I hope everyone keeps banging on Trump’s sabotage of USPS. In case you didn’t know, establishment media will take DeJoy’s side, they hate the post office and want to turn it into a privatized opportunity zone or something.
A few weeks ago, lamh told me on Twitter that Amy Winehouse’s Back in Black was one of her favorite albums of all time and that she can listen to it start to finish.
It got me thinking…are there very many albums you listen to start to finish? There are hardly any rock/pop albums like that for me — in fact, part of the reason that Astral Weeks is in my top five albums is that a friend convinced me not to include “Beside You” when I put it on MP3. I used to listen to Beggars Banquet start to finish but now I skip “Stray Cat Blues”. And I used to listen to Red Headed Stranger start to finish but this song convinced me that songs about men killing their lovers should mostly be cancelled. I don’t skip many songs on London Calling but I’m not so fond of The Card Cheat and Lost in the Supermarket. On Beatles albums, I skip all the George songs — even when they’re good, they kill the mood for me — and some of the Paul granny songs. I guess one other album that has no bad songs is 1999.
By contrast, most of the jazz albums I like, I always listen to start to finish — Herbie Hancock’s Maiden Voyage, all the Sonny Rollins I own, and all the Miles Davis I own from the two great quintets. I’m not sure why the difference.
What albums do you like to listen to start to finish.
I thought it might be a good day to raise some more money for Cal Cunningham, who is running for Senate in North Carolina. He’s leading in most of the polls. This is a very winnable race.
Open Thread: DNC, Puppehs and Checking In
rp
Achtung Baby
Funeral
Lifes Rich Pageant
The Stone Roses
Rubber Soul
ETA: You skip the George songs?!?
Fraud Guy
The Wall-Pink Floyd
The End of the Innocence-Don Henley
Bloodletting-Concrete Blonde
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band-The Beatles
Melissa Etheridge/Brave and Crazy-Melissa Etheridge
and many more.
zhena gogolia
Workingman’s Dead. Back when I had a record player.
Wow, I loved Billy Porter and Stephen Stills doing “For What It’s Worth.” Then I made the mistake of looking at the YouTube comments. The RWNJs seem to have made this their hill to die on.
Jeffro
Start-to-finish albums?
How about:
– Sonic Youth, Daydream Nation
– U2, The Joshua Tree
– Veruca Salt, Ghost Notes
Bill K
Albums I can listen to all the way through:
Maroon Five – Songs About Jane
Indigo Girls – Rite of Passage
rp
@Jeffro: No way! The drummer in Veruca Salt is a good friend of mine.
Jay C
Steely Dan’s “Aja”
Even if “I Got the News” is a tad slow, it still doesn’t bear skipping.
Elizabelle
In. Let’s go, North Carolina.
I think the Pretenders’ first album is listen to every track. Also their second. Maybe their third. Loved me some early Pretenders.
And the Psychedelic Furs’ Book of Days. Loved those albums, on vinyl and CD.
Also: Lucinda Williams’ self-titled album. With the B&W cover photo. Excellent songwriting. Crescent City would make me tear up, thinking about the destruction wrought by Katrina.
Lyrebird
Stevie Wonder’s Musiquarium (sp?)
The U2 album with the sad boy on the cover
The Sundays blind
Chemical Brothers Exit Planet Dust
And yes this BS attacking the USPS started before George the Second (GWB), I hope it bites them in the rear.
Subsole
Crosby Stills and Nash
Can’t Buy a Thrill, by Steely Dan
Metallica ’91
The Black Album, by Jay Z
Past Present and Future, by Al Stewart
This Time, by Dwight Yoakam
Revolver, by the Beatles
That’s about it.
I could usually manage Rumors by Fleetwood Mac before they played half of it to death, resurrected it and played it back to death. Still a great album, but there’s 2 songs I just autoskip now.
Elizabelle
Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions.
Steely Dan’s The Royal Scam (most of it). Always up for “Kid Charlemagne.”
Danielx
Allman Brothers Band – Live at Fillmore East
Stevie Wonder – Innervisions
…this could take a while.
Lyrebird
@rp: That’s awesome! I have only heard their music on compilations, I guess I should give a whole album a try.
Elizabelle
@Lyrebird: U2’s War. Loved that album. Play it through constantly, too.
Dave P
Bruce Springsteen – “Born to Run”
Bruuuuce
Given that most of my music listening is live shows, it’s hard to think of studio albums I would listen to all the way through.
Some of the shows I do like, start to end, include:
Renaissance – Live at Carnegie Hall (okay, an official live album)
Elton John – 1982-07-07 Kansas City, KS
The Decemberists – 2005-03-31 Dallas, TX
Dire Straits – 1985-08-16 San Antonio, TX
Bruce Springsteen, Genesis, and the Grateful Dead have so many good shows that naming one seems criminal.
Elizabelle
I liked Blondie’s “Eat to the Beat” a lot.
Bruce Springsteen’s “The River”, “Born in the USA”, “Darkness at the Edge of Town” (Candy’s Room!), “Born to Run.”
I think we are going to skew with old albums, since listening has changed so much with doing it online …
Subsole
@Lyrebird:
I think you are referring to War, by U2.
Edit: And Elizabelle beat me to it.
Elizabelle
Nirvana’s Nevermind. And their live album, from MTV, was very good, too. “In the Pines.”
zhena gogolia
@Dave P:
Oh, yes, and The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle, and Greetings from Asbury Park. Back when I had a record player.
Amir Khalid
The Rising, Bruce Springsteen
Tapestry, Carole King
Scarlett’s Walk, Tori Amos
Nebraska, Bruce again
Anything by Pete Seeger
Elizabelle
The Beatles’ Revolver and Rubber Soul.
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid: Tapestry. That one made me tear up, remembering how much my mother loved it.
Also like just about every song on Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark.
Elizabelle
@Subsole: Cannot praise that album enough!
JR
Not being arch here: Postal Service — Give Up
Jeffro
@rp: way! =)
My kids LOVE that album (and the story behind it)
My brother and I met them all pre-show on that tour…very nice folks.
call_me_ishmael
Dire Straits – Love over gold
Pink Floyd – Animals
Some albums are made for this, like most prog rock. Problem is most of it is crap! Anyone who is able to listen to Yes’ Tales from the topographic oceans or Tull’s Passion Play is made of sterner stuff than me. Also, I almost never play it anymore, but 2212 by Rush always gets the full album treatment.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Skipping Harrison’s songs? George had the best song on “The Beatles” in “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”(Clapton’s lead guitar is amazing) and his two contributions on “Abbey Road” are masterful. If anything, Lennon’s contributions were more uneven after Sgt. Pepper.
Subsole
@JR:
On reflection that was not a bad album at all, I just couldn’t get into it at the time for reasons. Think I’ll give it another listen…
p.a.
London Calling- The Clash (do I need to add that?)
The Who Sell Out (even extended cd version)
Stink & Hootenanny- The Replacements
Bogalusa Boogie- Clifton Chenier
R-Jud
Graceland (Paul Simon)
Stop Making Sense (Talking Heads)
The Boy With The Arab Strap (Belle and Sebastian)
@JR: Ha.
pacem appellant
@Fraud Guy: @call_me_ishmael: I’m gonna go listen to Pink Floyd now.
for me, any album by The Decemberists. Their latest, “I’ll Be Your Girl” has synth that reminds me of my favorite prog rock from the 70s and 80s (like Floyd).
Nancy
Layla, the original electric album. Darkness on the Edge of Town. Workingman’s Dead, Terrapin Station.
You, the commenters, are clearly people of discerning taste and intelligence.
Mike Adamson
Psychedelic Furs’ Talk Talk Talk is the one I regularly listen to from start to finish.
Miss Bianca
I can listen to any album I own from start to finish. Otherwise, I wouldn’t own it.
ETA: Altho’ I do have a mental collection of “perfect albums” where every track is killer. There are far fewer of those.
Just One More Canuck
The first two albums by the Band (Big Pink and the Brown album)
love over gold
LeftCoastYankee
Hooray for the Riff Raff is one of my favorite pandemic “finds”. I love that song, and agree the “murder ballad” has past its sell-by-date along time ago.
Their latest album “The Navigator” is quite good as well.
Subsole
@Elizabelle: I love Achtung Baby. Probably their peak, for me. Joshua Tree is also quite beautiful.
What’s weird is the only album of theirs I can listen to all the way through 100% no-skip is….Pop.
TomatoQueen
How odd. An album is a work to consider in whole and then in part, not to chop and change like a gnat hunting breakfast, which was one reason why the advent of CDs was so pleasing to the ear for us Beethoven fans who were tired of the Ninth symph being broken up according to whim when on vinyl. I trust the artist and his or her producers to put together a body of work for the listener’s pleasure and edification, and then it’s my job to figure out how the elements work together. So while choosing music depends a lot on my purpose (work, full concentration, crafting, sing along) and mood (heh), I’m listening to the whole thing, and that’s equally true of Blood on the Tracks, the original cast album of the Broadway version of West Side Story, or Six Bach Cello suites. For longer works, time constraints are a problem, but yet I hate excerpts.
I skew old.
Mike Adamson
@Elizabelle: Hell yes to Candy’s Room
Ivan X
@Mike Adamson nice choice!
For me, any of New Order’s first four albums. Those things are just beginning to end masterpieces.
LeftCoastYankee
@call_me_ishmael:
This is why I love these threads, so I can “re-find” stuff I used to love and lost along the way.
Nancy
@Just One More Canuck:
Ooops, forget to mention the Band. Any but Northern Lights, Southern Cross, though I’d listen to it as well.
zhena gogolia
@TomatoQueen:
Yeah, don’t get me started on musicals.
Nancy
@Mike Adamson:
Love that song.
Jeffro
I’d probably have to add
– King’s X, Gretchen Goes to Nebraska
– Alice In Chains, Dirt
and
– The Hold Steady, Boys and Girls in America
too
laura
Tapestry Carole King
Hejira – Joni Mitchell
Dark side of the moon – pink Floyd
Exile on main street – Rolling Stones
Appetite for destruction – Guns & Roses
Horses – patti Smith
Astral weeks – Van Morrison
Madman across the water – Elton John
Kind of blue – Miles Davis
Getz & Gilberto
Rambling Boy – Charlie Haden & family
Bad as me – Tom Waits
Pirates – Rickie Lee Jone
X – Los Angele
Bonnie Raitt – Nick of time
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Getting a lot of flashbacks to music I don’t listen to as much as I used to. I’ll put in a vote for Dire Straits Makin’ Movies, and second the nominations of Born to Run and War.
Nancy
@R-Jud:
Stop Making Sense–oh, yeah.
Jeffro
@Subsole: That one and Zooropa are underrated.
V. Bush
Spirit – 12 dreams of Dr. Sardonicus
John Mayall – Turning Point
Mountain – Mountain Climbing
Quick Silver Messenger service – Shady Grove
laura
@Nancy: that one- right there! Perfection
Elizabelle
Lot of good Elvis Costello albums, although I do skip over a song or two. His first two were classics.
Embarrassed how white my record collection skews, except for Stevie Wonder and Prince’s Purple Rain, but it is what it is.
Subsole
@R-Jud: Holy shit, I love Belle and Sebastian.
Funny story: supposedly his folks didn’t know what the title referred to and mentioned to the vicar over Sunday dinner that their boy had won an award for his album. The vicar quite naturally asked what the album title was aaaand…
Frankensteinbeck
Oh, man. Not many. I’m an ‘A couple of songs from this artist, a couple of songs from that genre…’ guy. I also generally don’t listen to music in long enough stretches to listen to a whole album. Albums I listen to all the way through sometimes are:
Killiniq by Boreal Network, which is meant to be listened to as a continual experience in order
Aquarium and Aquarius by Aqua, but I don’t like all of them, just almost all so I listen through the couple I don’t like sometimes.
Eurythmics ‘Greatest Hits’ album… except I don’t like the last song, so maybe that doesn’t count.
Evanescence’s Fallen and The Open Door.
Vs Evil by Ookla the Mok
Any They Might Be Giants album. Like Ookla the Mok, the silliness means there’s nothing I actively dislike
Discography and Very by Pet Shop Boys
Your Favorite Band by Red Elvises
Again, I hardly ever listen to any of these all the way through except Killiniq, but they’re ones I can listen to all the way through and on rare occasions do.
Gravenstone
Queensryche – Operation:Mindcrime
Alan Parsons Project – Turn of a Friendly Card
Just a couple choices.
WereBear
Rush is my cat Reverend Jim’s favorite band.
It makes a big difference whether the album was designed to be listened to, beginning to end. That was a relatively brief period and the whole album “concept” is now being reconfigured.
However, since I had so many developmental years, first with vinyl and then with CD duplicating the same thing, my list is fairly long:
David Bowie, The Man Who Sold the World
U2, Joshua Tree
Ry Cooder, Bop till You Drop
King Crimson, In the Court of the Crimson King
Steely Dan, all of them, Katie
And special consideration for rock operas, of course: Tommy, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, and the spoken/song version of War of the Worlds.
RobertDSC-Work
Any Metallica album.
Faceless by Godsmack.
Nevermind by Nirvana.
Ten by Pearl Jam.
A two-CD set of Johnny Cash’s greatest hits
A two-hour Youtube complilation of some of Johnny Cash’s music.
Elizabelle
Elton’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is very good, but I am not sure I have listened to every song. Double album.
My friend Pete is maybe 12 years older than me. He tells me about how he and his wife and friends would buy record albums in the 1960s, and listen to them over and over. They’d wait for the new releases. He had a lot of early Fleetwood Mac and Small Faces and Beach Boys once they were past their commercial peak.
Red Hot Mess
Power of Pussy-Bongwater
Exile in Guyville-Liz Phair
Demon Days-Gorrilaz
too many to name!
FelonyGovt
Start to finish, I really like Lux Prima by Karen O and Danger Mouse. Also Scorpio Rising by Death in Vegas.
Nicole
XTC’s Skylarking. I mean, yes, “Dear God” sticks out like a sore thumb since it wasn’t meant to be on the album, but it’s a good listen in its own right so it’s okay by me.
piratedan
Boston – Boston
The Cars – The Cars
First Offence – The Inmates
Labour of Lust – Nick Lowe
Repeat When Necessary – Dave Edmunds
Bram Tchaikovsky – Strange Man, Changed Man
Flood – They Might Be Giants
Elvis Costello and The Attractions – This Year’s Model
Chat Noir
@Elizabelle: Yes! Those are such great albums.
Kay
I didn’t really understand this myself until I worked for the postal service but it is true. It doesn’t even matter of they complain about it- and they do complain about it. The mail is a constant they rely on.
People who don’t understand this shouldn’t be reforming the postal service. They don’t understand the thing they’re dismantling. You can’t take it apart and put if back together if you don’t appreciate why people value it. “I don’t know why people mow their lawns at all!” – don’t pick that person to redesign a lawnmower.
I know wealthy people don’t value it. Fine with me. But stay the fuck away from it! No one asked you anyway.
zhena gogolia
Buena Vista Social Club.
Emerald
Tea for the Tillerman (Cat Stevens—now Yusuf—is coming out with a new version of that soon)
Rubber Soul
Sgt. Pepper
Blue, Joni Mitchell
Almost anything by Dire Straits
Yeah, I’m old
Not altogether sure the M$M will get away with trashing the USPS. Bigly blowback from actual people can work.
Drdavechemist
Sticking to pop kinds of stuff, since jazz and classical are different in nature:
Sports by Huey Lewis & the News
Rickie Lee Jones (debut, though you do have to get through “Chuck E’s in Love” in the leadoff slot)
Night and Day and Body and Soul by Joe Jackson (even though some of the lyrics are pretty dated)
The Stranger by Billy Joel
Any of the Linda Ronstadt/Nelson Riddle Orchestra collaborations, but especially For Sentimental Reasons which finishes with a haunting version of “Round Midnight”
Several of Sade’s first albums: Diamond Life, Promise, and Stronger than Pride
Those are some that jump out of a quick perusal of my music folder
LeftCoastYankee
Some I listened the hell out of and still manage to enjoy the whole thing (and I don’t think were mentioned yet:
Beatrice
@Miss Bianca: Mostly how I feel about my albums, too, although I do have a few CDs where I heard one song and bought the album and it turned out that was the only song I liked.
A few pretty much perfect albums off the top of my head: Late for the Sky (Jackson Browne), Tunnel of Love (Springsteen), May Day (Matthew Ryan), Lifes Rich Pageant (REM) … there are more
Chat Noir
@Elizabelle: I love Goodbye Yellow Brick Road in its entirety, as well as Tumbleweed Connection.
Elizabelle
Gonna save this thread and listen to jackals’ suggestions. Lot of good stuff here.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay:
yeah, and I wouldn’t count Chuck Lane, about whom I had almost forgot, as the lone voice of the MSM. In my NPR/MSNBC/Twitter bubble, most of the bigfeet are very pro-PO
mvr
I listen to most stuff all the way through. But I think I have a higher threshold for not wanting to hear a song. On Beggar’s Banquet I find ‘Dear Doctor’ hard to listen to again and again, and I get why you might not want to play ‘Stray Cat Blues’ but I don’t actually mind hearing that one, even while I feel guilty about that.
OTOH, I wish Dire Straights left ‘Les Boys’ off Making Movies. (And seeing the reference above to “Let’s Bop”, I wish Ry Cooder had skipped ‘Down In Hollywood’.)
Mike in NC
Our rancid Senator Thom Tillis put out a campaign ad weeks ago showing him standing in a mobile home park, talking about his humble roots. Then somebody had the temerity to point out that he was wearing a $100 Tommy Bahama polo shirt in that ad. Poof, the it quickly got pulled.
Chat Noir
@piratedan: Labour of Lust (British import) is great! We saw Nick Lowe a couple years ago at a small venue in St. Louis and he was really excellent.
Bard the Grim
David Gray, White Ladder
Subsole
@laura: I totally forgot GnR. Killer album.
daryljfontaine
Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here
Muse – Black Holes and Revelations, Simulation Theory
Wax Fang – The Astronaut
Hadestown, which at 2.5 hours means it’s primarily a long-drive listen
Run the Jewels – 2, 3, and 4
D
CaseyL
Most of these are old, because I am an Old. Also, a lot of my listening over the last few years has been compilations or soundtracks, which don’t count.
Paul Simon, Graceland
Within Temptation, The Heart of Everything
Beatles, Sgt. Pepper
Stones, Get your Ya Yas Out, Sticky Fingers, and Sympathy for the Devil (actually, almost anything by the Stones up to Exile on Main Street; I was a huge fan of theirs, back in the day)
Elton John, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Al Stewart, Days of Future Past
Subsole
Oh, also August and Everything After by the Counting Crows.
Immanentize
@p.a.:
I once did a death penalty sentencing investigation in Bogalusa. It has a paper mill and plant. It was the stinkyest place I ever visited. Permanent smell of rotting cabbage from the chemicals used in the paper making process.
Obviously a vivid visceral memory.
Gin & Tonic
Allman Brothers “Live at the Fillmore East.”
CraigM
Lou Reed and John Cale – Songs for Drella
Elizabelle
Putting in a plug for Garbage’s debut — the cover with the pink feathers. So many good singles from that one.
Looking online, appears they might be touring in the US now. Is that right? Surprising to me.
Chat Noir
All five albums by The Police (well, except for “Mother” on Synchronicity even though I love Andy Summers). A rare example, to me, of a band that broke up at the height of their greatness.
NotMax
Without stopping to mull on it and leaving aside classical, soundtracks and non-rock contemporary, album titles:
It’s A Beautiful Day
McDonald & Giles
Knnillssonn
Son of Schmilsson
Excitable Boy
Autobahn
Court & Spark
Labat/ M. Frog
Red Queen to Gryphon Three
A Wizard, a True Star
Abbey Road
New Riders of the Purple Sage
Harry Chapin: Greatest Stories Live
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
MattF
I tend to listen to whole albums— even if there are some misses, you can get something. That said, every track on the most recent Gillian Welsh album, The Harrow and the Harvest, was worth listening to, IMO.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
My oldest had contempt for the PO in a kind of snobby way. He does everything electronically. Fine. What he didn’t do is arrogantly decide no one else values it either. There’s this obnoxious “they need to LEARN” subtext to this that is unbearable. They need to be taught an ideological LESSON on “markets” so I’ll just throw this giant wrench into the gears and they’ll learn. Fuck off! Leave us alone.
Immanentize
All the way through albums?
“Illinoise” by Sufjan Stevens
“Fear of Music” by the Talking Heads
ETA and of course!
“Ladies and Gentlemen we are Floating in Space” by Spiritualized.
JohnB
Quadrophrenia – The Who
Old Dan and Little Ann
@Elizabelle: A few weeks ago I went down a YouTube rabbit hole and listened to the originals of their 3 or 4 unplugged covers. Very cool.
EdTheRed
@Jay C:
Only came here to say “Aja”!
I recently bought a nice enough turntable stand (w/ record storage) that I was allowed to dust off my turntable and an old receiver and set it up in the Good Living Room. In addition to all of the old vinyl my dad and I had boxed up, I bought three new records:
Steely Dan – Aja (180-gram re-issue)
Beastie Boys – Paul’s Boutique (2-LP 30th Anniversary edition)
Fleetwood Mac – Rumours (180-gram re-issue)
If you had told me in 1990 that one day, in addition to Paul’s Boutique, I’d be buying Aja and Rumours, I’d have laughed at Future Me…but 1990 me was naive in many ways.
Elizabelle
No Neil Young? Harvest, fer sure. After the Gold Rush.
Immanentize
@Mike Adamson: Love that album, but their first eponymous one was better, IMO. “Susan’s Strange” is still one of the greatest songs of all time.
BretH
Many mentioned above from folks presumably of my generation:
Bonnie Raitt – Give it Up
Genesis – Foxtrot
+1 for Al Stewart – Past, Present and Future
+1 for the Renaissance live album
David Bromberg – How Late’ll ya Play ‘Til?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: there was one of those “he lived modestly and left millions!” stories floating around the tubes a couple months ago. An old guy who died in his chair watching TV, and they only came to look for him after his letter carrier called for a welfare check, after the third day when he wasn’t waiting for her on the porch to say hello and talk about the local sports ball franchise. It was sad and touching, and in the last week or so I’m finding not really that uncommon.
Elizabelle
@Chat Noir: Loved the Police. Yeah, what a shame they broke up.
Thinking on other bands that broke up when they were at the top …
Cream. But someone more recent, and cannot think of it …
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Jethro Tull “Songs from the Wood” and “Minstrel in the Gallery”
AC/DC “Back in Black”
Jimmy Buffett “Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays” and “Live in Anguilla”
Otherwise, I’m doing playlists.
Something different, though. This morning, I got a wild hair and played Zappa’s “Joe’s Garage” for the first time in about 35 years. I expected to be irritated based on my recollections; but was pleasantly surprised. Aside from the weirdness of the Central Scrutiniser bit and his tendency to insert odd commercial phrases and puerile lyrics, the music composition was solid and the techniques solid – even the storyline held and remained coherent. He was a born mimic, and the music reflects it – I caught everything from The Four Seasons to Queen to Santana in the structures.
It was surprisingly enjoyable.
Immanentize
@TomatoQueen:
So what you’re saying is that you really miss 8 tracks?
MomSense
I started to think about this question and realized that I always listened to albums start to finish when I was young. Part of it was how exciting it was to save up and buy an album. We didn’t have any local record stores so it meant a trip to The mall, which was also a big deal. And when artists started releasing those albums that had the sleeve for the record and that opened like a book – I was in heaven. You could listen to the album while you looked at all the pictures, credits, artwork, and sometimes lyrics. There were fewer diversions then – no cable, no cartoons during the week. Listening to albums was a bigger deal then.
BretH
Oh! Steve Winwood – Back in the High Life
James Brown – Gravity
chopper
24 hour revenge therapy.
AliceBlue
Off the top of my head–
Steely Dan – Aja and Gaucho
Ramones – Rocket to Russia
Blondie – Parallel Lines and Eat to the Beat
Jimi Hendrix Experience – BBC Sessions
Cream – Disraeli Gears
NotMax
@NotMax
There’s always a post-publish straggler.
The Dark Side of the Moon
randy khan
As a fan of musical theater, it’s kind of the norm to listen to albums start to finish. That kind of influences how I listen to other albums.
Anyway, favorites to listen through include:
Beatles, Abbey Road
Suzanne Vega, self-titled first album and Solitude Standing)
Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense
chopper
@Immanentize:
let it come down is another one you can listen all the way through to.
Immanentize
@Ivan X: I just got a Factory 40 year! Anniversary vinyl set — with a crystal clear vinyl Closer and a 12″ “Love will Tear us Apart.”
Heaven to me.
randy khan
@AliceBlue:
I should have had Parallel Lines on my list.
cintibud
A lot of great albums! There a many already listed that would come close to making my list but there is a song or two that I skip over or never make it on to a playlist. Most of the above were originally released on LP records, so it took some effort to skip.
Let me mention a couple of recent collections that I can play from start to finish without skipping:
Aimee Mann – Mental Illness
Whitehorse – Leave No Bridge Unburned. Does anyone know about Whitehorse? I think they are great!
Immanentize
@laura:
Immanentize approved!!
narya
From Springsteen: Born to Run; Darkness; Nebraska; Wrecking Ball
American Beauty
Stop Making Sense
Dark Side of the Moon
I mostly listen to things that way (fire up the old ipod while I”m cooking), though lately it’s actually been live Springsteen shows or Dead shows or Garcia/acoustic sets rather than albums
ETA: Abbey Road
trollhattan
Hmmm, hard to now whether to go obscure or popular on this question.
Beatles must be mentioned, and I’ll go with Revolver. The tracks sparkle (Dr. Robert the only possible weak link) and provide a slow build to “Tomorrow Never Knows” which, nobody could know at the time, kicked open a musical door that would never close. I could almost argue that Rubber Soul, Revolver and Sgt. Peppers need to be listened to as a whole.
Others that pop into mind.
The aforementioned “Court and Spark”
“Rabbit Fur Coat” by Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins
“Oranges & Lemons” XTC
“Bring the Family” John Hiatt
“Car Wheels” Lucinda Williams
“Blues on the Bayou” BB King
“Meddle” obligatory Pink Floyd selection
“Remain in Light” if I have to choose one Talking Heads LP
“Bridge Over Troubled Water” perfection and too damn soon for the duo’s final effort.
“Sticky Fingers” a tough choice with the Stones but that’s mine.
“Hell Among the Yearlings” Gillian Welch (yeah, you try and pick just one)
“Moondance” Van Morrison
I need to stop.
Immanentize
@V. Bush: Spirit! Some day ask to see Raven’s Groundhog video set to Spirit.
chopper
firewater’s get off the cross, we need the wood for the fire.
call_me_ishmael
Rev Jim is a discerning, but slightly nerdy, judge of musicianship!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Rush’s “Power Windows”
narya
@MomSense: My local AOR radio station at the time–WSAN in Allentown, PA–would play albums by a few artists straight through when they were released.
zhena gogolia
@MomSense:
My college roommate had a record player that you could stack six albums on and they would drop down and play one after another. Before bed she’d put on Seals & Crofts, Jim Croce, and Buffalo Springfield and we’d go to sleep to those albums. Probably Roberta Flack too, although I don’t remember the name of the album. My first term at school was all about “Killing Me Softly.”
trollhattan
@Chat Noir:
Got to see Lowe with Rockpile, which included Dave Edmunds. Such a great show!
Yutsano
@Amir Khalid: You beat me to one of mine. The Rising is still one of the best pieces of art to come out of 9/11.
NotMax
@NotMax
One more.
Tea for the Tillerman
sphouch
Like PirateDan, I could listen to the Cars debut album any day of theweek and twice on Sunday. I think the only other album that I could say that for anymore is Weezer’s Blue Album, which was produced by Ric Ocasek.
Immanentize
@NotMax: “White Dove” fan, huh?
Sister Golden Bear
“Quadrophenia” by The Who
Any album by Johnny Clegg and Savuka
Likewise with Strunz & Farah, as well as Willie & Lobo
Joe Ely’s two live albums
Oingo Boingo – “Boingo Alive
Dire Strait’s first and second albums
The James Harman Band – “Those Dangerous Gentlemen”
Drdavechemist
@narya: I seem to recall a station in Bloomington, IN, that would play an entire new album once a week or so (maybe Sunday evening?) back in the early 80s. I might have even bootlegged an album or two (Steve Winwood’s “Arc of a Diver” sticks in my mind for some reason) by using the cassette player to tape the radio broadcast, though if I did, those cassettes are long gone.
JCJ
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
“Back in Black” was released on July 25, 1980. I heard that nugget on Sirius XM recently. Immediately afterward I felt like sobbing. I can’t believe that was 40 years ago.
When Trevor Hoffman played for the Brewers he would enter in the 9th inning with “Hells Bells” playing – I am so-so on baseball, but that was always awesome. (I know this came with him from San Diego)
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Probably more accurate is this intellectually they know the post office is one of those socialist burdens they must bear, but consider it irresponsible not speculate. You know, bullshit.
Death Panel Truck
You skip George’s songs? “Within You Without You” is the best song on Sgt. Pepper’s. Even Lennon thought so.
As for albums I can listen straight through, there are few. Last night I listened to Miles Smiles twice. “TEO, PLAY THAT! Teo…Teo…Teo…Teo, play that…”
John Sickels
Amused to Death by Roger Waters
AliceBlue
@zhena gogolia: The name of the Roberta Flack album was also “Killing Me Softly”. Every time I hear that song, I am transported back to my college dorm. I think every one of us had that album.
Tony Jay
Back to Black – Definately. When going on a camping holiday we’d bang in an album and enjoy the whole thing all the way through. Massive, massive talent, gone far too soon.
Appetite for Destruction – Actually listened to this banger in its entirety a couple of days ago while pottering around in the kitchen and was reminded once again what a phenomenal achievement it was.
21 – Adele, man. Girl’s got pipes and shes not afraid to use them. Longest ‘No, Fuck You’ in history, but she does it sooooooo well.
Employment – Did the Kaiser Chiefs ever make it in the US? This has a lot of fond memories for me, with tongue firmly stuck in cheek these boys just had so much fun knocking out the singalong hits.
Life Thru a Lens – We spent a year living in France with about 3 albums and this cheeky, self-obsessed meditation on fame, failure and being a bit of a wanker produced some classics that will still be on repeat in decades to come.
I’m off to check out the dusty old CD box.
Immanentize
@MomSense: I know! I have this kinda out of body image of myself bringing home my very first album in the winter, walking down the stairs to the basement where our record player was, so eager to listen to it that I kept all my winter stuff on — boots, coat and stocking hat.
“American Pie” by Don McClean
kbuttle
The National – Boxer
Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago
come on, people.
NotMax
@Immanentize
You back home now?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@kbuttle: okay then: The Big Chill soundtrack
Immanentize
@chopper:. Too true. Well, actually anything by Spiritualized, Spaceman Three, or Loop.
My wife and I went to see Spiritualized at Albert Hall after Huh? came out. So great even though Jason was still recovering from Hep.
Big orchestra, and chorus and killer guitars, especially on Headed for the Top.
Kristine
I used to listen to every David Bowie album all the way through. I need to fire up the turntable I bought ages ago to see if that’s still my thing.
Recent album listens are all instrumentals. Brian Eno. Timothy Wenzel. Erik Wøllo. Music I can work/write to.
Jamey
Pixies: Bossanova
De La Soul: 3 Feet High (and Rising)
The Jam: Sound Affects
Beach Boys: Pet Sounds
Beck: Odelay
Kinks: Village Green Preservation Society
Bowie: Young Americans
Franz Ferdinand: Tonight
ATCQ: Peoples Instinctive Travels…
A lot of albums, really… guess I was too lazy to lift the needle.
The Moar You Know
@TomatoQueen: That’s really up to the artist. Some are meant to have the entirety of the recording stand as one united work, but with my own experience recording (I’ve done five released albums) as well as session work on other people’s recordings, that’s usually not the case. My songs are standalone pieces, as is the work of most artists. The album is just a collection of those with no particular meaning to the arrangement thereof save that which you, the listener, assign it. I disclaim all responsibility for that.
phein60
Lots of great albums above. A more recent album I like, and my kids love, is Corb Lund’s “Cabin Fever.” Dark, brooding and upbeat: a hard combination to pull off.
Immanentize
@NotMax: Yes. But I’m in mandatory travel to Idiotville quarantine until my covid test results (took the test yesterday) comes back later this week.
Immp is really happy so far.
Elizabelle
@Immanentize:
No. That’s his janitor cousin.
WereBear
@call_me_ishmael: He’s a total progger.
James E Powell
During this isolation, I’ve spent a lot of time in online discussions about music. More than any of you want to hear about, but the question of whole album listening was one of them. We found that most of us don’t do this anymore, but it’s because of our lives, not because of the albums. We also discussed that there were some albums that we loved but that never gave whole album status. An example for me is Bowie – Station to Station.
When I was working I had a long commute – long enough to listen to Tommy – so I listened to a lot of whole albums. A complete list would be very long, too long for this. Some that I listened to more than once and aren’t the usual suspects include:
Brian Eno – Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy
Gaslight Anthem – ’59 Sound
Brian Fallon – Painkillers
Mink DeVille – Return to Magenta
Morphine – Cure for Pain
War on Drugs – Lost in the Dream
southend
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Hell yeah! The outro to Tunnel of Love is maybe my favorite bit on any album ever
Eric K
You skip “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” , “Here Comes The Sun” and “Something” ?
I can never trust your opinion again…
Subsole
@Jeffro: I know, right? “Be a winner, eat to get slimmer”.
Some of my friends used to wrinkle their nose when I told ’em I loved Pop, but half the songs on that album were straight bangers. Velvet dress and Gone would have fit right in on Achtung Baby, and Staring at the Sun was straight up War-era U2.
Stay is still probably one of the prettiest songs they’ve ever done, though.
GeriUpNorth
@Immanentize: I grew up in a town that was west of a paper mill. Every now and then when there was an east wind we could smell the paper mill from 70 miles away.
Subsole
@WereBear: Upvote for King Crimson.
NotMax
@GeriUpNorth
Rolling Rock beer, before being bought up. was brewed in Latrobe, PA (a/k/a Latrine, PA), situated only a short distance downstream from a paper mill’s outlet pipes.
Subsole
@Red Hot Mess:
Loved Demon Days. Played just as well straight as stoned. The first one I kinda had to be high to listen to all the way through. Good album, just not as good as the second (M1A1 went fucking hard, though).
swiftfox
Supertramp – Crisis? What Crisis?
Pure Prairie League – Two Lane Highway
Chicago – VI (the rare Chicago album without filler)
Elton John – Honky Chateau The other “big” albums he released (Brick Road, Don’t Shoot Me, Caribou) all had some filler. After Caribou, the fame set in (Time magazine interview, Philadelphia Freedom, etc)
Jeffro
@Gravenstone: I break out Mindcrime about once a year and listen start to finish. =)
Immanentize
@Elizabelle: Ha!
Jeffro
@LeftCoastYankee:
I had Boys and Girls in America too, upthread…how perfect is that album?
Immanentize
@NotMax:
Home of Arnold Palmer.
BTW — one evening after drinking Rolling Rock, we decided we had to know what the hell “33” meant on the RR label. So we called Rolling Rock the next day….
Jeffro
@James E Powell: Morphine was just awesome The Night is my favorite of theirs, Cure for Pain is great too.
Subsole
@Drdavechemist: Upvote for Sade.
Also, I’m sorry but when you mentioned Huey Lewis I started imagining Pat Bateman’s apartment…
MomSense
@Immanentize:
When I was in high school a family friend gave me his brother’s album collection. His brother died in Vietnam. Oh my god there were two boxes full of the best albums. I remember pulling out Music From Big Pink first.
I still cannot have a rational discussion with my parents about getting rid of all my albums while I was away at school.
Benw
A few random ones I haven’t seen mentioned:
Rage Against the Machine – RATM
Social Distortion – any album
Kendrick – DAMN
Dixie Chicks – Home
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – TOM FUCKIN PETTY
Bad Religion – Suffer/No Control/Generator
Immanentize
@Jeffro: Saw them in Austin and in Boston. Best rock trio, perhaps, ever.
Mark Sandman? dead you know.
Immanentize
@MomSense: Why did they punish you so?
cope
Going by college memories of nigh L years ago, “Tea For The Tillerman” (noted a couple of times previously) and “Beggar’s Banquet” by the Stones.
john b
Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” for me.
Recently I’ve listened to Phoebe Bridger’s album Punisher a lot from start to finish. I usually listen to Kurt Vile albums all the way through because they have a very particular groove that sometimes I’m really into.
I usually listen to the older Destoyer albums all the way through. I guess there are quite a few artists whose albums work for me!
R-Jud
@kbuttle: Oh, good shout on Boxer.
danielx
Emmylou Harris – Wrecking Ball
Subsole
@Beatrice:
Yeah. Speaking of buyer’s remorse. Heard Peaches by the presidents of the US, bought the album, realized it should have been titled Hahasucker.
Funny enough, God Shuffled his feet, by the Crash Test Dummies, was actually pretty acceptable. Not great, but not unadulterated thievery masquerading as music.
@Elizabelle: YES! That album was sooooooo good. I still love listening to Queer and Stupid Girl. Also Dog New Tricks.
danielx
@MomSense:
That was cruel.
La Nonna
Emylou Harris “Wrecking Ball”
10,000 Maniacs MTV Live
Subsole
@Chat Noir: I was just listening to Driven to Tears. Hard agree about them breaking up at their pinnacle.
James E Powell
@Jeffro:
I feel lucky that I got to see Morphine twice. Sandman was really a remarkable guy.
Drdavechemist
@Subsole: oooh, I shouldn’t have let you point me down that rabbit hole. Guess I’m glad I never watched American Psycho…
Gravenstone
@Subsole:
Buddy of mine called Beck’s Loser his $15 single, because apparently the rest of the album sucked.
Taken4Granite
Late to this thread, but I have a few.
Simon and Garfunkel: Sound of Silence; Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme; Bookends
Paul Simon solo: Graceland, Surprise, So Beautiful or So What
America: their debut album
Beatles: Sgt. Pepper
Peter Gabriel: His first (car), third (melt), and fourth (Security) solo albums
Billy Joel: The Stranger, The Nylon Curtain
Alan Parsons Project: The Turn of a Friendly Card, Stereotomy, Gaudi
Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, The Division Bell
Suzanne Vega: her debut album, plus Solitude Standing
I’m sure I’m leaving a few out.
Danton
Boy, this will date me: East-West, Paul Butterfield Blue Band.
piratedan
@Immanentize: always preferred the Treat Her Right group, but still, hearing of Sandman’s passing really sucked, he had a wonderful expressive musical voice.
zhena gogolia
@Eric K:
The older I get the more I think George was the real genius.
zhena gogolia
@GeriUpNorth:
I went to college in a town with a paper mill. Ineffably stinky! But pretty town.
...now I try to be amused
Crosby, Stills, and Nash – (self-titled)
Joni Mitchell – Hejira
Chicago VII
Jean-Luc Ponty – Cosmic Messenger
Frank Zappa – Hot Rats
Al Di Meola – Elegant Gypsy
They Might Be Giants – (self-titled), Lincoln, Flood, Apollo 18
Mike Oldfield – Tubular Bells
Tosca Tango Orchestra – Waking Life soundtrack
trollhattan
@Danton:
Good one. Cannot have too much Butterfield and Bloomfield.
The inaugural albums by Devo, The Pretenders, Tom Petty and The Doors all hold up very well. IDK how that’s possible but it happens.
Mallard Filmore
If this thread is still active …
Music From The Body by Ron Geesin & Roger Waters
youtube.com/watch?v=9XefPICms3U
VeniceRiley
Shirley Horn’s “Here’s To Life”
google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk010-158blHhN1_rJxoizE09IRFUvw%3A1597773981608&source=hp&ei=nR…
EthylEster
@Immanentize:
White Bird, IIRC
Searcher
I buy most music digitally, but some artists I’ll buy on vinyl if I know I like them enough to listen to the whole album as a piece. Jethro Tull, Portishead, Lana del Rey, Enya, Luna, etc.
The Pale Scot
Currently?
Janelle Monáe’s Dirty Computer, the song Crazy, Classic Life is a great respite song
Bootsy Collins’ World Wide Funk Bass Rigged System
Danielle Miraglia’s Box of Troubles
Deee‐Lite’s World Clique
Dr. John’s Gumbo
Girl In A Coma’s Both Before I’m Gone
Actually, I don’t use Spotify or my phone for tunes. My collection is on an old Mac that is home networked. I use iTunes to access it on my other computers. And a USB flash for the car, so I am still in the 70’s as far as how I listen to music. But these albums are the ones I sure to listen thru to the en
Edited; And any SRV original album
Subsole
@BretH:
‘The last day of June 1934’ is such a beautiful song about such a hideous subject.
And there’s ALWAYS room on the playlist for Bonnie.
Jon Marcus
Re the title, beat you to it!
balloon-juice.com/2020/08/17/oleander-growing-outside-your-door/#comment-7818679
EthylEster
John Barleycorn Traffic
Subsole
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
AC/DC’s Powerage is classic.
I have listened to surprisingly little Zappa, though every interview I have ever seen leaves me impressed with the man himself.
Jesse
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band (you know)
Revival (Gillian Welch)
Pet Songs (Beach Boys)
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Elizabelle: Great minds think alike :-)
Immanentize
@EthylEster: You are so right! I knew that. Don’t know why I got it wrong….
Subsole
@narya:
American Beauty is aptly named, especially Ripple, Broke Down Palace, and Box of Rain. Loved Friend of the Devil and Candyman, could take or leave Truckin.
It would be a no skip, buuut…I just
could
not
do
Sugar Magnolia. At all.
Otherwise, my favorite album of theirs. I am not at all a fan of the Dead, and I would listen to that album on repeat when I was growing up.
Subsole
@trollhattan:
One thing I love about Revolver is that every song on that album can be played seamlessly on repeat, as can the entire album. Just delightfully meta. Also, Only Sleeping is one of my Top Three Beatles songs.
Another Scott
Donated!
Blue Sky Mining – Midnight Oil
Quadrophenia – The Who
100% Fun – Matthew Sweet
Acapella – Todd Rundgren
are a few. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
catbirdman
Anything by Elliott Smith.
Imperial Bedroom by Elvis Costello.
Subsole
@Yutsano: I got fucking chills on Death to My Hometown. Especially the very end.
American Idiot was another anthem of those times. Probably Greenday’s best – certainly my favorite of theirs.
namekarB
Pink Floyd – 1) Meddle 2) Dark Side of the Moon 3) Wish You Were Here
Maria Muldaur – Maria Muldaur
Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks – Last Train to Hicksville
Subsole
@Tony Jay:
Amy Winehouse. Lord, my friends and I had ‘Addicted’ on loop that year. Also loved ‘Eff Me Pumps’. Like you said, gone waaay too soon.
Subsole
A couple more:
Everclear, So Much for the Afterglow
Blind Melon
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@CaseyL: Graceland is an almost perfect album, yes. And I will add Sgt. Pepper to Revolver and Rubber Soul. Yes, I’m old too.
Subsole
@Gravenstone:
I would agree. Though I really like their more recent stuff.
Also re: Queensryche. ‘Bridge’ is fuckin’ grade A1 amazing. That is all.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
About five years ago when my mother died and I had to keep driving down after work on Friday (3-hour drive) to work on her house over the weekend (until I gave up on that and just took my annual vacation time), I would listen to the Grateful Dead Skull and Roses album, except for skipping The Other One. I know this doesn’t count, since I did skip one song, and it is a live album anyway, but boy did its rock’n’roll keep me cruising down the highway after a long day at work. Definitive version of Johnny B. Goode.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Elizabelle: Truth!
AdamK
@Jay C: Aja is still a marvel.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@MomSense: Remember when Sgt. Pepper was released? It was all anyone played for weeks. Constantly.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@NotMax: After college, I shared a house in Berkeley with several people and one guy played Dark Side of the Moon almost constantly. I hadn’t been that big a Pink Floyd fan, but man, I know that album by heart (and of course recognize it as a classic).
Steeplejack
Late to the thread. Saw it earlier and wanted to jump in, but I had to go perform my driving duties. Maybe too late now for my 2,000-word think piece on how technological advances in general and the Internet in particular have fragmented our music attention span (like everything else). So my “listen all the way through” albums skew older.
Selections from my list:
Moondance, Van Morrison.
Aja, Steely Dan.
The Turning Point, John Mayall.
Diamond Life, Sade.
Them Changes, Buddy Miles.
The Awakening, Ahmad Jamal.
Stormy Monday, Lou Rawls.
Love, Power, Peace: Live at the Olympia, Paris 1971, James Brown.
If I Could Only Remember My Name, David Crosby. (Move “Cowboy Movie” to the end.)
Santana (the first album).
6- and 12-String Guitar, Leo Kottke.
Kind of Blue, Miles Davis.
Steeplejack
@Elizabelle:
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere for me.
Steeplejack
@MomSense:
All of this is true. Plus (I think) even the earliest CD players let you program tracks in any order or just hit “Random,” and that started to break down the sanctity of the “album” as a unit.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Eric K: I have to defend the “skip George” option because that, too, is my inclination, except for Here Comes The Sun, which is just distilled joy.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
So many memories being unearthed in this thread. I love Buffalo Springfield, and all three of their albums are close to “all the way through” status for me. Hmm, haven’t listened to them in a while.
Just One More Canuck
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: did you hear the giraffe filled with whipped cream?
Steeplejack
@Immanentize:
Glad to hear the Immp has made a safe landing. I hope he has a wonderful college experience. He deserves it, after what he has been through.
Steeplejack
@WereBear:
?
Steeplejack
@Danton:
I stopped myself from mentioning A Long Time Comin’ by the Electric Flag.
Steeplejack
@VeniceRiley:
Pro tip: Never post a link straight from Google search. Click on through to the actual thing you want, and you’ll get a much more reasonable URL. E.g., Shirley Horn, “Here’s to Life.” youtube.com/watch?v=UTv3TONfTTQ
gratuitous
I’ll go with Bruce Cockburn’s “Humans” album and Bob Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks.”
I can’t believe a page search of the first 217 entries yields no hits for Dylan.
Steeplejack
@The Pale Scot:
Oh, yeah, Couldn’t Stand the Weather.
jame
Blood on the Tracks – B. Dylan
Traveling Wilburys
Steeplejack
@Jon Marcus:
Uh, earlier in that thread: “This is a set-up of course for a very relevant line from later in the song.”
David Brandon
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, by David Bowie
Ivan X
@Immanentize: Ooh, I gotta get!
I have a New Order vinyl (and CD!) collection that I have to imagine is one of the world’s most comprehensive. I was very, very obsessive at one point.
sxjames
Might as well throw my two cents in. Couple of pretty obvious ones
Cort ‘n Spark – Joni Mitchel
Dark side of the moon – Pink Floyd
Crosby, Still & Nash self titled first album
As several commenters have mentioned, I miss the day when an album was to be listed to has a whole.
Antonius
Songs for Drella – Lou Reed and John Cale
The Final Cut – Pink Floyd
Wish You Were Here – Pink Floyd
Magic and Loss – Lou Reed
Quadrophenia – The Who
Changeless – Keith Jarrett
Nebraska – Bruce Springsteen
Songs from the Wood – Jethro Tull
Pet Sounds – The Beach Boys
Catch a Bull at Four – Cat Stevens / Yusuf
Us – Peter Gabriel
Bridge Over Troubled Water – Simon and Garfunkel
Heroes – David Bowie
Another Green World – Brian Eno
The Heart of Saturday Night – Tom Waits
Obviously, I could go on.
misterpuff
Cat Stevens – Teaser and The Firecat (Fight Me!)
The Cure – Disintegration
Radiohead- The Bends
Porcupine Tree – Stupid Dream
Porcupine Tree – Anesthetize and Nil Recurring (EP) Although I have a secret mashup of those two I listen to more
Jethro Tull – Aqualung
Jethro Tull – Thick As A Brick
Yes – Close To The Edge
OK Computer would be on this list except for Fitter Happier. Kills the groove.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack:
With Dylan, I’m thinking Desire is a really good one to listen to all the way through.
lowcountryboil
So I’m a bit late in seeing this post and the comments, but I’ll throw my 2 cents in just because I still listen to albums in their entirety. I’ll toss out six albums I love from start to finish, one from each decade since the 1960’s, and (mostly) different styles:
1960’s: Bob Dylan, “Blonde on Blonde” (folk rock)
1970’s: Pink Floyd, “Dark Side of the Moon” (prog/blues)
1980’s: r.e.m., “Life’s Rich Pageant” (80’s Alternative)
1990’s: Talk Talk, “Laughing Stock” (ambient/jazz/fusion/post-rock)
2000’s: Death Cab for Cutie, “Transatlanticism” (Adult Alternative)
2010’s: Weyes Blood, “Titanic Rising” (Indie/Chamber Pop) (and, IMHO, the best album of the last several years).
There are so many others I could have listed, but these will do for now.
Jeffro
@Immanentize: yup, unfortunately. Died onstage in Italy a looong time ago. =(
Speaking of great trios with one unfortunately dead member: Secret Machines. I think the surviving 2 are (or at least, were, pre-pandemic) planning on getting it going again. Now Here Is Nowhere is fantastic.
Jeffro
@James E Powell: Indeed. 2 strings!!
Evan
This is a bizarre question to me. It’s like asking “what movies do you watch all the way through?”
An album that you don’t want to listen to all the way through is a bad album. Admittedly, some bad albums have good songs on them, and sometimes I like an individual song enough to give a bad album house room, but it’s the exception, not the rule. Of the hundreds of albums I own there’s maybe a dozen I don’t play all the way through.
TomatoQueen
@Immanentize: Particularly for their warm tone.
Bobby Thomson
I listen to most albums start to finish. That’s what the artists intended, and if they’re good, it shouldn’t be an issue. Didn’t realize that made an album extraordinary rather than acceptable.
Bobby Thomson
@Evan: This, man.
TomatoQueen
@The Moar You Know: I disagree with you, especially that clause with the beginning word “most”, and also point out that “songs” are one form, and may or may not stand alone. It’s not deliberate, I don’t think, but it happens that I don’t listen to music that involves gnats hunting breakfast or is otherwise labeled as suitable for download.
Beatrice
@jame: How could I forget Blood on the Tracks!
John Smallberries
Thick as a Brick
Southern Rock Opera
Aerial, the A Sky of Honey disc
J R in WV
Do not care for Paul Simon’s South Africa album, have a mix MP3 CD I included that album on, do not play it on account of Graceland. He stole all that music from Black African musicians.
So also not that fond of The Who.
Can listen to Pink Floyd, much of Dylan, most of Linda Ronstadt, Emmy Lou Harris, Lucinda Williams, in fact lots of Texas musicians like Willy. Trio albums are great. Doors are mostly great, John Prine, John Hartford, was lucky enough to see John Hartford at a tiny amphitheatre in Huntington WV, free show, plywood panel on the ground with its microphone for his softshoe he was great!
Pinetop Perkins, a great blues piano man, Stevie Ray Vaughn, some of Greatful Dead, not all, many of their live albums are less good because of their acid habit, live music needs concentration, not illumination.
Miles Davis, Mike Bloomfield, just so many jazz folks. Some of Dr John, not all, he too had a great career somewhat marred by his flaming drug use. Don’t get me wrong, I loved to get high at the shows, but I wasn’t playing, I was entranced by their music! All the blues Stones albums.
I’m gonna stop here, I loved classical music, only a dweeb would not listen to the 2nd movement of 3 or 4 movement classical works…
MCA1
Not answering Doug’s question, but this has to be the first time he’s ever used lyrics from the same song in two consecutive posts, right? I don’t know if all the typing chimpanzees in the imaginable universe would have ever randomly come up with Dotard talking about oleander at the same time he’s openly trying to sabotage the USPS. I mean, that’s amazing.
If he gets into a spat with Penn next week, and then on a flight to visit his buddy Bolsonaro, Air Force 1 has to make an emergency stop in Guadalajara, I think we can start treating Donald Fagen like some kind of demigod.
MCA1
This time covering Doug’s albums question, a few that come to mind:
Mo MacArbie
I listen to them all all the way through when I’m listening, though I do like the everything shuffle when working or driving. OK, multi-disc anthologies usually get loaded one disc at a time.
A handful of perfect albums, where my favorite song is the one that is playing:
Rush – Moving Pictures
King Crimson – Discipline
Talking Heads – Speaking in Tongues
Tom Petty – Wildflowers
Gillian Welch – The Harrow and the Harvest
Mom Says I*m Handsome
@Subsole:
That’s hilarious, I had precisely the opposite reaction. “God Shuffled His Feet” is terrible; in my music management software I moved “Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm” as a bonus track on the prior “Ghosts That Haunt Me” & deleted the rest of the album — gonna have to agree with you, “Not great” is apt.
OTOH, the first PoTUSA album not only contains “Peaches”, but also too “Kitty”, “Lump”, and my favorite “Dune Buggy.” I have a genre called Dork Rock and the Presidents are right in the middle of it.
But you know, tomato, potato.
Tim
O, the rare Perfect Album!
Shriekback’s Oil and Gold first comes to mind.
No One of Consequence
So late to the party on this one. However, I have been taking notes of everything here I missed or have not yet experienced yet. So thank you, dear Jackals, for the memories and tips.
Respectfully, I toss a couple more, with stunned astonishment these were not mentioned:
Prince – Rainbow Children
Dire Straits – Brothers in Arms (used to test every stereo system I ever set up, since it came out as the first CD to be digitally recorded, and digitally mastered, alledgedly)
Goodie MOB – Soul Food
The Decemberists – Crane Wife
Jethro Tull – Thick as a Brick
Stevie Ray Vaughn – Texas Flood
Lou Reed – New York (CANNOT BELIEVE no one mentioned this yet)
Blues Traveller – the first one
Led Zeppelin – Houses of the Holy
Rush – Moving Pictures
David Gilmour – first solo album
Follow For Now – first album
Fishbone – Truth and Soul
Keith Richards – Main Offender
Kelly Joe Phelps – Tunesmith Retrofit
Marvin Gaye – What’s Goin On
Robert Palmer – Sneaking Sally Through the Alley
Sublime – first album
Tommy Emmanuel – Center Stage
Stanley Clarke Trio – Jazz in the Garden
Rollins Band – Nice
Boz Skaggs – Greatest Hits Live
Colin Hay – Going Somewhere
Doobie Brothers – Stampede
Jamie Cullum – first album
Pete Townshend and Ronnie Lane – Rough Mix
Robert Plant and Allison Kraus – Raising Sand
Stephen Stills – Stills Alone
The Who – Who’s Next
Yes – Fragile
OK, I’ll stop. Thanks again everyone. Hope one of the above strikes someone’s fancy or is a new discovery for some of you.
Peace,
– NOoC
Tim
@Elizabelle: 1st 2 Furs, anyway.
Tim
@Evan: okay, but does every song, hell, every note, belong? Or so some tracks seem tossed- off placeholders?
Also, Ramones, Pleasant Dreams.
Tim
@Tim: do some. Not “so some”.
I hope this clears that up.
Also, Reed, The Blue Mask.
Tim
@Immanentize: I wanted to choose a Patti album; got it down to Horses or Easter.
Ben Cisco
Grover Washington Jr. – Mister Magic
David Sanborn – Straight To The Heart
Michael Franks – Sleeping Gypsy
George Benson – Breezin’
Steely Dan – Aja
The Crusaders – Those Southern Knights
mawado
1 Chuck Berry – The Great Twenty Eight. Yeah I know Greatest Hits are cheating, but how many artists can stack up 28 back to back and mean it?
2. Johnny Cash – American Recordings (You can swap out At Folsom Prison and I wouldn’t object.)
3. Willie Nelson – Yesterday’s Wine. Redneck concept album about the life story of “Imperfect Man”. Yeah, that’ll sell a few copies. Sub in Red Headed Stranger if you insist.
4 Queen Ida – On Tour – You gotta dance sometimes
5. Dave Alvin – Live in Austin TX
Martin Schafer
Honestly there are any number of old albums that I will listen to all the way through when I listen to them. The most recent album that I like every song on is
Mamamoo, Reality in Black
206inKY
Dead but amazing thread, so I’ll add:
Joni Mitchell’s Blue
Postal Service’s Give Up
Elliot Smith’s XO
Taylor Swift’s new album Folklore, which is honestly amazing.
waynel140
What albums do you like to listen to start to finish.
Let me add “Aja” to those who love it. Just an incredible album, start to finish.
Albatrossity
Blood on the Tracks – Dylan
Bookends – Simon and Garfunkel
cleek
Kind Of Blue, DSOTM, Abbey Road (you skip “Something” ????),