The Paul Butterfield Blues Band
1965
The band's rhythm section came straight out of Howlin' Wolf's group, and Butterfield had learned harmonica in Chicago clubs while still at university.
★ 3.9
The Albums canon
Sourced and spun.
Every record chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 542 records or filter by genre, artist, and year.
Browse all 542 records or filter by genre, artist, and year.
Fresh Cream
1966
Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker had already been throwing things at each other in a previous band. Baker's drum solo takes up five minutes.
★ 4.0
Brothers
2010
The Black Keys took two people and a lot of noise to Muscle Shoals, and came out with the record that filled the arenas.
★ 4.5
White Blood Cells
2001
Recorded in Memphis in about three days. Michel Gondry animated the video for Fell in Love with a Girl entirely out of Lego bricks.
★ 4.8
Use Your Illusion II
1991
Knockin' on Heaven's Door is a Bob Dylan song written for a western. The video for Estranged cost around four million dollars to make.
★ 4.8
Use Your Illusion I
1991
Both volumes were recorded together and released the same day, because the band could not agree on what to leave off a single album.
★ 4.8
Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!
1970
Recorded on the 1969 American tour, weeks before Altamont. Charlie Watts posed for the cover with a donkey carrying the band's instruments.
★ 5.1
Out of Our Heads
1965
Keith Richards wanted horns on the Satisfaction riff and used a fuzz pedal as a placeholder. The placeholder is what got released.
★ 5.4
Santana
1969
Santana played Woodstock before this was even released, reportedly on mescaline, and the film of it made the band famous overnight.
★ 5.4
Eat a Peach
1972
Duane Allman died halfway through making it, so the band finished the rest as a five-piece. One jam runs thirty-three minutes.
★ 5.5
Aftermath
1966
Their first album written entirely in-house, with Brian Jones reaching for the marimba, the dulcimer and the sitar between the blues numbers.
★ 5.5
Rocks
1976
They recorded it in a converted warehouse they rented as a clubhouse. Slash and Kurt Cobain both named it the record that started them.
★ 5.9
Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd
1973
The band named themselves after a gym teacher who kept sending them home over their hair. Free Bird's guitar outro runs five minutes.
★ 5.9
Pearl
1971
Joplin died before recording her vocal for one song, so it appears as an instrumental with the space where she should be.
★ 6.0
Disraeli Gears
1967
The title came from a roadie getting derailleur gears wrong. They recorded the whole thing in New York in under a week.
★ 6.1
Brothers in Arms
1985
The first album to sell a million copies on compact disc, and one of the first recorded digitally start to finish.
★ 6.1
Trout Mask Replica
1969
The band rehearsed in a rented house for months while Van Vliet dictated every part to them by ear. Frank Zappa paid for it.
★ 6.3
Toys in the Attic
1975
The title of Walk This Way came from a line in Young Frankenstein, which the band went to see during a break in the sessions.
★ 6.7
Time Out of Mind
1997
Dylan had not released an album of new songs in seven years, and recorded these in Miami with a dozen musicians playing at once.
★ 6.7
Cosmo's Factory
1970
The band called their rehearsal warehouse the factory, because John Fogerty had them in there every day. Five singles came out of it.
★ 7.0