MusicAlbumDB
106 landmark albums from jazz and blues to hip hop and electronic. Who made them, when they arrived, and why they still matter across seven decades of recorded music.
Key Albums
Kind of Blue
The best selling jazz album ever, cut in two New York sessions with a modal approach that traded dense chord changes for...
Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band
The first rock album treated as a single work of art, with an unbroken song sequence, orchestral overdubs, studio effect...
Whats Going On
A song cycle about Vietnam veterans, ecology, poverty and faith, initially rejected by executives who thought it too pol...
The Dark Side of the Moon
A continuous suite about madness, money and time, built at Abbey Road with tape loops, analog synths and Alan Parsons en...
Nevermind
Smells Like Teen Spirit knocked Michael Jackson off number one in January 1992 and alternative became the mainstream. Bu...
Thriller
The best selling album ever released, with estimated sales above 65 million copies worldwide. Seven of nine tracks becam...
Never Mind the Bollocks Heres the Sex Pistols
One album, one chaotic year, and punk detonated in Britain. God Save the Queen was banned by the BBC and the record stil...
Blue
Recorded after a period of travel and heartbreak, Blue stripped confession to piano, guitar and dulcimer with almost no ...
OK Computer
Recorded partly at St Catherine Court near Bath, it processed modern anxiety, transport and technology into guitar epics...
To Pimp a Butterfly
Live funk, jazz and a spoken word poem threaded across the tracklist made it a protest and self examination epic. Alrigh...
The Chronic
G-funk was born here: Parliament samples rolling under sine whine and Snoop Dogg casual drawl debuting alongside Dre pre...
Pet Sounds
Brian Wilson quit touring to build pocket symphonies in the studio with session players, odd instruments and harmonies t...