Ten great albums recorded at Sound City Studios, the focus of Sound City

7. Johnny Cash's Unchained (1996)
Most cover songs are just, well, cover songs. But when Johnny Cash covered a song, it became so much more -- both an honor to the original songwriter and an appropriation of his work. We catch glimpses of the power of Cash's covers on this album, the second volume of his American Recordings series. Backed by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Cash covers songs by Petty, Beck and Soundgarden. The album also includes such Cash originals as "Country Boy." This was his 82nd album.

6. Neil Young's After the Gold Rush (1970)
Legend has it that this album was recorded as the soundtrack to an unmade film with the same title. Young reportedly read a screenplay written by Dean Stockwell and Herb Berman and asked if he could make the soundtrack; although the script has since disappeared, Stockwell has said it was going to be an "end-of-the-world" sort of film, which might explain the surreal quality in some of the tracks. One of the featured musicians here is Nils Lofgren on piano; he went on to be part of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band.