Greatest Rock Albums of All Time (Revision Version)

[Tim]

I'd say Nevermind's popularity win vs Revolver is pretty damn big as there are numerous Beatles albums more popular than Revolver while Nevermind is also very influential (less fundamentally so than Revolver I'd agree). I am ok with What's Going On > Dark Side

[ManPerson]

What do you think about Nevermind vs Thriller?

[Tim]

I'd say popularity Thriller bigly (though I'd say Nevermind is #3 in popularity out of our top 10), influence and acclaim Nevermind. Guess I can go either way here.

[ManPerson]

I'd say popularity Thriller bigly (though I'd say Nevermind is #3 in popularity out of our top 10), influence and acclaim Nevermind. Guess I can go either way here.

1. Thriller
2. Dark Side?

[Tim]

Yeah that's what I thought.

[ManPerson]

I could see Abbey Road as high as 8, actually. I think it takes acclaim and popularity over Rubber Soul, Live At the Apollo and Are You Experienced.

[Tim]

Five Beatles albums in the top 10? What are we, old Rolling Stone list?

[Tim]

Also I would say these three albums are each clearly more influential than Abbey Road.

[ManPerson]

I think Abbey Road is also clearly more popular than all of these. And it would only be 4 Beatles albums in the top 10.

[Tim]

Phew.

[Tim]

For what it's worth, Sampson's post on Live at the Apollo from the old forum.

I've swung around on Live At The Apollo so much studying it by the criteria that I could actually make a damn good argument for it to be #1 overall. Commercial Impact has to take into account how in 1963 rock albums, especially on small independent labels, did not do well and this hit #2 on word of mouth alone. King Records did not even want to release it and only pressed five thousand copies at first, gave it no promotion, it had scant distribution as a lot of the stores that sold his singles weren't even in the habit of selling full length albums and in the larger market Brown was still a largely unknown artist to most rock audiences. So for it to go to #2 and staying on the charts 66 weeks at that time is comparable to a rock album 30 years later being #1 for a couple years almost. It defies belief.

Looking at things in the context of the times is the single most vital aspect of comparing eras. Look at the rock albums that went Top Three on the charts prior to that. Presley, obviously, did consistently, but otherwise you have just Ricky Nelson (a white teen TV star with a built-in audence), Brother Ray, who was appealing to multiple audiences with his C&W album, Chubby Checker with the twist phenomonon which reached across generational lines, and the same time that James broke through so did The Beach Boys, though they did so on a major label with the surf rock craze at its peak. That's it. The Album Charts was the domain of Broadway cast recordings, comedy records and easy listening adult music. Then suddenly you have James freakin Brown who doesn't fit in that world at all and it's an album that had absolutely NO singles possible on it to draw in some buyers who may have otherwise heard a new hit song they wanted and to top it off the whole album sounded alien to even other rock albums at the time! The people at Billboard must've thought the world was coming to an end when he broke through that glass ceiling. It's just incomprehensible that he was able to do so then, and it's arguable that there's been no greater surprise on the charts since then, because that's what totally shattered the mold of what the album chart stood for. There's really nothing to compare its success to because for its time no album ever overcame as much stacked against it to be as popular as it was.

Influence. This is where he really kills. Not only the most influential live album ever, the thing that made rock artists feel compelled to strut their stuff on live recordings to prove their mettle (and look how many live LP's immediately followed in the next two years - tons of them). But also maybe the most influential album AS an album ever made. Think of it this way. Prior to that an album was a collection of mostly unrelated songs, no thematic continutity, something you could pick out a single song from and listen just to that if it was your favorite. Nobody really understood the concept of an album as a creative exercise where artists crafted it over both sides to act as a singular statement - until this. It's not even like other live albums, where it's song, applause, song, spoken intro, song, banter, song, applause. This was something you HAD to listen to all the way through. Radio stations played the entire album straight through everyday at specificed times. People would call in and request it like it was one song - "PlayJamesBrownLiveAtTheApollo". If you look at the way we perceive albums ever since, it all stems from this point. It was ground zero for the album revolution in rock. After this artists made things like Pepper's or Pet Sounds or What's Goin' On as a unified whole and that's what audiences expected, but that didn't take hold until this. This started that trend, it showed that the album itself was not simply a larger package of material that could be sold for more money - it was now something that had far more creative possibilities for the artist. Its influence is miles above anything else.

No lower than fourth or fifth with Thriller the other contender, but there's a stronger argument to move it even higher. The more you study it the more revolutionary and impressive its achievements become.

[Zach]

Re: Sampson's post

From ChatGPT (for what it's worth):


The post makes some strong and legitimate points, but overall it overstates the case in several key areas. A fair evaluation would be: the core facts about the album’s impact are mostly correct, but the conclusions drawn from them are exaggerated.

Let’s break it down carefully.


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1. Commercial Impact Claims

The basic story about Live at the Apollo is largely true.

It was released by King Records.

The label was hesitant about releasing it.

An initial pressing of roughly 5,000 copies is commonly cited.

It eventually reached #2 on the Billboard album chart.

It stayed on the chart for about 66 weeks.


That is extremely impressive for 1963, especially for a Black R&B artist on an independent label.

Also correct:

Album charts in the early 1960s were dominated by:

Broadway cast albums

easy listening

comedy records



Artists like Elvis Presley and Ricky Nelson were among the few rock artists charting big albums.

So the post is right that the album breaking through that environment was unusual.

But the exaggeration:

Saying its success is equivalent to a rock album being #1 for years in the 1990s is rhetorical, not factual.

It was a major success, but not historically unprecedented in scale.


Example: albums like West Side Story dominated charts far more massively.

So the commercial point is strong but overstated.


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2. The “No Singles” Argument

This is partly true but also misleading.

Live albums rarely produce traditional singles, and James Brown was primarily a singles artist at that point.

But:

Brown already had R&B hits and a strong touring reputation

The live show itself was legendary and helped drive demand.


So while the album had no major single driving it, Brown’s existing fanbase and touring circuit were major factors.

The post frames it like the album appeared from nowhere, which isn’t accurate.


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3. Influence on Live Albums

The post claims it’s the most influential live album ever.

That’s a very defensible claim.

Many historians agree that Live at the Apollo:

set the standard for live performance albums

captured the energy of a concert better than earlier attempts

proved live albums could sell


Later famous live albums followed the model, including:

At Fillmore East

Live at Leeds

Frampton Comes Alive!


So the influence argument here is reasonable.


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4. The Biggest Overstatement: “It Invented the Album-as-Art Concept”

This is where the post goes too far.

The idea that Live at the Apollo created the concept of albums as unified artistic statements is historically shaky.

Earlier albums already experimented with album cohesion, including:

In the Wee Small Hours

Only the Lonely

Kind of Blue


These were deliberately structured albums, not just song collections.

And the “album revolution” is usually associated more with mid-1960s rock like:

Pet Sounds

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band


Those albums explicitly pursued the album-as-art philosophy.

So while Live at the Apollo is cohesive because it’s a concert, saying it caused the album revolution is not supported by most music historians.


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5. Radio Playing the Whole Album

This actually did happen in some markets, particularly Black radio stations.

But the post implies it was widespread and transformative.

It was not a universal industry practice, and it didn’t redefine radio programming.

So again: true but inflated.


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6. The “Most Surprising Chart Success Ever” Claim

That’s subjective hype.

Other shock successes exist, like:

Nevermind suddenly dethroning pop dominance

Frampton Comes Alive! exploding unexpectedly

Thriller becoming historically massive


So calling it the biggest surprise ever is debatable.


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Overall Verdict

The post is knowledgeable but somewhat mythologizing.

Accurate points:

The album’s commercial success was remarkable for its context.

It helped legitimize live albums commercially.

It captured James Brown’s stage power in a groundbreaking way.

It was hugely influential.


Overstated claims:

That it invented the album-as-art concept.

That its chart success is historically unmatched.

That it single-handedly launched the album revolution.

That it had no preexisting audience helping it.



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Fair historical ranking:

Most historians would consider Live at the Apollo

one of the greatest live albums ever

one of the most important soul/R&B albums

one of the most important albums of the early 1960s


But #1 album of all time is a stretch unless the criteria are very specific.


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Short honest summary

The post is well-informed but enthusiastic to the point of exaggeration.
The album’s importance is real, but the argument stretches its influence beyond what the historical record fully supports.


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If you'd like, I can also explain why some historians still consider Live at the Apollo one of the 10–15 most important albums ever made, which is actually a much stronger and easier argument to defend.

[Fido]

GPT proceeds to give examples of previous non-rock albums, thus proving Sampson's point.

What's Going On has only grown in stature, topping the last RS list and you guys want to move it down? I'd have it over Revolver honestly, like it used to be. It was like the Sgt. Pepper's for black artists.
I agree with Man on Revolver and Thriller vs Nevermind. I don't see how Nevermind can have a "pretty damn big" win in popularity over Revolver when the latter spent 6 weeks at the top of the charts vs the former's 2.
And a big no no to Abbey Road above Rubber Soul. RS was so fundamental on the development of the album as an art form, even more than Revolver. It was Rubber Soul that blew everybody's minds, including Brian Wilson's, who made Pet Sounds to try to best it.

[ManPerson]

Nevermind sold like twice as much as Revolver, tbf.

[Tim]

Checked the archive and there's been talk from Neg Creep and Brian about Rubber Soul being ahead of Revolver with Brian saying that Rubber Soul narrowly beats Revolver in everything (granted, critical acclaim was not a part of criteria just peer acclaim aka musical impact).

[ManPerson]

I think Revolver was more of a game changer than Rubber Soul, but I guess Rubber Soul should stay ahead of Abbey Road.