Collider·United States·Friday, November 13, 2026 at 12:38 PM UTC

10 Classic Rock Albums To Listen to Before Kicking the Bucket

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Lloyd Farley

Published Nov 13, 2026, 7:38 AM EST

Lloyd 'Happy Trails' Farley: the man, the myth, the legend. What can be said about this amazing - and humble - man that hasn't been said before? Or, more accurately, what can be said in public? Born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, Lloyd is a master of puns and a humorist, who has authored one pun book to date - Pun and Grimeish Mint - and is working on a second. His time with Collider has allowed Lloyd's passion for writing to explode, with nearly 1,000 articles to his name that have been published on the site, with his favorite articles being the ones that allow for his sense of humor to shine. Lloyd also holds fast to the belief that all of life's problems can be answered by The Simpsons, Star Wars, and/or The Lion King. You can read more about Lloyd on his website, or follow his Facebook page and join the Llama Llegion. Happy trails!

Joining the choir invisible. Shuffling off this mortal coil. Ceasing to be. Biting the dust. Wearing wooden pajamas. Vacating the earthly meat prison. No matter how it's said, it all means the same thing: death. Death is the great equalizer, the one thing that is inevitable regardless of one's race, religion, income or social status. Every day brings us closer to hopping the twig.

But hey, you're still on this side of the grass, right? Unless you're a well-read zombie, but that seems unlikely (but not impossible... discuss). So you have a choice to make: sit idly by, paralyzed by the thought you may have had your last Slurpee; or make the most of the time you have left. And if — hopefully — you've selected the latter, before kicking the bucket you've got things you want — nay, need — to do, see, and hear. Thankfully, your friends here at Collider have compiled a list that speaks to the latter: 10 rock albums you need to listen to before going belly up, ones that are not only awesome but offer guidance as you prepare for the inevitable. We're dying, literally, to share those with you now.

10. Fleetwood Mac: Rumours

There comes a point in everyone's life where it's time to drop the charades and get real. That means raw, emotional honesty with others and yourself, and there is no better album that wears emotional honesty on every track like Fleetwood Mac's 1977 classic Rumours. The story behind the album is legendary at this point, recorded as the interpersonal drama among the group was akin to a soap opera, with separations, outright spite and heartbreak, making the atmosphere in the studio, shall we say, tense. A lesser band would have buried that under upbeat pop/rock songs, recording in separate sessions if needed. Not Fleetwood Mac: they owned that energy and put it all on vinyl, creating a timeless masterpiece that is relatable, real, and, in the case of "Don't Stop," even hopeful.

9. Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon

Getting real with ourselves potentially opens up a proverbial Pandora's Box of questions about life, death, time, money, or even one's mental health. While it may not provide any answers to these questions, Pink Floyd, with their iconic album Dark Side of the Moon, sure as all hell wax philosophical about those same themes. Like Rumours, the album has an emotional honesty that resonates only with the fluid cohesion that comes from being a concept album. As a result, Dark Side of the Moon is less a record than it is an experience, one that should be made before going up to the "Great Gig in the Sky."

8. KISS: Alive!

Speaking of experiences, seeing KISS in concert is one that is an absolute must. Or at least was, given the band gave their last performance at Madison Square Garden on December 2nd, 2023. So if that's on your bucket list, you now only have two options: wait for the KISS virtual avatars to hit town, or listen to their 1975 album Alive! Opt for the latter. Their breakthrough album, consisting of cuts from their first three albums (KISS, Hotter Than Hell and Dressed to Kill), achieves something that other live albums have mostly failed to accomplish: the feeling of being there. Alive! captures the bombastic, take-no-prisoners energy of a KISS live show and puts it on vinyl. Twice, that is, with that raw power requiring containment on a double album. Good luck replicating that, avatars.

7. Van Halen: 1984

The "when" of kicking the bucket is assured. The "how," on the other hand, is another story. There are millions of ways one could go, from horribly tragic to an eternally looping end as a Darwin Award winner. You could, as alluded to in the aforementioned Rumours, even "Go Your Own Way." And if that's the case, as Van Halen cheerfully suggests on their 1984 album, you "might as well jump" (but in all seriousness, please don't — help is always available). The last album with long-time frontman David Lee Roth (until 2012's A Different Kind of Truth) is also, arguably, their best, with "Panama," "Hot for Teacher," "Drop Dead Legs" and "Jump" the standouts. Really, though, the album is so good it doesn't really matter where you "jump" in.

6. The Beatles: Abbey Road

It's ironically fitting that the last album the Beatles recorded before their demise, one that includes "The End," would show up on a list like this, no? As Collider explains, Abbey Road is arguably the greatest record of the 20th century. It's high praise, and even if you may disagree — you shouldn't, it's pretty damn good — then it still stands tall amongst the crowd. Noted as much for its iconic album cover as its tracks, Abbey Road has contributions from all four of the Beatles, with George Harrison and Ringo Starr each providing their strongest entries ("Something" and "Here Comes the Sun" for Harrison, "Octopus's Garden" for Starr). Even the much-maligned "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" is far better than its reputation. The album has a blend of genres that work as a whole, serving as a snapshot of the band at the apex of their creativity.

5. AC/DC: Back in Black

The Beatles fell apart after recording Abbey Road, while Australian rockers AC/DC could have done the same after the death of original frontman Bon Scott, and even toyed with the idea of disbanding. Instead, they stayed together, with Scott's father encouraging them to do so. They recruited Brian Johnson and set out to record what would be the definitive AC/DC album: Back in Black. It was created as a tribute to Scott, with the all-black cover a sign of mourning, while simultaneously launching a new era for the band. That new era came with a commitment to elemental, arena-ready guitar riffs and straight-forward rock, with a frontman who brought his own energy instead of being a Scott-lite. To say it worked out pretty well is an understatement: Back in Black hit the top of the UK album chart, became the best-selling album that never reached number one in the US charts, and is currently the second best-selling album of all time in music history. There is legitimately not a single track that sucks, from opener "Hells Bells" (which, hopefully, aren't what you hear on the other side) to "Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution."

IV. Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin IV

Another album that showcases the band's mastery over a wide range of genres is Led Zeppelin's Led Zeppelin IV. "Black Dog" and "Rock and Roll" are straight bangers, "Going to California" has an acoustic folk vibe, while "When the Levee Breaks" takes the original blues song by Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie from 1929 and reinterprets it as a slow-groove, blues-rock masterpiece. Every member of the band is at their best, which comes through the album's most prominent track: "Stairway to Heaven." The delicate acoustic softness of its opening melds seamlessly into its hard-rock crescendo and a fiery solo from Jimmy Page that arguably stands as his finest, with Robert Plant owning the track with his uncanny vocal range. And hey, when you do say goodbye to this world, it's nice to know you don't need to waste your time finding the elevator to Heaven.

3. Guns N' Roses: Appetite for Destruction

And if you make that trek to the top of the stairway, you'll find "Paradise City," which is also a track from one of rock's all-time greatest debut albums, Guns N' Roses' Appetite for Destruction. Neither the album or the band entered the music world quietly, but rather with a raw, explosive danger. They took the makeup, tights and hairspray that marked the hair-metal era and made it irrelevant overnight, ditching the sexualized, party-time dynamic in favor of a gritty, punk realism. The album balances radio-friendly(ish) tracks like "Sweet Child O' Mine" and "Welcome to the Jungle" with darker cuts like "Mr. Brownstone," making it an album of all killer, no filler. Why waste the time you have left listening to crap?

2. Stryper: To Hell With the Devil

Knowing that this life is fleeting, you may want to get familiar with the fella that'll be hosting you for eternity after you've bought the farm: God. To that end, you'll want to throw on Stryper's game-changing 1986 album To Hell With the Devil. With it, the holy-roller band did the unimaginable by making Christian rock music actually good. Like, MTV good, where they were in heavy rotation with the likes of Mötley Crue and Poison. They had all the bombast and flash of their secular hair-metal peers, even better than most, with a message that was radically different. "Honestly" is as good a power ballad as you'll ever hear, while standout tracks "The Way" and "To Hell With the Devil" showcase the blistering fretwork of Oz Fox and vocalist Michael Sweet's uncanny pipes. In a word, To Hell With the Devil is heavenly.

1. Aerosmith: Get Your Wings

As we learned from It's a Wonderful Life, every time a bell rings, an angel gets their wings. Assuming the bells you hear on side B of life aren't one of Hell's, then congratulations, you get your wings! But why wait until you take the big Adios, when you can pick up Aerosmith's second album, Get Your Wings. First, a little context: Aerosmith's self-titled debut in 1973 was not a success, unaided by Columbia's promotional efforts being diverted to tout Bruce Springsteen's debut album Greeting from Asbury Park, N.J. That, and as Tom Hamilton points out, "a lot of people took a look at us and said, 'They're like a Kmart version of the Stones.'" They were given one more chance: "Unless your next album is really, really good, you're not going to be recording artists anymore."

Suffice it to say, Get Your Wings was, is, really, really good. The biggest sin of Aerosmith was that it simply didn't sound like Aerosmith, and Get Your Wings reflected the band's emergence from the blues roots that dominated the first album into their own hard-rock identity. Joe Perry and Brad Whitford's dual-guitars were accentuated by producer Jack Douglas, who also helped frontman Steven Tyler hone his songwriting to reflect the now-iconic, swaggering persona he was developing as a frontman. The album would define the distinct Aerosmith sound from that point on, with tracks like "Same Old Song and Dance," "Seasons of Wither," "Train Kept a-Rollin,'" and the playful sleaze of "Lord of the Thighs" particular standouts.

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Collider · Classic Rock Who Is Your Perfect
Classic Rock Band? Ten questions · five bands · one match

Five legendary bands, one match. Ten questions about your personality, your attitude and your taste will work out which rock icon you belong with. Are you raw power, rolling swagger, operatic drama, thunderous riffs or timeless melody? On the bill

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Metallica

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The Beatles

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Question 01 of 10ENERGY

01 How do you walk into a room? Pick the answer that feels most like you.

ALike a freight train. Loud, fast, and everyone knows I arrived. BWith a slow, cool swagger. I take my time and own every step. CHead down, focused. I am here for a reason and small talk is not it. DWith total confidence and a flair for the dramatic. All eyes on me. EWarmly and curiously, genuinely glad to see what and who is here.