100 Greatest Albums of All Time

60. Trout Mask Replica, Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, Straight, 1969

On first listen, Trout Mask Replica sounds like a wild, incomprehensible rampage through the blues. Don Van Vliet (a.k.a. Captain Beefheart) growls, rants and recites poetry over chaotic guitar licks. But every note was precisely planned in advance ”“ to construct the songs, the Magic Band rehearsed 12 hours a day for months on end in a house with the windows blacked out. (Producer and longtime friend Frank Zappa was then able to record most of the album in less than five hours.) The avant-garde howl of tracks such as “Ella Guru” and “My Human Gets Me Blues” have inspired modern primitives from Tom Waits to PJ Harvey.