Posted on 09/29/2006 9:52:06 PM PDT by pissant
1 The Velvet Underground and Nico The Velvet Underground and Nico (1967)
Though it sold poorly on its initial release, this has since become arguably the most influential rock album of all time. The first art-rock album, it merges dreamy, druggy balladry ('Sunday Morning') with raw and uncompromising sonic experimentation ('Venus in Furs'), and is famously clothed in that Andy Warhol-designed 'banana' sleeve. Lou Reed's lyrics depicted a Warholian New York demi-monde where hard drugs and sexual experimentation held sway. Shocking then, and still utterly transfixing.
Without this, there'd be no ... Bowie, Roxy Music, Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Jesus and Mary Chain, among many others. SOH
2 The Beatles Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)
There are those who rate Revolver (1966) or 'the White Album' (1968) higher. But Sgt Pepper's made the watertight case for pop music as an art form in itself; until then, it was thought the silly, transient stuff of teenagers. At a time when all pop music was stringently manufactured, these Paul McCartney-driven melodies and George Martin-produced whorls of sound proved that untried ground was not only the most fertile stuff, but also the most viable commercially. It defined the Sixties and - for good and ill - gave white rock all its airs and graces.
Without this ... pop would be a very different beast. KE
3 Kraftwerk Trans-Europe Express (1977)
Released at the height of punk, this sleek, urbane, synthesised, intellectual work shared little ground with its contemporaries. Not that it wanted to. Kraftwerk operated from within a bubble of equipment and ideas which owed more to science and philosophy than mere entertainment. Still, this paean to the beauty of mechanised movement and European civilisation was a moving and exquisite album in itself...
(Excerpt) Read more at observer.guardian.co.uk ...
I missed that one. For the Record, I like the lady is a Tramp.
It's an awful list.
And include Kraftwork and the Spice Girls? Uhg.
I would hope most Brits are not this musically challenged.
I just oredered the CD of the original Smiley Smile/Wild Honey album. Good stuff.
Not only provencial, but ridiculous.
Hey, Bjork is not THAT bad!
Please, MG, tell me you are kidding!?
I've heard at least snippets of most...unfortunately.
Why would she be kidding, that album is AWESOME, even 30 years later.
"Silly list. Way too British."
Absoloutely. Numerous people on that list could not have existed and music would be the exact same today. I contend a great deal of those on that list had little or no impact on music in general.
that is scary.
They were a flash in the pan, with no lasting impact, IMO.
We have polar opposite taste in music then. LOL
Not a fan of those guys. Most hippie music doesn't resonate for me.
Agree with some, have heard of alot of them. Elvis and the Beatles definitely, but where's Karen Carpenter?
Some of the stuff is ok. I'm just sayin there was alot of rock type stuff that has it's roots there. CSN, Poco, Loggins and Messina, alot of the Souther rock scene.
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