This collection of songs changed the face of music as we know it. Chuck Berry was a major influence on, amongst many, The Beatles, Elvis, The Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Buddy Holly and The Beach Boys. The Beatles would cover songs like ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ and ‘Rock and Roll Music,’ The Beach Boys ripped off ‘Sweet Little Sixteen’ on ‘Surfin’ U.S.A.’

‘Station To Station’ was Bowie’s cocaine album, the one that introduced the persona of the Thin White Duke (as referenced in the title track). Living in Los Angeles at the time, Bowie’s rampant cocaine use saw him hallucinating about bodies falling past his window, having his semen stolen by witches, receiving secret messages from The Rolling Stones and harbouring an irrational morbid fear of Jimmy Page.

The third and final album released in Hendrix’s lifetime, ‘Electric Ladyland’ was also his only #1. As I mentioned previously, Hendrix was incredibly prolific, releasing 3 albums within the space of 17 months. This record came 10 months after ‘Axis: Bold As Love’ (#92). Hendrix was notorious for his perfectionism, sometimes recording 50 takes of one song. Producer, Chas Chandler, grew increasingly frustrated with Hendrix. This plus his droves of guests in the studio while recording pushed Chandler to quit. Hendrix would take on the role of producer.

“Let’s hear it, ladies and gentlemen, for Mr. Dynamite, Mr. Out Of Sight, the young man that became a legend in his own time. Soul Brother No. 1, James Brown, ladies and gentlemen. The hardest working man in show business, James Brown. The king of show business, the king of rhythm and blues, James Brown.” What a start! The almost 5-hour long, 71-track box set begins with the signature song, ‘Please Please Please.’

My favourite Pink Floyd album, and one of my all-time favourites in general, ‘The Dark Side Of The Moon’ is a concept record dealing with conflict, greed, time, death, money and most of all mental illness. Its success launched the band into mega-stardom, making them one of the greatest of all time thanks to its innovation. Split into two suites, each side of the record is a continuous piece of music, with each song reflecting a different stage of life.

The debut record by Liz Phair is seriously punching above its weight. Surely it would have had to have been voted #1 on one or two judges’ lists to make it this high up. Phair herself sums it up perfectly with her response to its reception on release: “don't really get what happened with Guyville. It was so normal, from my side of things. It was nothing remarkable, other than the fact that I'd completed a big project, but I'd done that before... Being emotionally forthright was the most radical thing I did. And that was taken to mean something bigger in terms of women's roles in society and women's roles in music... I just wanted people who thought I was not worth talking to, to listen to me.”

On their second album, The Band come into their own. Like their debut, it was written and recorded, for the most part, in an iconic house; not Big Pink, but this time a home occupied by Sammy Davis Jr., previously owned by Judy Garland. The record is the Canadian band’s homage to older Americana. Written by Robbie Robertson, with contributions along the way by Levon Helm and Richard Manuel, the vocal duties are once again shared across the record by Helm, Manuel and Rick Danko.

Leapfrogging over ‘Led Zepplin’ (previously #29, now #101), comes Led Zeppelin’s best-selling record, thanks to their signature song and guitar standard, ‘Stairway To Heaven.’ Following a lukewarm reception on ‘Led Zeppelin III,’ the band took residence in the 18th Century stone manor, Headley Grange. They recorded using the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio with their engineer, Andy Johns, with assistance from their pianist, Ian Stewart. Living there allowed the band to focus. It also allowed for spontaneous jam sessions.

Released during a particularly prolific time for Stevie Wonder, ‘Talking Book’ was the 22-year-old wunderkind’s 15th album. Following on from ‘Music Of My Mind,’ release just 7 months before, ‘Talking Book’ continues Wonder’s new found artistic freedom under his renewed contract with Motown. And like that album, he continues his exploration with the burgeoning new instrument, the synthesizer. The genius of Stevie Wonder was maturing and everything he had been working towards for the past 10 years was coming to fruition.

Van Morrison’s second album is quote unlike his first. For a start, there’s nothing on it like ‘Brown Eyed Girl,’ and that’s what the world was expecting. The found of Bang Records, the label he was signed to had unexpectedly died. His widow blamed Morrison as the two had been arguing over the direction of his new music. Bert Berns wanted Morrison to head to a more pop orientated sound, but Morrison wanted to explore new terrain.

Eric B. and Rakim’s ‘Paid In Full’ was the album that a lot of Hip Hop post-1987 was based on. Firstly, it was the album that pioneered the use of internal rhyming in Hip Hop, but secondly, and most importantly, it was the record to introduce the use of heavy sampling in Hip Hop making Eric B. and Rakim pioneers in Hip Hop production, masters of turntablism and Kings of the rhyme.

No, that’s not a typo. Out of 500 albums it was bound to happen; an album so consistent that it moved neither up nor down, but kept its spot because this band moves for no one. This band won’t be told what to do. This band does as they want. This band is GnFnR. Incubated within the LA club scene, ‘Appetite For Destruction’ burst through the gates to… no acclaim. Opening with ‘Welcome To The Jungle,’ the song was quickly developed based on a riff that Slash had written in his mother’s basement paired with lyrics that Axl Rose wrote while visiting New York with a friend. The two had stepped out of a bus and encountered a homeless man who said to them "You know where you are? You're in the jungle baby; you're gonna die!"

A landmark album in Jazz Rock and one that would subsequently influence the rise of Yacht Rock in the late ‘70s to early ‘80s, ‘Aja’ is the magnum opus of the mad creative genius of Donald Fagan and Walter Becker. The chord progressions and melodies are so unique and so typically Steely Dan. The pair would assemble a revolving cast of almost 40 session musicians to play on the album, consisting of some of the all-time greats, including Joe Sample, Larry Carlton, Wayne Shorter, Steve Gadd, Lee Ritenour, Timothy B. Schmidt, and honestly, the list goes on. It’s a who’s who of sessions musos.

“Live, from the center of the Earth/Seven light-years below sea level we go/Welcome to Stankonia, the place from which all funky things come/Would you like to come?” questions Andre Benjamin an intro channeling Prince. Translated, ‘Stankonia’ means Land Of Funky. “Stankonia is this place I imagined where you can open yourself up and be free to express anything,” explains Benjamin, while Big Boi said “Stankonia is this place I imagined where you can open yourself up and be free to express anything.”

James Brown was noted as one of the greatest live performers of all time. Thousands of artists, including Michael Jackson, based their own live performances off of his. A showman like no other, Brown was at his best on stage and there’s no better stage in the world than the one at The Apollo in Harlem, New York. Every music fan should experience a show there at least once. A close second to that, is this album.

John Coltrane’s masterpiece. Jazz records have been few and far between on this list so it’s refreshing to run into this one again. I heard it for the first time last time around and it immediately grabbed me. Recorded in one session, each member of the quartet seems to be running their own race. It honestly sounds as if they’re all reading from different pages of their music scores, but at the same time it completely works. That’s Freeform Jazz for you.

The record that started an empire. In 1989, 20-year-old Shawn Carter aka Jay-Z was mentored by rapper, Jaz-O (that’s where his moniker came from). He performed on a few of his singles before Jaz-O was dropped from his label. Desperate to be a rapper, Jay-Z did anything he could to support himself while pursuing the dream. In this case, he had started dealing drugs to make ends meet. He was brought to the attention of Big Daddy Kane, who had taken him on tour but he still struggled to get a record deal. He started selling tapes out of the boot of his car. With this he had started making a name for himself and was signed to Payday Records. After two singles, Jay-Z bucked the trend, and kicked his much sought-after deal to the curb.

Considered a Prog Rock album, Bush flipped the genre on its head. Traditionally a male-dominated genre, Bush sang about love and passion from a women’s perspective. Of the 5 tracks on Side A, 4 made appearances in the charts; ‘Cloudbusting’ and ‘Hounds Of Love’ were top 20 & ‘The Big Sky’ top 40 but the major hit was a song that would become one of her signatures, the #3-charting ‘Running Up That Hill.’

A very important record from my childhood, I clearly remember going halves with my sister to buy this CD. That would effectively make it the first CD I bought, or amongst the first few and I listened to it to death. While this is her third release, it was the first released internationally. A major shift in sound from her first two, many naively considered this her debut. Following her second album, Alanis Morissette moved from Toronto to L.A., where she met producer, Glen Ballard. Amongst many other releases, Ballard had contributed songwriting and production to Michael Jackson’s ‘Bad’ and ‘Dangerous,’ most notably ‘Man In The Mirror’ and ‘Keep The Faith.’

“You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge.” And so begins one of the most influential Hip Hop records of all time. N.W.A., aka Niggaz Wit Attitudes, was led by Eazy-E, but features the iconic producers, Dr. Dre, DJ Yella and Arabian Prince, and lyricists Ice Cube and MC Ren. Self-styled as “the world’s most dangerous group,” ‘Straight Outta Compton’ not only depicts the violence, brutality and racism experienced by those living in the L.A. suburb of Compton, but it threatened to incite it.