THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON is a concept album by the English rock band PINK FLOYD, released in 1973. The album was a landmark in rock music, as it featured radio-friendly songs such as "Money," "Time," "Us and Them," and "Brain Damage/ Eclipse", which incorporated ethereal, concrete sound techniques. Some music critics use the album as a point of reference in determining between "classic" blues rock and the then-new genre of electronic music. However, the work's softer touches of lyrical and musical nuance make Dark Side stand apart from its peers.

The Dark Side of the Moon explores the nature of the human experience with themes such as birth, time, greed, conflict, travel, mental illness, and death. The album is considered by many fans and critics to be the band's magnum opus and is generally hailed as the record that defined their sound. By the time of the CHEMICAL BROTHERS' third album, SURRENDER, the big beat phenomenon they had done much to engender was more apt to be heard on a soft drink commercial than the world's hipper dancefloors. And with the growing omnipresence of big beat's simplistic party vibes threatening to cave in the entire scene, Tom and Ed came to grips with what is -- compared to their previous work -- a house record.

The pounding four-on-the-floor thump of tracks like "Music:Response," "Got Glint," and the duo's take on KLF-style stadium house for the single "Hey Boy Hey Girl" signals that this is a transition record for the Chemical Brothers, one that could eventually take them back into the straight-ahead dance mainstream status enjoyed by acts from Daft Punk to Armand Van Helden. DOOKIE, released in February 1994, is the highly influential third album by the punk band GREEN DAY, and it was their first album on Reprise. The album was a breakthrough for the band, introducing them into mainstream popularity as well as commercial success. This album helped Green Day become one of the most popular bands of the 1990s.

As of November 2006, the album holds a diamond certification for 10 million units shipped in the US alone and 20 million copies sold worldwide making it the best selling punk album of all time. The album was the band's major label debut for Warner's Reprise Records, causing considerable controversy in the punk community, with many critics claiming the band had "sold out." The album became a mainstream sensation with singles like "Longview", "Basket Case" and "When I Come Around" achieving #1 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart. Dookie reached #2 on the Billboard top 200 album chart.
THE DOORS is the debut album by the band THE DOORS, released in 1967. It features the breakthrough single "Light My Fire", extended with a substantial instrumental section omitted on the single release, and the lengthy song "The End" with its Oedipal spoken-word section. The Doors credit the success of their first album to being able to work the songs out night after night at the Whisky A Go Go or the London Fog. The End's Oedipal climax was first performed live at the Whisky A Go Go and The Doors were thrown out as a result of Jim screaming "kill the father and f*** the mother."

The album's dark tone and frontman Jim Morrison's sexual charisma and wild lifestyle influenced much of rock and roll to come. ARE YOU EXPERIENCED was the debut album by THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE, released in 1967. The album highlighted Jimi Hendrix's psychedelic, feedback-laden electric guitar mastery, and launched him as a superstar. After signing with Polydor Records and quickly switching over to The Who's label, Track Records, the group released three classic Top 10 hit UK singles: "Hey Joe"/"Stone Free" (December 1966), "Purple Haze"/"51st Anniversary" (March 1967) and "The Wind Cries Mary"/"Highway Chile" (May 1967). During the making of these singles, The Jimi Hendrix Experience cut their debut album, with Chas Chandler producing. Released in England that May without the three singles - as was the custom in the UK at that time - Are You Experienced and The Jimi Hendrix Experience quickly became a sensation all across Europe, with the album reaching #2 in the UK, behind The Beatles' unmovable Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. A dance-based electronic duo with a definite rock band feel, THE CRYSTAL METHOD formed in 1993 by Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland. The group's debut LP, VEGAS -- an unabashed party record bathed in acid, funk, rock, and big beat hip-hop -- appeared in mid-1997 and sold very well. There isn't much subtlety to their music, but there doesn't need to be, since their heady fusion of classic, late-'80s hip-hop, rave, techno, and rock is intoxicating on its own. Vegas rushes by in a quasi-psychedelic blur, occasionally stopping for ambient detours. There aren't any revelations along the way, but the Crystal Method does this crossover techno well, which makes Vegas a pleasure.
THE CHRONIC is the highly influential debut album from American rap producer DR. DRE. It came out in 1992. It was a very important album in popularizing gangsta rap. Its peak position was #3 on the Billboard Charts and went on to sell 4 million copies with chart breaking hits. The album was named after a slang term for cannabis. The album cover itself is an homage to Zig-Zag rolling papers. It is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential albums of the 1990s.

Having split from N.W.A., Dre's first solo album established him as one of the biggest rap stars of his era. The Chronic brought the genre now known as G-funk to the mainstream — a genre defined by slow bass beats and melodic synthesizers, topped by P-Funk samples, female vocals, and a laconic, laid-back lyrical delivery referred to as a "lazy drawl." The Chronic featured both subliminal and direct disses to Ruthless Records and its owner, Dre's former N.W.A. bandmate Eazy-E. SUBLIME is the self-titled hit album released by the eponymous band. The album was a major commercial success, going five times platinum in 1999 and etching Sublime into a permanent place among the stars of mid-90s alternative rock. Its most popular single, "What I Got", was an uncharacteristically poppy song; the bulk of the album was faithful to Sublime's ska, dub, and reggae influences, with tempos ranging from the frantic — such as "Seed," "Same in the End," and "Paddle Out" — to the slow and deliberate, such as "Pawn Shop" and "Jailhouse."

The musical styles throughout the album vary nearly as much as the subjects discussed, ranging from the mellow groove of "Doin' Time" and reggae beat of "Caress Me Down" to the pop-rock "What I Got" and the hard-punk sound of "Paddle Out". The genre-crossing musical diversity expressed on the album is one of the more compelling reasons for the record's wide mainstream appeal. Lead singer Bradley Nowell died two months before the release and success of the album. MASTER OF PUPPETS is the third album by American thrash metal band METALLICA, released by Elektra Records on February 21, 1986 in North America. The album reached number twenty-nine on the U.S. Billboard 200, selling over six million copies. It was the last album the band recorded with bass player Cliff Burton and is considered a landmark in the history of heavy metal.

With Master Of Puppets, Metallica innovated the thrash metal scene by adding a high level of complexity to the songs, melodic sounds (most notably in "Battery", "Master Of Puppets" and "Orion") that showed some similarities with power metal and progressive metal, playing an important role for the later post-thrash creation.
SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND is the eighth album by THE BEATLES. It is often cited as the Beatles' magnum opus and the most influential album of all time by prominent critics and publications. Upon release the album was an immediate critical and popular sensation. Innovative in every sense, from structure to recording techniques to the cover artwork, the artistic effect was felt immediately.

By the time The Beatles recorded the album, their musical interests had grown from their simple blues, pop and rock beginnings to incorporate a variety of new influences. They had become familiar with a wide range of instruments, such as the Hammond organ and the electric piano; their instrumentation now covered the entire range, including strings, brass, woodwind, percussion and a wide range of exotic instruments, including the sitar. NEVERMIND is the highly influential second studio album from the American grunge band, NIRVANA. It was released on September 24, 1991 and catapulted Nirvana from relative obscurity to the heights of commercial and critical success virtually overnight. It radically altered the musical landscape, shifting the focus away from the hair metal of the 1980s, and giving rise to the Seattle, Washington-based grunge movement which dominated the first few years of the 1990s. In the wake of its success, other Seattle bands such as Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains would go on to have hit albums as well, and other alternative rock artists were suddenly being played on the radio and courted by record labels. LONDON CALLING is a double album released by THE CLASH in December, 1979, in the UK and the first week of January 1980 in the US, marked the band's critical and commercial breakthrough. Besides straightforward punk rock, it featured a much wider array of styles than the Clash's earlier albums, with sophisticated pop songwriting that incorporates elements of rockabilly, 1960s-style pop music, lounge jazz, R&B, ska, rocksteady, hard rock, and reggae. It recieved almost unanimous worldwide critical acclaim.

The album is considered a landmark by many, and tracks such as "Train in Vain", "Clampdown", and the title track "London Calling" show up with regularity on rock stations to this day. The album's cover type arrangement is a homage to the first, self-titled Elvis Presley album.
STANKONIA is a hip hop album by OUTKAST, released by La Face records on October 31, 2000. The album sold well, reaching the No. 2 position on America's national Billboard Hot 100 chart. As well, the album received wide critical acclaim, from publications such as Rolling Stone and The Onion. Part of the reason for Stankonia's acclaim and popularity was the diversity of its musical influences, which led to comparisons to Prince. It incorporates many musical genres to create a unique sounding whole. For example, the music opens with a heavy metal-style electric guitar riff on "Gasoline Dreams" before turning to slick P-funk on the second song "So Fresh, So Clean". The album also incorporates influences from gospel, ("Toilet Tisha"), samba ("Humble Mumble") and drum n bass ("B.O.B."). This stylistic diversity was tied together by the pseudo-psychedelic production credits, emphasizing trippy synthesizers, spacey sound effects, techno-tinged percussion, and weird 70s-style psychedelic funk, updated in a more contemporary hip-hop context. MUSIC FOR THE JILTED GENERATION is an album by hard dance/rave act THE PRODIGY. The album was released through XL Recordings in July 1994. It is largely a response to the corruption of the rave scene in England by its mainstream status as well as Great Britain's "Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994", which effectively criminalised raves, rave culture, and by implication, rave music itself. The latter is exemplified in the song "Their Law." SKELETONS FROM THE CLOSET was the first compilation album from GRATEFUL DEAD. It was first released on LP in February 1974. The release was a ploy for Warner Bros. Records to cash in on the escalating popularity of the band (based on the sales of Workingman's Dead and American Beauty). Three of the tracks were not original Dead album studio recordings. This "Turn On Your Lovelight" first appeared on the album The Big Ball, which was a loss leader sampler distributed by Warner Bros.; it had also appeared in longer form on Live/Dead. "One More Saturday Night" was taken from the band's live release Europe '72. And "Mexicali Blues" was actually a track off of guitarist Bob Weir's solo release (but essentially Dead album) Ace. It is the Dead's best-selling album, going triple platinum in the United States.