Absolute Essentials - Pop Albums - 1950s
Submitted by lbangs on Fri, 08/19/2005 - 05:45
Tags:
- Elvis Presley - Elvis Presley (1956)
- Elvis Presley - Elvis (1956)
- Elvis Presley - Christmas Album (1957)
Author Comments:
For pop, read rock, pop, rap, R&B, hip-hop, and soul, including any music from other genres that played a huge influence on the development of the other styles listed. The rules are pretty simple. An album must be in print (as defined by being available new from Amazon at the time this list was created), and it must be an actual album, not a compilation (there is another list for those).
lbangs, I have a question for you regarding your Absolute Essentials lists, the one above plus here and here and here and here and here. There are a lot of acclaimed classics here, of course, but a good deal of albums that I had never heard of before I read this series. Of those unsung essentials, which albums do you feel you like more than you talk about? Are there any that constantly just barely miss your "greatest" lists, that stand out among the other absolute essentials as ones you really don't mention enough, considering how much you really love them?
Ha! You thought I forgot about you, didn't you? :)
I've been trying to think of a good answer that has more substance than "all the ones I listed." I think the biggest disconnect is seen with those albums that are really from other genres but overlap rock. For example, since I used a much stricter difinition for the genre on most of my other lists, they usually lack many of my favorite Blues and Rap albums. I can't make it long without spinning my Howlin' Wolf or Public Enemy discs, just to throw out two examples, and I don't think they are on too many of my other lists.
And though he is oddly missing from most of my lists, I cannot over-stress how much I love Capitol-era Sinatra...
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs