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From psychedelic beginnings to grunge revolution, hard rock's evolution is a wild ride! Join us as we explore the landmark albums that shaped the genre. Our countdown includes Hendrix's game-changing debut, Sabbath's metal blueprint, AC/DC's triumphant comeback, and more! Which milestone defined hard rock for you?
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00:00She's got a smile that it seems to me, reminds me of childhood memories.
00:07Welcome to WatchMojo.
00:09And today, we're looking at a short history of hard rock summed up by 13 albums,
00:14which define the genre and everything it stands for.
00:18Let me down, just make my play.
00:20Don't try to push a little, just get it out of my way.
00:22Don't try to push a little, just get it out of my way.
00:25Are you experienced the Jimi Hendrix Experience?
00:30Guitar playing before and after Jimi Hendrix first burst onto the scene were two very different things.
00:44Backed by the duo of Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding, Hendrix and his band were truly on a different level.
00:50Their debut, Are You Experienced? altered rock and roll forever.
01:00Introducing a level of psychedelia and all-around virtuosity that remains unmatched to this day.
01:06Somewhere, a king has no way.
01:13The wind cries Mary.
01:18Hendrix wasn't just a great instrumentalist either.
01:21He was also an excellent singer and songwriter.
01:24Songs like Purple Haze and The Wind Cries Mary are revered as classics and covers like Hey Joe
01:30never sounded fresher than they did in 1967.
01:34Hey, hey, hey, Joe.
01:35I said, where you gonna run to now?
01:39Where you gonna go?
01:40An all-time benchmark for several genres and a game changer in the foundation of hard rock.
01:47Led Zeppelin.
01:48Led Zeppelin.
01:49Led Zeppelin announced themselves to the world at the end of the 1960s.
02:06Founded by incomparable guitarist Jimmy Page, the group reconceptualized rock and roll for the next decade.
02:13For as much as they would perfect the formula on later releases, their self-titled debut album was a remarkably strong way to begin.
02:20I don't know where you're going with only love, just where you'll be.
02:26Sweet little baby, I want you.
02:29I want you to dance, yeah.
02:33Robert Plant redefined the hard rock frontman.
02:35John Bonham took the genre's drumming to a new level.
02:38And, of course, the unsung hero that is John Paul Jones brought it all together.
02:44Page and Plant were an exceptionally sharp songwriting team, too.
02:48And while Zeppelin would go on to refine their sound, this was one hell of a first taste.
02:52Baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, I'm gonna leave you.
03:01Paranoid.
03:02Black Sabbath.
03:03Can you help me?
03:06I can buy my brain.
03:10Oh, yeah.
03:12Heavy metal existed only in brief ideas and singular moments before Black Sabbath brought it all together on their seminal album Paranoid.
03:19Paranoid, sure, their debut was just as good in that regard, but in terms of commercial success and overall fluidity, Paranoid was the blueprint that so many other bands would follow.
03:30Generals gathered in their masses, just like witches at black masses.
03:38It had an unmistakably heavy metal aesthetic from start to finish, highlighted by instant classics like Iron Man, War Pigs, and the title track.
03:49The fact that an album that practically birthed the genre went to number one in the UK tells you everything you need to know about its importance and impact.
03:58As he lost his mind, can he see or is he blind?
04:06Is he life or death?
04:09As he goes within his head.
04:12Who's next?
04:13The Who.
04:14Following on from the smash hit that was their previous album, Tommy, The Who felt like stripping things back for their next release.
04:21No one knows what it's like to be the Batman, to be the sad man behind blue eyes.
04:33However, that didn't mean that 1971's Who's Next was a minimal piece of music.
04:39No, the band indulged themselves by introducing modern recording techniques and synthesizers, all while keeping rock and roll at the center of what they were doing.
04:47Songs like Baba O'Reilly and Won't Get Fooled Again were hits just because of the songs themselves.
05:09They let us know where hard rock was headed, and when you look at the decade that followed Who's Next, they were certainly on to something.
05:15We don't get fooled again.
05:20Don't get fooled again.
05:23No, no, no, no, no!
05:26Machine Head, Deep Purple.
05:29Smoke on the water.
05:32A fire in the sky.
05:35Get on it.
05:37Smoke on the water.
05:40No band defined straight-up 70s hard rock quite like Deep Purple.
05:44It was their sixth album, and their second lineup, that truly nailed their formula.
05:49Machine Head is hard rock and roll at its most urgent and immediate.
05:53Yeah, she turns me on.
05:55All right, all right, I'm a highway star.
06:01Tracks like Highway Star are the type of pieces that could have only been written and recorded
06:07in the 1970s.
06:08Plus, album standout Smoke on the Water is a song that is so ingrained in musical culture,
06:14its guitar riff is arguably more famous than the band that created it.
06:18Deep Purple was a band with several creative peaks, and Machine Head might just have been
06:24the greatest of them, Van Halen.
06:26Van Halen.
06:28Oh, Jamie's flying.
06:32Now Jamie wouldn't say all right.
06:34Van Halen injected some serious energy and fun into the hard rock genre with their debut
06:39album at the end of the 1970s.
06:41Led by the blistering guitar work of Eddie Van Halen, they found their footing immediately
06:46with their self-titled debut album.
06:48I'm living at a basic you, oh yeah, running with the devil.
07:01The opener, Running With The Devil, tells you everything you need to know about these rock
07:06titans.
07:07Or at least it does, until you're hit with the follow-up track, Eruption.
07:10Never before had a guitar been tamed quite like it had been in the hands of Eddie on
07:15that tune.
07:20This album laid the framework, not just for many standout guitarists of the 80s, but also
07:26for entire bands.
07:28Hemispheres.
07:29Rush.
07:30By the time the 60s had finished, rock music was ready to branch off in several different
07:35directions.
07:35If there was one thing that defined the post-Hendrix, post-Beatles, and post-Cream world, it was
07:53the fusion of psychedelic rock and arena rock into the bizarre and beautiful world of Prague.
07:58Rush was a band that pivoted from a pretty regular hard rock sound to full-on spaced-out
08:03progressive rock.
08:05They had been in transition long before the release of 1978's Hemispheres, but this was
08:17the album that truly broke them into the mainstream.
08:20Just listen to a track like Circumstances, and imagine how that would have sounded to audiences
08:25in the late 70s.
08:26A band of virtuosos, who were clearly ahead of their time.
08:31All the same, we take our chances, not back by night.
08:35Creep for Circumstances, who's our chance?
08:40London Calling.
08:41The Clash.
08:42Stand by me.
08:44Run along.
08:46Stand by me.
08:49No way.
08:49Punk, in its truest form, was never fated to last for a very long time.
08:55Even a band like The Clash eventually moved away from the punk genre for the most part.
09:00However, after their first two albums displayed their mastery of the genre, it was their third
09:05release, London Calling, that showcased their style-bending talents to the fullest.
09:10London Calling to the faraway towns, now war is declared, and battle come down, London
09:18calling to the underworld.
09:20The Clash were too good to be confined to one type of music, and as a result, this 1979
09:27classic ended up becoming one of the richest melting pots of musical influences imaginable.
09:32On top of it all, the songs are absolutely fantastic from start to finish.
09:37It was still punk, but very noticeably drew from ska, reggae, post-punk, and new wave.
09:52Back in Black.
09:54ACDC.
09:55Dealing with the untimely death of your lead singer is the type of tragedy that would decimate
09:59most bands.
10:00The passing of Bon Scott could have ruined ACDC, and yet the surviving members pretty
10:15quickly decided that their frontman would have wanted them to soldier on.
10:18That's exactly what they did.
10:20Let me put my love into you, babe Let me put my love on the land
10:28Recruiting Brian Johnson as a bona fide masterstroke, and out of nowhere, ACDC with Back in Black
10:34reached a level of fame and acclaim that nobody saw coming, in many ways.
10:39This was a defining hard rock album of the 1980s, and it came out just seven months into
10:45the decade.
10:46Back in Black.
10:47I hate to say it.
10:48I've been too long.
10:49I'm glad to be back.
10:50Yes, I'm getting loose.
10:51From the news.
10:52What else can we hangin' about?
10:56Iron Maiden.
10:57Iron Maiden.
10:58See the ball begin to flow.
11:01As it falls upon the floor.
11:03Our maiden can be found.
11:06We could've picked so many albums from this era.
11:09High and Dry by Def Leppard being another huge one.
11:11All I can say is, I'm doin' fine, just in my mind.
11:19However, we couldn't look past Iron Maiden's blistering self-titled debut album as the definitive
11:24pick of the lot.
11:25There was some real take-no-prisoners energy to this one.
11:29A furious approach to hard-rocking that melded elements of metal, punk, and classic rock
11:34flawlessly.
11:44The riffs are the thing that bring it all together, though.
11:48And boy, do Maiden bring out the big guns here.
11:51Even at this early stage, they were the perfect heavy metal band.
11:55I'm running free, yeah.
11:57I'm running free.
11:59I'm running free, yeah.
12:02I'm running free.
12:04Master of puppets.
12:06Metallica.
12:07Though they would perfect the balance between raw metal and commercial appeal five years
12:12later, 1986 was truly the year when Metallica burst out of their shell.
12:17Master of puppets was the sound of a band who could barely put a foot wrong.
12:32Across the album's eight tracks, they dragged heavy metal into a totally different stratosphere.
12:36The title track is the perfect example of frenetic thrash metal that can be enjoyed by anyone.
12:53The songs on here are so undeniably tight and well-written that they made Metallica way
12:58more mainstream than they had any right to be.
13:13Sure, the Black Album would push their pop sensibilities further, but this is rougher
13:19around the edges in the best way possible.
13:22Appetite for Destruction.
13:24Guns N' Roses
13:25Guns N' Roses broke into the mainstream during a time when rock music was becoming a caricature
13:42of itself.
13:43Hair metal had dominated the airwaves in the 1980s, and while Axl Rose, Slash, and company
13:49certainly had hair, they delivered a sound that brought so, so much more.
13:53The riffery on display was simply on a different level than their contemporaries.
14:08This was an album that made rock sound urgent again.
14:11Track for track, this is just about as solid as it gets.
14:15Every song on the album could've been a hit, and a lot of them were.
14:19Sure, G and R burned so brightly that it was inevitable that they would implode, but boy,
14:24was it good while it lasted.
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14:5710.
14:58Pearl Jam
14:59The birth of grunge was yet another important step in shedding the excess and glamour of the
15:171980s.
15:18While bands like Nirvana edged closer to the side of apathy and angst, Pearl Jam delivered
15:23the raw power of hard rock, albeit in a modern form.
15:27Led by Eddie Vedder's impassioned vocal delivery, the band hit the ground running with their debut
15:3110.
15:32Even Flow
15:35Songs like Even Flow and Alive exemplified what arena rock could be to the modern listener.
15:45There's a reason these songs still sound as fresh today as ever.
15:50Pearl Jam updated hard rock music with 10 in a way that is undeniably timeless.
15:55But what milestone album for the hard rock genre would make it onto your list?
16:09Let us know in the comments below.
16:11Free
16:14Natale
16:15Vigil
16:19Retail
16:24Destill
16:28Off
16:38Rejoey
16:39Out
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