Oh, beautiful for spacious skies, amber waves of grain, and some seriously kickass music.

The United States has been the muse for thousands of songs, whether they be celebratory, critical, or somewhere in between.

Today, in honor of our independence, I’m listing off some of my favorite albums that are unmistakably American. 

Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited (1965)

Bob Dylan is arguably the most important American songwriter of all time. His catalog ranges from finger-pointin’ protest songs to epic ballads to Dadaist absurdity.

I could have chosen just about any Dylan album for this list, but Highway 61 Revisited is maybe the most American in spirit. Even though he had divorced himself from his protest singer days on his previous album, Highway 61 Revisited has some of his most poignant criticisms of the American government and pop culture.

He writes in the same surrealist style that informed Bringing It All Back Home, but here it is so clearly pointed that even the most ridiculous phrases can’t hide his true meaning.

Miles Davis – Bitches Brew (1970)

Nothing is more American than jazz, and no one embodies the spirit of jazz more than Miles Davis himself.

Bitches Brew is a convention-bucking, fearlessly adventurous melting pot of an album that finds Davis and crew (including fellow legends Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, John McLaughlin, Joe Zawinul, Tony Williams…) melding jazz with rock and roll to create something that is distinctly unique.

And there’s not much more American than that.

Johnny Cash – Live From Folsom Prison

There are few songwriters in the American canon as iconic as Johnny Cash.

And on At Folsom Prison, his legendary status is laid plain. His setlist varies between rakish, devil-may-care irreverence and somber, world-weary ballads, and he sings both with the same sincerity.

He is an artist that could only be produced by America, and this record is the epitome of his idiosyncratic brand of the American spirit.

Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On? (1971)

While best known for his sexy bedroom R&B, Marvin Gaye wrote one of the greatest protest albums of all time.

Dealing with depression, professional distress, divorce, and a country mired in civil unrest, Gaye turned his sights to the culture around him. The result was What’s Going On, one of the most eloquent meditations on the cultural climate of Vietnam-era America every made. Nearly fifty years later, his despair is still palpable.

The Ramones – The Ramones (1976)

I’ll save you the “who invented punk” debate right now: it was the Ramones.

Punk rock is as American as the Revolutionary War, and this is the album that started it all. Marked with a juvenile attitude and an iconoclastic spirit, The Ramones’ first album gave a language to generations of rebels. And while they may not have gotten as political as their British followers, the spirit of the album is anarchic enough that it doesn’t need to.

Bruce Springsteen – Born in the USA (1984)

No list of American albums would be complete without Bruce Springsteen’s biggest hit. Born in the USA heartbreaking, fist-pounding protest record disguised as a piece of patriotic pop music.

The disguise is so convincing that Ronald Reagan famously used its title track as a campaign slogan. Had anyone in his campaign listened a little more closely, they would have heard a song that railed against almost everything they supported.