The Top 50 Albums That Changed Music Forever

The Observer, a UK periodical, has just published a list of the 50 most influential albums in music history. These are the albums that they say, changed the music world forever. I generally look at these kinds of lists with suspicion. I mean most of them leave so many seminal underground releases and artists off the list that it erodes their credibility. I was pleasantly surprised that this list does no such thing. In fact the way they connect albums is about as right on as you can get in 98% of the cases. I mean anyone that can recognize King Tubby’s influence on remix culture, or sees the connection between LFO and the later success of predecessors such as Aphex Twin has got the right time of day, in my book.
Here’s an excerpt:

1 The Velvet Underground and Nico
The Velvet Underground and Nico (1967)

Without this, there’d be no… Bowie, Roxy Music, Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Jesus and Mary Chain, among many others.

…

2 Kraftwerk
Trans-Europe Express (1977)

Without this… no techno, no house, no Pet Shop Boys. The list is endless.

…

7 Patti Smith
Horses (1975)

Without this… no REM, PJ Harvey, Razorlight. And no powerful female pop icons like Madonna.

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10 The Beach Boys
Pet Sounds (1966)

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.’

…

14 Joni Mitchell
Blue (1971)

Without this… no Tori Amos or Fiona Apple – and Elvis Costello and Prince have cited her as a prime influence.

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15 Brian Eno
Discreet Music (1975)

Without this… we wouldn’t have David Bowie’s Low or Heroes, the echoey guitars of U2′S The Edge, and no William Orbit, Orb, Juana Molina. To name but a few.

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23 Augustus Pablo
King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown (1976)

Without this… no DJ remixes, no house, no rave.

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25 James Brown
Live at the Apollo (1963)

Without this… great chunks of hip hop – which has sampled Brown more than almost any other – would be missing.

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28 Prince and the Revolution
Purple Rain (1984)

Without this… no Janet Jackson, no Peaches, and certainly no Beck.

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33 Herbie Hancock
Head Hunters (1973)

Without this… suffice to say, almost everything in the jazz-funk idiom can be traced back to this.

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37 Massive Attack
Blue Lines (1991)

Without this… no Roots Manuva, no Dizzee Rascal. In fact, there would be no British urban music scene to speak of.

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43 Primal Scream
Screamadelica (1991)

Without this… no lad culture – it was no accident that a mag founded in 1994 shared its name with Screamadelica’s defining single, ‘Loaded’.

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49 De La Soul
3 Feet High and Rising (1989)

Without this… thoughtful hip hop acts like the Jungle Brothers and PM Dawn wouldn’t have arrived.

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50 LFO
Frequencies (1991)

Without this… no success for Orbital, Underworld, Leftfield, Chemical Brothers or Aphex Twin.

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originally published on dr.xnlb.com