everyday,” and a dozen more that set the prototype for the white pop/rock singer-songwriter, as huge fans like John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Bob Dylan listened to these records over and over again. (Geffen, 1957-1958/1996)
80. The Impressions: The Very Best of. First-rate Chicago soul compliments of a young Curtis Mayfield, whose songs like “It’s All Right,” “Keep on Pushing,” and the timeless “People Get Ready” took the confusions and chaos of the street and brought it into the church; if Martin Luther King Jr. had described what a dream could look like, the Impressions captured what it could sound like. (Rhino, 1961-1975/1997)
81. Michael Jackson: Off the Wall. Michael Jackson’s first masterpiece and the first indication that he could break out of Motown machine and become a star on his own terms. Reaching deep into his considerable talents as a singer, performer, and dancer, he crafted the finest dance record of the disco era, which included two number one hits (“Don’t Stop ’Till You Get Enough” and “Rock with You”) and two more that made the top ten (“She's Out of My Life” and the title track), which made him the first solo artist to score four top ten hits off of the same album. He went onto win one of two Grammy nominations (Best R&B Vocal Performance - Male for “Don't Stop Till You Get Enough, in 1980), but was chagrined that his album was not up for more categories. Never one for understatement, he swore that this would never happen again... (Epic, 1979)
82. Michael Jackson: Thriller. It’s very hard to talk about this record without succumbing to its mind-staggering accomplishments, so here goes: On its way to becoming the best-selling record of all-time, seven out of its nine tracks were released as singles (and they all hit the Top 10), the album earned Jackson a then-record eight Grammy awards (take that, 1980 Grammys!), and firmly established him as the most famous performer in the world. But with all those accolades and its complete over-saturation into pop culture at least twice (first when it was new and then again after Jacksn’s death), it's easy to forget one very simple fact: This is a really, really good albumthat stands among the greatest pop records ever made. (Epic, 1982)
83. Jay-Z: The Blueprint. Released on September 11, 2001, when Jay-Z’s hometown was facing its darkest day, The Blueprint established Jay-Z as the city's new music king, inheriting the throne from Notorious B.I.G., while denying would-be contenders like Nas and Mobb Deep. On his sixth record in six years, Jay-Z proves he’s on top of his game, putting any accusations of hype to rest while spinning out hits like “Girls, Girls, Girls,” “Jigga That Nigga,” and the instant-classic “Izzo (H.O.V.A.).” (Roc-A-Fella, 2001)
84. Jefferson Airplane: Surrealistic Pillow. With this album, Jefferson Airplane supplied many listeners with their first taste of the mid-’60s Haight/Ashbury scene. The record was a testament to how varied the San Francisco “sound” could be (even within one band): Marty Balin’s haunting ballad “Today,” Jorma Kaukonen's folky instrumental “Embryonic Journey,” and group efforts like the experimental opener “She Has Funny Cars.” But it was singer Grace Slick's intense contralto voice that powered the album's hits – “Somebody to Love” and “White Rabbit” -- and defined psychedelic rock to a generation. (RCA, 1967)
85. Billy Joel: The Stranger. After three less-than-blockbuster releases for Columbia Records, Billy Joel teamed with producer Phil Ramone and came up with this album, which finally broke the piano man nationally and replaced Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water as Columbia's best-selling album. With Top 40 hits like “Just the Way You Are,” “Movin' Out (Anthony's Song),” “She's Always a Woman,” and “Only the Good Die Young,” and fan-favorites like “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” and the title track, this album would provide the backbone for the rest of Joel's long and varied career. (Columbia, 1977)
86. Elton John: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. One of rock and roll’s most ambitious performers creates his most self-indulgent album, with hit singles like the title track, “Benny and the Jets,” and “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting,” more than made up for the album's sprawl. Opening with a classically-influenced epic (“Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding”) and making its way through shades of pop (“Harmony”), ’50s throwbacks (“Your Sister Can't Twist (But She Can Rock and Roll)”), and reggae (“Jamaica Jerk-Of”), the album is best remembered for a song that oddly wasn't released as a single: The Marilyn Monroe tribute “Candle in the Wind,” which would be rewritten as the Princess Diana tribute “Candle in the Wind 1997,” released as a CD single, and become the best-selling song in recorded history. (DJM, 1973)
87. [Janis Joplin with] Big Brother and the Holding Company: Cheap Thrills. Drawing on vintage blues mamas like Bessie Smith and “Big Mama” Thorton, Janis Joplin reinvented what a rock and roll vocalist could be. On this, her major-label debut with Big Brother and the Holding Company, she begs, borrows, and screams through vintage blues (“Ball and Chain”), classic pop (“Summertime”), and her first big rock and roll hit (“Piece of My Heart”). Like Joplin herself, the album was a messy, somewhat uneven document, but one that jumped back and forth between live and studio recordings to capture the era’s time and feeling in a way that her later more polished work did not. And, with a bright cartoon jacket courtesy of R. Crumb, she also lent her voice (and cartoon image) to one of the greatest album covers ever. (Columbia, 1968)
88. Janis Joplin: Pearl. Unfinished at the time of her death -- eerily, she didn’t get a chance to lay down a vocal for “Buried Alive in the Blues” -- these were the finest studio recordings of her life. Features her posthumous number one hit, “Me and Bobby McGhee,” a meditation on the meaning of freedom as contemplated in a road trip, which proved to be her resurrection (Columbia, 1971).
89. Joy Division: Closer. The final statement of final band of the ’70s, with lead singer Ian Curtis navigating his way through bleak post-punk soundscapes with all of the warmth and comfort of a concrete sidewalk in winter. (Factory, 1980)
90. Carole King: Tapestry. After the collapse of the radical ’60s, the singer-songwriter movement brought things back down to earth and set the stage for the “Me Generation.” The era’s quintessential album was this one, a surprise hit by a veteran of Brill Building, who had penned hits for the likes of Phil Spector, the Drifters, the Shirelles, and Aretha Franklin. She remade several of her old hits in a new, confessional style (“Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman”), but it was new songs like “It's Too Late,” “I Feel the Earth Move,” and “So Far Away” that made the entire world sit up and listen...and then go out and buy millions of copies -- still. As of this writing, Tapestry had reentered the Billboard 200 earlier this month for its 305th week, charting at 198. (Ode, 1971)
91. The Kinks: The Singles Collection. Hear the most British band of the British Invasion transform themselves from a second-rate R&B band to a first-class, proto-punk garage rock force (“You Really Got Me,” “All Day and All of the Night”), only to follow leader Ray Davies’ obsessions with social criticism (“Dedicated Follower of Fashion,” “A Well Respected Man,” “Sunny Afternoon”) into heartfelt nostalgia for a past that probably never was, but with songs like “Waterloo Sunset” and “Victoria,” he makes you want to believe it too. The big surprise comes towards the end, where the Kinks take a song about mistaken gender identity called “Lola” and return to their driving rock style -- as well as back up the charts. (Sanctuary, 1964-1970/2004)
92. The Kinks: Are the Preservation Society. The Kinks’ ultimate manifesto of purpose, forsaking the soot and noise of the city for the countryside and the animal farms of the village green. “How I love things as they used to be,” Ray Davies sings in the last song, finally blowing his cover -- but after songs like “Do You Remember Walter?,” “Picture Book,” and the title track, his words don't exactly come as a shock. Best of all was haunting “Village Green,” which covers more narrative, detail, and time in two minutes and thirteen seconds than most rock bands can fit on an entire album. (Pye, 1968)
93. Kraftwerk: Trans-Europe Express. A cover of Elvis’s “Mystery Train,” as interpreted by computers -- and the quartet of German techies who program them. (Kling Klang, 1976)
94. Led Zeppelin: II. The group perfects their signature hard sound in “What Is and What Should Never Be” and “Heartbreaker” and pay tribute to their fathers in radical re-workings of music by Robert Johnson (“The Lemon Song”) and Little Walter (“Bring It on Home”), except for on “Whole Lotta Love” -- a ghostwrite of Muddy Waters’ little-known “You Need Love” that the band transformed into their biggest hit -- in which they do both. (Atlantic, 1969)
95. Led Zeppelin: [IV]. If Led Zeppelin is the archetypal heavy metal band, on this, their finest album, they show just how varied the often one-dimensional music could be. Drawing on hard rock, heavy blues, and stirring folk, songs like “Black Dog,” “Rock and Roll,” “The Battle of Evermore,” and “Going to California” are some of the group's most exciting, influential, and enduring songs. “Stairway to Heaven” is the stone-cold classic, but for me, it's their epic re-imagining of the old Mississippi flood blues “When the Levee Breaks” that is their finest performance on record. (Atlantic, 1971)
96. John Lennon: Plastic Ono Band. Working with the sparsest of instrumentation, rock and roll's greatest visionary releases his most introspective work -- a chronicle of one man's Descartesian journey to strip his world down to its essentials, working through what he finds with equal parts scream and confession, in an attempt to determine what is really real. The album is unlike any other in rock and roll: More than anyone else, Lennon embodied the promise of the ’60s -- therefore, more than anyone else, Lennon could express what it meant when the ’60s collapsed (in no small part because of the Beatles’ official breakup one month before Lennon began recording this album). “I don’t believe in BEATLES--!” he famously sings at the end of “God,” “I just believe in me...Yoko and me...And that's reality.” (Apple, 1970)
97. John Lennon: Imagine. Or, Plastic Ono Band, Part 2: Putting It All Back Together. Features the title track, a socialist manifesto packaged into one of the most beautiful pop songs ever written. (Apple, 1971)
98. Jerry Lee Lewis: Original Golden Hits, Volumes 1 & 2. The peak performances of the man who embodied the spirit of rock and roll better than anyone else. No one else has built such a big name on such a small number of actual pop hits (only “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going on,” “Great Balls of Fire,” “Breathless,” and “High School Confidential” made the Top 50 in the ’50s), but then again, no one else ever tempted fate so much or laughed in the face of the devil so hard. (Collectables, 1956-1962/1999)
99. Little Richard: The Georgia Peach. In less than five years, Little Richard brought a fury to rock and roll that has seemingly influenced all who heard him. Everyone has covered his songs from contemporaries like Elvis Presley (“Tutti Frutti”), Gene Vincent, (“Rip It Up”), the Everly Brothers (“Keep A-Knockin’”), and Buddy Holly (“Ready Teddy”), on through ’60s acts like the Beatles (“Kansas City/Hey Hey Hey Hey”), the Kinks (“Long Tall Sally”), Creedence Clearwater Revival (“Good Golly, Miss Molly”), and the Band (“Slippin’ and Sliddin’”); Otis Redding openly admits that his sole ambition going into going into music initially was to emulate Little Richard, while upon graduating from Hibbing High School in 1959, a young Robert Zimmerman wrote that his life ambition was “to join ‘Little Richard’.” But he had just missed his chance -- it was in that same year Little Richard almost went down in a plane crash and swore off rock and roll to become a preacher. At least until he regrouped in the 1960s and built a new band that included a young guitar whiz who went by Maurice James, which he would soon change it to Jimi Hendrix and attempt to do with his guitar what Little Richard did with his voice. (Specialty, 1955-1964/1991)
100. LL Cool J: Radio. Don Juan gets a radio, and finds that he can’t live with out it. With Rick Rubin’s understatedly sparse production, these were eleven tracks proving why the Ladies Love Cool James. (Def Jam, 1985)
101. Love: Forever Changes. Love may have never been very well-known in their day outside of their native Los Angeles, but thanks to the tireless effort of rock critics across the globe, their reputation has been rightfully restored as one of the finest rock and roll bands of their time. On this, their masterpiece, leader Arthur Lee and company play with sound and mood, texturing the record with beautiful folk instrumentation, whimsical psychedelic music, and driving rock and roll. And, with stubbornly abstract song titles like “Alone Again Or,” “A House Is Not a Motel,” and “The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This,” the group joins the ranks of Bob Dylan as the greatest song-titlers in rock and roll. (Elektra, 1967)
102. Madonna: The Immaculate Collection. From “Holiday” to “Vogue,” this was the music on which Madonna became the most famous female pop star of all-time. With songs like the sexy come-on of “Like a Virgin,” the capitalist celebration of “Material Girl,” the abortion-rights plea of “Papa Don't Preach,” the gospel feel of her greatest song, “Like a Prayer,” and a bizarre dance song about standing still, "Vogue," this was state-of-the-art pop music -- sweet, soulful, and infectiously danceable. And, lest anyone worry that she was losing speed, the two new songs tacked onto the end were hits in their own right, with “Justify My Love” becoming her ninth U.S. number one hit, while "Rescue Me" made the top ten. (Sire, 1983-1990/1990)
103. Bob Marley: Legend. Originally released as a vinyl record just three years after Marley's untimely death, Legend has gone on to become a legend unto itself, as it’s become the best-selling reggae album of all-time and has remained one of the best-selling backlist albums for years. But like Michael Jackson’s Thriller or Nirvana’s Nevermind, the sheer over-saturation of the record in American culture (thank you, college winters and summer beach parties!) makes it easy to forget how thrilling it is. The album reveals many of Marley's different roles: Lover (“Is This Love”), fighter (“Get Up, Stand Up”), activist (“Redemption Song”), outlaw (“I Shot the Sheriff”), historian (“Buffalo Soldier”), and musician (“Jamming”). It's little wonder that he is acknowledged as the master of reggae music, and the music here proves that he more than lives up to its title. (Tuff Gong, 1973-1980/1984)
104. John Mayall: Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton. When Eric Clapton quit the Yardbirds in favor of a more blues-focused group, this is where he went, setting up shop with the godfather of the British blues movement. It may have been Mayall’s band, but this was Clapton’s record, as can be heard in his killer solo in “Little Girl” and a mellow take on his idol Robert Johnson’s “Ramblin’ on My Mind,” Clapton’s first-ever lead vocal performance. (Decca, 1966)
105. Curtis Mayfield: Super Fly. Hear the voice of the Impressions venture out on his own and trade in his dreams for realities as he chronicles a world filled with hard truths and cold realities in “Super Fly,” “Freddie’s Dead,” and “Pusherman.” (RCA, 1972)
106. The MC5: Kick out the Jams. The Motor City's favorite sons (and quasi-leaders of the aborted White Panther movement), this was revolution as rock and roll. The title track was also their first charting single, almost as famous much for what one couldn’t hear -- singer Rob Tyner screaming at the start “Kick out the jams, MOTHERFUCKERS!,” for which the record label lamely substituted with “Kick out the jams, BROTHERS AND SISTERS!” -- as the fact that it was a visionary proto-punk masterpiece, not to mention one hell of a pop song. (Elektra, 1969)
107. Metallica: Master of Puppets. The finest heavy metal album by the band who all but single-handedly saved the genre. Other albums may have a greater impact (1983’s Kill ’Em All) or more record sales (1991’s Metallica [“The Black Album”]), but this is where they took their music the farthest: Dense, sprawling epics of anger and fear that redefined heavy metal for every band who has since played it. (Elektra, 1986)
108. Joni Mitchell: Blue. Over the course of ten stark songs, almost all of which are ballads, Joni Mitchell plumbs to the depths of her longing and sadness to create the masterpiece of the singer-songwriter era. Her songwriting skills, voice, and lyrics have all been rightfully praised, as has her ability to evoke a mood, turn a phrase, and seemingly express a cool yet impassioned sense of self-awareness. But all that said, no one can write dialogue in a pop song like Mitchell: “Just before our love got lost you said I am as constant as a northern star,” she sings in “A Case of You,” “And I said, ‘constantly in the darkness -- where's that at? If you want me I'll be in the bar...’” Worthy of Williams, but edging towards Miller (the playwright, as well as the beer). (Reprise, 1972)
109. Moby: Play. Copping his name from the masterpiece of his supposed great-great-great-granduncle Herman Melville, Moby creates his own epic American voyage by continuing Alan Lomax's 1959 field recording trip down South, without ever leaving his late-’90s New York City apartment. (V2, 1999)
110. Van Morrison: Astral Weeks. In what is probably the most celebrated rock and roll album that sounds the least like rock and roll music, Van Morrison delves deep into his mystical side, retracing his steps down the streets of his Belfast youth. Tall-tales, local characters, and ethereal blues fill the record, as Morrison willfully strums his acoustic guitar and passionately sings with an airy jazz quartet all around. With songs like “Sweet Thing,” “The Way Young Lovers Do,” “Madame George,” “Ballerina,” and the brilliant title track, this is Morrison's finest hour, even though the whole record is almost stolen from him by John Davis's brilliant upright bass playing. (Warner Brothers, 1968)
111. Van Morrison: Moondance. Van Morrison's most famous studio album, in which he shaped his music into songs that were both fine and commercially successful: A thousand romances have been launched to the sounds of “And It Stoned Me,” “Crazy Love,” and the title track, but it was “Caravan” that would become Morrison’s climatic show-stopper. (Warner Brothers, 1970)
112. Nas: Illmatic. With the delayed release of his solo debut Illmatic, Nas all but single-handedly revived East Coast hip-hop and established himself as the scene’s greatest MC since Rakim. Clocking in at just ten songs in under forty minutes, this is one of hip-hop’s tightest records – not a scrap of fat gets in the way of Nas proving his skills in an endless flow of internal and external rhymes over funky, understated beats that sample everyone from King of Pop Michael Jackson to legendary jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal. “I’m out for presidents to represent me,” he raps in “The World Is Yours,” and with rhymes like these, he’s earned it. (Columbia, 1994)
113. The New York Dolls. The ugliest band in rock and roll reach for the Rolling Stones, cross-dress like a glam band, and inadvertently invent punk, roughly three years ahead of schedule. It’s the Dolls who get the last laugh though, when the Stones release 1978’s Some Girls, their answer to the New York underground scene that threatened to make them obsolete -- a scene that was launched in a large part by the Dolls’ proto-punk music. (Mercury, 1973)
114. Randy Newman: Good Old Boys. Rock and roll’s finest humorist tackles his biggest target with a tour-de-force of the American South in about 30 minutes or less, in which he replaces facts with irony and history with myth. Who else would begin an album with a song lampooning “Rednecks” (the refrain boasts “we're keeping the niggers down”) -- only to turn the song back on itself by contrasting this with the alleged freedom African Americans are allowed by being confined to the ghettoized “cages” of the North? From thereon out, nothing is simple: The redneck protagonist is lovingly fleshed out in “Birmingham” and “Marie,” before dissolving into songs about politics (“Mr. President (Have Pity on the Working Man)”), legends (“Kingfish”), and white millionaires in blackface to pass themselves off as African American doctors (“Back on My Feet Again”). Transcending it all is “Louisiana 1927,” which examines that year’s Great Flood as a curse upon the sins of the land; heard today in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, with its details about some people getting lost in the flood while others get away and the apathetic president with the little fat man who presides over it all, the album’s most pointedly historical song is also its most current and socially relevant. (Reprise, 1974)
115. Nine Inch Nails: The Downward Spiral. Just like the video for “Closer” that provided most people with their first introduction to this album, The Downward Spiral was a state-of-the-art musical experience -- something that was beautiful and haunting in equal measure, like a fascinating colorful design revealed to be the close-up of a rotting corpse. “Closer” and “March of the Pigs” may have been key songs that helped the album to establish industrial rock at the forefront of rock and roll, but it was Johnny Cash’s surprise cover of “Hurt” almost ten years later that proved this wasn't just great postmodern music, it was great American music. (Nothing, 1994)
116. Nirvana: Nevermind. After displacing Michael Jackson’s Dangerous at the top of the charts in the early weeks of 1992, Nirvana returned from a European tour to find themselves the biggest band in the world. This was the music on which they made their name -- “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” “In Bloom,” “Come as You Are,” “Lithium,” “Polly,” and “On a Plain” -- on an album so good it plays like greatest hits record. For all the ink that has been spilled about pop culture, mass consumerism, and record marketing trends, it’s the quality of the music that caused 1991 to be the year in which punk finally broke. (DGC, 1991)
117. Nirvana: In Utereo. Nirvana teams with dream producer Steve Albini (Kurt Cobain especially loved his work with the Pixies) to produce their most accomplished studio album. Songs like “Heart-Shaped Box,” “Pennyroyal Tea,” and “Dumb” took the band's music beyond where they had gone in Nevermind; even a song as polarizing as “Rape Me” sounded undeniably monumental. (DGC, 1993)
118. Nirvana: Unplugged in New York. I remember tuning in to this the night it aired because I thought it would be funny -- the idea of a band as loud and noisy as Nirvana playing an “Unplugged” set was bound to be hilarious. I was dead wrong. He began with the deep cut “About a Girl” (which I had never heard of) and then proceeded to go into a set that featured no “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” no “In Bloom,” and no “Heart-Shaped Box”; in their place were epically strange covers of David Bowie's “The Man Who Sold the World” and the Vaselines’ “Jesus Don't Want Me for a Sunbeam,” and his own eerily prophetic “All Apologies,” which was still on the MTV charts the week he killed himself, and a closing cover of Lead Belly’s haunting folktale “In the Pines,” -- Cobain’s final live performance, in which he looked the pain and fear that had always driven his music squarely in the eye and tried his damnedest to stare it down. (DGC, 1994)
119. Notorious B.I.G.: Ready to Die. An autobiography by the most legendary voice in East Coast hip-hop on the only studio album he would release in his lifetime. But from the ominous title on down through the final track, “Suicidal Thoughts,” this was a life story that reeked of death, even before it was cut short three years later by gunfire. (Bad Boy, 1994)
120. N.W.A.: Straight Outta Compton. Gangsta rap perfected by its first great group (and with alumni like Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Easy-E, MC Ren, and DJ Yella, how could have they done otherwise?), or the myth of Stagger Lee brought to its logical conclusion. Contains the hugely controversial “Fuck Tha Police,” which helped to ignite a spark that would break out into the wildfire of the L.A. Riots four years later. (Ruthless, 1988)
121. The O’Jays: Back Stabbers. The masters of Philly soul craft a smooth-yet-funky meditation on the world, with visions that alternate between dire visions (“When the World’s at Peace,” “992 Arguments,” and the title track) and hopeful sentiment (“(They Call Me) Mr. Lucky” and “Sunshine”) -- but fear not, the joy of “Love Train” winning out in the end. (Philadelphia International, 1972)
122. Roy Orbison: For the Lonely: 18 Greatest Hits. Orbison was rock and roll’s crown prince of doom and gloom; using his signature near-operatic (and three- to four-octave) voice, he alone was able to create music that outweighed all of the good times and parties that seemingly comprised the other 99% of the music. After his bid at being one of the weirdest-sounding rockabilly singers ever to pick up a guitar (‘Ooby Dooby”), he moved onto the stark, orchestral ballads on which he would make his name (“Only the Lonely,” “Crying,” “Running Scared,” “It's Over”), before scoring the biggest hit of his career with “Oh, Pretty Woman,” in which he finally gets the girl. (Rhino, 1956-1964/1990)
123. OutKast: Stankonia. Hip-hop’s most innovative group tested the limits of the music on their fourth album, paving the way for their even bigger breakthrough Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, which would become the first hip-hop album to win Album of the Year at the Grammys. But Stankonia was the better, more focused, and tighter record, with the duo’s members Big Boi and Andre 3000 still working together as a team, as opposed to issuing solo albums side-by-side. Marked by forays into hard rock, slow jams, and Indian music, it was OutKast’s excellent rapping that held it all together, in songs like the lightning-fast “B.O.B.” and the classic “Ms. Jackson,” their first number one pop hit. (LaFace, 2000)
124. Parliament: Mothership Connection. “Ain’t nothin’ but a party, y’all!” Parliament leader George Clinton calls out on this album’s title track. A loose intergalactic concept album thread together by a space-aged DJ, Parliament made good on their freaky man-from-Mars style and showed that they were most at home in the outer reaches of the galaxy -- at least until title track, which updated the old slave spiritual “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” into something so funky it would turn up as a sample on a single from Dr. Dre’s The Chronic. But the whole trip is worth it if only to hear bass singer Ray Davis tell everybody to tear the roof of the sucker. (Casablanca, 1975)
125. Pavement: Slanted and Enchanted. Deadpan indie rock from one of the most distorted bands of them all, in music that proved that defiantly loud music wasn’t just aggressive -- it was also beautiful. (Matador, 1992)
126. Pearl Jam: Ten. Released less than a month before Nirvana’s Nevermind, the success of the latter helped to pave the way for the success of the former, setting up a battle of the bands that would last until Kurt Cobain's death, with chief innovators Nirvana playing the Beatles, and Pearl Jam as the Rolling Stones. Like the Stones, Pearl Jam focused on musicality and honing their rock and roll craft, eventually outlasting virtually everyone from their generation through a combination of a diligent work ethic, constant tour schedule, and sheer hard work and determination. This was the music in which they first applied themselves as one of the most important and successful bands of their time, turning out early classics like “Evenflow,” “Alive,” and the haunting “Jeremy,” which plays like an answer record to Beck's “Loser,” even though it came before it. The song also predicted the Columbine shootings that would happen at the other end of the decade -- or, at least, the feelings they evoked. (Epic, 1991)
127. Pere Ubu: The Modern Dance. Just after the onslaught of punk killed rock and roll’s present, Pere Ubu leader David Thomas presented this as a vision of rock and roll future: Challenging, experimental art-rock that sounded like Talking Heads trying to cover Captain Beefheart, with an escaped mental institution patient ranting and raving as the lead singer. (Blank, 1978)
128. Carl Perkins: Original Sun Greatest Hits. Growing up down south next to an African American sharecropper and cutting his teeth on rhythm records alongside Sun labelmates Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis, Perkins was the self-proclaimed King of Rockabilly, and he had the back catalogue to prove it, in songs that were made famous by rock and roll’s two biggest legends -- Elvis Presley (“Blue Suede Shoes”) and the Beatles (“Matchbox,” “Honey Don’t,” and “Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby”) -- along with other classics that hit a spirit few could touch, like the breakneck “Put Your Cat Clothes on,” the joyous “Boppin’ the Blues,” and the razor-fighting “Dixie Fried.” (Rhino, 1955-1957/1986)
129. Liz Phair: Exile in Guyville. Conceived as a song-by-song answer record to the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street, Liz Phair's major-label debut may not quite match up perfectly (despite its title and 18 tracks), but no matter -- this is still great rock and roll music on its own right. Phair establishes herself as one of alternative rock’s finest songwriters, building her winding melodies around blunt lyrics that recall none other than Elvis Costello in his late-70s prime. Although Costello would’ve killed for a voice as smooth and radio-friendly as this. (Matador, 1993)
130. Wilson Pickett: The Very Best of. In “The Midnight Hour,” “Wicked” Pickett’s breakthrough single, a song about sexual anticipation that was so intense, it made Buddy Holly’s “Oh Boy!” sound like a novelty song. (Rhino, 1965)
131. Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon. After a record-breaking decade and a half on the Billboard 200 chart, Dark Side of the Moon quietly fell off in 1988, where it would continue to be a back catalogue monster. Yet it was only ever number one for a single week, contained just one medium-sized hit (“Money,” which made 12 in the U.S.), and had songs that ran together, defying most people's expectations of what a best-selling pop album should be. But clearly there was something that caught people like no album before or since, whether it was the haunting opening “Speak to Me/Breathe,” the melancholy centerpiece “Us and Them,” or the grand finale of “Brain Damage” into “Eclipse.” But if you turned the record up at the end, any questions raised remained unanswered: “There is no dark side of the moon, really,” a crazy old man cynically notes, “Matter of fact, it’s all dark.” (Harvest, 1973)
132. The Pixies: Doolittle. Pioneering the quiet-verse/loud-chorus song structure, Boston’s most influential band created ’90s rock one year before the decade began; in songs like “Tame,” “Wave of Mutilation,” and “There Goes My Gun,” you can hear the entire career of Kurt Cobain, who regularly acknowledged ripping them off to seemingly any reporter who would listen. But modernist pretensions aside, Cobain also knew a pop song when he heard it (his favorite bands were, after all, the Beatles and the Sex Pistols), and here the Pixies ground their wild sound in some of the smartest pop hooks of their time -- except in the case of the masterful “Here Comes Your Man,” in which they bring down the walls of distortion and let the pop stand naked. (4AD, 1989)
133. Elvis Presley: At Sun. With Sam Philips at the helm, Scotty Moore on lead, Bill Black on rhythm, and the Kid in the middle, they discover something new when the Kid suddenly breaks into the old jump blues song “That's All Right,” and they capture it on record. The sense of escape, freedom, and surprise is tangible to this day; here, and on the records that came before and after it, one can hear the grasping for the new music in old blues and Tin Pan Alley songs, and its subsequent pursuit over hot blues, heartfelt country, and the Kid’s eternal restlessness that effortlessly brings them both together. (RCA, 1954-1955/2004)
134. Elvis Presley: Elvis’s Golden Records. Hillbilly heads uptown as the Kid gets a manager with a big cigar and goes big time, as he lands a big record contract, buys his first Cadillac, and becomes the biggest star in the world -- with big hits like “Heartbreak Hotel,” “Hound Dog,” “Don’t Be Cruel,” “All Shook up,” and “Jailhouse Rock,” as well as (slightly) lesser-known flipsides like “Loving You,” “Any Way You Want Me,” and “Treat Me Nice.” By the time that he entered the Army, the Kid had released eight major-label hit singles, all of which made the top of the charts; here are fourteen of those sixteen sides, the legend upon which rock and roll was built, and the greatest, most exciting music of his (and probably anybody’s) career. (RCA, 1956-1957/1958)
135. Elvis Presley: From Elvis in Memphis. The Kid grows up, cashes in on a newfound sense of empowerment from his recent “Comeback Special,” and makes the finest studio recordings of his life. The title implied a coming home, but with the opening confusion of “Wearing That Loved on Look,” this was a home that he no longer could fully recognize. Powered (if not altogether challenged) by producer Chips Moman and the crackerjack band he assembles, Elvis reveled in songs of his own choosing in what has been called white soul music. Best of all was “Long Black Limousine,” in which the singer falls in love with a small-town girl who goes off to Hollywood but promises to come back in a limousine and does -- in a long black limousine that doubles as a hearse. Elvis’s sense of conviction has always been his source of power, and when he sings that he will never love another, you believe him. Brave, bold stuff. (RCA, 1969)
136. The Pretenders. Akron, Ohio ex-pat Chrissie Hynde goes overseas to London and forms a band that bridges the gap between the garage rock of the Kinks and the punk rock of the Clash, throwing in just enough pop that a song like “Brass in Pocket” could become a major hit, and the whole thing could be called new wave. (Real, 1980)
137. Prince: Purple Rain. The always talented and ambitious Prince makes his bid for immortality with this album, the soundtrack to his own film version of his life -- in other words, making his own version of “Song of Myself” that would’ve made even Whitman blush. His virtuosity as a musician, golden ear as a pop craftsmen, and funkiness as a bandleader all pays off in hits like the title track, “Let's Go Crazy,” “I Would Die 4 U,” and “When Doves Cry,” his masterpiece and a study in contradictions -- a song with a personally confessional lyric that maintained universal appeal; a boldly avant-garde construction of music that was successfully saturated into the pop mainstream; a song that fits in with equal comfort turned up on a car radio or playing in the background at a supermarket; and one of the funkiest, most danceable recordings ever made, even though it contains no bass. (Warner Brothers, 1984)
138. Public Enemy: It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. After bursting out of the rap world with their debut Yo! Bum Rush the Show, Public Enemy followed it up with this, their most famous album, and as some like to tell it, the greatest hip-hop record ever made. Chuck D’s politicized rhymes picked up where the Black Panther Party left off, while Flava Flav played the Fool to Chuck D’s Lear and Terminator X kept the beats solid and the sirens screeching. And with lyrics like “Never badder than bad ’cuz a brother is madder than mad at the fact it's corrupt like a senator/Soul on a roll but you treat it like soap on a rope ’cuz the beats in the lines are so dope,” Chuck D staked a legitimate claim at being the greatest MC of all-time. (Def Jam, 1988)
139. Public Image Ltd.: Second Edition. After nailing the coffin on modern rock with the Sex Pistols, lead singer Johnny Rotten dropped his punk surname and invented postmodern rock. A sort of post-punk Plastic Ono Band, only with more mischief sprinkled in. (Virgin, 1979)
140. Radiohead: The Bends. The British Comeback, or, While America Slept. Although this album stalled on the American charts at 88 (I remember only one friend who bought it when it was new -- and I only remember because of the way he soon after laughed at himself for having the stupidity to buy such a terrible record), it hit the Top 5 in England, and turned them into national superstars virtually overnight. Listening to it today, it is hard to go back and figure out why America was so resistant of this music -- in now-classics like “High and Dry,” “Fake Plastic Trees,” “My Iron Lung,” and the devastating “Just,” this was the best straight-ahead rock and roll album by the most influential band of the post-grunge era. (Parlophone, 1995)
141. Radiohead: OK Computer. The American Comeback or, To Kingdom Come. Radiohead finally broke through internationally (re: in America) -- although the album only hit 21 on the album charts (British loyalists made it a number one in the UK), it felt much bigger than it ever hit -- a sort of Music from the Big Pink of the 1990s. This was the sound of the twilight of the 20th Century, as interpreted by five Brits who used this album to establish themselves as the most important rock and roll band in the world. Although much of the record was concerned with the post-modern machine age, it’s the “rain down on me” coda of the masterful epic “Paranoid Android” that is perhaps the most beautiful evocation of nature I have ever heard in a rock song. Their best album. (Parlophone, 1997)
142. The Ramones. Four young guys from Queens took the last name Ramone, posed as brothers, and put on leather jackets to become a self-described “cartoon rock band.” Their debut album featured rock and roll stripped down to its essentials: Fourteen two-minute songs delivered loud, fast, and with virtually no solos. Lead singer Joey Ramone called it “bubblegum music for sick kids,” but before long everyone else was using different terminology to describe this new music: Punk. (Sire, 1976)
143. The Red Hot Chili Peppers: Blood Sugar Sex Magik. On their fifth album (and major-label debut), the Red Hot Chili Peppers refined their sound into an open mix of alternative, funk, and rap, testing their music’s boundaries and finding few, if not any. Beginning with funky adrenaline rush of “The Power of Equality” and closing with the weirdest cover of everybody’s least favorite Robert Johnson song (“They’re Red Hot”), this was their extended meditation on the American landscape, as seen through the Los Angeles smog during an all night party. Includes “Give It Away,” their greatest song, and “Under the Bridge,” their most overplayed. (Warner Brothers, 1991)
144. Otis Redding: Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul. On this record, Otis Redding takes his place as the greatest soul singer of his time. The death of his idol Sam Cooke the previous year still hung heavily over Redding -- he covered no less than three of Cooke's signature songs: “A Change Is Gonna Come,” “Shake,” and “Wonderful World.” Meanwhile, he took on the Rolling Stones at their own game, getting a hit out of “(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction” after they had previously covered several of his songs, and set the stage for the next great soul voice with a new song he had written called “Respect.” But it was the album’s centerpiece, “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long,” in which Redding can best be heard on his own terms, bringing a smoldering ballad to an epic storming finish as only he could do. (Atco, 1965)
145. R.E.M.: Murmur. Crawling from the depths of Athens, Georgia, came the definitive college rock band -- a group who were bored by the Beatles and instead followed the Velvet Underground and Big Star, with guitarist Peter Buck's jingle-jangle layering upfront and singer Michael Stipe's deadpan vocals half-buried in the mix, mumbling and muttering his way through lyrics that could be easily hummed but only partially understood. It was part Southern gothic, part postmodern electric, and all very, very weird. (I.R.S., 1983)
146. R.E.M.: Automatic for the People. Almost ten years after setting the rock world on its ear with Murmur, R.E.M. delivers their masterpiece -- a mostly quiet, understated collection of songs that sounded as much a part of the southern landscape as a murky swamp, yet elegant enough to be played on AM radio. These were songs about death and fallen heroes, but also about friendship and hope. And with the 1-2-3 punch of “Man on the Moon,” “Nightswimming” and the gorgeous “Find the River,” I have never heard a better set of closing songs on a record. (Warner Brothers, 1992)
147. The Replacements: Tim. On the Replacements’ major-label debut, the band was informed they had to make a music video to go along with the album's lead single, “Bastards of Young.” Leader Paul Westerberg hated them, and so a compromise of sorts was reached: A video consisting almost entirely of a single black and white shot of a speaker blaring the song. And with this, Minnesota’s foremost modern punk band made the step from alternative to, well, something that was less alternative. But with rockers like “Kiss Me on the Bus” and “Left of the Dial,” the band was ready to be heard by anyone who was ready to do so -- and on the their own terms. (Sire, 1985)
148. Smokey Robinson & the Miracles: The Definitive Collection. A definite contender for Motown's MVP, Robinson not only wrote and performed his songs for the Miracles, he also wrote and produced hits for other artists (Mary Wells’ “My Guy” and the Temptations’ “My Girl,” not to mention “I’ll Be Doggone” and “Ain’t That Peculiar” for Marvin Gaye -- perhaps he was paying Gaye back for playing drums on Robinson’s “You've Really Got a Hold on Me”). Here is his most famous work, from “Shop Around” (Motown's first number one R&B song) through “The Tracks of My Tears,” “I Second That Emotion,” “Tears of a Clown,” and the rest, along with a healthy sampling of his solo work for Motown. If you need reasoning on why John Lennon ranked Smokey Robinson among his favorite songwriters, Paul McCartney recalled that, for the Beatles, “Smokey Robinson was like God in our eyes,” or Bob Dylan famously called him “America’s greatest living poet,” look no further than here. (Motown, 1959-1972/2006)
149. The Rolling Stones: Green Grass and High Tides (Big Hits) [UK Version]. The Rolling Stones make their name on eleven bitter pills, which not so much join popular culture as they do assault it, taking on consumerism (“Get Off of My Cloud”), love (“Heart of Stone”), class relations (“Play with Fire”), and social psychology (“19th Nervous Breakdown”) -- and, on their most famous song, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” all of the above. (Decca, 1963-1966/1966)
150. The Rolling Stones: Beggar’s Banquet. After a misadventure into psychedelic rock, the Stones find their way home by unplugging their instruments and returning to their roots. Beginning with the voodoo trance of “Sympathy for the Devil” and closing with the working class anthem “Salt of the Earth,” there was plenty of blues (“Parachute Woman”), country (“Dear Doctor”), folk (“Factory Girl”), and gospel (“Prodigal Son”) mixed in between. Best of all was the album’s stirring centerpiece, “Street Fighting Man,” which stated the Stones’ entire manifesto in one rhetorical question: “But what can a poor boy do except to sing for a rock and roll band?” (Decca, 1968)
151. The Rolling Stones: Let It Bleed. The title was a sardonic reply to the Beatles’ failed Let It Be project, while its opening song, “Gimmie Shelter,” sounded like an apocalypse. The rest of the album followed suit, predicting the end of the ’60s like it was the end of the world, and seeking refuge in blues (“Love in Vain”), sex (the title track), and murder (“Midnight Rambler”). And then, exactly one day after the album’s release, the record’s dark and chaotic prophecy was fulfilled when Meredith Hunter was stabbed to death during the Stones’ infamous performance at Altamont. (Decca, 1969)
152. The Rolling Stones: Exile on Main Street. The Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World are exiled to France on tax charges, set up shop in an old Nazi compound with swastika-shaped floor vents, and make the finest album of their career. The band themselves have always remained wary of remembering it fondly, and it’s easy to hear why -- music this hard, thick, and jagged must have been no fun to record (if one can even remember the drug-saturated experience). But the results speak for themselves in songs like “Rocks Off,” “Rip This Joint,” and “Tumbling Dice,” music that remembers rock and roll’s origins in the deep, dark Big Muddy -- and bring it back there as only five blues-loving Brits in exile could. (Rolling Stones, 1972)
153. Diana Ross and the Supremes: The Definitive Collection. After six failed singles, the Supremes scored their first hit and soon followed it up with a record 12 number one hit singles, more than any other American vocal group to date. The first five of the chart-toppers were in a row and established them as Motown Records’ flagship act: “Where Did Our Love Go,” “Baby Love,” “Come See About Me,” “Stop! In the Name of Love,” and “Back in My Arms Again” -- and some of their finest number ones were still to come (“You Can't Hurry Love,” “You Keep Me Hangin’ on,” and “Love Child”). It was soul made into pop and pop made into soul -- the Platoian form of the music that Motown chief Berry Gordy had been hearing in his head all along. (Motown, 1964-1969/2008)
154. Roxy Music: Siren. Is this art-rock going mainstream or mainstream finally catching up with art-rock? With songs like “Love Is the Drug” (the band’s only American Top 40 hit) and “Both Ends Burning,” it didn’t matter how it came, only that it was here. (Island, 1975)
155. Run-D.M.C.: Raising Hell. After conquering the rap world with their first two albums, this pioneering rap trio from Queens took on the rock world, as producer Rick Rubin forced them to record a cover of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way,” which they had previously only known by its trademark guitar riff. The move proved a stroke of genius, as a video was made with Run-D.M.C. and Aerosmith in which they literally broke down the wall between rock and rap, and “Walk This Way” became the first Top 5 rap song in the U.S., while its video became the first rap video put in rotation on MTV. But none of that would mean anything if the rest of the album didn’t find the group at their peak -- and with songs like “My Adidas,” “You Be Illin’,” “It's Tricky,” and “Peter Piper,” Run-D.M.C. proved that their breakthrough into the rock mainstream was no fluke. (Profile, 1986)
156. Santana: Abraxas. After their coolly-received debut, Santana stretches their wings on Abraxas, in no small part because of the band’s star-making set at Woodstock. In songs like “Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen” and “Oye Como Va,” they dug deeper into the fusion of rock and roll with Latin music, while rounding things out with touches of jazz and blues. (Columbia, 1970)
157. The Sex Pistols: Never Mind the Bollocks Here’s the Sex Pistols. Hailed as punk rock’s defining masterpiece and derided as four singles in a sea of B-sides, the album was both and neither at the same time. As Johnny Rotten’s relentless screaming and blank stare would tell you, this was music that fed off of its own emptiness, a rock and roll snake eating its own tail. Like the Pistols themselves, the music comes out of nowhere, barrages the listener like nothing before or since, and then collapses into a sudden and deafening silence. Flowers in the dustbin, indeed. (Virgin, 1977)
158. The Shirelles: The Very Best of. When their recording of “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” made the top of the charts in 1960, the Shirelles were the first all-girl group to score a number one pop hit in the rock and roll era. The records that surrounded this hit were so fine, the Beatles copped two of them on their first album (“Boys” and “Baby, It’s You”), while the Mamas and the Papas scored a huge hit with a third (“Dedicated to the One I Love”). (Rhino, 1958-1963/1994)
159. Paul Simon: Graceland. Using Elvis Presley’s house as a spiritual home base, Paul Simon ventures far out into the world, recording much of the album in South Africa, with contributions from the African vocal ensemble Ladysmith Black Mambazo. It was their featured songs that got most of the attention when the album came out (“Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes” and “Homeless”), even though it is now a bit surprising to remember they only appeared on the record’s second side. Simon also brought in cajun and zydeco stylings as well as stars Linda Rondstadt, the Everly Brothers, and Los Lobos, and somehow made it all work like lasers in the jungle somewhere. (Warner Brothers, 1986)
160. Simon and Garfunkel: Bridge over Troubled Water. Simon & Garfunkel have been called the calm in the storm of ‘60s rock, so when this album was released just after the decade’s end, it put them at the forefront of pop music by providing a starting point for the calmer singer-songwriter movement that would become a focal point in the early ’70s. Ironically, Simon & Garfunkel weren’t around very long to enjoy it -- the duo split up soon after the album’s release. But the music remained and, powered by the epic title track, it went on to become their best-selling record (and, at the time, Columbia Record's best-selling LP) on its way to becoming one of the most popular records of all-time. And, in the aftermath of September 11th, songs like “The Boxer” and “The Only Living Boy in New York” remained more pertinent than ever. (Columbia, 1970)
161. Sly and the Family Stone: Greatest Hits. The fleeting sound of late-’60s psychedelic utopia, as brought together by a group of men and women, black and white, and led by one of the true visionaries of rock and roll. The results -- “Everyday People,” “Let Me Take You Higher,” “Everybody Is a Star,” “Dance to the Music” -- speak for themselves, feel good music through and through. (Columbia, 1970)
162. Sly and the Family Stone: There’s a Riot Goin’ on! With this release, Sly Stone took the psychedelic utopia in which he played a large role in creating and burnt it to the ground. After the positive, feel-good music of 1969’s Stand! and singles “Hot Fun in the Summertime,” “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin),” and “Everybody Is a Star,” There’s a Riot Goin’ on! came as something like a shock, a thick and muddy record with half-buried vocals rising through the murk in a druggy haze. “Family Affair” was commercial enough to take Sly to the top of the charts, even though he sang it as though he was at the bottom of the world. But anyone with the audacity to answer the titular question of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going on better have a profound answer. And Sly Stone certainly did -- it just wasn’t a pretty one. (Columbia, 1971)
163. Smashing Pumpkins: Siamese Dream. Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan was always quick to point out that his hard-rock alternative band was not grunge, even though he still used the music as a measuring stick after Nirvana's Nevermind hit big. “We felt a great pressure that if we didn’t come up with a record that was huge, we were done,” Corgan later recalled. “It was that simple in our minds. We felt like our lives depended on it.” They certainly recorded it like it was -- driven by Corgan’s perfectionism (not to mention his insecurities and depression), the album was plagued by major arguments and disagreements. But when it was finally released, way behind schedule and over budget, the results were clear: the rocking “Today” and “Cherub Rock” and the ballad “Disarm” inspired a thousand young people to pick up guitars and learn their riffs, as the band broke through as a major act. Just not one who made grunge music. (Virgin, 1993)
164. Patti Smith: Horses. “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine,” Patti Smith intones at the beginning of her debut album, bringing a strutting rush of garage rock into the storming refrain of “Gloria” and following it into post-modern, just as it reached the edge of becoming punk rock. But with experimental song-poems like “Birdland” and pop songs like “Kimberly,” the album’s punk quality came just as much from its attitude as it did its sound. Best of all was the epic “Land,” which brought all sides together in a staggering suite of poetry, pop, punk -- and horses... horses... horses... horses... (Arista, 1975)
165. The Smiths: The Queen Is Dead. The greatest album by the greatest rock and roll band of the ’80s, The Queen Is Dead caught the Smiths at their peak, just before everything started to unravel. Morrissey writes and sings his cleverest set of lyrics to date, while guitar whiz Johnny Marr fills out the music with densely textured soundscapes that must have made Phil Spector proud. With its epic title track, haunting “I Know It’s over,” and wonderful “Cemetry Gates,” this was an album in which death was always looming just around the corner, as much a part of the atmosphere as the Manchester smog, until it is tempted towards the end with the Smiths’ finest song, “There Is a Light That Never Goes out,” perhaps because death is the only means by which you can measure love: “And if a double-decker bus/Crashes into us/To die by your side/Would be a heavenly way to die...” (Rough Trade, 1986)
166. Sonic Youth: Daydream Nation. With “Teenage Riot” kicking it off and an extended trilogy as its finale, Sonic Youth’s double-record fifth studio album would prove to be their masterpiece. The band mixes rock, punk, pop, and avant-garde soundscapes to create something wholly new, and with all of the crunchy guitars, liberal use of distortion, postmodern posturing, shouts, screams, and deadpan vocals, they provided the sonic vocabulary that would be used by practically every major group that came after them -- and outlasted most of them, to boot. (Enigma, 1988)
167. Phil Spector: Wall of Sound Retrospective. The rise of the Wall of Sound in masterpiece productions for the Crystals (“He's a Rebel,” “Da Doo Ron Ron,” “Then He Kissed Me”), the Ronettes (“Be My Baby,” “Baby, I Love You,” “Walking in the Rain”), the Righteous Brothers (“You've Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” “Unchained Melody”) and more -- but when his most prized production, Ike and Tina Turner "River Deep - Mountain High," fails to become the hit he expects it to be, the Wall doesn’t so much fall as it does become a barricade that increasingly keeps Spector in and reality out. (Universal, 1960-1966/2008)
168. Bruce Springsteen: Born to Run. Springsteen may have been famously called “rock and roll future,” but at the time this appraisal was made, he was a virtual unknown outside of the Northeast with two flop albums under his belt and only one left before he was dropped from his record contract. As he would write in this album’s title track, he had “one last chance to make it real” -- and he worked endlessly on the album to be sure that he took full advantage of this chance. In the Rolling Stone review, Greil Marcus likened the album to “a ’57 Chevy running on melted down Crystals records that shuts down every claim that has been made. And it should crack his future wide open.” And thanks to a big push from the record label, Born to Run was a smash, eventually landing Springsteen on the cover of Time and Newsweek on the same week and turning him into one of the foremost performers in rock and roll. (Columbia, 1975)
169. Bruce Springsteen: Born in the U.S.A. After four years of Reaganomics, Springsteen turns protest songs into rock songs and social critiques into ballads, without ever losing sight of his main themes: Small-town life (“Glory Days”), the blue collar workforce (“Workin’ on the Highway”), the trials of love (“I'm on Fire”), fast cars on the highway (“Darlington County”), and having a good time in the dark (“Dancing in the Dark”). Song for song, this was his best album -- and things came full-circle when Reagan misunderstood the bitter title track as a fist pumping anthem of pride and tried to co-opt it in his reelection campaign. (Columbia, 1984)
170. Steely Dan: Pretzel Logic. Two men, armed with a record studio, produce some of the most accomplished mainstream pop music of their day, and then fill it with strange, cryptic words that sound like inside jokes but linger like dangerous secrets. But where would weekend radio be without “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number”? (ABC, 1974)
171. Rod Stewart: Every Picture Tells a Story. Covering Elvis (“That's All Right”), Dylan (“Tomorrow Is a Long Time”), Motown (“(I Know) I’m Losing You”), as well as the oldest known American musical composition (“Amazing Grace”), Rod Stewart encompasses the breadth of American music on his own terms, fronting a band led by a (future) Rolling Stone (Ronnie Wood), and crafting a hard-rocking and funky album built upon the warmth of acoustic guitars and mandolins. But for all of giants that lingered all around it, the album’s highlight was a song that will forever associated with Stewart himself: a perfect tale of love, sex, older women, and playing hooky called “Maggie May.” (Mercury, 1971)
172. The Stone Roses. Although they are often little more than an alternative rock footnote here, the Stone Roses’ self-titled debut was a sensation in England, turning them into the country's most influential band of their time, their guitar-based rock and roll setting the way for Oasis, Blur, and several thousand other bands. (Silvertone, 1989)
173. The Stooges: Fun House. The Stooges’ finest hour, which means this is probably Iggy Pop’s finest hour as well. Starting with the menacing “Down in the Street,” which beats Kurt Cobain at quiet verse/loud refrain dynamics by two decades, the album sprawls into a wash of quasi-psychedelic guitars and pulsating drumbeats on its own terms, with Iggy at times leading the charge (“T.V. Eye”) and at other times rising mysteriously from the bottom of the murk (“Dirt”). The album’s impending sense of chaos is unleashed on the second side, when Steve Mackay’s wailing (and increasingly dissonant) saxophone joins the mix, with everything climaxing in the every-man-for-himself Armageddon of “L.A. Blues.” (Elektra, 1970)
174. The Strokes: Is This It. The great white hope (hype?) of rock and roll: Five NYC hipsters standing at the cusp of a new millennium, poised to take on the world with the artsy garage-rock aesthetic of the Velvet Underground welded to melodies worthy of the Beach Boys, and put into catchy, danceable pop songs by a singer who sounded like he had a megaphone stuck in his throat. The album was perfect -- in hindsight, perhaps a bit too perfect -- which may give a clue on why nothing they have done since has come close to even touching it. (RCA, 2001)
175. Talking Heads: Remain in Light. After establishing themselves as the artiest group to come out of the New York punk scene, Talking Heads took on the world with their fourth album. Working with Brian Eno, the Heads built much of the album using tape loops of polyrhythmic African music. The result was a very innovative record, with which the Heads scored their finest album -- and, with its lead single, “Once in a Lifetime,” one of the first iconic music videos of the MTV era. (Sire, 1980)
176. James Taylor: Sweet Baby James. The most durable of the early ’70s singer-songwriters, here he makes his name on the finest set of songs of his long career: the title track, “Country Road,” and the heartbreaking “Fire and Rain.” (Warner Brothers, 1970)
177. Television: Marquee Moon. Although largely overshadowed today, Television was one of CBGB’s first regular bands, as well as one of the first to get signed (if memory serves, only Patti Smith released an album before them). With their great name and ominous album cover, this was a different kind of punk rock than made by fellow CBGB’s-ers the Ramones. Tom Verlaine wrote songs that were raw three-chord statements, only he would often extend them into mini-epics, trading winding solos with fellow guitarist Richard Lloyd, and framing the song with a flat nasal voice that recalled Jonathan Richman and set the stage for the Violent Femmes’ Gordon Gano. This was punk as spirit, if not always execution -- this was tentative, uneasy music with the band tightening around a simple riff or Verlaine singing one of his mischievous yet knowing lyrics; in other words, this was music that fell into the arms of Venus de Milo. (Elektra, 1977)
178. The Temptations: The Definitive Collection. Motown’s premiere male group, whose music evolved from the irresistible hits like “My Girl,” “Get Ready,” and “Ain’t to Proud to Beg,” through the hipper music like “Cloud Nine” (Motown’s first psychedelic record), and finally the trailblazing funk of the frustrated “I Can’t Get Next to You” and the devastating “Papa Was a Rolling Stone.” (Motown, 1964-1998/2008)
179. A Tribe Called Quest: The Low-End Theory. If De La Soul first put a more laid-back style of hip-hop on the map, Tribe MC Q-Tip perfected it. In songs like “Excursions,” “Rap Promoter,” and “Check the Rhyme,” the group rapped over chill jazz riffs in music that was smart, sly -- and often quite funny. (Jive, 1991)
180. Tina Turner: Private Dancer. The most unprecedented (and unexpected) comeback in rock and roll history by one of its true survivors. She took pop songs like “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” “Better Be Good to Me,” and the title track and transformed them from pop into personal testimony. (Capitol, 1984)
181. 2pac: Me Against the World. 2pac recorded this album with jail time for a sexual abuse charge looming over his head; by the time it was released, he was the first artist to debut at the top of the Billboard 200 while serving a prison sentence. It also established him as the finest MC of his generation. (Jive, 1995)
182. U2: The Joshua Tree. U2 set their sights on God’s Country and got a direct hit, creating a sound that was almost as big as the land they sought to conquer -- “Where the Streets Have No Name,” “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking for,” “With or Without You” -- wide-open, searching songs about grasping for a terrain so all-encompassing that it can only be reached within one’s imagination. But as “Bullet the Blue Sky” proposes, outside is America. (Island, 1987)
183. U2: Actung Baby. Song-for-song, this is U2’s finest album, when Bono went into his ironic biggest-rockstar-in-the-world shtick before he simply began acting like he was the biggest rockstar in the world. It also didn’t hurt that the band had the music to prove it, like rockers “Even Better Than the Real Thing” and “Mysterious Ways,” but best of all was “One” -- a song about the limits of love and loyalty that literally saved the band, as it was written when they were on the verge of breaking up. (Island, 1991)
184. Van Halen: 1984. This record was either the best thing to happen to pop, or the worst thing to happen to metal -- as if the two were mutually exclusive. (Island, 1984)
185. The Velvet Underground & Nico. The birth of underground rock and roll, courtesy of Lou Reed’s primitive song structures and deadpan vocals, John Cale’s droning electric viola and avant-garde aesthetic, and Andy Warhol’s capital and name-lending credibility. The two clichés about this record are that it sounded entirely different than anything that had come before it and that even though it didn’t sell that well, everyone who bought a copy started a band; the fact that, upon hearing for the first time as a teenager in the “alternative music” era, I heard nothing new or different in the sound probably only goes to show that both clichés are true. (Verve, 1967)
186. The Velvet Underground: Loaded. After four years in the desert, Reed tightens things up for a more commercial sound -- or at least his version of it. “Sweet Jane” and “Rock and Roll” are the classics, fitting right in alongside other songs on the same mainstream rock and roll radio stations that ignored them the first time around, along with everyone else. (Cotillion, 1970)
187. The White Stripes: White Blood Cells. It seems that every generation, every time rock and roll strays too far from its basic aesthetics, someone comes along and strips it back down to its essentials: guitar, drums, and bass. In the ’60s it was the Beatles, in the ’70s it was the Sex Pistols, in the ’90s it was Nirvana. By the turn of the millennium, this task fell to the White Stripes -- minus the bass. (Sympathy for the Record Industry, 2001)
188. The Who: Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy. The loudest band in the world makes their name on fourteen singles (almost none of which, oddly, were very big hits in the States). They called themselves “Maximum R&B,” but with songs like “The Kids Are Alright,” “Pictures of Lily,” and “I’m a Boy,” this was pop music covered in the wildest hard rock of its time. (Track, 1965-1970/1971)
189. The Who: Tommy. The Greatest Story Ever Told, as told by what many consider to be the greatest band ever assembled. While it is not the wall-to-wall masterpiece that many remember (they would later shorten and perfect it in their live performances of the work), it still packs the punch intended, thanks to standout songs like “Pinball Wizard,” “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and the thematic centerpiece, “Go to the Mirror, Boy!,” the latter of which was their finest studio performance. (Track, 1969)
190. The Who: Who’s Next. The group turns up the cynicism, throws in a bunch of synthesizers, and reinvents themselves as the stadium band of their time; God knows they were already loud enough, but now with instant-classic songs like “Baba O’Riley,” “Behind Blue Eyes,” and the epic closer, “Won't Get Fooled Again,” they had songs that were as huge as the venues they played. Their best album. (Track, 1971)
191. Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Abandoned by their mainstream label who refused to release this album, Wilco did what any band would do in their situation: They acquired the rights to the album and streamed it for free online until an independent label signed on to release it exactly as it was. The result was an uncompromised critical smash and their best-selling album to date; featuring “I’m the Man Who Loves You,” proof that after 50-some-odd years, white hipsters can still take the blues and shape it into something wholly new and exciting (Nonesuch, 2002).
192. Jackie Wilson: The Very Best of. Highlighted by the proto-Motown “Lonely Teardrops” -- the funkiest record of the ’50s -- Mr. Excitement uses his glorious tenor and unique phrasing through a decade of hits like “Reet Petite (The Finest Girl You Ever Want to Meet),” “(That's Why) I Love You So,” “Baby Workout,” before going out on top with “(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher,” seven years before he suffered a heart attack onstage that left him in a coma for the last eight years of his life. (Rhino, 1957-1967/1994)
193. Wire: Pink Flag. The debut album from one of the seminal UK bands who helped to turn punk into post-punk; featuring 21 songs in 35 minutes, the record played like a rock and roll contradiction of terms: The here-and-gone punk rock of the Ramones set into a suite of songs like the second side of Abbey Road. Whatever it was, it worked, as bands as diverse as R.E.M. and Minor Threat covered these songs, while the Minutemen made an entire career out of creating giant stacks of tiny punk songs like these. (Harvest, 1977)
194. Stevie Wonder: Talking Book. Motown’s favorite son grows up, reaches for pop greatness, and finally gets it with this record, his first masterpiece. “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” may be the standard, but “Superstition” is still the funkiest thing I’ve ever heard. His finest album. (Tamla, 1972)
195. Stevie Wonder: Innervisions. Wonder follows his artistry even further and gets even more gratifying results. This time he balances his delicious brand of upbeat funk (“Higher Ground,” “Don’t You Worry ’Bout a Thing”) with world-weary social protest (“Living for the City,” “He’s a Misstra Know It All”), and scores hits on both sides. (Tamla, 1973)
196. X: Los Angeles. The greatest L.A. punk album by the definitive L.A. punk band -- a chronicle of cool produced by ex-Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek (who knew a thing or two about the sleazy side of L.A.) and featuring the minor harmonies of singer Exene and bassist John Doe, backed by the rockabilly guitar of Billy Zoom and the meat-and-potatoes punk drumming of D.J. Bonebreak. In exquisitely titled songs like “Your Phone’s off the Hook, But You’re Not,” “Johnny Hit and Run Pauline,” “Sex and Dying in High Society,” and “The World’s a Mess, It’s in My Kiss,” X gave a down-and-dirty tour of the L.A. streets, filled with dope fiends, rapists, minorities, homosexuals, and the idle rich. This was American punk that was as smart and ambitious as the Clash -- and should’ve been as popular as well. (Slash, 1980)
197. The Yardbirds: Greatest Hits: 1964-1966. A virtual revolving door of guitar legends -- first Eric Clapton, then Jeff Beck, and then by Jimmy Page (although for a brief period Beck and Page actually overlapped). This collection takes the story through the Clapton years and into the Beck -- where Clapton made his legend on so-called rave-ups like “Got Love If You Want It” and “Smokestack Lightning,” before quitting in disgust at their commercial breakthrough “For Your Love” (he plays on the bridge); when Beck joins, things get more psychedelic -- “Evil Hearted you,” “Shapes of Things,” and “Heart Full of Soul” -- and further away from the blues with which they made their name. (Rhino, 1990)
198. Neil Young: After the Gold Rush. The decade’s most celebrated performer gets things off to a good start with this, which many consider to be his masterpiece. For someone so tough and uncompromised, much of this record comes across with an aching sense of tenderness, especially in the title track and country-tinged songs like “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” and “Oh, Lonesome Me.” But lurking in the middle is the blistering attack of “Southern Man,” in which the land from which Young draws most of the album’s down-home feel is put on trial in a nightmare of racial accusations and hypocrisy. (Reprise, 1970)
199. Neil Young: Harvest. A rarity in rock and roll: A best-selling album loved by music fans but dismissed by the critics, even though the artist is usually a critical darling. Harvest contains Neil Young’s biggest (and only number one) hit -- the signature “Heart of Gold” -- as well as bittersweet classics like “Old Man” and “The Needle and the Damage Done.” It was also cutting-edge rock and roll: singer-songwriter pop with the instrumentation of folk music, folk music seeped in the feel of country music, country music fused with the conviction of rock and roll -- all brought home by Young’s distinctive vocals which are best described by borrowing a term from bluegrass music: high and lonesome. (Reprise, 1972)
200. Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention: We’re Only in It for the Money. For a music built in part upon “answer” records (i.e., Rufus Thomas’s “Bear Cat” to Big Mama Thorton’s “Hound Dog”), this was rock and roll's first great “answer” album. Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention took the Beatles’ seemingly untouchable Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and turned it inside-out -- literally -- as Zappa made his own crude mock cover (with black bars over most of the audience's eyes) and put it on the record’s inside, while putting the Mothers in dresses against a bright yellow background for the album’s outside cover, a la the inner-gatefold of Sgt. Pepper. But it was the music inside that was the most mocking of all -- a complete send-up of hippie culture that revealed it to be a bunch of wanna-be phonies in songs that were intricate, hilarious, catchy, and often disturbing: “Who Needs the Peace Corps?,” “Concentration Moon,” and the Pepper-esqe reprised song, “What’s the Ugliest Part of Your Body?” In hindsight, Zappa didn’t just do outdo Pepper, he created the greatest concept album of all-time. (Verve, 1968)
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