215 The Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers

With its offhand mixture of decadence, roots music, and outright malevolence, Sticky Fingers set the tone for the rest of the decade for the Stones.

 

214 The Allman Brothers Band – At Fillmore East

Forty-five years ago, on March 11th, 1971, the Allman Brothers Band took the stage at Bill Graham’s vaunted Fillmore East Theater in New York for the first of a series of shows that are among the most celebrated in rock history. The Allmans weren’t even supposed to be the headliners.

213 Isaac Hayes – Shaft- Music From the Soundtrack

Of the many wonderful blaxpoitation soundtracks to emerge during the early ’70s, Shaft certainly deserves mention as not only one of the most lasting but also one of the most successful. We can dig it!  At the 1972 Grammy Awards, “Theme from Shaft” won the awards for Best Engineered Recording, Non-Classical and Best Instrumental Arrangement and at the Academy Awards that year, Hayes became the first African-American to win an Oscar for a non-acting category when “Theme from Shaft” won the award for Best Original Song.

212 Carole King – Tapestry

This album will give you chills. Amazing!

It is one of the best-selling albums of all time, with over 25 million copies sold worldwide. In the United States, it has been certified Diamond by the RIAA with more than 10 million copies sold.[3] It received four Grammy Awards in 1972, including Album of the Year

211 The Who – Who’s Next

By 1970, the Who had obtained significant critical and commercial success branching out to one of the first rock opera’s Tommy but they had started to become detached from their original youthful mod/rocker audience with their heady ambitions projects. The group had also started to drift apart from manager Kit Lambert, owing to his preoccupation with their label, Track Records. After they had been touted as one if not the best live band and releasing a live album to back it up, Pete Townshend in particular recognized that they needed to do something new.

210 Bee Gees – Trafalgar

Despite the hit single, “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart,” the album showed the limits of the Bee Gees’ talents as songwriters and of their appeal as album artists. We also figure out which one of the brothers we really have a problem with.

209 Yes – The Yes Album

Their third time out proved the charm — The Yes Album constituted a de facto second debut, introducing the sound that would carry them forward across the next decade or more. Prog is here. Prog is real.

208 Marvin Gaye – Whats Going On

The central theme of “What’s Going On” and the album of the same name came from Marvin Gaye’s own life. When his brother Frankie returned from Vietnam, Gaye noticed that his outlook had changed. He put himself in his brother’s shoes and wrote a song that stands among the most tuneful works of consciousness-raising in American music. A masterpiece for Soul music

207 Sly the Family Stone – Theres a Riot Goin On

Having achieved great success with their 1969 album Stand! and performance at Woodstock, Sly & the Family Stone were due to have submitted an album of new recordings to Epic Records by 1970. However, Sly Stone missed several recording deadlines, worrying CBS executive Clive Davis, and a Greatest Hits album was released in an eighteen-month stretch during which the band released no new material, By 1970, Stone had become erratic and moody, missing nearly a third of the band’s concert dates.A rift developed between Sly and the rest of the band, which led to drummer Gregg Errico’s departure in early 1971. There’s a Riot goin’ on is Stone’s darker, more conceptual work that was influenced by his drug use and the events that writer Miles Marshall Lewis called “the death of the sixties”; political assassinations, police brutality, the decline of the civil rights movement and social disillusionment.

205 Jethro Tull – Aqualung

Jethro Tull were a unique phenomenon in popular music history. Their mix of hard rock, folk melodies, blues licks, surreal, impossibly dense lyrics, and overall profundity defied easy analysis, but that didn’t dissuade fans from giving them 11 gold and five platinum albums. At the same time, critics rarely took them seriously, and they were off the cutting-edge of popular music by the end of the ’70s. But no record store in the country was complete without their 1971 classic  Aqualung .

204 Syd Barrett – The Madcap Laughs

In the second half of 1967 and through to early 1968, when still part of Pink Floyd, Barrett’s behavior became increasingly erratic and unpredictable. Many report having seen him on stage with the group during this period, strumming on one chord through an entire concert or not playing at all. We discussion why is this tortured artist is is viewed as both brilliant and terrible

203 Santana – Abraxas

An excellent record, Abraxas would be considered a marketing exec’s worst nightmare. But at the dawn of the 1970s, this unorthodox mix of rock, jazz, salsa, and blues proved quite successful. Wonderful cover and yes , he later became famous for smooth.

202 Paul McCartney – McCartney

McCartney has an endearingly ragged, homemade quality that makes even its filler and there is a lot of filler and ideas but maybe not complete songs.

201 James Taylor – Sweet Baby James

When people use the term “singer/songwriter” (often modified by the word “sensitive”) in praise or in criticism, they’re thinking of James Taylor.  Although this singer songwriter is one of the best selling and most influence, we find some faults in the album and it’s scattered approach that don’t always seem to play to Taylor’s strengths.

200 The Stooges – Fun House

Producer Don Gallucci (of the Kingsmen) took the approach that the Stooges were a powerhouse live band, and their best bet was to recreate the band’s live set with as little fuss as possible. That was the best idea as the Stooges never sounded more wild and raw!  We made it to Episode 200! Thank you!

199 Traffic – John Barleycorn Must Die

John Barleycorn Must Die moved beyond the jamming that had characterized some of Traffic’s earlier work to approach the emerging field of jazz-rock. And that helped the band to achieve its commercial potential; this became Traffic’s first gold album but we aren’t quite sure why.

198 Cat Stevens – Tea for the Tillerman

After a long recover from Tuberculosis in 1968 Cat Stevens gives us Tea for the Tillerman. The story of a young man’s search for spiritual meaning in a soulless class society he found abhorrent. He hadn’t yet reached his destination, but he was confident he was going in the right direction, traveling at his own, unhurried pace.

196 George Harrison – All Things Must Pass

Drawing on his backlog of unused compositions from the late Beatles era, Harrison crafted material that managed the rare feat of conveying spiritual mysticism without sacrificing his gifts for melody and grand, sweeping arrangements. Enhanced by Phil Spector’s lush orchestral production and Harrison’s own superb slide guitar, nearly every song is excellent.  We discuss if it’s  a triple album or a double album with a bonus disc.

195 Rod Stewart – Gasoline Alley

known for its loose and scrappy approach Rod Stewart’s band members break out acoustic guitars and mandolins to play music that was never going to sound overly pretty because of the grit and gruff of Rod.  This is great first attempt for Rod but we all know the album that is going to really shine.

194 Soft Machine – Third

Soft Machine plunged deeper into jazz and contemporary electronic music on this pivotal release, which incited The Village Voice to call it a milestone achievement when it was released. We are surprised by how out there it gets while remaining somewhat accessible.  However Robert Wyatt vocals are terrible.

193 The Who – Live at Leeds

The prove that just because they can make an important artistic statement like Tommy that they are still one of the most uproariously exciting live band.  This was a crucial album to hold over the Mod rocking Who crowd till Who’s Next arrives. If you want to know how to put on a good maximum R’n’B live show this should be your bible.

192 Ananda Shankar – Ananda Shankar

Shankar envisioned a musical form that blended Indian classical music with Western rock and electronic styles. Shankar’s first album was one of the first to successfully explore the crossover of psychedelic rock with Indian music including simplified sitar covers of jumpin jack flash and light my fire . What sounds like a parody to use now was ahead of it’s time.