Wow, what a moribund blog we have these days. Mike, thanks for your input. I was always more into sixties music as a kid, so the "rock" was never as "hard" (though I could put together a pretty good list of acid/psych rock records), but you couldn't live in the 70's without hearing a lot of big assed rock. The two (OK three) that stick with me as absolutely essential aren't on your list, so I'll add them in there. (1) Led Zeppelin 2 was the one that I went back to time and again, learned all of the riffs on, postured to, etc...and in a lesser way (2) Led Zeppelin 4. (3) the other one that got a lot of air time was Deep Purple's Machine Head, you know, with Smoke on the Water, Highway Star, Lazy, Space Truckin' (OK, I have to go home and download this one now)....great record. I would probably add Black Sabbath's Paranoid in there as a fourth.

Interestingly, these are all British bands, which I'd never really thought about before.