Black Sabbath - 'Vol. 4'
[ranking: 1]
Black Sabbath spent so much time and money on coke during the recording of 1972's Vol. 4 that they originally planned to title the album Snowblind. In fact, the band's habit cost more than the recording of the album.
According to bassist Geezer Butler, the record came with a price tag of $60,000, while the snowstorm in which the band recorded cost $75,000. As Ozzy explained:
For me, Snowblind was one of Black Sabbath's best-ever albums - although, the record company wouldn't let us keep the title, 'cos in those days [coke] was a big deal, and they didn't want the hassle of a controversy.
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The Rolling Stones - 'Exile On Main St.'
[ranking: 2]
The story of The Rolling Stones' classic Exile On Main St. is one full of excess and the use of controlled substances. Recorded in the basement of a French mansion rented by guitarist Keith Richards, the band surrounded themselves with dealers and users throughout the entire process. They even hired Jean de Breteuil, who was known as the "dealer to the stars," to supply extra-pure pink H from Thailand to the band and team.
Things got so bad that at one point, engineer Andy Johns found Richards passed out with a needle in his arm and blood splattered on the walls. Johns poked the guitarist to see if he was alive, and Richards immediately picked up a guitar and started playing.
Despite the heavy usage, the band managed to create an album that some view as a masterpiece. In addition, they maintained a "very, very loose" writing process, as singer Mick Jagger put it, along the way.
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Syd Barrett - 'The Madcap Laughs'
[ranking: 3]
The late genius Syd Barrett was kicked out of Pink Floyd in 1968 following his worsening mental state and usage. He returned to music just two years later with 1970's The Madcap Laughs, an album that encapsulates his intense virtuosity and artistry, setting him apart from his former bandmates musically.
Roger Waters said years later of Barrett's mental condition, which many people believe deteriorated so quickly due to his habits:
It felt to me at the time that Syd was kind of drifting off the rails, and when you're drifting off the rails the worst thing you can do is start messing around with hallucinogens... It definitely exacerbated the symptoms that, loosely strung together, you and I might call schizophrenia. He heard voices. He became incommunicative. He turned into a different person; [his eyes] were black holes in the sky.
Madcap is an interesting look at a man in agony whose habit influenced the psychedelia of the album's production, cementing his legacy as one of music's most underappreciated geniuses.
The 15 Most Drug-Fueled Albums Ever Made
[ranking: 4]
David Bowie - 'Station To Station'
[ranking: 5]
David Bowie's 1976 album Station to Station was both a brilliant piece of art-rock history and the documentation of an illicit substance-fueled and dark period in Bowie's life. His coke use had reached an all-time high, and he'd begun suffering from coke-induced psychosis.
According to the book David Bowie's Low by Hugo Wilcken, the condition caused him to hallucinate. Supposedly, he once called his wife and said he suspected that witches and warlocks were trying to steal his semen and use it for black magic.
His coke use would cause him to stay up for six or seven days at a time. "By the end of the week my whole life would be transformed into this bizarre nihilistic fantasy world of oncoming doom, mythological characters, and imminent totalitarianism," he later recalled of the recording sessions.
Fleetwood Mac - 'Rumours'
[ranking: 6]
Fleetwood Mac's reputation for dysfunction was almost as big as their reputation for indulging heavily in controlled substances and alcohol. Their massive album Rumours, the second to feature Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, was quite accomplished with the help of coke - which the band allegedly took to stay awake and alert during marathon recording sessions.
It also masked the emotional problems happening between band members at the time, which included the divorce of Christine and John McVie, as well as the breakup of Nicks and Buckingham.
"You felt so bad about what was happening that you did a line to cheer yourself up," Nicks told Mojo. The substance was such a big part of the album that the band debated thanking their dealer in the liner notes.
"I don't know if I would have written 'Songbird' had I not had a couple of toots of [coke] and a half-bottle of champagne and I just couldn't sleep, or written any of the songs that were on that album because I think we were all pretty loaded," Christine McVie recalled during an interview the BBC.
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The 13th Floor Elevators - 'The Psychedelic Sounds Of'
[ranking: 7]
The 13th Floor Elevators are a legendary band that didn't get their due when they should have. Formed by mentally ill genius Roky Erickson, the band's debut album The Psychedelic Sounds Of is both a crash course in psych rock and the first of its kind. The fascinatingly unique band featured both a violin player and a jug player.
Psychedelic Sounds was released in 1966 and did fairly well commercially, but the band fell apart when their habits caught up with them.
In 1968, four of the five band members were busted for cannabis possession, and Erickson got sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was acquitted of the charges by reason of insanity, but was forced to enter a mental institution where he underwent electroconvulsive therapy and emerged sicker than he was before. When arguing for his insanity, his lawyers claimed that Erickson had 300 bad acid trips that significantly affected his mental state.
Sly And The Family Stone - 'There's A Riot Goin' On'
[ranking: 8]
Harry Nilsson And John Lennon - 'Pussy Cats'
[ranking: 9]
The story of Harry Nilsson and John Lennon's Pussy Cats is one of wild partying and excess. It was Nilsson's 10th album, and Lennon stepped in to produce it after the pair began hanging out around Los Angeles and getting into trouble. It was a difficult album to complete, as Nilsson's voice was beginning to deteriorate - so much so that Lennon paused sessions at one point to help Nilsson heal.
Things never quite got better, however, and his bad habits and heavy drinking didn't help. At one point during recording, Nilsson hemorrhaged his vocal cords and tried to pass it off as nothing more than a sore throat. Lennon's assistant, May Pang, recalled:
John had suggested - because he was in such bad shape - you gotta get your throat taken care of. At night he'd be snorting and drinking, so what good would that be? He didn't tell John he was losing his voice. He didn't tell him he was hemorrhaging in his throat, he didn't say it was bleeding. He'd say it was just sore.
The album was released to divided response, and controlled substance use played a major role in making it such a problematic project. Lennon and Nilsson did try and find some humor in it, however - subtly including a hidden message that read "drugs" on the album cover.
The Beach Boys - 'Smile'
[ranking: 10]
By the time Brian Wilson began work on Smile, he was already deep into his usage, and his behavior had started to become extremely questionable. He created Smile in an effort to make an album of songs that fit the mold of his magnum opus "Good Vibrations," enlisting lyricist Van Dyke Parks to help create a collection of suites and intricate musical compositions. Wilson proclaimed the album would be "a teenage symphony to God" but the musician's erratic behavior derailed the sessions and the band abandoned the project.
The Beach Boys released Smiley Smile, a stripped-down version of the sessions, in 1967 but the original recordings remained unreleased for years until ultimately it emerged in 2011 as The Smile Sessions.
Wilson's habit and worsening mental illness led to both the creation of the album and the collapse of it - with Parks later telling The Guardian that he was "victimized by Brian Wilson's buffoonery." He added:
It just got too much for me. It was an expensive decision for me not to continue my association with the most powerful artist in the music business at the time, but I made the only decision I could. I walked away from that funhouse.
Wilson himself later recalled being so out of his mind during sessions for the album's "Elements" suite that he believed he was the cause of several fires in Los Angeles that broke out during the same time they were recording the suite's "fire" section.
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Lou Reed - 'Berlin'
[ranking: 11]
Lou Reed's 1973 album Berlin was a concept album that followed his successful solo debut Transformer. It told the story of a couple who struggled with dependence on illicit substances. The former Velvet Underground frontman used Berlin's 10 songs to touch on substance dependence, domestic cruelty, street workers, and suicide.
The ambitious rock opera was considered a commercial and critical failure for years. However, many now consider it one of Reed's most compelling works.
Spiritualized - 'Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space'
[ranking: 12]
Oasis - 'Be Here Now'
[ranking: 13]
Though initially hailed as a success among fans and critics, Oasis' third album Be Here Now ultimately became more well-known for its association with excessive coke use. In hindsight, many deemed it less provocative than the band's previous two releases. Even guitarist Noel Gallagher ultimately called it "the sound of five men in the studio, on coke, not giving a f*ck."
Most critics ultimately criticized the album for its numerous lyrical and musical flaws, and chalked their initial excitement up to lasting buzz from the peak of their career.
"There were more hangers-on, constantly telling them they were the greatest thing. That tended to block out the critical voices," the band's former publicist, Johnny Hopkins, said.
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Primal Scream - 'Screamadelica'
[ranking: 14]
Primal Scream's groundbreaking 1991 album Screamadelica was influenced heavily by ecstasy, which the band discovered just as they began recording. Creation Records label head, Alan McGee, introduced Bobby Gillespie and the band to acid house music after he began taking ecstasy and immersing himself in the burgeoning style of dance music.
Gillespie said in an interview that ecstasy "opened everybody's minds" during the recording sessions for Screamadelica and described the first time he took the substance as a big influence on how he heard the sessions. "All of a sudden I'm listening to this record, turning the bass up, going, 'Oh! Ooh!'" he said.
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