Most influential albums

[GoofyBuckeye]

Guys, I was joking about "No Whites Allowed"..I thought the sarcasm was obvious............ NWA had an effect on culture, not on music.

About Tupac...I should have clarified something. I think Tupac had a major effect on black culture, but I don't know what kind of influence he had on music which was the question asked in this thread. The way black society has given this guy sainthood is laughable. I'm not being racist here and I hope no one thinks that, but black society has a problem in the leadership department if a guy like that is being perceived in such a high honor. "Resurrection"? Get serious.

 

[AJ Nicholson]

Anything Tupac One of the most influential people to ever live.

 

[Brammer98]

I can think of 100 or so people that were more influential than "Two Pops". Give me a break. The guy was a "wanna-be" thug. He contributed absolutely nothing to music beside an "image" to music. "Cafiornia" and "Momma" was crap. So was the rest of that stuff that should have never been released on a major record label.

You wanna talk rap? Let's talk Eric B and Rakim/RUN-DMC>>>Rock? Beatles/Elvis.........You've got to be kidding with tu-pac. We're talking "influential".

 

[DEBuckeye]

If we're going to talk about rap, let's go all the way back. How about the Sugar Hill Gang- "Rapper's Delight"? Or Whodini- "Freaks Come Out at Night"? Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five? That's where it started.

And a little later, Public Enemy, Kool Moe Dee, Ice-T....

 

[Jake]

Meet the Beatles (Beatles) - beginning of the English invasion, opening a new era of rock and roll

Raising Hell (Run DMC) - don't care much for rap personally but these guys essentially created the genre, or at least were the first to experience major commerical success.

Nevermind (Nirvana) - death blow to the 80's hair metal bands.

 

[sandgk]

Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited, blowing up folk-rock, making it electric, edgy. Without this maybe you don't have the Beatles doing more than ballads ... and ending up dead at the London Palladium. You certainly don't have Blonde on Blonde, you probably don't have any of the succeeding generations of those inspired by those inspired by Dylan. The most influential album in Dylan's career and on the careers of many, many other musicians.

Beach Boys - Pet Sounds - simply magical and perhaps the last time that Brian made sense. Using the new studio technologies to their fullest. Merging a Specter like wall of sound with Surf. Showed that complex, sophisticated harmonies would work AND would sell. The only drawback, you need a near crazed genius to emulate or implement what Brian Wilson teaches and shows with this work.

Robert Johnson - King of the Delta Blues Singers (1961)

No RJ, no John Mayall, no Yardbirds, no Beck, no Cream, no Led Zep, without which interest no Hendrix?
The list isn't small.

 

[Buck Nasty]

OK, maybe not top 3, but easily the 4th best folk-parody album to ever come out of New Zealand.

 

[Gatorubet]

Beach Boys - Pet Sounds.

Beatles - Rubber Soul.

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon.

All three broke barriers in their genre. Music today would not be what it is without these three albums. Dark Side of the Moon still sells today...

bump
Wilson was influenced by RS, and his response was the seminal Pet Sounds, which in turn heavily influenced the Beatles SPLHCB. But - I have to note the beginnings of so-called psychedelic rock and Harrison's Indian influenced music in Revolver.

 

[scooter1369]

Van Halen - Van Halen
Spawned an entire generation of Eddie Van Halen wannabes.

Kiss - Alive
Kiss' reputation as a great live act, but lacking in the studio gave the bacns and Casablanca an idea to release a live album. It produced Kiss' first billboard hit "Rock N' Roll All Night". It was their first release to make Gold status, and eventually went quadruple platinum. All of sudden, KISS was a major player on the market and would change Rock and Roll for the next 15 years spawning a era of glam bands.

Garth Brooks - Garth Brooks
Released in 1989, this was the first of six releases (count 'em - 6) to go Diamond (10x platinum). With the hits, Much Too Young to Feel This Damn Old, The Dance and If Tomorrow Never Comes, Garth exploded onto the country music scene and changed country music forever.

 

[souL]

You know me: prog rock influence time.

King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King - 1969. Very possibly the start of progressive rock. Anyone and everyone in the genre, and many outside it cite King Crimson as an influence, and this was their beginning. So amazing, from the album cover to the final note.

Rush - A Farewell to Kings - 1977. You can put an entire career for Rush here, and really any album from '76's "2112" to '81's "Moving Pictures", I just chose this one because it's a personal favorite and has a little bit of everything they gave to progressive rock during this time. Epic-length songs, fluctuating time signatures, diverse instrument usage, science fiction/fantasy overtones, and so much more.

Yes - Fragile - 1973. I really don't know what to say about this album, but I know that it's as amazing of an album that exists in the progressive genre. It's my (and the plurality of Yes fans) favorite Yes lineup, and they all shine.

Queensryche - Operation Mindcrime - 1988. A masterpiece of a concept album, beautifully written and masterfully told. A "murder mystery" that leaves you wanting, Queensryche had already begun to revive the genre that struggled through the 80's and this album and their subsequent one made it. Rumor has it this album's being turned into a movie.

Dream Theater - Images and Words - 1991. As pioneering prog rockers had been steadily aging, few bands had stepped up to fill the void. Dream Theater's 1991 release of "Images and Words" hearkened the arrival of the new standard bearers. Their single "Pull me Under" received significant MTV airplay, which spawned an American and then Japanese tour. Dream Theater has revived and brought forth a whole new group of progressive rockers and created a thriving genre.

I wish I could put Porcupine Tree on this list somewhere, too. I sincerely hope I can be talking about "Fear of a Blank Planet" and its influence on the generation it's written about in the years to come.

 

[scooter1369]

Queensryche - Operation Mindcrime - 1988. A masterpiece of a concept album, beautifully written and masterfully told. A "murder mystery" that leaves you wanting, Queensryche had already begun to revive the genre that struggled through the 80's and this album and their subsequent one made it. Rumor has it this album's being turned into a movie.

Still one of my favorite CD's of all time.

 

[BayBuck]

You know me: prog rock influence time.

Gotta also include this one among the landmark prog/metal albums:

Jethro Tull - Aqualung - 1971

 

[jlb1705]

Garth Brooks - Garth Brooks
Released in 1989, this was the first of six releases (count 'em - 6) to go Diamond (10x platinum). With the hits, Much Too Young to Feel This Damn Old, The Dance and If Tomorrow Never Comes, Garth exploded onto the country music scene and changed country music forever.

I'll respectfully disagree and say that No Fences was far more influential than his self-titled debut. That first album felt like the kind of material you'd hear from George Strait than anything you'd have heard from new artists in the mid-to-late '90s and 2000s. The debut was huge and had some big songs, no doubt. However, No Fences brought us "The Thunder Rolls" and "Friends in Low Places", which made his live shows really go and brought country music together with arena rock in a way that nothing on his self-titled album - or pretty much anything else that came before him in country music ever did.

 

[souL]

Gotta also include this one among the landmark prog/metal albums:

Jethro Tull - Aqualung - 1971

I do love Aqualung. Some people wouldn't call it prog. It's all over the place, and though it has a central theme some would argue it's not really conceptual. I say it's pretty prog and it was just them discovering who they really were at that point.

I did spend a long time even thinking about which albums to put on my list... and I'm sure I could add a lot more if I wanted.

 

[scooter1369]

I'll respectfully disagree and say that No Fences was far more influential than his self-titled debut. That first album felt like the kind of material you'd hear from George Strait than anything you'd have heard from new artists in the mid-to-late '90s and 2000s. The debut was huge and had some big songs, no doubt. However, No Fences brought us "The Thunder Rolls" and "Friends in Low Places", which made his live shows really go and brought country music together with arena rock in a way that nothing on his self-titled album - or pretty much anything else that came before him in country music ever did.

Point taken and conceded.