Ask ten music fans when a famous record came out, and you’ll probably get ten confident answers. Some will be right. Plenty will be off by a year or two, because classic albums tend to blur together in memory.
This quiz-style walk through ten landmark records gives you the release year for each one. Try guessing before you read the answer, then check how close you got.
Abbey Road by The Beatles
The year is 1969. The album arrived in the UK on September 26 of that year, and it was the last one the band recorded together, even though Let It Be reached shelves later.
The cover shows the four members on a zebra crossing outside EMI Studios in London. It’s one of the most copied album images ever made, and fans still visit the spot.
Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd
The year is 1973. Pink Floyd released it in March, and it went on to spend an extraordinary stretch on the US Billboard 200 chart, more than 900 weeks in total.
The record explores pressure, time, money and mental strain. Its prism cover, designed by Hipgnosis with Storm Thorgerson, became one of the best known pieces of rock art.
Thriller by Michael Jackson
The year is 1982. It came out in late November and is widely cited as the best selling album of all time, with sales estimates commonly placed around seventy million copies worldwide.
Seven of its nine tracks reached the US top ten as singles. The title track’s long music video also changed how artists thought about the format.
Rumours by Fleetwood Mac
The year is 1977. The band made it while its members were going through painful breakups, and that tension shaped the songwriting on tracks like Go Your Own Way and Dreams.
It won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 1978. It also became one of the biggest sellers of the decade.
Nevermind by Nirvana
The year is 1991. It was released in September, and Smells Like Teen Spirit pushed the Seattle trio from underground favorites to a global name.
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The album famously knocked Michael Jackson’s Dangerous off the top of the Billboard 200 in early 1992. That moment is often treated as a turning point for alternative rock in the mainstream.
Kind of Blue by Miles Davis
The year is 1959. Davis recorded it with a lineup that included John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley and Bill Evans, and it was released that August.
It’s often named the best selling jazz album ever. Its modal approach gave soloists more room to explore than the fast chord changes of bebop.
Blue by Joni Mitchell
The year is 1971. Mitchell’s fourth studio album is stripped back, built mostly around voice, piano, guitar and Appalachian dulcimer.
Critics have praised its emotional honesty for decades. Rolling Stone placed it high in its 2020 revision of its greatest albums list.
Purple Rain by Prince and The Revolution
The year is 1984. It served as the soundtrack to the film of the same name, and it came out in June.
The album included When Doves Cry, Let’s Go Crazy and Purple Rain itself. It spent twenty four weeks at number one on the US album chart.
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill by Lauryn Hill
The year is 1998. It was Hill’s debut solo album after her time with the Fugees, and it blended hip hop, soul and reggae.
At the 1999 Grammys, it won five awards, including Album of the Year. That made her the first woman to win that many in a single night at the time.
Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen
The year is 1975. Springsteen reportedly spent months in the studio perfecting it, and the effort paid off with his commercial breakthrough.
The title track became his signature anthem. Around the time of release, he appeared on the covers of both Time and Newsweek in the same week.
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