Guides/A Riffiter guide
Albums that reinvented their genre
Ten records that drew a line — a clear before and after in the music that followed.
A handful of albums don't just succeed — they reset the rules, leaving every record after them changed. This guide collects ten that reinvented their genres, from Kraftwerk and Black Sabbath to Nirvana and Daft Punk: the turning points of modern music.
Most great albums are the best version of something that already exists. A rare few do something different: they redraw the map, and everyone who comes after has to reckon with them.
These ten records each marked a clear before-and-after — the moment a genre changed direction. You can hear their fingerprints on thousands of albums that followed.
- 1
Paranoid
Be the first to rate—The riff that started a genre. Sabbath slowed the blues down, tuned it darker and heavier, and invented heavy metal more or less single-handedly.
- 2
Trans-Europe Express
Be the first to rate—The source code for electronic music. Kraftwerk's machine rhythms and robotic vocals laid the groundwork for synth-pop, techno and hip-hop alike.
- 3
- 4
Loveless
Be the first to rate—Guitars dissolved into pure texture. Loveless invented the sound of shoegaze so completely that bands are still chasing it three decades later.
- 5
The Chronic
Be the first to rate—G-funk takes over. Dre's debut defined the sound of West Coast rap — laid-back, melodic and inescapable — and changed how hip-hop was produced.
- 6
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- 8
Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols
Be the first to rate—Punk's year zero. It was so confrontational it felt less like an album than an event — and nothing in British music was the same after it.
- 9
It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
Be the first to rate—Hip-hop as political alarm. The Bomb Squad's dense wall of noise proved rap could be as confrontational and complex as any music on earth.
- 10
Kind of Blue
Be the first to rate—Modal jazz arrives. By building on scales instead of chord changes, Kind of Blue opened jazz up to space and freedom — and became the most loved jazz album ever recorded.
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