Albums

Beggars Banquet

Beggars Banquet is the seventh British and ninth American studio album by English rock band The Rolling Stones. It was released in December 1968 by Decca Records in the UK and London Records in the US. The album was a return to roots rock for the band following the psychedelic pop of their 1967 album Their Satanic Majesties Request.[1] Glyn Johns, the album's recording engineer and longtime collaborator of the band, said that Beggars Banquet signaled "the Rolling Stones' coming of age ... I think that the material was far better than anything they'd ever done before. The whole mood of the record was far stronger to me musically."[2] Producer Jimmy Miller described guitarist Keith Richards as "a real workhorse" while recording the album, mostly due to the infrequent presence of Brian Jones. When he did show up at the sessions, Jones behaved erratically due to his drug use and emotional problems.[2] Miller said that Jones would "show up occasionally when he was in the mood to play, and he could never really be relied on: When he would show up at a session—let's say he had just bought a sitar that day, he'd feel like playing it, so he'd look in his calendar to see if the Stones were in. Now he may have missed the previous four sessions. We'd be doing let's say, a blues thing. He'd walk in with a sitar, which was totally irrelevant to what we were doing, and want to play it. I used to try to accommodate him. I would isolate him, put him in a booth and not record him onto any track that we really needed. And the others, particularly Mick and Keith, would often say to me, 'Just tell him to piss off and get the hell out of here'.[2] Jones played sitar [3] and tanbur on "Street Fighting Man",[4] slide guitar on "No Expectations" [5][6][7] harmonica on "Parachute Woman", "Dear Doctor" and "Prodigal Son"[8] and mellotron on "Jig-Saw Puzzle" and "Stray Cat Blues".[9] Jones is sometimes mistakenly credited for playing the slide guitar on "Jig-Saw Puzzle"; both guitars are played by Keith Richards[10][11] The basic track of "Street Fighting Man" was recorded on an early Philips cassette deck at London's Olympic Sound Studios, where he played a Gibson Hummingbird acoustic guitar, and Charlie Watts played on an antique, portable practice drum kit.[12] Richards and Mick Jagger were mistakenly credited as writers on "Prodigal Son", a cover of Robert Wilkins's Biblical blues song of the same name.[2]

Harvest Moon

Harvest Moon is the twentieth studio album by Canadian musician Neil Young, released in 1992. Many of the musicians appearing on it also appeared on his 1972 album Harvest, and it is considered by many to be like a "sequel" to Harvest. Recovering from a case of tinnitus that had come about after the recording of 1990's Ragged Glory and its subsequent tour (which produced 1991's Weld and Arc), Young was determined to return to the studio. Returning to Nashville and joining up with compatriots like Ben Keith, Young put down the electric guitar, returning to the acoustic guitar, piano and banjo that had dominated albums such as Harvest, Comes a Time and Old Ways. The album earned the 1994 Juno Award for album of the year. The 2009 release Dreamin' Man is a live album of the subsequent 1992 tour and contains live renditions of all Harvest Moon tracks in a different order.

Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin is the debut album by English rock band Led Zeppelin. It was recorded in October 1968 at Olympic Studios in London and released on Atlantic Records on 12 January 1969 in the United States and 31 March in the United Kingdom. Featuring integral contributions from each of the group's four musicians, the album established their fusion of blues and rock. It also attracted a large and devoted following to the band; Zeppelin's take on the emerging heavy metal sound endeared them to parts of the counterculture on both sides of the Atlantic. Although the album first received negative reviews, it was commercially very successful, and critics have come to view it in a much more positive light. In 2003, the album was ranked No. 29 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time (it kept its rank when Rolling Stone updated the list in 2012).[1] In 2004, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.[2]

OK Computer

OK Computer is the third studio album by the English alternative rock band Radiohead, released in 1997 on Parlophone and Capitol Records. OK Computer was the first self-produced Radiohead album, with assistance from Nigel Godrich. Radiohead recorded the album in Oxfordshire and Bath between 1996 and early 1997, with most of the recording completed in the historic mansion St. Catherine's Court. The band made a deliberate attempt to distance themselves from the guitar-oriented, lyrically introspective style of their previous album, The Bends. OK Computer's abstract lyrics, densely layered sound and wide range of influences laid the groundwork for Radiohead's later, more experimental work. Upon the album's delivery to Capitol, label representatives lowered their sales estimates, deeming the record uncommercial. Nevertheless, OK Computer reached number one on the UK Albums Chart and became the band's highest album entry on the American charts at the time, debuting at number 21 on the Billboard 200. Four songs from the album—"Paranoid Android", "Karma Police", "Lucky" and "No Surprises"—were released as promotional singles. The album expanded Radiohead's worldwide popularity and has sold over eight million copies worldwide to date. OK Computer received considerable acclaim upon release and in subsequent years has been cited by critics and other musicians as one of the greatest rock albums of the 1990s. The album initiated a shift away from the popular Britpop genre of the time to the more melancholic and atmospheric style of alternative rock that would be prevalent in the next decade. Critics and fans often comment on the underlying themes found in the lyrics and artwork, emphasising Radiohead's views on rampant consumerism, social alienation, emotional isolation, and political malaise; in this capacity, OK Computer is often interpreted as having prescient insight into the mood of 21st-century life.

The Dark Side of the Moon

The Dark Side of the Moon is the eighth studio album by the English progressive rock band Pink Floyd, released in March 1973. It built on ideas explored in the band's earlier recordings and live shows, but lacks the extended instrumental excursions that characterised their work following the departure in 1968 of founder member, principal composer, and lyricist, Syd Barrett. The Dark Side of the Moon's themes include conflict, greed, the passage of time, and mental illness, the latter partly inspired by Barrett's deteriorating mental state. Developed during live performances, an early version of the suite was premiered several months before studio recording began; new material was recorded in two sessions in 1972 and 1973 at Abbey Road Studios in London. The group used some of the most advanced recording techniques of the time, including multitrack recording and tape loops. Analogue synthesizers were given prominence in several tracks, and a series of recorded interviews with the band's road crew and others provided the philosophical quotations used throughout. Engineer Alan Parsons was directly responsible for some of the most notable sonic aspects of the album as well as the recruitment of non-lexical performer Clare Torry. The album's iconic sleeve, designed by Storm Thorgerson, features a prism that represents the band's stage lighting, the record's lyrical themes, and keyboardist Richard Wright's request for a "simple and bold" design. The Dark Side of the Moon was an immediate success, topping the Billboard Top LPs & Tapes chart for one week. It subsequently remained in the charts for 741 weeks from 1973 to 1988. With an estimated 50 million copies sold, it is Pink Floyd's most commercially successful album and one of the best-selling albums worldwide. It has twice been remastered and re-released, and has been covered in its entirety by several other acts. It spawned two singles, "Money" and "Time". In addition to its commercial success, The Dark Side of the Moon is one of Pink Floyd's most popular albums among fans and critics, and is frequently ranked as one of the greatest albums of all time.

Thriller

Thriller is the sixth studio album by American recording artist Michael Jackson. It was released on November 30, 1982, by Epic Records, as the follow-up to Jackson's critically and commercially successful 1979 album Off the Wall. Thriller explores similar genres to those of Off the Wall, including pop, R&B, rock, post-disco, funk, and adult contemporary music.[1][2][3] Recording sessions took place between April and November 1982 at Westlake Recording Studios in Los Angeles, California, with a production budget of $750,000, assisted by producer Quincy Jones. Of the nine tracks on the album, four of them were written by Jackson himself. Seven singles were released from the album, all of which reached the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100. Three of the singles had music videos released. "Baby Be Mine" and "The Lady in My Life" were the only tracks that were not released as singles. In just over a year, Thriller became—and currently remains—the best-selling album of all time, with sales by various sources as being 51 to 65 million copies worldwide.[4][5][6]T In the United States, it also tied with the Eagles' Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975) as the best-selling album at 29 millions shipped.[7] The album won a record-breaking eight Grammy Awards in 1984, including for Album of the Year. Thriller enabled Jackson to break down racial barriers in pop music via his appearances on MTV and meeting with President of the United States Ronald Reagan at the White House. The album was one of the first to use music videos as successful promotional tools—the videos for "Thriller", "Billie Jean", and "Beat It" all received regular rotation on MTV. In 2001, a special edition issue of the album was released, which contains additional audio interviews, a demo recording and the song "Someone in the Dark", which was a Grammy-winning track from the E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial storybook.[8] In 2008, the album was reissued again as Thriller 25, containing re-mixes that feature contemporary artists, a previously unreleased song, and a DVD, which features the short films from the album and the Motown 25 performance of "Billie Jean". Thriller was ranked number 20 on Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list in 2003,[9] and was listed by the National Association of Recording Merchandisers at number three in its Definitive 200 Albums of All Time. The Thriller album was included in the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry of culturally significant recordings, and the Thriller video was included in the National Film Preservation Board's National Film Registry of "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant films". In 2012, Slant Magazine listed the album at number one on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980s".[10]