Posted in: Rock by jharmon on May 18th, 2009 | 1 Comment
Here are 10 more albums you need to have if you love classic rock and hard rock music.
I’ve been trying to stay away from greatest-hits collections on these lists, but this one was hard to pass up because it has so many great songs and because it wasn’t an album that came years after the band was no longer recording. Nope, this album came in 1966 while the band was still going strong. If you like the blues, you’ll love The Animals and this album. There’s tons of guitar-heavy, bluesy tunes here, some of my favorites being “It’s My Life,” “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” and “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.” You’ll also find some great cover songs here, such as “I’m Mad” originally by John Lee Hooker and “I’m in Love Again” by Fats Domino. Probably the most recognized song on this collection is the classic, “House of the Rising Sun.”
Yes, I didn’t list The Beatles on my first listof classic rock albums, but that was intentional; I was trying to focus on harder rock stuff for that list, and even though The Beatles do have some rock heavy songs, they’re not generally as well known for that kind of material (not as much as a band like Led Zeppelin, for example). Here you’ll find some classic rock greats, like “Helter Skelter” and “Revolution No. 9,” but as with many of the later The Beatles albums there’s a funky mix of harder stuff, soft ballads, bluesy material and just some crazy, mind-boggling recordings. “Dear Prudence” and “Black Bird” are fantastic songs for those of you who prefer softer material from this 1968 album.
If you like classic rock, you have to own this 1973 album. It’s that simple. While this album could seem to be a bit of a departure from traditional classic rock, what with it’s progressive sounds and innovative looping, it’s still an album that draws you in with great guitar riffs and some of the strongest, though sometimes oddest, rock lyrics ever written. “Money” is probably the most straight-forward of all the songs found on “The Dark Side of the Moon,” but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The songs run together throughout the album with no breaks between, creating a constant flowing of moody, surrealistic sound that in some cases assaults the senses and other times lifts up the soul. It’s difficult to pick just a few of these songs to point out, because all of them are great, but “Time,” “Eclipse” and “Us and Them” are possibly my favorites.
greatest hits hater June 18th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
hey, fyi, greatest hits albums are for people who have no knowledge of music at all. how can u count that as an album?? the animals were a great band but i think thats insulting them.