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I thought this would be a good topic.
Here is my top 3:

Never Mind by Nirvana
Reason: This album totally changed music, it marked the end of the 80's metal **** and brought about the birth of a whole genre.

Dookie By Green Day
Reason: This did the exact same thing as Never Mind but destroyed the grunge scene and brought about the resurgence of the Punk scene.

American Idiot by Green Day
Reason: With the pop-Punk and Emo scene pretty much the trend. This album has effected culture more then people realize. I read an article that made a really good point about the bad. It pretty much said, how many bands do you know of that influences 65,000 people enough to be able to know the lyrics to a 9 minute song. I'm not sure what its effects are going to be yet but it sure is a hit now.

Ok, "deep thought" thread again.
Let's see:
~wow, my first thought was Sugar Hill Gang, but then realized that was more than 20yrs ago....aghhh I'm getting old!!!!
Ok, so I'll go off the beaten obvious paths....

The Diary of Alicia Keys

Prince - Purple Rain <From: "no one dig's your music but yourself", to overnight cult following>

Michael Jackson - Thriller <ok, it's 23 yrs but oh, the days before he went wierd, ahhhhh>

All Eyez on Me by 2Pac <best "after death" album by a dead artist.>

Speaker Box/The Love Below by Outkast <the dawn of a new age. My son and I parted ways as far as music appreciation.>

Monkey Business by Black Eyed Peas. <the day my daughters and I parted ways.>

How about:

Britney Spears - Oops I Did It Again
The Spice Girls - Spice
David Hasselhof - (Anything he did)

Most influential for me...

Wu-Tang: Enter the 36 Chambers
The Beatles #1 album....the songs are over 20 years old, but the album isn't...I know, I'm a cheater...but I got to listen to this over a pair of Meyer Sound HD-1's.
Final Fantasy VIII soundtrack. The first piece of Nobuo Uematsu that I heard. Then I went to the Final Fantasy concert...absolutely amazing.

...I guess I mainly listen to sound quality and textures, since that's part of what I want to do when I grow up. (video game composer/sound designer)

Got me laughing so hard over this one....

The Joshua Tree- U2
It has a few of the best songs ever written, Where the Streets Have no name and With or Without You

I agree with your 1st 2 choices. I don't know about American Idiot, though. Good album, but I don't know about influential. I don't have a number 3 for the past 20 years. Like some other posters in this thread , most of the influential music in my life is a lot older than 20. What do you rap/hip hop fans think of Eminem ? I like a lot of his stuff.

He's really good/talented, but I think the things he contributes most are;

1. The amount of energy he puts into his verses when recording them. Something rap is missing (eg:that song where the guy whispers the whole thing...even 50cent sounds lazy).

2. He really opens up about how he feels, probably the most honest rapper since GhostFace from WuTang.

Add these to his vocab/rhyme structure on a Dre beat and it makes for some good music.

Well I don't know how influential it will be, but I think it will be as influential as the first 2. It is the first "rock opera" since the Ramones made Rock n' Roll Highschool.

would have been on my list until I saw pulled up the dates, then I noticed that the release date was 1990. Then I pulled a brain freeze and thought that was 25 years ago.... oh it's been a long day

For me it's
- Definitely Mabye - Oasis
- The Marshal Mathers LP - Eminem
- Aquemini - Outkast

Black Album - Metallica

I was already listening to them for years...this introduced people to them. Such popularity changed the band...and not for the better.

A few personal favorites:

Ride the Lightening - Metallica (good 'ol days)
The End Of All Things - Mudvayne (Mudvayne is next to lose to the masses)
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin (box set for me...probably most influential band of all)

Has there been much of anything worth listening to in the last 20 years?

Why does it have to be in the past twenty? I think the most influential album on the direction rock music went and is the way it is today is The Beatles' Strawberry Fields album. Changed the face of rock and roll.

I can name a few, what I would call, "influential albums". But I'd rather name influential bands/singer-songwriters/musicians. . .

THE ENTIRE Seattle Grunge group. Nirvana, P.Jam, Alice in Chains, S-garden, and Stone Temple Pilots. I think of the music that has followed them, and I can hear so much of what these bands created in many other popular bands through the 90's and beyond.

ALso Faith No More. . .Mike sombody. . .What is the lead singer's name? I think he is one of the most influential singers of the early alternative bands.

Metallica, AC/DC, Ozzy, Pantera, also had great affect on those who followed. Obviously, they're all still around, but not the same bands that they were 15 years ago.