Perfect Albums

[lisarea]

Like, the ones you'd make mandatory if you were some kind of music despot. Things you wish you could make people listen to, things that get better every time you hear them.

My first one is Basehead's Play With Toys.

I am always telling people to buy this CD, but they almost never do. But it's so perfect, so beautiful, and so sublimely balanced, I don't understand why everyone doesn't have it already. It addresses serious political issues and social trends balanced with eloquent, self-effacing treatments of things from misogyny to the stages of grief to race relations to substance abuse. And it's funny as hell, too.

It starts out with an Intro by Jethro and the Graham Crackers singing their disturbingly catchy country-funk "I feel like being a sex machine" song. (You will sing this in the breakroom at work without realizing it.) Someone in the audience requests Copacabana...

"CopacaBANa? Oh, baby, this is soul night tonight. Can't you tell from that last song we played?"

The rest of the album touches on topics as diverse as substance abuse (2000 BC, Ode To My Favorite Beer), heartbreak and betrayal (Brand New Day, Not Over You, Hair), and the increasingly complex relationship among the media, gang culture, and the problems black urban youth are faced with every day (Better Days, Evening News, I Try, Play With Toys). People come and go, songs are interrupted with fourth wall commentary, brilliantly integrated sampling, and arguments and directions about the directions the songs are taking.

In Brand New Day, Michael Ivey starts out mournful:

My heart feels like its been over and over again on a rollercoaster ride,
And the things that I feel on the inside I wisely cover up with pride.
They say every cloud has a lining, but like the sky I am so blue,
Since the day the girl left me, just don't know what I'm going to do...

Lazy K, in fine best friend form, encourages him throughout to consider the positive apects of being single. Ivey waffles, and they go back and forth, listing benefits, "I don't have to hear no nagging..." "You can break wind whenever you damned well please!" interspersed with Ivey lapsing back into self-pity, which slowly escalates into outright anger.

Ivey: I think about it over and over, it's messed up and I'm all alone
So good at being faithful that I've got no backup ho
Lazy K: DAMN!
Ivey: I mean, I don't mean to be mean or chauvinistic or...
Lazy K: Well, then, don't be.

K urges him "Yo yo, cool out, we're trying to get played on the radio," as Ivey escalates the ho talk, encouraging him to focus on the positives, and eventually a chorus of caricature white guys joins in.

Ivey: Hey fellas?
White guy 1: What?
Ivey: The girl is gone!
WG1: Congratulations!
WG2: Hip hip hooray!

and the song devolves into a call and response about getting drunk till they turn blue, all over Ivey's sultry, melodic "It's a brand new da-aaay" until Lazy K breaks it up. "Yeah, that's it. Let's go to the next song."

And Ivey's pining again, over society's assumption that everyone alone is lonely, and his friends' accusations that he's not over his girl yet. "So everybody says that I'm sitting here missing you. But I'm sitting here cause sitting is what I choose." Lazy K says it's because he's all depressed and drunk all the time, and recommends listening to the radio for a while, to try to find something positive...

Always and Forever

"You trying to be funny and shit?"

Ain't No Sunshine

"MAN, what's wrong with you, man? You supposed to be my friend!"

The next station's playing Not Over You, so they segue back into the song. "So judge me true by what I say, not what I do. Why do folks continue to say that I'm not over you?"

In Better Days, Ivey sings about a boy who dreams about better times that for him will never come: a wife, kids, a 9-to-5 job, and a house in the suburbs. "The train that never comes, that never rising sun."

Television tells him that education is what he needs for the fulfillment of his dreams, "but hot damn. Someone forgot to teach him to read."

Ode to My Favorite Beer is the most soulful and heartfelt ode to beer in popular music today, and if you listen casually, it sounds like a love song to a person. Progressively drunker throughout the song, K endorses it because "it...uh...expresseded the feelings within me that, you know, I don't, uh, have the ability to express for my own self..."

Hair is Ivey's protracted and detailed accusation of infidelity, based on the evidence that his girlfriend's hair is all fucked up, like it's been banging on someone's headboard.

In Evening News, Lazy K wants to know why they're sitting around watching that Three's Company shit, and switches to the news, prompting Ivey to ponder why black people kill each other--why his people always seem to end up "just another brother on the evening news." They go back and forth, until finally, Lazy K asks "So, what's the solution to the problem?" Another guy argues that, "It's a complex situation, and there isn't a simple solution that a simple song can provide!" They go back and forth some more, escalating until Lazy K calls him a bitch because he's got a high voice like a bitch. "Just cause you sound like Barry White don't mean I'm no damned BITCH!" Meanwhile, in the background, they're now singing another unfortunately catchy tune: "Do that dance! Shake that shit! Shake that motherfucking shit! Shake it like a white girl! Shake that shit! Shake it like a white girl with real big tits!"

"Yeah, motherfucker, I'll fuck you up!"

"Bitch, fuck with this."

BLAM BLAM! [silence.]

"See? what'd I tell you man?"

It's heavy from there on in. I Try is all despair and finding shreds of hope to cling to, Play With Toys, violence. "Didn't mama tell you not to play with guns and knives? They cut so dee-ee-eep."

Then Jethro and the Graham Crackers are back in the Outro, singing a twangy hillbilly version of the chorus of Play with Toys, then they segue into a love song to that pretty little girl, sitting right over there next to that big fat man with the big bald head:

A country boy like me
A beautiful woman like you
Imagine us two
Your body and mine
Butt-naked and intertwined
Sixty-nine...

"SIXTY-NINE? Ain't that your woman he's singing about?"

And they sing an improvised goodbye "...this is where the show ends, hope that y'all come back again." and beat a hasty retreat to the sound of enraged hillibillies cocking their guns.

Go buy the danged album please. If you don't, I'll probably come back later and tell you why you have to buy Frank Black's Teenager of the Year.

And the puppy gets it, too.

[Ensign Steve]

I think the PERFECT album is System of a Down's "Steal This Album." That is because I love every single fucking track on that album. Every single one. When I listen to it, every time a new song begins to play, I go, "Oh My God I Fucking Love This Song!" That's what a perfect album is to me.

[slimshady2357]

I think the PERFECT album is System of a Down's "Steal This Album." That is because I love every single fucking track on that album. Every single one. When I listen to it, every time a new song begins to play, I go, "Oh My God I Fucking Love This Song!" That's what a perfect album is to me.

Hey! That's what I thought as soon as I read the title of the thread! Not about System of a Down, but that a perfect album to me is one where I love every song.

Gentle Giant's Three Friends, Iron Maiden's Somewhere in Time, Black Sabbath's Paranoid, Nirvana's In Utero, Metallica's Master of Puppets... those are a few I can think of right now. I think I would even go with Gentle Giant's first 7 albums! :eek: But Three Friends is my favorite :)

There are certainly more and there are even particular songs that I probably like better than any song off those albums, but each of those albums is greatness, front to back, in my opinion :yup:

Adam

[viscousmemories]

Great OP, lisa. I don't even know who Basehead is, but now I'm interested.

I love Rush 2112. One whole side of the album is a collection of different songs that make up one story... a dystopian tale about a future where music production is the sole domain of the elite Priests of the Temple of Syrinx. The other side is just some cool songs, like Passage to Bangok and Twilight Zone.

I love just about every song on No Doubt's Rock Steady album.

I love both of Fiona Apple's albums.

Hmm...

There are just too many albums I like, I think. Have a hard time picking any favorites.

[beyelzu]

almost anything by this guy particularly murder ballads and henry's dream (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1819)


although my favorite nick cave song is probably mercy seat,

my favorite cd has to be henry's dream featuring the best drinking song, brother, my cup is empty, and what I think is Nick's version of footprints in the sand, papa wont leave you henry.

[John Carter]

The perfect album is Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.

Honorable mentions go to the Allman Brothers Band's Live at the Fillmore, Frank Zappa's Apostrophe and Overnight Sensation, The Who's Who's Next, and Santana's Abraxas.

[Crumb]

Hmm JC, I think The Wall is better than dark side of the moon. I haven't listened to dark side as much, but that's because it just never "grabbed" me like The Wall did.

[viscousmemories]

I thought of Dark Side of the Moon too. But I didn't want to say it because in all honesty I think every Pink Floyd album is perfect, so I wasn't comfortable selecting just one. I had The Wall in its entirety memorized when I was about 15-16. I think One of My Turns is probably my favorite song on that album, but again its hard to choose just one.

[Crumb]

I memorized it too when I was a youngin'. :thumbup:

[justaman]

Korn - Life is Peachy - If you don't understand teenage depression, this is an album to get your ass learned.

Bathory - Blood on Ice - A nordic-metal CD where each song is a link in a fantasy story. Just...wow.

Amici - Forever - A commerical 'opera band'. If you've never had goose-bumps listening to a song, there's a good half-a-dozen in this one that'll do it.

*goes looking for an ipod*

[Zoot]

Paradise Lost's album "One Second"

NIN's "The Downward Spiral"

KMFDM's "Symbols"

The Tea Party's "Splendor Solis"

[justaman]

Am I the only person in the world who passionately dislikes Pink Floyd? When I hear their shit I hear gay cowboys eating pudding. It's a bunch of dudes jamming in their garage with joints hanging precariously from their lips. It's like why people laugh at David Letterman. It's not because he's exceptionally funny, they just want to laugh to associate themselves with something seen as 'cool'.

I laugh at David Letterman, incidentally.

[viscousmemories]

Is it safe to assume you've never done psychedelic drugs, justaman?

[Crumb]

But Dave Letterman is funny. :scratch:

[Zoot]

Am I the only person in the world who passionately dislikes Pink Floyd? When I hear their shit I hear gay cowboys eating pudding. It's a bunch of dudes jamming in their garage with joints hanging precariously from their lips. It's like why people laugh at David Letterman. It's not because he's exceptionally funny, they just want to laugh to associate themselves with something seen as 'cool'.

I both like Pink Floyd and think David Letterman is inherently hilarious. I honestly don't think the people who are laughing at him understand how brilliant he is.

[justaman]

I both like Pink Floyd and think David Letterman is inherently hilarious. I honestly don't think the people who are laughing at him understand how brilliant he is.
I agree, but that doesn't mean masses of gum-chewing John Q. Taxpayers aren't laughing to make themselves look cool.

vm
Nah, dude, the best I've had is pot and my experiences with that could hardly be called psychedelic. I found it barely psychotropic, in all honesty. But if one needs to be smacked-up to enjoy Pink Floyd, one must question their inherant talent... :P

[viscousmemories]

vm
Nah, dude, the best I've had is pot and my experiences with that could hardly be called psychedelic. I found it barely psychotropic, in all honesty. But if one needs to be smacked-up to enjoy Pink Floyd, one must question their inherant talent... :P
Ah, I suspected as much. It may not be the case that one needs to have had some experience with psychedelic drugs to appreciate Pink Floyd, but I don't think I've ever met anyone who has tried psychedelic drugs and doesn't. :colors:

[justaman]

I wonder if there is some connection between psychedelic drugs and poor music taste? That might explain this observation...
:think:

[John Carter]

Ohhhhkay... you list a "nordic-metal" band and Korn, yet you complain about others having poor taste. justaman, you owe me a new irony meter!

[Zoot]

Paul Schafer: NOT FUNNY.

Dave needs to shoot him.

[justaman]

Ohhhhkay... you list a "nordic-metal" band and Korn, yet you complain about others having poor taste. justaman, you owe me a new irony meter!
I have a very broad taste, thank you very much Sarcasmatron, which includes not only those terribly fantastic examples I have already listed, but also a plethora of other genres also. I daresay I probably like some of what you like. That being the case, not only do I share your taste in music, but I like more on top of it. That makes me THAT much better than you.

I just preclude Pink Floyd from my list is all.

:hmph:

[John Carter]

Since I don't see how you can know what my total range of musical taste is, your assumptions are not necessarily good ones. Or are you a mind reader? And if you really think that having eclectic tastes makes you somehow better than me then 1) you can kiss my ass and 2) there's really not much point in talking to you at all.

[Zoot]

There's no such thing as good or bad taste outside of the context of someone's taste.

I liked Korn back in the day. I'm fine with enjoying music that many other people like. Shoots and Ladders was a fun track.

[John Carter]

There's no such thing as good or bad taste outside of the context of someone's taste.


I agree, Zoot. That was part of the point I was trying to make to justaman earlier. Unfortunately, I seem to have been a bit too subtle for him.

[livius drusus]

Either that or he was less than entirely seriously. I thought the Sarcasmatron thing was pretty funny at any rate. Then again, I also think Letterman is uneven -- often hilarious, but pathologically incapable of letting a failed bit go -- so what do I know?

But enough about nothing. Perfect albums, let's see... I think Garbage Version 2.0 and Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP might well be in the ballpark.

[kensloft]

Jeezus! You guys have killed Po'r Pink Floyd. I am loathe to entertain the favourite album category because it will get stomped on but that is your problem not mine.

Just to keep you on your toes, and not mine, I will venture there are three albums that I have conslidated into an ear and head full of...

Donovan www.mellencamp.com/tour.htm He is about to tour with mellancamp this year in the next couple of months.

Rubber Soul by the beatles

Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band.

On the anniversary of the destructon of the towers in New York I was given the image of a quiet, sad, suffering people remembering their fallen friends. In the background of this image is the blaring music of the Beatles reminding us that life goes on and we should go on for their benefit and the benefit of those that are still having to go on with life. It wasn't the news gatherers' editing but the music that permeated the streets of N.Y. Eerie but a sign that America is healing.

[SharonDee]

Am I the only person in the world who passionately dislikes Pink Floyd?NO, you are most emphatically not! In fact, I think I love you. :snogging:

Of course, my reasons for hating Pink Floyd have less to do with their reputed talent and more to do with my husband's obsession with them. He spent years constantly playing the shit, filling my uninterested ears with tales of Roger Waters' and David Gilmore's creative differences and how that one song--I forget which one and really, who cares?--is about their nutso ex-band member Sid. I know more about that one band than I care to know about my own favorite bands.

I laugh at David Letterman, incidentally. Well, that was a short-lived romance. :sadcheer:

[Shake]

Two words: Tool - Lateralus

'nuff said.

[Dingfod]

You are all going to make fun of me even more than you already do. I love discovering an album because of one song and finding that is good from beginning to end. Matthew Wilder's I Don't Speak The Language was one of these. INXS' Kick, Cheap Trick's In Color, and most anything by ELO or Moody Blues were others. I won't mention that light red Lloyd with an F instead of an L group because it might make SharonDee mad.

I could keep going: The Police's Sychronicity or The Cars' Candy-O.

[John Carter]

Either that or he was less than entirely seriously. I thought the Sarcasmatron thing was pretty funny at any rate.


Uh huh. Well, I guess that tells me all I need to know. Good bye.

[livius drusus]

Oookay... I'm sorry if I offended you. I just didn't think he was being serious is all. :shrug:

[Roland98]

NIN's "The Downward Spiral"

I like that one, but I prefer "Pretty Hate Machine." Maybe I'm a sucker for the classics. :)

I will plug once again Toad the Wet Sprocket--"Pale." I'd have said "Dulcinea" except there's one song on there that makes me want to shoot my CD player whenever I hear it. But the rest are good.

[Petra]

I agree with some of the picks here - Tool, Tea Party, NIN, Police, Nick Cave, Allman Bros, etc. Can't remember what else was mentioned, and there's some I've never heard of, but will go on a mission to look for.

I'd like to add John Coltrane's Blue Train, The Clash's London Calling, The Sex Pistols Never Mind The Bollocks, Tool's Aenima, Miles Davis' Birth of Cool, Led Zeppelin's III, Physical Graffiti and Presence, Velvet Underground's Loaded, Pat Metheny's As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls, UK Squeeze's Cool for Cats, Tricky's Maxinquaye and Blowback, Nina Simone's High Priestess of Soul, Issac Hayes Hot Buttered Soul, Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, Happy Mondays' Thrills, Pills & Bellyaches, KLF's White Room, John Williams performs Bach and Scarlatti, Brand New Heavies Shelter, Nirvana's Nevermind, Supergroove's Traction...


I could go on and on - I'm such a boring old trout. :chuckle:

[TomJoe]

Duran Duran - The Wedding Album (1993)

Blues Traveler - Travelers and Thieves (1991)

Simon & Garfunkle - Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970)

The Doors - The Doors (1967)

[seebs]

Ah, I suspected as much. It may not be the case that one needs to have had some experience with psychedelic drugs to appreciate Pink Floyd, but I don't think I've ever met anyone who has tried psychedelic drugs and doesn't. :colors:

Never done anything generally considered "drugs", very fond of Floyd. I would agree that DSOTM is probably one of the Perfect Albums.

I also nominate the first Conjure One album.

[justaman]

Since I don't see how you can know what my total range of musical taste is, your assumptions are not necessarily good ones. Or are you a mind reader? And if you really think that having eclectic tastes makes you somehow better than me then 1) you can kiss my ass and 2) there's really not much point in talking to you at all.
Do you often get told to lighten up? I'm suggesting it now, regardless.
:bonk:

[Zoot]

I'd choose Downward Spiral over Pretty Hate Machine mainly cos I like the whole theme aspect, the recurring melodies and the album kind of telling a story. I definitely prefer Terrible Lie to Heresy, and my habit of skipping Heresy continued long past me being Christian.

There's not a track on Nevermind by Nirvana that I don't really like. I also like all of Mellon Collie, for reasons similar to Downward Spiral.

OH! And "Hit and Run Holiday" by My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult.

Fuck, that album is the feelgood album of the universe.

[Ensign Steve]

My favorite Tool album is Aenema. The most perfect part about it is that the weirdo non-music tracks are their own tracks, not tacked on to the beginning of a real song. So if you feel like having the epic album experience (like if you're fucking or high) you can just let it play, but if you just feel like listening to music, you can skip ahead easily.

[D. Scarlatti]

Gentle Giant's Three Friends ... I think I would even go with Gentle Giant's first 7 albums! But Three Friends is my favorite.

Hell, that's not something you hear too often. I think Stephen Maturin is the only other guy I ever heard mention Gentle Giant on a discussion board before. Out of those I might pick The Power and the Glory. Or In A Glass House. Or Interview. Or Octopus. Or ... yeah those guys were good. I saw them a couple of times in the late 70s. They were something else live too.

[Ymir's blood]

Alice In Chains: Dirt
Blue Öyster Cult: Agents of Fortune, Spectres, Secret Treaties, Imaginos
Collide: Some Kind of Strange
Fleetwood Mac: Rumours
Garbage: self titled
Metallica: Ride the Lightning - I didn't list Master Of Puppets since the second half isn't as good as the first four songs, IMO.
Motörhead: Orgasmatron
Pink Floyd: The Wall - I would have listed Dark Side Of the Moon except I can't stand the song Money
Rhea's Obsession: Between Earth and Sky
Rob Zombie: Hellbilly Deluxe, The Sinister Urge
Stabbing Westward: Darkest Days
Switchblade Symphony: Serpentine Gallery
The Crüxshadows: Ethernaut
The Sins Of Thy Beloved: Perpetual Desolation
Tom Petty: Full Moon Fever
Type O Negative: World Coming Down - I didn't list Bloody Kisses as there are too many 'joke' tracks.
White Zombie: La Sexorcisto (Devil Music), Astro Creep 2000

[D. Scarlatti]

Miles Davis' Birth of the Cool

Oh yes.

[copiae]

The Tea Party's "Splendor Solis"

I really like that album, especialy the instrumental pieces,

although my perfect album would probably have to be The Tea Party - The edges of twilight.



The Hellsing OST albums get a worthy mention as well.

[Crumb]

Just posting to second the following:

NIN: Pretty Hate Machine
Pink Floyd: The Wall
Nirvana: Nevermind
Tom Petty: Full Moon Fever

[Zoot]

Copiae, what's your favourite Tea Party song? Mine's definitely Sun Going Down.

[xouper]

Is this the thread where we get to bash each other's favorites?

I couldn't tell from the thread title.

[Zoe]

Is this the thread where we get to bash each other's favorites?



No, it's where we celebrate them. :listenin:

[slimshady2357]

Gentle Giant's Three Friends ... I think I would even go with Gentle Giant's first 7 albums! But Three Friends is my favorite.

Hell, that's not something you hear too often. I think Stephen Maturin is the only other guy I ever heard mention Gentle Giant on a discussion board before. Out of those I might pick The Power and the Glory. Or In A Glass House. Or Interview. Or Octopus. Or ... yeah those guys were good. I saw them a couple of times in the late 70s. They were something else live too.

I'm very envious! I'm too young to have seen them in concert, when they were finishing around the start of the eighties, I was only 7 :) But I would have LOVED to go to a concert. A friend's dad introduced us to GG and he told us about the concert he saw. I hear they were just as good in concert and that they played a phenomenal amount of different instruments.

In A Glass House, Free Hand, Octopus, sheesh, I can't name a bad album until Giant for a Day and even that had a couple of great songs, it's only disappointing in comparison to the others!

Any idea where someone could get some concert footage of them?

Adam

[D. Scarlatti]

Any idea where someone could get some concert footage of them?

I'm glad you asked, since I just found this DVD (http://www.gentlegiantmusic.com/ggm.html). Gotta get that.

Lots of other stuff at this site (http://www.blazemonger.com/GG/). According to the list, the gigs I saw were 2/22/77 and 10/12/77.

[Shake]

Stabbing Westward: Darkest Days

Wow! Somebody else who really loved this album!

[Roland98]

Forgot Counting Crows: August and Everything After and This Desert Life; there really aren't any songs on either of those that I dislike. And Cracker: Cracker. David Lowery's sarcasm always cheers me up.

[TomJoe]

And Cracker: Cracker. David Lowery's sarcasm always cheers me up.

Definitely. Add this one to my list as well.

When I first bought Kerosene Hat, the guy at the counter told me that their self-titled CD was really awesome. I picked it up a couple of weeks later (was a poor college student at the time ... didn't have the cash to buy it then) and found that the guy was spot on. That album is definitely a "perfect album".

[Clutch Munny]

There are many, many, many. I'll second Warrenly's vote for INXS Kick, because I think it's not an obvious choice in some ways. That album is a perfection of a musical style they were working on, unifying pop hooks with the idea that every single instrument counts as percussion. I love that sound, and it's really done a post-grunge disappearing act from the mainstream. Even when the songs on Kick are a little on the ordinary side, there's something quite singular about the sharp rhythmic use of sax, strings, and of course guitar -- INXS used the guitar in really interesting percussive ways.

Other unlikely candidates, to my ear and recollection:

Gerry Rafferty, City to City. Nothing terribly deep here, but some great melodies, and the production and musicianship are unbelievable. Perfect in the sense that, if you like any one of these songs, you'll find the album a seamless collection of songs like that.

Dire Straits, Love Over Gold. Before Knopfler started really aiming at monster hit material. The songs are often slow, but gorgeous. (And Industrial Disease is still damned funny.) There are throwaway guitar fills in these songs more evocative than most guitarists' carefully designed solos.

Don Henley, Building the Perfect Beast. This whole album is smart, and again a triumph of complex production. Henley can be whiny and preachy, but it comes across as sincerity and cleverness here. Even though some of the synth-sounds tell you almost to the month when in the 80s the songs were recorded, they're still pretty good sounds -- and anyway the strength of the songs is in the writing.

[Clutch Munny]

Ooo, more...

Charlie Mingus, Mingus Ah Um. If you don't like jazz, it might be because you've only listened to shitty jazz. Try this. The whole thing is amazing, and Goodbye Pork Pie Hat is about as good as music gets. Really. It's that good.

The Pursuit of Happiness, Love Junk. I dunno about perfect, but every melody is pop candy (especially with the stacked harmonies of the women in the band), while Moe Berg's lyrics are sharp, personal, and hilarious all at once. When a song is called Consciousness Raising as a Social Tool, but you find yourself singing it while driving, you know somebody's got their musical shit together.

[Roland98]

REM, Automatic for the People.

So "Kick" is that good, huh? I know a lot of the songs but don't have the CD. Might have to pick that one up.

[viscousmemories]

Okay, I'll stop worrying about "perfect" and respond as if it's just "albums you really like a lot":

Tea for the Tillerman, by Cat Stevens

3 Years, 5 Months, and 2 Days in the Life of..., by Arrested Development

So, by Peter Gabriel

Fear of a Black Planet, by Public Enemy

Abbey Road, and The Beatles (The White Album), by The Beatles.

I Care Because You Do, by Aphex Twin (except Ventolin... god I hate that song)

Music Has the Right to Children, by Boards of Canada

Black Celebration, by Depeche Mode

Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful World, by Johnny Clegg and Savuka

Honestly anything by Prince, Laurie Anderson, Peter Gabriel, Tori Amos, Sarah McLaughlan, Aphex Twin, Simon and Garfunkle, the Beatles...



and I'll second these:

Pretty Hate Machine, by NIN

The Marshall Mathers LP, by Eminem

Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, by The Beatles

Synchronicity, by The Police

Nevermind, by Nirvana

Kick, by INXS (which I haven't heard in 15 years)

[copiae]

Copiae, what's your favourite Tea Party song? Mine's definitely Sun Going Down.

At the moment I am partial to 'Shadows on the Mountainside' and Turn the lamp down low' (although that is subject to change), hence my nomination of the Edges of Twilight. Incidentally, I havent had a chance to hear their newer stuff (after Transmission).. Do you know if its any good?



I'd also like to nominate the Fragile, by NiN.

[Zoot]

Copiae,

Some of it's okay, but I prefer their older stuff.



I just remembered my all time favourite album, which is Body Blow by the Headless Chickens, but they're a Kiwi band and probably no one here has heard of them or it.

[livius drusus]

Hey, lunachick ain't no one.

[Adam]

I don't know if there's any such thing as a perfect album, but I listen to these ones without skipping any tracks:

Automatic for the People - R.E.M.
Scarlet's Walk - Tori Amos
When the Pawn... - Fiona Apple
Achtung Baby - U2
Haunted - Poe

[viscousmemories]

When the Pawn... - Fiona Apple
Yeah, I said both of Fiona Apple's albums 'cause I feel the same way about both of them. For prosperity's sake, the actual title of When the Pawn is:


When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Like a King
What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight
And He'll Win the Whole Thing 'Fore He Enters the Ring
There's No Body To Batter When Your Mind is Your Might
So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand
And Remember That Depth is the Greatest of Heights
And If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where to Land
And If You Fall It Won't Matter, Cuz You'll Know That You're Right


I've also heard five tracks from her newest album Extraordinary Machine, which has been completed and sitting on a shelf in Sony's office for over a year. Apparently they don't feel there's a marketable single on it. :glare:

[xorbie]

I can't say I've ever heard a perfect album. I'm generally not an album type guy. That said, these are albums I really enjoyed:

Brother Ali Shadows on the Sun
Guster Lost and Gone Forever
Jay Z Reasonable Doubt, Blueprint

[Crumb]

Do you guys think the album as an artistic unit is on its way to obsolesence in this age of iTunes and one hit wonders? I have a feeling that most 'albums' released these days are just a pile of songs.

[xorbie]

Not necessarily, but it certainly is getting there.

[viscousmemories]

I can't believe I forgot:

License to Ill, by the Beastie Boys

[TomJoe]

Gordon - Barenaked Ladies

[Roland98]

Gordon - Barenaked Ladies

Huh. That's actually low on my list of favorite BNL albums.

[Petra]

Charlie Mingus, Mingus Ah Um.

Oooh, I forgot about that one. I'll add Mingus' Pithecanthropus Erectus, too. :yup:


Also, Springsteen's The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle and Tim Buckley's Greetings from LA.


And hey, Zoot - yeah, I ain't no one! Headless Chickens are pretty cool, but I admit to not having heard a complete album by them.

[TomJoe]

Gordon - Barenaked Ladies

Huh. That's actually low on my list of favorite BNL albums.

To each their own I suppose.

[Sweetie]

U2 - Achtung Baby

I know it's old but it grew on me and I'm still attached to it. "Love is Blindness" and "So Cruel."

Nirvana - not sure which one though. I just know I could listen to the whole album over and over again, my sister-in-law used to play it all the time but haven't heard it for so long.

And I'll admit, I like some country particularily Jodee Messina's "I'm Alright."

All I can think of at the moment, these days and for the last few years I've been into compilation, I like such a wide range of music.

Don't like Pink Floyd, thought I'd back us outsiders up, lol. I remember in High School a couple of my friends were obsessed when the movie "Pink Floyd: The Wall" came out, they'd watch it once a week. I think they got me to sit through half of it, it's like :indifferent:.

[Adam]

I've also heard five tracks from her newest album Extraordinary Machine, which has been completed and sitting on a shelf in Sony's office for over a year. Apparently they don't feel there's a marketable single on it. :glare:

While I haven't heard any of the tracks*, the fact that it's been sitting unpublished has irked me since I first read about it. I needs me some new Fiona, dammit! I'm also frustrated by the fact that another of my favorite artists, Poe, is apparently disallowed from publishing for the time being due to some sort of contract dispute with her label.

* I know they're available for download, but I have a weird thing going on where I like to go out and buy an album I've been anticipating the day it's released and listen to it as a unit, without having previewed it via download. Call me weird.

[Adam]

Do you guys think the album as an artistic unit is on its way to obsolesence in this age of iTunes and one hit wonders? I have a feeling that most 'albums' released these days are just a pile of songs.

Nah. There've always been one hit wonders, and it's never been the case that every album, or even most albums, have been coherent units. We may see more user-friendly distribution of the one hit wonder stuff, but I don't think that the occaisional cohesive album is going anywhere.

[viscousmemories]

I know they're available for download, but I have a weird thing going on where I like to go out and buy an album I've been anticipating the day it's released and listen to it as a unit, without having previewed it via download. Call me weird.
You're weird. I understand, though. I just couldn't wait any longer. :)

[TomJoe]

Grace - Jeff Buckley