Album · Lynyrd Skynyrd
(pronounced ’lĕh-’nérd ’skin-’nérd) by Lynyrd Skynyrd
(pronounced ’lĕh-’nérd ’skin-’nérd) is an album by Lynyrd Skynyrd, released in 1973. 4 songs from it have charted on rock radio countdowns, with 365 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “Freebird”, on 122 lists and voted number one four times.
(Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd), Lynyrd Skynyrd's debut, hit the shelves on MCA on August 13, 1973, and it plays like a band that had already road-tested these songs, because it had. Al Kooper produced it at Studio One in Doraville, Georgia, after a long stretch of rehearsals, and most of what's here was already a staple of their live show before anyone pressed record.
Ronnie Van Zant sings with a sneer and a drawl, Gary Rossington and Allen Collins lock their guitars together, and Billy Powell's keys and Bob Burns's drums fill out the sound. "Gimme Three Steps" is a swaggering boogie, "Simple Man" is a slow, heavy, earnest ballad, and "Tuesday's Gone" rolls out long and mournful. Then there's "Free Bird", a sprawling, soaring epic that has been the band's signature ever since.
Critics loved it, and it put the band at the front of the Southern rock pack. It peaked at 27 on the Billboard 200 but kept on selling, eventually going double platinum, and it has turned up again and again on lists of the greatest albums ever made.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from (pronounced ’lĕh-’nérd ’skin-’nérd) on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Freebird#25 of all time | 122 | #1 | 4 | 1976–2026 | |
| 2 | Simple Man#188 of all time | 86 | #6 | – | 1994–2026 | |
| 3 | Gimme Three Steps#239 of all time | 87 | #46 | – | 1982–2026 | |
| 4 | Tuesday's Gone#470 of all time | 69 | #9 | – | 1994–2026 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.