What the world was listening to

It was hardly rock 'n' roll, but they liked it - those who could afford the new-fangled, long-playing records first produced and marketed in the early years of the century, that is. At a time when woofers, tweeters, remote-control units and LCDs were not even science-fiction, society's groovers got their rocks off to opera as they gathered around the phonograph. Those early records were scratchy, shellac 78s; RCA sold the first 33.333 rpm LPs in 1931, but they did not catch on until after World War II.

The latest disc technology means today's album may be smaller than a beer mat but it remains an album in spirit: here, from one end of the century to the other, we present the most influential albums of the past 100 years. Arguably.

1900-1909 'An event of historical importance' took place in the United States in 1903 . . . according to the sleeve notes with the Grand Opera Series of discs. The event was the release of the first recordings of opera and featured luminaries such as Suzanne Adams and Giuseppe Campanari. The bragging rights continued: 'The Columbia Phonograph Company announces a most extraordinary achievement . . . an epoch in reproducing sound. For the first time in . . . history . . . SUCCESSFUL RECORDS have been made of the voices of the world-renowned singers of the Metropolitan Opera Company. $2 each.' 1910-1919 Redneck USA does not always get the best press, but it has made two monumental contributions to music (discounting R.E.M.). Originally known as 'ragtime' and thrust on to the world by Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton, jazz took its new name in about 1913, roosted among the (largely black) musicians of New Orleans and produced its most enduring superstar a few years later: Louis Armstrong. Originally a cornetist, then a trumpeter, always a singer and an unsurpassed improviser, Armstrong's earliest appearances on record are poorly documented. Blues, which emerged at roughly the same time, was given its big chance by fellow cornetist and jazz-blues composer W C Handy, who was recording with his Memphis Orchestra by 1917. His Memphis Blues and St Louis Blues are revered as classics.

1920-1929 Thanks to a singer, the entertainment world woke up to its staggering potential in the 20s . . . but in movies first, then records. In 1927 The Jazz Singer was made, having been planned as a silent film in which a few songs would be interpolated. All that changed when Al Jolson famously decided to do it his way, turning it into the first 'talkie'. Movies were revolutionised and Jolson's recording career blossomed, thanks in particular to the song Danny Boy (1928). Meanwhile the man who had turned down Jolson's role in The Jazz Singer, dancer, singer and comedian Eddie Cantor, also continued to record prolifically after one true groundbreaking album. Having appeared from 1917 to 1919 in the Broadway production Ziegfeld Follies, Cantor later recorded Irving Berlin's You'd Be Surprised for the album of the show: the earliest 'original cast' record ever made.

1930-1939 And now, the man without whom the entire Chicago Blues scene, and by extension R & B and rock 'n' roll, would never have developed . . . Robert Johnson. An interpreter par excellence, Johnson stretched and bullied a simple type of music into a rich discipline, helping to create legends of performers such as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and countless others who followed. Although only one collection, Terraplane Blues (his first record), sold in numbers, Johnson recorded 29 more songs from November 1936 to June 1937. Meanwhile, Belgian jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt was charming Europe's record-buying vanguard with the series of discs he cut alongside violinist Stephane Grappelli in the Quintette du Hot Club de France, of which the outstanding Swing In Paris (1936-40) is typical. Reinhardt was the first non-American to make any impact on the jazz world.

1940-1949 Another colossal, 'without whom . . .' presence was Charlie Christian, the Texan guitarist who was among the first to amplify the instrument electronically. An astonishing soloist, Christian was also one of pop music's original wasters, living a rock 'n' roll lifestyle before the term was invented and dying at 26. He is remembered more for his work with band leader Benny Goodman, with whom he made Live, Charlie Christian and Solo Flight, all between 1939 and 1941.