Name an album that is generation-defining and that changed everything after its release

I'd argue that the most important ingredient of Black Sabbath birthing metal (vs simply being a dark/occult themed rock band) was Tony Iommi's guitar tone

I've heard it said that before Black Sabbath, there are other songs and artists that one could point to and argue are the early origins of metal, but after Black Sabbath, there is no argument. It's where the defining sounds, imagery, aesthetics, and themes of metal first came together all at once.

The Wizard is still one of the most fascinating songs I've heard in terms of genre blending music. The harmonica was pulled from the deepest fields of the Mississippi Delta. Yet the so f as a whole couldn't be further removed from it.

Sabbath fucking rules.

It’s cool and interesting to me they come off as a subversion of the aggression, speed and machismo metal would later be known for, except they came first.

A band with their themes and sound, would be considered a subversion of what metal became since (or be part of the doom metal scene) because there were no “rules” to break or deviate from. People argue the satanic imagery started with them, though they’re a self-confessed “hippie band” and touch on some down right christian themes (After Forever) and their self-titled track certainly doesn’t portray what is happening as a good thing.

I love it when a work seems like it’s deconstructing or subverting a popular style or tropes when it actually invented them. I think a lot of faster, chuggier metal was surely inspired by songs like Children Of the Grave, Paranoid, Symptom Of the Universe.

The main riff on Black Sabbath is still one of the most doom layden riffs you'll hear...... 50+ years later.

To me they invented the genre and perfected it. No other artist can I say that same thing for. I can listen to those first 6 albums on repeat FOREVER and never tire of them.

This guy already said it, but I'm gonna say it again. Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath.

I was 19 when this came out. I remember sitting on the curb with my best friend smoking a cig and waiting for the record store to open so we could buy this album, BC we both liked Bleach.

Fun fact: my friend had a 'Nirvana' sticker on his car at the time and people would always ask if we were Buddhist.

We had no idea what was about to happen....

There's a lot of folk now that question this, likely cos they don't understand the cultural shift it caused.

If anyone reading this doesn't get what was so different, put on the Waynes World soundtrack and consider that that was rock/metal pre-Nevermind... Then listen to how different Nevermind was to all of that.

So easy. I was 19 at the time. The airwaves were soaked with mostly musical garbage like C&C Music Factory. Myself at the time? I thought bands like Jesus Jones and Ned's Atomic Dustbin were the "alternative" (and history proved them to be pretty damn good).

However, I can remember the exact moment I heard that opening riff of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and KNEW that was a cultural turning point (I was also the student concert promoter at my college and had huge access to new releases).

If this isn’t the top answer, something is seriously wrong with the universe.

This can't be overstated. Had to go look up what else was on the radio at the time of release. Some of the highlights of the top songs in the country prior to its release in 1991:

• Maria Carey - "Emotions"
• Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch - "Good Vibrations"
• Color Me Badd - "I Adore Mi Amor"
• Bonnie Raitt - "Something to Talk About"
• Extreme - "Whole Hearted"
• Aaron Neville - "Everybody Plays the Fool"

A mix of bland pop, non-offensive hip hop/R&B by shirtless white guys, doctor's office soft pop, and the "hair band goes acoustic" trend. Nevermind blew it all up. Completely changed popular music at the time. MTV couldn't figure out what to do with them. 120 Minutes? Headbanger's Ball?

I was in my early teens at the time, and had just discovered Pretty Hate Machine the year before. I was getting the idea that music didn't have to be vapid Poison, Warrant, etc type product. But that it could be *art*.

Then 1991 hit.

Nevermind. Ten. The Black Album (fuck you, I was like 14). Use Your Illusion. Badmotorfinger. Sailing The Seas of Cheese (don't judge me).

Goddamn what a year to be a kid just really reaching that point of music revealing itself to you for what it can really be, and then THAT year happens. I admit, I lucked out.

I remember the precise moment I was driving through rural eastern Indiana listening to the radio when "Smells Like Teen Spirit" came on and I thought "this is like nothing I have ever heard before, and the music I listen to will NOT be the same."

This is the one that did it for me. As a kid I liked the radio pop, New Wave stuff that was always in the background. I had older cousins who were into more classic rock like the Stones and Pink Floyd, so I was into that a little. But one I heard Nevermind, I was all in. I couldn't get enough of it.

This is the answer. It cannot be overstated.

Chuck Klosterman, who wrote a book on the 90s, considers Nevermind their beginning and 9/11 their end.

Honestly can't believe this doesn't have more upvotes. I really thought OP was going to say other than Nevermind, because it's no exaggeration, it changed so much.

I was going to say Electric Ladyland too. But yeah what a player.

It was seminal in Hip-hop. I was 13. Nothing like it existed at the time in the world. It reached small-town midwest. At the time I was a stoner/skater type and into Pink Floyd, Metallica, Slayer ... then NWA. White kids in the suburbs never heard shit like that. We were all metalheads one day. Gangstas the next.

I read somewhere that Ice Cube said in an interview that metal got heavier and more aggressive after that album came out. I can kind of see it, at least a couple of heavy music producers have mentioned drummers and bassists they have worked with wanted more punchy low end on their albums and looked to hip hop of the time as an example, including NWA.

It was fascinating for me to hear Paul McCartney talk about how he saw him for the first time. No one knew who he was at the time, so he played for a fairly small audience. But he immediately impressed everyone who was there, which led to the club being packed full a few days later - everyone wanted to see him.

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Great album indeed. Just sharing the funnies

Pet Sounds was the one I was coming here to say. You can divide popular music into before and after Pet Sounds

With respect to OP, "Sgt. Pepper" doesn't happen without "Pet Sounds" . . . and that's not speculation, George Martin and Paul McCartney have both said exactly that

Pet Sounds literally changed music. You can hear it in virtually everything that has come since. I cannot over state how much I belive this is the best answer to this question

The 1990s gave us some clangers in terms of music, but OK Computer was a saviour. It coincided with the World Wide Web growing in our lives, along with a few references to Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

It is one of the few albums I can listen to without skipping tracks. And Radiohead were right not to replicate the album again in future releases.

Fucking rakim is insane. This isn't off of paid in full but the 18th letter...just gonna leave this insanity here..

Since the first days you know of, 'til the last days is over I was always the flow-er, I made waves for Noah From a compound to the anatomy, to the breakdown of a atom Some of my rap patterns still surround Saturn From the ancient hieroglyphics to graffiti painted pictures I study, I know the scriptures, but nowaday, ain't it vicious? Date back, I go beyond, check the Holy Qu'ran To speeches at the Audobon, now we get our party on So bein' beneficent, I bless 'em with dialogue They expectin' the next testament by the God I roam through battle zones with chrome for chaperone Blast beat with saxophones, one of the baddest rappers known Every country, city and borough, side-street and ghetto Island, alley and meadow, theory's thorough enough to echo

this was the album i thought of immediately. I remember this album coming out & basically changed hip hop overnight. And as ahead-of-it’s-time as it was, I recently heard a recording of Rakim performing at a talent show in 1983, with Biz Markie on beatbox, and he was doing the “21 emcees” bit from My Melody all the way back then! Unbelievable at a time when the top rappers were still on some “my name is x and i’m here to say…”

Pink Floyd is my favorite band of all time. DSotM is a killer album…but I don’t think it really changed everything. Pink Floyd is still so unique, I just think they were special.

RE: Velvet Underground and Nico…who was it that said something like; “not a lot of people bought it when it was released, but everyone who did started a band”? I’ve heard different paraphrasing of that quote, but I can definitely see it being the case.

Kraftwerk represents one of the most drastic shifts in music that most people don’t recognize. Easily one of the most influential bands ever.

I was wondering when someone would mention Kraftwerk. There's a lot of Rap and Hip Hop that wouldn't exist without it.

Best answer. I can't think of a single album that single handedly created major genres (that our mothers would recognize), since these in 1967, 1970 and 1974. It's been 50 years of incrementalism.

None more black.

Intravenous de Milo was pretty groundbreaking.

"Shark Sandwich" doesn't get enough credit either. "Sh*t Sandwich", my ass!

This album begs the question “On what day did God create Spinal Tap, and couldn’t he have rested on that day too?”

What's wrong with being sexy?

I would say The Second Annual Report (1977) by Throbbing Gristle was the first industrial album. NIN was more the first popularly successful industrial and certainly generation-defining for many people.

Even as a white middle schooler who didn't particularly love rap, when this album dropped and Wu Tang blew up it changed the landscape of rap. As soon as you started to notice the comic/kung fu/subculture references they had in their music, it felt more relatable to anyone who was into "weird" shit but still had an interest in hip hop. It felt like you were in their club, you knew what they were talking about. This group who, at first, you'd think is totally outside your culture bubble, is speaking your nerd language mixed with some dangerously gangster shit. And RZA's production was unparalleled, unique, and genius. It was a cool feeling, realizing that.

Dylan going electric was a BIG deal at the time.

scrolled too far to find this

That one and Bringing it All Back Home, because it was really his first electric album. Highway 61 is more remembered today, though.

God-given ass

That really brought an end to meandering, LP-side long compositions by e.g. Yes. Nirvana did the same to hair metal of the '80s.

I was hoping somebody would bring up this point!

So true they’re the band that spurred thousands of pop punk bands and they hit a chord with the kids at that magic moment in the 90s where a massive musical and cultural shift was about to occur.

I was one of them. I can’t explain the impact his lyrics had on me. They were sarcastic, ironic, crude but weirdly enough, creatively thought provoking. At least to a high school kid.

Tré taught me how to play the drums. Literally the first album I learned from start to finish.

Can’t say I ventured passed this album but man it changed the 90s in the blink of a moment.

The Offspring called their album "smash" it would go on to become just that, becoming the biggest selling independent label release of all time and a massive smash, their guitarist was working as a high school janitor when the record took off, the singer was either doing his masters of his phd, I think masters and went back later to get a phd in molecular biology.

Pop punk had been around some time, bands like Descendents, NOFX and Bad Religion predate all that. Dookie is what turned it into something viable and could succeed in the charts and on MTV. I feel that a band that took it to another level in fact was Blink 182 in the late 90s when Green Day were starting to wane a little. Then they came storming back and made it stadium level.

I think this is one of the 10 most important albums in American music history.

I was gonna say…

"I just wanted to be one of The Strokes"

Was just about to put this. A lot of these albums were before my time - I appreciate them now but I didn't live through the era when they were released to really experience them. The Strokes - Is This It really set the tone for the next few years when it came out (I'd argue the follow-up Room On Fire was just as good)

There is no Nevermind without Pixies.

All good points, but I would argue they already did all that with their previous album Music for the Jilted Generation. It signified their departure from being a purely rave-oriented band and paved the way for a lot of other dance/punk/rock crossover acts in the mid 90s.

Jilted Generation was more groundbreaking IMO. Fat of the Land just took those ideas one step further.

I’m not sure why this is buried 200 comments down, but is there really any other answer?  1959 was phenomenal as Kind of Blue, the Shape of Jazz to Come, and Time Out were all released and sent jazz in three different directions.  But Kind of Blue will forever be the greatest and most influential jazz album of all time.  

🥁🥁🥁🥁

That sound is unmistakeable.

Paul's Boutique is way more influential. The sampling they did was crazy, and made the entire music industry take notice.

This was my first thought. It was so ahead of its time they broke up as a band playing basement DIY shows in the hardcore scene and reformed many years later to a hero's welcome playing to thousands of people a night instead of dozens at most. They influenced so many of the emo and post hardcore bands that followed.

That album really was exactly what they said it was.

Yes. I mean, as promised, they actually went and delivered what the album title states haha

Absolutely changed the trajectory of my musical life.

Dennis just had a massive heat attack yesterday. Luckily he's doing fine. We must protect that man at all costs.

Also kind of terrifying that those things happen even to super healthy vegans.

Bad Religion has never gotten enough credit for what they’ve done for music.

I guess I’m kind of glad. I love being able to go see them at the venues they play still to this day.

Great album.

I’d agree with this - she created a pop hybrid of depressing Indie Folk (Elliot Smith etc) with dance/808 beats and clean production. Highly influential on some of the currently popular acts like Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo

Fun story: when this came out, my father acted dismissive about it, saying that music "these days" just comes and goes, and that nobody will talk about this album in 3 years.

He could not have picked a worse album to make that point about.

I will always argue that regardless of one’s feelings ok LP, Hybrid Theory is a perfect album. Not saying it’s 10/10 music, that’s personal, but tell me one song that doesn’t fit.

I remember the day. I was in target, my neck was KILLING me from looking up at the tv at the majora's mask demo kiosk. Suddenly, on the wall of tv's next to me; one step closer's music video starts playing. Shit changed after that. We had everything then.

Monster album. Every woman between the ages of 12 and 52 were listening to that thing like it was the soundtrack to their lives.

"Metallica are sellouts" was something I remember people saying. Now they're in Fortnite and most of the tracks are from Black Album.

Actually... were they right? lol, j/k (?) That album certainly does have wide appeal for what was a "fringe" genre at the time. It most likely did help make Metal as big as it is today.