Heart - Dreamboat Annie (1976) {2008, Reissue}

In the 1980s and '90s, numerous women recorded blistering rock, but things were quite different in 1976 – when female singers tended to be pigeonholed as soft rockers and singer/songwriters and were encouraged to take after Carly Simon, Melissa Manchester, or Joni Mitchell rather than Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath. Greatly influenced by Zep, Heart did its part to help open doors for ladies of loudness with the excellent Dreamboat Annie. Aggressive yet melodic rockers like "Sing Child," "White Lightning & Wine," and the rock radio staples "Magic Man" and "Crazy on You" led to the tag "the female Led Zeppelin." And in fact, Robert Plant did have a strong influence on Ann Wilson. But those numbers and caressing, folk-ish ballads like "How Deep It Goes" and the title song also make it clear that the Nancy and Ann Wilson had their own identity and vision early on.

Heart is an American rock band that first found success in Canada and later in the United States and worldwide. Over the group's four-decade history, it has had three primary lineups, with the constant center of the group since 1973 being sisters Ann Wilson (lead singer) and Nancy Wilson (guitarist). Heart rose to fame in the mid-1970s with music influenced by hard rock and heavy metal, as well as folk music. Their popularity declined in the early 1980s, but the band enjoyed a comeback starting in 1985 and experienced even greater success with album-oriented rock hits and hard-rock ballads into the 1990s.

To date, Heart has sold over 35 million records worldwide, including over 22.5 million in album sales in the U.S. They have had top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and 2010s. The group was ranked number 57 on VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock". They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013.