Showing 17 rock reviews
The Rolling Stones - Tattoo You
Released: 1981
Jagger and Richards weren't getting on, a 1981 tour was booked, and the 'new' album was a decade of rejected tapes. Tattoo You spent nine weeks at No. 1 — the Stones' last American chart-topper.
Bon Jovi - Slippery When Wet
Released: 1986
Bon Jovi demoed 30 songs for New Jersey teenagers, hired hitmaker Desmond Child, and hoped to sell 500,000 copies. Slippery When Wet spent eight weeks at No. 1 and went Diamond.
The Who - Who's Next
Released: 1971
Pete Townshend’s sci-fi opera Lifehouse collapsed and nearly took him with it. The Who salvaged eight songs, a Lowrey organ loop, and their only UK No. 1 from the wreckage.
The Beatles - Revolver
Released: 1966
John Lennon asked to sound like the Dalai Lama chanting from a hilltop; a 20-year-old engineer ran his voice through a spinning organ speaker. Eleven weeks later, pop had been remade.
The Beatles - Abbey Road
Released: 1969
The Beatles knew the end was near, so they composed one: a 16-minute medley stitched from eight fragments that closes their career on their own terms.
Queen - A Night at the Opera
Released: 1975
It cost more to make than most 1975 films, and its lead single was nearly six minutes of mock opera. Queen’s great gamble became rock’s most audacious triumph.
Journey - Escape
Released: 1981
A new keyboardist, a father’s advice, and four hit singles made Escape Journey’s only No. 1 album — and gave the world “Don’t Stop Believin’.”
Boston - Boston
Released: 1976
Tom Scholz built Boston's guitar sound alone in his Watertown basement on a Polaroid engineer's salary, then let Epic say it was cut in a real studio. It became rock's fastest-selling debut.
John Lennon - Imagine
Released: 1971
Recorded in a home studio on his own 72-acre estate, Lennon's song about owning nothing became the most argued-over peace anthem of its era — and outsold everything else he made alone.
Guns N' Roses - Use Your Illusion I & II
Released: 1991
Axl Rose remembered double albums getting stuck behind the Tower Records cash register, so Guns N' Roses released two nearly full-length albums on the same midnight in September 1991 instead of one.
Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band - Night Moves
Released: 1976
Seger and his manager never sent the title track to Capitol — they thought it was a failure. The producer submitted it behind their backs, and the label made it the album's name and lead single.
Queen - Greatest Hits
Released: 1981
Assembled from six years and four producers as a Christmas stopgap, it took 39 years to crack the US Top 10 — and is now in more than one in four UK homes.
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin IV
Released: 1971
Recorded in an unheated Hampshire manor with a truck borrowed from the Rolling Stones, the album shipped with no title, no band name, and four symbols the members chose from an occult reference book.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Released: 1976
It took a UK tour and a re-released single to save a debut America ignored for two years, cut in two weeks at Shelter Studios by a band Denny Cordell built from the ashes of Mudcrutch.
U2 - Achtung Baby
Released: 1991
U2 arrived in Berlin the day Germany reunified, nearly broke up inside a former Nazi-era ballroom, then rebuilt themselves into the band that made Achtung Baby.
The Clash - London Calling
Released: 1979
No manager, a garage in Pimlico, and a producer who threw chairs: The Clash made a double album for the price of one, and an unlisted song gave them their first US hit.
David Bowie - Low
Released: 1977
A gadget that "f—s with the fabric of time," a haunted French château, and a side of music without words: David Bowie got clean making Low, and RCA wanted Young Americans II.
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