From The Beatles the Black Sabbath: 10 albums that started a new genre of music
No one goes into the studio looking to walk out with a new genre of music. Throughout rock and roll history, most bands were just looking to make the kind of music pleasing to their ear, whether through guitars or some new recording method that no one had heard before. When it came to these works by The Beatles and The Velvet Underground, they made musical touchstones without even realising it.
When coming into the studio, there was a different kind of musical tone at work from the minute each band started playing. It didn’t fit into the traditional sounds of the time. Still, more than not, it became a model for what the next generation would become, eventually picking up their own instruments and building off of what each artist was doing naturally.
While it doesn’t look like anything that spectacular right now, you also have to factor in the time they were created. Even though some of these songs may sound fresh today, they probably had the potential to melt a few brains in their day, with fans either hating what their favourite artists had come up with or not understanding what they were doing until years later.
Some of these albums were forward-thinking to a fault, though, with many of them not getting appreciated until many years later. This wasn’t just the sound of a few people playing together in a room. This was the sound of the future, and rock history would have a field day dissecting every one of these projects.
10 albums that invented a new genre:
10. Born to Run – Bruce Springsteen
Rock and roll is probably never going to run out of great storytellers. As long as people are still taking cues from artists like Bob Dylan, there will always be someone who pushes the envelope whenever they sit down to write a song. While Bruce Springsteen had to spend years running away from Dylan, Born to Run saw him embrace his Jersey roots and take the entire working class with him.
Throughout each of its eight tracks, every song on Springsteen’s masterpiece is another look into what the heart of America was supposed to be. Although he may have only been writing about the kind of lives that he saw every day, Springsteen was on the verge of heartland rock without really knowing it.
Since the first handful of Springsteen albums flirted with different singer-songwriter sounds, the next wave of rock stars would be brandishing guitars and singing songs about what people live with every day, from Tom Petty’s Southern grit to John Mellencamp’s look at Midwest living. Springsteen could only rep for New Jersey, though, and his determination to talk about his hometown gave fans a good look at what America was really like.
9. Sweetheart of the Rodeo – The Byrds
Rock and roll and country aren’t always known as the best combination. Even though both of them prominently feature guitars, putting a distorted electric guitar right next to the sounds of a banjo is likely to draw a few strange glances as much as it is excitement. The Byrds had already been brought up in the country tradition, so they weren’t afraid of taking another bold leap on Sweetheart of the Rodeo.
With newcomer Gram Parsons in the fold, this was a much different band than those that made songs like ‘Turn Turn Turn’. Breaking out the folk instruments again, most of the pieces on this album feel like they should be long-lost country tracks that somehow got translated into rock and roll along the way, especially when Parsons takes the lead vocals on songs like ‘Hickory Wind’.
Even though Southern rock was about to become a big name in music, The Byrds beat the genre to the punch a few years earlier, with legends like the Eagles taking a few pages from their playbook. It’s still rock and roll, but it just has a bit more flair in between its cowboy boots and belt buckle.
8. Come On Down – Green River
For most of the core bands to come out of Seattle, the jury’s out as to whether grunge is a music genre. It does have characteristics, and there are acts that fall into that category, but none of the core power players from Seattle really thought about themselves in those terms. It was all about making raucous music for the hell of it, and Green River birthed the genre by being a complete hot mess.
Somehow trying to make the sounds of arena rock and punk rock work in the same sphere, it feels like the band is playing two completely different genres of music at the same time throughout Come On Down. Although ‘Swallow My Pride’ is the one instance where everything seems to be working, it wouldn’t be until a few years later that the group found their calling… in two completely different outfits.
Fracturing and forming Pearl Jam and Mudhoney, the majority of Green River’s is the entire mentality of what grunge was supposed to be. Sure, it sounded larger than life and may have been great stadium rock, but it was never going to be taking itself all that seriously.
7. Kick Out the Jams – The MC5
All good rock and roll is supposed to be made out of a garage. There aren’t too many bands that don’t get their start fiddling away with guitars and upsetting their parents, so it makes sense that some of the best artists just take their fundamentals all the way to the bank. While The MC5 were just looking to make noise at first, Kick Out the Jams saw them arrive loud, rocking, and absolutely off the rails.
It might be tricky including an album that wasn’t even made in the studio a masterpiece, but this was the only way to properly experience The MC5. Taking the basics of Little Richard and expanding them with loud guitars, songs like the title track and ‘Rambling Rose’ sound like they are too energetic for their own good, almost as if the guitars are about to explode every time you listen to them.
That kind of raucous energy would become the foundation for garage rock a few years later, with everyone from The Strokes to The White Stripes reviving the genre by bringing it back to ground zero in the early 2000s. Since rock and roll was taking off to greater heights at every turn, The MC5 were the one band that kept the genre down-to-earth and chaotic.
6. Van Halen – Van Halen
If The MC5 kept the roots of rock and roll together, the end of the 1970s saw the genre disappear up its own ass. Considering how many progressive rock giants were walking the Earth, there was a feeling that the essence of rock and roll had become a thing of the past, replaced with the kind of loud guitars that felt like bands were trying to make a symphony. Punk may have come to knock it down a few pegs, but Van Halen‘s debut brought the fun back into the fold.
From the opening notes of Eddie Van Halen’s lead guitar, every guitarist in California had the same thought: “I need to learn how to play like that.” With David Lee Roth strutting across the stage and singing about the fun times on the road, Van Halen introduced a good-time edge into the California scene with a little bit more grit than what was seen from the glam acts out of England.
Once the focus shifted back to Los Angeles, bands like Poison and Quiet Riot would take that kind of spirit and channel it through their own music, paving the way for glam metal, arena rock anthems, and a whole lot more teased hair than anyone was willing to stomach. Van Halen may have done what came naturally, but giving birth to hair metal may be both the best and worst thing that they ever did.
5. The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses
By the time grunge ended, we really needed something like Britpop to cheer everything up. As much as people would groaning on about their problems, there’s only so many times you can listen to that before you start feeling hopeless yourself. Bands like Oasis and Blur may have helped pull us all out of the dumps…but they would tell you they were only doing what The Stone Roses had done a few years before.
Compared to the different forms of dance music coming out of England, The Roses were proud to represent guitars in their music, including John Squire’s mind-bending performances on songs like ‘Made of Stone’ and ‘This Is the One’. Although the group weren’t looking to make anything more than a decent art-rock record, their hooks would be copied for years by most Brit rockers.
That’s before bands ended up stealing from them directly, too, with Noel Gallagher practically lifting most of ‘Standing Here’ for songs like ‘Cloudburst’ in their early days. Knicking entire choruses might be considered heresy, but for Brit rockers on their way to the top of the world, it was a compliment of the highest order.
4. The Velvet Underground and Nico – The Velvet Underground
In the early 1960s, rock and roll was considered at least somewhat professional. Even though many bands didn’t bother taking themselves that seriously, there was still a bit of pride in being able to make something that took you years to figure out how to do. No one had ever thought about making things sound intentionally dirty, but Lou Reed had other plans the minute that he formed The Velvet Underground.
Since the whole album was assembled by the band in conjunction with Andy Warhol, the art-house vibe of songs like ‘Venus in Furs’ was not exactly welcomed with open arms by the public. For years, The Velvet Underground were known as the least professional act in the world… until about 20 years after the fact when people started to realise the brilliance of what they were working on.
Coming out of the New York art scene, The Velvet Underground and Nico is practically responsible for giving birth to both art-rock and indie rock at the exact same time, letting fans know that it was okay to make something that didn’t sound like it was worked on for hours to sound nice. No matter how many times people peddle away at their craft, nothing can replace the authenticity Reed laid down.
3. The Stooges – The Stooges
Iggy Pop was always destined to make something that was slightly abnormal for rock and roll. He may have loved The Beatles when he was a kid, but the music that truly excited him came from the heavier side of the tracks, either through The Rolling Stones or the manic sounds of The Kinks. If ‘You Really Got Me’ was the heaviest thing out at the time, The Stooges practically emerged out of an acid-soaked nightmare.
Taking the building blocks of blues and rock licks, most of the band’s debut is as ramshackle as it gets. When it’s not trying to pummel you over the head on tracks like ‘No Fun’ and ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’, it’s practically trying to scare you half to death, like the droning sounds of ‘We Will Fall’ which sound like they’re made up of demons trying to kill you.
Pop was still rock and roll to his core, but the aesthetic that he created was the essence of punk rock, becoming known as one of the kings of the genre before it even had a proper name. John Lydon may have played the part of a punk rocker to a tee, but there’s a good chance that Pop would have gladly eaten him for breakfast if he had the chance.
2. Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath
In England in the 1960s, there were two schools of thought when it came to rock and roll: you were either a pop group or a blues cat. As much as Flower Power still had a chokehold on anyone willing to listen, the old tradition of artists like Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy still had a firm grip on artists like Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page. Black Sabbath may have had those same roots, but they started to deal with something demonic the minute they made their debut album.
Even though many of Sabbath’s greatest songs still follow the same blues structure, the core difference is Tony Iommi’s thunderous riffs, sounding like something made for a horror movie. Combined with the menacing vocals and Ozzy Osbourne, the band had a sound that was much heavier than anything they had ever heard, which would become known as the foundation for metal in the next few years.
Despite most critics being harsh on Sabbath in their early days, their dismissal of them as a pop group had more to do with not knowing what they had on their hands. This was a group not interested in mainstream singles, and for every Iommi riff that was created, 30 more metal bands were launched in its wake.
1. Abbey Road – The Beatles
When talking about The Beatles changing and inventing genres of rock music, there’s one question: which one did they create? Pop music had been around before the Fab Four, but they perfected the model for the modern boy band group. Sgt Pepper had even ushered in the psychedelic movement, but Abbey Road is often neglected for its influence on one main genre: progressive rock.
It’s hard to think of pieces like ‘Oh! Darling’ or ‘Octopus Garden’ being a main factor for a pop outfit, but The Beatles were already trying new things on their swan song, including introducing the world to the Moog synthesiser. On the back half of the album, the band pushed rock forward on their medley of tracks, finding a way to take multiple different musical sections and have them weave between each other seamlessly.
While artists like Pink Floyd, Yes, and Genesis would make progression their calling card when they started writing their masterpieces, The Beatles didn’t think about identifying themselves with a genre. They were artists in every sense of the word, and that kind of progressive attitude was instilled in their bones.
