#GreatAlbums1950s - #GeneVincent & His Blue Caps – Bluejean Bop! (1956). Like many 50s rockers, Vincent’s LPs fall short of “great” owing to labels’ habit of reserving the best tunes for singles (no “Be-Bop-a-Lula” here or on the 1957 followup). Still, this LP is a rare place to hear a full set by the original Blue Caps – including ace Cliff Gallup on lead guitar. Plus there’s plenty of hellfire in “Jezebel” and “Who Slapped John?” – showing why Vincent is a rockabilly legend.
#GreatRockAlbums

#GreatAlbums1950s - #BillHaley & His Comets – Rock Around the Clock (1955). Although history remembers Haley mainly for one earth-shifting 45, there was more to Bill’s oeuvre given his talent for countrified jump blues and occasional ability to write bangers like “Rock a-Beatin’ Boogie.” While most of this disc rocks amiably in ways you’d expect, there’s one wonderfully bizarre turn on “Thirteen Women” – a fantasy about the only male among 14 survivors of nuclear Armageddon.

#GreatRockAlbums

#GreatAlbums1950s - #CarlPerkins – The Dance Album (1957). Sidelined after a 1956 car crash, Perkins watched from a hospital bed as “Blue Suede Shoes” topped the pop/ country/ R&B charts, only to be overshadowed by Elvis’s cover version on LP and TV. Still, Perkins made a mark with songs like “Honey Don’t,” “Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby” and “Matchbox” (all covered by the Beatles) -- epitomizing rockabilly as an enduring form beyond the fickleness of the charts. #GreatRockAlbums, #Rockabilly

#GreatAlbums1950s - #RockAndRollTrio – Johnny Burnette & the Rock ‘n Roll Trio (1956). This Memphis trio played rockabilly with furious insistence, sealing their legend among hard rockers of later decades. “Honey Hush” and “Train Kept A-Rollin’” sounded as unhinged and rebellious as anything released in ‘56, with Paul Burlinson’s fuzz guitar and Johnny Burnette’s chaotic screams anticipating everything from Iggy to Zeppelin. The latter tune became an oft-covered rock standard.

#GreatRockAlbums

#GreatAlbums1950s - #BoDiddley – Bo Diddley (1958). The insistent hambone beat (dependent as much on Jerome Green’s infectious maracas as Bo himself) was only part of the Diddley sound, although “Bo Diddley” and “Pretty Thing” set it down for the ages. Diddley also performed straight blues (“Before You Accuse Me”) and used doo-wop vocal cues (“Diddy Wah Diddy”), besides the hoodoo stew of “Who Do You Love?”. Nobody made more iconic music with simpler elements. #GreatBluesAlbums, #GreatRockAlbums

#GreatAlbums1950s - #ChuckBerry – Chuck Berry is on Top (1959). Combining jump blues of the 40s with Chicago blues of the 50s and the country twang he’d fostered playing clubs in St. Louis, Berry became a pillar of early rock and roll. His guitar playing was a similar hybrid of styles, influencing every rock player who came after. But his greatest gift may have been the lyrics, from the rags-to-riches tale of “Johnny B. Goode” to the gleeful rebellion of “Around and Around.”
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#GreatAlbums1990s – TOP 20 - #SmashingPumpkins - #SiameseDream (1993). Billy Corgan understood that if you took the raw angst of grunge and polished it up in the studio (to the level of, say, Boston’s debut), you could satisfy multiple generations at once. And let’s face it, nobody had updated Pink Floyd’s ethereal space boogie in a couple of decades. So, opportunity knocks, Corgan answers, and six million kids pretend they’d rather listen to Mudhoney or Fugazi.

#GreatRockAlbums, #RockMusic

#GreatAlbums1990s – TOP 20 - #Nirvana - #Nevermind (1991). Mixing Beatlesque melodies with punk attitude and metal intensity feels obvious in hindsight. But just like it took a quartet of misfits from Liverpool to elevate the art of rock, it took a trio from Seattle to crystallize the urban underground in a way kids in burbs could appreciate. And with hooks even fans of The Wiggles could sing in their cribs, who couldn’t catch the elemental pop beneath all the irony?
#GreatRockAlbums, #Grunge

#GreatAlbums1990s – TOP 20 - #Radiohead - #TheBends (1995). It turned out Radiohead had bigger ambitions in mind, but at the time this disc articulated the symptoms behind the vacant eyes you see on the subway or in the hallway between the cubicle and the lunchroom. “High and Dry,” “Fake Plastic Trees” and “Black Star” are basically the blues for well-fed, privileged people who haven’t yet figured out why that smile on the billboard feels like a grimace.
#GreatRockAlbums, #Britpop, #RockMusic

#GreatAlbums1990s – TOP 20 - #Soundgarden - #Superunknown (1993). With its dark afflictions of angst and depression on tracks like “Black Hole Sun” and “Fell on Black Days,” Superunknown was an exorcism of emotion for the masses. Developing their metal-meets-rock lexicon, Soundgarden piledrives through tricky tunings and time signatures (“My Wave” manages to be heavy plus funky in 5/4 time) to prove themselves one of the finest rock bands of the 90s or any other era.

#GreatRockAlbums, #Grunge

#GreatAlbums1990s – TOP 20 - #JeffBuckley – #Grace (1994). Of all the artists who’ve mined the Zeppelin riff factory, Buckley was one of the few to care less about virtuosity and bombast than the emotional heights he could scale by wailing like Robert Plant. Of course Jeff’s dad, Tim Buckley, wailed as assuredly – but it’s more his dad’s ethereal folk informing the unearthly covers of “Lilac Time” and Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” God only knows what he’d have done if he’d lived. #GreatRockAlbums, #Rock

#GreatAlbums1990s – TOP 20 - #RedHotChiliPeppers – #Californication (1999). After a hot decade and temporary lapse, this disc revived the RHCP’s creative spirit as John Frusciante, fresh from rehab, rejoined the band with his furiously creative riffs. Anthony Kiedis sang with newfound confidence as the disc’s opening gambit – “Around the World,” “Parallel Universe,” “Scar Tissue,” “Otherside” – played like a best-of. Flea & Chad Smith’s funk hammered the foundations.
#GreatRockAlbums, #Rock

“When a popular band loses its singer, it rarely bounces back to reach the level of success it had prior to the lineup shift. The most remarkable exception to this rule is Australian powerhouse AC/DC, which released the legendary album Back in Black on July 25, 1980.”

43 Years Ago - AC/DC Overcome Tragedy With 'Back in Black' | https://loudwire.com/acdc-back-in-black-anniversary/

#GreatRockAlbums #Music #rock

#GreatAlbums1990s TOP 20 - #AliceInChains – #Dirt (1992). One of the darkest-ever visions of addiction & turmoil by a major band, Dirt reflected Layne Staley’s (finally tragic) war with heroin on songs torn from the pages of a stark confessional script. Jerry Cantrell’s leathery guitar tones and the Sabbath-infused grind of the rhythm section give “Dam That River,” “Down in a Hole,” and the blistering “Rooster” gravitas as profound as any rock/ metal disc of the time.
#GreatRockAlbums, #Grunge

#GreatAlbums1990s – TOP 20: #Pavement - #CrookedRain, Crooked Rain (1994). By the time Stephen Malkmus sarcastically wails “Career! Career!” at the end of “Cut Your Hair,” you know these would-be clowns of indie rock aren’t joking about the pitfalls of nineties fame. And although the clattering drums and wobbly intonation sound naive, there’s enough rootsy charisma in “Range Life” and jazzy knowhow in “5-4=Unity” to show they’re way smarter than they let on.

#GreatRockAlbums, #AlternativeRock

#GreatAlbums1990s – TOP 20: #ElliottSmith - #XO (1998). Smith’s melancholy drips through the Beatlesque charm of his melodies, creating an essential tension that inhabits songs like “Sweet Adeline” and “Independence Day.” Although some prefer the lower-fi sound of earlier discs like Either/Or, the fuller production here expands Smith’s palette with the Brian Wilsonesque flourishes of “Waltz #2” and straight-up rock of “Amity.” A brilliant artist, sadly doomed.
#GreatRockAlbums, #AlternativeRock