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The 75 Albums Every Man Should Own

Kick off Esquire.com's Music Week with our unranked, incomplete, yet highly tasteful and informative list of the records your music collection requires. How many have you listened to? Plus: Albums that didn't make the cut (and never should), new songs, new bands, and new photos... of Katy Perry Darkness on the Edge of Town, Bruce Springsteen
This is when Springsteen became a man. He realized that once you break these chains and jump in the car and leave this rotten town behind that was Born to Run all those dreams of freedom and redemption can turn into nightmares of hopelessness and, worse, banality.
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Phases and Stages, Willie Nelson

The heartbreaking chronicle of a marriage gone south. From Willie's perspective. And hers.
The Stone Roses, The Stone Roses

Brit pop's platonic ideal.
Lust for Life, Iggy Pop

In 1977 Iggy ran off to West Berlin with David Bowie to record an album so juiced with spleen that even cruise-line commercials can't make it
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sound safe.
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, David Bowie
Only Bowie could pull this off: an apocalyptic concept album by a horny alien drug addict alter-ego who wails his way through eleven glam anthems en route to rock 'n' roll suicide.
Live at The Apollo, James Brown

The way those teenage girls in Harlem scream when he leans into "Try Me" equals anything the Beatles evoked on Ed Sullivan, a full fourteen months before that foursome stormed American shores.
What's Going On, Marvin Gaye

He defied the Motown hit machine with a deeply
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personal, socially conscious work, forever altering the terrain of American soul music. If the Funk Brothers, Motown's most underappreciated backing band, sound especially white hot, that's because it's the first record they ever got credit for.
Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, Pavement

Makes you shout and rant and cry and it surprises you and challenges you and angers you and brings you to your knees. Then it makes you hit play again.
Illmatic, NaS
How to be an MC.
Dire Straits, Dire Straits

Like listening to your best
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friend sing beautiful songs about girls and loneliness and wasting time, if your best friend was one of the smartest guitarists and lyricists of our time.
American Beauty, Grateful Dead

This 1970 studio disc is the best introduction to the greatest jam band of all time without all the fortyfive-minute jams from Jerry and Co.'s exhaustive (and exhausting) live catalogue.
Out of Step, Minor Threat

Eight songs. Nineteen minutes, sixteen seconds. That urgent enough for you?
Aftermath, The Rolling Stones

Mick and Keith's first album of
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all original material, including "Paint It Black." Recorded when they were twenty-two. This was the British Invasion.
Paul's Boutique, The Beastie Boys

Rap music was stuck in a robotic "boom bap" before this record dropped. After, it transformed from a niche genre that did one thing to a mainstream genre that included everything.
Led Zeppelin (I), Led Zeppelin

I shows off each of the band members' singular superiority (Page on "Communication Breakdown," Plant on "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You," Jones on "Dazed and Confused," Bonham on "How Many More Times") in a way none of their next four nearlyas-quintessential albums still can't. It's a clinic.
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Imperial Bedroom, Elvis Costello

If only for "Beyond Belief."
The Cars, The Cars

Plays like a greatest-hits album only it's their first.
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Being There, Wilco

Wilco unhinged and unsteady and under-produced is better than nearly any other band including Wilco.
Destroyer, KISS
While most bands start out as bands and evolve into cartoon characters, KISS started out as cartoon characters and evolved into a band. By the time they recorded Destroyer, their fifth record, they were at their peak, reached just moments before they began falling apart. (The iconic cover art is almost prophetic, the four members leaping off the top of the mountain they had finished climbing together.) The lead track, "Detroit Rock City," probably remains their best song; "Beth" pulled the improbable double-double of giving birth to the power ballad while also guaranteeing that we'd never have to listen to Peter Criss sing again.
The Bends, Radiohead

Because Pablo Honey gave us a taste of how good Radiohead might become, and OK Computer gave us an idea of how weird they might become,
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but The Bends gave us just the right doses of good and weird in equal measure and at once.
Gettin' Ready, The Temptations

What we talk about when we talk about Motown.
Highway to Hell, AC/DC

Because when you're assembling your dream band, Bon Scott should be standing in front of the mic.
The Dictionary of Soul, Otis Redding

Because no matter where she
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goes, no matter where he sees her, no matter what wrong she does, no matter how big she gets, no matter what rough road she takes, she's still his baby.
The Headphone Masterpiece, Cody Chessnut

Thirty-six R&B songs recorded on a four-track at home. Makes you wish the lo-fi approach wasn't almost exclusively embraced by sad white kids.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Soundtrack, Ennio Morricone
It's the Old West set to electric guitar by an Italian, which is somehow authentically American.
Blood on the Tracks, Bob Dylan

Because of the accuracy of
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"Tangled Up in Blue." Because of the heartbreaking confusion in "Simple Twist of Fate." Because of the heartache of "Shelter from the Storm." Because you tap your foot through all 8:50 of "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts." Because "Buckets of Rain" is a beautiful lullaby if you don't listen to the words. And because: "You're an idiot, babe. It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe."
Take a Giant Step/De Ole Foiks at Home, Taj Mahal

Taj Mahal: bluesman, ethnomusicologist, underappreciated American treasure.
Catch a Fire, Bob Marley

A record that purists and people who have no use for reggae can enjoy together and in equal measure. Even if they're not smoking a baseball bat, like Bob is on the cover.
MTV Unplugged in New
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York, Nirvana
It's the last time a huge band recorded a surprising album.
The Best of Mississippi John Hurt (Live at Oberlin College, 1966), Mississippi John Hurt
You listen to this album and you can't believe you're not listening to two guitars and a standup bass. But it's one man: one very old, very well-traveled man. He gives them three gospel songs just to get everyone settled and then the real blues raw, funny, dirty, and interrupted occasionally (and endearingly) by a forgotten lyric.
The Traveling Wilburys, Vol. 1, The Traveling Wilburys

Because Dylan, Orbison, Petty, and Harrison.
Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas, Townes Van Zandt
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Deep down inside, every red-blooded American man is a lovelorn, whiskey swilling cowboy with a heart full of sorrow. The clinking of glasses in the background of this recording only adds to the sweet misery.
Woke on a Whaleheart, Bill Callahan

Because we're all just like a bee that "tries to find purchase in a turning spoke from Memphis to Potomac never giving up hope."
Rubber Soul, The Beatles

It's the ultimate bridge record. With hints of the drug-addled Eastern influences to come on Revolver and sing-alongs more lyrically advanced than on Help.
The Velvet Underground & Nico, Velvet Underground
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Makes you think that a woman's voice could do any rock band good. Lou Reed's heroinaddled musical lifeblood, for so long dependent on grit and experimentation, is chastened and made beautiful.
Workin' Together, Ike & Tina Turner

Because they never did anything nice... and easy. They only did it nice... and rough.
The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place, Explosions in the Sky

Words sometimes mess things up, fumbling, mumbling, and sometimes we need to be reminded what four superearnest guys can do with some guitars and drums when they really care about what they leave behind. Chuck Klosterman once wrote that listening to Explosions in the Sky could make hanging drywall seem transcendental, and he was right. Make this record your soaring soundtrack to just about anything you might do driving through snowy fields, playing with your kids after dinner, putting ink into the copy machine and you'll feel capable of achieving something powerful and beautiful at the same time.
True Stories, Talking Heads
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The better soundtrack would be the songs from True Stories the movie as sung by John Goodman and Pops Staples and others. But this underrated record (underrated even by David Byrne himself) will do.
This Is Hardcore, Pulp

As musical inspiration, fear is underrated fear of getting older, getting slow, losing your booze, losing your woman. Also underrated: loads of dark British cynicism to help you cope with it.
Appetite for Destruction, Guns N' Roses

It's easy to forget, given the bloated whale carcass they became, that the first time any of us listened to Guns N' Roses, we sat in our basements and looked at each other like we had just heard five guys ripping each other into a thousand tiny pieces. And we loved it. From the opening wail on "Welcome to the Jungle" to hearing Axl Rose Who was this guy with all the voices? banging some groupie hooker in the studio on "Rocket Queen," Appetite for Destruction, from front to back, played like one long tirade.
In the Wee Small Hours, Frank Sinatra
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After getting dumped by Ava Gardner, Sinatra responds with a crushing meditation on heartbreak and desolation.
Sketches of Spain, Miles Davis

Because jazz masters too infrequently step out of the genre's improvisational comfort zone and into somewhere classical somewhere with movements, somewhere in Spain.
Combat Rock, The Clash

Because the last great recording by The Clash was the original mashup album, cavorting from righteous dub ("Know Your Rights") to rollicking pub rock ("Should I Stay or Should I Go") to a bouncy disco anthem about censorship in post-revolutionary Iran ("Rock the Casbah").
Road to Ruin, The Ramones

Because the Ramones started
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getting serious in 1978. That's also when they brought in Marky to replace Tommy on drums, making Road to Ruin the debut of what a lot of us consider the band's classic lineup. Here they hustled their shared love of 1960s girl groups and New York City's needle alleys to a new level, taking sing-along choruses and three-chord riffs and turning them into high-school anthems, only two of which ran over three minutes. Road to Ruin is the definition of tight.
Marquee Moon, Television

It sounds like nothing else out of New York's '70s punk scene, yet Tom Verlaine's smart songwriting and his guitar battles with Richard Lloyd left its most modern footprint.
Animals, Pink Floyd

Three dark, allegorical, and largely instrumental tracks over ten minutes each? Trust us.
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Doolittle, The Pixies

This album sounds like the devil's rock band, if the devil was slightly overweight, well-read, and funny.
The Adventures of Slick Rick, Slick Rick

This is how you tell a story.
Ready to Die, The Notorious B.I.G.

This is how you foretell a story.
The Unreleased Recordings, Hank Williams
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Made up of recently unearthed songs that were almost thrown out with the trash after he recorded them for a Nashville radio show. Worth it if only for Hank's spoken-word introductions.
Ten, Pearl Jam

These eleven tracks were always bigger than the Seattle scene they epitomize.
Band of Gypsys, Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix but blacker, bluesier, better.
Brighter Than Creation's Dark, Drive-By Truckers
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Anthems of whiskey and women and helplessness and fear and trucks and guns and whiskey and women.
Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, Ray Charles

Triumphant Ray, despondent Ray, rakish Ray, vulnerable Ray.
...And Justice for All, Metallica

Thrash metal somehow made elegant.
Fair Warning, Van Halen

The least commercially successful album from the
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David Lee Roth years. And the best.
Reasonable Doubt, Jay-Z

The paragon of rise-fromthe-streets lyricism.
Pet Sounds, Beach Boys

The result of Rubber Soul blowing Brian Wilson's mind and forcing him to reinvent the Beach Boys.
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Exile in Guyville, Liz Phair

Liz Phair can make you feel ashamed to be a man. And to want to make it up to her.
Look Sharp!, Joe Jackson

Because with this album Joe Jackson pisses on all of us our hopes, our dreams, the way we fall in love. And we like it.
Songs in the Key of Life, Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder can make magic in minutes, but this complex double album took him two years to produce.
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Gritty, funky, and lush.
Rage Against the Machine, Rage Against the Machine

For its righteous indignation.
Who's Next, The Who

What the rock album has aspired to be before and since.
Left to His Own Devices, Vic Chessnut

The fact that folk-rock singersongwriter Vic Chessnut has
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been partially paralyzed and bound to a wheelchair since he was eighteen would be incidental if it weren't for the handful of songs on this quietly triumphant album that deal with the subject.
Symphony No. 5, Beethoven

Beethoven at his most... Beethovenian.
Night Beat, Sam Cooke

Heartbreaking and surprisingly spare. The only time Sam Cooke's music hinted at how tragic his life would turn out to be.
Songs of Leonard Cohen, Leonard Cohen
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Only Cohen could make such simple lyrics, modest ideas, and almost-whispered vocals seem so commanding.
Penthouse, Luna
Languid. Suspicious. Witty. This album defined "cool." For the indie-pop set at least.
Buena Vista Social Club, Buena Vista Social Club

This album is so tightly performed that it's hard to believe that the musicians you're hearing were mostly dormant before Ry Cooder decided to form a Cuban supergroup.
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Small Change, Tom Waits

Anthems for the alcoholic.
Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison (Live), Johnny Cash

Because the man knew his audience.
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Harvest, Neil Young

An album so accessible that Neil Young has been trying to run away from it since 1972.
Mingus Ah Um, Charles Mingus

This is everything Mingus is: generous, exhilarating, and scary.
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Symphony No. 5, Gustav Mahler

In this piece of music is every emotion a man can experience.
Grace, Jeff Buckley

Hallelujah.
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The 75 Albums Every Man Should Own