I turned 18 in 1974. Albums I listened to back then, which may be a little later than 74, were Led Zeppelin: Physical Graffiti. (or at least one of LZ), Fleetwood Mac, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon, and America. I know America: America came out when I was 14 I believe, so maybe Hat Trick. Listened to America a lot too.
1974 for me turning 18. Led Zepp was definitely #1 for me, and still is!
@bfrederi1 Ooooops! Thanks for bringing that wrong attribution to my attention. I fixed it. I guess yesterday was āone of those days,ā cognitively speaking. 
Yes, I donāt care about othersā approval of my tastes, either, I just know that others appreciate music that I (so far) do not. and vice versa. As long as itās a respectful difference of opinion, and people can agree to disagree, all is well.
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1996
Farewell: Live From Universal - Oingo Boingo
Evil Empire - Rage Against the Machine
If Youāre Feeling Sinister - Belle and Sebastian
Dilate - Ani Difranco
This is hard! Here are my honorable mentions from that year (I clearly canāt stick to 4!):
Fashion Nugget - Cake
Odelay - Beck
Emperor Tomato Ketchup - Stereolab
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one of my favorite albums ever.
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1980
Dire Straits - Making Movies
The Jam - Sound Affects
George Benson - Give Me The Night
The Police - Zenyatta Mondatta
Guilty Pleasure
VA - Xanadu OST
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Me too! I was fortunate enough to go to one of the shows at Universal and one in San Diego during the Farewell tour. Still one of my top live shows ever.
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They are so good live. I saw them in '87 on the Boi-ngo tour in a small venue.
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40 oz to freedom.
That was it, just one.
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I LOVE that you instantly owned it! I really wish we had been in the same city, we would have made the foundations of an awesome band. (I knew the perfect drummer for usāin case you were worried. The guitarist was āok.ā)
I turned 18 in 2008, and honestly I canāt even name a single album from that year. After looking at multiple ābest album of 2008ā sites, I canāt say I even recognize a single band on any list. IMO good music largely died after the early 2000ās and everything I currently listen to was released pre-2000. So, sadly, I can contribute nothing of value here 
Oh. YEP. 2008 was a really bad year! I feel like there was very little āof listenableā valuable that year. Kings of Leon were in their worst of their two good years, Coldplayā¦ uh, was still putting stuff out? Other folks that put stuff out (Raconteurs, Death Cab for Cutie, AC/DC, Oasis, Metallica) just put āsomethingā outā¦ So, yeah, you summed it up well. Letās play stuff like it was 1969 or so.
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2008
Death Cabās āNarrow Stairsā is a good album, not their best, but solid.
The Airborne Toxic Eventās album is in my top 10
and The Flight of the Conchords was amazing.
2008, Bloc Party released Intimacy. Not as strong as Silent Alarm, but still a great album.
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I turned 18 in 1995.
I found 3 albums that were released that year:
Blind Guardian - Imaginations from the other side
Got it as soon as it was released, as I was a big fan back then, and I really loved it back then. Didnāt listen to it in years, as this kind of music just isnāt my cup of tea anymore.
White Zombie - Astro Creep: 2000
This is a bit of an odd one, as I hated White Zombie back then. It was only 2 years later, the year when I graduated, when I made a shift in musical taste and went from metal to a more industrial direction (my favourite band to this day is Nine Inch Nails), when I started to like White Zombie, and Astro Creep is one of the albums I still listen to, today.
So, though I didnāt like it when I was 18, it still is one of the albums released in 1995 that still is important to me. Still one of my favourite bands.
Garbage - Garbage
Also didnāt started listening to it in '95, only discovered it later, when they released their second album Version 2.0. Butch Vig is the only producer in my opinion who can pull off that overengineering approach where every bit has to be perfect. Otherwise, music needs that bit of imperfection to be great. Still listen to it ocasionally.
Addendum: Just found another album from '95 I totally forgot about:
Paradise Lost - Draconian Times
Also listened to that one all the time back then. Also, not my cup of tea anymore. A few years back, when youtube recommended one of their newer songs and I realised they were back to their Doom Metal roots, which I never liked, I went through their discography and realised they also had a few years where they went into a much more electronic area, which I found quite interesting. Their best time still was their Goth Metal time, I think.
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Seriously underrated band.
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1980 for me. Hard to imagine a more pivotal year for me personally. .
Joy Division - Closer
The Cure - Seventeen Seconds
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Kaleidoscope
Echo and the Bunnymen - Crocodiles
Talking Heads - Remain in Light
The Feelies - Crazy Rhythms
Elvis Costello and the Attractions - Get Happy
The (English) Beat - I Just Canāt Stop It
UB40 - Signing Off
X - Los Angeles
The Jam - Sound Affects
The Sound - From the Lionās Mouth
The Clash - Sandanista
ā¦an insanely good and important year for me
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You could limit it to just the first four and it would still be one of the most influential years in modern music history.
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