Dad Rock

The List

Artist	Album Name	Year	Description	Download	Album Art
The Beatles	A Hard Day's Night	1964	An essential band with a discography big enough for everyone to find something that they enjoy.	Download
The Beatles	Help	1965		Download
The Beatles	Rubber Soul	1965		Download
The Beatles	Revolver	1966		Download
The Beach Boys	Pet Sounds	1966	Amazing harmonies and brilliant orchestration on Brian Wilson's part. This is required listening for anyone who wants to get into music.	Download
The Doors	The Doors	1967	Their self-titled LP, marking the beginning of their short, but sweet eight year odyssey. It culminates in a darkly mystic 12 minute long psychedelic journey into the surreal.	Download
The Beatles	Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band	1967	Probably the gayest album cover known to man.	Download
The Mothers of Invention	We're Only In It For The Money	1968	Oh, nevermind. ^	Download Mono Version
The Beatles	The Beatles (White Album)	1968		Download
The Beatles	Abbey Road	1969		Pt 1 Pt 2
The Who	Live at Leeds	1970	Thought by many critics to be the best live rock album ever recorded. A lot of the songs had been reworked by The Who to be more hard-driving and bluesy, including Johnny Kidd and the Pirates' 'Shaking All Over'. Disc two contains the entire 'Tommy' rock opera played live.
Pink Floyd	Live at Pompeii	1972	Pink Floyd perform live in the ancient Roman amphitheatre in Pompeii, Italy. They do a couple of songs off of Meddle, which marked their transformation from psychedelic into progressive. The album is mystic in its entirety. Rare interviews with the band are inserted between some of the tracks.
The Rolling Stones	Exile on Main Street	1972	The Stones' most successful album by far. At first it was lamented by critics, but has steadily grown in popularity. It is now considered one of the best rock and roll albums ever released.
Pink Floyd	The Dark Side of the Moon	1973	About life, the universe, and everything - the greatest album of all time.	Download
The Who	Quadrophenia	1973	A double concept album, its story involves social, musical, and psychological happenings from an English teenage perspective, set in London and Brighton in 1964 and 1965. The name is a variation on the popular usage of the medical diagnostic term schizophrenia as dissociative identity disorder to reflect the four distinct personalities of Jimmy, the album's protagonist. Each personality is said to represent the personality of one member of The Who.
Genesis	The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway	1974		Download
Neil Young	On the Beach	1974	A popular album with fans and critics, On The Beach is perhaps most well known for being long out of print despite fans' urging (it was finally released on CD a few years ago). A reasonably diverse album featuring Young on not only his usual guitars, but also electric piano and banjo. Additional musicians include Rick Danko and Levon Helm of The Band. The album is jam-packed with the usual proto-grunge solos, thought-provoking lyrics and country-tinge that has made Young such an enduring and influential artist.	Download
Queen	Queen II	1974	Split into the "White" side (dominated by Brain May written tracks), and the "Black" side (all written by Mercury), Queen II delivers some of the most ambitious and progressive material they've ever written, especially the tracks by Mercury. Sadly, it's almost entirely overlooked in many of Queen's later pop-filled "Greatest Hits" packages. It's a cult favorite album, and prog-rock masterpieces such as "March of the Black Queen" deserves a listen from any true bohemian.	Download
Lou Reed	Rock 'n' Roll Animal	1974	A live album, it features five songs from different periods of his creative career, including several songs by the Velvet Underground. It begins with an epic 8 minute 10 second long version of 'Sweet Jane'.
Aerosmith	Toys in the Attic	1975	Their second most commercially successful album and by far their most unique and artistic. It has since become a landmark in classic rock.
Queen	A Night at the Opera	1975	Their massive breakthrough hit, "A Night at the Opera" was the album that would define Queen in the public eye. Their extensive studio experimentations from Queen II have matured here in all it's glory - this album simply sounds amazing. As the name suggests, huge vocal harmonies are everywhere in this album, from the explosive Death on Two Legs to the infamous Bohemian Rhapsody. From balls-out rock, to piano ballads, to progressive rock, to folk, to dixieland, to opera, to comedic music-hall songs, Queen does it all. A must-listen.	Download
Boston	Boston	1976	Their debut album, full of classic arena rock. Recorded almost entirely by guitarist, keyboardist, and songwriter Tom Scholtz in his own basement. Songs include More Than A Feeling, Piece of Mind, and Foreplay/Long Time.	Download
Pink Floyd	Animals	1977	It's like Animal Farm, but with capitalism! One of their absolute best albums.	Download
Pink Floyd	The Wall	1979	The story of a man who isolates himself from the world, and his subsequent descent into madness. A concept album, and one of the most wildly successful albums of all time. The wall was too high, as you can see... No matter how he tried, he could not break free... And the worms ate into his brain.	Download
Dire Straits	Brothers In Arms	1985	Brothers in Arms is the fifth studio album by British rock band Dire Straits, released in 1985. The first half of the album is a development of their unique brand of arena rock which had evolved in their music since the 1980 album Making Movies, while the second half consists of more folk-influenced material. The whole album maintains the original Dire Straits' bluesy and laid back guitar-based sound whilst retaining a more lavish and bombastic production and overall sound. It is the band's best-selling album, and one of the top 10 best-selling albums in UK music history.	Download
Led Zeppelin	Untitled (Often regarded as Led Zeppelin IV)	1971	A rather pedestrian outing for the Zep. Do note that "pedestrian" for Led Zeppelin still is out and out one of the best Hard Rock albums in the history of recorded music.	Download