what would you consider the first true hard rock album?

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I've updated the first post in this topic so we can keep track of our discussion.

What about "High Voltage" (1975) and "Aerosmith" (1973)?

I think these albums really shed the past and created a more "straight forward" style and were more consistent in the hard rocking register. It's all subjective though.

[J Dog]

I can see High Voltage and Aerosmith, but don't they feel a little late to the party?

But it sounds like, I might be wrong here, this is about finding the first Back in Black or Appetite for Destruction so to speak?

[Zint]

The first "true" hard rock album, the intent being heavy, Deep Purple In Rock...gets my vote.

[moreblack]

15 minutes ago, Zint said:

The first "true" hard rock album, the intent being heavy, Deep Purple In Rock...gets my vote.

Not a coincidence Blackmore switched from Gibson semi hollow to Stratocaster+Marshall. He probably broke a few whammy bars recording that album.

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2 hours ago, J Dog said:

I can see High Voltage and Aerosmith, but don't they feel a little late to the party?

But it sounds like, I might be wrong here, this is about finding the first Back in Black or Appetite for Destruction so to speak?

the object of this, is not to find the roots of hard rock, but to find the first "hard rock album", an album full of hard rock songs. nothing else. this can contain ballads, but in a hard rock vein (something like "sweet child of mine" or "home tonight").

it makes for a fresh new look at some of these classic rock albums, and a great trip down memory lane. 

I've already been pointed to some interesting albums i wasn't aware of before.

that's all there is to this discussion

[DieselDaisy]

Then In Rock or Led Zeppelin are your picks.

[HeartbreakerWoman]

8 hours ago, Len B'stard said:

Reason i say The Who is cuz everything they did off their own back fits the hard rock mould, I mean once they stopped the covers, the maximum RnB it was all just pretty much hard rock...and i cant think of anyone else doing it that was so purely hard rock with no other elements involved (as was the case with Zep with the blues and all that).  And they was before Zep too.  It could've actually been The Kinks but they had way much more to do and say musically and branched out this way and that, its worth noting I Cant Explain is basically a Kinks knock off.  Link Wray was like hillbilly surf music.  Totally underrated guy by the way, Link Wray.  Very influential on The Stooges too.

Zep always had more going for them beyond 'hard rock' or a blues based sound thouh, even from the very beginning; they had elements of psychedelia and a big folk influence was already clear from the get-go. I mean their third album was a mostly folkly thing for which they were bashed at the time. But yeah the hard rock ls a catch all genre...I mean the Stones and Led Zeppelin are both classed as hard rock technically but I'd argue they're in two totally separate genres for the most part. Link Wray is pretty lovely. 

[HeartbreakerWoman]

5 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

Then In Rock or Led Zeppelin are your picks.

Led Zeppelin had Black Mountain and Your Time is Gonna Come, though, which is just plain folk music...So, wouldn't a couple of folk tracks (albeit amidst a bunch of blues songs) discount it as the forerunner, since we're talking albums which are hard from side to side?

Edited May 11, 2016 by HeartbreakerWoman

[DieselDaisy]

If your criteria is that every track has to be heavy, you are not left with many albums! Those classic '70s Aerosmith albums all had a ballad apiece. In Rock has 'Child In Time' - even Sabbath had stuff like 'Planet Caravan'. You are basically left with AC/DC.

[Len Cnut]

10 minutes ago, HeartbreakerWoman said:

Zep always had more going for them beyond 'hard rock' or a blues based sound thouh, even from the very beginning; they had elements of psychedelia and a big folk influence was already clear from the get-go. I mean their third album was a mostly folkly thing for which they were bashed at the time. But yeah the hard rock ls a catch all genre...I mean the Stones and Led Zeppelin are both classed as hard rock technically but I'd argue they're in two totally separate genres for the most part. Link Wray is pretty lovely. 

Shut the fuck up Miser.

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20 minutes ago, HeartbreakerWoman said:

Led Zeppelin had Black Mountain and Your Time is Gonna Come, though, which is just plain folk music...So, wouldn't a couple of folk tracks (albeit amidst a bunch of blues songs) discount it as the forerunner, since we're talking albums which are hard from side to side?

dazed and confused: pure psychedelia

i can't quit you: standard blues fare

you're right: it's a forerunner. but not an album i'd put on when i want to rock out non stop from start to finish 

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17 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

If your criteria is that every track has to be heavy, you are not left with many albums! Those classic '70s Aerosmith albums all had a ballad apiece. In Rock has 'Child In Time' - even Sabbath had stuff like 'Planet Caravan'. You are basically left with AC/DC.

i agree. it's actually quite surprising when you think of it, how little of these albums are actually pure rockers. i think you have to look at a much later date than you'd expect, something like 1973 and beyond. albums like that do exist though, and AC/DC albums are some of the prime examples. they are not blues, not psychedelia, not folk, not metal. just pure hard rock. 

[Len Cnut]

Its difficult to find purity in a genre that was born from a genre that was a hybrid of many things to begin with (i.e. Rock n Roll). 

You can find purity in country or the blues or certain strains of punk (none of which have much broadness is scope) but pure rock n roll?  Rockabilly and like the Elvis sun recordings are as pure rock n roll as Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry or Jerry Lee or Buddy Holly and they're all miles apart from each and the same sorta applies for Hard Rock, there's ballads and slower numbers and all kindsa mess.  Its why rock n roll was like the first pop music if you like, cuz its appeal was so broad, theres a little for everyone in there.

Edited May 11, 2016 by Len B'stard

[moreblack]

2 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

If your criteria is that every track has to be heavy, you are not left with many albums! Those classic '70s Aerosmith albums all had a ballad apiece. In Rock has 'Child In Time' - even Sabbath had stuff like 'Planet Caravan'. You are basically left with AC/DC.

Unlike Planet Caravan though, Child In Time does not stay slow all the way. That middle guitar solo section might be the heaviest thing on the album.

[Zint]

3 hours ago, moreblack said:

Unlike Planet Caravan though, Child In Time does not stay slow all the way. That middle guitar solo section might be the heaviest thing on the album.

Child In Time is a monster.

[Zint]

If looking towards the 70's is being considered as a foundation for an answer..in regards to the first, High Voltage and Aerosmith's debut could arguably be removed from the list of contenders.

Alice Cooper, Killer sweeps those two right off the table.

[HeartbreakerWoman]

8 hours ago, Zint said:

If looking towards the 70's is being considered as a foundation for an answer..in regards to the first, High Voltage and Aerosmith's debut could arguably be removed from the list of contenders.

Alice Cooper, Killer sweeps those two right off the table.

I always considered Alice a little too theatrical to be hard rock, at least as the dominant genre. His early stuff to me is more along the lines of glam (I don't mean glam in the '80s LA sense but like, Mott the Hoople or T. Rex) or proto-punk.

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14 hours ago, Len B'stard said:

Its difficult to find purity in a genre that was born from a genre that was a hybrid of many things to begin with (i.e. Rock n Roll). 

You can find purity in country or the blues or certain strains of punk (none of which have much broadness is scope) but pure rock n roll?  Rockabilly and like the Elvis sun recordings are as pure rock n roll as Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry or Jerry Lee or Buddy Holly and they're all miles apart from each and the same sorta applies for Hard Rock, there's ballads and slower numbers and all kindsa mess.  Its why rock n roll was like the first pop music if you like, cuz its appeal was so broad, theres a little for everyone in there.

true

in regard to ballads: there are blues ballads (tea for one), hardrock ballads (fall to pieces), metal ballads (One) and so on.

just because an album contains a ballad, doesn't make it any less a hard rock album IF the ballad is to be considered hard rock.

someone said "rocks" contains home tonight so it isn't a complete hard rock album, but I disagree for the reason given above.

so don't be lazy! there must be such an album, we gotta find it dammit. lol.

[wasted]

The first time I distiguished something as hard rock, and not heavy metal, was with Electric by The Cult. Suddenly there were bands that weren't hair metal or heavy metal or just rock. Hard Rock was The Cult and GNR.

Edited May 17, 2016 by wasted
Typos oh typos

[Len Cnut]

I think The Who have got this by a mile.  Maximum RnB basically means hard rock, they were the first band doing rock n roll but doing it heavy and without being blues boys first and foremost, you cant listen to The Who, My Generation onwards, and make a serious claim for that music being anything other than Hard Rock, despite the fact they played certain covers, thats the point, its the WAY they played it, ergo, first hard rock album = My Generation by The Who.  And yknow what, no one else comes close.  Hard rock is basically the sound of Townshend, Moonie, The Ox and Roger Daltrey.  

In a funny way Hard Rock is almost an accident, its what happens when you take music like the blues which at that point was characyerised by its finer points and subtlties and flourishes and stick it in the hands of a bunch of English barrow boys and see what comes out.  Not that The Who didnt develop their own finer points but the key thing there was the aggression of it, the forcefulness.

People will say Jimi but quite frankly Jimi took a fair bit from The Who, or, if you like, The Who sort of gave Jimi a pointer to where he could also let go as a performer as they did.

Mad whiteboys are the key here, when Mad white boys take on black music it comes out as something else, this strange and irresistable mutation, for example:

Now that sounds nothing like Muddy Waters but by God its compelling.  When pussy whiteboys take it on its fucked (or even pussy black boys, I'm talking about you Prince) but the psychotic ones, your Keith Moons, Iggy Pops, your MC5s, your Gene Vincents, your Mick Jaggers and Keith Richardses, then you're onto something.  

Perhaps thats the equation, mad whiteboys playing old black mans music . Someone find some mad whiteboys and force them to make an 80s motown cover band, quick!

Edited May 17, 2016 by Len B'stard

[wasted]

But The Who are mods and swinging 60s? Not hard rock. They aren't The Almighty. 

Back in Black invented the hard rock genre as we know it I suppose. The format, the no frills, no filler, all killer. You can't sing about druids or mopeds if you're hard rock.

[Sprite]

10 hours ago, wasted said:

 

Back in Black invented the hard rock genre as we know it I suppose. The format, the no frills, no filler, all killer. You can't sing about druids or mopeds if you're hard rock.

Very true. It's got to be sleezy. And a little dirty. "Too many women, too many pills"

I think Appetite mastered this.

[Sprite]

I know it wasn't the first but looking back Black Sabbath's Paranoid was so mean. I think it was 1970? Hearing War Pigs during Vietnam and seeing the war for what it was must have been a release for so many. That song made a statement. It birthed the aggression that makes up hard rock in a way, not only musically but lyrically. As emphatic of fuck you as you can get.That's as heavy as heavy metal gets.

I guess it's all perspective. But there is a message in that form of rock. The anger is needed to balance the craziness of everything. Ozzy is a hero. The prince of darkness is but the other side of the King of light.

[J Dog]

59 minutes ago, Sprite said:

I know it wasn't the first but looking back Black Sabbath's Paranoid was so mean. I think it was 1970? Hearing War Pigs during Vietnam and seeing the war for what it was must have been a release for so many. That song made a statement. It birthed the aggression that makes up hard rock in a way, not only musically but lyrically. As emphatic of fuck you as you can get.That's as heavy as heavy metal gets.

I guess it's all perspective. But there is a message in that form of rock. The anger is needed to balance the craziness of everything. Ozzy is a hero. The prince of darkness is but the other side of the King of light.

Sabbath crossed my mind too but I wasn't sure how much of a stickler we were being about, that's heavy metal not hard rock!

Iommi made probably the biggest impact on the rock guitar after Hendrix.

[wasted]

2 hours ago, Sprite said:

Very true. It's got to be sleezy. And a little dirty. "Too many women, too many pills"

I think Appetite mastered this.

I associate hard rock with bottled beer, belt buckles, band shirts, and a dedication to partying. If I had to go further I'd say Morrison Hotel, Roadhouse Blues for the attitude. The whole idea of just living in a motel bar is hard rock. 

Edited May 19, 2016 by wasted
Thoughts and etc