> The period 1966-77 was in my opinion the most creative years of rock
> music. Several innovative bands came out and made several interesting
> rock albums. They were mostly original and not derivative at all. By
> 1978 the two faced monster of punk (mindless 3 chord garbage) and disco
> (unimaginative and repetitive synth crap) had truly TAKEN OVER and
> ruined all creative music and shoved them into the underground and by
> 1981 MTV put the final nail in the coffin.
>
> Ever since MTV came out rock bands became more interested in making
> music videos than making real music. Some bands which made good music
> were derivative and not original. Other original bands went
> underground. The 80s did have some decent METAL music but we are not
> talking about metal here.
>
> Anyway these are IMO the most creative albums of those 12 years. Note
> that some of these albums are in NO way the BEST of the year. I see
> them as terribly creative but NOT PERFECT. But this is a list about
> creativeness not perfection. I also made it a point that I would
> include mostly the debut albums (even if they may not be the best album
> of the band... because bands rarely significantly change their sound
> during the career. Most of these albums featured sounds never heard
> before.
>
> 1966: The Yardbirds - Roger The Engineer
> - Neither the BeatlezzzZZZZ or the Stones ever kicked this much ass.
> Jeff Beck was a genius. This album proves that. It has psychedelia,
> Indian music, avant-garde white noise and rock and roll mixed together.
> And it has a bit of Jimmy Page innovation too. What else do you need?
>
> 1967: Pink Floyd - The Piper At the Gates of Dawn
> - 1967 was a tough year. The Doors, The Velvet Underground and Nico,
> Sgt Pepper, Are you Experienced and tons of other great innovative
> albums. But one song on The Piper... probably leaves each one of the
> albums in the dust.... It was called Interstellar Overdrive. Hear it to
> believe that something as wacky and genius like that could be made in
> 1967.
>
> 1968: The Moody Blues - In Search Of The Last Chord
> - This album featured 33 different instruments (not at the same time
> though). I guess that should enough of an explanation. You have to hear
> the album to hear the different textures of the songs in the album.
>
> 1969: Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin
> - Loud amplified blues music with a bit of Indian music, psychedelic
> music, metal music, the pace of punk music, a church organ solo and a
> viloin bow solo. Need to know anything more? This album singlehandedly
> popularized all forms of loud and heavy music. I just cant believe
> something as fast and heavy as "Communication Breakdown" came out as
> early as 1969.
>
> 1970: Van Der Graaf Generator: H to He Who Am The Only One
> - Imagine one of the heaviest and darkest songs (Killer) in rock (as of
> 1970) with no guitar or any bass guitar. The bass guitarist was so
> scared of the occult tendencies of the lead singer Peter Hammill that
> he ran away in the middle of the recording. The lead instruments were
> the organ and saxophone.This is one unique album.
>
> 1971: Hawkwind - In Search of Space
> - Space music. With flutes, 'audio generator', synthesizer and some
> weird instruments never heard of. Pink Floyd might have hinted at space
> music with Astonomy Domine. But Hawkwind took it to the extreme. This
> one is truly unique. Had anybody really tried to combine synthesized
> space music and hard rock music before? Simply, no
>
> 1972: Yes - Close To The Edge
> - Yes did have 2 progressive albums before. But they were nothing like
> this album. This was just different. May be it was because of Rick
> Wakeman. This just sounded majestic. In fact nothing was as beautiful,
> majestic and I dare say ass kicking at the same time. Close to the Edge
> is the greatest epic of all time. Nothing comes close. The other two
> songs are great too. This is perfection.
>
> 1973: Pink Floyd - The Dark Side Of The Moon
> - This is an out-of -this-world album. No explanation required. Pink
> Floyd never did anything like this before and never would be able to do
> anything like this again
>
> 1974: Yes - Relayer
> - The noisiest and one of the most melodic album as well. How could
> they achieve it? This follows the same pattern as Close to the Edge but
> sounds completely different. Soundchaser has some of the fastest
> playing ever. Gates of Delerium is another epic masterpiece.
>
> 1975: Shakti - Shakti with John McLaughlin
> - A great fusion of Indian Classical music and western jazz music. with
> the kind of ferocity never seen before. All the 5 guys were virtuosos
> with their instruments - John McLaughlin (guitar), L.Shankar (violin),
> Zakir Hussain (tabla) and Ramnad V. Raghavan and T.H. Vinayakram
> (mridangam).
>
> 1976: Rush - 2112
> Instead of choosing between prog rock (Yes) or heavy rock (Led
> Zeppelin), Rush took both styles are merged together to create an
> interesting and original approach. This was one kick ass album which
> was progressive and virtuostic at the same time.
>
> 1977: Jethro Tull - Songs from the Wood
> Jethro Tull changed directions for the third time ( Phase 1 -
> blues-rock, Phase 2 - progressive folk rock) to become a full fledge
> folk rock band getting rid of their prog pretensions finally. This
> might be one of the prettiest folk rock albums of all time (and not
> nearly as boring as Bob Dylan or any of them boring singer/songwriters)
> and quite possibly the best Jethro Tull album too.