Lennon and McCartney delivered their first album of all original material with A Hard Days Night. Part of it was for their brilliant film of the same name, the rest were just more fantastic songs from the best band ever. I’d say it’s a pretty common occurrence to find a new favorite song each time you put on one of their albums, so with that said “Anytime at All” might be my current favorite on the album. Perhaps the most amazing part of the album was that the fab four hadn’t even begun to show people what they were capable of.
I’m not going to argue with someone if they were to tell me The Soft Bulletin was a better album, but I gotta go with it’s brilliant follow up. Part of the album follows a concept album format, which explains the album title, but things quickly get side tracked in typical Flaming Lips fashion about halfway through (making it similar to Clouds Taste Metallic). The songs however are all uniformly excellent including the surprise hit “Do You Realize??”
I’ve had a surprising amount of debates with people about Roxy Music. Nearly everyone who has bothered to listen to them is a fan, but damned if people seem to agree on what their best album is. As great as the other two albums on this list are, this debate is an open and shut case. Country Life wins the battle by the time “The Thrill of It All” ends, which you might recognize as the opening track. They had found the perfect balance between their early artiness and their later new romantic period. Along the way they happened to craft the best songs of their career, this is where everything just came together.
CSN avoided the sophomore slump by recruiting Neil Young into the fold for their second album. Although Young only contributed two songs to the album, he undoubtedly motivated everyone else to step up their game appropriately. “Helpless” is one of his absolute best songs, and could never have sounded this good on a solo album. The rest of the group take turns playing musical one-upsmanship on the other tracks. Take your pick, there isn’t a weak song among the bunch.
Lionel Richie should be on currency, and his second solo album is a large reason for that. He might have missed the mark by trying to top Thriller, but he still wound up with five huge hit singles on an 8-song album. Lionel was a master of ballad writing during his days with The Commodores and it’s no surprise that “Stuck on You”, “Penny Lover”, and “Hello” are three of his greatest songs. The more up tempo songs are easily on par, particularly “All Night Long (All Night)” which wound up being Richie’s biggest hit and best known song.
Some people were predicting a major punk revival in 1995 after the success of The Offspring’s Smash, Green Day’s Dookie and Rancid’s breakthrough …And Out Come the Wolves. It never quite amounted to the musical revolution some people had hoped, but it certainly resulted in a couple of stellar albums. Rancid’s album was certainly closer to old school punk rock than others, but they never went too far into commercial territory. They did have an ace up their sleeve with Matt Freeman and his ridiculous bass playing which is all over this album.
This was the last album Randy Rhoads would record before his untimely death. It continued many of what made Blizzard of Ozz such a hit, but his playing continued to evolve. “Over the Mountain” set a new standard for metal guitar, but he wasn’t afraid of ripping it off on some of the album’s softer songs, particularly “Tonight”. The title track remains the best song in Ozzy’s solo career, and shows a small glimpse of where Ozzy and Randy might have gone if he survived. This is an essential guitar album, and the high water mark of Ozzy’s solo career.
Bruce Springsteen seemed to deliberately avoid success for years. He scored his first number one single with “Hungry Heart”, but when getting pressure to put out a hit record, he instead released Nebraska, a brilliant collection of acoustic demos. Born in the USA fulfilled that promise, and he officially became the biggest name in music. Nearly the entire album became a top 10 hit and this sold all the records. Some of the album might sound a little dated in terms of the production and the reliance on synths, but these were just a dozen extremely good songs. Springsteen never again made such a conscious effort to be commercial, but he proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was capable of making hits.
Whether Parliament, Funkadelic, or a solo album this is the best thing George Clinton ever recorded. Something about this band always seemed slightly out of this world, so it seemed to make perfect sense to set this album in outer space. If you’ve listened to a rap album in the last two decades chances are a lot of these songs will sound incredibly familiar on the first listen. Dr. Dre apparently listened to the album non-stop while working on The Chronic, and boy does it show. This is pure uncut funk, and some of the absolute best music of it’s kind.
The Yes Album was a huge commercial breakthrough, but with Fragile, Yes made a tremendous leap forward. The classic lineup was set with the addition of Rick Wakeman, and they each got a song of their own, Steve Howe’s “Mood for a Day” was easily the best. In between were four of the bands most iconic songs. Take your pick here, “Roundabout”, “Long Distance Runaroud”, “South Side of the Sky”, and “Heart of the Sunrise” can easily be considered not just the best song on the album but the band’s best song as well.
I’m sure some of you were wondering just when Opeth would show up on this list. After Morningrise and My Arms, Your Hearse Opeth had more than proven they were at the forefront of extreme metal. Still Life was where they seemed to achieve perfection. Every element of their sound just seemed a bit better this time around. The production was cleaner, the riffs heavier, the melodic passages were prettier, it was Opeth by numbers, but just better than it was before. They started to embrace progressive rock more openly here while maintaining their black metal background. In terms of their progression, they hadn’t even begun to peak.
Hendrix improved by leaps and bounds with each of his releases. Are you Experienced had some great songs but was limited by the conservative thinking of manager/producer Chas Chandler who seemed determined to make every song concise and radio friendly. The obvious exception was “Third Stone from the Sun”, which Hendrix seems to take as a jumping off point here with the bizarre opener “ESP”. His playing was better here, and he largely abandoned the fuzz of his debut to focus on cleaner and more soulful leads. I will still argue that “Bold as Love” and “Little Wing” are the two best songs Hendrix ever wrote and the fact that they’re both on this album easily puts it over it’s predecessor.
I’m sure some of my friends would put my head on a pike for my “low” ranking of this album, so apologies for the butt hurt. To me this is the best Steely Dan ever sounded on an album, and features some of the finest musicianship ever recorded in the context of a rock album. The title track alone would go down as the greatest drum performance ever captured on record. “Peg” is still the catchiest song Steely Dan ever put out, with those sweet Michael McDonald vocal harmonies and an iconic guitar solo. There isn’t a wasted moment on the album and forever stands as the high water mark of one of the decades most idiosyncratic duos.
There was a lot of hype in 2001. Alicia Keys was going to be the next great R&B legend, Nickelback wasn’t going to suck harder than any band ever in the history of music, and The Strokes were here to save rock and roll. The Strokes had the hype machine rolling harder than anyone else in 2001 and their album seemed poised for a Nevermind-esque takeover of rock. Although history has been quite kind to this album, the revolution wasn’t quite as immediate as we would have thought. However along with The Shins, this seemed to define the modern indie rock sound, even if it was released on a major label. This was a throwback album, that deliberately evoked the new wave rockers of the late 70s. Much of the album was actually featured on the Hard to Explain EP, but as a full length album, they are nearly perfect. The bass line on the title track is damn near the finest of the decade. I happen to prefer the UK version, primarily for the better cover and also the inclusion of “New York City Cops” which was pulled after September 11th for fear of being insensitive. The timing might have been bad for that song, but it was perfect for the band who seemed to embody all the legendary New York bands right when all the world’s eyes were on that city.
For reasons I haven’t really figured out, I never considered this a proper album. It is something of an anomaly. It’s part soundtrack, but perhaps more oddly it is the only Beatles album that was superior in it’s US form. The US version contained the UK EP but threw in a separate side of the singles “Strawberry Fields Forever”, “Penny Lane” and “All You Need is Love”, and well why isn’t it an album? Since it’s The Beatles I’m tempted to put it near the top of my list, especially when you examine just how phenomenal some of these tracks are. However it lacks the cohesive “album” feel that Sgt. Peppers, Abbey Road, or The White Album had. It might be nitpicking, but when you’re discussing the greatest band in rock you have to measure their work on a different grading scale.
It might seem sacrilege to some of you, but nearly every time I listen to this album I skip right past “Respect”. It’s an iconic song for sure, one she took right from Otis Redding and forever made her own, but to me it’s like listening to “Satisfaction” from the Stones. Luckily for Aretha and all of us, every other song on the album is better, yeah you heard me. It’s so easy to see Aretha as this institution that has had praise heaped on her for decades based solely on reputation. This album is really the reason why she is an institution. Sure Lady Soul helped cement her legacy, but this really is the finest soul record that was ever recorded, at least by a female vocalist. Every song is outstanding, and she really brings it home with her rendition of “A Change is Gonna Come” which I’d like to think is a tribute to the late Sam Cooke.
Before Jack White and Rick Rubin started digging up still living corpses to re-invigorate their career Johnny Winter hooked up with his idol Muddy Waters. The album kicks off with a long standing Waters number, but given the exuberant and enthusiastic background wailing of Johnny Winter “Mannish Boy” never sounded better. The rest of the album takes a hard hitting blues approach to an album of timeless classics. It was the best studio album Muddy Waters got to make, and one of the testaments of raw, uncut blues at it’s purest source. This was the real deal, not some kids from England re-appropriating it. Rarely did the blues legends get this opportunity to make a hard hitting album, but Muddy did, and the result is timeless perfection.
Dookie was the major label debut of Green Day and it represented a lot of what was crazy in music in the mid-90s. They were allowed to run wild with their material but in the studio it was cleaned up just enough to sell, and boy did it ever. Billy Joe Armstrong seemed to resonate with every slightly immature slacker on the planet before maturing to elder statesman. Despite the fact that Green Day single handedly made pop-punk a thing, the band seems to owe equal debts to Ray Davies as Joe Strummer. Listening to the album today feels like a nostalgic greatest hits collection, perhaps because there were three monstrous singles released, as well as several other tracks getting major airplay. This probably doubled as the first album I owned with a parental advisory sticker on it, I was such a little bad ass, but still today this album is nearly flawless.
It wasn’t their official debut, but for all intents and purposes no one paid The Dixie Chicks any mind until Wide Open Spaces came out. This was their first album with Natalie Maines, and signed to a major label they blew up big time. Along with Fly, virtually every song on this album garnered country radio airplay. As cleaned up as the album might be they haven’t entirely neglected their bluegrass roots here. Nearly everything on this album was a highlight, and they even seem to have fun with the breakup songs here. There are no shortage of highlights here, but at the end of the day the album comes across like just a damn good time.
The Byrds were perhaps unfairly considered America’s answer to The Beatles when they first came around in 1965. With the assist to Dylan for the title track and three other songs, they emerged as their own wonderfully unique band. With chiming 12-string guitar, and some beautiful vocal harmonies the band was never better than their debut. Gene Clark was already showing that he was no slouch in the songwriting department as well. They may have gotten more adventurous in later years, but I’m not sure they were ever better.
I went to Ozzfest in 1999 and had one hell of a miserable time. The second band who played was System of a Down and in between nearly every act a video for their song “Sugar” was playing. I must have heard that song 5 times that day and decided “fuck this band”. So a couple of years later when “Chop Suey” came around I thought this might be a step in the right direction. I had a friend at the time that played that song a hell of a lot, enough to convince me maybe I was wrong about this band, or at the very least maybe their new album was a bit more refined. Like a few million other people I bought Toxicity and haven’t regretted it since. This album is all over the place, and they seem just as comfortable discussing social issues as absurd songs about pogo sticks. Unlike a lot of self important metal bands righting songs about Satan and other such nonsense, System of a Down actually seemed like a band with something to say. The dynamic duo of Malakian and Tankain were so far removed from the rest of the metal world that a few shortsighted critics started calling the band “Armenian Metal”. They may have refined some of their more melodic moments on Hypnotize/Mezmerize but there is plenty of brilliant songwriting here. My personal favorite remains “Atwa”, but you can’t go wrong with the title track, “Science”, “Needles”, “Aerials”, hell the whole damn album.
Jack White’s masterpiece was one of the most hyped and praised albums upon it’s release, and quite deservingly so. At first listen it just seems more raw and edgy than their previous albums, but multiple listens reveal the incredibly consistent quality on each of the tracks. Meg White again excels at her incredibly awesome stupid beats, getting things started brilliantly with “Seven Nation Army”, and absolutely making “The Hardest Button to Button”. Jack White was hitting his stride as a songwriter and more than coming into his own as a guitarist.
After several various comebacks, Alice Cooper started listening to the radio. When he found out nearly all the songs he liked were co-written by Desmond Child, he called him up and the two proceeded to write an entire album together. With a new label behind him, Alice got help from an A-list group of hair metal icons. It wound up being Alice’s strongest album in nearly two decades and put him rightfully back on the charts, primarily with the near perfect single “Poison”. The rest of the album mixes childish sexual innuendo with Desmond Child’s monstrously anthemic choruses.
Although it was his first official solo album, Jackson Browne had been writing songs for other people for years before his debut came out. He proceeded to cherry pick the best songs of his back catalogue and the result is nearly perfect. A smash hit upon it’s release it helped establish a new wave of LA piano driven folk rock.
This is the album often credited with making sampling a legitimate art form. The Beastie Boys had a long drawn out legal battle with Def Jam and they were largely considered a passing fad by the time they made this album. It’s initial commercial failure didn’t help matters, but the years have been quite kind to this. The Dust Brothers produced the album and drew from nearly every source imaginable. Copyright law would soon make much of what they did impossible a few short years later, making this a one of a kind relic. Lyrically the Boys continue to keep things relatively light, and continue their unique style of trading lines with each other. This was a complete 180 from their first album, and musically sounds much more focused.
There’s nothing wrong with The National’s first couple of albums, but Alligator is where they seemed to prefect their style and sound. “Mr. November” was actually the first National song I heard, and I decided right then I’d be a fan. “Secret Meeting” is just a brilliant slow burner that falls into their tradition of excellent openers. In between are some characteristically great songs, and surprisingly emotive singing. This is as good of a place as any to start with this band.
Genesis was simply the greatest of all the original prog bands. Specifically the albums with Peter Gabriel, and Foxtrot was their first masterpiece. “Watcher of the Skies” is about as heavy as the band ever got, but in a uniquely Genesis sort of way. “Horizons” was a beautiful instrumental that more directly highlights their classical influences. The crowning achievement still has to be “Supper’s Ready” which was part of a long series of side long epics being churned out. For all the awesomeness of this album, these guys were just getting started.
This album was referred to by more than one person as Fates Warning’s sell out album, a title that sounds almost laughable to listen to it today. Virtually every riff on every song is in an odd timing, it was just that they were writing stronger songs. This wasn’t as reliant on complicated riffs and instrumental sequences as their previous albums. “The Eleventh Hour” was their best song ever, but it relied more on mood and lyrics than wankery. “Don’t Follow Me” opens with a guitar harmony that could have been written by Steve Harris. They even borrow Dream Theater’s James LaBrie to sing backup on “Life in Still Water” one of many highlights.
Anytime Radiohead blesses us mere mortals with a new album it is a cause for celebration. What is remarkable about In Rainbows is that it’s damn near accessible. It’s still very much Radiohead doing music only they could make, but there seem to be actual pop hooks hiding in these songs. Like a lot of their best work this is best taken as a whole complete work, and my god is it good. I don’t think they could have ended the album on a better note than with “Videotape”, a disturbingly beautiful ballad that seems to constantly change time signatures.
Queen entered the 80s finally embracing the synthesizer. They use a couple of cool sound effects on “Play the Game” to get it out of the way and then resort to their old tricks nearly immediately. This was their biggest album in the US, spawning two number one singles “Another One Bites the Dust” and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”. Although those two songs were written by John Deacon and Freddy Mercury respectively, Brian May steals the show here. “Dragon Attack”, “Sail Away Sweet Sister”, and “Save Me” are all among the bands absolute best songs. I’ve known grown men who were moved to tears listening to “Save Me”. This is just another reason why Queen might be the greatest band ever.
Metallica first heard the term “sell out” when they decided to put an acoustic guitar on “Fade to Black”, if fans only knew then what they know now. Although it was recorded just a year after Kill ‘em All, Ride the Lightning showed the band growing exponentially. They were already starting to get into epics, but here they took things to a new level. “Creeping Death”, “Call of Ktulu”, and the title track are all some of their best songs over the six minute mark. Their production improved, lyrically they continued to grow, and delivered a metal classic for the ages.
At separate times in my life I could make the case nearly every Mates of State album is their best. Bring it Back was their fourth full length and showed the dynamic duo embracing parenthood. Their sound has always slowly and steadily gotten more polished, and this time around Kori seemed content to trade in her organ for a piano. This group never wrote a song that wasn’t amazing, but they found themselves stretching out a bit this time around. “Fraud in the ’80s”, “Like U Crazy”, “Punchlines” would have seemed impossible on Our Constant Concern.
I sorta liked The Kooks first album. It was a surprise hit in the UK, and seemed to fall right in line with The Arctic Monkeys. I don’t know if anyone was ready for how incredibly good their follow up would be. They wrote an entire careers worth of great songs for this album, and it shows throughout. “Mr. Maker”, “Shine On”, “Do You Wanna”, and “Love it All” all became instant classics and helped make this one of my most played albums of the decade. I’m not sure these guys will ever top this, but I’d love to see them try.
Boston’s self titled debut is a greatest hits album. I’ve said that before about some albums sounding “like a greatest hits” but Boston actually is. Every track on this album has gotten heavy rotation and is all instantly recognizable on first listen. This is textbook arena rock, featuring one of the absolute greatest unheralded voices in rock, the late Brad Delp. This was Tom Scholz’ show though as he worked his sweet studio magic in addition to playing several instruments and writing nearly everything.
The 90s were a strange time when people who were a little weird could be part of the mainstream. Tori Amos fit that description and her debut album was a trailblazing album that touched a lot of raw nerves. Her playing was exceptional, and her songs all felt deeply personal, which in many cases they were. Little Earthquakes is often depressing but in a therapeutic way, like her suffering somehow helps us all. She also helped open a lot of doors for female songwriters and performers in the days before Lilith Fair was a thing.
Rattle and Hum was the over indulgent zenith of U2’s American fascination. They retreated to Berlin where they started to embrace some of the musical trends going on there for their first 90s album. The guys re-invented their sound for a new decade and audience and didn’t skip a beat. “One” isn’t just one of their best songs, it’s one of the best songs anyone ever wrote. I’ve never been as wild about the other hits on this album, but skip past those and it’s some of the best music the guys ever came up with. In varying ways they’ve been trying to top this album for 20 years, but only once did they come close.
Springsteen wrote about 40 songs for Darkness on the Edge of Town, which he cut down to ten songs. As the sessions for The River began to take the same shape it was decided to make it a double album. Half of the album was designed to showcase the E Street Band as a bar band, the other picked up where Darkness left off, telling largely acoustic tales of the downtrodden. It was Springsteen’s first number one album, and contained his first number one single with “Hungry Heart” but it shows just how much better Springsteen was as a songwriter than any of his contemporaries. The wildly different tones sometimes work against each other but there’s no denying that there aren’t some of the all time great songs contained here.
Following Houses of the Holy and the massive tour that went with it Zeppelin found themselves with something of a backlog of songs. Physical Graffiti comes across almost as a tale of two albums, adventurous new sounds that they were experimenting with, complimented by older material that didn’t appear on their previous three albums. At times some of those older songs sound like outtakes, but the songs written specifically for this album are damn near the best they ever came up with. “Ten Years Gone”, “In My Time of Dying”, and of course “Kashmir” all became instant classics. Those three songs with “In the Light” might have made for a pretty solid album in their own right, but luckily there’s so much more.
Revenge was a bit of a reunion for Kiss. It was still several years before reconciling with Ace and Peter but they brought back Bob Ezrin for the first time since the commercially disastrous Elder, and even collaborated with Vinny Vincent. Vincent’s presence helped pen some of the albums best songs, particularly “Unholy”, but the guys were truly on a roll here. Gene Simmons whose contributions had been embarrassing afterthoughts for the previous four albums suddenly came back with a vengeance. Paul never stopped being our lord and savior, and he takes some divine inspiration on “God Gave Rock and Roll To You II” which was featured quite brilliantly in Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey. Kiss was back to rocking hard and gave up all pretense of crafting pop metal hits. In the process they made their best album as a band ever.
When my brother asked me which of Kanye’s albums were his best I said if you liked old soul samples and catchy songs The College Dropout is the album for you. If you like a hot mess of an album that sounds like all the drugs, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is the thing you should hear. It appears I certainly fall into the latter category. I wasn’t sure what to make of this album on the first listen, I knew and liked “Monster” and “Lights” but the rest of the album seemed high and frequently confusing. After a few more listens I became convinced that this was indeed the work of a mad genius.
Folk black metal sounds like an odd combination, but I’m not entirely sure how else to describe Agalloch. Their second album, The Mantle is nothing short of astonishing. They seem to be a metal band almost begrudgingly, spitting out the occasional double bass and trem picked riff and gurgling barely audible vocals. Then they let their acoustic and melodic passages dominate, playing some progressions for minutes at a time. This album is hauntingly beautiful and needs to be heard by everyone.
When Sail Away was released Randy Newman already had a reputation as a songwriter first and a musician second. His previous album 12 Songs contained several numbers that were hits for other people. Sail Away was the album where he took center stage as a performer. The songs feature his sardonic wit, particularly on the opening title track, but it’s his arrangements that help give this album a much richer sound than his previous albums. It is impossible not to hear “Burn On” without thinking of the opening of Major League, this is a must own.
After NWA officially broke up, Dr. Dre formed Death Row Records with Suge Knight. Dr. Dre met a tall skinny kid from Long Beach named Snoop and the duo recorded the title track for the vastly underrated movie Deep Cover. The Chronic was to be the first official album on Death Row and it was the defining moment in rap music. You can clearly define rap music as a pre and post-Chronic era. The now legendary G-funk was in full swing, and this album just decimated every rap group that came before, including his old band mates solo albums. Known as the best producer in the business, this also helped establish Dre as a great rapper, even if Snoop was writing his verses.
Dylan’s fourth album saw the man dropping the serious protest act of his previous album and lightening up a bit. The songs were still excellent, but he wasn’t taking things quite as seriously as before and sometimes even cracking up in mid song as he does in “All I Really Wanna Do”. This would be his last fully acoustic album and it’s pretty evident that he took folk music about as far as he could on this album, the man needed new mountains to climb.
It’s not uncommon for a group or artist to embrace excess after several years in the spotlight. When Fall Out Boy did that for this album it almost seemed like a knowing wink. They seem very much aware of music’s history and wanted to send up that type of self indulgence with a wink and a smile. Among the many guest stars and glitzy production though are the best songs the band ever wrote. Patrick Stump continued his development into one of the genres most emotive singers and it seems suited to this sort of extravagance. Not everyone seemed to get the joke, but at it’s core this is simply a great collection of songs from a band just hitting their peak.
Craig Finn has a few obsessions, and his Catholic upbringing is certainly one of them. Separation Sunday takes this obsession to new heights, with nearly every song featuring biblical references. A loose concept album it features the same characters he introduced on Almost Killed Me, culminating in Hallelujah’s own personal resurrection. The last two tracks on this album are possibly the best thing the band ever came up with. I feel like the world needs a band like this, to just write great rock songs with enough lyrical depth to keep you guessing.
I’m sure by now you’re aware that Led Zeppelin was pretty fucking awesome. Their first album to be blessed with an actual title continued their rapid evolution. They attempt funk and reggae to characteristically brilliant results. “No Quarter” is the crowning achievement of John Paul Jones, but I gotta admit it’s a toss up between that and “Rain Song” as the album’s best track. It was clear that Zeppelin could do no wrong by this point musically.
This album is one of the least heard and neglected albums ever made by a famous artist. Recorded while going through a painful divorce it was Paul Simon at his most vulnerable. The commercial failure and subsequent comeback on Graceland helped further bury this album, but people were missing out. I’m not just proclaiming my love because this album features a great Al Di Meola guitar solo on “Allergies”. The title track and one version of “Think Too Much” are two of the best ballads Simon ever wrote. This was love at first listen, and I highly recommend it even if there were no hits, even if Simon himself seems to dismiss it.
When Ghost Reveries came out it was safe to say Opeth was the best metal band in the world. They had proven themselves time and again to be the most consistent and innovative band around. Somehow they just keep getting better, and depending on my particular mood I wouldn’t argue anyone saying this is their masterpiece. They continued their path of embracing 70s prog over brutal black metal, but there are still some brutal parts to this album. The formula doesn’t change too much though, just more epic songs with heavy and acoustic passages randomly alternating. Another in a long string of brilliant albums from a brilliant band.
As much as this album might be steeped in the old west, it was actually inspired by The Band’s self titled album. This is the closest thing to a concept album Elton John made, and I happen to think it’s his best work period. Most of the songs don’t follow traditional verse-chorus structures but everything has a narrative streak to it. Elton’s music was probably never better and Elton stretches out into blues, country, and gospel territory throughout the album.
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