The albums have to listened by everyone who is seriously interested from popular musi
 

I have listed albums that are not necessarily my personal favourites, but commonly respected. There´s also some Finnish bands that are not worldwide common but are here respected.

At first some from the fifties:
Elvis Presley: Sun Recordings
Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps: same (second album)
Eddie Cochran: the Eddie Cochran Memorial Album
John Lee Hooker: the Detroit Lion (or any other fifties collection)
Howlin´Wolf: Howlin Wolf (the Rockin chair album)

From Sixties:
the Ventures: the Ventures In Space
the Trashmen: Surfin´Bird
Yardbirds: Five Live Yardbirds
John Mayall´s Bluesbraikers with Eric Clapton
the Beatles: Revolver or/and Sgt. Peppers or/and Abbey Road
Beach Boys: Pet Sounds
the Rolling Stones: Beggars Banquet or/and Let It Bleed
Blues Section: Same
Iron Butterfly: In-a-gadda-da-vida
the Jimi Hendrix Experience: Axis:Bold as Love or/and Electric Ladyland
the Mothers of Invention: We´re Only In it for the money or/and Uncle Meat
the Who: Tommy or/and Who´s Next
the Byrds: Fifth Dimension or/and Younger than Yesterday
Big Brother and the Holding Company: Cheap Thrills
Donovan: Sunshine Superman or/and Hurdy Gurdy Man

More From Sixties:
Traffic: Mr. Fantasy or/and Traffic or/and Last Exit
Country Joe and the Fish: Electric Music for the Mind and the Body
the Moody Blues: Days of future Passed or/and In Search of the Lost Chord
the Grateful Dead: Aoxomoxoa or/and Live/Dead
Dr. John: Gris Gris or/and Babylon
Creedence Clearwater Revival: Cosmo´s Factory or/and Pendulum
Cream: Disraeli Gears or/and Goodbye
Pretty Things: S.F. Sorrow or and Parachute
John Coltrane: a Love Supreme
Love: Forever Changes
the Nice: Ars Longa Vita Brevis or/and Five Bridges
Colosseum: Valentyne Suite
the Velvet Underground: the Velvet Underground and Nico or/and White Heat/ White Light
Canned Heat: Living the Blues or/and Future Blues
the Doors: Strange Days or/and Waitin´ For the Sun
Vanilla Fudge: Same or/and Renaissance

From Seventies:
Sweet: Sweet Fanny Adams
Jethro Tull: Aqualang or/and Thick As a Brick
the Wailers: Burnin´
Rush: a Farewell to Kings or/and Hemispheres
Pink Floyd: the Piper at the Gates of dawn or/and the Dark Side of the Moon
Genesis: Selling England By the Pound or/and the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
Ten Years After: Watt or/and a Space In Time
Yes: the Yes Album or/and Fragile
Piirpauke: Piirpauke or/and Piirpauke2
Mountain: Nantucket Sleighride
King Crimson: In the Court of the Crimson King or/and Red
Mott the Hoople: All the Young Dudes or/and Mott
Free: Fire and Water or/and Heartbreaker
Van Morrison: Astral Weeks or/and Moondance

and more from the seventies:
Carole King: Tapestry
Deep Purple: Deep Purple in Rock or/and Machine Head
Little Feat: Waitin´ For Columbus
Led Zeppelin: II or/and IV
Black Sabbath: Same or/and Paranoid or/and Master Of Reality
Uriah Heep: Salisbury
Blue Öyster Cult: Same or/and Tyranny and Mutation
Santana: Same or/and Abraxas
Derek and the Dominoes: Layla and other assorted love songs
Alice Cooper: School´s Out or/and Billion Dollar Babies or/and Welcome to My nightmare
Mahavishnu Orchestra: Birds Of Fire
John Cale: Paris 1919 or/and Fear or/and Helen Of Troy
Iggy and the Stooges: Raw Power

And even more from the seventies:
Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band: Trout Mask Replica or/and Lick My Decals Off or/and Doc at the Radar Station
Osibisa: Heads
Amon Duul II: Tanz Der Lemminge
Hawkwind: In Search of Space or/and Warrior on the Edge of time
Lynyrd Skynyrd: Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd or/and Street Survivors
the Allman Brothers Band: Same or/and Idlewild South or/and at Fillmore East
Kate Bush: the Kick Inside or/and Never For Ever
Johnny Winter And: Same or/and Live
David Bowie: the Man who sold the World or/and Hunky Dory or/and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust
J.J. Cale: Naturally or/and Okie
Wigwam: Fairyport or/and Being

Seventies continue...
ZZ Top: Tres Hombres or/and Tejas
Queen: the Night at the Opera
the Band: Music from Big Pink or/and the Band or/and Stage Fright
Funkadelic: One nation Under a groove
Procol Harum: Shine on Brightly or/and a Salty Dog or/and Grand Hotel
Sly and the Family Stone: Dance to the Music or/and Fresh
Mike Oldfield: Tubular Bells
Bruce Springsteen: Born to Run
Lou Reed: Transformer or/and Berlin
Stevie Wonder: Talking Book or/and Innervisions
Bob Dylan: Desire
Tasavallan Presidentti: Lambert Land or/and Milky Way Moses
Pekka Streng: Magneettimiehen kuolema or/and Kesämaa

And some seventies "punkies":
Sex Pistols: Never Mind the Bollocks
Clash: Same
the Jam: In the City
Damned: Damned Damned damned
the Ramones: Same
Television: Marquee Moon
Dr. Feelgood: Down by the Jetty or/and Malpractise
Magazine: Real Life
the B52`s: same

Then from Eighties:
Motörhead: Overkill or/and Ace Of Spades
Iron Maiden: Same or/and the Number Of the Beast or/and Powerslave
Joy Division: Unknown Pleasures or/and closer
New Order: Brotherhood or/and Technique
Siouxsie and the Banshees: Kaleidoscope or/and Juju
the Birthday party: prayers on fire or and Junkyard
Bauhaus: Mask or/and the Skys gone out
Gun Club: Fire of Love
the Cure: Seventeen Seconds or/and Faith or/and Pornography
Nomeansno: Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed or/and Wrong
Talk Talk: Spirit of Eden
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: the Firstborn is Dead or/and Tender Pray
Dead kennedys: Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables or/and Plastic Surgery Disasters
Tom Waits: Swordfishtrombones or/and Rain Dogs
Sielun Veljet: Same or/and Suomi-Finland or/and Softwood music
Japan: Obscured Alternatives or/and Quiet Life

More From eighties:
Metallica: Master Of Puppets or/and ...And Justice For All
Sonic Youth: Evol or/and Sister or/and Daydream Nation
Specials: same
Talking Heads: Remain in Light
Red Hot Chili Peppers: Upfit Mofo party Plan or/and Blood Sugar Sex Magik
Jesus and Mary Chain: Psychocandy or/and Darklands
Kauko Röyhkä Ja Narttu: Maa on Voimaa or/and Joko-Tai
22 Pistepirkko: Bare Bone Nest or/and Big Lupu
Tuomari Nurmio: Lasten Mehuhetki or/and Punainen Planeetta or/and Hullu Puutarhuri
500 kg Lihaa: Etkös Ole Ihmisparka
Midnight Oil: 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1
Jimi Tenor and His Shamans: Diktafon
the Cramps: Psychedelic Jungle
the Pogues: Rum, Sodomy and the Lash or/and If I should fall from the grace with god
Misfits: Walk among us

And last albums from Nineties and 2000:

Fugazi: Repeater
Sweetheart: Well-dressed Meat
Nirvana: Nevermind
Radiopuhelimet: Avaruus or/and Hiljaista!
Portishead: Dummy
Fishbone: Give Monkey a Brain...or/and Chim Chim´s Badass Revenge
John Parish: How Animals Move or/and Once Upon a Little Time
Living Colour: Time´s Up
Opeth: Damnation
Tom Vek: We Have Sound
P.J. Harvey: Is This Desire? or/and White Chalk
P.J. Harvey and John Parish: a Woman a Man Walked By
Keuhkot: Mitä Otat Mukaan Muistoksi Sivistyksestä
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion: Orange or/and Now I got Worry or/and Acme
Kyuss: Skyvalley
Mulatu Astatke: Mulatu Steps Ahead
Neil Young and crazy Horses: Sleeps With Angels
Risto: Aurinko Aurinko Plaa Plaa Plaa or and Sähköhäiriöön
Björk: Medulla or/and Vespertine

As you noticed, my knowledge from nineties/2000 classic albums is not good, so you can put more about them. Of course there is also failings in the earlier periods.

The first three things I'd look for in such a list are Michael Jackson, Abba and Prince. None of which feature. Lots of shit I've not heard of does feature though. Hmm.

Hey guys just like like 60 albums per post. Don't even say why. Just list some albums......

The reason why there is no Jackson, Abba and Prince is that I have ever listened profoundly any of their albums. I respect them all, but I think M. Jackson and Abba is a little bit superficial to me. I know Prince has made profound stuff, but somehow he´s style has ever got to me. There is no reason, why someone can´t put them here.

I think that "shit" is Finnish stuff that´s not known as worldwide. I know you just don´t have time to listen every great record that is made in popular music, but maybe you should try some of you don´t know from my list (for example Wigwam or 22 Pistepirkko), you might be suprised...

Compared with The Misfits?

The lists I´ve made is a kind of combination of the listening work I´ve made over thirty years. And they´re not just my personal favourites, they´re also said great by the critics and most of them are also favourites of the many music listeners. Well, Stooges and Beefheart wasn´t favourites of the critics and audience in their time, but their greatness was found later.

Not at all. I mean Finnish band called Wigwam, that was that Norwegian band. Their greatest stuff is not in youtube, but you can try this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-hGUdfHSsg

That's the problem, besides the Finnish stuff you listed, most of the rest are household names to anyone sort of interested in rock. Any mainstream music mag will publish a similar list to yours every year. It doesn't invalidate your list so much as make it a bit unneccesary. Although your mention of Midnight Oil was an interesting (if slightly dumbfounding) addition.

I think Misfits was very important band in the popular culture. Maybe there would have been no Metallica without Misfits. Yeah, maybe Misfits is a little bit superficial, but I haven´t said that music has to always been profound. I like the aggression of Misfits with the trash-culture in it, I think they add there something more, if you compare their music 77 punk. I haven´t said Abba or M. Jackson are not important to the popular culture, I have said they´re not very important to me. I think in their style there is much more profound artists for example Carole King or New Order. And I made my lists with the criterias: Important to the popular culture and important to me.

Haha, yeah. Sorry. That's pretty awesome, to be honest. Reminds me a bit of Amon Duul's Archangel Thunderbird.

As a boost to Finnish culture, I absolutely see where you're at, although I wouldn't say Wigwam were really essential listening for anyone seriously interested in popular music. A bloody good record though.

Maybe you can continue this thread to put there some great albums that are not mainstream. Or start another thread, if you feel ashamed to put your albums here. I think that Midnight Oli album is just great and I think the critics also said that in that time. Maybe you´re right, maybe I have been just wasting my time and there is no use of my lists specially SYG.

One addition: I just wondered have someone here in SYG except me listened most of those mainstream albums I´ve listed? I know many here have bad attitude about mainstream, but I think if you really want to understand popular music, you should have listened most of these albums at least once. I think it is one of the main problem of the today´s world that people don´t know important things from the past. I think quite rare today´s people for example know their family´s history, I mean back in the 19th-century.

This is a baffling opinion is you don't like Abba. You don't have a choice. You should go out and buy Abba Gold.

It's not about wasting your's or anyone else's time. All I meant was that a list of albums that're of importance to you (as with the Midnight Oil ones) will always be far more interesting than one consisting of already quite well established 'classics' supposedly liked by other people.

Whenever you mention George Michael, I think of you wearing a massive knitted jumper and dancing to Wham as a slightly geeky teenager. I hope there's pictures of such a thing.

And yeah, Elvis over everything else, for any reason.

Can somebody give this man a knighthood, or is it too much to ask?

There's talk about Finnish music, but no mention of Hanoi Rocks?

Glice is right to mention Abba Gold, not just because it's Abba but because vast swathes of significant pop music doesn't really lend itself to conventional albums: Abba, The Carpenters, Motown, Spector, the Bee Gees, the Pet Shop Boys, Madonna, Blondie all being far better represented by 'best of' compilations.

Emphasising 'great' standard albums will always obscure the achievments of those artists who never managed to produce one, despite many of them making some of the most important singles in pop. When a method of evaluating pop music has no means of validating Hall and Oates, something's obviously wrong.

MAARS is a great example and emphasises the problem a lot of dance acts have had in gaining any real recognition as a result of never really excelling in the album stakes and elevating those that have (The Prodigy, Orbital, Fatboy Slim) way beyond their actual merits. There are countless dance music producers that've been quietly churning out great things for years now and can sell out most mega clubs just with their name but who are likely to end up as little more than a footnote in pop's 'official' history simply because they never made a great album. I mean this is surely as important a piece of 90s mainstream music as anything else.

MARRS was a one off side project for members of AR Kane and Colourbox. The b side of Pump Up the Volume is great:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u6jKV9TPLc

In my lists were already Doors, David Bowie and Elvis. Roxy Music and Johnny Cash are one I´m going to listen more somedays, Carpenters was the one I just forgot. I have only that Singles collection, but it´s just great and definitely something everybody´s must listen! Duran Duran, Boney-M and Culture Club are ok, but I think popular culture would be doing fine without them.

I have Abba Love Stories collection and it´s ok. I haven´t say I don´t like Abba at all, but I think it´s very possible I never become Abba-fan. I am going to listen some Abba-original-album someday (maybe Warerloo or the second album) but there has been so much interesting listening that I haven´t had time to it in these days.

Yeah, sorry. That's it.

My point in the earlier message was that people here SYG seem to judge many mainstream music without even hearing that ever. I´ve also wondering what´s the line of mainstream and non-mainstream? Selling over 10 000 records or just 5000? Are Dead Kennedys, Nomeansno, Joy Division, Beefheart and Misfits for example mainstream? (Demonrail said earlier that in my list everything else was mainstream as Finnish ones). If someone bothered to listen some albums from my list, I don´t ecxept he/she likes them automatically. To me it´s quite same do people like Jimi Hendrix, but if someone is seriously interesting about pop music, he should have heard at least one album from him.

I just have understood, why I feel myself a little bit uncomfortable here in SYG. If most people in SYG thinks that the most important thing in the popular culture are M. Jackson, Abba and Prince, then I might be in the wrong company. Someone said in the sixties, that Beatles is something that fits in the youth and the adults. I think Jackson, Prince and ABBA is much more of that. Some kind of feeling of the danger or the creativity of your inner child has been the most important things I´ve been interested about popular culture and those three just don´t have them, altough I don´t mean they´re not great in their way. These three could never make album like the Stooges Raw Power. Their music sounds too much a kind of perfect product to me. And I don´t mean that "forever young"-bullshit, I have liked to grown old. But I´m not going to ever grow adult. I have done some things I didn´t mean to (getting married, have children), but I don´t still have a fancy car, yacht, fancy clothes, lots of money. Altough popular culture has become more and more commercial, there are still artists whose music are against this moneymaking world. I know Rolling Stones are more bisnesmen than some others, but still their music sounds like their situation in their very early career.

I think it´s quite a fun in the context of this thread that many in this SYG seem to think Sonic Youth isn´t good anymore. I have thought that fans think SY-members has grown too old and can´t make fresh music anymore. I think SY is one of those artists that refuse to grow adults. So maybe Sonic audience has grown adults and doesn´t like them for that reason?

One album I forgot from my list is New York Dolls Too Much Too Soon. In my opinion Hanoi Rocks didn´t have much of addition to that album.

That's an ongoing problem for me. Do sales determine whether something is mainstream or not? Does Metallica's Master of Puppets become more 'mainstream' than a JoJo album simply by selling more copies? Will Nicola Roberts' next album be 'underground' as result of only Glice buying it?

I checked today's honours list. Nothing, again.

Phil Spector's back to mono is well worth working through. 4 discs of pop classics.