Right now, I am of the mind that there are very few albums that in and of themselves are completely perfect. If I had to list them, I would say that they are:
Little Feat: Waiting for Columbus
Yes: Relayer
Frank Zappa: Fillmore East: June 1971
Pink Floyd: Animals
Ben Folds Five: The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner
The Beatles- Abbey Road
I’m sure there are others I would include as being complete and perfect and when I finish listening to them I am drained and content, but these stand out right now. Your mileage may vary, of course, and this is not a complete list, but these are albums that are a part of who I am.
Let the psychoanalysis begin.
*** Update ***
OMG- no Velvet Underground, I must have no taste! Die, posers.
*** Update #2 ***
Holy shit. I forgot Paul’s Boutique. Shoot me.
Calouste
Considering two of the five (Animals and Relayer) are in my top 5 albums, I’m going to check out the other three.
mr. whipple
I’m a huge Frank fan, my fave is One Size Fits All.
I’d add:
Ellington, Great Paris Concerts
straleno
You know this will the longest open thread you’ve ever had, right?
XTC: Skylarking
Freedy Johnston: Can You Fly
Weezer: the blue album
The Byrds: Sweethearts of the Rodeo
And for me, Whatever and Ever Amen is the perfect Ben Folds Five album, with his solo album Rocking The Suburbs on the list, too.
cleek
Animals, for sure.
DSOTM, too. though i rarely want to hear it.
Also:
Abbey Road
Talking Heads – Remain In Light
Miles – Kind Of Blue
Pretenders (first)
Pavement – Slanted & Enchanted
Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation
F. Mac – Rumors
My Bloody Valentine – Loveless
Liz Phair – Exile In Guyville
ZZ Top – Tres Hombres
Slint – Spiderland
there are more.
they change over time, though.
neal peart
Um, what about me?
John Cole
@cleek: I was adding Abbey Road as you commented. I will see you Rumors, too.
You know what else I would think about adding- Los Lobos, How Will The Wolf Survive? It just seems to miss a bit of the LP album play feel. But I still love it.
Dan
perfect albums:
Rolling Stones: Exile on Main Street
Notorious B.I.G.: Ready to Die
Allman Bros: Live at Fillmore East
Miles Davis: Kind of Blue
Common Sense: Ressurection
Bob Dylan: Highway 61
Just a few of my personal favorites.
J. Michael Neal
Dire Straits – Love Over Gold
Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On?
The Blues Brothers Movie Soundtrack
Ditto on Animals
Alan Parsons Project – Gaudi
Annie Lennox – Diva
The Art of Noise – In No Sense? Nonsense!
Rush – Rush in Rio
That’s not quite a list of my favorite albums, as there are several that I think have flaws, but the highs of which make up for them. Duke from Genesis, for instance.
J. Michael Neal
@neal peart: I got you covered, Neal.
lost in GA
John; you preach it every now and then. Paul’s Boutique needs to grace your list.
Comrade Kevin
The Clash – London Calling
smiley
Graceland – Paul Simon
Blue – Joni Mitchell
and…
Too many others to name.
jon
XTC’s Skylarking (either the version with Mermaid Smiles or with Dear God for you pedantic fans)
REM’s Reckoning (though I usually only listened to the first side on the vinyl)
Pulp’s Different Class (perfectly snarky)
Kink’s Muswell Hillbillies (never outdated, never outdone)
Sundays’ Reading Writing and Arithmatic (perfect pop from the perfect sounding pop group, I remember hoping that the Can’t Be Sure single was going to be followed by a great album and can also remember being astounded that the album was just as good)
and a second vote for The Pretenders’ First
Janet Strange
One of my fondest memories of the Armadillo World Headquarters was standing right in front of Kenny Gradney while Little Feat played there. (He was so-o-o-o good looking.) Resting my elbows on the stage. . . . Sigh.
A few years before that, my guitar-playing boyfriend (later husband) was in a band and went off to play in a small club in Houston. My best friend was singing with that band at the time. They both came back just raving, “We opened for the greatest band. Little Feat.” After that, it was simply not allowed to not be there whenever they played in Austin.
OK, off to find Waiting for Columbus.
bogart
ahem
Radiohead – Ok Computer, or Kid A
The Flaming Lips – The Soft Bulletin
Elvis Costello – This Year’s Model
Led Zeppelin – II
Modest Mouse – The Lonesome Crowded West
Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
The Clash – London Calling
Yes, I am a hipster douchebag
wb
Ya know, I always hate this kinda thing, ’cause it always shows my age. Ah well:
Layla – Derick and the Dominoes
Pearl – Full Tilt Boogie Band (yeah, it was Janis, but that WAS the name of the band)
Live at Filmore East – The Allman Brothers Band
Tea for the Tillerman – Cat Stevens (sure, go ahead and laugh, I don’t care anymore)
Volunteers – Jefferson Airplane
Sheesh…where’s my Metamucil?
Mike S
Lou Reed “Rock and Roll Animal.”
David Bowie’s “Station to Station” and “Ziggy Stardust.”
The soundtrack to “Life Aquatic.”
CSNY “4 way Street.”
St. Germain’s “Tourist.”
asiangrrlMN
Oh, so sad that I cannot play along on this thread. I will just have to read everyone else’s lists.
Steve V
You’re going to get some crap from other liberal bloggers for liking Yes, I’d imagine. Though for my money I think I might go with Close to the Edge. :)
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
I can’t think of any albums that are perfect, but Abbey Road is as close as I’ve ever heard.
fliegr
@cleek: no question. also
Radiohead The Bends
Radiohead OK Computer
The Notwist Neon Golden
Randy Newman Sail Away
New Order Power Corruption and Lies
Oh, and concur with London Calling and Paul’s Boutique.
cleek
i’ll also add
Neutral Milk Hotel – In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
Cowboy Junkies – The Trinity Sessions
J. Michael Neal
@Steve V: I can always manage to piss off Yes fans, since, while I like them a lot, my favorite album of theirs is Union.
J. Michael Neal
Is it tragically unhip to say that I really like Coldplay?
Paul
Waiting for Columbus is one of my favorites, too. I am very fond of that version of Dixie Chicken, and Willin’ is perfect, too, I’m smiling just thinking about it.
I think I’ll take The White Album over Abbey Road. It’s pretty close but Maxwell’s Silver Hammer makes me want to puke, so I knock a few points off for that one.
Bruce Cockburn’s Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaws is pretty high up there in my book.
cleek
unfortunately, yes.
but you’re not alone. and we can help.
do you listen to Revolution 9 without reaching for the >> button ?
Cain
Porcupine Tree – In Absentia
Dream Theater – Images and Words
Yes – Fragile
I didn’t put any of the Rush ones since it would just be one big * (Except for Test4Echo..bleah)
cain
tballou
More perfect albums:
801 Live (Phil Manzanera, Brian Eno, et al)
Roxy Music – Roxy Music, Stranded
Elvis Costello – My Aim is True
Blondie – Blondie
Grateful Dead – Wake of the Flood, Live from Mars Hotel, American Beauty
Mothers of Invention – Hot Rats
J. Michael Neal
@cleek: But I don’t want help.
Okay, I do, but only in regards to explaining Non-GAAP Auditing Standards and Non-Audit Types of Reports.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@smiley: How could I forget Graceland!
Oh, and The Graduate soundtrack.
A Ghost To Most
John,
I agree about Waiting For Columbus. Easily my favorite live album. I just don’t understand why more people don’t love this album like I do.
If you don’t have the extended, two CD version, I highly recommend it. Not only does it restore ‘Don’t Bogart That Joint’ and ‘A Apolitical Blues’ from the LP, but it also has several other cuts from the concerts, including ‘Skin It Back’ (two versions), ‘One Life Stand’, and ‘Teenage Nervous Breakdown’.
Albums I consider essential:
Graceland – Paul Simon
Trace – Son Volt
Who’s Next – The Who
No Depression – Uncle Tupelo
and anything by Drive By Truckers
edit: Exile on Main Street
folkbum
Peter Mulvey, Kitchen Radio
Old 97s, Satellite Rides
Patty Larkin, Strangers World
Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer, Drum Hat Buddha
Carrie Newcomer, My Father’s Only Son
Lots of others that are almost perfect, and probably lots of others that I can’t think of now.
C Nelson Reilly
R.L. Burnside – A Ass Pocket of Whiskey
smiley
@Steve V:
I was into that album at the time, along with some ELP. Gawd, youth.
BTW, John, this thread runs the risk of turning into a Tbogg Pre-Friday hipper than thou wank fest. Just sayin… [ducks flames]
cleek
yes.
their “Mystifies Me” kicks my ass every time i hear it.
J. Michael Neal
Fear of a Blank Planet is better, as are a couple of the albums from the earlier style.
Awake is better.
Almost everything else is better. 1970s era Yes got far too cute.
Plus Grace Under Pressure and Counterparts. All of them have three good songs, and a lot of crap.
Krista
Definitely!
Legend – Bob Marley and the Wailers
Nothing Short of a Bullet – Lowest of the Low
OK Computer – Radiohead
Licensed to Ill – Beastie Boys
Little Earthquakes – Tori Amos
I’m sure there are others, but it’s late and I’m too tired to get up to go over to my CD rack.
LD50
The Stooges, Fun House, released in 1970. Easily the most brilliant ‘rock’ LP ever made.
Alan
Animals will always be way up there on the list.
I loved every song on Van Halen’s first album.
Rush has too many complete albums: 2112, Hemispheres, Moving Pictures…
Big Audio Dynamit’s No. 10, Upping St.
Many already listed by others.
lost in GA
@cleek:
I’ll give you NMH (solid), but Cowboy Junkies always struck me as a less interesting version of Mazzy Star (who preceded whom notwithstanding).
wb
I’ve heard this for years, and I don’t know. Sure, I enjoy Abbey Road, but really, the bestest Beatles album evah was Rubber Soul.
Sorry, I’m funny that way.
Keith G
My eclectic 4
Sergeant Pepper’s – I have my original – present from my older bro when i was in 6th grade.
Déjà Vu – Crosby Stills Nash & Young
Yellow Brick Road
Transformer – Lou Reed
I loved Rumors as well.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@wb: Sorry, I’m funny that way.
I don’t judge. :)
Betsy
R.E.M., Automatic for the People
Neko Case, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
Paul Simon, Graceland.
Bob Dylan, Blood on the Tracks
There are probably others, but I’m tired and these are the ones that spring to mind before reading other folks’ lists.
smiley
I see this appears to be an older crowd. Interesting… I didn’t know that before.
@asiangrrlMN:
Come on, play!
LD50
I’d place Rubber Soul second. I always thought their masterpiece was Revolver. The White Album and Abbey Road bore me to tears.
Sam Hutcheson
The Rock*a*Teens – Golden Time (trust me)
The Hold Steady – Seperation Sunday
The Weakerthans – Left and Leaving
lost in GA
@Krista:
Not to butt into (more so) the conversation, but what did you think of “Scarlett’s Walk”? I thought Tori really nailed the mood of sensible people in the US after 9/11 in that album without becoming sanctimonious. And it proved to be a great tour. Saw her at an amphitheater in ATL with Ben Folds opening solo. Thanks.
Danton
My two cents:
Ry Cooder, Into the Purple Valley
Warren Zevon, Stand in the Fire
Grateful Dead, Workingman’s Dead
The Pogues, If I Should Fall from Grace with God
Paul Butterfield Blues Band, East-West
Groucho48
Santana– Abraxas
Bob Segar and the Silver Bullet Band–Live Bullet
Bob Dylan–Highway 61 Revisited
Rod Stewart–Every Picture Tells a Story
Chuck Berry–More Chuck Berry
Grateful Dead–American Beauty
kim
P.E. – it takes a nation of millions
Rage against the machine – ratm
Gd – one from the vault / American beauty / reckoning
Sublime – 40 oz to freedom
Abb – live from Fillmore east 71
Nin – downward spiral
Paul’s boutique
Dylan – blood on the tracks
Velvet underground – loaded
Mnemosyne
I could listen to Elvis Costello’s King of America every day from now until the day I die and never get sick of it. Yes, I know it has a reputation for being a crappy album. That reputation is wrong, and “Suit of Lights” is the reason why.
ed
The Beatles suck ass. All Beatles albums suck ass. ..
…except for Abbey Road. Which is awesome.
also:
Fishbone: Truth and Soul
Clash: London Calling
Neil Young: uh, lots
Stones’ Exile and Los Lobsters Wolf were already mentioned.
Doug H.
I think every Floyd album between Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall pretty much qualifies.
Also mentions for Paradise Theater, The Blues Brothers soundtrack, Fear of a Black Planet, and one half of Making Movies.
Krista
I actually haven’t heard it yet. (Hangs head in shame). I’ll have to check it out now.
smiley
Every time I put that on my friends fall asleep. Don’t know why…
Sam Hutcheson
Oh, and for the record, Pinkerton is five times a better album than Weezer (blue.)
ed
Paul Simon’s Graceland is a nice call too.
robertdsc
Metallica-Master Of Puppets, the Black Album, and Death Magnetic
folkbum
And no one’s added Frampton Comes Alive?
[ducks]
asiangrrlMN
@smiley: Nope. Not gonna do it. People think I’m a freak as it is. I don’t really need to confirm it.
Tom
UFO – Strangers in the Night
and
Scorpions- Tokyo Tapes
Two live albums that were all I needed in my teens.
Is Les Miserables too far out of the general musical tastes here?
Kirk Spencer
Alice Cooper – Welcome to my Nightmare.
Pink Floyd – Dark Side of the Moon.
Mannheim Steamroller – Fresh Aire III.
kim
@kim: forgot to mention even though its not an album, greatest song of all time: pink floyd echoes.
Beauzeaux
Jon Wayne – Texas Funeral
(Their second album, Two Graduated Jiggers, is almost perfect too but much MUCH weirder.)
J. Michael Neal
Christ, that’s only the fifth best Dire Straits album, beating out only Communique. It’s also behind every one of Mark Knopfler’s solo albums, and his duets with Emmylou Harris.
Betsy
@kim:
That was the soundtrack to high school. Not *my* soundtrack, necessarily, but the one that was playing in the background more often than not at various friends’ houses/cars. Ah, memories!
J. Michael Neal
@asiangrrlMN:
Uh, no. Everything you say screams, “I have to meet her some day.”
Mike S
Transformer is a fantastic album. I saw Lou Reed at Neil Young’s “Bridge School Benefit 1997,” a two day show that’s all accoustic.
The one I went to had Lou Reed, Metallica, Blues Traveler, Dave Mathews, Blind Melon, Allanis Morresette and Neil Young of course.
A friend called it “Mikestock” because it was all of my favorite bands at the time. You can’t tell how good Metallica is until you see them play accoustic.
And Lou Reed doing “Perfect Day” outdoors in Northern California was damn sweet. Although it was funny to see them clear all of the kids in wheel chairs off of the stage right before he came on. It’s like they thought he might shoot up then and there.
kim
@Betsy: My high school years were ’92 – ’96, yours? ;)
I can’t say I would still listen to NIN/Downward Spiral (i really have no reason to be that depressed anymore!), but I do appreciate its a masterful concept album.
Brick Oven Bill
Here I prove Joe527 to be the fraud. Gifts are not achieved through education. The seven liberal arts and sciences are grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. Graduate and post-graduate studies of these subjects have not been able to teach President Obama to articulate his own words.
In like manner, my pizza skills were largely gained through the study of thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, heat transfer, chemistry, and biology. This scientific background presents a false sense of security for the weak minded. Obama might perceive that he has a rhetorical gift, but in reality it is sophistry. I do not see a similar gift in myself. This is because my professors had to pass calculus, and were thus cognitively capable of teaching me humility.
No, gifts are presented from deity, not college professors. Thus I present Rado, the pizza master. No formal education, and uses BROWN SUGAR. By the way, you prepare dough by kneading it, Joe the fraud.
Betsy
@kim:
:) Pretty close – ‘ 94- ’98
PGE
I’ll play. Perfect is a pretty high bar, but I’ll add
Veedon Fleece – Van Morrison
The Roches – the Roches
oh.. and Harvest – Neal Young
and I agree with tballou about 801 Live: TNK is my favorite Beatles cover ever
wag
R.E.M-Murmur
Easy Star All stars-Dub Side of the Moon (easily the best pink floyd cover ever)
Ramones-Rocket to Russia
Go Gos-Beauty and the Beat
Kraftwerk-Computer World
The Pogues-Rum, Sodomy and the Lash
Brian Eno-Music for Airports
Talking Heads-The Name of this Band is…(best live album ever)
You can probably guess when I was in college…
Paul
@cleek
“do you listen to Revolution 9 without reaching for the >> button ?”
Yes, I do, but I’m funny that way. Honey Pie, on the other hand…
Ninerdave
No love for the mighty Zep?
Houses of the Holy?
Come on now. Of course you like the Dead, so I suppose there is no accounting for taste
Farley
@Doug H.: Amen to all that.
So much great stuff already listed.
To reach into my bag of slightly (?) younger stuff, if I may:
Rage Against The Machine “Evil Empire”
Perfect Circle “Thirteenth Step”
J. Michael Neal
@Brick Oven Bill: See, other people complain about BOB, and, I admit, some of his posts display an extreme lack of creativity. For instance, it’s time for him to stop talking about wind energy. On the whole, though, he takes stream of conscious wingnutness to the level of being art. He’s not even a troll. He’s a category all by himself, and this would be a poorer comments section without him.
smiley
@Kirk Spencer:
I think we have a mole here.
Mike S
Cripes Betsy and Kim. Couldn’t you keep that to yourselves? It’s bad enough to hear most of my high school songs on oldies stations.
phein
Lyle Lovett – Joshua Judges Ruth
Aphrodite’s Child – 666
Stan Getz – Jazz Samba
Leonard Cohen – I’m Your Man
Traffic – John Barleycorn
Cake – Motorcade of Generosity
Van Morrison – A NIght in San Francisco
Miles Davis – Kind of Blue
Steve Earle – The Mountain
Sinatra – In the Wee Small Hours
Steve Earle – El Corazon
asiangrrlMN
@J. Michael Neal: Aw, thanks. Believe you me, though, if I list my fave albums, you probably will change your mind.
smiley
@Betsy:
I would include that one too. Good call.
Betsy
@smiley:
I think you probably meant to click @PGE. :)
ETA: I do like that album, but it’s nowhere near the top of my list.
kim
@Betsy: btw, great call on the neko case. what do you think of middle cyclone? i just can’t get as into it as fox confessor. going to see her in early june though, so still excited. graceland is probably the first cd that both my dad and i were equally absolutely stoked on.
randiego
Lou Reed Rock ‘N Roll Animal is definitely one of ’em.
Physical Graffitti, Ziggy Stardust, The Smiths, Nirvana, and RATM Battle of L.A. would be other memorable ones.
I had a couple of unnamed live cassettes of J.Geils Band in the late 70’s that was insanely good, and a live Cure show in ’84 or so that was amazing too.
Cain
@J. Michael Neal:
I liked In Absentia as it had a wider set of topics. Fear of a Blank Planet seemed more of a concept album and I had a hard time getting into some of the songs. But there is that one knock out song that totally gets you out of your seat. I don’t have all of PT’s older stuff, but yah I like some of the older ones as well. I jut happen to listen to In Absentia the most. :-)
Dream Theater’s Awake is also an excellent album. I agree. I haven’t liked too much of their latest stuff, and they’ve pissed me off by avoiding coming to the Northwest. Their egos have grown so huge that they expect a certain level of engagement. Portland is not particularly friendly to outside acts of Dream Theater’s size for whatever reason. I know they were pretty pissed the last time they played here.
Van Halen, yeah, but only during the Dave era. Good stuff.
I’ve lately been listening to Opeth, but I don’t like the death metal stuff when they don’t do the deathmetal with the growls it’s pretty damn good. :)
cain
PGE
phein, I made everybody I knew listen to 666 in… 1978 I think it was. maybe ’79. Great album.
and I’ll add Kate Bush – Dreaming, a perfect album if ever there was one.
and the 12 Dreams of Doctor Sardonicus
Violet
I love “Graceland.” Totally perfect album.
I also love the soundtracks to “Grosse Pointe Blank” and “Love Actually.” I wish I could put music together like that.
I love Lyle Lovett. I think “Pontiac” and “The Road to Ensenada” are my favorites. A good friend thinks “Joshua Judges Ruth” is the best. They’re all good.
Mike S
Neil’s Harvest Moon is another all around great album. My wife and I used the title track as our first dance at our wedding.
Mike G
Midnight Oil – 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
The soundtrack to the dread of impending nuclear war that permeated everything in the Reagan early-mid-80s.
And another vote for Neil Young’s Harvest.
Betsy
@kim:
You know, at first I definitely wasn’t that into it, but it’s grown on me the more I listen. I LOVE This Tornado Loves you and People Got a Lotta Nerve, and I quite like Magpie to the Morning. I still think I like Fox Confessor and The Tigers Have Spoken more, but I like this one, and it’s growing on me.
kvenlander
Mingus: Ah um
Talking Heads: Fear of music
Linton Kwesi Johnson: Making history
Neil Young: Weld
Cain
@Ninerdave:
I love that album. I’ve been listening to a lot of Zep of late. In fact there is one song on there where I could have sworn I was listening to some old song of Porcupine Tree!
cain
nix
Love & Money – Strange Kind Of Love
Steely Dan – The Royal Scam
Louis Armstrong – Hot Fives & Sevens
The Beatles – Past Masters Vol. 2
Me’Shell Ndegéocello – Peace Beyond Passion
Michael Giacchino – The Incredibles Soundtrack
Neil Larsen – Jungle Fever
Yellowjackets – 1st Album
Earth, Wind & Fire – Gratitude
Peter Gabriel – So
PeakVT
I don’t know if there is a perfect album, as even my favorites have one that song that has me reaching for the remote. But these are some of the ones I’m most likely to listen through without interruption.
Hendrix – Band of Gypsies
North Mississippi Allstars – Shake Hands with Shorty
GnR – Appetite for Destruction
The Verve – Urban Hymns
Stone Roses – Stone Roses
Soungarden – Superunknown
Powerman 5000 – Mega Kung Fu Radio
Rage against the Machine – RATM (was just jamming to this. . .)
Added: Morphine – Cure for Pain
Cain
@kim:
If you want downers, you should listen to Evanescence. Jeez, they take the topic of “lonely” to a whole new level.
cain
joel hanes
Crosby Stills & Nash
Simon & Garfunkel “Bookends”
Jimi Hendrix “Electric Ladyland”
Led Zeppelin II
Grateful Dead “American Beauty”
side 1 of Blind Faith
Bonnie Raitt “Nick of Time”
Laura Nyro “Gonna Take a Miracle”
Eagles “Desperado”
Al DiMeola “Elegant Gypsy”
Calouste
I saw Paul Simon in concert on the Graceland tour.
Only time I have seen an artist being outplayed, more or less on purpose, by his backing band (Ladysmith Black Mambazo).
Bedrock
“Perfect” may be in the ears of the beholder but here are some of my faves:
Paul Van Dyke-Seven Ways
REM-New Adventures in Hi-Fi
Ottmar Liebert-Solo Para Ti
The Cure-Disintegration
Peter Gabriel-So
The Insider Soundtrack
And ditto Little Earthquakes and Radiohead.
smiley
@joel hanes:
I second that.
Betsy
@kvenlander:
Oh yes, Mingus Ah Um should have been on my list, no question.
J. Michael Neal
“Evanescence” is English for “Lacuna Coil.” It loses something in the translation, too.
Mr. Stuck
Led Zep 1
Wishbone Ash (first)
Mitchell- blue
Blind Faith
Allman Bro’s – Atlanta Pop Festival live
Jethro Tull – Aqualung
Traffic – Mr. Fantasy
**Santana – Arbraxis
Cain
@J. Michael Neal:
I love “Grace Under Pressure”. Counterparts I agree with you on. Songs like “Speed of Love” or whatever that is seemed like a lack of ideas. I really wish Neal would stop writing songs on the human condition and do some fun stuff. BTW I really loved their last album stuff like “Main Monkey Business” is just killer.
cain
LawPemb
In no particular order:
Clash – London Calling
Stones – Begger’s Banquet
Beatles – Abbey Road, Sgt Pepper’s &White Album
Dylan – Blood on the Tracks
Ray Charles – Genius + Soul=Jazz
Animals -Animalisms
Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin I
Van Morrison-Tupelo Honey & Moondance
Radiohead – The Bends
Miles Davis – Porgy & Bess
Sex Pistols – Never Mindd the Bollocks
U2 – Achtung Baby
Sam Cooke – Live at the Harlem Square Club
Counting Crows – August & Everything After
Frank Sinatra – Songs for Swingin’ Lovers
Quincy jones – Birth of a Band
I must stop now……..
burnspbesq
So much great stuff mentioned already, so I’ll add a few that haven’t been.
Sonny Rollins, Vol. 2. (I saw him last night at Segerstrom Hall, and at age 78 the man can still bring it).
Anything by Bob Mould.
Strength in Numbers, The Telluride Sessions. The best bluegrass or newgrass album ever recorded.
Paul Lewis, Complete Beethoven Sonatas (in four two-disc sets). Definitive, in every way.
Thelma Houston, I’ve Got the Music in Me. Recorded direct to disc. The best sounding record I’ve ever heard.
Mike S
If you want a downer, listen to Lou Reed “Berlin.” It’s one of tyhe most depressing albums ever made. A good friend of mine said that you need two things to listen to it. A bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a loaded .45 to blow your brains out.
Any album with a song titled “Sad Song” is bound to be sad.
Betsy
@kim:
Oh, and also, I’m mad jealous of your concert tickets. She’s not going to be anywhere near me this tour.
Ninerdave
@Cain:
Yeah I go through a phase about once a year where I do Zep for about 2 months straight. Then I put it away. Of course I lived and died on them and AC/DC growing up.
Oh and Chris Whitley is one of the best (mostly) unknown musicians ever.
One of my favs: Dirt Floor
If you’re of a mind, there’s a lot of his live stuff on You Tube. He was amazing live. Most times, just him, his guitar and a piece of wood he mic’ed to produce a bass drum sound
Cain
@J. Michael Neal:
I had an album of Lacuna Coil, can’t remember what it was but it got stolen. They aren’t a bad band. Heavy on the arabic music though.
cain
wilfred
No particular order:
The Who – “Live at Leeds”
Allman Brothers – ” Live at Fillmore East”
The Clash – “London Calling”
Public Enemy – “Fear of a Black Planet”
J. Michael Neal
I’m a big Alan Parsons fan, so concept albums don’t scare me.
I haven’t listened to Systematic Chaos much, but I liked both Train of Thought and Octavarium a lot. Still, if you like Dream Theater, I highly recommend the two Liquid Tension Experiment albums. John Petrucci, Jordan Rudess, and Mike Portnoy together with Tony Levin, the greatest bassist in the world. They cook with gas, and you don’t have to listen to LeBrie, who is easily the weakest link in DT.
Paul
I must also add Nick Cave & The Bad Seed’s “Abattior Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus”.
Bret
Elliot Smith – XO
Cain
@PeakVT:
Now, all of GnR’s popular songs seems to be covers with some exceptions. Half of the band (at the tiem) came from my home town of Lafayette, IN. For a small town we produced a lot of good bands. (blind mellon?)
cain
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
I have to agree with these:
Bob Dylan: Highway 61
Radiohead: OK Computer
Van Morrison: Veedon Fleece
Bowie: Ziggy Stardust
And I’ll add these:
Talking Heads: ’77/More Songs …/Fear of Music/Remain In Light
Brian Eno: Taking Tiger Mountain
Pixies: Surfer Rosa
Sloan: Twice Removed
Elvis Costello: This Year’s Model/Armed Forces/Get Happy
Redd and White Stripes: Redd Blood Cells
wag
I forgot Flaming Lips-Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Mike S
It’s kind of depresing. I’m reading all of this great music but stuck playing Beyonce. Working at a Smooth Jazz station is good sometimes and bad others.
Now is one of the others.
Cris
cleek@25: I sing along with Revolution 9. I bet you do too, sometimes.
LD50@45: George Harrison said that he thought of Revolver and Rubber Soul as two halves of a double album. I like that idea.
Cain
I admit that LeBrie has started to get on my nerves. They need to replace him I feel. He was a breath of fresh air in Images and Words since I couldn’t stand the other guy. I’ve listened to some of the Liquid Tension Experiment stuff. I need to buy some more albums.
Didn’t they have something after Systematic Chaos? I didn’t like Train of Thought it was just.. too much. Plus, they had distractions in the songs that I found hard to get into for instance in “Sins of the Father”.. you keep hearing this ‘Goddam Regreeeet!” It was like you could cut a part of the song off it would be great. They just can’t resist geeking out. :-)
cain
J. Michael Neal
“Kid Gloves,” “Red Sector A,” “The Body Electric,” and “Red Lenses” are all lame. “Distant Early Warning” and “Between the Wheels” kick ass, though.
After two weak albums, Vapor Trails and Snakes and Arrows are great. So are the string of live albums they did, Different Stages, Rush in Rio and R30. Snakes and Arrows Live isn’t nearly as good, because the stuff off the new album doesn’t work well live. Alex has to spend so much time fiddling with the pedals that they lose energy. “The Main Monkey Business” may be their best instrumental ever.
JK
Tommy – The Who
Who’s Next – The Who
Dark Side of the Moon – Pink Floyd
Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – The Beatles
Quadrophenia – The Who
American Beauty – The Grateful Dead
In the Court of the Crimson King – King Crimson
Beggar’s Banquet – The Rolling Stones
Rubber Soul – The Beatles
Revolver – The Beatles
Blonde on Blonde – Bob Dylan
Europe 72 – The Grateful Dead
Skull and Roses – The Grateful Dead
Let it Bleed – The Rolling Stones
Live at Leeds – The Who
Sandinista – The Clash
London Calling – The Clash
1969: The Velvet Underground Live – Velvet Underground.
Live Rust – Neil Young
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars – David Bowie
Are You Experienced – Jimi Hendrix
Live at the Fillmore East – The Allman Brothers Band
Live Dead – The Grateful Dead
Pretenders – The Pretenders
Outlandos d’Amour – The Police
The Chicago Transit Authority – Chicago
Ghost in the Machine – The Police
Born to Run – Bruce Springsteen.
John Barleycorn Must Die – Traffic
Joe’s Garage Vol 1 – Frank Zappa
After the Gold Rush – Neil Young
Rock n’ Roll Animal – Lou Reed
Marquee Moon – Television
Layla – Derek and the Dominoes
Let It Bleed – The Rolling Stones
Miles of Aisles – Joni Mitchell
A Hard Day’s Night – The Beatles
Help – The Beatles
Nashville Skyline – Bob Dylan
Blood on The Tracks – Bob Dylan
Desire _ Bob Dylan
Gave myself about 5 minutes and these were the most perfect albums that came to mind
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
Oh, and here’s a perfect cover by Elliot Smith.
passerby
You know, my first thought was similar to what asiangrlMN chimed in with–I can’t really play because I don’t do the whole album thing. But like most people I like a wide range of music.
I didn’t think I could name a perfect album but smiley @12 reminded me:
Graceland–Paul Simon. Every track a winner and I played it over and over again back when I was far from home at school in Fayetteville, AR. Every track.
And echo wb @ 15:
Cat Stevens did some great stuff back in the day. Love him.
My ex was a huge David Byrne fan and he turned me on to Talking Heads. So cleek blew the dust off that memory–Remain in Light.
I guess I can sorta play along but, mostly, I’ll just watch from the sidelines.
demimondian
@smiley: Yup — it’s an older crowd.
https://www.google.com/adplanner/site_profile#siteDetails?identifier=balloon-juice.com&geo=US&trait_type=1&lp=false
slackerjax
Black Sabbath – Sabotage
Leatherface – Mush
Pegboy – Strong Reaction
Hüsker Dü – Zen Arcade
Stiff Little Fingers – Inflammable Material
Beastie Boys – Check Your Head
David Bowie – Heroes
mario
when I was in college, circa ’77, I once wrote out the lyrics
to Gates of Delirium from Relayer on the wall of a bathroom stall from memory.
“stand and fight, we do consider…”
just sayin’
Mike S
@demimondian: Old, male and childless seems to be the norm here.
Oh, and more educated than me.
PGE
@Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse: I go thru periods when I listen to Taking Tiger Mountain once a day.
asiangrrlMN
@demimondian: Woah, is the male/female breakdown really that drastic? And the kid thing amazes me. Is this for real?
Wile E. Quixote
Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here
Supertramp, Paris one of the best live albums ever recorded.
The Beatles, Abbey Road
The Rolling Stones, Some Girls
Little Feat, Waiting for Columbus. I played “Dixie Chicken” for my Dad and he loved it.
Joe Jackson, Night and Day and Look Sharp
The New Pornographers, Twin Cinema
Pet Shop Boys, Fundamental/Fundamentalism
Warren Zevon, Life’ll Kill Ya
Rush, Signals
demimondian
Peter, Paul, and Mary _Peter, Paul, and Mary_
The Nylons, _Seamless_
JGabriel
Joni Mitchell – Blue, Court and Spark
Elvis Costello – This Year’s Model, Imperial Bedroom
The Replacements – Let It Be
Pavement – Slanted and Enchanted
Yo La Tengo – Painful, Electro-Purra
Robyn Hitchcock – I Often Dream of Trains
Richard & Linda Thompson – Shoot Out The Lights
Matthew Sweet – Girlfriend
Prince – 1999, Sign O’ The Times
Outkast – Stankonia
Wilco – Summerteeth
REM – Murmur, Reckoning
Liz Phair – Exile in Guyville
The New Pornographers – Mass Romantic
Sleater Kinney – One Beat
Sonic Youth – Goo, Daydream Nation
Etc., Etc., Etc.
That’ll do for a start. Kind of random, but as a former college / alternative radio dj, I know way too many damn records and CD’s and could literally go on for hours, days even.
.
burnspbesq
Has anyone mentioned “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts” yet?
kim
@Betsy: yeah, we got lucky. and even luckier on 6th row flight of the conchords in berkeley late may. i’m going to blow out this summer with concerts: the dead, allman bros, neko, flight of conchords, death cab, high sierra music festival and then 3 nights of phish (i admit it)… after that 2 years of little music while at b-school.
Betsy
@demimondian:
How does Google get the data on gender, income, etc?
I’m off to bed now – night everyone!
burnspbesq
The album falls short of perfection, but “A Million Miles Away” by the Plimsouls is the single best rock song ever recorded.
Turgidson
Built to Spill – Perfect from Now on
My Bloody Valentine – Loveless
Kinks – Something Else by the Kinks
Husker Du – New Day Rising
Nick Drake – Bryter Layer
REM – Murmur
Pixies – Doolittle
Beatles – Rubber Soul
Beach Boys- Pet Sounds
Radiohead – Kid A
Talking Heads – Remain in Light
Cream – Disraeli Gears
those come instantly to mind. There are a lot more.
PeakVT
@Cain: The songs on AfD are all by band members (two are co-credited to others). After that came out, the songs they wrote weren’t as good and thus the covers were played more. Also, AfD isn’t very radio-friendly (no Radio Friendly Unit Shifters – gawd I love that song title) it never got a lot of play except on MTV (IIRC).
I’m glad to see Truth and Soul getting some love. I tastes are towards the hard/heavy stuff but I wish there were more like T&S. The music is great and the mood/emotions are … complex? Dunno how to describe what it does for me.
Kirk Spencer
@smiley:
Nope.
I think folk have listed a lot of very fine albums. I don’t think most of them are perfect, however.
Rule one of a perfect album is that every song is good. Unfortunately… let’s take an album I own and play quite a bit for example: Graceland. It’s excellent till gumboots. That one… just misses, in my opinion. Crazy Love is sometimes right and sometimes not. Since it’s a record it has to be the listener – doesn’t change the fact there are times I skip past it so it doesn’t ruin the album.
Rule two for perfection is that there’s a flow. I don’t need a theme, but I think every song on a perfect album follows from the previous – either as contrast or continuation. I wore out my LP of the Blues Brothers soundtrack, and think every song is a gem – but some of the songs don’t follow.
I happen to own the first eight albums put out by Mannheim Steamroller. The first four are outstanding, the next four gradually declined. Only one of the first four, however, is (in my opinion) perfect, and that’s Fresh Aire III aka “Fall”.
There is, of course, a caveat. No album is perfect in the ears of every listener. If you cannot stand the genre, then regardless of how outstanding the work it will not be “perfect” to you. Caveat auditor.
Whammer
I’m a little surprised not to see some of the “pretty darn big” acts on this list (at least I think I didn’t see them):
The Who (“My Wife” on Who’s Next is way underrated…)
Springsteen
Prince
Beach Boys
Nirvana
Elton John — ya gotta like GBYBR, dontcha?
Cream
Who’s with me on some REO Speedwagon? ;-)
Shygetz
Talk, Talk, Talk — The Psychadelic Furs
Second on Automatic for the People — REM
So — Peter Gabriel
Wildflowers — Tom Petty
And, if we’re allowing compilation albums:
Legend — Bob Marley and the Wailers
Singles — The Smiths
Galore — The Cure
I consider these to be my no-skip albums.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
Hey! Coming up on Letterman right now is Bat For Lashes. No perfect albums yet, but just imagine Kate Bush as muse for her 21st century niece.
robertdsc
Amy Lee’s voice kills me. So many tracks off The Open Door hit the mark from a mile away.
JGabriel
Hmm, skimming other people’s lists here, it looks like I could party pretty comfortably with cleek, Comrade Mary, Turgidson, kim, Betsy, wag, and fliegr.
Others too, I’m sure, but their choices just sort of stood out on a quick skim.
.
burnspbesq
@Whammer:
REO Speedwagon is in the guilty pleasure category, listened to alone, late at night when everyone else has gone to bed, through headphones. Otherwise, the risk of mockery is just too great.
JK
@Whammer:
Agree with you on My Wife and would add Getting in Tune and The Song is Over to that list. The Who is timeless
Whammer
Comments moving fast — Cream and Prince show up while I’m kvetching.
I’ll back up that Tea for the Tillerman from way above also. A certain age, I guess……..
Docrailgun
The Police – “Synchronicity”
Styx- “Kilroy Was Here”
Metallica – “… and Justice For All”
Iron Maiden – “Powerslave”
hoosierspud
“Harvest” is Neil Young’s most middle-of-the-road, mainstream album. My personal favorite is “On The Beach”, but like Lou Reed’s Berlin, it is incredibly depressing. “After the Gold Rush”, “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere”, and “Zuma” are all super albums.
I would also nominate “Sweet Tea” by Buddy Guy.
JGabriel
@burnspbesq:
Which explains why you use a pseudonym.
(Ducks and runs.)
.
demimondian
@burnspbesq: I was driving the family around the other day, and the CD changer shifted over to one of the Zevon albums, picking out “Excitable Boy”.
One of the kids listened for a moment, and then said “Wow, Dad! You’ve never played *this* for us.”
CJ
@folkbum: I went to college with Peter Mulvey. Interesting guy.
jhaygood
Oh man, John, you’re bringing me back. When I heard The Last Record Album at a friend’s back in college around ’76 I borrowed it and literally played it hundreds of times – finally just bought him a new copy to replace it. Still have that copy…
gizmo
Santana – Abraxas.
Case closed.
trollhattan
You’ve got some contendahs there, for sure. “Waiting for Columbus”–I just think of “Fat Man in the Bathtub” and the reel-to-reel in my brain can track the whole album. “Fillmore East” makes me think of mudsharks and a baby octopus. My fav-or-right Zappa album remains “Weasels Rip My Flesh” with honorable mention to “Hot Rats.”
My perfect album list would have to include “Oranges and Lemons” by XTC, “Pure Pop for Now People” by Nick Lowe, “The Pretenders”, “London Calling” (sorry for the repeat, but I’m watching Rescue Me and they’re tracking “Guns of Brixton” and it totally works), “Happy Trails” by Quicksilver, “Astral Weeks” by Van…I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to stop.
Special commendation to the Stones three album string: “Beggars Banquet,” “Let it Bleed,” “Sticky Fingers” which will never be equaled. Not even “Revolver” to “Sgt. Peppers.” There, I said it.
JK
Just Live Albums
Live at Leeds – The Who
Live at the Fillmore East – The Allman Brothers Band
Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out – The Rolling Stones
Live at the Hollywood Bowl – The Beatles
Five Live Yardbirds – The Yardbirds
Europe 72 – The Grateful Dead
Skull and Roses- The Grateful Dead
Live Dead – The Grateful Dead
Before the Flood – Bob Dylan
Hard Rain – Bob Dylan
Waiting for Columbus – Little Feat
Rock N’ Roll Animal – Lou Reed
Live Rust – Neil Young
David Live – David Bowie
Absolutely Live – The Doors
1969 – The Velvet Underground
Miles of Aisles – Joni Mitchell
It’s Too Late to Stop Now – Van Morrison
Fillmore East – Frank Zappa
Turgidson
@JGabriel:
Your list killed it. Many of them would make my top 50-100 or close to it.
Laura W Intriguing
@JK: WTF?
No Bonnie Raitt Road Tested?
Get real.
JGabriel
trollhattan:
Dayyum, how could I have forgotten Astral Weeks? Also, Into the Music, especially side two.
.
Corner Stone
I won’t go with the “perfect” album nonsense but I will challenge anyone here – if you had to carry one artist/band’s oeuvre with you for eternity who would it be?
For me, there is no doubt. Tool. Danny Carey + Maynard?
Listen to them forever and pick up something new each time.
We’re done here.
Corner Stone
Fuck the Beach Boys! Fuck them up their stupid ass!
burnspbesq
@demimondian:
My kid gave me a verrrrrrrrrry strange look the first time he heard “Roland the Thompson Gunner.”
Bob Frapples
Waiting for Columbus must have been the roadies’ favorite, because it played through many a PA system before the concert, back in the day. Maybe I got to like it so much because I listened to it so many times while my own pre-concert warm-up was kicking in.
J. Michael Neal
@JK: You do realize that there are bands that got their start after 1973, right? Try them sometime. You might like some of them.
Turgidson
@burnspbesq:
Up until maybe 10 years ago, I would have agreed with you. Husker Du is almost all gold of course, his late 80s solo stuff was overlooked and great, Sugar was very good, and his first couple solo albums after that kept it going. But…his electronica dalliances and last couple albums haven’t done it for me. I keep trying to like them, but it isn’t working out.
He definitely gets a lifetime achievement award from me, though, and my ears still haven’t recovered from seeing Sugar on tour. The only show I’ve ever seen that was definitely louder was My Bloody Valentine’s reunion tour a few months ago. (I was only 11 when Loveless came out, so missed their first go-around *sad face*)
J. Michael Neal
Mark Knopfler, particularly if I can count the last three Dire Straits albums, which were mostly him. Rush and Marillion place close behind.
Mike S
@hoosierspud: Huge Neil Fan here. I’ve seen him at least 36 times. On the Beach is an outstanding album with some of the best lyrics ever written.
I heard that Laurel Canyon is full of famous stars.
But I hate them worse than lepers and I kill them in their cars.
Some of his more obscure albums, the ones he did on Virgin I think, have some great stuff too. Life is a great album with songs like Mideast Vacation.
I was grooving through the disco, moving to the beat, when they burned me in effigy my vacation was complete.
But the best part of the album is the last two songs.
When your lonely heart breaks is a great song for getting over a broken heart. When the song ends you feel a ton better.
Then it follows with “We Never Danced” which makes you want to kill yourself again.
The tour was awesome too. The set was a garage and the idea was that they were a garage band practicing for a big show. He even had Bobcat Goldwaith play the next door neighbor screaming about the noise.
JGabriel
@Corner Stone:
Yeah, umm…. I’ll second the nomination for Pet Sounds. That really is a fantastic record. You might want to check it out, Corner Stone.
.
Michael
@J. Michael Neal
You and my 15 year old pianist daughter, who has memorized and built off every song in their repertoire.
I’ll list my faves –
Jethro Tull – Warchild, Aqualung, Songs From the Wood
Jimmy Buffett (yes, he has perfect albums here and there) – A1A, Changes in Latitudes, Son of a Son of a Sailor
Liz Phair – Exile in Guyville (somebody brought this up earlier)
trollhattan
@hoosierspud
Love the Buddy Guy: “I Done Got Old”
Boo-ya!
Dang, I forgot “Live at the Apollo”, James Brown!
Mike S
@folkbum: Is this folkbum my spellchecker? I haven’t seen your name in years.
Corner Stone
@ed:
Agree 100%. Only one song by these schmoos I’ll even listen to and that’s – Let It Be.
Otherwise, if you’re under 50 you realize just how bad they fucking suck.
JGabriel
@Turgidson: Thanks, you can assume from my comments that I felt an affinity for your choices too.
.
Tattoosydney
@smiley:
Good heavens. Jefferson Airplane? Soooo much Pink Floyd.
At the risk of gaying up the thread:
Massive Attack: Blue Lines
Lisa Miller: Car Tape.
Global Underground: Dubfire – Taipei Disc 1
Renaissance – Dave Seaman – Awakening – the greatest dance mix CD ever made…
goblue72
Velvet Underground – White Light/White Heat
The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – Will the Circle Be Unbroken
Jay-Z – The Black Album
Neutral Milk Hotel – On Avery Island
Elliott Smith – Either/Or
A Tribe Called Quest – The Low End Theory
Big Star – #1 Record / Radio City
Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On
KISS – Alive!
Bruce Springsteen – Nebraska
John Coltrane – A Love Supreme
Ali Farka Toure – Talking Timbuktu
Babatunde Olatunji – Drums of Passion
The Feelies – Crazy Rhythms
Television – Marquee Moon
Beach Boys – Pet Sounds
burnspbesq
@Turgidson:
I liked most of District Line, and I love “Stupid Now” even though it feels unfinished.
Haven’t heard his latest yet – vinyl’s not coming out for another two weeks.
trollhattan
@ Corner Stone.
XTC The only perfect pop band since the Beatles.
Corner Stone
@JGabriel: Unfortunately, my rents were born in the ’40s. Hence, I’ve heard a hell of a lot of Waylon & Willie and the Boyz, Kenny Rogers, and the motherfucking suck my loser ass balls Beach Boys.
No thanks bub.
JK
@J. Michael Neal:
The Pretenders, The Clash, The Police, and Television are all post 1973.
Some, if not many of us, have our blind spots or biases.
Thanks for your suggestion.
Turgidson
@Corner Stone:
Definitely the Beatles for me – obvious, cliched and lame as it is. I truly think they deserve every single bit of hype and credit they receive. Their whole catalog is excellent and I still hear new things in it all the time, despite having been listening to it since I was 5. The progress they made in about 8 years was breathtaking, I think.
Considering this question, the reason it’s obviously the Beatles for me is that so few bands were able to sustain a high level of excellence for more than a 2-3 albums. The Beatles did it from A Hard Day’s Night through Abbey Road in my stupid opinion. The Stones had many great albums. The Kinks had an amazing run. Dylan, too. I just like the Beatles’ albums better. Most of my (other) favorite albums were the very best that band could do, and they couldn’t sustain it for long. Which is natural, and which makes the Beatles such freaks.
Turgidson
oh by the way Corner Stone, I’m 29. high five!
burnspbesq
“Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town” was about as good as it got in the 1970s.
hoosierspud
@Mike S:
I only saw the Live Rust tour, but it rocked.
I think he wrote “Revolution Blues” about the Manson family. A lot of the lyrics remind me of stuff in “Helter Skelter”.
I used to have the vinyl of “Everbody Knows This is Nowhere” and I really liked the song, “Come On, Baby, Let’s Go Downtown” that Danny Whitten sings lead on. It’s not on the CD.
I would recommend “Squeaky”, Neil’s biography that came out several years ago if you haven’t read it.
Tattoosydney
@Tattoosydney:
Forgot one…
George – Polyserena
The Other Steve
My all time favorite albums.
Radiohead – OK Computer
Alanis Morisette – Jagged Little Pill
Tori Amos – To Venus and Back
Pink Floyd – The Wall
Holly Cole – Don’t Smoke in Bed
Chieftains – The Long Black Veil
Sarah McLachlan – Surfacing
Van Halen – 5150
cleek
woohoo!
hoosierspud
@trollhattan:
I love “Done Got Old”, but I really like every song on that album.
Paul
Re:
“The Beatles suck ass. All Beatles albums suck ass. ..”
That’s an attitude, not an opinion. Check yer head(s). I’d bet your favorites would tell you to take a flyin’ frak at the moon…or at least sing Dear Prudence in the shower.
JGabriel
@Corner Stone:
I feel your pain. Literally. My parents, also born in the 40’s, tortured me the same way.
.
eemom
A lot of great stuff mentioned here, but I just don’t GET why anyone would focus on albums instead of songs.
And I guess I’m “old,” if that matters. 46. Forty-six. There, I said it.
(and hi there burnsy! Fancy meeting you here…..)
The Other Steve
Oh yeah… Dave Brubeck – Time Out
amorphous
whoah, no joshua tree? no red headed stranger?
asiangrrlMN
@Tattoosydney: I gotta ask you, who is the dark-haired guitar player for George? Oh, sure, I could look it up, but I’m too lazy to do that.
Turgidson
@Paul:
Wait, other people do that? I thought I was the only one.
burnspbesq
@eemom:
Counselor – how goes it? Did Betsy tell you I’m back to being a real lawyer, in a law firm and all?
JGabriel
Turgidson:
Siouxsie from Siouxsie and the Banshees definitely does, given the sound quality on her cover version – which I actually kind of like.
.
Tattoosydney
@asiangrrlMN:
Get you to the Google, woman.
(Sheesh.
sigh.)
asiangrrlMN
@Tattoosydney: I saw that, but I am illiterate as to which guitar is which. A little help?
robertdsc
Metallica by light-years over anyone else.
JC
Seconding anyone who said London Calling and Born to Run.
But no one’s mentioned Grace by Jeff Buckley?
Mike S
@hoosierspud: I didn’t make the Live Rust tour. Manson was a regular on Topanga beach and up in the canyon when Neil lived up there. I’ve been meaning to pick up the book.
The Other Steve
I saw Dave Brubeck at the HollyWood Bowl last summer. The guys like 150 years old. We started a dead pool when he and his band walked out on stage, it was who would die on the stage first. Dave actually had to have someone help him to his piano.
But when he sat down he blew me away. It was like watching a 20 year old play.
The great thing about living in LA is that everyone plays here.
JGabriel
@Steve V:
It has nothing to do with being liberal and everything to do with Yes making bloated, pretentious music that’s: no fun.
That said, if it weren’t for groups like Yes, Emerson Lake & Palmer, and The Moody Fucking Portentous Blues, all taking themselves way too seriously, we probably wouldn’t have the great punk counter-reaction from the Sex Pistols, The Clash, etc. So there is that to be said for them. I guess.
.
Corner Stone
@Turgidson:
No. I’m sorry but anyone born 1980’ish, who started remembering moosic at 5 should not be holding on to the cheesy ass Beatles so damn tightly.
There’s just something wrong here.
Splitting Image
Lots of good choices here. I second Pet Sounds and Graceland.
I see lots of Dylan, but no love for Bringing it All Back Home? Oh well.
Also:
Abba – Abba: the Album
Mike Oldfield – Ommadawn
Pink Floyd – Meddle
The Pogues – If I Should Fall From Grace With God
The Byrds – Sweetheart of the Rodeo
REM – Automatic For the People
Love – Forever Changes
U2 – The Unforgettable Fire
A word about REO Speedwagon. I had a very well-played copy of “Wheels Are Turning” back in 1985 or so.
And thumbs up to goblue for nominating Big Star. I actually prefer Sister Lovers, although it has its peaks and valleys.
Politically Lost
I’m gonna date my self and show my So. Cal. Roots.
Oingo Boingo – Best O’ Boingo.
Jim
The Who – “Who’s Next”
Springsteen – “Born to Run”
Mary Chapin Carpenter – “Come On Come On”
The October Project – “The October Project”
Jennifer Knapp – “The Way I Am”
and notwithstanding all the ridicule that will follow:
Neil Diamond – “Hot August Night”
Mike S
Oingo Boingo’s Holloween and New Years Eve shows were legendary.
Turgidson
@Corner Stone:
If liking the Beatles is wrong, I damn well don’t want to be right.
edit: Now Playing – Happiness is a Warm Gun
Mike S
@Jim: Any show done at the Greek Theater is great. The atmosphere there just makes all music sound perfect.
Toyon Toots
Van Morrison: Moondance
Bobby Bland: Two Steps from the Blues
Albert King: Born Under a Bad Sign
Hollywood Fats: Rock This House
Teresa James & the Rhythm Tramps: Oh, Yeah!
The Clovers: Down in the Alley
If I had to pick one … The Clovers
Ben
Top 5 (at least right now, I’m blitzed)…
Dredg – El Cielo
RHCP – Blood Sugar Sex Majik
Pogues – Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash
Hendrix – Live at the Fillmore
Social Distortion – Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell
AnneLaurie
I saw that tour too (the Lansing show), but I got the impression Simon didn’t realize how completely outclassed he was…
As for albums I haven’t seen here:
Melissa Etheridge – (especially) her first, Brave & Crazy, Never Enough, and Breakdown
Peter Gabriel – Security
Eurythmics – Touch
October Project
Simon & Garfunkel – Wednesday Morning 3AM
Maddy Prior & Tim Hart – Summer Solstice
Steeleye Span – Ten Man Mop, Below the Salt, Parcel of Rogues…
burnspbesq
@Mike S:
Remember the Los Lobos shows at the Greek in the late 1980s? Unbelievable.
The only outdoor venue that comes close to the Greek is Wolf Trap. Saw some epic shows there when I lived in NoVa.
Jim
@AnneLaurie: Wow, I’m rather surprised someone else has even heard of October Project
amorphous
@Michael: Son of a Son of a Sailor is a yes for me.
Gravenstone
*sigh* I feel like I’m coming from the shallow end of the gene pool here, in terms of taste and breadth of musical exposure. Still, might as well play along. Not claiming perfection, just what works for me.
Operation Mindcrime – Queensryche
Powerslave – Iron Maiden
Rubber Soul – Beatles
Whos Next – The Who
The Turn of a Friendly Card – Alan Parsons Project
Seitz
The first Stone Roses album is the most perfect album in the history of recorded music.
Corner Stone
@Turgidson: Listen, for someone who was a teen in the ’60s I’m sure it’s a natural reflex. But for those of us born with a 7 handle or later – the Beatles just weren’t the phenomenon anymore.
Their music is simplistic, their lyrics are fit to another time. A time that just didn’t exist post 1980. The mop top shakin, hip schwerving was important sure – but to a different generation.
So, in sum, I will continue to contend that all Beatles’ catalog sucks the boney one.
Turgidson
@Corner Stone:
You obviously haven’t heard any Beatles material after 1965. Carry on.
eemom
@burnspbesq:
naw, I’ve lost touch with the “relaxed” gang.
A LAW FIRM?? Horrors! Say it ain’t so, Joe….please, say it ain’t so. (what was the name of that Roger Daltrey solo album?).
And who said “Hot August Night”?? I’ll be a closet fan of the young Neil Diamond till I die, by God…..AND I’ll throw in REO Speedwagon, to complete the pathetic picture.
Joel
@Mike S: Tourist is just an awesome album.
I’d consider Daft Punk’s Discovery, although it has a few weak spots.
Corner Stone
@Gravenstone:
Oh God yes.
NR
I would just like to take this opportunity to point out that Wish You Were Here is the best Pink Floyd album.
That is all.
Corner Stone
@Turgidson: No, it’s true. I didn’t waste my time because they sucked pre -65 and I wasn’t born then.
I mean, I like Buddy Holly too but I keep him in his cage.
Mike S
@burnspbesq: I’ve never seen Los Lobos, but liked them a lot.
I’ve seen a lot more shows at the Bowl. I love that place, one reason being that you can bring in all the beer, wine and food you want.
Last summer I saw The Thunder Tour. Stanley Clarke, Victor Wooten and Marcus Miller. All three are bass gods. Together they sound like a full band. They all play the bass like the best guitarist you’ve ever seen.
I’ve seen Clarke about 6 times and every damn time I am blown away by how friggin good he is.
Corner Stone
@NR:
That’s like saying the toilet scene from Dumb & Dumber was the best scat scene in film.
burnspbesq
@Mike S:
For me, the Trinity of Bass Gods is Paul Chambers, Ron Carter, and Edgar Meyer, but if you like the guys you mentioned you need to check out Tal Wilkenfeld. Find the 2007 Crossroads Guitar Festival DVD and check out her solo on “Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers” with Jeff Beck.
Mike S
@Joel: I haven’t heard DP.
Last summer there was a world music show at the Bowl where I saw Thievery Corporation. They were pretty amazing, of course the “special” lemon cake may have skewed it for me.
JK
@J. Michael Neal:
It would have to be The Beatles
Second choice would be The Rolling Stones and third choice would be The Who.
Great to see so many outstanding choices on this thread.
Disappointing to see the trashing of other peoples’ choices.
Voting for John McCain shows far worse judgement than expressing a favorable opinion of The Beatles.
Turgidson
@Corner Stone:
My point is, descriptors like “simplistic”, “mop top shaking”, and lyrics about liking girls really only apply to their music pre-Rubber Soul. The complexity of the lyrics, arrangements, and production grew rapidly from then on. But whatever – you have your opinion of the Beatles and I have mine.
Anyway, I respect the fact that you love Tool, a band I find to be a tedious listen personally – I know I know, only their true fans “get it”, and the rest of us don’t. That’s cool. You can lack respect for my taste if you want. No biggie.
eemom
and if you’re gonna talk about albums and Paul Simon in the same thread, someone has to mention Bridge Over Troubled Water……
tbogg
What Seitz said.
Waiting for Columbus is the greatest live album, however.
Back when I was a roofer (in the seventies) I used to play in a regular Thursday night poker game that had an ever-shifting group of guys who showed up to play. One night one of the regulars brought his friend “Sam”. Later in the evening during a break in play someone asked Sam what he did and he said he was a musician. Someone asked what band, assuming a local band. Sam Clayton. Little Feat.
Place went fucking nuts.
burnspbesq
@JK:
Body of work? Coltrane. Then the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Then the Beatles.
Mike S
@burnspbesq: I’ll check them out.
I was in Nice France a couple of years ago. We were delayed at Heathrow, worst fucking airport on the planet, and got to our hotel at 3 in the morning. There were some americans in the lobby that I started talking to. They mentioned that they were in a Jazz band. I told them that I had seen Return to Forever back in 1983. The guy I was talking to said, “here comes Al Dimeola right now.” They were on tour along the French Riviera and staying in the room right across the hall from me.
Made the delay worth it.
Tattoosydney
@asiangrrlMN:
Um. I have no idea.
Doug
Certainly, unequivocally, one of the top five of my all time:
Born to Run, The Boss
JC
Oh, and for some badass hardcore: Cave-In, Until Your Heart Stops. If you want to go crazy, that’s the album to do it to.
Turgidson
@burnspbesq:
Yeah, Coltrane is pretty unfuckwithable. I’m just not always in the mood to listen to jazz, so he’s further down my list, as are Miles and the other obvious jazz luminaries with amazing catalogs.
JK
@Turgidson:
I think some people just have a knee jerk reaction to trash The Beatles. I’d bet that many of these people haven’t bothered to listen to their work from 1965 onwards.
@burnspbesq:
I love John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonius Monk and many other jazz musicians. For the purpose of this thread, I chose to limit myself to rock music.
I’m not familiar with Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields but I’ll check them out.
Corner Stone
@Turgidson:
Holy shit.
I may have to come back to this later.
But in the meantime – the time signature changes by Danny Carey? Oh, yeah, the fucking Beatles could’ve done this. Did do anything that non-understandable. Nope.
Good God.
de todas formas, you’re right. You love the simpleton Beatles and I do not. More power to you.
Corner Stone
@JK: It’s true. It’s reflexive.
burnspbesq
@JK:
Start with their recording of the Brandenburgs. They “get” Bach like no one else I’ve ever heard.
Mike S
@Corner Stone: You seem bitter. Did one of the Beatles shit in your cornflakes?
Joel
@Mike S: If you’re coming at St. Germain from the more jazz angle, you’ll probably not like Daft Punk. Thievery Corporation is awesome, though.
Comrade Kevin
@Cain:
Huh? You know they’re actually Italian, yes?
Turgidson
@Corner Stone:
We have very different tastes. Yours is better than mine, obviously. Whatever.
Mike S
@Joel: Not really a jazz angle for me, although I like that angle. It’s more about the way the music flows. Plus I discovered it while skiing in the French Alps. We were drinking in the lodge when we first heard them. So it has meaning for me too.
JK
To any Beatles haters, does your hatred extend to all of the solo recordings of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr?
On another note, someone should start a thread on the most underrated, overlooked bands and the most underrated, overlooked songs.
Comrade Kevin
@Corner Stone:
Everybody knows that is the ultimate in music. I mean, if you don’t switch from 4/4 to 15/16 to 3/4 in one tune, you suck.
Corner Stone
@Turgidson: Thank you.
Mike S
Thievery Corp was amazing. I had never heard them before. We actually went to the show to see Seu Jorge who did the Bowie stuff in Portegese in the movie “Life Aquatic.”
He came out and sang for Thievery too. As did Perry Farrel.
The lemon cake made the show a bit more psychadelic too.
burnspbesq
Underrated and overlooked song? Well, a lot of people hate the song “Since I Fell For You” because of what Michael Bolton did to it, but the original recording by Lenny Welch from 1961 is absolutely to die for.
Underrated and overlooked bands? Solas. Irish music is a pretty small niche, but the amount of instrumental talent in that band is just ridiculous.
Corner Stone
@Mike S: Well, I’m sure theyd’ve tried if they’d still been existant when I was eating cereal.
You know, I love CCR. Not for their technical music but just cuz I can dig what they’re about. The Beet-uhls on the other hand just sucked.
Corner Stone
@Comrade Kevin: No, you’re right Kevin. Changing time is for little chilluns.
Little teeny tiny lil chilluns that have nothing better to do. In fact, given the choice I’m sure they’d prolly prefer to just sit there and tap their foot in time to a 4/4 beat. I mean, I know I’d prefer to listen to predictable, count on your fingers and toes beats.
Don’t challenge me! Fer God’s sake don’t make me wonder what the fuck else is out there! No! Just let me stay in my nice comfy even beat bubble.
JK
@Corner Stone:
Do you hate all British invasion bands or just the Beatles?
Can you tolerate or enjoy any songs by The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Yardbirds, The Kinks, The Animals, The Hollies, or the Spencer Davis Group?
Do you hate all the solo work of John, Paul, George, and Ringo?
Comrade Kevin
@Corner Stone: Gosh, you’re right! I have seen the light. If it isn’t “complex”, it sucks! Thanks for enlightening me.
I’ll go run off and buy some more Opeth albums now. Do they meet with your approval, or are they too simple too?
BongCrosby
Haven’t seen any love yet for either Joe Jackson or John Prine, so let me add them to the mix.
I love Jackson’s first album, “Look Sharp!” (*Is She Really Going Out With Him?”), although most people seem to prefer “Night and Day” (“Breaking Us In Two”).
There are about a half-dozen of Prine’s albums that would fit into my top 20 of all time. “Jesus: The Missing Years,” “Lost Dogs & Mixed Blessings,” his debut album and “Sweet Revenge” are all wonderful, and “Bruised Orange” may be my favorite album of all time.
Mike S
Well, my shift is coming to a close and the last song I’m going to play is by another favorite. Ray Charles’ “Georgia on my Mind.”
Turgidson
I’m probably jumping the gun since the album’s not even officially out for another 3 weeks, but I think Grizzly Bear’s new album (Veckatimest) is among my favorites of the past few years. I don’t think it’s perfect (or I probably won’t once I’ve had it for a year or more), but it’s very impressive.
Mike S
I saw Joe Jackson on the tour for Look Sharp. He played the Universal Amp when it was still an outdoor venue.
He got pissed because people were throwing shoes on the stage and walked off after about a half hour.
He was kind of a dick.
Comrade Kevin
Here’s another album:
Refused – The Shape of Punk To Come
Chuck Butcher
I don’t much do ‘so-and-so’ did the best or there’s a perfect album.
The Rolling Stones are the world’s greatest roadhouse band, since that’s most of where I am at, great. Hard driving blues is probably my base anymore but I saw a lot of albums and artists I really like in people’s lists, some surprised me to see from someone other than myself.
Mike S
I’m reposting this comment withput the refrence to a private part when talking about Joe’s attitude. It says my comment is awaiting moderation.
I saw Joe Jackson on the tour for Look Sharp. He played the Universal Amp when it was still an outdoor venue.
He got pissed because people were throwing shoes on the stage and walked off after about a half hour.
He was kind of a d***
PeakVT
most underrated, overlooked bands
The problem here is: underrated and overlooked as compared to what? I’d say PJ Harvey (listening to Stories from the City/Sea right now), McLusky, Morphine, Bettie serveert, and Fugazi are all underrated compared to say, Britney, but they aren’t exactly unknown either.
Corner Stone
@Comrade Kevin:
You’re welcome.
JK
@BongCrosby:
Agreed on Joe Jackson.
This is a kick ass version of I’m the Man
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el66jnuItYc
Corner Stone
@JK: Nope. Loves me some Oasis.
Bwah-ha-ha!
burnspbesq
@Corner Stone:
Not to belabor the point, but any moderately talented 16-year-old who’s been at all serious in his or her studies will be able to effortlessly handle changing time signatures and sight-read anything you put in front of him or her.
There’s a difference between playing notes and playing music. Chops are nice to have if you know what to do with them, but they are neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for making music.
slightly_peeved
Great, but too many covers.
I’d rate Whatever & Ever Amen over Rheinhold Messner, Ben Folds Five-wise.
With people on London Calling, Kind of Blue, and OK Computer. Further suggestions:
Muse – Black Holes & Revelations
The Cat Empire – The Cat Empire
Mwangangi
oh good, I’m here after closing…
Nas – Illmatic (almost perfect, Halftime was good as a single, but doesn’t mesh with the rest of the album)
Pete Rock and CL Smooth – Mecca and the Soul Brother
New Edition – N.E. Heartbreak (if you got the Cassette, the CD had this extra stupid song on it)
Mary J . Blige – My Life
Jay-Z – Reasonable Doubt
Jay-Z – The Black Album (since someone has already mentioned BA we’ll go with RD)
Biggie Smalls – Ready to Die (if you replace the album version of One More Chance with the remix)
Mobb Deep – The Infamous
Gangstarr – Hard to Earn
Gangstarr – Moment of Truth
Ice Cube – Amerikkka’s Most Wanted
*********
close calls:
Public Enemy – Fear of a Black Planet
Mos Def and Talib Kweli are Blackstar
Michael Jackson – Off the Wall (better than Thriller)
Onyx – All We Got Iz Us
Jimi Hendrix – The Ultimate Experience Disc 1 (add in Axis, and Changes and it’s perfect)
Prince – Purple Rain
*********
artists/bands that have a more than a two song difficulty but have more than enough material for album length compilations:
Earth, Wind and Fire
Ras Kass
Joe Budden
KRS – One
Run DMC
M.O.P.
Amerie
Rage Against the Machine
*********
honorable mentions:
Postal Service
James Brown
Nirvana
Origa (check out “Inner Universe” [on YouTube])
*********
and for all you cats yappin’ ’bout Evanescence, I still say they WISH they sounded as good as Madder Rose
Comrade Kevin
@Corner Stone: Of course you do.
bago
I will confirm it. You all is old. Someone got close with massive attack, but blue lines is the wrong album.
Comrade Kevin
@burnspbesq: Corner Stone is impervious to that, because he is trolling the thread.
Peter J
After seeing this, can someone help me, has Erik Erickson ever been considered sane?
Turgidson
@bago:
Mezzanine? I quite enjoy that one.
Corner Stone
@Comrade Kevin: Be Here Now bitchez!
For dog’s sake Kevin. Could you miss any harder? Prolly not.
Comrade Kevin
@Peter J: Not that I am aware of.
hamletta
God bless Lowell George.
I’m from DC, and Little Feat was weirdly popular there, like NRBQ and Bruce Springsteen pre-Born To Run.
I remember hearing stories about how Lowell George’s father was a State Department/CIA factotum, and that’s why he died in a Crystal City motel room, blah, blah, blah.
I think maybe the most perfect NRBQ album was Tiddlywinks, but I’m not sure. Anyway, God bless Weasel of WHFS of Buh-thesda, Maryland.
And I love You’re Gonna Get It! by Tom Petty and the Haeartbreakers, because it is still awesome. And Argybargy by Squeeze.
And I do love A Capella by Todd Rundgren, because it got me through some bad times, and it’s an awesome technical achievement. It is also beautiful.
JK
@PeakVT:
Maybe underrated or overlooked is an amorphous concept not easily defined. For me, it means a band that was never on the playlist of any classic rock radio station or if they did make onto a classic rock playlist it would be for only 2 or 3 songs.
For me, bands I consider underrated and overlooked are King Crimson, Roxy Music, Soft Machine, Fairport Convention, Hot Tuna, and The Jam.
Comrade Kevin
@Corner Stone: Huh? Start making sense, bub.
Mwangangi
As far as the Beatles are concerned…
They’re really background noise to me. I don’t hate them or love them I really just don’t care. I will notice when someone plays too much of them (like a fan). I did watch Across the Universe recently and found myself singing (humming/whistling) along; so I guess for me their songs just need context for them to be entertaining. Maybe it’s because I haven’t crossed into the 2nd biggest Juicer demographic yet…
Corner Stone
@burnspbesq: I will donate $100 to any charity of your choice if you can provide proof of this statement. Not just changing time as you so blithely state, but a 16 yr old mimicing Danny Carey.
I’ll send it to Cole or whatever it takes to verify.
“There’s a difference between playing notes and playing music. Chops are nice to have if you know what to do with them, but they are neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for making music.”
What are you stating here? Please be clear. Are you saying that Danny Carey is…what? A proficient drummer? An adequate musician? What?
Bring anything from a moderately talented 16 yr old that touches on a Tool performance and I’ll be happy to donate.
My whole post wasn’t about the simple act of changing time – I can do that. It was about the complexity that Tool presents that Teh Beet-uhls never did, nor ever could’ve.
Steeplejack
Just got home from work a little while ago. Haven’t had a chance to read the whole thread, but I wanted to get something in before it peters out. Plus I can’t believe Laura W. is nowhere to be found. This would be hog heaven for her! Except for no boiled kale. Maybe someone could throw in some J.J. Cale. (Edit: I see that she made a brief appearance.)
Some perfect or near-perfect albums:
– The Beatles. Four-way tie among Rubber Soul, Sgt. Pepper, Abbey Road and the White Album, depending on the time of year, my mood and the ambient humidity. Rubber Soul is probably the least of the four as an artistic “accomplishment,” but it is the most consistently listenable, regardless of ambient humidity. Like them or hate them, the Fab Four created the space for everything that came after. Everything.
– Ahmad Jamal, The Awakening (1970).
My perfect jazz album. I like it even better than–okay, just by a little–Kind of Blue. Just piano, bass, drums. “Wave.” “Dolphin Dance.” “Stolen Moments.” Ecstasy. Recording quality is unbelievable. It sounds like he’s playing a 40-foot stretch Steinway right next to you. In a good kind of way.
– Lou Rawls with Les McCann Ltd., Stormy Monday (1962). Forget Lou as the genial old duffer on the telethons. This is kick-ass jazz-blues from a guy with an incredible voice. And McCann’s trio stays with him all the way. Check out “God Bless the Child.”
– Stevie Ray Vaughan, Couldn’t Stand the Weather (1984). One of my guitar gods.
– Allman Brothers Band, Live at Filmore East (1971). Guitar gods, plural. “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.” Sigh.
– José Feliciano, Feliciano! (1968). Almost–but not quite–pure Velveeta cheese-like product. Easy listening (in a good way) from another (understated) guitar god. If you young hipsters want something to change up your “ultra-lounge” set, try this.
– David Crosby, If I Could Only Remember My Name . . . (1971). A slightly weird album that hangs together and ages surprisingly well.
– Steely Dan, Aja (1977).
– Some Wes Montgomery album.
– Some Buffalo Springfield album.
– Van Morrison, Moondance (1970).
– The Rolling Stones, Let It Bleed (1969).
– James Brown, Love Power Peace: Live at the Olympia, Paris, 1971.
– Ry Cooder, Bop Till You Drop (1979).
– Sly and Robbie, Friends (1998).
– Swing Out Sister, It’s Better to Travel (1987). Kind of cheesy, in an ’80s kind of way, but then that’s how it was back then. The whole album hangs together perfectly. And I wanted Corinne Drewery to bear my children.
In retrospect, I tried to list some off-the-beaten-path ones that people might be interested in checking out. And, Cole, I’m with you on Little Feat!
Comrade Kevin
@Corner Stone: Have you ever seen a decent high school jazz ensemble?
Linkmeister
From my iTunes library: Joni Mitchell’s “Blue”, “Court & Spark”, and even her relatively-new “Shine” are all nearly flawless in my mind.
Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris’s “Roadrunning” is excellent.
Harris again, for “Red Dirt Girl” and her duets album with Ronstadt, “Western Wall”
Beatles “Rubber Soul”
Dylan’s “Highway 61”
Carole King’s “Tapestry”
Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours”
CSN, the first (eponymous) album
Neil Young’s “Harvest,” “Everybody Knows This is Nowhere,” and “Live at Massey Hall”
Eva Cassidy’s “Imagine”
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss’s “Raising Sand”
Dixie Chicks “Not Ready to Make Nice”
S&G’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water”
And probably more, if I dug through the vinyl collection.
JC
@slightly_peeved: What as a cover on that album, besides Hallelujah?
Grace, Lover you Should Have Come Over, Last Goodbye, Mojo Pin… Man, can’t beat that.
Steeplejack
Screwed up my link for Ahmad Jamal’s The
Awakening. Fix’d.
burnspbesq
@Corner Stone:
And my point is, complexity in the service of what?
“Giant Steps” isn’t great because it’s got fiendishly complicated changes. And “Blue Train” isn’t great because it’s a simple blues. But they’re both great.
Complexity has no inherent value. And chops are just a tool (no pun intended).
wasabi gasp
Albums not yet mentioned:
The Lounge Lizards – Big Heart: Live in Tokyo
Mr. Bungle – Disco Volante
Magnolia soundtrack
Corner Stone
@Comrade Kevin: No Comrade. Have you?
Of course you have. You’ve seen a dozen that will blow the doors off my mind! You’ve seen a group of teenagers that would absolutely fucking level me if only I could’ve been there to see them!
They razzled! They dazzled! They did things no musician has ever seen. In some mythical place and time they were fucking amazing! Or maybe they were just sadly ordinary and did the same shit that all high school musicians are capable of. Capably playing a capable ensemble and not much else.
Yeah, fuck you and you fucking teenage ragtime band.
Corner Stone
@burnspbesq: Ok burnie. You’ve previously said that Tool was a band you found tedious to listen to.
Good enough, and good on you.
Common Sense
Wilco kicks the shit out of Son Volt. Just sayin’. YHF is the album of the decade bar none. Being There has some great songs, but too long so it’s hard to call it perfect.
Yes to Graceland
And whoever mentioned Slanted and Enchanted and St. Germain — y’all are dead on as well.
Jimmy Cliff — The Harder They Come is a flawless album.
As for Radiohead, I prefer The Bends, but that’s just me I guess.
I couldn’t possibly choose an Elvis Costello or Beatles album. There are just too many.
Oh and with this I win the thread
Stevie Wonder Songs in The Key of Life or Innervisions.
Common Sense
Willie Nelson’s Stardust. Way mellow but Booker T + Willie = epic album.
Superfly isn’t too shabby a soundtrack either.
Mwangangi
@Steeplejack:
another reason I love Illmatic, the Ahmad Jamal, “I Love Music” sample in “The World is Yours”
…and, Nas talks over a purer sample on the Russell Simmons/ DJ Green Lantern Obama mixtape.
Common Sense
This moderation queue is retarded. Willie Nelson is moderated?
Mwangangi
@Common Sense: What, the post about stardust? I see that…
Common Sense
@Mwangangi:
You see it because someone approved it.
bago
THIS IS SPARTA!
Mwangangi
@Common Sense: Either one of the mods is ‘hepped up on goofballs’ or they’re still on west coast time…
bago
Mezzanine was quite good, but still had a few songs to skip. 100th window is great. Nothing I want to skip.
Common Sense
@Mwangangi:
I don’t care if they’re jacked or not if they’ll let me run off at the mouth…
Mwangangi
@bago: I was waiting around to see if we got to 300, but that was the perfect way to cap it…
Comrade Kevin
@Corner Stone: I even played in one when I was in high school. It may be difficult for you to wrap your head around, but the talent level displayed in Tool is not as rare as you like to pretend.
Mwangangi
oh, there was an editing of the post; do you think he really got out of bed for that?
Comrade Kevin
@Corner Stone: They are tedious to listen to. Talented musicians churning out turgid, tedious music. Kind of like Opeth, who I mentioned earlier.
Common Sense
@Mwangangi:
Knowing John, I’m betting he’s hopped up on a WoW raid.
Comrade Kevin
@Common Sense: heh. I play WoW, but I have managed to avoid the plague that is raiding.
JayMi
Okay, okay…it’s a million o’clock BUT had to add to the thread. Y’all are awesome, the recommendations are very interesting! Perhaps there could be a thread on singles we all like or one hit wonders or underrated artists. For example: XTC, Roxy Music, The Ohio Players, Mavis Staples & Slave are some of the most underrated artists EVAH. As for my album list, here goes:
Mary J. Blige-The Breakthrough (positive & awesome)
Lauryn Hill-The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Toumani Diabate-Kaira (hypnotic west African music)
Roxy Music-Street Life & Avalon
Ella Fitzgerald-Ella in Berlin (her voice was so sweet)
Dave Brubeck Quartet-Take Five
Mavis Staples-Mavis @ the Hideout (She is like Aretha, a natural treasure)
Chaka Khan-Epiphany (compilation, she too is like Mavis and a Chicago girl to boot. Woo-hoo!)
U2-The Joshua Tree
Radiohead-Hail to the Thief (excellent title too)
Dave Matthews Band-Under the Table and dreaming (This got me through moving away from home the 1st time. Dave, I want to have your babies!)
The Arcade Fire-Funeral
Ditto on the following albums:
Grace-Jeff Buckley
Court and Spark-Joni Mitchell (genius!)
Sgt Pepper….(Beatles, genius in post 1965)
Murmur-REM (the best country album made by a non-country band)
So-Peter Gabriel
Tattoosydney
@bago:
Protection?
Mwangangi
@JayMi: oh how could I skip Lauryn and the Fugees… Mona Lisa?, Ready or Not?, Lost Ones? damn… I fail.
Common Sense
By the way, and I am not kidding:
On the thread for “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” a commenter claimed Wonder wrote the song at 15 years old. (The commenter is mistaken — Wonder’s first hit was Fingertips (Part 2) which he wrote at 12. Marvin Gaye played drums). There is actually a commenter on YouTube that compared this song to the Jonas Brothers. By the time Stevie was the age of the Jonas Brothers, he had written “Tears of a Clown” and “Uptight (Everything is All Right).”
I think I’m going to be ill.
Common Sense
Oh by the way Johnny Cash — Live at Folsom County Prison is phenomenal as well.
fastandsloppy
Two perfect live albums:
James Brown – Love Power Peace
Talking Heads – The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads
Common Sense
@fastandsloppy:
I loved James Brown’s Live at the Apollo, and I’m not really a James Brown fan. I’ll have to check out Love Power Peace. Still gotta go with the Who for best live album though. And for those that love Peter Gabriel Secret World Live is insanely good — the version of In Your Eyes is absolutely epic.
bago
@mwangangi: I was on my phone so I was quite lucky. iPhone has no caps lock.
daryljfontaine
Like many on the thread, Wish You Were Here edges out Animals for my perfect album by the Floyd, although I could happily roll both on constant rotation.
Same with Abbey Road and Sgt. Pepper’s. Although the stuff I most enjoy listening to is on The White Album, particularly stretches of songs like “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” through “Rocky Raccoon”, listening to the album without skipping “Revolution No. 9” is like listening to Cake’s Fashion Nugget without skipping “Nugget.”
Muse’s Black Holes and Revelations was mentioned late in the thread, and I have to agree — I cannot take a road trip without at least one stretch of highway rolling that entire album beginning to end, and I do not ever get tired of listening to it.
Frank Zappa – Apostrophe’/Overnite Sensation. I know they were separate albums originally, but I was introduced to Frank through the combined album and it is still a favorite total experience.
As far as soundtracks go, I think Strange Days is underrated for the variety of really excellent music, and not a false note among it — Deep Forest, Skunk Anansie, Kate Gibson covering Leonard Cohen — even the fictional Me Phi Me/Jeriko One track “hereWEcome” has a perfect angry rhythm to it that fits the film.
Reading the thread, it’s obvious I don’t listen to enough live albums. ^_^ Oh well, it’s not like we’re not on the Internet.
D
bago
@Tattoosydney: I wouldn’t skip that one, but the rest of the album, Heeengh? We are talking albums here.
Comrade Baron Elmo
A truly great album has to be more than just a collection of songs. It should form a unified whole that adds up to more than the sum of its parts… so much so that to remove a single track or alter the running order would diminish its brilliance.
With this in mind:
Rolling Stones: Beggars’ Banquet
Sly & the Family Stone: There’s a Riot Goin’ On
Van Dyke Parks: Song Cycle
Wire: Chairs Missing
Love: Forever Changes
Robert Wyatt: Rock Bottom
I’ll probably do like John and whup myself upside the dome for missing a couple, an hour down the line… but these will do.
Common Sense
@Comrade Baron Elmo:
Oh fuck I forgot about Wire. God I wish that band had made more. Still, maybe that’s part of their beauty.
Tattoosydney
@bago: True, which was why I had Blue Lines on my list instead. Admittedly “Five Man Army” and “Day dreaming” are pretty shit but I’d happily listen to the rest of it over and over.
I forgot to mention “Leftism“.
jTh
My standards for perfection are really high – I’m with Kirk @141 – so I see lots of entries above that I love, but wouldn’t call perfect. (For instance, I was pleased to see tballou @#28 mention 801 Live, which I worship, but I don’t care for about eight pompy minutes of it: that version of Baby’s on Fire and the over-the-top reprise of T.N.K.)
So, surely forgetting a couple, but these three cross my mind as readily/ evidently/ uncontrovertibly perfect:
Peter Gabriel – Security
King Crimson – Discipline
The Velvet Underground – 1969, Vol. 1
(I think Vol. 2 fails the perfection test.)
And damn yes, LD50 @38, the Stooges’ Fun House comes really really close, but it depends on one’s capacity to endure L.A. Blues at the end.
Oh, PGE @88, I’ll have to second that vote for The Dreaming. Surely the most brilliantly psychedelic album ever made. Nothing else even comes close.
Other seconds (now that I’ve read the whole thread):
Rumours
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Born to Run
And yeah, Sgt. Pepper really does hold up under scrutiny. I like Abbey Road better, but Sgt. Pepper is more flawless.
Notable omissions from this thread so far:
Emmylou Harris – Wrecking Ball
The Chili Peppers – Freaky Styley
and perhaps most glaringly missing?:
The Police – Zenyatta Mondatta
** Atanarjuat **
The only two albums I’ve ever considered “perfect” in the sense that I can listen to one track after another without wanting to change CD’s after only a few songs (or, as I used to originally enjoy them, flipping from Side A to Side B as vinyl records on my old turntable).
Rush – 2112
Marillion – Misplaced Childhood
-A
Xenos
@J. Michael Neal: JK’s list is almost exactly everything I was listening to in 1984. If you did not like disco, Grease, or Spandau Ballet you had to be an old fogey at 18.
Now I have to put up with my kids and their shitey music (although Green Day certainly does not suck). I can’t blame them though – over the last 20 years radio has gone completely to hell. I just spent a week in Europe and DJing was still alive. Great mixes, juxtapositions of styles, obscure and interesting cuts… made me realize how much we have lost here in the corporate superstate.
Common Sense
@Xenos:
Has it ever occurred to you your kids might just have really bad taste? There’s tons of great bands around today. Songwriters like Britt Daniel and Jeff Tweedy, guitarists like Ben Harper and Matthew Bellamy. They are out there, you just have to avoid the radio — then again, from what I remember the radio wasn’t all that hot in my day either.
Digital Amish
325 comments, so whatever I say is, as usual, irrelavent. I don’t know ‘perfect’ but the first albums I bought after deciding to replace my vinyl with cds were:
The Who Who’s Next
Jackson Browne Late for the Sky
Bob Dylan Blood on the Tracks
Hot Tuna Hot Tuna
Paul Simon Graceland
Yeah, yeah. I’m an old fart. Now get off my lawn and turn down that goddamn noise.
jTh
Oh hell, I forgot Jefferson Airplane’s Bless Its Pointed Little Head.
Oh, and for Common Sense @326, sure, Jeff Tweedy was really good, when he was known as Paul Westerburg. But in his current incarnation, he really pales by comparison.
HeartlandLiberal
Beatles – A Hard Days Night
(You have to understand. My wife and I were dating when this movie came out. We saw it a dozen times. We have now been married 44 years. The opening sustained chord always brings tears to my eyes. If you have never seen the movie, you are to put it politely culturally deprived beyond measure. It was the forerunner and precursor to the totality of the music video and visual direction that popular music would take over the next half century. Aside from which, it is a lot of fun.)
Beatles – Help
Because of their second movie as well as the music, which also is a must see. An absolute musical and comedy delight.
Pink Floyd – Dark Side of the Moon
Pink Floyd – Momentary Lapse of Reason
Alan Parsons Project – Gaudi
Alan Parsons Project – Eye in the Sky
Moody Blues – Days of Future Past
Moody Blues – To Our Children’s Children’s Children
Although this thread is primarily rock related, I have to add that there is one album I could listen to forever. I consider it the one of the greatest musical achievements, bar none, by any musician. If you do not know this musician, make it your goal in life to discover him and his friends who have played together in various combinations over the years:
Pat Metheny – Secret Story
Especially this piece. It is a ong piece, over nine minutes. Listen to it as it builds to one of the most beautiful crescendos of celebration of just feeling alive and being grateful for that that you will ever hear. The Truth Will Always Be
And finally, if you have never listened to Emmy Lou Harris, try it. One of my absolute favorites of hers is the “Roses in the Snow Album”, which album she dedicated to Blue Grass and folk inspired and influenced. I am from the Deep South, Alabama, and traditional country music is somewhat embedded in some dark recess of my mind, and this album just speaks to me. In fact, FWIW, Emmy Lou was born in my hometown, Birmingham, Alabama, just one year later than I was.
Gordon Lightfoot – Summertime Dream, because it has the ‘Wreak of the Edmond Fitzgerald’ on it, perhaps the greatest ballad written in the 20th century. I also am very fond of his “Endless Wire” album, primarily because of the song ‘The Circle is Small”, on of the most tragic love songs ever written about betrayal. Heck, anything by Gordon Lightfoot is going to be great.
Neil Young – Decade, the two album (LP) compilation. Nuff Said.
P.S. I still have practically every album we ever bought on LP, probably 1,300 plus albums, and still listen to them, especially since a large part of the collection is classical: Brahms, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, all those old dead European guys. I scrounge book and garage sales for used LPs. CDs are nice, but I can actually hear the difference between analog LP reproduction of sound, the slight harshness you get when you digitize. Remember, a digital CD is just a sampling of the music, a good sample to be sure, but still just a sampling of the actual stream of sound. To be entirely fair, analog LPs have drawbacks, but still, I find it interesting to have read lately that the market for LPs seems to be reviving.
Anyway, from the Wikipedia article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_audio
Digital audio is the method of representing audio in digital form.
An analog signal is converted to a digital signal at a given sampling rate and bit resolution; it may contain multiple channels (2 channels for stereo or more for surround sound). Generally speaking: the higher the sampling rate and bit resolution the more fidelity, as well as increase the amount of digital data.
Sound quality
While the goal of both analogue and digital systems is to reproduce audio perfectly, there are several obstacles to achieving this, including:
* Analogue noise floor in the capturing circuitry and have inherent capacitance and inductance that limit the bandwidth of the system, and resistance that limits the amplitude.
* Digital quantization noise in the capturing circuitry, and sampling rate limits the bandwidth and its bit resolution limits the dynamic range (resolution of amplitude creation).
A digital audio signal starts with an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) that converts an analog signal to a digital signal. The ADC runs at a sampling rate and converts at a known bit resolution. For example, CD audio has a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz (44,100 samples per second) and 16-bit resolution for each channel (stereo).
jon
James’ Laid is a perfect album.
It seems Brian Eno produces a lot of those. If anyone is going to look for the underrated people of rock, that guy is at the top of my list. His solo albums are incredible, his lyrics are confoundingly interesting, his studio chops impeccable enough for U2, Talking Heads, Brian Ferry, and that Paul Simon guy. And others. The weirdest thing is, when you look at a really old Roxy Music video on youtube (I think he was only with the group for two albums,) he doesn’t seem to do much other than be some sort of peacock at a keyboard.
More (not Brian Eno-related):
The Lucy Show’s Mania
Drunk Injuns’ Dog Bites, Man Cries
Jane’s Addiction’s Nothing’s Shocking
Smiths’ Queen is Dead
Replacements’ Tim
Wire’s Pink Flag
SGEW
Surprised by a few names that were not mentioned on this thread (Handel, Billie Holiday, and Duke Ellington come to mind).
Here’re my contenders, off the top of my head (and very, very subjective, natch) for “perfect albums”:
Fugazi – 13 Songs and/or The Argument
Pink Floyd – Dark Side of the Moon
Mozart – Symphony No. 40 or the Requiem Mass
Beethoven – Any symphony, really
Django Reinhardt – My personal “best of” mix tape from high school
Those, to me, are just perfect. Wish I still had that Django tape.
Jim H
Willie Nelson, Red-Headed Stranger
Beach Boys, Pet Sounds
The Who, Who’s Next
Allman, Live at Fillmore East
Miles Davis, Kind of Blue
Wilco, YHF
Songs: OHIA, The Magnolia Electric Co.
King Creosote: Kenny and Beth’s Musakal Boat Rides; Bombshell
These last two (artists) are really important. How they aren’t famous is really beyond my comprehension and adds to my cynicism about the world. If anyone is still here, get a hold of these.
Digital Amish
I always envy the folks that can hear the difference. Maybe thirty years ago I could have. Anymore the air pressure from the speakers sounds the same whether from my Ipod or my turntable (minus the the pops and hisses). BTW, I concur with all your music selections.
Hank
Tom Waits: Rain Dogs.
Neutral Milk Hotel: In the Aeroplane over the Sea
As far as I’m concerned, the conversation should stop here.
Digital Amish
Fricken’ block quote.
well it worked in preview
Josh Hueco
I own Paul’s Boutique and love it and everything, but (heresy approaching…prepare to flame away) I don’t think it’s as good as Check Your Head or even Ill Communication.
dog's eye view
Rolling Stones: Let It Bleed
Pretenders: debut album (self-titled)
=====
re Little Feat: a favorite song is “Kiss it Off” from Dixie Chicken
Betsy
@jTh:
How could I leave off Emmylou?? Both Wrecking Ball and Red Dirt Girl are wonderful.
This thread has given me lots of new albums to check out. Yay!
Betsy
@Josh Hueco:
I actually agree about Check Your Head.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Jim H:
Best. Country. Album. Ever.
I went through the thread pretty quick so I may have missed it:
Black Sabbath — Paranoid.
Hands down the most influential heavy metal album. Tony Iommi and, of course Ozzy Osbourne, are the best known members of the original line up, but the drummer Bill Ward never got his due. I put him in the John Bonham/Keith Moon category for raw evocative power on the drum kit.
mclaren
Fascinating that anyone would consider disposable pop music crap like The Beatles or Yes or Pink Floyd or Zappa to be interesting or worthwhile.
A potent illustration of the ongoing degradation of American culture. Serious music cannot be discussed or mentioned: Lou Harris’ Third Symphony can never be mentioned, nor David Diamond’s Second Symphony, nor Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring. Presumably the same degeneration explains why so many Americans now advocate torture, government kidnapping without trial or charges, etc.
Real excellence goes unremarked, swill rises to the top. So little that is good is popular, and so little that is popular is good.
Thus do societies decline, degenerate and collapse. Tragic, but presumably part of the inevitable cycle of existence. Oh well. America had a good civilization while it lasted. I’m just sad it’s gone.
Steeplejack
Some more in the clear light of morning. And I have to go back to work at 10:00! Damn it.
– Mos Def, Black on Both Sides (2002).
– Someone mentioned Gordon Lightfoot. A perfect album is Sunday Concert (1969).
. . . Aw, hell, I can’t get into this or I’ll be late for work. Great thread, though. Lots of stuff for me to investigate.
dan robinson
Paul Simon – Graceland
The Wallflowers – Breach, has “Up From Under” which has this great line:
Tell me how I conceived
The vanity to believe
That I would not be outnumbered
By the thumbs I have been under
The Pretenders first two albums were pretty good
Bleed American – Jimmy Eat World
August and Everything After – Counting Crows
Kind of Blue – Miles Davis
Steeplejack
Jeez, how does this site’s software keep getting worse?! The {p} and {/p} tags used to work reliably before I crashed at the end of March, but not now. And I see people bitching and moaning about {blockquote}. Is it just WordPress or what? (Insert obligatory disclaimer that I love this site and admire John greatly for running it. Just sayin’.)
Steeplejack
@Common Sense:
Amen to Stardust. Also Willie’s Pretty Paper–the best Christmas album by someone you’d never think would do a Christmas album.
And how could I forget the greatest Christmas album of all time: Vince Guaraldi’s A Charlie Brown Christmas.
Steeplejack
@Mwangangi:
Thanks for the tips. Will check ’em out.
Raenelle
Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young–Deja Vu.
Steeplejack
@SGEW:
Well, we’re talking albums “as originally created,” I think. I love Billie and Duke, but my experience of them is almost all through compilations. Same with Django, whom I also love. And my favorite Wes Montgomery “album” is my mix CD of personal favorites.
Wick
Richard Thompson — Daring Adventures
Dire Straits — Love over Gold
Springsteen — Wild, Innocent & E Street Shuffle
Stan Rogers — Home in Halifax
REM — Chronic Town
Fleet Foxes — Self Titled
PSoTD
Some cool picks posted already here that don’t get enough love usually in these kinds of posts:
Tea for the Tillerman – Cat Stevens
Elvis Costello – My Aim is True
Kate Bush – Dreaming – although Hounds of Love is an even greater choice
So—Peter Gabriel – this is the first GIGANTIC CD sales album, right music, right recording values, right time
Alanis Morisette – Jagged Little Pill
Roxy Music-Avalon
and a few other favorites of mine:
The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway – Genesis
Everyone is Here – Finn Brothers
Phenomenon – UFO
Systems of Romance – Ultravox
Joel
@Comrade Kevin: I was never deeply into punk, especially the thrasher kind of stuff that evolved in the 90s, but there are some stellar tracks on that album (Liberation Frequency, New Noise)…
in canaduh
Meat Puppets II
Tom
Oh, OK, I’ll join in the fun:
Meddle – The Floyds
Something Else – The Kinks
Armed Forces – Elvis Costello
Let It Be – The Replacements
All Beatles
Between The Buttons – Exile on Main Street – Stones
Stand Up – Jethro Tull
Reckoning – REM
Tommy – The Who (the best drum album ever)
The Band – The Band
Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes
The Life Pursuit – Belle and Sebastian
Marquee Moon – Television
Talking Heads ’77 – Talking Heads
The River – Bruce
Summer Days/Summer Night – The Beach Boys (because Pet Sounds is too cliche to say)
Ned R.
Hahah, here I am, an honest-to-god published music critic for years now and I missed this entire battle royale last night! Then again I was first out at a birthday party and then my body finally told me ‘you have had a completely exhausting week, go home and SLEEP.’ Which I did.
I can’t offer much here, I used to be a list-maker and organizer but I’ve let that go in recent years as too limiting. Instead I do love seeing how the differences in taste among people mix and match (like this thread! some great suggestions here), and while I have my favorites and my loathed examples of horror any reflexive defenses and attacks are momentary results of bouncing ideas off each other.
But FWIW here’s the piece I wrote on what remains my favorite album of all time, My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless, for a book anthology that came out a couple of years back — USA Today republished it via one of their blog sites, bless ’em:
http://blogs.usatoday.com/popcandy/2007/08/that-desert-isl.html
Beyond that are the clutch of groups I know I’ll always listen to — Depeche Mode’s a good example, been a fan for over twenty years and as you can see here I love the new album — and everything else just hits me as does. Wouldn’t have it any other way.
Laura W
@Steeplejack: OK, just for you, since you’re probably the only person here who might enjoy the list. It’s off the top of my not quite awake yet head. No looking at the shelves, and only ten.
Joni Mitchell – Miles of Aisles
Bonnie Raitt – Road Tested
Dylan – Blood on the Tracks
EBTG – Amplified Heart
Laura Nyro and Labelle – Gonna Take a Miracle
Neil Young and Crazy Horse – Everyone Knows this is Nowhere
Steely Dan – Katy Lied
Annie Lennox – Medusa
David Gray – Greatest Hits (current obsession. Just discovered him.)
Stones – Some Girls
See how easy it was to get 10 and still not mention CSN and a bazillion others I’ll think of later. Free association can be fun too.
Edit: Can’t do it. Must break my rule. Elvis Costello – My Aim is True.
phew.
Steeplejack
@Laura W:
Great, Laura! Gotta blow, and I’m probably still gonna be late for work. Mo’ later . . .
dan robinson
Depeche Mode.
Hmmm. When I was a college DJ and they were on our hot rotation, I always introduced them as “Depressed Mode”. I saw them in Mountain View in the 80’s and they hit play on their synths and danced on stage. I don’t know if that was the worst show I have ever seen, but it is a strong contender.
Best show: Buster Bloodvessel and Bad Manners, Keystone, Palo Alto. And the show we did at Santa Clara when Dream 6 opened for The Untouchables.
Mr Furious
Little Feat — Waiting for Columbus, a staple for me as well
Genesis — Seconds Out, I don’t care if it’s post-Gabriel. Everything between this album and Three Side Live is good.
The Raconteurs — Consolers of the Lonely, I LOVE both albums, but if you put a gun to my head I’m taking this one.
The Posies — Frosting on the Beater, textbook alternative power-pop
dada — Puzzle, The only song you probably know is Dizz Knee Land, and it’s the worst song on the album. Excellent musicianship plus two alternating and harmonizing lead vocalists are a winning combination for me (see also, Raconteurs, The; Posies, The)
Emmylou Harris — Wrecking Ball, Amazing.
Rolling Stones — Beggars Banquet, An almost impossible task to choose between this and Exile. At times I’ll go the other way…
White Stripes — Get Behind Me Satan, single-handedly redeemed the music world for me after a couple years off.
Mike Doughty — Golden Delicious, Excellent work from Soul Coughing front-man.
Zappa? I’ll take the CD combining Apostrophe and Overnight Sensation.
If you really want to waste a few hours, do this meme: The Best Album From Every Year You’ve Been Alive. A worthwhile excercise, because you end up dusting off losts of great stuff.
bago
@** Atanarjuat **: Wait.. Rush has a 2112 album?
Ned R.
I always appreciated how Depeche were the great divider for a lot of people. (Still — my boss at work’s a music nut in general and while our tastes can diverge the only, ONLY time I saw him worked up about anything like that was when he learned some coworkers and I were going to see them a couple of years back. Hilarious — and we laughed all the way to the sold-out arena. ;-) )
Joel
Cole did five albums, although I don’t think there are five perfect albums. There may not even be one. Every album that I enjoy has at least one weak spot, and most have several. My favorite albums (like Aphex Twin’s “Richard D. James Album” and Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run) are usually carried by a few strong tracks.
The closest thing to a perfect album in my book tends to follow a theme fairly strictly. That means that most of the tracks are comparably strong. I can see why Cole chose “Animals” for example, although I don’t care for that album. “Abbey Road” is precisely my example of an imperfect album, because of the Beatles’ tendencies to throw in some completely nonsensical self-indulgent garbage with their good music. Other favorites of mine are completely undermined by the same tendency (the middle 5 tracks of Sublime’s self-titled album are fucking awful).
I guess what I’m saying is that there are no perfect albums, and looking through my collection, I’d have to say that:
Ratatat “Classics”
Eels “Beautiful Freak”
the aforementioned “Tourist” by St. Germain
come closest, which is surprising to me. They’re probably not my most listened-to albums, but I never skip a track when I do listen to them.
Laura W
@Steeplejack: Manhattan Transfer – Coming Out.
Also.
Larime the Gimp
A few of my favorites off the top of my head…
The Cure – Disintegration
Depeche Mode – Violator
Garbage – Garbage
REM – Green
Nine Inch Nails – The Downward Spiral
Marilyn Manson – Antichrist Superstar
Amanda Palmer – Who Killed Amanda Palmer?
Art of Noise – Who’s Afraid of the Art of Noise?
Leonard Cohen – I’m Your Man
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Let Love In
Tom Waits – Real Gone
Cranes – Loved
The Dresden Dolls – The Dresden Dolls
WereBear
Desert island pick has to be Van Morrison. Huge catalog, most of which he wrote himself, spanning nearly four decades. Rock, blues, country, Celtic.
The thing about the Beatles is that appreciating them requires perspective. One has to know what pop crap was popular right before they hit to understand how they radically changed everthing. Yes, it sounds poppy and pedestrian now, to some, not realizing they live in a landscape the Beatles created.
Reminds me of a comment I saw somewhere, asking what was so great about Led Zeppelin, dissing them as just another “stadium show band.” It’s different when you know they basically invented the context in which they were being discussed.
One might as well deride Edison because our light bulbs are better now.
Ed in NJ
Here’s some for your consideration. Some already mentioned:
10,000 Maniacs- In My Tribe
REM- Murmur
Billy Joel- The Stranger
The Hold Steady- Boys and Girls in America
Jackson Browne- The Pretender
Jim Croce- You Don’t Mess Around With Jim
Robbie Robertson- Storyville
Jimmy Cliff- The Harder They Come
Genesis- The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
and a couple of guilty pleasures:
Hootie and the Blowfish- Cracked Rear View
Counting Crows- August and Everything After
The Wreckers- Stand Still, Look Pretty
and the guiltiest pleasure of all:
The Planet P Project- nerdy technopop (and I’m not even a nerd). Not even sure why this appeals to me. I can’t stand anything else Tony Carey has done since.
Ned R.
To this day I listen to albums straight through most of the time, I suspect something of a rarer thing in the iTunes world. I prefer the unitary experience but that’s what I was raised with.
bago
Sweet Jesus. It’s like only 3 albums suggested are from 1990 and beyond.
Old people are old.
I would throw up some Gridlock, Some Dryft, some Boards of Canada, Nine Inch Nails, Haujobb, White Zombie, Glitch Mob, and Opeth waaay before the sounds of the seventies compilations you all be postin about! And that’s before I even get into the ambient/psy with Shpongle, Hallucinogen, Infected Mushroom, Vibrasphere, and Ooze. Then from there you hit Kurder and Dorfmeister and all of their side projects, Delerium (who is actually Front Line Assembly), and their stuff, and Supreme Beings of Leisure.
I’m 30 and most of what has been posted was recorded before I was alive.
Joel
@WereBear: I think the viewpoint of that person is that arena rock itself is undesirable, not that there are other comparably talented arena rock bands.
TR
Radiohead – In Rainbows
Radiohead – OK Computer
R.E.M. – New Adventures in Hi-Fi
The Roots – Things Fall Apart
Weezer – Blue Album
Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago
De La Soul – Bionix
Girl Talk – Feed the Animals
Liz Phair – Exile in Guyville
Magnetic Fields – Holiday
Paul Simon – Graceland
Tom Waits – Frank’s Wild Years
TV on the Radio – Dear Science
Wolf Parade – Apologies to the Queen Mary
bago
@Joel: At least we got someone with some Aphex Twin. Ever hear Cylob?
Joel
@bago: Have not, but am checking out his blog right now.
South of I-10
Wow, y’all were busy last night! I think these have pretty much already been mentioned, but here goes, in no particular order:
Grateful Dead – American Beauty or Workingman’s Dead, close either way
Ben Folds Five – Whatever and Ever Amen
Bob Dylan – Blood on the Tracks
Paul Simon – Graceland
Led Zeppelin I
Lucinda Williams – Car Wheels on a Gravel Road
RHCP – The Uplift Mofo Party Plan
Beastie Boys – Pauls Boutique
Rolling Stones – Beggars Banquet
Billy Bragg & Wilco – Mermaid Avenue
Mr Furious
@Common Sense:
Um? Not. Even. Close. Jay Farrar has chunks of guys like Tweedy in his stool. Just one man’s opinion…
That’s two men’s opinion—I agree completely.
Cat Lady
Bringing up the rear here:
Paul Simon – Graceland
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – Will the Circle be Unbroken
Stevie Wonder – Talking Book
Eno/Cale – Wrong Way Up
Joni Mitchell – Blue
Bob Marley and the Wailers – Exodus
Sheila Chandra – Weaving My Ancestors Voices
Red Hot Chili Peppers – Blood Sugar Sex Magik
Mr Furious
Didn’t see it in the thread, though I’m sure it must be…
SRV — Couldn’t Stand the Weather
Gus
@John Cole:
Kiko is perfect. No time to read the whole thread now, though I will because y’all seem to have some good taste. I noticed a few others I agree with:
Pretenders first,
Replacements Let it Be,
Stones Beggars Banquet, Exile, and Let it Bleed,
Beatles just anything
Talking Heads just about anything
XTC Skylarking
Television Marquee Moon
Bob Dylan Bringin’ It All Back Home, Highway 61 and Blonde on Blonde
saw some Jefferson Airplane love that I would like to second with After Bathing at Baxters (but only if you’re tripping)
also
Jimi Hendrix Axis Bold as Love and Are You Experienced
John Coltrane A Love Supreme
Creedence Cosmo’s Factory
The Clash London Calling
Bowie Ziggy Stardust
and tons more. I disagree with John, there are shitloads of perfect albums.
JGabriel
To all the Rush fans: You guys do realize that Rush is just Robert Fripp on bad dope and Ayn Rand, if he was from Canada, right?
.
HyperIon
no one has mentioned Surrealistic Pillow.
plus
1. Sticky Fingers.
2. Elton John’s first American release (self-titled?)
3. Eric and the Dominoes
bago
Seriously, Tool. Recursive music FTW!
Montysano
Jeez, I go to bed early and a party breaks out.
A few that seem to have been missed:
Neville Brothers “Yellow Moon” – if I had to pick a best ever, this might be it;
Paul Simon “Rhythm of the Saints” – I love “Graceland”, but love this one even more.
I’ve been on a Buffalo Springfield jag lately; some of the best work Stills and Young ever did, and the recording quality is superb.
J.D. Rhoades
Excellent choices, all. Glad to meet another fan of Animals, the most criminally overlooked PF album…a biospecial about the Floyd on VH1 didn’t even mention it.
South of I-10
@Montysano: Yellow Moon is a great album! Totally forgot about it.
djork
Crap. Coming to this kind of late, but my perfect albums would be (in no order):
Pet Sounds – Beach Boys — Perfect.
A Hard Day’s Night and Revolver — The Beatles –Perfect for different reasons. Hard Day’s Night is the perfect distillation of 1960s rock and roll before it got druggy and weird. Conversely, Revolver shows the consummate 1960s rock band first starting to get druggy and weird.
Wowie Zowie – Pavement — A perfect mess.
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot — Wilco — Wilco is probably the best American band around right now. At the moment, this is my favorite Wilco album. In ten minutes, it will be Summerteeth. Ten minutes after that, Being There.
Some others that i think are pretty much gravy:
Paris 1919 — John Cale
London Calling — The Clash
Luxury Liner — Emmylou Harris
Washing Machine — Sonic Youth
Marquee Moon — Television
The Soft Bulletin and / or Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots — The Flaming Lips
Future Days — Can
Kind of Blue — Miles Davis
These are probably my personal perfect records. I would agree with others that Dark side / Animals / wish you were here are all flawless. I also second Rumours as being a perfect album
canuckistani
Late to the game, but I’ll toss in my fave’s for future historians:
The Clash: London Calling (practically conformism here)
Elvis Costello: Armed Forces
Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon
Talking Heads: Remain in Light
Peter Gabriel: Us
Tom Waits: Rain Dogs
Devo: Are We Not Men?
Eurythmics: Sweet Dreams
The Pogues: Rum, Sodomy and the Lash
The Who: Quadrophenia
I am rethinking these choices even as I type these letters, but if I’m missing something awesome, I’m not embarrassed by any of these.
p.a.
They surely change over time, but here are some current ‘can’t do withouts’:
Clash London Calling
Dylan Nashville Skyline
Replacements Hootenanny
THeads More Songs About Buildings and Food (best title evah?)
Graham Parker Heat Treatment
Elvis The Sun Sessions
Van the Man (Anything old but especially) Astral Weeks
The Who Live at Leeds Deluxe Ed.
Coltrane Blue Train
Fitzgerald & Armstrong Ella and Louis
Party Music:
The Very Best of the Meters
Beau Jocque & the Zydeco High Rollers Beau Jocque Boogie
wasabi gasp
Prior to last week I would have thought Paul’s Boutique would have made a respectable showing on my list, a list that would surely be flooded in the low numbers by the likes of Floyd, The Beatles, The Stones, Pavement, and some others. But after listening to it for the first time in a few years, I couldn’t get through it. I canned it halfway and washed it down with Exile on Main Street.
Another album I once gave a lot of spin time to that I found doesn’t do it for me anymore is Vanilla Trainwreck – Mordecai.
Blondie – Parallel Lines still works for me in a big way.
If I had to pick an overall album winner, I’d probably say The Wall, but it’s a demanding listen and doesn’t get nearly the spin time that I give to some Beatles and Pavement albums.
Jason F
Pretty much every Springsteen album up to and including Born in the U.S.A., but if I could pick only one, it would be Darkness on the Edge of Town.
Enough mention of Velvet Underground that John called them out to the top of the post, but I don’t think anyone mentioned Peel Slowly and Eat, which surprises me.
The Stones had a string from Beggars Banquet through Exile that was just outstanding. My favorite, depending on which day you ask me, is either Let It Bleed or Sticky Fingers.
I saw a couple of people mentioned PE’s Fear of a Black Planet. What about It Takes a Nation of Millions?
That first Ramones album and Rocket to Russia were both perfect. Leave Home, Road to Ruin, and End of the Century all come damned close.
Dylan: Blonde on Blonde, Highway 61, and Blood on the Tracks.
The Minutemen’s Double Nickles on the Dime.
London Calling by the Clash. I also put Combat Rock in that rarified air.
I’m still digesting the debut album from Glasvegas, but I think it might wind up on this list. Ditto Now We Can See by the Thermals.
Queen’s Night at the Opera and News of the World are both perfect.
Horse by Patti Smith doesn’t have a single note out of place.
Who’s Next by the Who.
Both versions of Let It Be (the one by the Beatles and the one by the Replacements).
captens1
Good choices above, to which I’d add
Del Amitri: Change Everything
Del Amitri: Waking Hours
Devotchka: How it ends
Emmylou Harris: Wrecking Ball
Vince Guaraldi: A Charlie Brown Christmas
Alison Krauss
Kirsty MacColl: Tropical Brainstorm
Supertramp: Breakfast in America
XTC: Oranges and Lemons
XTC: Apple Venus
dobrojutro
Everytime I think I have a beat on my top5, someone drops Big Star or Fishbone and I have to start over.
Idea for new thread: top 5 records of all time that never cracked the top 200. It’s a big blue world of music out there – tell me a great album I never heard of.
I’ll start – Hudson Bell – When the Sun is the Moon. GO!
AkaDad
Music is so subjective and I suppose what is “perfect” is really all in the ear of the beholder.
If I were stuck on a deserted island with a solar-powered Ipod, I’d want to have these albums:
Aerosmith – Get Your Wings
Pink Floyd – Dark Side Of The Moon
AC/DC – Back In Black
Motley Crue – Shout At The Devil
Dio -Holy Diver
Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath
CCR – Chronicle
Deep Purple – Machine Head
Kid Rock – Devil Without A Cause
Judas Priest – Screaming For Vengeance
Twisted Sister – Stay Hungry
Y&T – Black Tiger
Metallica – Black
Styx – The Grand Illusion
Tesla – The Great Radio Controversy
Iron Maiden – Piece Of Mind
Rush – 2112
Pearl Jam – Ten
Serj Tankian – Elect The Dead
amorphous
♪ This is the thread that doesn’t end,
yes it goes on and on my friend.
Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,
and they’ll continue singing it forever just because… ♪
Manic Depression
Ten live albums yet to be mentioned:
Jimi Hendix – Live at Monterey
Epic versions of Like a Rolling Stone and Wild Thing.
Lone Justice – BBC Radio 1 Live in Concert
Maria McKee sings so hard she threatens to send the Earth spinning off it’s axis.
Richard Thompson – More Guitar
Hardest rocking RT ever thanks to Kenny Aronoff sitting in on the drums.
Bruce Springsteen – Live at Winterland
Any of the “fan club” releases. Best Bruce show ever.
Jerry Lee Lewis – Live at the Star Club – Hamburg.
Jerry Lee cuts the Beatles in their old stomping ground.
B.B. King – Live at the Regal
B.B. at his live best, with plenty of audience hoots and hollers.
Bob Dylan – The Bootleg Series Vol. 4, The “Royal Albert Hall Concert”
Belive the hype. Really.
Otis Redding – Live in Europe
Mr. Pitiful is anything but.
Toot and the Maytals – Live
Reggae Got Soul.
Bob Marley and the Wailers – Live!
Just plain great.
Yes, I’m old.
slightly_peeved
@JC:
Corpus Christi Carol and Lilac Wine. Don’t get me wrong, I love the album… but a significant portion isn’t his work.
Jose C
late as always – damn this life that keeps me from the computer.
lots of good stuff mentioned, but two I haven’t seen
Alice Cooper – Killer
Kate Bush – the Sky of Honey disc from Aerial
LD50
I just skip that track. I even left it off my ipod. It’s a perfect album if you omit it.
joeyess
Who says “not really very good musicians”?
I’ll punch them in the neck.
LD50
…with their fantastic guitarist, Derek Clapton.
For my money, the Pink Floyd’s best are their first two: Piper at the Gates of Dawn and Saucerful of Secrets, when Syd was either still with them or a heavy influence. Waters’ later stuff is SOOO BOOOORING.
Kelly
Van Morrison Moondance
Bob Marley Babylon By Bus
John Hiatt Bring the Family
Robert Cray Strong Persuader
Supertramp Crime of the Century
Piper
Hven’t gotten to read the thread yet, but Beck’s Midnight Vultures is the best album of the last 15 years. Nirvana’s Nevermind is the Sgt Pepper’s of this era, having altered fashion, pop culture, what passes for mainstream music and opening the door for a lot of more avant garde acts to make it big. Bleach is a better album in my opinion, but Nevermind changed the world.
Ronald
People who think the Beatles suck, are clueless, tasteless morons.
wasabi gasp
In the Faust discography are some great albums.
jstudle
A Wizard A True Star – Todd Rundgren
Paris 1919 – John Cale
Night and Day – Joe Jackson
Discipline – King Crimson
U.K. – U.K.
janeform
My favorite Radiohead depends a lot on what mood I’m in. Amnesiac is overall best. It’s especially good for evoking deep pain and sadness, but in a good way. Spinning Plates kills.
matoko_chan
Maroon 5 – It Won’t Be Soon Before Long
Sonny Moore- Bells
The Alkaline Trio- Agony and Irony
This is very subjective, and highly generational.
canuckistani
I didn’t put them on my list because I suck, but I think the sequence of Rubber Soul –> Pet Sounds –> Sgt. Pepper’s may be the greatest streak of competitive creativity I’ve ever seen, and they all belong on iPods in heaven. It’s a pity Brian Wilson went crazy and the Beach Boys went back to sucky beach songs before the streak could continue.
trollhattan
Christ on a cracker, do you people sleep?
Also. How could I forget (add another list here)?
Bill D.
The Who: Who’s Next
Led Zeppelin, 4th album
U2: The Joshua Tree
Supertramp: Breakfast in America
Pink Floyd: The Dark Side of the Moon
Yes: The Yes Album
Tresy
What Jason F said.
Also Stevie Ray Vaughan, Texas Flood.
passerby
@HeartlandLiberal:
Right-o HL. Thanks for the link. The continuous snare drum had “forbearance” written all over it and you’re right about the crescendo which, in my mind, provided “triumph” at the end of a long march.
Good stuff.
Oh and PF, APP, and MB, echo that. I’m on your wavelength and would gladly join you in a chorus of “get off my lawn sonny” if push ever comes to shove with regard to music.
burnspbesq
A few more that I’m surprised haven’t been mentioned:
B.B. King Live at the Regal
The Gilded Palace of Sin (Flying Burrito Brothers)
Funky Kingston (Toots and the Maytals)
Blues and the Abstract Truth (Oliver Nelson)
Crystal Silence (Gary Burton and Chick Corea)
Bitches’ Brew (Miles Davis)
Manzanita (The Tony Rice Unit)
See How We Are (X)
For me, the best album released in the last 24 months is “A Year in the Wilderness” by John Doe.
Mwangangi
@Steeplejack: Illmatic is… well Illmatic, a legendary album, EVERY song on it was a single. The Obama mixtape came out around convention time, and it was just the thing I needed to keep going, I was damn near on year two… and I was tired. I don’t know how the actual folks running for office do it. I uploaded that tape to my phone and I could just keep making it down to the campaign office.
…and I wanted to put the Roots in my list, but most people like the Roots, so I expected to see it more than I did. As Bago says… old people are old.
wasabi gasp
I don’t think JSBX wasn’t mentioned yet so here’s a nod to Extra Width, Orange, and Experimental Remixes.
Minionero
The Smiths – The Smiths
The Smiths – The Queen Is Dead
A Tribe Called Quest – The Low End Theory
Teenage Fanclub – Songs From Northern Britain
Boards of Canada – Music Has The Right To Children
Shack – H.M.S. Fable
Cain
@Comrade Kevin:
Of course, but their music in this particular album had a very arabic feel to. I don’t think they play any italian music hehe.
cain
Cain
@Mwangangi:
Looks like it’s still going. I will admit I liked Thriller by Michael Jackson. I didn’t list it because I didn’t like all the songs. Off the wall is good.
I notice ice cube, no NWA? I don’t listen to rap that much. But I do recall liking some of the stuff from NWA although I couldn’t take too much after awhile.
cain
Cain
@SGEW:
I don’t own any of their albums (Handel has albums? :-) Mostly those are relegated to “listening to jazz on the radio”.
I love Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington. Big Band is fucking awesome. I tend to like older music than newer music. I suspect it’s because it seems to be harder to find good newer music for me.
cain
Cain
@mclaren:
This is a ridiculous notion. There is no litmus test for music. It’s all in ear of the listener. You might like it but if it triggers an emo response then it’s good enough. Trying to be high and mighty about this kind of stuff is plain stupid. Some of the most beautiful music could easily be your toddler hitting a spoon on a can.
cain
*
No psychoanalysis, but your list does indicate that your music listening experience (like that of most people) is dominated by the offerings of major corporations and is thus very limited.
evabaruk
Jimmy Cliff – They Harder They Come
Bob Marley – Natty Dread
burnspbesq
I would venture to guess that a good chunk of what McLaren listens to was considered disposable pop music crap at the time of it’s public premiere. It’s fascinating to read what was written about Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, and Verdi while they were still alive. Mahler, who we revere now, was seen in his time the way some people see Salonen now – a great conductor who dabbles in composition.
With time comes perspective. I’d venture to guess that 200 years from now, most of what had been listed on this thread will be forgotten. But so will most of the contemporary “classical” music that McLaren probably listens to. Del Tredici, Glass, Reich, Riley, Saariaho … Puh-leeze. Adams, maybe. Ades, maybe. Salonen? The Violin Concerto sounds like a keeper, the rest not so much.
wrb
The Band/Dylan Basement Tapes
Dylan Blood on the Tracks
Band Big Pink
Miles Kind of Blue
Neville Bros Yellow Moon
Dead Europe 72/ American Beauty
Van Astral Weeks
Joan Armatrading’s 1st
Joni- Blue
Garcia Relections
Allmans Fillmore East
Bob Marley- the box set
Stones- Get Your Ya Yas out
Cowboy Junkies- Trinity Sessions
Neil Young- Everybody Knows
wrb
Glancing through the above, yes I’d add Wrecking Ball, Fragile, Who’s Next, Blues and the Abstract Truth, Dylan @ Albert Hall and A Love Supreme
Also Mingus Ah Um
And the John Prine album with Lake Marie on it
Corner Stone
I didn’t see it mentioned anywhere but it has to be said:
Linkin Park / JayZ – Collision Course
Corner Stone
He once had an awkward moment…just to see what it felt like.
He is…the most interesting man in the world.
Joel
Jesus, you’re good, John. Those picks give you a batting average of 1.000, dude. Big. time. hat. tip. Particularly impressive is Relayer. So under-appreciated yet so great.
Dave in ME
The Allman Brothers – Brothers and Sisters, Eat a Peach and Live at Ludlow Garage.
bago
Thank god someone besides me listed BOOC and AFX. Took long enough.
dan robinson
Oh, and Dave Mason, Certified Live
George Harrison, All Things Must Pass
Elvis Costello and the Brodsky Quartet
Mwangangi
@Cain: Ice Cube, to me was better than NWA not to say that I didn’t rock the shit out of “efil4zaggin”.
wrb
and The Wild Tchapitoulas
Piper
One that I doubt was mentioned is Operation Ivy Energy. That is one helluvan album, all 30 tracks. Never understood why it was their only record, but Green Day took that sound and made gajillions off of it.
.
Let me say it warms my heart to see multiple Grateful Dead albums mentioned. My personal favorite would be Wake of the Flood but one could make an argument for anything pre-1980.
dobrojutro
Manic Depression -BB King Live at Cook County Prison is the greatest live blues record of all time. Carry on.
Steeplejack
@Corner Stone:
God, I hate that ad.
wrb
@Steeplejack:
Reading more above I also vote for these:
I also would add
Clark Terry and Bob Brookmeyer Quintet, Gingerbread Men
wrb
I looks like Gingerbred Men is only now available as part of this awesome looking collection
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Studio-Recordings-Clark-Terry/dp/B000AN023C/ref=reg_hu-wl_list-recs
dan robinson
Art Blakely: A Jazz Message
jTh
@Montysano
Actually, I didn’t wanna shoot anyone down for picking Graceland, but I think Saints blows its doors off.
@Jose C
Good call on A Sky of Honey. I’ve got issues with Sea of Honey, but Sky is likely perfect.
@LD50
Yeah, but if I could “skip one track,” I could list a couple hundred “perfect albums” without even breaking a sweat. Most of my favorite albums have a weak track of two. Fun House certainly highly among them – it was exactly my 100th CD. My all-time favorite album – Vs. by Mission of Burma – unfortunately has one boner track (to my ear, anyway).
Discipline, however, does not, so glad to see a couple other people mention that.
@janeform
I don’t think it’s perfect (I don’t think any of theirs are, though Kid A might be closest), but I’d agree that it’s grossly underrated. Yes, Spinning Plates is extraordinary (and yet many Radiohead fans are surprised when I say so?)
Finally, @Piper
Midnite Vultures and Odelay are both extraordinary – the latter might be perfect – but can’t agree with that perspective on Nevermind.
Was it great? Absolutely. But it was a culmination of trends that’d been in motion for ten or fifteen years, much more than any kind of independent groundbreaker like Sgt. Pepper’s was. Not that Pepper emerged from a vacuum itself, but Nevermind was fundamentally a distillation, not an evolution. And if one was observing indie music trends in that era, it was much more of an ending/culmination (of punk, Pixies, Fugazi) than a beginning of something truly new. (Also, it’s much more mono-themed/one-noted than Sgt. Pepper’s was, another “gift” of Beatles often overlooked in hindsight, that they blew open the doors of thematic possibility.)
dkilmer
Prefab Sprout – Steve McQueen
ed finnerty
dobrojutro
I’ll give you the most obscure great album you’ll ever probably not hear
Graeme Card – Graeme Card
Good luck finding it, but if you do – I bet you’ll love it
dobrojutro
Just thought of some underappreciated power-pop gems not yet mentioned:
Jellyfish – Bellybutton or Spilt Milk
Toy Matinee – Toy Matinee
Mr Furious
Toy Matinee – Toy Matinee
Is that the Ballad of Jenny Ledge? I used to have that CD…I don’t really remember getting into the rest of it. I’l have to take a trip down to the basement and see if I can find it.
Mr Furious
“Last Plane Out” was another good one off that Toy Matinee album…
I remember really liking a Jellyfish tune, but it escapes me.
Mr Furious
Morphine — Cure For Pain Did this really go 400+ comments without Morphine? I must’ve missed it somewhere…
Chris Whitley — Living With the Law Amazing.
Jon Spencer Blues Exposion — Acme
Robert Palmer — Sneaking Through the Alley With Sally (Little Feat is the studio band on most of this album)
Sugar — Copper Blue I know to many it’s blasphemy, but to me this was Bob Mould’s high-water mark
Up too late
Got caught up in this with the initial love for Waiting for Columbus, was glad to see that I wasn’t the only one to really like 801 Live and the TNK cover mentioned midstream, and then the sustained matches with the Chris Whitley and Sneakin’ Sally mentions 2 days later in the comment just prior to me.
Not to get too over the top, but some lightnin’ in a bottle in this Comments thread, I think
Still can’t believe Robert Palmer’s dead — he was kind of a lifestyle rolemodel for me for while, and I’ve had to make some adjustments since then — my current plan is to live forever, and I’m still right on track, per Stephen Wright’s comments on that topic
Kenneth Fair
@Mr Furious: Right on about dada’s Puzzle. The entire album is full of great songs, and meshes together in a way that makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts.
dobrojutro
Mr Furious –
Toy Matinee was very much a side1 record. Great side 1 though. Worth digging for. Both Jellyfish records are top-notch power-pop:
Bellybutton
Spilt Milk
Up too late
If I can tell my grandkids I dropped the last comment on this awesome thread, . . . I’ll still be a frustrated, unfulfilled old fart.