Michelle Kaplan

The Essential Top 10 Rock Albums

If you want a rock & roll education, this would be a good place to start.                                 

The ten albums below are not just listed because they were the best-selling or most popular rock music in history. The list was not compiled using charts and graphs or for that matter a dartboard. These albums make the list for the impact they made on people, our culture and the music industry. Some may argue that there have been albums that have changed the world…or at least made us think differently about life, love, loss, politics, power and ourselves - these are them.

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band - Beatles
Capitol Records 1967
It wasn’t just an album - it was a revolution. For the first time in our history, rock music wasn’t just something that had a good beat and could be danced to - it  was something to really listen to.  The Beatles take us on a magical mystery tour, posing as a parody of themselves - a separate entity to which they could leave Beatlemaina and explore endless possibilities as artists. The music took a generation some place they had never been. It was the birth of psychedelic music.

John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Star with props to producer George Martin, took unabashed risks in music adding brass to harpsichord to a full on orchestra, they created a masterpiece mixed in the studio that could never (in their day) be created live on stage.
Unforgettable Tracks:  A Day In The Life, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, When I’m Sixty-Four, With A Little Help From My Friends

The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground and Nico MGM/Verve 1967
The album is groundbreaking for being keenly distinct during a time when all music was moving through a literal revolving door. It was as if rock & roll was fine and dandy, going down the road and then suddenly it made a hard left turn with Lou Reed leading the way. Although punk would like to consider itself music’s bastard, the Velvet Underground doesn’t need a paternity test - it’s the father.
Unforgettable Tracks: Heroin, I’m Waiting for the Man, Sunday Morning, Venus in Furs

Eagles Hotel California
If being a rock star living in LA had a theme album, this would be it. The fast times of “Life in the Fast Lane” live here. The Eagles single handedly take a snapshot of a moment in time, the 70’s with its excess and eccentricities of those who have so much they don’t know what to do with themselves.  What to do? Check into the “Hotel California,” where the pink champagne flows and you’ll laugh until you cry. Aside from the message there is the music. Joe Walsh on guitar gives some ripp’n riffs on “Life in the Fast Lane,” the well-placed harmonies of Don Henley and Glenn Fry “New Kid in Town” are just the Eagles in their throes.
Unforgettable Tracks: Hotel California, Life in the Fast Lane, New Kid in Town, and Victim of Love, Wasted Time.

Nevermind - Nirvana Geffen 1991
Defining the Seattle sound and grunge music was Kurt Cobain and Nirvana.  Rage and angst, anger and insecurity seep through the music. This album changed rock kicking the 80’s big hair bands to the curb and ushering in the 90’s with a hipper reality of what was going on down on the streets of Seattle and other cities in America. Compared to the [i]Pixies[/i] the [i]Replacements[/i] and [i]Led Zeppelin[/i] Nirvana epitomizes hard-edge guitar with crushing, raw vocals matched with lyrics that backup the hollow feelings the music provides.
Unforgettable Tracks Smells Like Teen Spirit, Come as You Are, Lithium, In Bloom.

The Joshua Tree - U2 Island 1987
The Joshua Tree is spiritually inspirational and hopeful. It encompasses the band that never forgot where it came from - Dublin with it’s pride and shame.  Edgy guitar and pounding drums defines the album. “Bullet the Blue Sky,” a multi-layered song that can mask it’s meaning to conform to any injustice being made at the time. As it was befitting in the Reagan era it has equal merit with politics today, a true chameleon, a song with staying power. “With or without you is a slow burn from its beginning embers to the fiery chorus wail…”and you give yourself away, I can’t live with or without you”. The angst in Bono’s voice is unwavering. With Bono we can point the finger at the oppressors and still dance on their graves.
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” “Beautiful Day”, “With or Without You”, “Bullet the Blue Sky”, “Running to Stand Still”, “Sweetest Thing”

Are You Experienced? - The Jimi Hendrix Experience MCA 1967
A debut album that broke the mold, both groundbreaking and fearless, Jimi Hendrix painted songs with the guitar pouring his soul out through that instrument like no other. He used his whole being to play with hands that literally dwarfed the guitar.  Hendrix used up everything that came out of it including the feedback to put the final thrust into his songs. The lyrics speak to aching desire - they are all at once introspective and prophetic. His gravely voice cries out and we obey following him wherever he wants to take us, whether it be through “Manic Depression” or the heat of “Fire.” The album is comprised of some the most fervent music in rock exuding unabashed sexuality and heat. “Purple Haze” is proudly thought of as an anthem by a generation.
Unforgettable Tracks: “Purple Haze”, “Manic Depression”, “Fire”, “Hey Joe”, “The Wind Cries Mary”, “Foxy Lady”, “Are You Experienced”, “Third Stone from the Sun”, “Stone Free”.

Rumors - Fleetwood Mac Feb 1977 Warner Bros.
Music in essence is chemistry. The sound of guitar, vocals, and percussion blend into something that lives and breathes and moves us. For Fleetwood Mac the bonus of the aforementioned is the mix of personalities of the band members themselves. The departure of guitarist Bob Welch brings on two of the bands brightest stars, Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. Turning the band on its ear from blues to folksy California soft rock. Rumors aptly named, because of what was going on behind closed doors. Illicit affairs between band members literally stirred the pot with the only winner being the music itself in songs like “Go your Own Way,” “Second Hand News”, “You Make Loving Fun” and “Rhiannon.”
Unforgettable Tracks: “Go your Own Way,” “Dreams”, “You Make Loving Fun”, “Rhiannon”, “Don’t Stop” and “Gold Dust Woman”

Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen Columbia 1975
Born to Run was a labor of love from Springsteen. The recording of the album itself pushed Springsteen and the E Street Band to its limits with Springsteen baring down ever harder to get the sounds from his head onto vinyl. Pulsing through the core of this album is what makes it great rock music - the epic lyrics that tell stories of lust, desire and friendship sung passionately with Springsteen’s soulful voice. The songs are seasoned with tender piano and burning sax - harmonica is thrown in underscoring the emotion in just the right places. [i]Born to Run[i]/ is Springsteen’s coming out party, putting him on the map, with fans comparing him to the likes of Dylan. Listening to Springsteen, you’re instantly transported to a biker bar on the seedier streets down by the Jersey shore on a Saturday night where anything can happen.

Unforgettable Tracks: Born to Run, Thunder Road, Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out, Jungleland.
Let it Bleed - Rolling Stones

Led Zeppelin I, Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin was the beginning of heavy metal music as we know it today, or acid music as it was known back in the day. Jimmy Page astonishingly plays both lead and rhythm guitar and we drool right along with him as his solos licks duel with Robert Plants vocals.  Plant’s epic howls send shivers down our spines when he bellows, “Baaaaby, stop what you’re doing,” on “Communication Breakdown.” A debut album that took mainstream rock and roll virginity away.

Let it Bleed - Rolling Stones
Nothing quite stirs the soul like “Gimme Shelter,” from the first note that sounds like police sirens beseeching a wanted man down a New York City side street, to the soulful chorus of “It’s just a kiss away,” this song embodies war and the lost souls of Vietnam. The title track somehow got by the stiff-shirt sensors as its blatant sexuality bleeds through in “Let it Bleed”. “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” opens like a departure from their true nature, but it is just another side of this multi-dimensional band. No one does gritty blues rock like the Stones and this album is a perfect example of that.