(Originally, this was going to be a Top 20, but I spent more time rearranging the first six than writing. So, I just quit and decided to let you be the judge.)
Nirvana – Nevermind – 1991
Despite what I said about Nirvana before, this album is perfectly crafted, as far as grunge can be perfect.
Kurt Cobain did something that only Bob Dylan was able to do – speak to an entire of generation, although the product was drastically different.
Why was it influential?
Nevermind embodied much of what grunge music was; it was filled with angst, unsettled nerves and dug its nails into the scalp of mainstream music.
I HATE how Cobain has become the poster child for depression and contempt. Every high school age kid trying to become a part of the counterculture has a poster of Cobain looking miserable and contempt with a guitar in one hand and his greasy hair falling over his face. Come on kid, if you want depressed check out Elliott Smith – he had issues.
The thing which makes Nirvana different than Pearl Jam is the fact that Nirvana’s music was less about instrumentation, but more about lyrical content. It was personal, yet broad and did something very few can do. Nirvana was the torch holder for grunge and to this day, still impacts music.
Kurt Cobain did something that only Bob Dylan was able to do – speak to an entire of generation, although the product was drastically different.
Why was it influential?
Nevermind embodied much of what grunge music was; it was filled with angst, unsettled nerves and dug its nails into the scalp of mainstream music.
I HATE how Cobain has become the poster child for depression and contempt. Every high school age kid trying to become a part of the counterculture has a poster of Cobain looking miserable and contempt with a guitar in one hand and his greasy hair falling over his face. Come on kid, if you want depressed check out Elliott Smith – he had issues.
The thing which makes Nirvana different than Pearl Jam is the fact that Nirvana’s music was less about instrumentation, but more about lyrical content. It was personal, yet broad and did something very few can do. Nirvana was the torch holder for grunge and to this day, still impacts music.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Are You Experienced? – 1967
Who better to be on this list than Jimi Hendrix?
Why is it Influential?
There isn’t much I can say that hasn’t already been said, so I’ll just list accomplishments of the album.
-Has been selected to be permanently preserved in the Library of Congress.
-Has been re-pressed on vinyl, cassette, 8-track, CD and mp3 several times over the years and is set to be released again.
-Every song on the album has been covered by other artists.
-Released three times at the time of its original pressing – U.S., Canada and U.K.
Jimi Hendrix is Jimi Hendrix. It’s amazing.
Why is it Influential?
There isn’t much I can say that hasn’t already been said, so I’ll just list accomplishments of the album.
-Has been selected to be permanently preserved in the Library of Congress.
-Has been re-pressed on vinyl, cassette, 8-track, CD and mp3 several times over the years and is set to be released again.
-Every song on the album has been covered by other artists.
-Released three times at the time of its original pressing – U.S., Canada and U.K.
Jimi Hendrix is Jimi Hendrix. It’s amazing.
Ah, the Flaming Lips… what a bunch of weirdoes.
Known for their bizarre, confusing and utterly original shows, the Flaming Lips are significant in brining an abstract, neo-psychedelic sound to the music scene musing artists from all genres.
Why is it influential?
Since its release in 1999, Soft Bulletin has been noted as the Pet Sounds of the nineties. Marrying traditional instruments like guitars, drums and bass with unorthodox usage of strings, synth and various other instruments.
It was a harmonizing factor in the use of oddity and prolific musical integrity within a style of music that is known to be vague and just plain weird.
Known for their bizarre, confusing and utterly original shows, the Flaming Lips are significant in brining an abstract, neo-psychedelic sound to the music scene musing artists from all genres.
Why is it influential?
Since its release in 1999, Soft Bulletin has been noted as the Pet Sounds of the nineties. Marrying traditional instruments like guitars, drums and bass with unorthodox usage of strings, synth and various other instruments.
It was a harmonizing factor in the use of oddity and prolific musical integrity within a style of music that is known to be vague and just plain weird.
Myspace
Led Zeppelin – IV – 1971
Led Zeppelin – IV – 1971
Come on, you knew it was going to be one here.
Why is it influential?
Quick, think of three Zeppelin songs!
I bet at least two of those came from this album. Although I can’t stand how every 14-year old learning to play guitar learns the intro, Stairway to Heaven is one of those landmark Zeppelin songs and one of their most recognizable. (Yes, I’ve listened to it backwards and it continues to be kind of annoying.)
From the iconic Hermit to my personal favorite Zeppelin song, Going to California, an acoustic dissonance of bleeding lyrics, IV just goes to prove that Zeppelin is both versatile and a freak of nature.
A group of guys from England can’t really make music this good… can they?
Why is it influential?
Quick, think of three Zeppelin songs!
I bet at least two of those came from this album. Although I can’t stand how every 14-year old learning to play guitar learns the intro, Stairway to Heaven is one of those landmark Zeppelin songs and one of their most recognizable. (Yes, I’ve listened to it backwards and it continues to be kind of annoying.)
From the iconic Hermit to my personal favorite Zeppelin song, Going to California, an acoustic dissonance of bleeding lyrics, IV just goes to prove that Zeppelin is both versatile and a freak of nature.
A group of guys from England can’t really make music this good… can they?
Myspace
If I had been numbering these, this would have been my number one.
Something happened to music late in the 1980s. I’m not really sure what it was, but music has a tendency to die and evolve over time.
Music has always loved to be dark, offer a sense of realism within an exaggerated world and be the narrative voice of an entire generation.
Some say music died on February 3, 1959 outside Clear Lake, Iowa when a place crashed with Buddy Hollie, Riche Valens and J.P. Richardson on board.
Love died at the Altamont Speedway in 1969 during Gimmie Shelter.
Than, there was grunge, but where did grunge come from?
Sonic Youth’s 1988 release Daydream Nation is essentially one of those albums. Sonic Youth’s album is like The Pixies’ Doolittle album in its expanse of influence.
As the band’s maturation from a noise-rock and punk fusion to a more traditional style of rock, Daydream Nation has been called, pre-grunge.
This album takes credit for being the most influential force in the last 20 years. It has been tagged, noted, thanked and sampled as an album which drove artists to pick up a guitar and play along to Teen Age Riot.
I could go on and on about it, but I won’t… you have one more to go.
Here’s the synopsis of what happened:
After the release of The Beatles' 1965 album, Rubber Soul, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys went ape-shit, basically.
Taking time from touring with the group to focus solely on a new endeavor, Pet Sounds, Wilson conducted a symphony of harmonies which would be hailed to this day as one of the most influential albums of all time.
This album would simply become known as THAT album. That album that Paul McCartney would give to his children to make sure their musical education would be complete, as if the Beatles weren’t enough.
The album that would bring guitar gods to their knees, "I consider Pet Sounds to be one of the greatest pop LPs to ever be released. It encompasses everything that's ever knocked me out and rolled it all into one." Eric Clapton said.
This would be the album that would inspire the same frenzy of insanity in The Beatles a year later.
After a four month recording session, the Beatles would release Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band during a tour hiatus.
Topping nearly every Greatest Album of All Time Lists, including Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums, Sgt. Pepper’s is a milestone in modern music.
The Beatles would utilize everything the EMI studio had to offer trying to compete with Pet Sounds, who had access to a more advanced recording studio. Although the recording studio in the U.K. was lesser, the band learned to cut corners and use the studio as an instrument; this gave the album a sound specific to them. (I could go into detail about what was in the studio, but just look through websites… the internet is splattered with Beatles trivia.)
The beauty within both albums is the zenith of genuine creative insanity and the kind competition between the geniuses of both bands respectively. I’ll go out on a limb here to say, Pet Sounds was the conception of modern music and Sgt. Pepper’s, its birth.
Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation - 1988
If I had been numbering these, this would have been my number one.
Something happened to music late in the 1980s. I’m not really sure what it was, but music has a tendency to die and evolve over time.
Music has always loved to be dark, offer a sense of realism within an exaggerated world and be the narrative voice of an entire generation.
Some say music died on February 3, 1959 outside Clear Lake, Iowa when a place crashed with Buddy Hollie, Riche Valens and J.P. Richardson on board.
Love died at the Altamont Speedway in 1969 during Gimmie Shelter.
Than, there was grunge, but where did grunge come from?
Sonic Youth’s 1988 release Daydream Nation is essentially one of those albums. Sonic Youth’s album is like The Pixies’ Doolittle album in its expanse of influence.
As the band’s maturation from a noise-rock and punk fusion to a more traditional style of rock, Daydream Nation has been called, pre-grunge.
This album takes credit for being the most influential force in the last 20 years. It has been tagged, noted, thanked and sampled as an album which drove artists to pick up a guitar and play along to Teen Age Riot.
I could go on and on about it, but I won’t… you have one more to go.
Myspace
Beach Boys – Pet Sounds – 1966 and The Beatles – Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band - 1967
Beach Boys – Pet Sounds – 1966 and The Beatles – Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band - 1967
Here’s the synopsis of what happened:After the release of The Beatles' 1965 album, Rubber Soul, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys went ape-shit, basically.
Taking time from touring with the group to focus solely on a new endeavor, Pet Sounds, Wilson conducted a symphony of harmonies which would be hailed to this day as one of the most influential albums of all time.
This album would simply become known as THAT album. That album that Paul McCartney would give to his children to make sure their musical education would be complete, as if the Beatles weren’t enough.
The album that would bring guitar gods to their knees, "I consider Pet Sounds to be one of the greatest pop LPs to ever be released. It encompasses everything that's ever knocked me out and rolled it all into one." Eric Clapton said.
This would be the album that would inspire the same frenzy of insanity in The Beatles a year later.
After a four month recording session, the Beatles would release Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band during a tour hiatus.
Topping nearly every Greatest Album of All Time Lists, including Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums, Sgt. Pepper’s is a milestone in modern music.
The Beatles would utilize everything the EMI studio had to offer trying to compete with Pet Sounds, who had access to a more advanced recording studio. Although the recording studio in the U.K. was lesser, the band learned to cut corners and use the studio as an instrument; this gave the album a sound specific to them. (I could go into detail about what was in the studio, but just look through websites… the internet is splattered with Beatles trivia.)
The beauty within both albums is the zenith of genuine creative insanity and the kind competition between the geniuses of both bands respectively. I’ll go out on a limb here to say, Pet Sounds was the conception of modern music and Sgt. Pepper’s, its birth.
Beatles - Myspace
Pixies – Doolittle - 1989
For those who don’t know, I’m only 22. I haven’t been around for many of the albums on the list… or at least old enough at the time to care. Yet, growing up I was affected by what is essentially the dark ages of grunge (the latter years of the nineties featuring such explicitly vile travesties as Creed) and more importantly the teeny-bopper pop revolution which subsequently sucked the vacuous brain fodder from every fourteen year old girl.
So, it was only natural I deny popular music for much of my life, hence my affinity for the obscure and pretentiousness in music.
The Pixies’ follow-up to Surfer Rosa, Doolittle, hands down is quintessentially the manifestation of everything music has become and will be.
Why is it influential?
There are only a select few albums I could sit here and extol about how amazingly comprehensive and significant they are, playing the part as the immaculate siren song for an entire two decades of music history.
Doolittle is one of those albums.
No other album in the late eighties has been sampled, borrowed from, pillaged and just flat out admired more than The Pixies second studio album.
It’s poetically constructed with hooks imbedded within every thrashing chorus, whip lashing lyrics and impervious moments of now conventional alternative music. It’s become the cornerstone of an entire movement of music.
Splintering the ramparts between thrash punk and indie pop incorporating vehement moments of larynx crushing screams, Doolittle is crafted from the very pool of genius from which albums like Daydream Nation, Revolver and Meriwether Post Pavilion drank and future bands will.
Myspace
Radiohead - Ok Computer - 1997
Needing no introduction, I’ll be skipping straight to the Why is it Influential bit…
Ok Computer, English bred Radiohead’s third album is not just a masterpiece, but is the testing ground of how perfect music can be. Its significance among the world at large is irrefutably and unerringly as important as a human breathing or a plant needing photosynthesis to survive.
If you could compile a 12 track CD with all the technology induced paranoia, the torment revolving life, all the subtle maddening of a decade filled with farcical fads like the Macarena and any other adjective or saying you could squeeze into a digital file…it would be Ok Computer.
The end of the 1990s was an earmark - the hundred dollar bill in the currency of human existence. Ok Computer is like the hidden watermark in the top right corner, often not seen, yet when it is, we’re all inspired by this intentional enigma serving as both security and inspiration to unseen splendor.
Myspace
The Flying Burrito Brothers - The Gilded Palace of Sin - 1969
Another obscure band from back in the day; I was introduced to Gram Parsons by a friend not to long ago. I never realized the man even existed.
Alt-Country by the definition is something like a mixture of country and southern rock, as well as taking influence from all styles of music, but holding dearly to its roots in country.
Hiding behind the scenes of much of country music and music in general in the 1960s, Gram Parsons is sort of a Man Behind the Curtain. Taking part in both The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers, he exemplified musical integrity and would influence musicians for decades afterward.
He would die at age 26 from a drug overdose, followed by a really awkward story involving the transportation of his body.
Why is it Influential?
The Gilded Palace of Sin was never a success, yet to this day is ground-zero for many alt-country and non-country musicians alike. It’s a catalyst by which countless musicians would find themselves reaching towards for when in need of inspiration.
Fusing country and soul, many of the tracks found on the album have been covered and dissected many times over.
Christine’s Tune, an unfairly catchy opening song, makes you realize that these guys were truly on to something and it’s a shame nobody knows.
YouTube
Pearl Jam – Ten - 1991
Pearl Jam formed in 1990, crafted their debut album, and accomplished a feat, in my opinion, that ranks them as the recipient of “The better grunge band”. It’s a simple matter of affairs when it comes to making an album, right?
Why was it Influential?
Needless to say Ten, in more ways than one, surpasses fellow grunge demigods Nirvana’s Nevermind.
My typical rational for saying such things: Pearl Jam is just a better band all around. (Retract previous statement and insert, “Pearl Jam is just a better band all around, if, Nirvana was sans Dave Grohl. Grohl has to be one of the most underappreciated artists of today and easily a certified genius, which gives Nirvana the upper hand.)
Pearl Jam might not have the immense amounts of propinquity of its fans and critics that Nirvana has. Yet, it would not be a stretch of the imagination to say that Pearl Jam, or Eddie Vedder in particular, created a sense of urgency in the song structure unforeseen by many at the time. Later becoming a vice for lyrical content and instrumentation that is more than just an ambiance but like that of well-written novel, is the legacy Ten leaves behind.
Pearl Jam is by no means a pioneer of the genre, nor the inspired concept album, but more likely brought it into the mainstream of a grunge heavy scene by means of speaking less from the ranting of an emotionally damaged kid, but more from an abused youthful perspective and satirical underlying statements.
Myspace
Ramones – Ramones - 1976
According to dictionary.com punk rock is defined as, “A type of rock-'n'-roll, reaching its peak in the late 1970s and characterized by loud, insistent music and abusive or violent protest lyrics, and whose performers and followers are distinguished by extremes of dress and socially defiant behavior.”
I like this definition better… The Ramones.
Bred out of the Borough of Queens, the Ramones would defy music standards and fabricate a style of music, changing the very means by which we see music today.
Why is it Influential?
…it created punk music.
Punk music has been an influential factor ever since the inception of three power chords, strummed with the fervor and antagonism of a group of kids sick and tired of society, stadium rock and politics.
"We decided to start our own group because we were bored with everything we heard," Joey Ramone once explained. "In 1974 everything was tenth-generation Led Zeppelin, tenth-generation Elton John, or overproduced or just junk. Everything was long jams, long guitar solos.... We missed music like it used to be."
So, they just decided to become something more, or less, than everything surrounding them - the product?
A generation of pissed off kids with something to say.
Videos
NWA - Straight Outta Compton - 1988
If you know me at all I can almost guess what ran through you’re head, “What the HELL do you know about NWA? You hate rap.”
Which is true, but this whole purpose of this diatribe on music is the influence is took on modern musicianship and there is no denying that rap and hip-hop are easily one of the biggest.
Breeding the biggest names in rap, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Eazy-E and MC Ren, NWA’s roots are buried deep in Compton and stay there. Named one of the most influential groups of all time, NWA has served as the template from which all rap is cut.
Why is it Influential?
Where would rap be without it? This is gangsta rap, pure and simple.
Website
Beck – Odelay - 1996
When Beck released Mellow Gold in 1994 everyone would come to assume Beck would be another of those ‘novelty artists’ that would die off as soon as everyone began hating Loser.
That was until he told everyone, where it’s at.
This is pre-Midnight Vulture, pre-the Information, this is before everyone hated the fact he’s a Scientologist - even though he’s been one for most of his life.
This was back when he held true to a rootsy, quasi-hip hop style infused with acoustic multi-instrumentation.
Why is it influential?
The man won a Grammy for it, that’s why. Plus, Odelay laid the groundwork for a new genre defying movement that would help prove that experimentation isn’t such a frightening thought. He would stitch together genres of music like hip-hop, indie rock and pop like no one else had at this point. He would begin to transcend a genre title and make music that was viral and catchy and be a stepping stone for many artists today. Drum machines really do work when used properly.
Myspace
Nick Drake - Pink Moon – 1972
"Now we rise and we are everywhere." - Quoted on Nick Drake's gravestone in Tanworth-in-Arden cemetery.
Nick Drake is one of those artists who suffered from a Van Gogh syndrome - the one where nobody knew they were submersed in an infinite talent until it was too late. Drake died in 1974, at the age of 26 and Pink Moon would be the last album he would see pressed.
Pink Moon is sparse in instrumentation, but lyrically autumnal, eloquent and completely embodies much darker themes in his latter months of life.
Why is it influential?
Drake’s music is foreboding of a movement of bare folk music focusing heavily on lyrics and melody over a multi-faceted pop extravaganza. It’s quiet, subtle and inherently beautiful from start to finish. It’s timeless and never ceases to inspire writers, musicians, actors and everyone in between that takes the time to respect the power of his words.
Myspace
Jesus and Mary Chain – Psychocandy - 1985
The 1980s, in my opinion, were just too damn weird. Why did everyone think ridiculous hair, scarves and odd colored leather jackets were cool? (That also kind of describes the Jonas Brothers too, but they’re just… *insert your own adjective here*)
In the same vein though, the 1980s bred contemptuous and depressed individuals who loved to be ‘cool’ by being ‘too cool for everything.’ The Cure, for example, was the same way.
The album in question, Psychocandy, is no exception to the rule. It was angsty, freakishly distorted and filled with a sense of knotty contempt for the world outside of the music.
Why was it influential?
Going beyond the superficial look of the band, the music is simply just as wall shattering as it was in 1985. It’s a giant foam middle finger to the world and an expression of the first amendment in a monosyllabic tongue equating throwing a toaster in a bathtub.
Psychocandy’s main contribution to today’s music is its uncanny ability to create something huge without making a huge scene. It’s simple and makes a vast statement: that it’s not just about performance, but about the content and talent needed to be something more.
As stated earlier, they were too cool for mic kicks, windmills and jumping off speakers into the crowd. They’d rather be faint, livid and hate you from under gelled hair. Even more so than the Cure, which is why JAMC makes the list.
Myspace
Beastie Boys - License to Ill - 1986
What hasn’t been said about the Beastie Boys already? They’re limitless in talent? Yes. They’re obnoxious, loud and can destroy a parent’s image of their children? Yes. What’s not to love about the Beastie Boys?
Consisting of Mike D, MCA and Ad-Rock, the Beastie Boys are hailed as an influential hip-hop group spanning two decades of music history. As the first hip-hop group to break, and subsequently top, the Billboard Top 200, the Beastie Boys earned commercial and critical success and have gone on to become a legendary group.
Why is it influential?
There’s just something to No Sleep Til Brooklyn that’s timeless, Paul Revere is simply classic and who doesn't know the words to Fight for Your Right?
Breaking the genre by sampling classics from artists like Wild Sugar, Led Zeppelin and having Kerry King of Slayer lay the guitar tracks on the album, the Beastie Boys debut album had something to offer that no one else at the time could. What is it?
Its success rests on the idea that it brought rap and hip-hop into the mainstream by channeling white kid angst through the fundamentals of urban music. Playing as a conduit to much of where music has ended up, it nevertheless has issued in a new era in music. One that would no only bend genre but seize punk qualities and hoist them on top drum machines with raunchy lyrics, samples and, to this day, still make most parents cringe.
Plus, the album just kicks ass.
Myspace
Bob Dylan – Blood on the Tracks - 1974
This is kind of a scary name to tackle. Everyone has a favorite Dylan album or Dylan song and will fight until broken noses have no more blood or their fingers no longer have any nails left. It’s a dark trail to traverse.
Bob Dylan needs no introduction and there is neither the room nor musical capacity to describe just why Blood on the Tracks is an amazing album. To rightfully describe what Bob Dylan had accomplished for music today is a feat this list won’t go into, but here’s the short version.
Why is it influential?
Dylan’s name is synonymous with lyrics most cannot begin to wrap their head around. It’s lyrically profound and yearning for change. Dylan has proven that he is an immeasurable lexis picnic basket of philosophical, social and political prose.
As Dylan’s 15th studio album, Blood on the Tracks holds dearly the sensibilities of a wiser and more subdued Dylan suffering from a separation from his then wife, Sara Dylan.
“It was gravity which pulled us down and destiny which broke us apart -You tamed the lion in my cage but it just wasn't enough to change my heart.” - Idiot Wind
Blood on the Tracks represented the currency of inspiration and after years of so-so reception from fans and critics, the album rose above and nearly managed to supersede Highway 61 Revisited. This is just one polished album in the ever expanding catalog of Bob Dylan which continues to grow to this day.
Myspace
Elliott Smith – Either/Or -1997
Elliott Smith, although obscure to some, was an extremely talented musician with a knack tightening the cables around an idea to get as much from it as he could without loosing integrity as a songwriter.
After years of fighting off depression, alcoholism and drug addiction, Smith would go on to release several albums from semi-favorable to acclaimed reviews within his lifetime.
In 2003, Smith’s death, surrounded by controversy, was a blow to a scene of fans and friends alike. Ben Folds, a close friend of Smith, would record Late, a song in tribute of his dear friend:
“When desperate static beats the silence up - A quiet truth to calm you down - The songs you wrote - Got me through a lot”
Why is it influential?
Smith’s Either/Or album is a pure example of how lo-fi production value can be a blessing and is representative of music being neither perfect nor Utopian.
Smith didn’t need thousands upon thousands of dollars wasted on simple, dark pop tunes. Between the Bars, an achingly melancholy song only lasting a brief 2:22 is wistful and reflective and perfects his aptitude to be something more than a suffering artist rising from the ashes of nineties demigod, Kurt Cobain's death.
He embodied more than just another misery ridden musician, but one of the greatest singer/songwriters of the nineties who will in the near future recieve the credit he deserves.
Myspace
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Damn the Torpedoes - 1979
Damn the Torpedoes is Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker’s third studio album and would be the first non-contractual obligation after releasing themselves from under MCA. As everyone knows, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers would eventually become one of the largest bands to come out of the era and to this day, still rock your face.
Their third album would also set the stage as a leaping off point for the band and would later set the stage for some of the best albums of all time, for example – Wildflowers in 1994.
Why is it influential?
I’m going to take a break here and just say: You’ll know why when you hear it. It’s main reason for showing up on this list is simple: Without it Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers may have fizzled out and the world would be currently sans Tom Petty.
There is a certain amount of nostalgia to it, but there may be something more. The album is stripped down and cohesive as any album ever should be and will be. Damn the Torpedoes is a record which needs to be listened to in one calm sitting and soaked in like sugar over Absinthe.
Myspace
Let me know what you think - I enjoy debates and compliments.
Pixies – Doolittle - 1989
For those who don’t know, I’m only 22. I haven’t been around for many of the albums on the list… or at least old enough at the time to care. Yet, growing up I was affected by what is essentially the dark ages of grunge (the latter years of the nineties featuring such explicitly vile travesties as Creed) and more importantly the teeny-bopper pop revolution which subsequently sucked the vacuous brain fodder from every fourteen year old girl.
So, it was only natural I deny popular music for much of my life, hence my affinity for the obscure and pretentiousness in music.
The Pixies’ follow-up to Surfer Rosa, Doolittle, hands down is quintessentially the manifestation of everything music has become and will be.
Why is it influential?
There are only a select few albums I could sit here and extol about how amazingly comprehensive and significant they are, playing the part as the immaculate siren song for an entire two decades of music history.
Doolittle is one of those albums.
No other album in the late eighties has been sampled, borrowed from, pillaged and just flat out admired more than The Pixies second studio album.
It’s poetically constructed with hooks imbedded within every thrashing chorus, whip lashing lyrics and impervious moments of now conventional alternative music. It’s become the cornerstone of an entire movement of music.
Splintering the ramparts between thrash punk and indie pop incorporating vehement moments of larynx crushing screams, Doolittle is crafted from the very pool of genius from which albums like Daydream Nation, Revolver and Meriwether Post Pavilion drank and future bands will.
Myspace
Radiohead - Ok Computer - 1997
Needing no introduction, I’ll be skipping straight to the Why is it Influential bit…
Ok Computer, English bred Radiohead’s third album is not just a masterpiece, but is the testing ground of how perfect music can be. Its significance among the world at large is irrefutably and unerringly as important as a human breathing or a plant needing photosynthesis to survive.
If you could compile a 12 track CD with all the technology induced paranoia, the torment revolving life, all the subtle maddening of a decade filled with farcical fads like the Macarena and any other adjective or saying you could squeeze into a digital file…it would be Ok Computer.
The end of the 1990s was an earmark - the hundred dollar bill in the currency of human existence. Ok Computer is like the hidden watermark in the top right corner, often not seen, yet when it is, we’re all inspired by this intentional enigma serving as both security and inspiration to unseen splendor.
Myspace
The Flying Burrito Brothers - The Gilded Palace of Sin - 1969
Another obscure band from back in the day; I was introduced to Gram Parsons by a friend not to long ago. I never realized the man even existed.
Alt-Country by the definition is something like a mixture of country and southern rock, as well as taking influence from all styles of music, but holding dearly to its roots in country.
Hiding behind the scenes of much of country music and music in general in the 1960s, Gram Parsons is sort of a Man Behind the Curtain. Taking part in both The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers, he exemplified musical integrity and would influence musicians for decades afterward.
He would die at age 26 from a drug overdose, followed by a really awkward story involving the transportation of his body.
Why is it Influential?
The Gilded Palace of Sin was never a success, yet to this day is ground-zero for many alt-country and non-country musicians alike. It’s a catalyst by which countless musicians would find themselves reaching towards for when in need of inspiration.
Fusing country and soul, many of the tracks found on the album have been covered and dissected many times over.
Christine’s Tune, an unfairly catchy opening song, makes you realize that these guys were truly on to something and it’s a shame nobody knows.
YouTube
Pearl Jam – Ten - 1991
Pearl Jam formed in 1990, crafted their debut album, and accomplished a feat, in my opinion, that ranks them as the recipient of “The better grunge band”. It’s a simple matter of affairs when it comes to making an album, right?
Why was it Influential?
Needless to say Ten, in more ways than one, surpasses fellow grunge demigods Nirvana’s Nevermind.
My typical rational for saying such things: Pearl Jam is just a better band all around. (Retract previous statement and insert, “Pearl Jam is just a better band all around, if, Nirvana was sans Dave Grohl. Grohl has to be one of the most underappreciated artists of today and easily a certified genius, which gives Nirvana the upper hand.)
Pearl Jam might not have the immense amounts of propinquity of its fans and critics that Nirvana has. Yet, it would not be a stretch of the imagination to say that Pearl Jam, or Eddie Vedder in particular, created a sense of urgency in the song structure unforeseen by many at the time. Later becoming a vice for lyrical content and instrumentation that is more than just an ambiance but like that of well-written novel, is the legacy Ten leaves behind.
Pearl Jam is by no means a pioneer of the genre, nor the inspired concept album, but more likely brought it into the mainstream of a grunge heavy scene by means of speaking less from the ranting of an emotionally damaged kid, but more from an abused youthful perspective and satirical underlying statements.
Myspace
Ramones – Ramones - 1976
According to dictionary.com punk rock is defined as, “A type of rock-'n'-roll, reaching its peak in the late 1970s and characterized by loud, insistent music and abusive or violent protest lyrics, and whose performers and followers are distinguished by extremes of dress and socially defiant behavior.”
I like this definition better… The Ramones.
Bred out of the Borough of Queens, the Ramones would defy music standards and fabricate a style of music, changing the very means by which we see music today.
Why is it Influential?
…it created punk music.
Punk music has been an influential factor ever since the inception of three power chords, strummed with the fervor and antagonism of a group of kids sick and tired of society, stadium rock and politics.
"We decided to start our own group because we were bored with everything we heard," Joey Ramone once explained. "In 1974 everything was tenth-generation Led Zeppelin, tenth-generation Elton John, or overproduced or just junk. Everything was long jams, long guitar solos.... We missed music like it used to be."
So, they just decided to become something more, or less, than everything surrounding them - the product?
A generation of pissed off kids with something to say.
Videos
NWA - Straight Outta Compton - 1988
If you know me at all I can almost guess what ran through you’re head, “What the HELL do you know about NWA? You hate rap.”
Which is true, but this whole purpose of this diatribe on music is the influence is took on modern musicianship and there is no denying that rap and hip-hop are easily one of the biggest.
Breeding the biggest names in rap, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Eazy-E and MC Ren, NWA’s roots are buried deep in Compton and stay there. Named one of the most influential groups of all time, NWA has served as the template from which all rap is cut.
Why is it Influential?
Where would rap be without it? This is gangsta rap, pure and simple.
Website
Beck – Odelay - 1996
When Beck released Mellow Gold in 1994 everyone would come to assume Beck would be another of those ‘novelty artists’ that would die off as soon as everyone began hating Loser.
That was until he told everyone, where it’s at.
This is pre-Midnight Vulture, pre-the Information, this is before everyone hated the fact he’s a Scientologist - even though he’s been one for most of his life.
This was back when he held true to a rootsy, quasi-hip hop style infused with acoustic multi-instrumentation.
Why is it influential?
The man won a Grammy for it, that’s why. Plus, Odelay laid the groundwork for a new genre defying movement that would help prove that experimentation isn’t such a frightening thought. He would stitch together genres of music like hip-hop, indie rock and pop like no one else had at this point. He would begin to transcend a genre title and make music that was viral and catchy and be a stepping stone for many artists today. Drum machines really do work when used properly.
Myspace
Nick Drake - Pink Moon – 1972
"Now we rise and we are everywhere." - Quoted on Nick Drake's gravestone in Tanworth-in-Arden cemetery.
Nick Drake is one of those artists who suffered from a Van Gogh syndrome - the one where nobody knew they were submersed in an infinite talent until it was too late. Drake died in 1974, at the age of 26 and Pink Moon would be the last album he would see pressed.
Pink Moon is sparse in instrumentation, but lyrically autumnal, eloquent and completely embodies much darker themes in his latter months of life.
Why is it influential?
Drake’s music is foreboding of a movement of bare folk music focusing heavily on lyrics and melody over a multi-faceted pop extravaganza. It’s quiet, subtle and inherently beautiful from start to finish. It’s timeless and never ceases to inspire writers, musicians, actors and everyone in between that takes the time to respect the power of his words.
Myspace
Jesus and Mary Chain – Psychocandy - 1985
The 1980s, in my opinion, were just too damn weird. Why did everyone think ridiculous hair, scarves and odd colored leather jackets were cool? (That also kind of describes the Jonas Brothers too, but they’re just… *insert your own adjective here*)
In the same vein though, the 1980s bred contemptuous and depressed individuals who loved to be ‘cool’ by being ‘too cool for everything.’ The Cure, for example, was the same way.
The album in question, Psychocandy, is no exception to the rule. It was angsty, freakishly distorted and filled with a sense of knotty contempt for the world outside of the music.
Why was it influential?
Going beyond the superficial look of the band, the music is simply just as wall shattering as it was in 1985. It’s a giant foam middle finger to the world and an expression of the first amendment in a monosyllabic tongue equating throwing a toaster in a bathtub.
Psychocandy’s main contribution to today’s music is its uncanny ability to create something huge without making a huge scene. It’s simple and makes a vast statement: that it’s not just about performance, but about the content and talent needed to be something more.
As stated earlier, they were too cool for mic kicks, windmills and jumping off speakers into the crowd. They’d rather be faint, livid and hate you from under gelled hair. Even more so than the Cure, which is why JAMC makes the list.
Myspace
Beastie Boys - License to Ill - 1986
What hasn’t been said about the Beastie Boys already? They’re limitless in talent? Yes. They’re obnoxious, loud and can destroy a parent’s image of their children? Yes. What’s not to love about the Beastie Boys?
Consisting of Mike D, MCA and Ad-Rock, the Beastie Boys are hailed as an influential hip-hop group spanning two decades of music history. As the first hip-hop group to break, and subsequently top, the Billboard Top 200, the Beastie Boys earned commercial and critical success and have gone on to become a legendary group.
Why is it influential?
There’s just something to No Sleep Til Brooklyn that’s timeless, Paul Revere is simply classic and who doesn't know the words to Fight for Your Right?
Breaking the genre by sampling classics from artists like Wild Sugar, Led Zeppelin and having Kerry King of Slayer lay the guitar tracks on the album, the Beastie Boys debut album had something to offer that no one else at the time could. What is it?
Its success rests on the idea that it brought rap and hip-hop into the mainstream by channeling white kid angst through the fundamentals of urban music. Playing as a conduit to much of where music has ended up, it nevertheless has issued in a new era in music. One that would no only bend genre but seize punk qualities and hoist them on top drum machines with raunchy lyrics, samples and, to this day, still make most parents cringe.
Plus, the album just kicks ass.
Myspace
Bob Dylan – Blood on the Tracks - 1974
This is kind of a scary name to tackle. Everyone has a favorite Dylan album or Dylan song and will fight until broken noses have no more blood or their fingers no longer have any nails left. It’s a dark trail to traverse.
Bob Dylan needs no introduction and there is neither the room nor musical capacity to describe just why Blood on the Tracks is an amazing album. To rightfully describe what Bob Dylan had accomplished for music today is a feat this list won’t go into, but here’s the short version.
Why is it influential?
Dylan’s name is synonymous with lyrics most cannot begin to wrap their head around. It’s lyrically profound and yearning for change. Dylan has proven that he is an immeasurable lexis picnic basket of philosophical, social and political prose.
As Dylan’s 15th studio album, Blood on the Tracks holds dearly the sensibilities of a wiser and more subdued Dylan suffering from a separation from his then wife, Sara Dylan.
“It was gravity which pulled us down and destiny which broke us apart -You tamed the lion in my cage but it just wasn't enough to change my heart.” - Idiot Wind
Blood on the Tracks represented the currency of inspiration and after years of so-so reception from fans and critics, the album rose above and nearly managed to supersede Highway 61 Revisited. This is just one polished album in the ever expanding catalog of Bob Dylan which continues to grow to this day.
Myspace
Elliott Smith – Either/Or -1997
Elliott Smith, although obscure to some, was an extremely talented musician with a knack tightening the cables around an idea to get as much from it as he could without loosing integrity as a songwriter.
After years of fighting off depression, alcoholism and drug addiction, Smith would go on to release several albums from semi-favorable to acclaimed reviews within his lifetime.
In 2003, Smith’s death, surrounded by controversy, was a blow to a scene of fans and friends alike. Ben Folds, a close friend of Smith, would record Late, a song in tribute of his dear friend:
“When desperate static beats the silence up - A quiet truth to calm you down - The songs you wrote - Got me through a lot”
Why is it influential?
Smith’s Either/Or album is a pure example of how lo-fi production value can be a blessing and is representative of music being neither perfect nor Utopian.
Smith didn’t need thousands upon thousands of dollars wasted on simple, dark pop tunes. Between the Bars, an achingly melancholy song only lasting a brief 2:22 is wistful and reflective and perfects his aptitude to be something more than a suffering artist rising from the ashes of nineties demigod, Kurt Cobain's death.
He embodied more than just another misery ridden musician, but one of the greatest singer/songwriters of the nineties who will in the near future recieve the credit he deserves.
Myspace
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Damn the Torpedoes - 1979
Damn the Torpedoes is Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker’s third studio album and would be the first non-contractual obligation after releasing themselves from under MCA. As everyone knows, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers would eventually become one of the largest bands to come out of the era and to this day, still rock your face.
Their third album would also set the stage as a leaping off point for the band and would later set the stage for some of the best albums of all time, for example – Wildflowers in 1994.
Why is it influential?
I’m going to take a break here and just say: You’ll know why when you hear it. It’s main reason for showing up on this list is simple: Without it Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers may have fizzled out and the world would be currently sans Tom Petty.
There is a certain amount of nostalgia to it, but there may be something more. The album is stripped down and cohesive as any album ever should be and will be. Damn the Torpedoes is a record which needs to be listened to in one calm sitting and soaked in like sugar over Absinthe.
Myspace
Let me know what you think - I enjoy debates and compliments.
4 comments:
Not bad... I still don't believe you listened to N.W.A. I would've added "The Colour and the Shape" by Foo Fighters, that was an amazing album and it still is!
Are these the albums that shaped YOU or what you perceive changed the decade of your youth?
Completely love that you've added NWA to your list. Even if you're not a fan, its an album everyone owned back in the day. Myself included.
Appreciate the Tom Petty reference. Don't know if it defined a generation, but certainly has its niche. One of the craziest concert atmospheres I've seen for sure.
Beastie Boys, Pearl Jam, and the Ramones all excellent choices. Good work!
I'll wait until Part III to give you crap about all those you might have forgotten.
What do you know about NWA? Seriously, come onnn. NWA was all me, you were just along for the ride.
Nice work! I would've like to have seen some Appetite for Destruction but aside from that pretty good stuff.
I'm curious to see what your Top 20 of all time would be. I'm also interested to hear what you have to say 10 years from now.
You've inspired me to post my list too. Take a look sometime.
Post a Comment