Top 5 Most Influential Music Albums Ever Released

On the morning of November 22, 1968, the Beatles’ White Album landed in every London record shop with a blank white cover and nothing but a serial number stamped in the corner. Number five: The Velvet Underground & Nico, released in 1967 with Andy Warhol’s banana sticker cover, sold less than thirty thousand copies at first, but Brian Eno famously said everyone who bought it started a band. Number four: Nirvana’s Nevermind in 1991 instantly ousted Michael Jackson from the Billboard number one spot and booted a million garage bands into the mainstream. Number three: In 1971, Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On hit Motown so hard Berry Gordy tried to stop its release, but its open wound of soul and protest still echoes through hip hop and R&B. At number two: Michael Jackson’s Thriller, released Halloween 1982, which soon sold over sixty-six million copies, rewrote the rules for pop stardom and music videos for good. But the White Album is number one, because even today, no two copies sound quite the same-engineers mastered each side slightly differently, and collectors can still trace each pressing back to the pressing plant that unknowingly changed the way the world heard music.