11. Led Zeppelin II – Led Zeppelin (1969)
This is the album that took me from singles based hits into the world of rock. Monstrous pummelling riffs, banshee vocals and innuendo blues (“squeeze my lemon” – indeed!) make this the album that had the most impact on my teenage lifestyle. I remember Alan Freeman playing “Whole Lotta Love” on dark Sunday evening’s Pick of The Pops for about three or four consecutive weeks in late ’69. Tolkeinesque lyrics abound, the church organ on Thank You is exquisite and it contains another Zeppelin classic closing track in "Bring It On Home" with a stunning riff and a half! This album was passed around my year group like wild fire in 1970/71 It has some of the greatest sound separation, which was still a novelty in 1969 – see “ What Is And What Should Never Be” as a prime example! This is meant to be played loud!
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12. Pet Sounds – Beach Boys (1966)
Exceptional! Together with “Revolver” this advanced popular music by quantum leaps in 1966 showing what could be done with the studio gadgetry and a set of beautiful and memorable songs. Brian Wilson had moved on from the surf and hot-rod sound of a few years earlier to compose this perfect album. This was released when I was 11 years old and discovering the wonderful world of music. Not many 11 year olds can say they were this age when Revolver, Pet Sounds and Blonde On Blonde were released! The cover shot of the band feeding a goat at San Diego zoo is not the most inspired album cover of all time!
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13. Countdown to Ecstasy - Steely Dan (1973)
I love this classy album! Steely Dan: a strong contender for the best band of the seventies. This, their second album, is meticulously put together and shows the band expanding on the styles heard on their classic first album. This is Steely Dan’s guitar album with stunning solos and runs throughout the album. With superb tunes and outstanding musicianship, this is the Dan’s finest hour being sophisticated and jazzy. The guitar break beginning at 3:48 on “The Boston Rag” is sublime! Music by which to impress your friends.
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14. Stand Up – Jethro Tull (1969)
When I started work in 1977 one of my colleagues had a vast collection of “Island” and other so-called “underground” albums. Within six months or so, I’d taped many of the classic albums in this list. I’d known of the bands and of the albums but had only heard occasional tracks or the singles taken from them. As well as early Tull, I taped most, if not all of the albums made up to that time by Fairport Convention, Traffic, Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Little Feat. This was the first time I’d expanded my album listening collection from the metal/blues rock/prog genres. This Tull album did do the rounds at school but I’d missed out on taping it! Although “Aqualung” and “Thick as a Brick” are both excellent albums, I enjoy this and its successor, “Benefit” more for their sheer excitement composition and ambition. “Stand Up” is Tull’s second album where they moved away from their blues based first effort. This album has great songs and memorable melodies. From the classic bluesy riff of “A New Day Yesterday” through to “For A Thousand Mothers” there’s not a duff track on the set. The original album had a wonderful pop-up picture of the band when you opened up the gatefold sleeve. Whilst working in Glasgow in the late 1980s I stayed at an up market hotel in George’s Square. The choice of “muzak” whilst having breakfast amazingly included the original versions of Tull’s, “Bouree”, “Tommy” from “Eruption” by Focus and “The Kettle” by Colosseum. I’ve never heard “muzak” like this before or since!
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15. We’re Only In It For The Money – Mothers Of Invention (1968)
This wonderful album is a satire on all things in the world of hippies and America of the late sixties. The spoof cover of “Sgt. Pepper’s” both inside and outer covers gives some indication of the biting satire within. Nobody escapes the vitriol: hippies, plastic society, and the American education system. Stunning in its originality an album I am proud to say that I knew all the lyrics….and still know 99% of them forty years on!
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16. Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – The Beatles (1967)
I didn’t hear the full stereo version of this until 1970 and then it was through headphones. I’d heard a few of the track most notably, “With A Little Help From My Friends” at the time the album was released in the summer of ’67. As a family, we were on holiday, touring in Scotland, and can vividly remember hearing this track in our hotels in Applecross and Inverness being played on the BBC (in the last few weeks of the Light programme). It was often noted that this album changed the way popular music was created by making use of developing studio techniques and multi-tracking recording: and it’s true! Gone were the days of going in to the studio and putting down tracks in a couple of takes. It gave the opportunity to become fraudulent by altering what was being played (I could argue that doing this was not necessarily a positive contribution): it was certainly influenced by the previous year’s “Pet Sounds” and from other albums from 1966 by Dylan and The Byrds.
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17. Led Zeppelin I – Led Zeppelin (1969)
The marriage of hard rock and British blues was cemented on this album. “Dazed and Confused” easily falls into the “one of my all time favourite” category. The goose pimple moment is where the violin bowing ends and the riff re-emerges! There’s an even better twenty seven minute version on the live, “Song Remains the Same” album. The song was most recently heard as part of the jam part of Joe Bonamassa’s “Just Got Paid” track from his brilliant, “Live from Almost Anywhere” album. This was one of the albums that made me go in search for the original versions of the blues cover versions that Zeppelin “borrowed”.
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18. 12 Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus – Spirit (1970),
Hark! I hear you say! Where’s this come from? A timeless classic! This is a beautiful mixture of psychedelia, blues, folk and rock. My brother bought it a few years after it had been released and I’ve since purchased the extended CD version. It’s one of my most played albums too. I can’t praise it too highly: a good contender for the first “green” concept album. The more I think about this perfect album the higher I want to place it!
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19. Selling England By The Pound – Genesis (1973)
A sixth form album loved for its Englishness and a longing for the days of yore. “Firth of the Fifth” is one of my all time favourite pieces of music starting with a superb piano introduction and ending with Steve Hackett’s beautiful fluid guitar solo. The title track and “The Cinema Show” are my other stand-out tracks: all three tracks are played very regularly. At the appropriate time, I am often heard to say, “It’s one o’ clock and time for lunch fol de roll dee-dee” but nobody understands!
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20. In The Court Of The Crimson King – King Crimson (1969)
Probably the album that started what became known as “prog rock”. If you want to tell people what prog is all about play them this. You’ll probably put them off with the pummelling, staccato riffing of “21st Century Schizoid Man” but suggest they listen firstly to “Epitaph” or the title track. Both of which are beautiful masterpieces making full use of the newly invented mellotron. Still sounds outstanding today.
Anecdote – Our fourth form spring term English set undertook projects working in groups of three with the objective of presenting the results to the rest of the class. My colleagues and I did the history of football, rugby league and rugby union. Another group did the history of music. In this latter group, one girl played a madrigal on her guitar and then played a keyboard piece by Mozart. A second girl played a short section from the recently released Beatles’ “Abbey Road” and the third boy discussed the future of music and played all eight minutes of “21st Century Schizoid Man”. Most of the class and certainly the teacher hadn’t heard anything like it! At the end of the piece the teacher stood at the back of the class, with her pencil to her mouth and uttered, “”Hmmmm…..splendid!” |
21. LA Woman – The Doors (1971)
Morrison’s last album and the first Doors album I heard and bought. A classic mixture of slow blues (“Cars Hiss By My Window” and “Crawling King Snake”) and strong band composed songs (“LA Woman” & “Riders on the Storm”). The title track is one of my all-time favourites with its refrain of “Mr Mojo Risin’” which, as everyone knows, is an anagram of Jim Morrison as suggested by John Sebastian. The lyrics of “Texas Radio”, er “lean on the roof of the western dream” (not!) caused much amusement at the time (It’s actually, “mean and rueful of the western dream”).
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22. Dark Side of the Moon – Pink Floyd (1973)
I had this on pre-order and its release kept getting delayed throughout the early spring of 1973 in the weeks leading up to me taking my “A” levels! It’s quite stunning – the prog rock album for people who are told not to like prog rock! This and Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells” came out at a time when the purchase of hi-fi took off: these were pre-requisite purchases to test your hi-fi separates. The production is exemplary as are the montage of tunes and sounds (knowing when the clocks strike!). This album sold by the lorry load.
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23. Then Play On - Fleetwood Mac (1969)
Many people don’t realise that this band had two distinct incarnations. For those expecting “Rumours” soft rock may be disturbed to find that this is Peter Green’s blues band version. Once the British blues boom had exhausted its Elmore James riffs (all of the “Mr Wonderful” album!) Otis Rush and Buddy Guy songs and had been parodied by the Liverpool Scene’s witty, “I’ve Got The Fleetwood Mac, Chicken Shack, John Mayall Can’t Fail Blues”, the bands had to find new styles to pursue. This perfectly exemplifies progressive blues whereby Green and the other two(!) lead guitarists Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwin put together a superb set of post-blues-boom blues. Note for completists: Jeremy Spencer apparently did not play on this album! It’s a sad, reflective album (think: “Man Of The World”) with compositions from both Green & Kirwin along with two exciting electric jams: the two “Madge” tunes. It would have been almost perfect had it includes some of the singles released six months either side of the album in late 1969 namely, “The Green Manalishi”(one of my all time favourite singles) and “Man of The World”. It does contain the unique hit “Oh! Well (parts 1 & 2)” and “Rattleshake Snake”. The latter, when performed live, was stretched into a twenty minute jam. A good example is heard on the “Live in Boston” album. I have a superb version taped from BBC’s “In Concert” series which, when issued on a two CD BBC sessions album in the nineties, the BBC editors managed to remove/fade out the last six minutes!
Post Script: In August 2013, Rhino re-issued the original English version of this album with the missing tracks re-instead in their correct sequence (and “The Green Manalishi”): Wonderful! |
24. Are You Experienced? – Jimi Hendrix Experience (1967)
A contender for the finest, first album of all time this shows what a revolutionary guitarist Hendrix was as he puts down stunning set of hard rock, proto-metal songs such as “Fire”, “Foxy Lady” and the exemplary blues of “Red House”. Incendiary is a word that comes to mind. Along with the first two Cream albums, this opened up the way for rock to rule the music world for the next thirty years. I didn’t get to hear this when it was first released so I only knew of Hendrix output from the Experience singles. The first time I heard any of the cuts that appear on this album was on a cheap price (99p) Track Records sampler (“Backtrack” series) comprising one side of the Who and one side of Jimi Hendrix and showcasing mostly album tracks with a couple of singles thrown in. Impressed, I bought this as a double pack with “Axis: Bold As Love” in the early seventies.
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25. Uncle Meat – Frank Zappa (1968)
Not my first Zappa album, that goes to the more accessible, “Hot Rats” but initially taped whilst in the sixth form and then purchased the double album a year or two later. I played this so often until I knew all the lyrics and the nuances of the music. This album, and Colosseum’s, “Valentyne Suite”, probably got me into jazz-rock (the side long, “King Kong” is a jazz-rock primer). This was years ahead of its time (or of any time). It takes the ideas on “We’re only In it For The Money” and adds more instrumentation. No one had juxtaposed doo-wop vocals, musique concrete and jazz-rock jamming together before or since. Memorable are the in-between tracks ramblings of the band and the “voice of the cheese”. I’ve often wondered where “El Monte Legion stadium” is located. In 1975 the NME ran a “Top 100 albums of all time” chart and offered 99 positions with the 100th being left blank for readers to submit their favourite – I wrote a sublime paragraph or three on this album! Music to empty rooms!
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26. Disraeli Gears – Cream (1967)
One of the earliest albums I heard at a time when listening to full albums was becoming in vogue. A classic pop psychedelic album (except for “Mother’s Lament”) with stunning guitar riffs and runs. Apart from the obvious, “Sunshine of Your Love”, my favourites are “Strange Brew”, “SWLABR” and “Outside Woman Blues”. Along with “Led Zeppelin II” possibly the single most album that got me into “rock” music.
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27. Meddle – Pink Floyd (1971)
This contains possibly my favourite piece of music ever: the twenty three minute opus that is “Echoes”. A wonderfully constructed masterpiece that builds to some superb Gilmore soloing and at other times is hypnotic and enchanting. It is probably the most played song in my collection. It was the first Floyd album I bought at the time of release. The live version of this on the DVD, “Pink Floyd At Pompeii” has the song being split into two sections. Section one is my favourite piece of musical film-making in any genre. I play this at least four or five times a year. The stunning goose-pimple moments are the first Gilmour electric solo at 5:55 and an even better one at 7:57 which lays a superb groove upon which Gilmour gets quite exquisite solos. I could (and do) put the twelve minutes of “Echoes part I” on replay for hours! Another favourite, the opener, “One Of these Days” is best played loud. The album would have been placed higher but some of the other songs are somewhat dated and pleasant rather than essential. There’s a great version of Echoes on Dave Gilmour’s “Live At Gdansk” and the live version from the “Pompeii” DVD is certainly my most played DVD.
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28. Hot Rats – Frank Zappa (1970)
My first Zappa album, it’s a mostly instrumental and jazzy album. Highlights are “Willie The Pimp” with the good Captain Beefheart on vocals and “Son of Mr Green Genes” both played as extended guitar workouts. The production is outstanding. A great album with which to be seen walking around school. The Zappa album for people who wouldn’t like anything else by Uncle Frank!
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29. Close To The Edge – Yes (1972)
The pinnacle of what Yes were all about and often voted the best prog rock album of all time. This inspirational album was the third of three superb albums Yes produced in the early seventies. The song structures and composition, singing and playing are exemplary. No wonder Bill Bruford left after it was completed as there was no way they’d be able to improve.
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30. Can’t Buy A Thrill – Steely Dan (1972)
I had won Steely Dan’s single, “Do It Again” in a competition on Liverpool’s Radio City and purchased the album from whence it came not long after. This is a highly polished album containing strong, complex structured pop songs and Jeff Baxter’s amazing guitar solo on, “Reelin’ in The Years”. No a duff track. Intelligent and exquisite!
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