Albums You Must Hear Before You Die…Or Not (1955–1966)

Last Updated on December 18, 2025 by Black Sunshine Media

Welcome to the first installment of the Albums You Must Hear…Or Not series. To learn about the history and execution of the project, please refer to the introduction.

Music appreciation is highly personal and exclusively subjective, like 90% of all things in the material world. The official 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die list (edited by Robert Dimery) starts in 1955, inspired by the collision of two key developments in popular music.

Why Does the Must-Hear Albums List Start in 1955?

First, the 33 1/3 rpm long-playing record, or LP, was introduced in the late 1940s and early 1950s. This format enabled artists to create longer, more ambitious musical works, which led to the development of the “album era” of music, which is widely considered to have begun in the mid-1960s.

While music existed in other forms before 1955, such as 78s and acetates, the LP’s ability to deliver longer performances led to a significant opportunity for industry revolution. This, by itself, makes 1955 a reasonable starting point for a list focused on albums.

Second, rock and roll (often stylized as rock n’ roll) emerged as a distinct musical style in the United States during the early to mid-1950s. While its roots can be traced back to earlier blues, country, jazz, and R&B music, the genre gained widespread acceptance in the mid-1950s with artists like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Elvis Presley, and Jerry Lee Lewis. Rock and roll quickly gained popularity among young audiences, evolving into a cultural phenomenon that influenced fashion, dance, and attitudes.

Can We Cover a Decade of Albums in a Single Post?

Yes. Though albums started to become popular in the mid-’50s, it took at least a decade to wean the general public off their beloved 45 rpm singles. Artists also had a period of acclimation to the new system. Many bands didn’t have an album’s worth of material.

There are roughly 70 albums from 1955–1966, whereas you’ll find 65+ albums between 1971–1972.

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Must-Hear Albums Rating Key:

• Strikethrough indicates what you probably think it does
• Green indicates highly recommended listening
• Underlined indicates questionable but ultimately acceptable record
• Red indicates generally hazardous material
• Blue bold italic indicates MUST HEAR BEFORE YOU DIE

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1955–1959

Frank Sinatra – In The Wee Small Hours (1955)

Frank Sinatra hated rock n’ roll so much that he wrote an op-ed in the October 28, 1957, edition of the Los Angeles Mirror News.

“My only deep sorrow is the unrelenting insistence of recording and motion picture companies upon purveying the most brutal, ugly, degenerate, vicious form of expression it has been my displeasure to hear—Naturally I refer to the bulk of rock ’n’ roll. It fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people. It smells phony and false. It is sung, played and written for the most part by cretinous goons and by means of its almost imbecilic reiterations and sly, lewd—in plain fact, dirty—lyrics, and as I said before, it manages to be the martial music of every sideburned delinquent on the face of the earth … this rancid-smelling aphorodisiac I deplore. But, in spite of it, the contribution of American music to the world could be said to have one of the healthiest effects of all our contributions.”

Sinatra’s career was slumping in the mid-1950s. He couldn’t get any traction with the teeny-bopper crowd. He turned 42 in 1957, so he heard footsteps.

At any rate, In the Wee Small Hours is a fine example of Sinatra’s legendary prowess as a male pop crooner. It doesn’t have “Fly Me to the Moon” or “My Way”, but close enough.

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Duke Ellington – Ellington At Newport (1956)

Jazz festivals were an emerging venue in the mid-1950s. Ellington and his band opened and closed the festival. A two-disc set, Ellington at Newport, is considered one of Ellington’s greatest live performances.

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Elvis Presley – Elvis Presley (1956)

Elvis had a modest string of hit singles leading up to “Heartbreak Hotel”, released in January 1956. Based on the massive success of “Heartbreak Hotel”, RCA Victor signed Presley to a $40,000 contract for his debut album.

There’s one huge hit on Elvis Presley, “Blue Suede Shoes”, and a bunch of other hit songs nobody except for old school fans will remember, like “I Love You Because”.

New listeners may be surprised by how “country” Elvis sounds on this record.

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Frank Sinatra – Songs For Swingin’ Lovers! (1956)

But we just heard a Frank Sinatra record. We don’t need another.

The following artists don’t even have an album on the list: Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry, Chet Atkins, Les Paul, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, Jackie Wilson, Art Blakely, John Fahey, Ornette Coleman, Bill Haley and His Comets, or Nat King Cole.

Don’t tell me Frank Sinatra has two must-hear albums, but Chuck Berry gets shut out.

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Miles Davis – Birth Of The Cool (1956)

Birth of the Cool doesn’t feature John Coltrane on sax, so it’s more bebop than Kind of Blue (1959). I dunno. There’s a lot of trumpet involved. I don’t know anything about this kind of music.

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Louvin Brothers – Tragic Songs Of Life (1956)

The Louvin Brothers flew under the mainstream radar, but their second album, Tragic Songs of Life, covers so much musical ground—folk, gospel, hillbilly, and bluegrass—it might be the only country record you need to hear for almost another decade. I highly recommend Satan Is Real (1959), too.

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Count Basie – The Atomic Mr. Basie (1957)

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Fats Domino – This Is Fats (1957)

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Little Richard – Here’s Little Richard (1957)

In a social media tribute, Paul McCartney wrote:

“I owe a lot of what I do to Little Richard and his style, and he knew it. He would say, ‘I taught Paul everything he knows.’ I had to admit he was right.”¹

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Louis Prima – The Wildest (1957)

New Orleans jazz.

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Machito – Kenya (1957)

Kenya is perfectly good Latin jazz music. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s a must-hear album.

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Sabu Martinez – Palo Congo (1957)

Did you know that a congo drummer is called a conguero? Conga is a lead instrument in Cuban rumba.

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Buddy Holly and the Crickets – The Chirping Crickets (1957)

Buddy Holly doesn’t get near enough credit for setting the rock n’ roll template of two guitars, bass, and drums, in addition to making rock music palatable for white audiences, who breathed a collective sigh of relief when they learned that the dude singing “Not Fade Away” was a gangly, four-eyed white boy from Texas.

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Thelonious Monk – Brilliant Corners (1957)

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Billie Holiday – Lady In Satin (1958)

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Ramblin’ Jack Elliott – Jack Takes The Floor (1958)

Jack Takes the Floor is a tough one because American folk music as we know it probably doesn’t exist if not for Ramblin’ Jack. He picked up where Woody Guthrie left off and held down the fort with guys like Pete Seeger and Phil Ochs. Consequently, if you like folk music, you’re going to be all over this like bad breath.

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Sarah Vaughan – Sarah Vaughan At Mister Kelly’s (1958)

Sarah Vaughan was arguably the most gifted jazz vocalist of the era, if not for Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. Fortunately for us, unfortunately for Sarah Vaughn fans, we’ve just heard Lady in Satin, and Ella’s up next, so I’d personally be jazzed out at this point. As good as Vaughn is, I’d pass on At Mister Kelly’s.

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Tito Puente & His Orchestra – Dance Mania Vol. 1 (1958)

Music for adults. Dance Mania is something you might put on as background music if you were hosting a dinner party with a Spanish tapas theme. Thanks for inviting me. Food is great! Listen, would you mind explaining to me how the fuck this list does not contain any Chuck Berry? How is that possible?

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Dave Brubeck Quartet – Time Out (1959)

Brubeck’s Time Out is the first jazz record to sell a million copies, and I say it’s got two sweet jams and the rest is filler. I dunno. It’s not the worst record you could put on while doing the dishes. If you dig Vince Guaraldi’s soundtrack for Peanuts, this record will blow your mind.

The first two minutes of “Blue Rondo a la Turk” are great fun, until it dissolves into rote sax and piano solos over a lumbering bass line. “Take Five” was the big hit and should be part of your vocabulary already.

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Ella Fitzgerald – Sings The Gershwin Song Book (1959)

Hard-to-find, but probably worth it.

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Marty Robbins – Gunfighter Ballads And Trail Songs (1959)

I love it when artists use the album title to tell you exactly what to expect from a record.

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Miles Davis – Kind Of Blue (1959)

One of the few jazz albums I can tolerate if I forget it’s on the turntable.

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Ray Charles – The Genius Of Ray Charles (1959)

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1960–1964

Elvis Presley – Elvis Is Back! (1960)

Elvis was discharged from the Army and delivered an album’s worth of great cuts. It’s one of the few Elvis records that feels like a proper album. His version of “Fever” is my favorite of ’em all.

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Everly Brothers – A Date With the Everly Brothers (1960)

The Everly Brothers were a singles group that struggled with the album format, but they got it right on this one.

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Joan Baez – Joan Baez (1960)

You need exactly two minutes and thirty-two seconds of “Silver Dagger” to absorb everything you need to know about Joan Baez.

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Miriam Makeba – Miriam Makeba (1960)

So-called “world music” is very hit-or-miss. I’m much more inclined to tune out when a cut has vocals in a foreign language. The music better be something really interesting, or I’m on to the next sound. So it’s kind of nice when you stumble upon a Miriam Makeba, who was much more than simply a singer. You should check her out. I was impressed.

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Muddy Waters – Muddy Waters At Newport (1960)

Like most postwar bluesmen, Muddy released double-sided singles for most of his career. All this changed in 1960 when Chess Records released Sings Bill Broonzy, followed by At Newport, which is a fantastic live recording, but…

The single versions of his greatest hits (“Mannish Boy”, “Hootchie Cootchie Man”, “I’m Ready”, “Got My Mojo Working”, etc.) are far superior to what you’re going to hear on this record.

[Note: “Mannish Boy aka Manish Boy” was not performed at Newport.] For casual listeners, a singles compilation with the original version of “Mannish Boy” recorded in Chicago on May 24, 1955, is the way to go. But it has to be that original version of the song; otherwise, you’ll never hear Muddy Waters.

Waters recorded several versions of “Mannish Boy” during his career. In 1968, he recorded a “rock n’ roll” version for Electric Mud. After he left Chess, it was recorded on Hard Again (1977), produced by Johnny Winter, and the version featured in Goodfellas scene: Last time Henry mixes the coke at Sandy’s place; dinner at the Hill’s with children, Lois, and brother Michael (“Don’t let the sauce stick”).]

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Bill Evans Trio – Sunday At The Village Vanguard (1961)

I like jazz. Don’t get the wrong impression. But we’re in a major period of transition. Rock n’ roll is here to stay. The Beatles were already starting to create a buzz, Elvis was making movies, American blues artists were touring Europe to sell-out crowds, and won’t hear shit about jazz after 1964 except jazz rock and jazz fusion. It’s not like it ceased to exist. It ceased to matter. Pretty soon, the genre of jazz would splinter like a disposable chopstick.

We may or may not be listening to the greatest traditional jazz pianist of the era. But I don’t know how much piano music you can stomach before you feel like you’re in the atrium of a shopping mall. At the Village Vanguard is, again, one of those records constantly referred to as the “best,” and when it comes to jazz trios, you’re skating a very thin margin. Plus, that’s Evans on Kind of Blue.

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Jimmy Smith – Back At The Chicken Shack (1961)

Admission: I had never heard of Jimmy Smith until the Beastie Boys sampled his jam “I’m Gonna Love You Just a Little More, Babe” on Check Your Head (“Professor Booty”, 1992).

Chicken Shack is comprised of four long but unbelievably cool jams (the CD has an extra track), and coincidentally, would be the perfect musical segue into one of my favorite instrumental records ever made, Green Onions.

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Booker T & The MGs – Green Onions (1962)

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Ray Charles – Modern Sounds In Country And Western Music (1962)

Shocking, perhaps, to cut Sweet Baby Ray out of the mix, but we’ve already got The Genius Of…, and that’s plenty. Modern Sounds is an exceedingly fantastic record, but we could live without it. If you’re itching for some “Hit the Road, Jack” or “Let’s Go Get Stoned”, you’d be better off owning a greatest hits collection.

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Stan Getz & Charlie Byrd – Jazz Samba (1962)

You should hear music from Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd, but not an entire album of jazzy samba.

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Charles Mingus – The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady (1963)

It might change your opinion of improvisational jazz, or it might confirm an established bias.

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James Brown – Live At The Apollo (1963)

Does anything else need to be said about this album?

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Phil Spector – A Christmas Gift For You (1963)

Fuck Phil Spector and Christmas music. Both suck.

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Ray Price – Night Life (1963)

If you spend and-slash-or have spent any time in an old school dive bar, you know Ray Price like the Colonel knows chicken. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve berated other drunks for playing Sinatra on the jukebox when Price’s Night Life is right next to the Sinatra best-of in the CD carousel. You want to hear something classy? You’re not down with this rock n’ roll shit, Pops? Fine. Start with Ray Price.

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Sam Cooke – Live At The Harlem Square (1963)

Sam Cooke just used to get up on stage, some dude would plant a microphone in the middle of the hall, and they’d rip through the set. This is what a live album used to be and is supposed to be. While Harlem Square was recorded in 1963, it wasn’t released until 1985. So, if you were sitting around in late 1964 thinking, “Damn, Sam Cooke just got shot. I wish he had put out a live album before he died,” well, you were shit out of luck.

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Bert Jansch – Bert Jansch (1964)

Jimmy Page, guitar maestro of Led Zeppelin, flat-out stole acoustic folk rock guitar riffs from Bert Jansch. Do you recall that sweet picking on “Going to California”? It comes from Jansch’s “Needle of Death”. Are you familiar with the gentle melodies of “That’s the Way”? It’s almost a direct lift of Jansch’s “The Time Has Come.”

At some point, Page will die, and everybody will eulogize him as one of the greatest guitar players of all time. And nobody is going to mention Bert Jansch. Here’s what Jimmy Page said about Jansch’s first record:

“At one point, I was absolutely obsessed with Bert Jansch. When I first heard that LP, I couldn’t believe it. It was so far ahead of what everyone else was doing. No one in America could touch that.”

Have a quick listen and see if it sounds familiar. It should:

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Bob Dylan – The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1964)

All right, all right. Take it easy. Chill out. There will be plenty of Dylan headed your way in a couple of years. The Dylan album you really should hear, Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964), didn’t even make the list.

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Dusty Springfield – A Girl Called Dusty (1964)

Dusty Springfield? Haha. Let’s talk when we get to Dusty in Memphis (1969).

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Jacques Brel – Olympia 64 (1964)

You don’t need to hear an actual Brel record because every decent cut in his catalog has been covered (and done better) by artists from David Bowie to Belinda Carlisle. As a performer, his morose chansonnier (singer-songwriter) style of crooning is exactly the type of shit I wish didn’t exist in the first place.

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John Coltrane – A Love Supreme (1964)

I’m preternaturally disposed against saxophone music, but even I listen to this sometimes.

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Solomon Burke – Rock ‘N’ Soul (1964)

The Solomon Burke album is sort of a “cool, obscure” selection, and something the serious audiophile would have in his collection, but for the everyman, forget it. Sure, it’s a fun record, and you might even like it.

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Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto – Getz/Gilberto (1964)

We’re in for a Fukushima-scale meltdown with all these fucking Latin jazz/samba bullshit entries. With Getz/Gilberto, we have officially reached my capacity for “Girl From Ipanema” bossa nova music, and I’m washing my hands of this Stan Getz character. Furthermore, Coltrane just destroyed what was left of saxophone music. Put it this way, without Stan Getz, we don’t get Kenny G.

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The Rolling Stones – The Rolling Stones (1964)

You don’t need to hear the Stones’ albums until they started writing their jams, which didn’t happen until 1966’s Aftermath.

And another thing. Chuck Berry wrote this record. If the Beatles thought enough of him to put “Roll Over Beethoven” on their first record, and the Stones’ very first single (“Come On”) was a Chuck tune, why isn’t Chuck on the list? Because he was a convicted felon? Can’t be. He’s got some company in that department. Because he was allegedly a dirty pervert? Half the fuckers on this list were needle-fiend degenerates. Chuck Berry was rock n’ roll before it existed. I’m not going to listen to this half-assed, second-hand Stones bullshit.

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1965–1966

B.B. King – Live At The Regal (1965)

You read the Muddy Waters entry, right? Same deal here, except B.B. never really had Muddy’s raw magnetism. B.B. was more of a gentleman, I suppose. At any rate, this is as good as any record in his catalog. Shrug.

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Bob Dylan – Bringing It All Back Home (1965)

Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited (1965)

Right here and now is where Bob Dylan starts to earn his keep. Both of these albums should be learned by heart.

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Buck Owens & His Buckeroos – I’ve Got A Tiger By The Tail (1965)

If I could recommend a country album to spend an afternoon getting to know, this is it. Aside from the Louvin Brothers, at this stage, country and western music is still Hee Haw, the Grand Ole Opry, and Hank Williams’ rotting corpse in the back of a Buick. And besides, Buck Owens is singularly responsible for the “Bakersfield Sound” that you’re going to be real sick of by the time Merle Haggard puts out his third LP.

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Jerry Lee Lewis – Live At The Star Club Hamburg (1965)

Jerry Lee Lewis should have been mentioned about 30 albums back, but we’ll take this one in consolation, right next to Glenn Miller, Buddy Rich, and all the artists who won’t make this list for one reason or another.

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Otis Redding – Otis Blue: Otis Redding Sings Soul (1965)

“I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” is textbook soul music.

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The Beach Boys – The Beach Boys Today! (1965)

Forget about the surf music connotations. It’s impossible to overstate the influence of the Beach Boys on rock music as the antecedent to power pop, art pop, baroque pop, psychedelic, and a handful of other genres.

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The Beatles – Rubber Soul (1965)

The Beatles were just better than everybody else. And they were incredibly fortunate to have George Martin on their side.

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The Byrds – Mr. Tambourine Man (1965)

They didn’t have an abundance of their own good ideas, but the Byrds were fuckin’ champions of Bob Dylan covers. Suddenly, folk rock is a genre. Mr. Tambourine Man is the precursor to jangle pop.

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The Sonics – Here Are The Sonics (1965)

You may not have heard (of) the Sonics, but you have heard at least two dozen American hard rock, punk, and grunge bands that based their entire shtick on this album, including but not limited to the Dead Boys, the Cramps, Mudhoney, Nirvana, White Stripes, Eagles of Death Metal, the list could go on and on—even the Stooges owe almost everything to the Sonics. Think of this record as killing 36 birds with one stone.

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The Who – My Generation (1965)

The Who started as a high-energy, blue-eyed R&B band that played too loud for the room. But beneath the bombast, Pete Townshend wrote great songs.

“Out in the Street” is one of the great forgotten treasures of the Who’s catalog.

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13th Floor Elevators – The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators (1966)

There’s a limit to being ahead of your time. Hailing from Austin, Texas, 13th Floor Elevators were the first band to advertise themselves as “psychedelic.” A groovy band, for sure. Roky Erickson is a legend.

If they had Sgt. Pepper’s recording budget (and access to Abbey Road), Psychedelic Sounds would have been one trippy experience. It’s much more garage rock than an early blueprint of Dark Side of the Moon, you know?

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Bob Dylan – Blonde On Blonde (1966)

The first double album ever released. It’s not the easiest Dylan record to sit through, but there’s enough here to keep my interest. Produced by Bob Johnston, one of the most interesting characters of the 1960s music scene.

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Donovan – Sunshine Superman (1966)

Whenever you hear someone say something about “that goddamn hippie music,” this is what they’re talking about.

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Fred Neil – Fred Neil (1966)

Fred Neil is a fine songwriter with a nifty baritone voice, best known for “Everybody’s Talkin’” (made famous by Harry Nilsson, featured in the film Midnight Cowboy), and “Dolphins” (covered by Tim Buckley), but Neil doesn’t deserve an entire album.

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John Mayall’s Blues Breakers – Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton (1966)

John Mayall and Eric Clapton were everything wrong with the Anglo blues movement. These cats didn’t have an original bone in their bodies.

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Nina Simone – Wild Is The Wind (1966)

Nina Simone is an intriguing artist, but her shelf life on the turntable is 20 minutes, or exactly one side of Wild is the Wind. Pick one.

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Paul Revere & The Raiders – Midnight Ride (1966)

Paul Revere & the Raiders would be interesting if they were the only band to release a record in 1966. Obviously, they were not. Midnight Ride has become something of a collector’s item.

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Simon & Garfunkel – Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme (1966)

Art Garfunkel is soooo good.

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The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds (1966)

With few exceptions, every album in every genre of rock music has been, in some way, influenced by Pet Sounds. If not directly, as a reaction.

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The Beatles – Revolver (1966)

Their best album. Fight me in the comments.

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The Byrds – Fifth Dimension (1966)

A third Byrds record is coming next year, so I’m suggesting caution at this point—especially on songs like “Mr. Spaceman”—are dangerously close to being overrated. Fifth Dimension is an experimental leap in a psychedelic direction (with traces of proto-country rock), but they didn’t stick the landing.

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The Kinks – Face to Face (1966)

Gotta get your Kinks while you can. They’ve got so many great records, but they’re bound to get squeezed out. You can hear them running to catch up with the Beatles and the Beach Boys, but in many ways, they were way ahead of everybody.

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The Mamas & The Papas – If You Can Believe Your Eyes And Ears (1966)

The Mamas & The Papas – The Mamas And The Papas (1966)

One M&Ps record is beyond the threshold of necessity. They have three vaguely different jams (“California Dreamin’, “Monday, Monday”, “I Saw Her Again”) and everything else is a lesser version thereof. You might as well sit through the entire soundtrack to Hair.

Suggested Alternatives: None, really. Take up a hobby. Solve an intricate puzzle. Go for a walk without your iPod. Bake a batch of cookies. Spend the two hours doing something constructive.

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The Monks – Black Monk Time (1966)

Remember what I just said about the Sonics? I’m telling you, Black Monk Time will cut your head off. I don’t even want to talk about it. You must listen to this album. And when you’re done listening, put your head back on your shoulders and read the Monks’ biography. Bad. Ass. Dudes.

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Frank Zappa and the Mothers Of Invention – Freak Out! (1966)

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The Rolling Stones – Aftermath (1966)

Aftermath is the first Stones album to consist of songs composed entirely by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and when you start listening to the Rolling Stones. It’s among my five favorite Stones albums.

With controversial themes of drugs, sex, and ’60s counterculture, the darker content of songs like “Mother’s Little Helper”, “Under My Thumb”, and “Paint It, Black”, pioneered the psychological and social themes that emerged in glam rock and British punk rock in the 1970s.

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The Yardbirds – The Yardbirds aka Roger the Engineer (1966)

That’s Jeff Beck on guitar. But I don’t think anybody needs a history lesson here. They can’t decide if they want to play blues or psychedelic rock, so they do both, and it works, sometimes.

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1. https://variety.com/2020/music/news/little-richard-paul-mccartney-tribute-1234603062/ ↩︎