Dingwall
This has probably been done before but hey ho. I am intrigued to know your top 'guitar' albums that have had a big impact on you personally as a guitarist. I am not looking for your top guitarists but rather whole albums that have done it for you.
I was reading another forum on the subject and people were saying things like "..all of Eric Johnson" or "...all of Metallica" - that's not what I am after but rather the actual albums that really hit the spot. Selfishly I am hoping to get some new albums to seek out from this exercise ?
I will start:
Led Zeppelin - II
Rush - Grace Under Pressure
Thin Lizzy - Live & Dangerous
Extreme - Pornographitti
Giant - Last of the Runaways
John McLaughlin, Al di Meola Paco de Lucia - Friday Night in San Francisco
Brent Mason - Hot Wired
Tim Pierce - Guitarland
Hendrix - Axis Bold as Love
U2 - Unforgettable Fire
Steve Morse - High Tension Wires
Bloodline - Bloodline (young fiery Joe Bonamassa)
Poison - Native Tongue
Robben Ford - Handful of Blues
Kings X - Gretchen Goes to Nebraska
I have to stop now...!
Josh-Hayes
ZZ Top - Eliminator
Van Halen - Van Halen
Gn'R - Appetite for Destruction
guidothepimmp
Metallica kill em all
Metallica ride the lightning
Metallica master of puppets
Metallica and justice for all
Megadeth rust in peace
Megadeth peace sells
Iron maiden 7th son of a 7th son
Ugly kid Joe Americas least wanted
The cult
Acdc back in black
Ozzy blizzard of oz
Steel panther balls out
Ratt reach for the sky
Srv Texas flood
Riot fire down under
Extreme extreme
Warrant cherry pie
Dokken back for the attack
Tool 10000days
Yngwie malmsteem rising force
Racer x
Steve vai in the name of god
Mr big Mr big
Skid row skid row
Satriani
Wasp best of the best
Tony macalpine self titled
Pearl jam ten
Tito y tarantula tarantism
Gearhead
Robert Cray - Right Next Door
Stevie Ray Vaughan - The Sky Is Crying
Joe Bonamassa - Driving Towards The Daylight
Cream - Disraeli Gears
Rolling Stones - Let It Bleed
AC/DC - Let There Be Rock
Deep Purple - Machine Head
Jeff Healey - See The Light
Aerosmith - Get A Grip
Freddie King - (any live album you can get your hands on)
Fleetwood Mac - Mr.Wonderful
ZZ Top - Tres Hombres
Chabenda
ACDC '74 Jailbreak
SRV Texas Flood
Dire Straits first three albums
Judas Priest - Ram it Down and Painkiller
Lynrd Skynrd
G&R pre Use Your Illusion
warrenpridgeon
So much good music out there...I am gonna be broke soon :'(
AlanRatcliffe
I could make a dozen lists of "best" guitar albums - those that influenced me, those that inspired me, those that took my head off and screwed it on backwards. But I think it best to combine them and make a list of albums that had a huge impact on me in some way or another. Strangely enough, they are not all guitar focused... In order of discovery (more-or-less):
John Williams and Julian Bream - Together
Chet Atkins - Guitar Country
Django Reinhardt - Djangology
Toyah - Anthem
Kiss - Alive II
AC/DC - Highway to Hell
Thin Lizzy - Jailbreak
Scorpions - Love Drive
Deep Purple - Deepest Purple
Uriah Heep - Very 'eavy, Very 'umble
Pink Floyd - The Wall
Pink Floyd - Animals
Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
Iron Maiden - Number of the Beast
Iron Maiden - Piece of Mind
Iron Maiden - Powerslave
King Crimson - Discipline
King Crimson - Beat
King Crimson - Three Of A Perfect Pair
The Police - Regatta de Blanc
Jethro Tull - Songs From The Wood
Jethro Tull - Heavy Horses
David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust
Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy
The Dregs (Steve Morse) - Unsung Heroes
The Dregs (Steve Morse) - Dregs of the Earth
Frank Zappa - Apostrophe
Frank Zappa - Overnite Sensation
Frank Zappa - Them or Us
ZZ-Top - Fandango
Allan Holdsworth - Metal Fatigue
Paco De Lucia - Castro Marin
Al di Meola - Casino
Mahavishnu Orchestra (John McLaughlin) - Apocalypse
Shakti (John McLaughlin) - A Handful of Beauty
Weather Report - Heavy Weather
Queen - Night at the Opera
Dire Straits (Mark Knopfler) - Love Over Gold
Rush - 2112
Joe Jackson - Look Sharp
Laurie Anderson - Mister Heartbreak
Nina Hagen - Nunsexmonkrock
Steve Vai - Flex-able
Michael Hedges - Aerial Boundaries
Joe Satriani - Surfing with the Alien
Stevie Ray Vaughan - Couldn't Stand the Weather
Stevie Ray Vaughan - Texas Flood
Laurie Anderson - Strange Angels
Nina Hagen - Revolution Ballroom
King Crimson - Thrak
Paganini - 24 Violin Caprices (Isthak Perlman)
Dave Matthews Band - Crash
Bumblefoot - 9-11
Mattias Eklundh - Freak Guitar
Joe Bonamassa - So, It's Like That
Joe Bonamassa - You & Me
Porcupine Tree - Darkwing
Diablo Swing Orchestra - Sing-Along Songs For The Damned And Delirious
Gogol Bordello - Early Paranormale Years
DaFiz
There was one album that kept me playing guitar throughout my teenage years...
Harvest - Neil Young 8)
There are plenty more over the years but that one ranks way above them all
IceCreamMan
Wow, some great lists....
Van halen - VH1/VH2
Shadows - yeah my ole man was a fan ....apache and the like.
Guns an Roses - Appetite for DEstruction
Iron Butterfly
Scorpions - Animal magnetism
Hendrix - electric ladyland
Cream - Disraeli gears
Tesla - forget name of album - Modern Cowboy album
so many
studmissile
Duane Allman - Anthology
Shaver - Unshaven
Dwight Yoakam - Live (with Pete Anderson)
Bob-Dubery
Not in exact chronological sequence
A 70s compilation entitled The Guitar Album. Mostly rock and blues. One or two cuts by each player (in fact I think only Clapton got two, and one was under the name Derek And The Dominoes). It had Clapton, Hendrix, Duane Allman, but also less familiar names - Roy Buchanan, Shuggie Otis - and some I'd heard of but not heard - Les Harvey, BB King, Albert King. This blew my musical world wide open (though it was to open up again repeatedly over the years) and lead to many other explorations. Before you could say "Jack Robinson" several of my music nerd school mates had tracked down Roy Buchanan albums.
Jeff Beck - Blow By Blow. A startling level of virtuosity. No vocals ? yet it was entirely satisfying. Also introduced the notion that great solos or, in this case, instrumentals could not only get your bootie shaking but could convey emotion. Sure it hadn't to me before, but I hadn't really understood it or made the link or whatever. Now it was crystal clear that you could do this and it might even be the best thing that music could do.
Television - Marquee Moon and Television. The first is not an easy listen now because of Tom Verlaine's gasping vocals, but it was revelatory at the time. Punk was looming, virtuosity was becoming synonymous with indulgence and was getting a bad name (and not without good reason). Along came Television with the twin guitar attack of Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd and showed that you could have chops and take long solos (go to the loo before listening to the title track of Marquee Moon) and still be energetic and imaginative and adding to the music rather than just indulging your ego. And they went lighter on the blues based licks and modes. Verlaine in particular played guitar like I'd never heard and with a great match between the mood of the song and his solos. Their reunion album, Television was the same formula but more slickly executed and with great invention and authority in their playing. (Just about everything that Verlaine has done is at worth at least a listen).
Steely Dan - Can't Buy a Thrill. Boy! This album is loaded with great solos, mostly avoiding cliche. The famous track is "Reelin' In The Years", but Elliot Randall is even better on "Kings". Jeff Baxter gets in some great solos and amazed me by making the pedal steel guitar not just interesting but also down right rocking and sexy. Electric sitar too. What more do you want?
Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy. What I like about Page is the breadth of his guitaring palette, and he really shows a lot of breadth on this album. "Rain Song" is just beautiful. Generally there's a lot to explore in the first half dozen Zep albums, because of Page and his versatility. The cool thing about so many 60s rock players was that they didn't just have rock influences. Page epitomises that, I think, being as influenced by Bert Jansch as by Howlin' Wolf (although those are hardly the limit of his influences).
And talking of breadth: Richard Thompson - 1000 Years Of Popular Music. I was already a Thompson fan when I got this (the CD, not the DVD of the same name which is from a different year, different shows etc), but this really pushed back the horizons for me by showing what you can do with chops and audacity and not being afraid to tackle stuff that you like even if it doesn't seem that suited to the guitar. This ultimately led me to doing a Gilbert and Sullivan number solo (though I did "Tit Willow" which is not in the same league of audacity as Thompson and Judith Owen doing "There Is Beauty"). Nothing is safe: He takes on Prince's entire New Power Generation. He performs Britney Spears and Victorian music hall. Oh and there's quite a bouncy number from medieval Italy.
Tinariwen - Aman Iman. Just the most refreshing, most electric guitar band I've heard in years. And they show what a potent tool drones can be in music.
Neil Young - Decade. You don't have to play a thousand notes a minute to pack a punch and be a guitar hero. Young has a lot of attitude in his playing and he's EFFECTIVE.
Psean
Hmmm... This could be hard. I'll try to stick with the "made an impact" or "does it for you" thing. A few were I can't pick a particular album, but here are some that stand out for me now. In a vague order starting from when I first started dabbling in guitar playing:
The Offspring - Smash
Red Hot Chili Peppers. CAlifornication. Blood Sugar Sex Magic
Nirvana - Nevermind. Bleach
Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
Rage Against The Machine - Rage Against The Machine
Metallica - The Black Album. Ride the Lightning. Master of Puppets.
Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
Led Zeppelin - I-IV
Pearl Jam - Ten
Soundgarden - Badmotorfinger. Superunknown
Hendrix
Black Sabbath. Black Sabbath. Paranoid. Master of Reality
Death - Symbolic
The Pixies. Surfer Rosa. Doolittle
Danzig - Danzig
Skunk Anansie - Paranoid and Sunburnt
Mastodon - Crack The Skye
Rush - 2112
Misled - The Demeaning of Life
Kyuss - Blues for the Red Sun
Iggy and the Stooges - Raw Power
Howlin' Wolf
PJ Harvey - Dry. To Bring You My Love
Sonic Youth - Sister
The Rolling Stones - Let it Bleed
Gov't Mule - Gov't Mule
The Allman Brothers Band - At Fillmore East
Big Terrible - Face The Stone. Big Terrible EP
Clutch - Elephant Riders. From Beale Street To Oblivion. Blast Tyrant
Tom Waits - Bone Machine
Mahavishnu Orchestra - Birds of Fire
Squonk
THE EARLY YEARS
The White Album - The Beatles - these songs really turned me on to guitar playing. Dear Prudence, Rocky Racoon, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Blackbird, Mother Nature's Son, so many more.
The Song Remains the Same - Led Zeppelin - I saw this film in 1976 and bought the album the next day. I got goosebumps, this is the album that made me buy an electric guitar, the only thing is that I couldn't play Dazed and Confused straight away so I tossed it into my cupboard!
Decade - Neil Young - Some of the first songs I ever worked out - Old Man, The Needle and The Damage Done, Southern Man etc
Dire Straits - the first album - That tone Knofpler had then was incredible.
John McLaughlin, Al di Meola Paco de Lucia - Friday Night in San Francisco - Turned me on to Acoustic Guitar
I think the first Riffs I ever tried were from Black Sabbath Vol 4, SnowBlind, SweetLeaf etc
