The Best Classic Rock Albums of the '70s

Atlantic released it with no band name and no title on the sleeve — four runes and nothing else. Most of it was cut at Headley Grange using the Stones' mobile truck, which is why When the Levee Breaks sounds the way it does: Bonham's kit at the foot of a stone stairwell, two mics, compressed until each hit swells. Spotify offers no un-remastered edition.

Alan Parsons engineered it at Abbey Road, and Clare Torry took a flat session fee for the wordless vocal before winning a co-writing credit decades afterwards. Money runs on a seven-beat riff with a tape loop of cash registers spliced in front of it, and the thing still swings. Border case: the side-long English prog wing is handed to its own list.

Tax exile drove the band to the south of France, where the basement of Villa Nellcôte became a studio and Jimmy Miller tried to keep order in it. Tumbling Dice is the whole record in four minutes — three guitar parts smeared into one, Charlie Watts dragging the backbeat a hair behind. Spotify drops the full stop and lists it as Exile On Main St.

Salvaged from Lifehouse, the science-fiction rock opera Pete Townshend abandoned mid-flight, with Glyn Johns brought in to turn the wreckage into songs. Baba O'Riley takes its name from Meher Baba and Terry Riley, and that opening pattern is a Lowrey organ fed through a VCS3 synthesiser, cycling while Keith Moon waits to crash in over the top.

Two couples inside the band came apart during the Sausalito sessions, and Ken Caillat and Richard Dashut somehow got a Grammy-winning album out of the wreckage. The Chain is the only track credited to all five members because it was stitched together from abandoned takes, which is why John McVie's bass entrance lands like a different song starting.

Their own Swan Song label carried it, a double set padded out with leftovers from the Houses of the Holy sessions. Kashmir is the reason it endures: Page's ascending figure cycling against Bonham in straight time, with John Paul Jones scoring the strings and brass over the top. No un-remastered edition exists on Spotify, so the plain Remaster is the closest available thing.

Ken Scott co-produced at Trident, and Mick Ronson wrote the string arrangements as well as playing the lead guitar. Moonage Daydream ends with Ronson climbing away over a pile-up of saxophone and strings that fades rather than resolving. Border case: glam, though album rock radio adopted it and never gave it back.

Rodger Bain produced it fast, at Regent Sound and Island in London, and the label talked the band out of naming the record War Pigs. Iron Man opens with Geezer Butler's bass doubling the riff and Ozzy Osbourne's voice run through a ring modulator. Border case: the point where hard rock turns into heavy metal. Spotify's 1970-dated listing carries 2012 remasters.

Six months went into the title track alone, Jon Landau came aboard as co-producer, and Roy Bittan and Max Weinberg joined the band in time to play on it. Thunder Road opens on piano and harmonica and takes its time getting anywhere near a saxophone, which was a strange bet for a record Columbia badly needed to sell.

Bill Szymczyk produced, and Joe Walsh had just replaced Bernie Leadon, which changed what the guitars were capable of. Hotel California closes with Walsh and Don Felder trading and then harmonising for two solid minutes, an arrangement worked out in advance and played the same way ever since. Border case: country rock grown into stadium AOR.

Roy Thomas Baker co-produced what was reported at the time as the most expensive album ever made, and the sleeve insisted there were no synthesisers anywhere on it. The Prophet's Song buries an a cappella canon in its middle, Freddie Mercury answering himself through tape delay for minutes. Border case: prog ambition wearing a hard rock suit.

Montreux's casino burned down during a Frank Zappa concert, so the band ended up recording in an empty hotel with the Stones' mobile truck parked outside. Smoke on the Water reports that fire in its first verse and hangs it on a riff played in fourths, which is why every beginner learns it wrong. Border case: hard rock.

Gary Katz produced and Roger Nichols engineered, with a session cast large enough to need its own credits page. Peg went through a queue of guitarists before Jay Graydon's solo was kept, and Michael McDonald's backing vocal does more work than the lead. Border case: jazz-rock precision at the outer edge of what rock radio would play.

Much of it was recorded in the basement of Young's house in Topanga Canyon, with Nils Lofgren — a guitarist — put on piano because what he did wrong was interesting. Southern Man is the one that got answered by another band on this list: piano and guitar circling, no real chorus. Border case: singer-songwriter. Spotify carries only the 2009 Remaster.

Al Kooper signed the band to his Sounds of the South imprint and produced the debut himself, guitars stacked three deep. Free Bird starts as a slide ballad over Billy Powell's piano and then spends four minutes refusing to finish. Border case: southern rock. Spotify mangles the title, so hunt for the band rather than the album.

Bon Scott's last studio record, and the first the band made with Robert John Lange producing — which is where those stacked gang-vocal choruses come from. Highway to Hell drops Angus Young's chords flat on the downbeat and dares you to find one wasted second in the arrangement. Border case: hard rock, and the album that built a stadium act.

Ted Templeman produced and Donn Landee engineered at Sunset Sound, most of it captured close to live in roughly three weeks. Eruption lasts about a hundred seconds and rewrote what guitarists believed was physically available — two-hand tapping, a flanged dive on the way out, no song attached to any of it. Border case: hard rock.