50 Essential ’70s + ’80s Albums to Pass Down to Your Children

What albums from the ’70s and ’80s would you pass down to your children?

If you are of a certain (Gen X) age, like this author, the music you grew up with was imprinted upon you by your parents in the ’70s while you made more definitely music choices on your own in the ’80s. So for this exercise, we’ve broken it down into decades and set a strict limit of only 25 albums that you would be able to introduce your kids to, much like your own parents, siblings or elder figures passed down to you in your formative years.

In doing so, that leaves some hard choices to make and having done both of these lists, admittedly we tried to give the next generation as broad a musical base in the rock and metal world as we could in order to allow them greater options to find their musical way. In fairness, most of us would likely stick to what we love the most so your list may not be as broad as this one, but that’s part of the fun of it all.

Imagine trying to limit the ’70s punk rock movement to just one album? Could you only pick one Pink Floyd record and hope your kids enjoy it enough to dive deeper or would it take a harder sell? How many albums from thrash‘s “Big 4” would you want to make sure your kids understand the importance of ’80s metal? What would be your album pick for hair metal‘s late ’80s dominance? These are some of the hard questions you’ll have to face in making your own lists.

At this point, if you are of Gen X age, some of these decisions of what to pass down to your children (or even grandchildren) have been made. It’s a fun exercise and we encourage you to try it out for yourself. Can you define a decade’s worth of music that is worth of making it down to the next generation of listeners? Check out our picks for 25 Essential Rock + Metal Albums of both the 1970s and 1980s below.