10 Perfect Rock Albums That No One Saw Coming

In the grand history of rock and roll, none of the fans really know what they want all that often. Whenever you see some of the greatest artists of their generation come to the forefront, it’s normally because they were doing something that no one else was doing at the time. You can see the road that some bands take to become the biggest act in the world, but everyone seemed to be blindsided the minute that they heard these records.

Around the time that every one of these records were due to hit the shelves, fans weren’t thinking that these were going to come along, thinking that their favorite band were either going to write something just like the old stuff or not even have the album on their radar. From the minute that you actually heard the first track of these records though, the music practically grabbed you by the lapels and made you pay attention to what it had to say.

And it turns out that they had a lot to say, from young acts looking to make a name for themselves right out of the gate to seasoned rock veterans who managed to completely change things up without giving their fans any prior warning. This might not have been the kind of records that we necessarily asked for, but you couldn’t keep your eyes or ears off of them once they started.

Even by the standards of the emo genre, the arrival of Panic at the Disco was the moment where things started to get a little bit ridiculous. We already had the snide sounds of Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance channeling the more adolescent angst with eyeliner, but the theatrical side of a song like I Write Sins Not Tragedies was almost too much to take in all at once. Just when everyone figured we'd be in for another theatrical production though, Pretty Odd became...one of the most aptly named follow ups in the world of emo.

Taking influences from classic rock bands like Crosby Stills and Nash and the Beatles, Panic's follow up to their blockbuster debut had a lot more organic sounds going for it, making songs that wouldn't feel that out of place almost 30 years before. With guitarist Ryan Ross taking the reins a lot more on this record, you can hear the band aiming for something that was more along the lines of folk rock, like the harmonies on a song like Northern Downpour or the straight up acoustic jams from Brendon Urie on a song like Folkin Around,

While the experiment may have worked in the long run, it wasn't something that anyone in the band was interested in revisiting either, with Ryan leaving the group once the tour wrapped and Panic getting back on track on their next album Vices and Virtues. Then again, the idea of one of the biggest emo bands in the world going a lot more rustic still works a lot better than some modern bands could do on their best day.