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What are your favorite hard rock albums?


markm

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My Top 25  Hard rock albums 

Ah that elusive thing, the great hard rock album. When I plugged into the cyber metal world, I was heartened to find some pretty bad ass stoner, doom and sludge that renewed my faith in good ole badass rawk. 

I had some time today, so I decided to make a little list spanning two centuries as it were. This will be a pretty obvious list-but hard rock is my comfort food.  Stoner metal became my go to for hard rock in the 2000’s. I’ll also throw in some alternative that I consider hard rock. Legacy bands tend to have extensive discographies and the choices are difficult. 

Some of my caveats are that I’ll not include comps or live albums. I had a bunch of best hits or comps in the day from bands like Sabbath (We Sold Our Soul to Rock and Roll), Motorhead who wouldn’t be on this list anyway (No Remorse) and Deep Purple. 

I’m not including Judas Priest, my favorite classic 80’s metal pre Metallica band. I consider their early 70’s  including Sad Wings of Destiny, metal.  I’m also not including glam/hair metal-that’s also metal in my book. 

There’s a lot of great punk and post punk influenced hard rock like Fugazi that I also passed on. Not to mention, garage rock revival like the Hellacopters, etc. 

I’ll never grow tired of looking for that elusive thing….a good hard rock album.  So  here goes….

Honorable mention-Spirit Caravan/The Last Embrace, one of Scott "Wino" Weinrich  stoner/doom projects-but it’s a comp of their two studio albums plus some extras. So many more of course I thought about.

25. Spiritual Beggars/Ad Astra

24. NIN/The Downward Spiral

23. Ministry-A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste

22. Nebula/To the Center

21. Van Halen/II

20. Melvins/Houdini

19. Jane’s Addiction/Nothing’s Shocking

18. Led Zeppelin/II

17, Fu Manchu/In Search Of…..

16. AC/DC/Highway to Hell

15. Boris/Pink

14, Black Sabbath/Master of Reality

13. Kyuss/Welcome to Sky Valley

12.Van Halen-Women and Children First

11. AC/DC/Let There be Rock

10. Black Sabbath-IV-In a lot of ways, this is my favorite Black Sabbath album. The only Sabbath I owned in high school were their self titled 1970 debut, Paranoid, Heaven and Hell and their comp We Sold Our Soul to Rock and Roll.  I picked this up later in life so I don’t have the adolescent nostalgic attachment that I do to some of the albums deeper into my top 10.  Here they are at the peak of their powers and their drugged out excess. 

9. Sound Garden/Bad Motor Finger-Grunge, alternative rock, heavy metal? To me this is a hard rock album and one of the best ever. I consider Chris Cornell the most gifted heavy rock singer of my generation. He was just about my age. It still stuns me that he took his life-a guy who would seem to have everything. I loved those first few Soundgarden albums. 

8. Monster Magnet-Power Trip-an underappreciated hard rock gem. Wyndorf had pretty well moved from pure stoner rock and the stars aligned for Power Trip. A magnificent album of sex, greed and satire about the gluttony of the late 20’th century that’s irresistible and a heavy rock masterstroke.

7. Guns and Roses-Appetite for Destruction-When I was in college, you couldn’t get away from this album. Every kid I knew that played a guitar learned this album by heart. It’s a classic. I’m kind of sick of it and I love it.

6. Clutch/Blast Tyrant-an early 2000’s classic and one of my favorite hard rock albums. Along with Pure Rock Fury, Clutch were one of those bands that convinced me that rock still had a beating heart.

5. Aerosmith-Draw the Line. After Kiss, Aerosmith was one of the first  hard rock bands I started listening to. Rocks, Get Your Wings and the ever popular Toys in the Attic are all classics, Draw the Line is really my go to Areosmith. It's brash and sassy and rocks hard. 

4. Kiss-Love Gun. Yes Kiss. This was one of the first album I ever  bought. Dressed to Kills and Destroyer are pretty good competition as are their first two Alive albums and Double Platinum which was a greatest hits of their first three albums. As a single collection, you can't beat Double Platinum. But Love Gun is my favorite of their early studio albums before they went solo and Disco.

3. Black Sabbath Heaven and Hell. Dio ushered in a sound that clearly pointed the way to an 80’s classic metal sound. Pivotal to my teen years.  A lot of people prefer the first Ozzy era, and those albums are untouchable and created the template for heavy rock blues that would one day be called stoner and doom, but Heaven and Hell is a great album on it's own merits and one that I still can crank and it makes me feel 16.  The debates never end. Side 2 is weaker but I could say the same about Piece of Mind which is my favorite Maiden album. Sometimes the strength of one side of an album is so titanic, I can forgive a few tracks that aren't quite as good.  

2. AC/DC-High Voltage-Can there be any doubt what the greatest AC/DC album of all time is? Of course, but I am correct. In all seriousness, the challenge for picking the best Bon Scott era AC/DC is the filler in many of those early albums- Can I sit Next to You Girl, She’s Got Balls, Love at First Feel, Squeeler, What’s Next to the Moon, Gone Shootin', Beatin' Around the Bush, Love Hungry Man, Night Prowler. Let There Be Rock is probably their most consistent album, but I listened to High Voltage to any other album. It was their first U.S. release, a blueprint--comprised of best tracks from the first two Australian releases-TNT and the Aussie released High Voltage-gets a little confusing.  

1. Led Zeppelin -granted this wouldn’t top many people’s best Zeppelin album but it's my favorite. Their first 6 albums through Physical Graffiti are essential  including the iconic Zeppelin/IV, but I’ve just heard the songs too many times. I’ve come to understand that unlike Sabbath that are canonized into metal lore, Zeppelin haven’t worn as well for the average younger metal/rock fan born, let’s say after 1975. When I was a freshman in high school, in 1980, they were still very much on the radio and most of us hard rockers loved the band. Zeppelin's first album for my money pretty much introduced the world to distorted blues based hard rock in 1969 and created cliches both good and bad for all time. 

 

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  • markm changed the title to What are your favorite hard rock albums?

Even as an honourable mention your addition of Spirit Caravan broadens "hard rock" so much that I'd have trouble coming up with definitive 25. Given there does seem to be some room for personal fluidity with genres my list probably looks something like this based on similar lists created for other forums and despite some maybe not being 'hard rock' enough for others. Placements are far from definitive though.

  1. The Angels – Skin And Bone

  2. AC/DC – High Voltage

  3. Rose Tattoo – Scared For Life

  4. The Screaming Jets - All for One

  5. Skyhooks – Living In The 70’s

  6. Cold Chisel - Circus Animals

  7. Jimmy Barnes - Freight Train Heart

  8. Airborne – Breakin’ Outta Hell

  9. The Poor – Who Cares

  10. Hoodoo Gurus – Crank

  11. Rose Tattoo – Assault And Battery

  12. The Angels - Beyond Salvation

  13. Choirboys – Big Bad Noise

  14. Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell

  15. Buffalo – Volcanic Rock

  16. Guns n' Roses - Appetite for Destruction

  17. Alice Cooper – Trash

  18. Queen – Sheer Heart Attack

  19. KISS - Destroyer

  20. Deep Purple - Deep Purple in Rock

  21. Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon

  22. Kyuss – Blues For The Red Sun

  23. Creedence Clearwater Revival – Cosmos Factory

  24. Led Zeppelin – III

  25. Red Hot Chili Peppers – Blood Sex Sugar Magik

 

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Interesting topic Marky Mark and I'm not sure why hard rock doesn't get mentioned more often around here, other than I guess the tender young age of so many of the members here who probably weren't raised on hard rock like you and I were. Funny you posted this today as just this morning I had myself a little Bad Company marathon where I listened to their first 5 albums in order. Not something I do very often.

I started reading your list and right away the gears started turning as I wondered what some of my favorite hard rock albums would be. Not sure I can play your game by your rules as it seems you and I have vastly different ideas about what constitutes hard rock. You said you've excluded some stuff that you consider to be metal that I might think of as hard rock, but then you've also gone and included some Sabbath albums that I would consider to be metal. I myself could never include Sabbath albums on a hard rock list, even though in my mind they started life as a hard rock band, but they shifted to all metal by MoR. Their best album is Sabotage btw. I'll also say you're deffo not the first person I've seen citing LZ1 as their favorite Zep but it's certainly not mine.

Not sure why stoner is OK (as a lot of it borders on metal) as is "grunge" and "alt" stuff like Ministry and NIN and Jane's Addiction, but "garage rock" and "punk rock" are not OK. If I were to make a "hard rock" list I can tell you a good portion of it would be stuff that falls into the garage rock or punk rock category. Like the Hellacopters or Supersuckers or Nashville Pussy or Zeke...stuff like that. Because to me that punk attitude is what makes them such great hard rock albums. And when you get right down to it I feel most of those bands have a lot more in common with old school hard rock bands like AC/DC and Aerosmith, or even grunge bands like Soundgarden than they do with actual hardcore punk or even first wave punk rockers from 40 years ago like the Ramones, Pistols and Dead Boys or something.

I'm also gonna have some southern rock on my list too, I know you're not a fan of southern redneck bands (as I've seen you refer to Molly Hatchet) but that stuff was a huge part of my high school days in the 70's for me, bands like Hatchet, Skynyrd, Blackfoot and ZZ Top. And that's because there was no metal yet back then besides Sabbath so I had to make due with whatever was readily available.

So if you'll indulge me I might work up a list using my own personal criteria for "hard rock" if you don't mind. And I'll assume you won't mind since we're such good friends and all. The hard part is going to be ranking them. I'm not even going to bother ranking them or I'll be here for 3 days. I'll just type them down as they pop into my head. They're all good or they wouldn't be on my list.  I'll stick to my usual one album per band formula.

 

In absolutely no order whatsoever:

HARD ROCK

Supersuckers - The Evil Powers of Rock & Roll 1999

Mud City Manglers - Heart Full of Hate  2000

Peter Pan Speedrock - Buckle Up and Shove It  2014

2 Headed Dogs - The Engine is On  2021

Monster Magnet - Power Trip  1998 (really hard to pick a fave from Dave, I love them all)

Zeke - Kicked in the Teeth  1998

Circus of Power - S/T  1988 (could have gone with any of their first 3)

Nashville Pussy - Let Them Eat Pussy  1998

Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti  1975

Bad Company - Bad Co  1974

AC/DC - Highway to Hell  1979

Fastway - Fastway  1983

Riot - Born in America  1983

Social DIstortion - Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell  1992

Stooges - Raw Power 1973 (hard to pick a fave of theirs)

Iggy Pop - Instinct  1988

Good Rats - Rat City in Blue  1976

Molly Hatchet - Flirting With Disaster  1978

ZZ Top - Degüello  1979 (almost went with Tejas)

Skynyrd - Nuthin' Fancy 1977

The Rods - S/T  1981

Thin Lizzy - Thunder & Lightning  1983

Montrose - Montrose  1973

Robin Trower - Bridge of Sighs  1974

Jimi Hendrix - Are You Experienced 1967

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - B.M.R.C.  2001

Paul McCartney - RAM  1971

Mott - Drive On  1975

Aerosmith - Toys in the Attic  1973

Queen - Sheer Heart Attack  1974

The Cult - Electric  1987

My Sister's Machine - Diva 1992

VH1  1978

 

There you have it, that didn't take as long as I thought. Could have put on Appetite and Superunknown because I absolutely loved these records back in their respective days but they've become so played out I try to avoid them even now all these years later.  I was also quite smitten with R&R Over back in '76 when I was 15 but Kiss in general hasn't been in the rotation for 40 years now, I see it as a childhood infatuation. Really wanted to get Lords of the New Church and Cosmic Psychos on here but I figured they were both a bit too punk to be just hard rock.

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I'll play. I'm a few years younger than @markm and @GoatmasterGeneral, not sure about Kuke, but I grew up on hard rock and especially southern rock. I would say that Sabbath fall into the same category with Priest and Maiden, so they are not included. I'm sure the age difference is reflected in a few of these choices. These were my favorites growing up, not necessarily the "best" by each band. One per band to keep it as brief as possible.

Random order

The Cult - Sonic Temple

G'n'R - Appetite for Destruction

UFO - Force It

Van Halen - II

The Allman Brothers - Brothers and Sisters

Lynyrd Skynyrd - Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd

Thin Lizzy - Bad Reputation

The Cars - The Cars

Boston - Boston

Blue Oyster Cult - Secret Treaties

The Black Crowes - Shake Your Money Maker

Dire Straights - Brothers in Arms

INXS - Kick

Led Zeppelin - II

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here

The Police - Outlandos d'Amour

Queen - Sheer Heart Attack

ZZ Top - Degüello

U2 - The Joshua Tree

Weezer - The Blue Album

AC/DC - Back in Black

Clutch - Blast Tyrant

 

 

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Thanks all for your contributions. I have rather broad definitions. For us M-F'ers, we had a poster Jay, very cool dude. One of his rants was that metal is a subset of rock and by definition all metal a form of rock. Hotly debated. I don't wish to impose my distinctions on anyone. So, I wasn't creating rules for everyone to follow, more so explaining my rationale. I feel like a lot of early stoner and even stoner/doom straddles the line between rock and metal. Please make your own list if you feel compelled and draw your own lines in the sand.

Like, I'd say Sleep and HOF are definitely metal but Kyuss, Monster Magnet, Fu Manchu, Nebula and their Swedish counterparts-Spiritual Beggars, The Truck Fighters, Dozer and so on straddle the line. Spiritual Beggars might  be pushing the definition but the rest of those bands including a lot of Wino's rock split the difference and I'd say they fit into a hard rock mold and now that I think about it, for me extreme metal is metal-not really rock at all, but the blues driven hard rock that most of my list adheres too can sit in both camps many times. 

Kiss, VH, Aerosmith, Zeppelin, Sabbath, Hendrix, AC/DC-all hard rock. But what about Whitesnake? Or Bon Jovi? How about Alice Cooper? And on it goes....

So GG considers 70's priest hard rock and I consider them metal-it's all good. I would say Sabbath are really both a rock and metal band. They are prominently played  on classic rock radio whereas Maiden and pre Black Metallica not so much. 

That's about as technical as I get on the subject \m/

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11 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Interesting topic Marky Mark and I'm not sure why hard rock doesn't get mentioned more often around here, other than I guess the tender young age of so many of the members here who probably weren't raised on hard rock like you and I were. Funny you posted this today as just this morning I had myself a little Bad Company marathon where I listened to their first 5 albums in order. Not something I do very often.

I started reading your list and right away the gears started turning as I wondered what some of my favorite hard rock albums would be. Not sure I can play your game by your rules as it seems you and I have vastly different ideas about what constitutes hard rock. You said you've excluded some stuff that you consider to be metal that I might think of as hard rock, but then you've also gone and included some Sabbath albums that I would consider to be metal. I myself could never include Sabbath albums on a hard rock list, even though in my mind they started life as a hard rock band, but they shifted to all metal by MoR. Their best album is Sabotage btw. I'll also say you're deffo not the first person I've seen citing LZ1 as their favorite Zep but it's certainly not mine.

Not sure why stoner is OK (as a lot of it borders on metal) as is "grunge" and "alt" stuff like Ministry and NIN and Jane's Addiction, but "garage rock" and "punk rock" are not OK. If I were to make a "hard rock" list I can tell you a good portion of it would be stuff that falls into the garage rock or punk rock category. Like the Hellacopters or Supersuckers or Nashville Pussy or Zeke...stuff like that. Because to me that punk attitude is what makes them such great hard rock albums. And when you get right down to it I feel most of those bands have a lot more in common with old school hard rock bands like AC/DC and Aerosmith, or even grunge bands like Soundgarden than they do with actual hardcore punk or even first wave punk rockers from 40 years ago like the Ramones, Pistols and Dead Boys or something.

I'm also gonna have some southern rock on my list too, I know you're not a fan of southern redneck bands (as I've seen you refer to Molly Hatchet) but that stuff was a huge part of my high school days in the 70's for me, bands like Hatchet, Skynyrd, Blackfoot and ZZ Top. And that's because there was no metal yet back then besides Sabbath so I had to make due with whatever was readily available.

So if you'll indulge me I might work up a list using my own personal criteria for "hard rock" if you don't mind. And I'll assume you won't mind since we're such good friends and all. The hard part is going to be ranking them. I'm not even going to bother ranking them or I'll be here for 3 days. I'll just type them down as they pop into my head. They're all good or they wouldn't be on my list.  I'll stick to my usual one album per band formula.

 

In absolutely no order whatsoever:

HARD ROCK

Supersuckers - The Evil Powers of Rock & Roll 1999

Mud City Manglers - Heart Full of Hate  2000

Peter Pan Speedrock - Buckle Up and Shove It  2014

2 Headed Dogs - The Engine is On  2021

Monster Magnet - Power Trip  1998 (really hard to pick a fave from Dave, I love them all)

Zeke - Kicked in the Teeth  1998

Circus of Power - S/T  1988 (could have gone with any of their first 3)

Nashville Pussy - Let Them Eat Pussy  1998

Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti  1975

Bad Company - Bad Co  1974

AC/DC - Highway to Hell  1979

Fastway - Fastway  1983

Riot - Born in America  1983

Social DIstortion - Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell  1992

Stooges - Raw Power 1973 (hard to pick a fave of theirs)

Iggy Pop - Instinct  1988

Good Rats - Rat City in Blue  1976

Molly Hatchet - Flirting With Disaster  1978

ZZ Top - Degüello  1979 (almost went with Tejas)

Skynyrd - Nuthin' Fancy 1977

The Rods - S/T  1981

Thin Lizzy - Thunder & Lightning  1983

Montrose - Montrose  1973

Robin Trower - Bridge of Sighs  1974

Jimi Hendrix - Are You Experienced 1967

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - B.M.R.C.  2001

Paul McCartney - RAM  1971

Mott - Drive On  1975

Aerosmith - Toys in the Attic  1973

Queen - Sheer Heart Attack  1974

The Cult - Electric  1987

My Sister's Machine - Diva 1992

VH1  1978

 

There you have it, that didn't take as long as I thought. Could have put on Appetite and Superunknown because I absolutely loved these records back in their respective days but they've become so played out I try to avoid them even now all these years later.  I was also quite smitten with R&R Over back in '76 when I was 15 but Kiss in general hasn't been in the rotation for 40 years now, I see it as a childhood infatuation. Really wanted to get Lords of the New Church and Cosmic Psychos on here but I figured they were both a bit too punk to be just hard rock.

Nice list.

I wasn't meaning to say garage and punk was off limits, more so that I decided to exclude them from my list. I think of some of the Ramones having a hard rock sound (I just want to have something do, I don't Care, I Wanna Be Sedated, Beat on the Brat, Rock and roll HS, Chinese Rock, Psycho Therapy) as well as any number of punk bands that had a hard rock vibe, Misfits, some Bad Religion, Social D, Circle Jerks, Rancid, etc. I just think of punk as existing in a different space. I need to listen to Supersuckers and MC Manglers. The stuff you've posted is pretty good. 

I should probably have put Electric in my list. I like/don't love VH. Women and Children must have been my first albums of theirs. It always felt darker and almost experimental for VH or a little edgier than their party HR. For whatever reason, I like VH II a smidge more than than VH I. VH were one of the bands, when I was ripping CDs into a rock genre library where I went out and bought several. VH I, II and W&CF. I never had Diver Down. I used to own 1984 which is fun but not as essential. And,  Hagar VH blows.

I always liked early ZZ top. I had a best of ZZ top record when I was a teen which I liked a lot. Not obviously the more pop 80's "legs" and all that. I know you've posted ZZ top before. I wouldn't mind picking up some of their classic early albums. 

Yeah, I never really liked southern rock that much. The Almond Bros are OK but I don't own any of their stuff. My parents were from TN and they moved to DC and then overseas in the foreign service when I was born. I think my Mom and Dad shunned what they considered the racism of their childhood in the 40's and 50's and some of that rubbed off on me. I like some outlaw country but generally despise country music except the folk country kind country flavored rock of stuff like Nashville skyline, Neil Young's country oriented tracks and the Byrds. I remember in HS, a lot of the kids that were into Skynard and Molly Hatchet drove pick up trucks with rebel flags, the South's going to rise again and all that and that was never my jam. Chewing tobacco, etc. So that's a bit of elitisms I guess on my part.   

I always liked Bad Company...actually bought a little comp of theirs to rip into my system called 10 from 6. I owned Run with the Pack when I was in HS. 

 

13 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

Even as an honourable mention your addition of Spirit Caravan broadens "hard rock" so much that I'd have trouble coming up with definitive 25. Given there does seem to be some room for personal fluidity with genres my list probably looks something like this based on similar lists created for other forums and despite some maybe not being 'hard rock' enough for others. Placements are far from definitive though.

  1. The Angels – Skin And Bone

  2. AC/DC – High Voltage

  3. Rose Tattoo – Scared For Life

  4. The Screaming Jets - All for One

  5. Skyhooks – Living In The 70’s

  6. Cold Chisel - Circus Animals

  7. Jimmy Barnes - Freight Train Heart

  8. Airborne – Breakin’ Outta Hell

  9. The Poor – Who Cares

  10. Hoodoo Gurus – Crank

  11. Rose Tattoo – Assault And Battery

  12. The Angels - Beyond Salvation

  13. Choirboys – Big Bad Noise

  14. Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell

  15. Buffalo – Volcanic Rock

  16. Guns n' Roses - Appetite for Destruction

  17. Alice Cooper – Trash

  18. Queen – Sheer Heart Attack

  19. KISS - Destroyer

  20. Deep Purple - Deep Purple in Rock

  21. Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon

  22. Kyuss – Blues For The Red Sun

  23. Creedence Clearwater Revival – Cosmos Factory

  24. Led Zeppelin – III

  25. Red Hot Chili Peppers – Blood Sex Sugar Magik

 

Nice! Several I don't know. I'm guessing some of those are Australian bands I haven't hard. Love Blues for the Red Sun. I used to own a cassette of Blood Sex Sugar Magic... wouldn't mind grabbing that one again.  

I've seen Floyd on some of your lists. I've never thought of Floyd as hard rock, although I love Floyd. Same as CCR whom I also like. I could have included Whose Next and some of the Kinks verges on hard rock. 

3 hours ago, navybsn said:

I'll play. I'm a few years younger than @markm and @GoatmasterGeneral, not sure about Kuke, but I grew up on hard rock and especially southern rock. I would say that Sabbath fall into the same category with Priest and Maiden, so they are not included. I'm sure the age difference is reflected in a few of these choices. These were my favorites growing up, not necessarily the "best" by each band. One per band to keep it as brief as possible.

Random order

The Cult - Sonic Temple

G'n'R - Appetite for Destruction

UFO - Force It

Van Halen - II

The Allman Brothers - Brothers and Sisters

Lynyrd Skynyrd - Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd

Thin Lizzy - Bad Reputation

The Cars - The Cars

Boston - Boston

Blue Oyster Cult - Secret Treaties

The Black Crowes - Shake Your Money Maker

Dire Straights - Brothers in Arms

INXS - Kick

Led Zeppelin - II

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here

The Police - Outlandos d'Amour

Queen - Sheer Heart Attack

ZZ Top - Degüello

U2 - The Joshua Tree

Weezer - The Blue Album

AC/DC - Back in Black

Clutch - Blast Tyrant

 

 

Yeah, some grade stuff there. Funny, never listened to much BOC. 

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BOC has good stuff, but the albums usually leave something to be desired. Secret Treaties is their most complete, followed by Tyranny and Mutation, but the first 4 are all worth a spin or two.

I forgot Kyuss - Blues for the Red Sun. Great album and the only one from Kyuss I own. Could have something to do with my "lifestyle activities" when I was into that album...

The best Allman Brothers album is Live at the Fillmore East. Essential listening and the quintessential southern rock album, but I didn't include it since it is a live album. That's where southern rock shines in my opinion, live. It's a mix of rock, blues, country, and jam band.

As for hard rock, I guess I should have read the thread title better. I wouldn't include these in that category (which I thought was just rock but I guess the line gets blurry pretty quick. My bad)

The Cars - The Cars

Boston - Boston

Blue Oyster Cult - Secret Treaties

The Black Crowes - Shake Your Money Maker

Dire Straights - Brothers in Arms

INXS - Kick

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here

U2 - The Joshua Tree

Weezer - The Blue Album

 

And oh yeah, I agree that punk should be in a category by itself. 

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12 minutes ago, navybsn said:

BOC has good stuff, but the albums usually leave something to be desired. Secret Treaties is their most complete, followed by Tyranny and Mutation, but the first 4 are all worth a spin or two.

I forgot Kyuss - Blues for the Red Sun. Great album and the only one from Kyuss I own. Could have something to do with my "lifestyle activities" when I was into that album...

The best Allman Brothers album is Live at the Fillmore East. Essential listening and the quintessential southern rock album, but I didn't include it since it is a live album. That's where southern rock shines in my opinion, live. It's a mix of rock, blues, country, and jam band.

As for hard rock, I guess I should have read the thread title better. I wouldn't include these in that category (which I thought was just rock but I guess the line gets blurry pretty quick. My bad)

The Cars - The Cars

Boston - Boston

Blue Oyster Cult - Secret Treaties

The Black Crowes - Shake Your Money Maker

Dire Straights - Brothers in Arms

INXS - Kick

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here

U2 - The Joshua Tree

Weezer - The Blue Album

 

And oh yeah, I agree that punk should be in a category by itself. 

Those are all solid as shit. I haven't listened to much Weezer but I like the few random tracks I've streamed. A lot of people shit on U2. I like them. Joshua Tree is iconic. Dire Straights and Cars are great. I've got some greatest hits from both of them. Great on random play rock genre. I can also do Billy Idol/Rebel Yell (83)-go ahead and cringe. 

DORS are semi hard rock....always liked the DOORS. 

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While I did choose quite a bit of Aussie stuff it's mostly because I spent so long working with those bands and the music kind of got ground into my brain. We'd often be listening to new music by these bands live on stage long before we got the cassettes in the truck. Sometimes we'd have sound board recordings, other times we just didn't have time but we usually at least heard the band playing. So for more than a decade my brain just got pounded with Aussie pub rock and hard rock.

Most of the lists I've done over the years have been separated as metal and not metal so my lines of hard rock are probably more blurred through laziness than others. However thinking about that list now there is probably some I'd remove and some I'd add. There really should be something in there from bands like ZZ Top, maybe Van Halen and probably others I forgot. But then I'm sure if I completely redid the list every day for a week I'd have 5 different lists. :)

 

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1 hour ago, markm said:

DOORS

Yeah, definitely in the rock category but they always occupied a weird place for me. I always associated them with foul weather for some reason. Maybe because I only really noticed that they were on the radio when I was on the way to go surfing with a storm incoming. I'm sure I heard them at other times, but I just wasn't as keyed in on it.

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1 hour ago, KillaKukumba said:

While I did choose quite a bit of Aussie stuff it's mostly because I spent so long working with those bands and the music kind of got ground into my brain. We'd often be listening to new music by these bands live on stage long before we got the cassettes in the truck. Sometimes we'd have sound board recordings, other times we just didn't have time but we usually at least heard the band playing. So for more than a decade my brain just got pounded with Aussie pub rock and hard rock.

Most of the lists I've done over the years have been separated as metal and not metal so my lines of hard rock are probably more blurred through laziness than others. However thinking about that list now there is probably some I'd remove and some I'd add. There really should be something in there from bands like ZZ Top, maybe Van Halen and probably others I forgot. But then I'm sure if I completely redid the list every day for a week I'd have 5 different lists. :)

 

Remind me what kind of work you did with local bands? 

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12 minutes ago, navybsn said:

Yeah, definitely in the rock category but they always occupied a weird place for me. I always associated them with foul weather for some reason. Maybe because I only really noticed that they were on the radio when I was on the way to go surfing with a storm incoming. I'm sure I heard them at other times, but I just wasn't as keyed in on it.

They occupied an interesting space of psychedelia and hard blues driven rock. You've got those keys too with ray manzarek who had such a distinctive sound. Robby Krieger was known to be a pretty good guitar player and would have liked to have recorded a great blues album with Morrison if he hadn't been such a self destructive fuck up.

A lot of the mystery for me came from the book that was popular in the 80's, No One Gets Here Out Alive, I had to look it up. I guess a lot of it has been discounted as it was sensationalized. But at 16 or so, I was mesmerized. It was published in 80, I must have read it around 82. It helped build a mythology about Morison, especially the circumstances around his death.  Morison lives kind of thing....did he die or just disappear to an island somewhere? Was he a mystic, shaman or just a drunken asshole girls thought was a cute singer, you know? Did he have a death wish?

Came out about 10 years after Morison's actual death and helped renew interest in the DORS for kids like me in the early 80's. My dad liked the DORS so that was part of what drew me two them. Morison just seemed like an intriguing figure when I was about 16. 

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I was a shit carter and drum kit setter upper for a brief while when I was between jobs at 19. Got paid a whopping $10 a gig plus free drinks from the bar and I got to see the band play every night for free. Even 40 years ago that was shit compensation. But the sound and light guys who got paid a little more than I did used to get me stoned every night so it was cool for a few months til I found a real job.

34 minutes ago, navybsn said:

Yeah, definitely in the rock category but they always occupied a weird place for me. I always associated them with foul weather for some reason. Maybe because I only really noticed that they were on the radio when I was on the way to go surfing with a storm incoming. I'm sure I heard them at other times, but I just wasn't as keyed in on it.

For me that describes Sultans of Swing by Dire Straights. Never had the album, but I have a vivid memory of staring out the window of my very first apartment on moving day in the rain. Then for years it seemed like every time I happened to hear that song on the radio it was raining, so I've come to associate that tune with rainy days.

Never got totally into the Doors, they had a few cool tunes way back when but ultimately they just weren't hard enough to suit me. Kinda dig the tunes Waiting for the Sun, Roadhouse Blues, Riders on the Storm and maybe 2 or 3 others but that's about it.

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It was shit wages and mostly shit conditions being a roadie here too. It didn't take me long to realise the only way to make money was to own the steering wheel and be the one paying the bills. Of course with ownership came responsibilities like deciding whether to park illegally and pay the local council fine or make it harder for the boys to unload the trucks. It's kind of lucky that local council fines were only $35 back then, because it was still cheaper to pay three fines (the max allowable by the council before the cops were called) and hurry the load/unload along than it was to piss the boys off. These days most of the bands that still tour like we did use larger companies from the city, that rent out everything including the trucks, but the 80's was a different time.

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3 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

For me that describes Sultans of Swing by Dire Straights. Never had the album, but I have a vivid memory of staring out the window of my very first apartment on moving day in the rain.

You poor bastard. I hate that song with a passion. Never liked it and I heard it a million times as the band I spent most time in played it as a showcase for the guitarists. There is no place for saxophone in it at all, which is part of what it's about I guess.

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