'20 The Byrds
Sweetheart of the Rodeo (1968)

At one inspired stroke, Sweetheart vanquished the cultural divide between acid-munching, peace-preaching long hairs and beer-swilling, flag-waving good old boys by creating the enduring hybrid of country-rock. Allying rippling guitars and silky vocal harmonies with a mix of country tradition ('I Am a Pilgrim') and Gram Parsons originals, the record irrevocably altered the perspective of two previously averse streams of Americana. The group even cut their hair to play the Grand Ole Opry.' 03/04/12

Finished 4/17/12. Actually a well rounded list of music compared to others who specialize in just one genre. Definitely listened to some good music and definitely listened to A LOT of bad music. Just my opinion.

'13 Frank Sinatra
Songs for Swingin' Lovers (1956)

The previous year Sinatra had cut In the Wee Small Hours, a brooding cycle of torch songs that was arguably pop's first concept album. Once again working with arranger Nelson Riddle, he presented its complement; a set of upbeat paeans to romance. Exhilarating performances of standards like 'I've Got You Under My Skin' defined Sinatra's urbane, finger-snapping persona for the rest of his career and pushed the record to number one in the first ever British album chart.

Without this ... the 'singer as song interpreter' wouldn't have been born, karaoke menus would be much diminished.' 03/04/2012

'45 Fairport Convention
Liege and Lief (1969)

The birth of English folk-rock. Considered an act of heresy by folk purists, this electrified album fragmented the band. No matter, the opening cry of 'Come all you roving minstrels' proved galvanic.

Without this ... no Celtic revivalists like the Pogues and Waterboys or descendants like the Levellers.' 03/04/12

'14 Joni Mitchell
Blue (1971)

Though Carole King's Tapestry was the biggest-selling album of the era, it is Joni Mitchell's Blue that remains the most influential of all the early Seventies outings by confessional singer-songwriters. Joni laid bare her heart in a series of intimate songs about love, betrayal and emotional insecurity. It could have been hell (think James Taylor) but for the penetrating brilliance of the songwriting. Raw, spare and sophisticated, it remains the template for a certain kind of baroque female angst.

Without this ... no Tori Amos or Fiona Apple - and Elvis Costello and Prince have cited her as a prime influence.' 25/03/12

'4 NWA
Straight Outta Compton (1989)

Like a darker, more vengeful Public Enemy, NWA (Niggaz With Attitude) exposed the vicious realities of the West Coast gang culture on their lurid, fluent debut. Part aural reportage (sirens, gunshots, police radio), part thuggish swagger, Compton laid the blueprint for the most successful musical genre of the last 20 years, gangsta rap. It gave the world a new production mogul in Dr Dre, and gave voice to the frustrations that flared up into the LA riots in 1992. As befits an album boasting a song called 'Fuck tha Police', attention from the FBI, the Parents' Music Resource Centre and our own Metropolitan Police's Obscene Publications Squad sealed its notoriety.

Without this ... no Eminem, no 50 Cent, no Dizzee Rascal.' 25/03/12

'3 Kraftwerk
Trans-Europe Express (1977)

Released at the height of punk, this sleek, urbane, synthesised, intellectual work shared little ground with its contemporaries. Not that it wanted to. Kraftwerk operated from within a bubble of equipment and ideas which owed more to science and philosophy than mere entertainment. Still, this paean to the beauty of mechanised movement and European civilisation was a moving and exquisite album in itself. And, through a sample on Afrika Bambaataa's seminal 'Planet Rock', the German eggheads joined the dots with black American electro, giving rise to entire new genres.

Without this... no techno, no house, no Pet Shop Boys. The list is endless.' 25/03/12

'21 The Spice Girls
Spice (1996)

The music business has been cynically creating and marketing acts since the days of the wax cylinder, but on nothing like the scale of the Spice phenomenon, which was applied to crisps, soft drinks, you name it. Musically, the Spice's Motown-lite was unoriginal, but 'Girl Power', despite being a male invention, touched a nerve and defined a generation of tweenies who took it to heart.

Without this ... five-year-olds would not have become a prime target for pop marketeers. Most of all, there'd be no Posh'n'Becks' 22/03/12

'32 Otis Redding
Otis Blue (1965)

Until Stax Records and Otis Redding arrived, the Southern states were a place you had to leave to make it (unless you were a country singer). Recorded weeks after the death of Redding's idol, Sam Cooke, the album cast Otis as Cooke's successor, an embodiment of young black America with white appeal - alongside Cooke's 'A Change is Gonna Come' was the Stones's 'Satisfaction'. With terrific backings from the MGs and the Markeys horns behind Otis's rasping vocals, it defined 'soul'.

Without this ... no Aretha Franklin singing 'Respect', no Al Green, and no Terence Trent D'Arby.' 22/03/12

'31 The Stone Roses
The Stone Roses (1989)

Until the late Eighties, Manchester was thought to be a forbidding, dour place where the ghost of Ian Curtis still clanked about. The Stone Roses' concatenation of sweet West Coast psychedelia and the lairy, loved-up rave culture was as unforeseeable as it was seismic. Ecstasy pulled the sniffy rock kids away from their Smiths records and into clubland; the result was an album whose woozy words and funky drumming sounded as guileless as it did hedonistic.

Without this ... well, a bit of the Roses remains in the DNA of every British guitar band since.' 22/03/12

'11 David Bowie
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (1972)

Bowie's revolutionary mix of hard rock and glam pop was given an otherwordly look and feel by his coquettish alter ego Ziggy. It's not so much that every act that followed dyed their hair orange in homage to the spidery spaceman; more that they learned the value of creating a 'bubble' of image and presentation that fans could fall in love with.

Without this ... we'd be lost. No Sex Pistols, no Prince, no Madonna, no Duran Duran, no Boy George, no Kiss, no Bon Jovi, no 'Bohemian Rhapsody' ... I could go on' 21/03/12

'22 Kate Bush
The Hounds of Love (1985)

On Side One our Kate strikes a deal with God, throws her shoes in a lake and poses as a little boy riding a rain machine. Turn over, and she's drowning, exorcising demons and dancing an Irish jig. All this to a soundscape that employs the shiniest synthesised studio toys the Eighties had to offer in the service of one women's unique yet utterly English musical genius. Listen again to the delirious cacophany of 'Running Up That Hill', and it sounds like God struck that deal.

Without this ... Tori Amos would have spawned no earthquakes, Alison Goldfrapp would lack her juiciest cherries and romance would have withered on the vine.' 21/03/12

'47 Nirvana
Nevermind (1991)

You might argue Nirvana's landmark album changed nothing whatsoever. All their best seditious instincts came to nothing, after all. And yet Nevermind still rocks mightily, capturing a moment when the vituperative US underground imposed its agenda on the staid mainstream. Without this ... no Seattle scene, no Britpop, no Pete Doherty.' 20/03/12

'10 The Beach Boys
Pet Sounds (1966)

Of late, Pet Sounds has replaced Sgt Pepper's as the critics' choice of Greatest Album of All Time. Composed by the increasingly reclusive Brian Wilson while the rest of the group were touring, it might well have been a solo album. The beauty resides not just in its compositional genius and instrumental invention, but in the elaborate vocal harmonies that imbue these sad songs with an almost heartbreaking grandeur.

Without this ... where to start? The Beatles acknowledged its influence; Dylan said of Brian Wilson, 'That ear! I mean, Jesus, he's got to will that to the Smithsonian.' 13/03/2012

'16 Aretha Franklin
I Never Loved a Man the Way I love You (1967)

'R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Find out what it means to me!' Is there a more potent female lyric in pop? Franklin's Atlantic Records debut unleashed her soulful ferociousness upon an unsuspecting public, and both the singer and her album quickly became iconic symbols of black American pride.

Without this ... Tina Turner, Mariah Carey, girl power would not exist, and rudeboys would not spit 'res'pec' through kissed teeth.' 13/03/12

Found most of the albums on spotify. Be wary of remastered versions and missing tracks.

1. The Velvet Underground & Nico
2. Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles
3. Trans-Europe Express by Kraftwerk
4. Straight Outta Compton by N.W.A.
5. King of the Delta Blues Singers by Robert Johnson
6. What's Going On? by Marvin Gaye
7. Horses by Patti Smith
8. Bringing It All Back Home by Bob Dylan
9. Elvis Presley by Elvis Presley
10. Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys
11. The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders from Mars
12. Kind of Blue by Miles Davis
13. Songs for Swingin Lovers by Frank Sinatra
14. Blue by Joni Mitchell
15. Discreet Music by Brian Eno
16. I Never Loved a Man The Way I Loved You by Aretha Franklin
17. Raw Power by the Stooges
18. London Calling by The Clash
19. What's the 411? by Mary J Blige
20. Sweetheart of the Rodeo by the Byrds
21. Spice by the Spice Girls
22. Hounds of Love by Kate Bush
23. King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown by Augustus Pablo
24. Immigres by Youssou N'Dour
25. Live at the Apollo by James Brown
26. Songs in the Key of My Life by Stevie Wonder
27. Are You Experienced? by Jimi Hendrix
28. Purple Rain by Prince and the Revolution
29. The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd
30. Catch a Fire by The Wailers
31. The Stone Roses by the Stone Roses
32. Otis Blue by Otis Redding
33. Head Hunters by Herbie Hancock
34. Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath
35. The Ramones by the Ramones
36. My Generation by The Who
37. Blue Lines by Massive Attack
38. The Bends by Radiohead
39. Thriller by Michael Jackson
40. Run DMC by Run DMC
41. Chic by Chic
42. The Smiths by The Smiths
43. Screamadelica by Primal Scream
44. Fear of Music by Talking Heads
45. Liege & Lief by Fairport Convention
46. Dare by the Human League
47. Nevermind by Nirvana
48. Is This It? by the Strokes
49. 3 Feet High and Rising by De La Soul
50. Frequencies by LFO

1. The Velvet Underground & Nico
2. Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
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7. Horses by Patti Smith
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14. Blue by Joni Mitchell
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18. London Calling by The Clash
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22. Hounds of Love by Kate Bush
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30. Catch a Fire by The Wailers
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34. Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath
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42. The Smiths by The Smiths
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49. 3 Feet High and Rising by De La Soul
50. Frequencies by LFO

2. The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

27. Jimi Hendrix - Are You Experienced?

12. Miles Davis - Kind of Blue

26. Stevie Wonder - Songs in the Key of Life

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1. Sgt. Pepper--The Beatles

Listened to Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club 8/8/11

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2006/jul/16/popandrock.shopping


Listened to The Velvet Underground and Nico 8/8/11

Currently listening to The Velvet Underground.

http://www.listsofbests.com/list/10275-50-albums-that-changed-music

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