10 Underrated Classic Rock Albums Of The '70s

The arrival of hard rock bands in the '70s was certainly nothing new. After Led Zeppelin had adopted the genre in the first part of the decade, every other rocker wanted to have their own brand of kickass to throw back in the rock community's face. While it's easy to separate the good from the bad nowadays, Montrose is the one band that seems to get swept under the rug.

Though he had many hits before Van Halen, this album is actually the rock world's first formal introduction to Sammy Hagar, whose voice shines across this band's debut record. With the blistering leads of guitarist Ronnie Montrose to anchor everything, Hagar turns these songs into some fantastic hard rock bangers, from the lowdown and dirty sounds of "Rock Candy" to the uptempo awesomeness of "Bad Motor Scooter."

Over time, Montrose has gone from being one of the few undiscovered gems of the '70s to being highly respected in the world of hard rock. The album may not have found a huge audience in its day, but it did garner some fans in young upstarts Iron Maiden and even a fledgling group called Van Halen. Sammy Hagar would go on to have a phenomenal career after this, but by no means should you gloss over this nice helping of hard rock riffs.