In time, blink-182 proved they had a serious side at this point nobody needed one. For all their bluster, this was a band that knew and loved its audience: If you were hitting your late teens around 1999, “What’s My Age Again?” offered reassurance that you didn’t have to grow up just yet.

But few were catchier, funnier, or savvier than Enema of the State. Skate-punk produced a number of the greatest rock albums ever. Story continues 100: Blink-182 – Enema of the State One thing we’ll say without hesitation: Every one of these albums is worth a listen, whether you’re discovering it for the first time or reconnecting with a longtime favorite. And yes, some of your favorites – and for that matter, some of ours – may be missing, but rock history is so loaded by now that 100 albums can only begin to tell the story. Only one artist appears twice, as a group member and solo, but if you were a Beatle and then made a game-changing solo debut we can cut you some slack. When an artist obviously has more than one essential album, we’ve made a case for the one that we believe to be the most important of the lot. Punk and prog, hardcore and AOR, glam and metal, roots and arena rock – they’ve all got a place on this list, and your ears are better off for absorbing all of it.įinally, this list has been confined strictly to one album per band/artist. Hence the presence of some highly mainstream albums right alongside the indie/underground entries. That said, we’ve tried to spread the wealth around, not favoring one genre of rock over another. We have (or will) have other lists for that. We’ve also left off certain genres, like electronica and acoustic singer-songwriter, that are closely related to the rock world but not really part of it. (A few entries do fall into the R&B realm, but with so much of a rock sound that they had to be here). Which means, you won’t find a lot of blues, country, or R&B on this list, even though we realize how important they were as rock influences. This list adheres to a fairly narrow definition of “rock,” confining it to largely guitar-based music, and making exceptions only in a few cases where the album was too important to leave off. After many hours of head-scratching and more than a few worn grooves, we present one of the most ambitious and hopefully provocative lists we’ve ever done: The 100 Greatest Rock Albums of all time.Ī few ground rules here: We’ve tried to cover the entirety of rock history, while making sure that each album still sounds great a few years after its release.

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