1. Bitches Brew
Forget the anniversary hype; the sound is what matters. This record felt like a switchblade in a velvet glove when it dropped. It wasn't about blues purity or swing's slickness; it was about the gutter, the drone, Cale's viola scratching like a cat on a chalkboard. Reed's voice, flat and knowing, laid bare the city's underbelly. It birthed the whole post-punk notion of art-damaged rock, proving you didn't need virtuosity, just attitude and a knack for the unsettling truth.
2. The Velvet Underground & Nico 45th Anniversary
Kraftwerk showed everyone how to make machines sing, years before most knew what a synth could truly do. *Autobahn* wasn't some disco thump, nor was it rock. It was a rhythmic journey, motorik and precise, yet utterly captivating. The remastered sound sharpens those pristine electronic pulses, revealing the blueprint for so much of what came later in house and techno. It's a testament to early electronic minimalism, an industrial ballet that still feels both sterile and strangely soulful, pushing music forward one circuit at a time.
3. Autobahn (2009 Remaster)
This wasn't music for chin-stroking. This was a kick in the teeth to everything that came before, a primal scream against rock's bloated self-importance. The Pistols didn't know how to play, and frankly, didn't care. It was three chords, a sneer, and a refusal to compromise, a direct lineage from early rock's rawest energy but stripped bare. It tore down the gilded cages of prog and disco, leaving behind a scorched earth that fertile ground for post-punk's intellectual fury. Pure, unadulterated noise.
4. Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols
Television took the Velvet Underground's blueprint and stretched it out, turning urban grit into something almost elegant, if still jagged. Verlain and Lloyd’s guitars weren’t just shredding; they were weaving, interlocking like bebop horns but with rock's electricity. It was cerebral, sure, but still had that street-level pulse, a kind of art-rock blues. *Marquee Moon* showed how punk’s energy could evolve, bringing back a sense of musicality without sacrificing the raw honesty, creating a true post-punk classic.
5. Marquee Moon
Before there was "metal," there was this. Sabbath took the blues, slowed it down to a funereal crawl, and then coated it in industrial-strength gloom. Iommi's riffs were like steel girders falling from the sky, heavy and crushing, a direct descendant of the gut-bucket blues but amplified to terrifying proportions. Ozzy's voice, full of dread, cemented the mood. This wasn't just loud; it was heavy in its very bones, forging the dark structures that would define a whole new genre, a pure, unholy sound.
