Actually only the bottom four albums in my list have those typical summer/beach/surf songs. Most people don't know that the Beach Boys only made that type of songs until 1964.
What, you mean "Heroes and Villains" and "I Can Hear Music" aren't surf music? Hey, I was kidding about the beach. :-/
Okay, in terms of influence, we've got a whole different ball of wax.
1) Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music--the whole neo-folky singer-songwriter folk-rock thing comes out of this. Also, the idea that music is an instrument of protest and social change. Listen to "Down on Penny's Farm."
2) Robert Johnson's King of the Delta Blues Singers--the whole white-boy blues, black-man blues, Stones and endless imitators. Rock guitar god Mach I.
3) Hank Williams' 20 Greatest Hits--Hank made singles, but this album has been around forever and the songs on it have pretty much shaped the modern singer-songwriter--country or not. This man is Homer.
4) Elvis Presley's Sun Sessions--This is the invention of rock-n-roll all coming from the mouth of an 18 year old. Sam Phillips found his white boy who could sing black. Without him, no Beatles, no rock, just Perry Como and Jerry Vale.
5) Chuck Berry's "After School Sessions"--A black guy who can sing like a white guy and whose guitar style melds blues with country licks. Also a helluva singer-songwriter. Rock guitar god Mach II. Protest music hidden as teen music.
6) Bob Dylan--"Highway 61 Revisited"--Hey, he's half-Hank, half-Robert Johnson, and half-Chuck Berry (I know that's 3 halves, but that's Dylan). Brings the poetic revolution of Beat poetry and Ginsberg to the masses.
7) Beatles "Revolver"--takes 50s rock completely into the 60s and defines rock as art. Can write like Bob Dylan, sing like Elvis and play like Chuck Berry--what more do you want? Sgt. Pepper makes it official, but revolver consciously initiates the idea of music as a revolution in the head.
Beach Boys "Pet Sounds"--Brian accomplishes by himself what four Beatles and George Martin can do. But the real key here is melody and orchestration. Shows that in the hands of a master what a bunch of little parts can add up to.
9) "Velvet Underground and Nico"--Lou Reed's gritty street poetry and characters opens the doors for the Stones, the Doors, the Stooges, punk, and rock as performance art.
10) Jimi Hendrix "Are You Experienced?"--Electric Ladyland may be more adventuresome and Axis have better songwriting, but this gives us the rock god Mach III and takes rock into outer space. Unfortunately, it also led to endless noodling by his lessers and alot of troglodyte heavy metal.
11) Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon"--collectively made music with trippy lyrics that seque into one another and the sum means more than the whole. Unfortunately spawned a whole lot of prog-rock mess who didn't understand that less is more.
12) Bob Marley "Exodus"--world music that is really world music (not white guys using sitars), the first rock hero of the oppressed third world. But there's still "Jamming" and "Three Little Birds"--redemption songs.
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Topic: 10 Essential Albums (Read 4007 times)