#26 Patti Smith, 'Horses' (1975)

Emerging from a two-month residency at the famed CBGB in New York, Patti Smith and her band caught the attention of Arista Records founder, Clive Davis (who would later sign Whitney Houston). Davis promptly signed Smith to the label and hired John Cale of The Velvet Underground to produce the record. Smith would later claim that ‘Horses’ was a conscious effort “to make a record that would make a certain type of person not feel alone. People who were like me, different ... I wasn't targeting the whole world. I wasn't trying to make a hit record.”