Celebrate Rocktober with These Classic Albums

No Cities to Love, by Sleater-Kinney
When Sleater-Kinney went on hiatus ten years ago, most of their fans assumed they had called it a day. The wildly different creative paths of Corin Tucker, Carrie Brownstein, and Janet Weiss following that announcement seemed to confirm that the band was done. Fast forward to 2015 and not only has Sleater-Kinney put out a new album, it’s their best one yet. No Cities to Love delivers the band’s riot-grrl snarl with a sharper focus (and cleaner production) than their previous work. There are some great vocal and guitar hooks on this record too, which can’t always be said about riot grrl-inspired music; the main riff and stomping drums in “Surface Envy” are gnarly and surfy, and the girl gang vocals in the title track make for an instantly catchy chorus.

Paranoid, by Black Sabbath
Long before Black Sabbath became venerable rock legends (and Ozzy became a pop culture joke of sorts), they were young, pessimistic weirdos from working-class England who resented the Summer of Love, and their music was an antidote to it. Paranoid, their second album, ramps up their gloomy take on blues rock and sets the table for what would become heavy metal. “War Pigs,” the title track, and “Iron Man” are the obvious takeaways from this album, since they’re three of Sabbath’s most popular songs, but “Electric Funeral” and “Hand of Doom” are every bit as crushing as their more famous counterparts. Also worth noting is the quiet, bongo-laden “Planet Caravan,” which strips away the band’s normal volume, but not the bleakness that made their music unique.

American Idiot, by Green Day
This is the album that relaunched Green Day’s career, and saw them change from a major-label punk band into a full-blown stadium rock act. Structured as a concept album, American Idiot follows a narrative based on the band’s reactions to the Iraq war and the media coverage thereof, and influenced by the concept work of the Who and David Bowie. Writing a concept album whose tracks can also function as radio singles is not easy, but American Idiot’s songs can stand alone, and five of them—the title track, “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” “Holiday,” “Wake Me Up When September Ends,” and “Jesus of Suburbia”—went platinum. It’s a surprise that “She’s A Rebel” wasn’t a single as well; more than anything else on this album, it has the classic Green Day sound, but infused with new energy.

Greatest Hits, by Foo Fighters
Released in 2009, which was already 13 years after the Foo Fighters’ first album, Greatest Hits was a fine summary of what Dave Grohl and co. had accomplished as a rock band at that point. The tracks here are mostly their hit singles, with one acoustic version of “Everlong” and two unreleased songs as the exceptions, and they illustrate not only the Foo Fighters’ considerable talents, but their consistency as well. From their first album, which was just Dave Grohl recording everything himself, to their most recent one at that point, they just didn’t produce bad singles, and there aren’t too many clunkers in their deep cuts, either. Their music ages well, too; “This Is A Call,” “Big Me,” and “Monkey Wrench” sound just as good now as they did when they first hit the radio.

Sticky Fingers, by the Rolling Stones
If you’re trying to convince someone that the Rolling Stones are the best rock band ever, Sticky Fingers is the album you use to back your claim. Released in 1971 and largely cobbled together from outtakes, this album is much looser than their previous work, but it has some of the best, dirtiest guitar riffs ever recorded by them, or anyone else. “Brown Sugar” has become a classic, and “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” will make any listener feel like they’re wearing leather pants and sunglasses. A lot of the songs on this album reference drug use, some rather explicitly, but writing this album off as a celebration of sleaze would be a mistake: “Wild Horses” is the Stones’ non-ironic attempt at a country ballad, and they knock it out of the park.