50 Essential Albums (Part 1)

The rules are simple: The Beatles are the starting point. Each album has to represent 1/50th of the progress of popular music since then. No band except the Beatles gets more than one album and Best Of’s are discouraged (unless a majority vote agreed they were more than the sum of their parts).

It took 4 hours and a lot of beer, but here's the list (about a third of it):

Brain Eno – Music for Airports
Rolling Stones – Exile on Main Street
ABC – The Lexicon of Love
Bob Marley – Legend
Led Zepplin II
The Beatles – The White Album
The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
The Beatles – Rubber Soul
Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On?
Beck – Odelay
Public Enemy – Fear of a Black Planet
Joni Mitchell – Blue
Leftfield – Leftism
Nirvana – In Utero
Beach Boys – Pet Sounds
AC/DC – Highway to Hell
Talking Heads – Stop Making Sense
JJ Cale – Troubadour
Madonna – The Immaculate Collection
Straitjacket Fits - Melt