Classic Rock

The album Bruce Dickinson made before joining Iron Maiden, is Samson's Shock Tactics more than just an object of historical curiosity?

Leaf Hound's cult classic Growers Of Mushroom was inspired by an anthology of horror stories and became an accidental template for stoner rock

Dull contract filler or full contact thriller? You have your say on Jimi Hendrix's live album Band Of Gypsys

Vince Neil left Motley Crue, John Corabi joined Motley Crue, and Motley Crue made Motley Crue, a Motley Crue album that sounded nothing like Motley Crue

Crimes Of Passion finds Pat Benatar applying a tough, streetwise veneer to pop songs and turning them into arena-rocking classics.

Roxy Music's debut album was a proclamation that rock’n’roll as we knew it was undergoing a strange and irrevocable transformation

British heavy metal stalwarts Orange Goblin released A Eulogy For The Damned in 2012 - and it changed their lives

Borne perhaps from a fear of predictability, Train Of Thought was Dream Theater’s proud attempt at writing a ‘classic’ heavy metal album

Like a reverse Status Quo, Foghat played boogie blues but were ignored at home while becoming a rock radio staple in the US

How do you improve upon the most bombastic multi-million seller ever? On Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell, Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman added extra length

Coney Hatch's 1982 debut album featured an underlying eccentricity that set them apart from the early 80s hair metal pack

The Marshall Tucker Band's third album Where We All Belong was part rock, part country, part jazz, half studio and half live; an altogether different take on southern rock

14-legged juggernaut Chicago changed their name and forged ahead with this energetic double album that took in free jazz, hip-shaking R&B and an Abbey Road-like six-song suite

Ratt's Out Of The Cellar was a tidy serving of arena-baiting pop metal, often to be found soundtracking the heart of a Saturday night

David Bowie found his voice on Hunky Dory, the kaleidoscopic pop collection that truly announced his arrival and began a streak of landmark albums

High Time is the third and final album from Detroit firebrands and proto punks the MC5. Brothers and sisters, are you ready for some testimonials?

Described as a "perfect album" by no less an authority than Chris Jericho, Helloween's Keeper Of The Seven Keys, Part II, has a lot to answer for

Ozzy Osbourne's second solo album Diary Of A Madman has lived in the shadow of Blizzard Of Oz for decades: does it deserve better?

Black Oak Arkansas: perhaps more famous for introducing the world to frontman Jim ‘Dandy’ Mangrum than for their own albums, like 1973's High On The Hog

Dave Grohl gets his mates in to pay loving tribute to his heavy metal youth on Probot's self-titled (and only) album

A glam rock album released in the wrong era, Girl's Sheer Greed introduced the world to Def Leppard's Phil Collen and LA Guns' Phil Lewis