71. ABRAXAS – SANTANA (1970)
One of the first “rock” albums I heard and owned. The blues rock motifs, Santana’s soaring guitar runs mixed with Latin congas and drumming made a perfect album. One of my junior school friends with whom I’d kept in touch had his own hi-fi rig and when I stayed at his parents’ house in the summer of ’71 we played this, Disraeli Gears and Abbey Road all the time.
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72. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere – Neil Young (1969)
After the over-produced first album, Neil Young delivered this amazing guitar-based album. “Down By The River” and “Cowgirl In The Sand” are superb extended guitar workouts. I taped this in the year of punk - and I know which I prefer! This was one of the albums I had widened my musical taste with in 1977.
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73. Crime Of The Century – Supertramp (1974)
74. Physical Graffiti – Led Zeppelin (1975)
I love this but only parts! The original fourth side is somewhat weaker than the rest and the third side has what I’d call non Zep stuff. The first side is tremendous with “The Rover” “Custard Pie” and “In My Time of Dying (nothing like the Dylan version from his first album!!). It also contains "Kashmir" and “Trampled Underfoot” (Zep go funky).
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75. Surrealistic Pillow – Jefferson Airplane (1967)
This is a brilliant, beautiful, classic, west-coast, psychedelic rock album. The CD version contains the superb singles, “Somebody To Love” and “White Rabbit” (I had both on an EP). It is probably the best album to epitomise the summer of ’67. The hauntingly beautiful, “Today” and the stunning instrumental, “Embryonic Journey” are two of the many standout tracks in on this album. The following and much "heavier" album, “After Bathing At Baxter’s” and 1970’s “Volunteers” are both favourites of mine and both exude high quality west-coast rock.
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76. Aqualung – Jethro Tull (1971)
77. Moving Pictures – Rush (1981)
This is the last of the great series of classic Rush albums released after “2112”. The first side is of a particular high quality with “Tom Sawyer”, “Red Barchetta” and the dextrous “YYZ”. I don’t know exactly why but I didn’t buy the albums following this – probably because they received no airplay and Rush progressed into keyboard oriented songs!
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78. Piper At The Gates Of Dawn – Pink Floyd (1967)
The first Floyd album I bought at the time it was released was 1971’s “Meddle” (#27). Within the next year, I’d bought all the Floyd’s previous material including this, their debut album. In its time it was as “far-out” as you could get from the pop mainstream (which is one good reason why I liked it!). Two long songs, “Astronomy Domine” and “Interstellar Overdrive” were both favourites; the latter probably because of its weirdness and “lost-in-space” middle section. The remainder of the album comprised mainly Syd Barrett’s strange-but-beautiful compositions with beautiful memorable lyrics including the experimental “Bike” complete with ringing bicycle bells!
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79. Tommy – The Who (1968)
At the time I purchased this from the old Virgin store in Bold Street, Liverpool, it was the most expensive album I owned and remained so for some time. This is a superb, adventurous collection of songs and reprises that included an extensive glossy booklet with excellent art work. One of the few albums that I knew all the lyrics (it’s easier to learn the lyrics when they’re printed in front of you!).
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80. In Rock - Deep Purple (1970)
The fifth form hit album along with Zeppelin II, this defined hard rock and heavy metal. This would be perfect if it had the contemporaneous single “Black Night“, added to the listing. “Child In Time” has one of the best guitar solos ever: it’s a superb piece building up into a crescendo of riffing and soloing!
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81. Tubular Bells – Mike Oldfield (1973)
I bought this in the week it was released after being persuaded by Virgin Records heavy pre-release advertising in the music press. It was one occasion where the product lived up to the hype. This album, along with Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” was the album of choice for consumers who had purchased a new hi-fi separates system that had taken off over the previous year or so. It is a good example of prog you could play to unsuspecting listeners (or even your parents!). It would probably be called, “chill-out” music these days. Oldfield played almost all the instruments and had touted it around various record companies before Richard Branson took it under his wing. Sales of this enabled Richard Branson to bring Tangerine Dream and Gong to a wider UK audience (me included!).
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82. 2112 – Rush (1976)
The first anyone really knew about Rush was via this album and the contemporary live album, “All The World’s A Stage”. In 1976, the NME had written an article about American and Canadian rock bands that were undiscovered as far as UK audiences were concerned. The feature covered not only Rush but Startz and Frank Marino. The article mentioned Rush’s three previous albums and indicated that this was their last ditch attempt to make it. How right they were! Probably the first and best prog-metal song, the title track is a tour de force and has been a favourite ever since. The second side doesn’t come up to the same level as the wonderful “2112”.
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83. Exile On Main Street – Rolling Stones (1972)
This often gets positioned higher up album polls than either “Let It Bleed” or “Sticky Fingers”. I beg to differ: it’s a great album sprawled over 4 sides of vinyl but somehow just misses out on the grade A tracks that appear on the other two albums (see also "Physical Graffiti") It’s the third of three superb albums the Stones released around the turn of the seventies. I used to play side 1 and side 4 regularly (tracks 1 to 5 and tracks 15 -18 on the CD) frequently omitting some of the more “interesting” tracks from the other two sides of vinyl.
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84. With The Beatles – Beatles (1963)
One of the great adages is that it’s hard to explain to someone who wasn’t there the impact The Beatles had on the whole of society in the UK in 1963. To look back on something fifty or more years ago you have to know that there were no computers or mobile phones nor were there a multitude of radio stations playing everything you could want to hear. There were only two TV stations and no popular music stations. I was there, albeit as a nine year old but it was an era when all ages were swept along with the phenomenon of The Beatles. This album was owned by one of my class mates’ older brother and was played at my junior school during “dancing” lessons - along with the Beatles first album, “Please, Please Me”. Every song is memorable especially the fact that the group were writing their own songs (Shock! Horror!). When they first formed, The Beatles had access to American music brought over by sailors docking in Liverpool so they could listen to songs that very few others had heard and put their own interpretation on them: a few of them appear on this. My uncle had a copy and I managed to tape it when I received a reel-to-reel tape recorder in 1969.
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85. You – Gong (1974)
‘Ello, ‘Ello! What’s this then? Pothead pixies and flying teapots! This is hippy commune music to listen to with head phones whilst lying down and comfortably numb! Hidden beneath the hippy dippy exterior there lies a great instrumental band. This is the third of the Radio Gnome trilogy and just edges out, “Angel’s Egg”. Great tracks include, “Master Builder” (which builds up into a superb Steve Hillage heads-down, guitar solo – one of my all time favourites), “Isle of Everywhere” and “A Sprinkling Of Clouds”.
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86. Cosmic Jokers – Cosmic Jokers (1974)
This is one of the best early seventies Krautrock albums. My brother bought it and I’m not too sure how he heard it in the first place! The album was meant as a jam session comprising Manuel Gottsching guitarist from Ash Ra Tempel and Klaus Schultz and others but it was recorded and issued. Imagine you’re flying through space then this is the soundtrack. The first side, "Galactic Joke" is superb. If you like the live songs from “Ummagumma” then this is for you!
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87. Animals – Pink Floyd (1977)
88. Blood On The Tracks – Bob Dylan (1975)
89. Rainbow Rising – Rainbow (1976)
This was Rainbow’s second album and has become one of the greatest hard rock /metal albums. “Stargazer” is simply sublime together with “A Light In The Black” made up a superb side 2 of the vinyl release. It was played regularly at parties in the late 70's . It reminds me of the first year of working at Littlewoods in Liverpool.
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