Most Important Albums in Rock History

The Top Ten
1 Smash - The Offspring

Exactly how is this album much more important than "Abbey Road", "Led Zeppelin IV", "Dark Side Of The Moon", "Ramones" and other albums on this list?

About time this album got the recognition it deserves, now the band should get the recognition it deserves.

Biggest release on independent label: extermely important for the independent rock community...and a bad-ass album in my opinion

Along with Dookie this album started the rise of popularity for the pop punk genre.

2 Abbey Road - The Beatles

Supposedly, this was just about the beginning of the end of The Beatles. "Abbey Road" marked the last time all four members had recorded together in the studio (the next album "Let It Be" was released a year later, but includes mostly songs predating the recording sessions and existence of "Abbey Road").

The Beatles are the most influential artists of all time. So why the hell is/was this #2 under The Offspring? Green Day relaunched punk more than The Offspring...

Voted this album to overtake the offspring's smash as the number one on this list

As much as I hate the Beatles they deserve to be higher than the Offspring...

3 Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
4 In Rock - Deep Purple

I am a metalhead who likes fast metal subgenres and for this reason it's the most important album to me.

5 Ramones - Ramones

First album to create the pure punk rock riffs.

One of the first punk albums to exist.

6 Led Zeppelin IV (Aka Zoso) - Led Zeppelin

One of the best-selling albums of all time!

Why is the offspring higher?

7 Chuck Berry is on Top - Chuck Berry
8 Are You Experienced - The Jimi Hendrix Experience

This album needs to be higher. Jimi combined guitar skill with aggressive, distorted tone in a way that hadn't really been seen in the mainstream before. Rock guitarists to this day still cite it as an important influence on their playing.

Includes one of his famous songs "Purple Haze"!

9 Welcome to Hell - Venom

Important because it was influential to a number of metal-associated genres such as death metal, black metal and thrash metal.

10 Highway 61 Revisited - Bob Dylan
The Contenders
11 Raw Power - Iggy & the Stooges
12 2112 - Rush

Obviously "2112" is an important album, not only because of the 20-minute epic title track, but it remains a big influence and inspiration on multiple genres, such as hard rock, metal, prog, alternative, just to name a few.

This was the beginning of Rush's rise to infamy.

Why isn't this album up any higher yet?

Timeless prog rock classic!

13 A Night at the Opera - Queen
14 Seven Churches - Possessed
15 The Velvet Underground & Nico - The Velvet Underground & Nico

Musician and producer Brian Eno famously stated that while the album (released in 1967) initially only sold 30,000 copies, "everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band." Genres that were significantly informed by the album include art rock, punk, garage, grunge, shoegaze, gothic, indie, and most other forms of alternative music (thanks wikipedia).

16 Rising - Rainbow

Ronnie James Dio was the voice of this album.

17 Suffer - Bad Religion
18 Rocks - Aerosmith

Along with "Toys In The Attic", "Rocks" was one of the albums that broke Aerosmith into critical acclaim and popularity.

This album should be #1 instead of that Offspring album.

The album that changes Slash's life!

At least this album is in the top 20.

19 Nevermind - Nirvana

The only thing important about this album is that it briefly saved SoundCity that's it...

Massively popularized grunge.

20 The Doors - The Doors
21 Back in Black - AC/DC
22 Led Zeppelin II - Led Zeppelin
23 Doolittle - Pixies
24 The Smiths - The Smiths
25 Blood Sugar Sex Magik - Red Hot Chili Peppers

The Chili Peppers' breakthrough album

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