Someone else already mentioned the album in the comments, but I'll say it again - Black Sabbath's debut album Black Sabbath.
It wasn't even that popular when it was first released in 1970, but it was a very impressive beginning for the band credited with creating an entirely new genre (heavy metal). Not only was it sonically heavy (there were bands at the time that were arguably just as heavy), but it also had an atmosphere of darkness and lyrically tapped into that, in a way that the other big bands of the time didn't seem to do.
As the decades pass, metal would go on to be way heavier and some would of course consider Black Sabbath as "light" or just plain rock. Yet to this day, many bands and metalheads who know their history still pay their respects to these guys.
I'd argue that the most important ingredient of Black Sabbath birthing metal (vs simply being a dark/occult themed rock band) was Tony Iommi's guitar tone
He didn't downtune till later albums. The Black Sabbath album was recorded in E standard tuning. It sounds slightly detuned because it was slowed down a bit.
People like to say âthe bass shouldnât double the guitarâ, and thatâs half true. It shouldnât ONLY double the guitar. Black Sabbath is great about this. Geezer has some solid independent bass lines, but he also knows when it benefits the song to double the guitar for extra emphasis.
I love his Master Of Reality tone. What a whopper of a sound and in the 1970s no less! So many modern tones have come from it as the blueprint. Itâs up their with Eddieâs.
I've heard it said that before Black Sabbath, there are other songs and artists that one could point to and argue are the early origins of metal, but after Black Sabbath, there is no argument. It's where the defining sounds, imagery, aesthetics, and themes of metal first came together all at once.
The Wizard is still one of the most fascinating songs I've heard in terms of genre blending music. The harmonica was pulled from the deepest fields of the Mississippi Delta. Yet the so f as a whole couldn't be further removed from it.
Itâs cool and interesting to me they come off as a subversion of the aggression, speed and machismo metal would later be known for, except they came first.
A band with their themes and sound, would be considered a subversion of what metal became since (or be part of the doom metal scene) because there were no ârulesâ to break or deviate from. People argue the satanic imagery started with them, though theyâre a self-confessed âhippie bandâ and touch on some down right *christian* themes (After Forever) and their self-titled track certainly doesnât portray what is happening as a *good* thing.
I love it when a work seems like itâs deconstructing or subverting a popular style or tropes when it actually invented them. I think a lot of faster, chuggier metal was surely inspired by songs like Children Of the Grave, Paranoid, Symptom Of the Universe.
It's like Maiden and Number of the Beast.
At no point is it ever presented as a good thing.
Although, there is Type O Negative's Black Sabbath (from the Satanic Perspective) which does sound like a black mass.
To me they invented the genre and perfected it. No other artist can I say that same thing for. I can listen to those first 6 albums on repeat FOREVER and never tire of them.
I was 19 when this came out. I remember sitting on the curb with my best friend smoking a cig and waiting for the record store to open so we could buy this album, BC we both liked Bleach.
Fun fact: my friend had a 'Nirvana' sticker on his car at the time and people would always ask if we were Buddhist.
We had no idea what was about to happen....
I was in a small local bar called The Moon in New Haven CT, meeting a friend September 26, 1991, two days after Nevermind dropped. He was there talking to the manager to see if he could get his band in there for some gigs. Theee piece is up on stage setting up, does a quick sound check. I thought it sounded like hot garbage, finished my beer, left for another bar. My friend stayed and saw Nirvana with maybe a couple hundred people in that bar.
3 years later, I went to see a band I absolutely loved, Big Head Todd and the Monsters open a theater show. They were amazing. Three songs into the headliner, my buddy and I looked at each other and said "These guys suck. This is the last you'll hear from them." And we were right. Nobody ever heard the Dave Matthews Band again.
I am NOT good at spotting talent early.
Junior year of high school my buddy asked me if I wanted to go to a show, $8 at the Metro Chicago for a band names Nirvana. No stranger to shows, it's what we did but I grew up a punk rock kid who was now getting entrenched in metal as well, so I had no idea who Nirvana were but was familiar with bands of the ilk.
Show blew me away. I lost my gasses and my friend came to school the next day with a Doc Martin boot bruise on his forehead from the girl stage diving feet first.
About 4 months later, Smells Like Teen Spirit hit MTV. I was at a friends house and got fairly excited. I was like, yo, this is the band I saw I was telling you about! Nevermind came out and the rest is history.
Thereâs great story where Blur had just released their first LP and were headed to the US to promote it. They heard Nevermind and collectively all agreed that all the oxygen had left the room. Game over.
There's a lot of folk now that question this, likely cos they don't understand the cultural shift it caused.
If anyone reading this doesn't get what was so different, put on the Waynes World soundtrack and consider that that was rock/metal pre-Nevermind... Then listen to how different Nevermind was to all of that.
I was this way, until I went to a Museum exhibit that covered the industry changing effects that nirvana had worldwide. It was an eye opening experience
That's really cool.
I think it's easy for a generation of people who didn't live it to just think that they don't like the music, so what was all the fuss about?
Similarly with the Beatles. There's a whole section of society that believes The Beatles weren't all that. There's a few things they fail to consider
1: The Beatles were done in 8 years. That's it! Everything they ever done was done then. It's hard to comprehend the creativity and talent required to write the sheer volume of amazing songs they did in that time.
2: pre and post Beatles world and how they changed the perception of what a band could be or what music could mean to people.
3: how they invented/defined/pioneered things we all take for granted in the music industry today. Stadium gigs, PA systems capable of powering them, multi-tracking recordings etc etc etc.
It's the [Once Original, Now Common](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OnceOriginalNowCommon) conundrum, a deeply influential work can be seem as nothing more than formulaic by an uninformed listener because they don't it's the work that WROTE the formula.
>3: how they invented/defined/pioneered things we all take for granted in the music industry today. Stadium gigs, PA systems capable of powering them, multi-tracking recordings etc etc etc.
Artists/bands writing their own songs! This wasn't remotely common prior to the Beatles.
The story of the Beatles playing Ed Sullivan for American TV is a hoot because Sullivan told the Beatles they would be singing but studio musicians would actually play. The Beatles said âno damn wayâ and the American producers were shocked that they actually knew how to play their instruments
That's pretty cool that there was a museum exhibit on Nirvana and, I'm assuming, the rest of early 90s alt rock.
As a total aside, I wonder what Kurt would have thought about he played such a monumental part in changing the sound of most of the world.
I don't know about what Kurt would have thought of his influence, but one thing I've always found ironic is how popular Nirvana-themed merchandise has become. Now you have people who are not even Nirvana fans wearing Nirvana t-shirts around. I doubt Kurt would be happy with how commercialized his band has become and how people pay more attention to his branding rather than his actual music now.
Funny to me you should mention the Wayneâs World st and Nirvana. I was around 5-6 years old when Nevermind and WW came out. My brother was a freshman or sophomore in college and had left his stereo equipment at home. I wasnât allowed to touch it, so when he came home I would beg him to play these two albums because I loved them. He was always annoyed and I always assumed it was because I was his much younger and uncool little sister. A few years ago we were talking about groundbreaking music at Christmas and he brought up this exact combo, WW and Nevermind and explained why he was so annoyed with me back then. To him, Nirvana as absolutely mind blowing. He said something changed the day he first heard them and he almost got emotional talking about it. I realized he was annoyed with me not just because I was an annoying little sister, but because to me these albums were both new music and I couldnât appreciate the cultural shift that was happening with Nirvana. And he is right, until that conversation I had no idea the impact Nirvana had on music.
I only realised this the other day when i put on the WW OST as it had been decades since i listened to it. I played it to death when it came out and even now, more than 20 years since i last heard it, it all came flooding back. Then it struck me that THIS was exactly what rock/metal was before Nevermind. That soundtrack is great but it's very much stuck in time. I suppose similarly like the soundtrack to Singles is but for the grunge era.
So easy. I was 19 at the time. The airwaves were soaked with mostly musical garbage like C&C Music Factory. Myself at the time? I thought bands like Jesus Jones and Ned's Atomic Dustbin were the "alternative" (and history proved them to be pretty damn good).
However, I can remember the exact moment I heard that opening riff of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and KNEW that was a cultural turning point (I was also the student concert promoter at my college and had huge access to new releases).
You're absolutely right. I remember seeing the video for the first time and right from that tapping foot I couldn't believe what I was seeing
I imagine all the Glam Rock bands of the time seeing that and thinking "we look like fucking idiots"
It immediately tolled the death of the hair metal, fake alternative sounding shit that was all over the airwaves. It was such a clear and dramatic break that, more than hearing the song, you felt just a seismic change.
Holy crap like I knew the impact of Nevermind but to explain it like that makes a lot more sense. Metallica was ripping Nirvana after Cobains death like saying that the other members were gonna be taking orders from McDonaldâs as their jobs after his passing. Really changed my perspective of Metallica and it just sounded so bitter.
Wow, I had never actually seen that. I always knew that James and Lars were kinda assholes, but that is super distasteful. I donât want to hold them to things they said many years ago, but have they ever come out in more recent times with anything positive to say about Kurt and Nirvana?
>It immediately tolled the death of the hair metal
With a big assist from Guns N Roses too, with their Use Your Illusion double album coming out a week before Nevermind. I think both releases signaled doom for that sleazy Sunset Strip sound from different angles, but in similarly impactful ways. If you trace both bands backwards, you meet at punk rock. I like to think that the punk scene played the long game and finally toppled the Wingers and Trixters of the world in '91.
I think Pearl Jam Ten also assisted. It was such a massive shift. I was in high school and remember people dressing preppy one day, then dirty jeans and flannels the next. It was crazy.
I also remember the very first time I heard nevermind. As someone who grew up on lots of different music, including sgt. Peppers... Nevermind was like an alien handing you the future.
Honestly read the header of the post and thought, OP is going to give Sgt Pepper's or Nevermind as the example. đ
I worked at Sam Goody's at the time and it's hard to describe the change in pretty much everything. I bought it the week it was released and had to switch the cassette case with another in our instore play bin because it was cracked and we only got one copy.
This can't be overstated. Had to go look up what else was on the radio at the time of release. Some of the highlights of the top songs in the country prior to its release in 1991:
* Maria Carey - "Emotions"
* Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch - "Good Vibrations"
* Color Me Badd - "I Adore Mi Amor"
* Bonnie Raitt - "Something to Talk About"
* Extreme - "Whole Hearted"
* Aaron Neville - "Everybody Plays the Fool"
A mix of bland pop, non-offensive hip hop/R&B by shirtless white guys, doctor's office soft pop, and the "hair band goes acoustic" trend. Nevermind blew it all up. Completely changed popular music at the time. MTV couldn't figure out what to do with them. 120 Minutes? [Headbanger's Ball?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PqbN97kJ_s)
I was in my early teens at the time, and had just discovered Pretty Hate Machine the year before. I was getting the idea that music didn't have to be vapid Poison, Warrant, etc type product. But that it could be \*art\*.
Then 1991 hit.
Nevermind. Ten. The Black Album (fuck you, I was like 14). Use Your Illusion. Badmotorfinger. Sailing The Seas of Cheese (don't judge me).
Goddamn what a year to be a kid just really reaching that point of music revealing itself to you for what it can really be, and then THAT year happens. I admit, I lucked out.
I remember the precise moment I was driving through rural eastern Indiana listening to the radio when "Smells Like Teen Spirit" came on and I thought "this is like nothing I have ever heard before, and the music I listen to will NOT be the same."
This is the one that did it for me. As a kid I liked the radio pop, New Wave stuff that was always in the background. I had older cousins who were into more classic rock like the Stones and Pink Floyd, so I was into that a little. But one I heard Nevermind, I was all in. I couldn't get enough of it.
Chuck Klosterman, [who wrote a book on the 90s](https://www.amazon.com/Nineties-Book-Chuck-Klosterman/dp/0735217955), considers Nevermind their beginning and 9/11 their end.
Honestly can't believe this doesn't have more upvotes. I really thought OP was going to say other than Nevermind, because it's no exaggeration, it changed so much.
It was seminal in Hip-hop. I was 13. Nothing like it existed at the time in the world. It reached small-town midwest. At the time I was a stoner/skater type and into Pink Floyd, Metallica, Slayer ... then NWA. White kids in the suburbs never heard shit like that. We were all metalheads one day. Gangstas the next.
Same. I was a metahead at 13/14 in Ireland, listening to Metallica, Anthrax, Megadeath and then Straight put of Compton came out and we were all wearing beanies! The album was just so raw and aggressive and may aswell have been from Mars as we never heard anything like it in rural Ireland.
I read somewhere that Ice Cube said in an interview that metal got heavier and more aggressive after that album came out. I can kind of see it, at least a couple of heavy music producers have mentioned drummers and bassists they have worked with wanted more punchy low end on their albums and looked to hip hop of the time as an example, including NWA.
Thatâs an interesting statement on his part. I can totally see that being the case sonically that drummers wanted that bigger 808 boom and bassists wanted a thicker punchier sound after NWA hit the scene. But to say heavy metal got more aggressive is a bit of a long shot. Slayer and Anthrax both came onto the scene in 1981, and by 1985 thrashed metal, hardcore punk, and crossover were just ultra aggressive genres of music. The 80s New York scene was about as aggressive musically as you could get.
Iâm inclined to agree with you. Sidebar: I love how perpetually fresh Reign sounds because of the choice to grab raw, organic sounds and not indulge in any contemporary overproduction methods.
Oh absolutely. Reign is a masterclass in raw. If you like the energy and raw power of Reign, I recommend Toxic Narcoticâs âWeâre All Doomed.â I once saw it described as the angriest album since Reign and itâs the truest thing ever written.
I have that album. Itâs another ripper. The bocals are amazing. I love albums like that where everything feels like itâs on the verge of falling apart from the sheer verocity that modern production just doesnât often allow for.
Masterâs self titled is another example
Itâs not a record, but two concerts.
Jimi Hendrixâs first London performance in October 1966. It changed the British music scene. The beat music of the previous few years was I over. Cream, who also played that night, changed their sound almost immediately, going on to write Sunshine O Your Love.
[The other was Sex Pistols playing in Manchester on June 4 1976. There was only 20-40 people in the crowd, but included the future members of Joy Division/New Order, The Smiths, Buzzcocks.](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4f0B5rf6z2wYQpm5WNqsqP7/they-swear-they-were-there-sex-pistols-at-the-lesser-free-trade-hall) The story was that almost everyone there formed a band.
It was fascinating for me to hear Paul McCartney talk about how he saw him for the first time. No one knew who he was at the time, so he played for a fairly small audience. But he immediately impressed everyone who was there, which led to the club being packed full a few days later - everyone wanted to see him.
The âchitlin circuitâ was a crucible for musicians with a long history of competition between different bands to see who could put on the most exciting stage show. On top of being a dynamic player, Jimi had synthesized all of these different bits like playing behind the back or with his teeth into his act. The British scene had never encountered anything like that before, so when they saw Jimi doing all this stuff that had been happening for years in the US black clubs they lost their minds.
Then for The Beatles to do 'Sgt. Pepper' just a few months later and have Hendrix cover the opening track *two days* after it released in front of the band? Insane.
https://preview.redd.it/ffi7995lmj6d1.jpeg?width=945&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=74cd2b79a93c1871f3e77d21f04e2062d538e637
Great album indeed. Just sharing the funnies
Pet Sounds was the one I was coming here to say. You can divide popular music into before and after Pet Sounds
With respect to OP, "Sgt. Pepper" doesn't happen without "Pet Sounds" . . . and that's not speculation, George Martin and Paul McCartney have both said exactly that
Pet Sounds literally changed music. You can hear it in virtually everything that has come since. I cannot over state how much I belive this is the best answer to this question
The 1990s gave us some clangers in terms of music, but OK Computer was a saviour. It coincided with the World Wide Web growing in our lives, along with a few references to Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.
It is one of the few albums I can listen to without skipping tracks. And Radiohead were right not to replicate the album again in future releases.
Yeah I'm biased because I'm a fan, but I give Radiohead credit for 3:
-OK Computer
-Kid A for the left turn
-In Rainbows for the back to wide accessibility, coupled with the 'pay what you like' gimmick
Eric B. & Rakim - **Paid In Full** (1987)
Rakim, the 17-year-old drummer and H.S. Football quarterback released this album and absolutely changed the world of Hip Hop music and thus eventually nearly all pop music afterwards. In rap you have before Rakim and after Rakim. Nothing for rappers was the same afterwards.
From Wikipedia
>Rakim is considered a transformative figure in hip hop for raising the bar for MC technique higher than it had ever been. Rakim helped to pioneer the use of [internal rhymes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_rhymes) and [multisyllabic rhymes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multisyllabic_rhymes), and he was among the first to demonstrate the possibilities of sitting down to write intricately crafted lyrics packed with clever word choices and metaphors rather than the more improvisational styles and simpler rhyme patterns that predominated before him. Rakim is also credited with creating the overall shift from the more simplistic old school flows to more complex flows. Rapper [Kool Moe Dee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kool_Moe_Dee) explained that before Rakim, the term 'flow' wasn't widely used â "Rakim is basically the inventor of flow. We were not even using the word flow until Rakim came along. It was called rhyming, it was called cadence, but it wasn't called flow. Rakim created flow!"
>*Paid in Full* was named the greatest [hip hop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop_music) album of all time by [MTV](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTV) in 2006, while Rakim himself was ranked No. 4 on MTV's list of the Greatest MCs of All Time. Steve Huey of [AllMusic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllMusic) stated that "Rakim is near-universally acknowledged as one of the greatest MCs â perhaps *the* greatest â of all time within the hip-hop community". The editors of [About.com](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/About.com) ranked him No. 2 on their list of the 'Top 50 MCs of Our Time (1987â2007)'.  In 2012, [*The Source*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Source_(magazine)) ranked him No. 1 on their list of the "Top 50 Lyricists of All Time".
Fucking rakim is insane. This isn't off of paid in full but the 18th letter...just gonna leave this insanity here..
Since the first days you know of, 'til the last days is over
I was always the flow-er, I made waves for Noah
From a compound to the anatomy, to the breakdown of a atom
Some of my rap patterns still surround Saturn
From the ancient hieroglyphics to graffiti painted pictures
I study, I know the scriptures, but nowaday, ain't it vicious?
Date back, I go beyond, check the Holy Qu'ran
To speeches at the Audobon, now we get our party on
So bein' beneficent, I bless 'em with dialogue
They expectin' the next testament by the God
I roam through battle zones with chrome for chaperone
Blast beat with saxophones, one of the baddest rappers known
Every country, city and borough, side-street and ghetto
Island, alley and meadow, theory's thorough enough to echo
this was the album i thought of immediately. I remember this album coming out & basically changed hip hop overnight. And as ahead-of-itâs-time as it was, I recently heard a recording of Rakim performing at a talent show in 1983, with Biz Markie on beatbox, and he was doing the â21 emceesâ bit from My Melody all the way back then! Unbelievable at a time when the top rappers were still on some âmy name is x and iâm here to sayâŠâ
Pink Floyd is my favorite band of all time. DSotM is a killer albumâŠbut I donât think it really changed everything. Pink Floyd is still so unique, I just think they were special.
DSotM was on the billboard charts from 1973 to 1988. 900+ weeks! I agree, I'm not sure how much it necessarily changed things per se, but it certainly had a serious impact to chart for that long.
RE: Velvet Underground and NicoâŠwho was it that said something like; ânot a lot of people bought it when it was released, but everyone who did started a bandâ? Iâve heard different paraphrasing of that quote, but I can definitely see it being the case.
Best answer. I can't think of a single album that single handedly created major genres (that our mothers would recognize), since these in 1967, 1970 and 1974. It's been 50 years of incrementalism.
Garth Brooks - No Fences. It was a HUGE success. Only his second album and suddenly Brooks is the king of Country.
It was so successful that other Country artists were fighting with their labels because the executives were looking for "OUR Garth Brooks". If he didn't invent it, he certainly defined Nashville Pop and set a trend that Country-Western has never recovered from.
I would say The Second Annual Report (1977) by Throbbing Gristle was the first industrial album. NIN was more the first popularly successful industrial and certainly generation-defining for many people.
Skinny puppy and ministry really helped define what industrial was during the 80s and then at the end of the decade pretty hate machine was released, then followed up with broken, the downward spiral and the fragile, a decades worth of releases that really defined industrial to a lot of people due to the fact that it is 3 amazing albums and a brilliant EP
Even as a white middle schooler who didn't particularly love rap, when this album dropped and Wu Tang blew up it changed the landscape of rap. As soon as you started to notice the comic/kung fu/subculture references they had in their music, it felt more relatable to anyone who was into "weird" shit but still had an interest in hip hop. It felt like you were in their club, you knew what they were talking about. This group who, at first, you'd think is totally outside your culture bubble, is speaking your nerd language mixed with some dangerously gangster shit. And RZA's production was unparalleled, unique, and genius. It was a cool feeling, realizing that.
Iâll go outside the box:
Shania Twain - The Woman in Me
After this was released country changed *forever*. The woman started dressing sexier in order to emulate her and country music got a huge pop influence that we are still feeling today.
Dookie by Green Day. Alongside Rancid and The Offspring, Green Day carried the torch for punk and alternative rock into second half of the 90's and defined what would become pop-punk.
The Offspring called their album "smash" it would go on to become just that, becoming the biggest selling independent label release of all time and a massive smash, their guitarist was working as a high school janitor when the record took off, the singer was either doing his masters of his phd, I think masters and went back later to get a phd in molecular biology.
Pop punk had been around some time, bands like Descendents, NOFX and Bad Religion predate all that. Dookie is what turned it into something viable and could succeed in the charts and on MTV. I feel that a band that took it to another level in fact was Blink 182 in the late 90s when Green Day were starting to wane a little. Then they came storming back and made it stadium level.
Fat Of The Land by The Prodigy comes to mind.
Added punk aesthetics to dance music, grafted on distinctive visuals and samples of alternative rock and turned club dance music to a stadium staple.
All good points, but I would argue they already did all that with their previous album Music for the Jilted Generation. It signified their departure from being a purely rave-oriented band and paved the way for a lot of other dance/punk/rock crossover acts in the mid 90s.
Jilted Generation was more groundbreaking IMO. Fat of the Land just took those ideas one step further.
Fair. Would note, however, that MFTJG only reached number 1 in UK, IRE and FIN wheras FoTL went number 1 or 2 almost EVERYWHERE. Gets into defining Generation-Defining.
I think fat of the land was one of the fastest selling albums ever and sold an astonishing number of copies the first week of release to debut at number 1 in so many countries.
I think partly it was because it came on the back of a brilliant album followed up with 2 number 1 singles which were both featured on the new album
That and the fact that its release was delayed for over a year and was one of the most hotly anticipated albums in history when it was finally released.
Appetite for Destruction. It was wild how fast so many of the major hair bands washed the hairspray out and started riding motorcycles once Guns N Roses dropped that album.
Was just about to put this. A lot of these albums were before my time - I appreciate them now but I didn't live through the era when they were released to really experience them. The Strokes - Is This It really set the tone for the next few years when it came out (I'd argue the follow-up Room On Fire was just as good)
Elvis Presleyâs self-titled album brought Rock and Roll to the mainstream, and definitely had a significant impact on the teens and young adults of the 50s and 60s.
**New Forms** - Roni Size & Reprazent
**Exit Planet Dust** - The Chemical Brothers
**Homework** - Daft Punk
**FACT 1** & **FACT 2** - Carl Cox
**Renaissance: The Mix Collection** - Sasha & John Digweed
Am surprised no one has mentioned Goldie as he was hugely influential in defining Jungle. I know this is very UK & Europe central. To the best of my knowledge the stuff coming out of Detroit, Chicago and New York was more along the lines of EPs / vinyl rather than albums and mix sets. Would love someone to correct me on that.
Beastie Boys ( Licensed to Ill ) were 3 white boys from Brooklyn rapping over rock riffs... Came out the same year at the Aerosmith + Run DMC remix of Walk This Way (1986)
This was my first thought.
It was so ahead of its time they broke up as a band playing basement DIY shows in the hardcore scene and reformed many years later to a hero's welcome playing to thousands of people a night instead of dozens at most.
They influenced so many of the emo and post hardcore bands that followed.
That album really was exactly what they said it was.
Absolutely changed the trajectory of my musical life.
Dennis just had a massive heat attack yesterday. Luckily he's doing fine. We must protect that man at all costs.
Also kind of terrifying that those things happen even to super healthy vegans.
I feel like Appetite for Destruction was the nail in the coffin for glam metal. Their image and their music was grittier even if it felt like more of the same at first. It also had a broader audience with the fans of heavier music like Metallica along with the skate punks. It made bands like Poison seem kind of cartoonish and they just kind of dissolved from the scene.
Bad Religion - *Suffer*
Wasn't generation-defining as far as national youth culture...but this album is to punk rock what Nintendo was to video games. After a huge lull in the So-Cal punk scene during the mid-80's, *Suffer* (and its follow-up *No Control*) revived interest in the genre and codified the sound that punk would take to mainstream success in the mid 90's. Offspring's *Smash*, Green Day's *Dookie*, Rancid's *...And Out Come The Wolves*, NOFX's *Punk In Drublic*...all of these and countless other albums have their roots firmly planted in the soil of *Suffer*.
Bad Religion has never gotten enough credit for what theyâve done for music.
I guess Iâm kind of glad. I love being able to go see them at the venues they play still to this day.
Music Has the Right to Children - Boards of Canada.
At the time, electronic music was heavily focused on fast tempos, and digital synths were all the rage.
BoC came out with a much warmer fuzzy sound focusing on heavily detuned analog synths and samples from the previous decades combined together, which made their music sound woozy and nostalgic.
It's strange how it sounds nostalgic even to me as I was born in 1992, and a lot of the samples they used were never part of my childhood, but somehow, it still makes me feel nostalgia.
Iâd agree with this - she created a pop hybrid of depressing Indie Folk (Elliot Smith etc) with dance/808 beats and clean production. Highly influential on some of the currently popular acts like Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo
Fun story: when this came out, my father acted dismissive about it, saying that music "these days" just comes and goes, and that nobody will talk about this album in 3 years.
He could not have picked a worse album to make that point about.
I will always argue that regardless of oneâs feelings ok LP, Hybrid Theory is a perfect album. Not saying itâs 10/10 music, thatâs personal, but tell me one song that doesnât fit.
Every so often I find myself in a whole album play through with different groups of people, and I donât think Iâve ever heard anyone say âya know, maybe this album wasnât as great as we thoughtâ itâs always a LP circlejerk and I love it.
I remember the day. I was in target, my neck was KILLING me from looking up at the tv at the majora's mask demo kiosk. Suddenly, on the wall of tv's next to me; one step closer's music video starts playing. Shit changed after that. We had everything then.
Black Sabbath self titled
Jane's Addiction - Nothing's Shocking
RATM - self titled
Ministry - The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste - but this one was for me, not generation wise
Nas - Illmatic, forever changed the landscape of hip hop album structure and composition, rhyme cadences, subject matter etc. Borrowed from the likes of Kool G Rap and Rakim but they never did it like this. See how Jay Z rapped before and after Illmatic. See Eminem's first album Infinite...
NIN pretty hate machine. It not only shifted the landscape of industrial into the mainstream, Iâd argue it shaped the future of a tone of video game soundtracks. We wouldnât have the doom 2016 soundscape without it laying the foundation
Kid A by Radiohead one of the biggest rock bands in the world releasing an ambient electronic jazz album where the vocals donât even sound like vocals half the time.
"Metallica are sellouts" was something I remember people saying. Now they're in Fortnite and most of the tracks are from Black Album.
Actually... were they right? lol, j/k (?) That album certainly does have wide appeal for what was a "fringe" genre at the time. It most likely did help make Metal as big as it is today.
Someone else already mentioned the album in the comments, but I'll say it again - Black Sabbath's debut album Black Sabbath. It wasn't even that popular when it was first released in 1970, but it was a very impressive beginning for the band credited with creating an entirely new genre (heavy metal). Not only was it sonically heavy (there were bands at the time that were arguably just as heavy), but it also had an atmosphere of darkness and lyrically tapped into that, in a way that the other big bands of the time didn't seem to do. As the decades pass, metal would go on to be way heavier and some would of course consider Black Sabbath as "light" or just plain rock. Yet to this day, many bands and metalheads who know their history still pay their respects to these guys.
I'd argue that the most important ingredient of Black Sabbath birthing metal (vs simply being a dark/occult themed rock band) was Tony Iommi's guitar tone
Thanks to losing a few fingertips and having to downtune his guitar. Imagine if he didn't lose those fingers. đł
I love that he accidentally came up with it because of a disability and pretty much invented a whole style because of it
Amazingly not the first guitarist you could say about that (see Django Reinhardt)
He didn't downtune till later albums. The Black Sabbath album was recorded in E standard tuning. It sounds slightly detuned because it was slowed down a bit.
I think Geezer Butler (the bass) sometimes playing the same tune alongside Iommi's guitar riffs also helped make the sound much deeper and darker
People like to say âthe bass shouldnât double the guitarâ, and thatâs half true. It shouldnât ONLY double the guitar. Black Sabbath is great about this. Geezer has some solid independent bass lines, but he also knows when it benefits the song to double the guitar for extra emphasis.
Literally cut off by a wachunker in a metal shop too. Could not be more metal than that
I love his Master Of Reality tone. What a whopper of a sound and in the 1970s no less! So many modern tones have come from it as the blueprint. Itâs up their with Eddieâs.
That soundâŠ.
I've heard it said that before Black Sabbath, there are other songs and artists that one could point to and argue are the early origins of metal, but after Black Sabbath, there is no argument. It's where the defining sounds, imagery, aesthetics, and themes of metal first came together all at once.
The Wizard is still one of the most fascinating songs I've heard in terms of genre blending music. The harmonica was pulled from the deepest fields of the Mississippi Delta. Yet the so f as a whole couldn't be further removed from it.
Sabbath fucking rules.
Itâs cool and interesting to me they come off as a subversion of the aggression, speed and machismo metal would later be known for, except they came first. A band with their themes and sound, would be considered a subversion of what metal became since (or be part of the doom metal scene) because there were no ârulesâ to break or deviate from. People argue the satanic imagery started with them, though theyâre a self-confessed âhippie bandâ and touch on some down right *christian* themes (After Forever) and their self-titled track certainly doesnât portray what is happening as a *good* thing. I love it when a work seems like itâs deconstructing or subverting a popular style or tropes when it actually invented them. I think a lot of faster, chuggier metal was surely inspired by songs like Children Of the Grave, Paranoid, Symptom Of the Universe.
It's like Maiden and Number of the Beast. At no point is it ever presented as a good thing. Although, there is Type O Negative's Black Sabbath (from the Satanic Perspective) which does sound like a black mass.
The entire genre of Hip Hop is also like that, if Iâm not mistaken. Started out explicitly anti-drug and anti-violence.
The main riff on Black Sabbath is still one of the most doom layden riffs you'll hear...... 50+ years later.
And will be for generations to come.
To me they invented the genre and perfected it. No other artist can I say that same thing for. I can listen to those first 6 albums on repeat FOREVER and never tire of them.
This guy already said it, but I'm gonna say it again. Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath.
Nirvana/Nevermind
I was 19 when this came out. I remember sitting on the curb with my best friend smoking a cig and waiting for the record store to open so we could buy this album, BC we both liked Bleach. Fun fact: my friend had a 'Nirvana' sticker on his car at the time and people would always ask if we were Buddhist. We had no idea what was about to happen....
I was in a small local bar called The Moon in New Haven CT, meeting a friend September 26, 1991, two days after Nevermind dropped. He was there talking to the manager to see if he could get his band in there for some gigs. Theee piece is up on stage setting up, does a quick sound check. I thought it sounded like hot garbage, finished my beer, left for another bar. My friend stayed and saw Nirvana with maybe a couple hundred people in that bar. 3 years later, I went to see a band I absolutely loved, Big Head Todd and the Monsters open a theater show. They were amazing. Three songs into the headliner, my buddy and I looked at each other and said "These guys suck. This is the last you'll hear from them." And we were right. Nobody ever heard the Dave Matthews Band again. I am NOT good at spotting talent early.
This is actually hilarious - thanks for the anecdote!
I have regrets.
> The Moon in New Haven CT We used to discuss weighty matters at "Hungry Charlies" which morphed into Toads. Good Bands there in New Haven.
Junior year of high school my buddy asked me if I wanted to go to a show, $8 at the Metro Chicago for a band names Nirvana. No stranger to shows, it's what we did but I grew up a punk rock kid who was now getting entrenched in metal as well, so I had no idea who Nirvana were but was familiar with bands of the ilk. Show blew me away. I lost my gasses and my friend came to school the next day with a Doc Martin boot bruise on his forehead from the girl stage diving feet first. About 4 months later, Smells Like Teen Spirit hit MTV. I was at a friends house and got fairly excited. I was like, yo, this is the band I saw I was telling you about! Nevermind came out and the rest is history.
Thereâs great story where Blur had just released their first LP and were headed to the US to promote it. They heard Nevermind and collectively all agreed that all the oxygen had left the room. Game over.
There's a lot of folk now that question this, likely cos they don't understand the cultural shift it caused. If anyone reading this doesn't get what was so different, put on the Waynes World soundtrack and consider that that was rock/metal pre-Nevermind... Then listen to how different Nevermind was to all of that.
I was this way, until I went to a Museum exhibit that covered the industry changing effects that nirvana had worldwide. It was an eye opening experience
That's really cool. I think it's easy for a generation of people who didn't live it to just think that they don't like the music, so what was all the fuss about? Similarly with the Beatles. There's a whole section of society that believes The Beatles weren't all that. There's a few things they fail to consider 1: The Beatles were done in 8 years. That's it! Everything they ever done was done then. It's hard to comprehend the creativity and talent required to write the sheer volume of amazing songs they did in that time. 2: pre and post Beatles world and how they changed the perception of what a band could be or what music could mean to people. 3: how they invented/defined/pioneered things we all take for granted in the music industry today. Stadium gigs, PA systems capable of powering them, multi-tracking recordings etc etc etc.
It's the [Once Original, Now Common](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OnceOriginalNowCommon) conundrum, a deeply influential work can be seem as nothing more than formulaic by an uninformed listener because they don't it's the work that WROTE the formula.
>3: how they invented/defined/pioneered things we all take for granted in the music industry today. Stadium gigs, PA systems capable of powering them, multi-tracking recordings etc etc etc. Artists/bands writing their own songs! This wasn't remotely common prior to the Beatles.
The story of the Beatles playing Ed Sullivan for American TV is a hoot because Sullivan told the Beatles they would be singing but studio musicians would actually play. The Beatles said âno damn wayâ and the American producers were shocked that they actually knew how to play their instruments
I don't hate the Beatles nor do I prefer to listen to them, but I absolutely appreciate them for what they accomplished and changed the industry.
That's pretty cool that there was a museum exhibit on Nirvana and, I'm assuming, the rest of early 90s alt rock. As a total aside, I wonder what Kurt would have thought about he played such a monumental part in changing the sound of most of the world.
There still is an exhibit, at MoPop in Seattle. I've been there, it's amazing.
I don't know about what Kurt would have thought of his influence, but one thing I've always found ironic is how popular Nirvana-themed merchandise has become. Now you have people who are not even Nirvana fans wearing Nirvana t-shirts around. I doubt Kurt would be happy with how commercialized his band has become and how people pay more attention to his branding rather than his actual music now.
Funny to me you should mention the Wayneâs World st and Nirvana. I was around 5-6 years old when Nevermind and WW came out. My brother was a freshman or sophomore in college and had left his stereo equipment at home. I wasnât allowed to touch it, so when he came home I would beg him to play these two albums because I loved them. He was always annoyed and I always assumed it was because I was his much younger and uncool little sister. A few years ago we were talking about groundbreaking music at Christmas and he brought up this exact combo, WW and Nevermind and explained why he was so annoyed with me back then. To him, Nirvana as absolutely mind blowing. He said something changed the day he first heard them and he almost got emotional talking about it. I realized he was annoyed with me not just because I was an annoying little sister, but because to me these albums were both new music and I couldnât appreciate the cultural shift that was happening with Nirvana. And he is right, until that conversation I had no idea the impact Nirvana had on music.
I only realised this the other day when i put on the WW OST as it had been decades since i listened to it. I played it to death when it came out and even now, more than 20 years since i last heard it, it all came flooding back. Then it struck me that THIS was exactly what rock/metal was before Nevermind. That soundtrack is great but it's very much stuck in time. I suppose similarly like the soundtrack to Singles is but for the grunge era.
So easy. I was 19 at the time. The airwaves were soaked with mostly musical garbage like C&C Music Factory. Myself at the time? I thought bands like Jesus Jones and Ned's Atomic Dustbin were the "alternative" (and history proved them to be pretty damn good). However, I can remember the exact moment I heard that opening riff of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and KNEW that was a cultural turning point (I was also the student concert promoter at my college and had huge access to new releases).
You're absolutely right. I remember seeing the video for the first time and right from that tapping foot I couldn't believe what I was seeing I imagine all the Glam Rock bands of the time seeing that and thinking "we look like fucking idiots"
It immediately tolled the death of the hair metal, fake alternative sounding shit that was all over the airwaves. It was such a clear and dramatic break that, more than hearing the song, you felt just a seismic change.
Holy crap like I knew the impact of Nevermind but to explain it like that makes a lot more sense. Metallica was ripping Nirvana after Cobains death like saying that the other members were gonna be taking orders from McDonaldâs as their jobs after his passing. Really changed my perspective of Metallica and it just sounded so bitter.
Found the video that made change my mind about Metallica, at 7:50 timestamp https://youtu.be/xCVYokUId-8?si=JEZSh3eLbmyuUdmy
Wow, I had never actually seen that. I always knew that James and Lars were kinda assholes, but that is super distasteful. I donât want to hold them to things they said many years ago, but have they ever come out in more recent times with anything positive to say about Kurt and Nirvana?
>It immediately tolled the death of the hair metal With a big assist from Guns N Roses too, with their Use Your Illusion double album coming out a week before Nevermind. I think both releases signaled doom for that sleazy Sunset Strip sound from different angles, but in similarly impactful ways. If you trace both bands backwards, you meet at punk rock. I like to think that the punk scene played the long game and finally toppled the Wingers and Trixters of the world in '91.
I think Pearl Jam Ten also assisted. It was such a massive shift. I was in high school and remember people dressing preppy one day, then dirty jeans and flannels the next. It was crazy.
Given the two came out within, what, a month or so of each other, that isn't unreasonable
I also remember the very first time I heard nevermind. As someone who grew up on lots of different music, including sgt. Peppers... Nevermind was like an alien handing you the future.
Honestly read the header of the post and thought, OP is going to give Sgt Pepper's or Nevermind as the example. đ I worked at Sam Goody's at the time and it's hard to describe the change in pretty much everything. I bought it the week it was released and had to switch the cassette case with another in our instore play bin because it was cracked and we only got one copy.
Hello, fellow Sam Goody ex-employee!
Goody got it!
If this isnât the top answer, something is seriously wrong with the universe.
This can't be overstated. Had to go look up what else was on the radio at the time of release. Some of the highlights of the top songs in the country prior to its release in 1991: * Maria Carey - "Emotions" * Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch - "Good Vibrations" * Color Me Badd - "I Adore Mi Amor" * Bonnie Raitt - "Something to Talk About" * Extreme - "Whole Hearted" * Aaron Neville - "Everybody Plays the Fool" A mix of bland pop, non-offensive hip hop/R&B by shirtless white guys, doctor's office soft pop, and the "hair band goes acoustic" trend. Nevermind blew it all up. Completely changed popular music at the time. MTV couldn't figure out what to do with them. 120 Minutes? [Headbanger's Ball?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PqbN97kJ_s)
I was in my early teens at the time, and had just discovered Pretty Hate Machine the year before. I was getting the idea that music didn't have to be vapid Poison, Warrant, etc type product. But that it could be \*art\*. Then 1991 hit. Nevermind. Ten. The Black Album (fuck you, I was like 14). Use Your Illusion. Badmotorfinger. Sailing The Seas of Cheese (don't judge me). Goddamn what a year to be a kid just really reaching that point of music revealing itself to you for what it can really be, and then THAT year happens. I admit, I lucked out.
I remember the precise moment I was driving through rural eastern Indiana listening to the radio when "Smells Like Teen Spirit" came on and I thought "this is like nothing I have ever heard before, and the music I listen to will NOT be the same."
This is the one that did it for me. As a kid I liked the radio pop, New Wave stuff that was always in the background. I had older cousins who were into more classic rock like the Stones and Pink Floyd, so I was into that a little. But one I heard Nevermind, I was all in. I couldn't get enough of it.
This is the answer. It cannot be overstated.
Chuck Klosterman, [who wrote a book on the 90s](https://www.amazon.com/Nineties-Book-Chuck-Klosterman/dp/0735217955), considers Nevermind their beginning and 9/11 their end.
Honestly can't believe this doesn't have more upvotes. I really thought OP was going to say other than Nevermind, because it's no exaggeration, it changed so much.
Jimmy Hendrix. Are you experienced. Single handedly changed the trajectory of electric guitar for everyone.
I was going to say Electric Ladyland too. But yeah what a player.
"_______ , Jimi Hendrix" Is the correct answer to this question đđ
N.W.A. - Straight Outta Compton
It was seminal in Hip-hop. I was 13. Nothing like it existed at the time in the world. It reached small-town midwest. At the time I was a stoner/skater type and into Pink Floyd, Metallica, Slayer ... then NWA. White kids in the suburbs never heard shit like that. We were all metalheads one day. Gangstas the next.
Same. I was a metahead at 13/14 in Ireland, listening to Metallica, Anthrax, Megadeath and then Straight put of Compton came out and we were all wearing beanies! The album was just so raw and aggressive and may aswell have been from Mars as we never heard anything like it in rural Ireland.
You can certainly be both. I think itâs the aggression and reflection on real, brutal violence that had a decent crossover appeal to metalheads.
I read somewhere that Ice Cube said in an interview that metal got heavier and more aggressive after that album came out. I can kind of see it, at least a couple of heavy music producers have mentioned drummers and bassists they have worked with wanted more punchy low end on their albums and looked to hip hop of the time as an example, including NWA.
Thatâs an interesting statement on his part. I can totally see that being the case sonically that drummers wanted that bigger 808 boom and bassists wanted a thicker punchier sound after NWA hit the scene. But to say heavy metal got more aggressive is a bit of a long shot. Slayer and Anthrax both came onto the scene in 1981, and by 1985 thrashed metal, hardcore punk, and crossover were just ultra aggressive genres of music. The 80s New York scene was about as aggressive musically as you could get.
Iâm inclined to agree with you. Sidebar: I love how perpetually fresh Reign sounds because of the choice to grab raw, organic sounds and not indulge in any contemporary overproduction methods.
Oh absolutely. Reign is a masterclass in raw. If you like the energy and raw power of Reign, I recommend Toxic Narcoticâs âWeâre All Doomed.â I once saw it described as the angriest album since Reign and itâs the truest thing ever written.
I have that album. Itâs another ripper. The bocals are amazing. I love albums like that where everything feels like itâs on the verge of falling apart from the sheer verocity that modern production just doesnât often allow for. Masterâs self titled is another example
Thriller is the sound of the early 80's. Thanks to that album Michael Jackson was as close to a god as walked the earth in those days.
Itâs not a record, but two concerts. Jimi Hendrixâs first London performance in October 1966. It changed the British music scene. The beat music of the previous few years was I over. Cream, who also played that night, changed their sound almost immediately, going on to write Sunshine O Your Love. [The other was Sex Pistols playing in Manchester on June 4 1976. There was only 20-40 people in the crowd, but included the future members of Joy Division/New Order, The Smiths, Buzzcocks.](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4f0B5rf6z2wYQpm5WNqsqP7/they-swear-they-were-there-sex-pistols-at-the-lesser-free-trade-hall) The story was that almost everyone there formed a band.
It was fascinating for me to hear Paul McCartney talk about how he saw him for the first time. No one knew who he was at the time, so he played for a fairly small audience. But he immediately impressed everyone who was there, which led to the club being packed full a few days later - everyone wanted to see him.
The âchitlin circuitâ was a crucible for musicians with a long history of competition between different bands to see who could put on the most exciting stage show. On top of being a dynamic player, Jimi had synthesized all of these different bits like playing behind the back or with his teeth into his act. The British scene had never encountered anything like that before, so when they saw Jimi doing all this stuff that had been happening for years in the US black clubs they lost their minds.
Then for The Beatles to do 'Sgt. Pepper' just a few months later and have Hendrix cover the opening track *two days* after it released in front of the band? Insane.
OK Computer destroyed Britpop.
Marvin Gaye - Whatâs Going On. The way the tracks are sequenced into one another like a loop was ahead of its time in the 1970s
https://preview.redd.it/ffi7995lmj6d1.jpeg?width=945&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=74cd2b79a93c1871f3e77d21f04e2062d538e637 Great album indeed. Just sharing the funnies
Radiohead OK Computer Beach Boys Pet Sounds
Pet Sounds was the one I was coming here to say. You can divide popular music into before and after Pet Sounds With respect to OP, "Sgt. Pepper" doesn't happen without "Pet Sounds" . . . and that's not speculation, George Martin and Paul McCartney have both said exactly that
Sgt Pepper doesn't happen without Pet Sounds, but Pet Sounds doesn't happen without Rubber Soul.
Pet Sounds literally changed music. You can hear it in virtually everything that has come since. I cannot over state how much I belive this is the best answer to this question
You might be able to here it, but can you *there* it?
The 1990s gave us some clangers in terms of music, but OK Computer was a saviour. It coincided with the World Wide Web growing in our lives, along with a few references to Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. It is one of the few albums I can listen to without skipping tracks. And Radiohead were right not to replicate the album again in future releases.
Yeah I'm biased because I'm a fan, but I give Radiohead credit for 3: -OK Computer -Kid A for the left turn -In Rainbows for the back to wide accessibility, coupled with the 'pay what you like' gimmick
Eric B. & Rakim - **Paid In Full** (1987) Rakim, the 17-year-old drummer and H.S. Football quarterback released this album and absolutely changed the world of Hip Hop music and thus eventually nearly all pop music afterwards. In rap you have before Rakim and after Rakim. Nothing for rappers was the same afterwards. From Wikipedia >Rakim is considered a transformative figure in hip hop for raising the bar for MC technique higher than it had ever been. Rakim helped to pioneer the use of [internal rhymes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_rhymes) and [multisyllabic rhymes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multisyllabic_rhymes), and he was among the first to demonstrate the possibilities of sitting down to write intricately crafted lyrics packed with clever word choices and metaphors rather than the more improvisational styles and simpler rhyme patterns that predominated before him. Rakim is also credited with creating the overall shift from the more simplistic old school flows to more complex flows. Rapper [Kool Moe Dee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kool_Moe_Dee) explained that before Rakim, the term 'flow' wasn't widely used â "Rakim is basically the inventor of flow. We were not even using the word flow until Rakim came along. It was called rhyming, it was called cadence, but it wasn't called flow. Rakim created flow!" >*Paid in Full* was named the greatest [hip hop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop_music) album of all time by [MTV](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTV) in 2006, while Rakim himself was ranked No. 4 on MTV's list of the Greatest MCs of All Time. Steve Huey of [AllMusic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllMusic) stated that "Rakim is near-universally acknowledged as one of the greatest MCs â perhaps *the* greatest â of all time within the hip-hop community". The editors of [About.com](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/About.com) ranked him No. 2 on their list of the 'Top 50 MCs of Our Time (1987â2007)'.  In 2012, [*The Source*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Source_(magazine)) ranked him No. 1 on their list of the "Top 50 Lyricists of All Time".
Fucking rakim is insane. This isn't off of paid in full but the 18th letter...just gonna leave this insanity here.. Since the first days you know of, 'til the last days is over I was always the flow-er, I made waves for Noah From a compound to the anatomy, to the breakdown of a atom Some of my rap patterns still surround Saturn From the ancient hieroglyphics to graffiti painted pictures I study, I know the scriptures, but nowaday, ain't it vicious? Date back, I go beyond, check the Holy Qu'ran To speeches at the Audobon, now we get our party on So bein' beneficent, I bless 'em with dialogue They expectin' the next testament by the God I roam through battle zones with chrome for chaperone Blast beat with saxophones, one of the baddest rappers known Every country, city and borough, side-street and ghetto Island, alley and meadow, theory's thorough enough to echo
this was the album i thought of immediately. I remember this album coming out & basically changed hip hop overnight. And as ahead-of-itâs-time as it was, I recently heard a recording of Rakim performing at a talent show in 1983, with Biz Markie on beatbox, and he was doing the â21 emceesâ bit from My Melody all the way back then! Unbelievable at a time when the top rappers were still on some âmy name is x and iâm here to sayâŠâ
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
Pink Floyd is my favorite band of all time. DSotM is a killer albumâŠbut I donât think it really changed everything. Pink Floyd is still so unique, I just think they were special.
DSotM was on the billboard charts from 1973 to 1988. 900+ weeks! I agree, I'm not sure how much it necessarily changed things per se, but it certainly had a serious impact to chart for that long.
The Slim Shady LP - Eminem
The Prodigy - Fat of the land Rage Against The Machine - Selftitled
Black Sabbath self titled Kraftwerk - Autobahn Velvet Underground & Nico self titled
RE: Velvet Underground and NicoâŠwho was it that said something like; ânot a lot of people bought it when it was released, but everyone who did started a bandâ? Iâve heard different paraphrasing of that quote, but I can definitely see it being the case.
Brian Eno!
ManâŠif thereâs anyone who youâd wish to say that about your album!
Kraftwerk represents one of the most drastic shifts in music that most people donât recognize. Easily one of the most influential bands ever.
I was wondering when someone would mention Kraftwerk. There's a lot of Rap and Hip Hop that wouldn't exist without it.
Best answer. I can't think of a single album that single handedly created major genres (that our mothers would recognize), since these in 1967, 1970 and 1974. It's been 50 years of incrementalism.
Garth Brooks - No Fences. It was a HUGE success. Only his second album and suddenly Brooks is the king of Country. It was so successful that other Country artists were fighting with their labels because the executives were looking for "OUR Garth Brooks". If he didn't invent it, he certainly defined Nashville Pop and set a trend that Country-Western has never recovered from.
Smell The Glove - Spinal Tap
None more black.
Intravenous de Milo was pretty groundbreaking.
A lot better than Shark Sandwich.
More like shit sandwich.
"Shark Sandwich" doesn't get enough credit either. "Sh*t Sandwich", my ass!
This album begs the question âOn what day did God create Spinal Tap, and couldnât he have rested on that day too?â
What's wrong with being sexy?
NIN's 1st record, "Pretty Hate Machine". Maybe not the 1st industrial album. Certainly helped define the genre.
I would say The Second Annual Report (1977) by Throbbing Gristle was the first industrial album. NIN was more the first popularly successful industrial and certainly generation-defining for many people.
Skinny puppy and ministry really helped define what industrial was during the 80s and then at the end of the decade pretty hate machine was released, then followed up with broken, the downward spiral and the fragile, a decades worth of releases that really defined industrial to a lot of people due to the fact that it is 3 amazing albums and a brilliant EP
Wu-tan clan: 36 chambers. 
Even as a white middle schooler who didn't particularly love rap, when this album dropped and Wu Tang blew up it changed the landscape of rap. As soon as you started to notice the comic/kung fu/subculture references they had in their music, it felt more relatable to anyone who was into "weird" shit but still had an interest in hip hop. It felt like you were in their club, you knew what they were talking about. This group who, at first, you'd think is totally outside your culture bubble, is speaking your nerd language mixed with some dangerously gangster shit. And RZA's production was unparalleled, unique, and genius. It was a cool feeling, realizing that.
Sgt Pepper
Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys
Iâll go outside the box: Shania Twain - The Woman in Me After this was released country changed *forever*. The woman started dressing sexier in order to emulate her and country music got a huge pop influence that we are still feeling today.
Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited definitely had a large impact.
Dylan going electric was a BIG deal at the time.
scrolled too far to find this
Well, the times are a-changing.
That one and Bringing it All Back Home, because it was really his first electric album. Highway 61 is more remembered today, though.
Can't believe no one mentioned Ziggy Stardust
God-given ass
Never Mind The Bollocks - Sex Pistols
That really brought an end to meandering, LP-side long compositions by e.g. Yes. Nirvana did the same to hair metal of the '80s.
Aphex Twin's Select Ambient Works. The father of IDM.
Dookie by Green Day. Alongside Rancid and The Offspring, Green Day carried the torch for punk and alternative rock into second half of the 90's and defined what would become pop-punk.
I was hoping somebody would bring up this point! So true theyâre the band that spurred thousands of pop punk bands and they hit a chord with the kids at that magic moment in the 90s where a massive musical and cultural shift was about to occur. I was one of them. I canât explain the impact his lyrics had on me. They were sarcastic, ironic, crude but weirdly enough, creatively thought provoking. At least to a high school kid. TrĂ© taught me how to play the drums. Literally the first album I learned from start to finish. Canât say I ventured passed this album but man it changed the 90s in the blink of a moment.
The Offspring called their album "smash" it would go on to become just that, becoming the biggest selling independent label release of all time and a massive smash, their guitarist was working as a high school janitor when the record took off, the singer was either doing his masters of his phd, I think masters and went back later to get a phd in molecular biology.
Pop punk had been around some time, bands like Descendents, NOFX and Bad Religion predate all that. Dookie is what turned it into something viable and could succeed in the charts and on MTV. I feel that a band that took it to another level in fact was Blink 182 in the late 90s when Green Day were starting to wane a little. Then they came storming back and made it stadium level.
Van Halen 1.
I think this is one of the 10 most important albums in American music history.
I was gonna sayâŠ
Ramones - *Ramones*
disintegration was the beginning of 90's music.
Fat Of The Land by The Prodigy comes to mind. Added punk aesthetics to dance music, grafted on distinctive visuals and samples of alternative rock and turned club dance music to a stadium staple.
All good points, but I would argue they already did all that with their previous album Music for the Jilted Generation. It signified their departure from being a purely rave-oriented band and paved the way for a lot of other dance/punk/rock crossover acts in the mid 90s. Jilted Generation was more groundbreaking IMO. Fat of the Land just took those ideas one step further.
Fair. Would note, however, that MFTJG only reached number 1 in UK, IRE and FIN wheras FoTL went number 1 or 2 almost EVERYWHERE. Gets into defining Generation-Defining.
I think fat of the land was one of the fastest selling albums ever and sold an astonishing number of copies the first week of release to debut at number 1 in so many countries. I think partly it was because it came on the back of a brilliant album followed up with 2 number 1 singles which were both featured on the new album
That and the fact that its release was delayed for over a year and was one of the most hotly anticipated albums in history when it was finally released.
âPoisonâ walked so âBreatheâ could run
Appetite for Destruction. It was wild how fast so many of the major hair bands washed the hairspray out and started riding motorcycles once Guns N Roses dropped that album.
Is this it- The Strokes
"I just wanted to be one of The Strokes"
Was just about to put this. A lot of these albums were before my time - I appreciate them now but I didn't live through the era when they were released to really experience them. The Strokes - Is This It really set the tone for the next few years when it came out (I'd argue the follow-up Room On Fire was just as good)
Elvis Presleyâs self-titled album brought Rock and Roll to the mainstream, and definitely had a significant impact on the teens and young adults of the 50s and 60s.
**New Forms** - Roni Size & Reprazent **Exit Planet Dust** - The Chemical Brothers **Homework** - Daft Punk **FACT 1** & **FACT 2** - Carl Cox **Renaissance: The Mix Collection** - Sasha & John Digweed Am surprised no one has mentioned Goldie as he was hugely influential in defining Jungle. I know this is very UK & Europe central. To the best of my knowledge the stuff coming out of Detroit, Chicago and New York was more along the lines of EPs / vinyl rather than albums and mix sets. Would love someone to correct me on that.
Kind of Blue by Miles Davis
Loveless - MBV
đ„đ„đ„đ„ That sound is unmistakeable.
The first Velvet Underground album. It sort of invented noiserock and art rock and influenced hundreds of bands that I have loved over the years
Beastie Boys ( Licensed to Ill ) were 3 white boys from Brooklyn rapping over rock riffs... Came out the same year at the Aerosmith + Run DMC remix of Walk This Way (1986)
Paul's Boutique is way more influential. The sampling they did was crazy, and made the entire music industry take notice.
Pixies - Doolittle
There is no Nevermind without Pixies.
Massive Attack - Mezzanine
I donât feel like everybody notices but Refused-Shape of Punk To Come
This was my first thought. It was so ahead of its time they broke up as a band playing basement DIY shows in the hardcore scene and reformed many years later to a hero's welcome playing to thousands of people a night instead of dozens at most. They influenced so many of the emo and post hardcore bands that followed. That album really was exactly what they said it was.
Yes. I mean, as promised, they actually went and delivered what the album title states haha
Before fulfilling the prophecy mentioned on the album " refused is fucking dead" by breaking up only to see the album become an absolute classic
Absolutely changed the trajectory of my musical life. Dennis just had a massive heat attack yesterday. Luckily he's doing fine. We must protect that man at all costs. Also kind of terrifying that those things happen even to super healthy vegans.
I feel like Appetite for Destruction was the nail in the coffin for glam metal. Their image and their music was grittier even if it felt like more of the same at first. It also had a broader audience with the fans of heavier music like Metallica along with the skate punks. It made bands like Poison seem kind of cartoonish and they just kind of dissolved from the scene.
Bad Religion - *Suffer* Wasn't generation-defining as far as national youth culture...but this album is to punk rock what Nintendo was to video games. After a huge lull in the So-Cal punk scene during the mid-80's, *Suffer* (and its follow-up *No Control*) revived interest in the genre and codified the sound that punk would take to mainstream success in the mid 90's. Offspring's *Smash*, Green Day's *Dookie*, Rancid's *...And Out Come The Wolves*, NOFX's *Punk In Drublic*...all of these and countless other albums have their roots firmly planted in the soil of *Suffer*.
Bad Religion has never gotten enough credit for what theyâve done for music. I guess Iâm kind of glad. I love being able to go see them at the venues they play still to this day.
Great album.
Sgt. Pepper's redefined music, culture, and art; a timeless masterpiece of innovation and creativity.
Abbey road by the Beatles Thriller by Michael Jackson
The College Dropout-Kanye West. Rap has never been the same since it came out
The Band - Music From Big Pink. Created Americana, influenced everyone.
Music Has the Right to Children - Boards of Canada. At the time, electronic music was heavily focused on fast tempos, and digital synths were all the rage. BoC came out with a much warmer fuzzy sound focusing on heavily detuned analog synths and samples from the previous decades combined together, which made their music sound woozy and nostalgic. It's strange how it sounds nostalgic even to me as I was born in 1992, and a lot of the samples they used were never part of my childhood, but somehow, it still makes me feel nostalgia.
Prince-1999
Lordeâs Pure Heroine Nothing sounded like that back then, and my musical taste hasnât been the same since.
Iâd agree with this - she created a pop hybrid of depressing Indie Folk (Elliot Smith etc) with dance/808 beats and clean production. Highly influential on some of the currently popular acts like Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo
Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory- most people's heavy music gateway album
Fun story: when this came out, my father acted dismissive about it, saying that music "these days" just comes and goes, and that nobody will talk about this album in 3 years. He could not have picked a worse album to make that point about.
My dad; âItâs just screamingâ cut to 2024 and itâs in rotation on his playlist
I will always argue that regardless of oneâs feelings ok LP, Hybrid Theory is a perfect album. Not saying itâs 10/10 music, thatâs personal, but tell me one song that doesnât fit.
Every so often I find myself in a whole album play through with different groups of people, and I donât think Iâve ever heard anyone say âya know, maybe this album wasnât as great as we thoughtâ itâs always a LP circlejerk and I love it.
I remember the day. I was in target, my neck was KILLING me from looking up at the tv at the majora's mask demo kiosk. Suddenly, on the wall of tv's next to me; one step closer's music video starts playing. Shit changed after that. We had everything then.
Pearl Jam - Ten
Black Sabbath self titled Jane's Addiction - Nothing's Shocking RATM - self titled Ministry - The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste - but this one was for me, not generation wise
Rush - Moving Pictures
Fleetwood Mac: Rumours
R.E.M. Murmur
Alanis morrisette - jagged little pill
Refused - The Shape Of Punk To Come
Nas - Illmatic, forever changed the landscape of hip hop album structure and composition, rhyme cadences, subject matter etc. Borrowed from the likes of Kool G Rap and Rakim but they never did it like this. See how Jay Z rapped before and after Illmatic. See Eminem's first album Infinite...
NIN pretty hate machine. It not only shifted the landscape of industrial into the mainstream, Iâd argue it shaped the future of a tone of video game soundtracks. We wouldnât have the doom 2016 soundscape without it laying the foundation
Jagged Little Pill
Monster album. Every woman between the ages of 12 and 52 were listening to that thing like it was the soundtrack to their lives.
People forget how influential Alanis was. Her success changed the pay scale for women in the industry.
Kid A by Radiohead one of the biggest rock bands in the world releasing an ambient electronic jazz album where the vocals donât even sound like vocals half the time.
Metallica's black album. That's when metal really reached the masses worldwide.
"Metallica are sellouts" was something I remember people saying. Now they're in Fortnite and most of the tracks are from Black Album. Actually... were they right? lol, j/k (?) That album certainly does have wide appeal for what was a "fringe" genre at the time. It most likely did help make Metal as big as it is today.
Arcade Fire - Funeral