Most Important Records

grillebilly

Empty Head
One of the many benefits of AK is the wealth of knowledge that gets passed around here. The music forum has so many people who know their stuff, some specialize in one genre while others span quite a few. It would be a learning experience to ask each other what albums are the "important ones", or ones that changed things, or at least made a difference. Ones that other musicians paid attention to. It can be from any genre or time. From Bakersfield to Manchester.
So share a record or twenty that you believe was important, and why.

I got easy pickings since I'm first so I'll pick one that may not be as obvious as others. I say this because I dismissed it forever as just another 'Stones record.

Exile On Main Street.

AK Rolling Stones guru KeninDC laid a nice copy against my front door one day so I listened to it in its entirety for the first time. The 'Stones were arguably the biggest thing on the planet at the time and this was not the direction popular music was going. This record was way down in the basement raw. Like their latest record, it was back to the roots of rock. The folk/rock blues/rock and country/rock sound had already been well established but it was a more polished sound than this record.
So my point is the best in the business went back to the roots as opposed to trying to stay on the forefront. If not for the generosity of an AK'r this one would of meant nothing but a collection of great tunes to me.

We have some serious music freaks here so chime in so us poseurs can get an education
 
You are gonna get 5,000,000,000 Rock or Rock outgrowth submissions, 100 jazz and a 100 pop. (and 95% of us know them and could list them)

How about this, it fit's none of the above:

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Philip Glass
Philip Glass: Songs from Liquid Days
 
^^^Looks interesting, never heard it. But that's why this thread is here. In your opinion what makes it important?
 
Sargent Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Changed buying an LP for a single song.

Good point and something most don't think about. This album took everyone by surprise, sort of. The last track of the previous album, "Tomorrow Never Knows", was a real shocker to most listeners and hinted at the direction this album might take. Good call.
 
There were many pioneers of electronic music but I think John Cage and Morton Subotnick successfully presented it to the public. Subotnick's "Silver Apples of the Moon" on Nonesuch was groundbreaking and influenced many later artists.

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Led Zeppelin 1

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It changed rock forever and ushered in a whole new style of rock.

We had Rock-n-Roll, Folk Rock, Physic Rock, Acid Rock.......

Led Zep started Hard Rock and made us look at them and all the bands that where influenced by them playing Hard Rock as Gods

Even the Record industry had to bow down to the Hard Rockers giving them anything they asked for.
 
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"A Briefcase Full of Blues" - Blues Brothers. For my freinds and I it was our first exposure to any type of blues music, even if just in a pop-culture format. Not sure if it inspired more than a couple of movies though.
 
"A Briefcase Full of Blues" - Blues Brothers. For my freinds and I it was our first exposure to any type of blues music, even if just in a pop-culture format. Not sure if it inspired more than a couple of movies though.

I was a blues freak when this came out and we dismissed this band as a novelty act. Somewhat mistakenly. They had a killer back-up band, pretty much the Stax house band, which was the best there was when it came to capturing the soul/blues southern sound. You are 100% correct about the influence they had on the population that had no idea about the genre. I would be interested in what records influenced them to put this band together? Another great call.
 
Idlewild South-Allman Brothers

Here, they say it better than I can...
On their second album, the Allman Brothers transmogrified from mere blues-rockers to an assemblage creating an entirely new kind of Southern music. It helped to have the preternaturally sweet slide guitar of brother Duane, but Idlewild South offered open-source blueprints for the Allmans' longhaired brethren across the region and beyond, including Eric Clapton, who promptly drafted Duane for Derek and the Dominos' Layla and Assorted Love Songs. Idlewild South was packed with Duane's Muscle Shoals-weaned smarts too, turning hippie boogie to shimmering AM gold. No one ever quite replicated Allman and Dickey Betts' soaring guitar harmonies, but Idlewild South enabled (in part) Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Black Crowes, almost every jam band, Kid Rock and whoever is playing for beer and glory tonight at the nearest biker bar.
 
"Days of Future Passed" - The Moody Blues. Citing Wiki, it was recorded in 1967 with The London Festival Orchestra. It did not achieve any level of success until1972 when "Nights in White Satin" was re-released as a single and the album went to #3 on the Billboard charts. It was my first exposure to orchestral instruments in popular music. Maybe an early example of progressive rock?
 
The Anthology of American Folk Music

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From Wikipedia:
Experimental filmmaker Harry Smith compiled the music from his personal collection of 78 rpm records. The album is famous due to its role as a touchstone for the American folk music revival in the 1950s and 1960s. The Anthology was released for compact disc by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings on August 19, 1997, as pictured.
 
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[0From Wikipedia:
Experimental filmmaker Harry Smith compiled the music from his personal collection of 78 rpm records. The album is famous due to its role as a touchstone for the American folk music revival in the 1950s and 1960s. The Anthology was released for compact disc by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings on August 19, 1997, as pictured.

One could easily argue from a historical standpoint pretty much everything on Folkways or that came from the Lomax field recordings is an important recording. Well done.
 
One could easily argue from a historical standpoint pretty much everything on Folkways or that came from the Lomax field recordings is an important recording. Well done.

It kept being mentioned in interviews and biographies of musicians I liked so I bought it on CD. It is an incredible assortment of songs, styles, lyrics and images. I hear influences from it in modern music almost every day.
 
Miles Davis - Bitches Brew

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Why? Jazz, to my knowledge, was "looking for direction" after having moved from avant garde, bop, and post-bop and labels were under pressure to picque the interest of a group of listeners who, as evidenced by declining record sales and nightclub attendance, were shifting their focus to more mainstream genres, namely rock and pop. Miles/Columbia Records drops this in early '70 and BAM, a whole bunch of jazzheads, including hardcore purists who detest the mere mention of "fusion" proceed to move a million-plus units off record store shelves. The previosly released "In a Silent Way" may have been more critically acclaimed, but "Brew" grabbed the ears of diehards and casual listeners in abundance by means of novel sonics and studio technological innovation. Love it or hate it, it's among a few releases that moved jazz beyond its base and brought it to the attention of the masses.
 
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