Greatest Rock Albums

[musicman1999]

To put the Beatles into perspective,they only recorded about 10 hours of studio music.Those old albums were pretty short.

bill

[Resident Loser]

What were you listening to pre-Beatle?

...

...Jan and Dean...the Beach Boys...the Four Seasons...Pre-Motown R&B...Dion and The Belmonts...the Kingston Trio...There was some good stuff...it wasn't all Fabian, Connie Francis, Perry Como, Andy Williams, Peggy Lee and Ferrante' and Teicher, and the themes from Exodus and A Summer Place...

jimHJJ(...I mean while they were, and will continue to be, influential, The Beatles didn't invent music...besides, I was partial to the Stones anywho...)

[shokhead]

No they didnt invent it but they sure advanced it.

[Resident Loser]

I'm just asking. I remember.
Elvis and Mowtown day in and day out on am radio. Then the Beatles made it all fresh.

...Doing covers of My Bonnie and Twist And Shout?

jimHJJ(...jus' wunnerin'...)

[nightflier]

Really,when you say influence,the only ones i see,imo are The Ramones,Neil Young and the Stones because they started when it started.

Mr. Peabody answered most of your question, and those sentiments can be applied to all the other bands / solo artists listed in this thread. And we should remember that not all of them are great musicians or pleasant to listen to but they had an impact on the industry. Blondie (can anyone not hum at least one song from memory), Kiss (the greatest show band ever?), RATM (not the most pleasant to listen to, but talk about having a message), Iron Maiden (the best album art I've ever seen on an LP), Supertramp (amazing musicians, but bad marketing & synergy), Neil Young (a legend for decades already who just realeased a new track that's all over the internet), and the list goes on. They may not be everyone's favorite bands, but they all influenced the music in the way they knew how.

A lot of this info also came to us from something else that has completely disappeared: the great rock magazines like Cream, Heavy Metal, etc. I would guess that even Rolling Stone is in decline. OK, so maybe today they have been replaced by Vibe, Maxim & their ilk, but these read like Vogue with more fashion ad space than anything else. They are pushing products we don't need or want rather than the ones we are struggling to find any info on between the full-page ads.

The same can be said for TV. There was a time when we were all mesmerized by MTV because they actually played and talked about music. No more. I just recently discovered The Tube through my HDTV tuner, and aside from a break every once in a while to announce themselves, all they play is music videos. MTV & VH1 used to actualy influence the direction of the industry, now they are an extension of the Vogue / Maxim disease.

There was a time when Radio was like that too - where DJ's were allowed to play whole albums on weeknights w/o commercial interruptions. I remember a show out of San Diego called Dr. Dimento, which didn't play everyone's favorite music, but it was never dull. In the 90's there were attempts at bringing back music with The Pirate and MarsFM here in the LA area, that where great until they were bought out (usually within the year). After which they just played the same top-40 drivel over & over between long sets of commercials. Sure XM/Sirius is there, but that is subscription-based / corporate-structured, and as such is the antithesis of what radio was meant to be.

I also think emack27 has a good point. There seems to be a lack of consciousness all around us. I'm not going to go as far out on the limb as the Beatles-VietNam theory, but I will suggest that, maybe because we are continuously bombarded with advertising-laden trivial information, we forget to listen to the music anymore. Maybe there is a conpiracy against music that questions the world around us? And it's not headed by some secret group of masons in the bowels of the senate, but rather by advertisers. I can't even remember the last time I heard the Dixie Chicks on the radio....

Does the average joe-blow still listen to the words of pop-songs anymore? Most people are just looking for a little toe-tapping backgroung music to drown out the hum of the air-con. At my work the policy from "the man" is that radios have to be audible only inside their own cubicle (unless it's Sinatra, 'cause that's "wholesome music"). No offense to Sinatra, but this policy is not what music is about, especially rock music. The CC&R's in my neighborhood actually list dB levels that may not be exceeded. Again, not what rock was meant to be. One home owner complained because his children were being unfairly subjected to "devil music" from his neighbor's garage. I know the guy and he listens to the classics (Moody, Zep, Doobies, etc.). What's the point of owning rock if you can't play it in your garage loud enough to hear it over the drill-press? I remember listening to Iron Maiden's Number Of The Beast album over & over again specifically because I wanted to hear what our minister was so angry about.

So yes, there are differing opinions about how great a band is or was, but the reason we can't come to some general agreement is because we can't remember what the music was about.

[thekid]

Night

You make some good points. I think that the "corporate radio" that you touch on has played a big part in what is happening to music today. I do try to listen to the words/message in todays music but what makes it to the radio is pretty much generic stuff. I don't see that there is anyone out there that is trying to be a voice with a message and the radios today would ignore it if there was because as you mentioned the advertisers one way or another effect the content/playlist. Look at someone like U2-who occasionally have a message-their air play is not proportional to their popularity. Got to hand it to Neil Young though he is still out there ruffling feathers while a lot of others sit on the sidelines.

[likeitloud]

Ok here goes, I'll keep it to 10.

Led zep......4
Boston.......1st release
Van Halen..1st release
Mettalica....Black album
AC/DC.......Black album
Clash.........London Calling
Ozzy..........Bark At The Moon
Hendricks...Electric Ladyland
Deep PurpleMachine Head
Van Halen...Fair Warning

As long as my brain and fingers work..I'm cool..Edward Van Halen