Your 'TOP 5' albums of all time. (1 Viewer)

[Aaron Silverman]

Can't do it. But I'll list 5 unquestionable "desert island" discs that haven't yet been mentioned (after all, it doesn't really matter what any of our favorites are -- the value of these lists is to introduce others to great music they may not already know!).


Pete Townshend - Empty Glass

Mr. So & So - Compendium

Rush - Permanent Waves (No, THIS disc has the best song of all time! )

Metallica - Master of Puppets

Iron Maiden - Powerslave


And because I'm lazy, 5 more:


Dream Theater - Images & Words

Spock's Beard - Um, could be any of their first 3 albums. . .not gonna figure it out now

Voivod - The Outer Limits

Yes - The Yes Album

Marillion - Misplaced Childhood (close call between this and Clutching At Straws)


Favorite live album: Iron Maiden - Live after Death


Favorite recent discovery: Myrath - Desert Call


Favorite Soundtrack: Velvet Goldmine

 

[Greg_S_H]

Originally Posted by gene c

Ammonia Avenue: I'll have to give that a closer listen. I'm stuck on the other two, plus Eve.

I hope you'll enjoy it. I think it qualifies as underrated.

One of my criteria was albums that have no bad cuts. Albums I can play the grooves out of (to use an obsolete term) and not skip over songs I don't like. This eliminates some otherwise fine discs. (And even on the submitted list, I bent the rule.

I bent the rule with Houses of the Holy. It's weird that it's my favorite Zeppelin album, because I don't much like the Crunge and D'yer Mak'er is kind of played out. Most of their other albums, I like stem to stern. I consider The Song Remains the Same to be the song that really defines everything that Zeppelin is, so maybe it's what pulls the album way up for me.


Also, I would add Gerry Rafferty's City to City and Al Stewart's Time Passages to any list of albums that you can listen to from start to finish without having to skip. A more recent album like that is Brian Burns' Heavy Weather.

 

[JeremyR]

Originally Posted by Greg_S_H




Also, I would add Gerry Rafferty's City to City

That's a good one there...

 

[JeremyR]

Originally Posted by Aaron Silverman


I wanted to dance to this soooo badly at our wedding. But there is some risque language in the song that my wife thought might cause permanent damage to the elderly.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Already I'm thinking that maybe I should've gone with Nothingface over The Outer Limits (I know most Voivod fans would). . .

 

[JeremyR]

Almost forgot about Fleetwood Mac - Rumours and Genesis - Invisible Touch


I also wonder if I could survive on a desert island without Pearl Jam - Yield




And I listed MJ-Thriller, however if I'm limited to one MJ album, I'd have to go with Dangerous. Two of my three favorite MJ songs were on this album (Will You Be There, Give In To Me) This was his best album IMO, and had, far and away, my favorite song from him.






Really.. it's tough to beat MJ and Slash on the stage together.

 

[Greg_S_H]

 

No, no, no... THIS is the greatest song of all time.

 



 



 

I wanted to dance to this soooo badly at our wedding.  But there is some risque language in the song that my wife thought might cause permanent damage to the elderly. 
 

 

With the smiley, I really thought I was going to be Rickrolled. Yeah, Miracles is dirty. The local student-run radio used to play it unaltered to my mild amusement, until they decided to edit their collection with a meat cleaver. They cut the entire section of "Sunshine" where it says, "He can't even run his own life, I'll be damned if he'll run mine," and "Abracadbra" says, "Black . . . with an angel's face." They missed the fadeout on "Start Me Up." As for Miracles, I like it, but "Count On Me" is the reigning champ of JS pop songs.

 

[Craig S]

Good thread. Like most here, my list would change from day to day. The easy part is my Number One album, because it hasn't changed in over 40 years (sue me):


The Beatles: Abbey Road


Here's the other 4 (today's version, that is) in no particular order:


George Harrison: All Things Must Pass

Bruce Springsteen: Born To Run

Mike Oldifeld: Ommadawn

Paul Simon: Hearts And Bones


And lots of honorable mentions (many of which were mentioned above)


The Beatles: The Beatles (The White Album)

The Beatles: Please Please Me

Lindsay Buckingham: Out Of The Cradle

Bob Dylan: Blood On The Tracks

Fleetwood Mac: Tusk (Ok, Rumours is the better album, but Tusk was so damn audacious. I love it.)

Genesis: The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway

Elton John: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Paul McCartney & Wings: Band On The Run

Sally Oldfield: Water Bearer

Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here

Queen: A Night At The Opera

R.E.M.: Out Of Time

Linda Ronstadt: Hasten Down The Wind

Rush: Moving Pictures

Steely Dan: The Royal Scam

Al Stewart: A Beach Full Of Shells

Stevie Wonder: Songs In The Key Of Life

Yes: Close To The Edge

Warren Zevon: Warren Zevon


Observations on other picks in the thread:


Neil Young: Decade


My personal rule is that compilations don't belong in lists like this, but this one is the exception, Greatest single-act compilation of all time, IMO. The selections are perfectly chosen and sequenced. Neil's pithy liner notes are the icing on the cake. A close second: This Is The Moody Blues. Fantastic sequencing including artful blending of the cuts. Both of these play not as a rundown of hits, but as richly rewarding listening experiences on their own. They are essential, even if you own all the original albums. Best multi-act compilation: the American Graffiti soundtrack. If you have room in your collection for only one example of late 50s-early 60s pop music, this is the one.


ELO: Out Of The Blue


It warms my heart to see so many pick this gem. ELO never made profound music, but in the mid-70s they put out four straight albums (Eldorado, Face The Music, A New World Record, and OotB) chock full of the most delectible ear candy you'd ever want to hear. I wouldn't be without any of 'em. And let's not forgot their unsung early-80s masterpiece Time, which was of equal quality to the 4 above.

Also, I would add Gerry Rafferty's City to City and Al Stewart's Time Passages to any list of albums that you can listen to from start to finish without having to skip.

Agreed on both. I must add that Al continues to make great music decades after his last chart success. He still writes tuneful, literate songs (often based on historical events and fugures) and wraps them in tasteful, understated arrangements. I chose to highlight one of his more recent release in my list above. It's as good as Year Of The Cat and Time Passages.

 

[JeremyR]

You know... 5 is really too few. On the deserted island I'm really going to need Herb Alpert - Rise as well.

 

[Pete York]

Originally Posted by Joseph DeMartino

...

BTW, I've noticed that we have (for the most part) omitted "greatest hits" and other retrospective packages, which I think is fair. I think albums that were conceived, recorded and released as albums should be compared to one another. "Best of" and "Greatest Hits" collections that cherry pick the strongest songs from a half-dozen albums across a decade or more have an unfair advantage.

Regards,


Joe

I thought the same thing, we're sort of saluting the effort of building something from scratch more or less, which is why it was pretty easy for me to get rid of the Smiths' album of B-sides and such even though it is indeed one of my favorites, but if someone wanted to put, say, The Great 28 by Chuck Berry or one of the Robert Johnson compilations, I think that's fair. And I think that live albums can be a distinctive work in their own right, whether it be Live at Leeds, At Budokan, Frampton, How the West Was Won, Aaron Silverman's Iron Maiden choice, etc. I considered Cream's Wheels of Fire for a second, which is half live.

 

[gene c]

On a desert island I'd just shoot myself and be done with it ! I'll have to look into them again.



"ELO: Out Of The Blue


It warms my heart to see so many pick this gem. ELO never made profound music, but in the mid-70s they put out four straight albums (Eldorado, Face The Music, A New World Record, and OotB) chock full of the most delectible ear candy you'd ever want to hear. I wouldn't be without any of 'em. And let's not forgot their unsung early-80s masterpiece Time, which was of equal quality to the 4 above."



Perfect mid-70's pop/rock albums. They've held up very well. And the Zoom live concert dvd is outstanding!



"Agreed on both. I must add that Al continues to make great music decades after his last chart success. He still writes tuneful, literate songs (often based on historical events and fugures) and wraps them in tasteful, understated arrangements. I chose to highlight one of his more recent release in my list above. It's as good as Year Of The Cat and Time Passages."



The Year Of The Cat and Time Passages both spend a lot of time in my players. I need to explore more of his work (and so much else mentioned here). The opening sequence of TYOTC is one of my all time favorites. How do these people come up with this stuff? I know, talent.

 

[Greg_S_H]

Originally Posted by gene c
The Year Of The Cat and Time Passages both spend a lot of time in my players. I need to explore more of his work (and so much else mentioned here). The opening sequence of TYOTC is one of my all time favorites. How do these people come up with this stuff? I know, talent.

Somewhere along the line, Al Stewart ended up with the most albums by a single artist that I own. I guess it's his fault for being prolific, because I have all of Zep, all of Floyd, etc., but he still tops the list. 24 Carrots would be a great next step, and Between the Wars is a wonderful album (kind of hard to find, last I checked).


Craig, I do have Beach Full of Shells, but I haven't really gotten around to listening to it much yet. That and Sparks of Ancient Light kind of snuck up on me. The last one I had purchased was Down in the Cellar, and I somehow didn't hear about his followups until a musician I mentioned (Brian Burns) recommended Sparks on his website.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

If I shift my filter from the "great", "important", "influential", "stuff that really means something to me emotionally" side of the equation to "stuff that just tends to get played a lot when I fire up my audio system"* I'd have to add:


Basia - Time and Tide


Joni Mitchell - Blue


Elton John - Madman Across the Water


The Beaver Brown Band - Eddie and the Cruisers (Soundtrack)


Al Green - Al Green Gets Next to You


James Taylor - FIre and Rain, Gorilla


* Similarly if you asked what my favorite TV shows were, or what I thought were the best series of all time, I'd list things like Babylon 5, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Star Trek TOS, M*A*S*H, The Twilight Zone or NYPD Blue. But if you asked me which series I've actually watched the most, from pilot to latest episode in my collection it would be the original CSI, hands down. I just find the show compulsively watchable in a way that other shows aren't. More serialzed shows induce fatigue after awhile, you can only watch so much comedy at a stretch and pure anthologies can vary too much in tone and quality. But CSI has just enough humor, character development and continuing threads to make it a more complete experience than a purely episodid procedural, without the arc burn-out that can set in after 8 to 10 episodes of Lost or B5.

I suspect there is something similar at work with music. There are artists whose individual songs I like a lot, but who tend to be too much the same from track to track and even album to album, and therefore aren't as much "fun" to listen to in big chunks. Also there are artists whose lyrics or music (or both) are so complex that they really demand you full attention. So they're not good choices to play in the background when doing other things. I have certain favorite discs that I can "loop" in the background while I'm working, then "dip into" from time to time when I want to pause and really listen to a given song. (Or when I need a break from what I'm doing.) With the albums I've listed I generally know that I'm going to be listening to something really good regardless of where I stop, even though there are other discs in my collection the might contain better indivdual songs.

This really is an interesting topic. It's made me stop and really think about some of my musical tastes, instead of just indulging them.

 

[Jonathan Peterson]

1) Genesis - Foxtrot

2) Metallica - Master Of Puppets

3) Cheap Trick - Heaven Tonight

4) The Beatles - Revolver

5) Marillion - Clutching At Straws

 

[Ockeghem]

I have never done this before, but what would be exceedingly challenging for me to do would be to list my top five favorite albums of all time regardless of genre, style, or historical period. I don't think I could do it, any more than I could list my top five favorite films of all time.


I do think that this is a fun topic. With every piece of music I listen to (regardless of genre, style, or historical period), I spend several hours initially (and in some cases, repeatedly over many years) examining the elements of the music I am hearing from many different vantage points, as it's what I have been trained to do. This is always the primary criteria I use when judging any work of music (with score in hand whenever possible), and this is what usually compels me to compile such lists. (A secondary criteria for me is textual considerations.) I am a bit less stringent when it comes to books, films, and television shows; this is most likely due to my being less qualified to judge other disciplines as quantifiably and concretely as I do the discipline of music.


BTW, I have played the desert island game before. I usually list my favorite books, music, and television shows. That might be an interesting thread to start one day as well.

 

[awesome6]

Some of the best collections:

Kind of Blue - 1959

Like a prayer - madonna

Sunrise - Elvis Presley

London calling from the clash
Turn back the years - hank williams
Abbey road - Beatles

 

[PatW]

This is hard because my top fives changes from time to time.


1. Rubber Soul ------- Beatles

2. Secret Garden -------- Secret Garden

3. Double Fantasy ------- John Lennon ( I enjoy only his songs)

4. Moody Blues .......Days of Future Past

5. TSO ------- Beethoven Last Night

 

[Bryan^H]

I'd say my top 5 list will remain unaltered for about 5 or 10 more years.

I do listen to 'new' music, but the classic stuff sticks with me, resonates more, this is why my favorite albums don't change. I have heard them, I know they are great, and I don't need anything different. I know different stages in my life bring new (old) favorites to light. That is when I change up.

I didn't have a hard time at all picking my favorites, and I will stand by them for years to come.

 

[Ockeghem]

"I'd say my top 5 list will remain unaltered for about 5 or 10 more years."


This is very similar to my sentiments, except that I would say (at least in the pop/rock genre) that my list will remain unaltered for as long as I live.


"I didn't have a hard time at all picking my favorites, and I will stand by them for years to come."


Yes, I feel almost the same way. Well said.

 

[mattCR]

Double Fantasy is an interesting pick.. Lennon is fantastic on it, with "Watching the Wheels" and "Woman" as sensational; but Yoko just destroys that album for me.. if it was all John, it'd be a Top-10 consideration for me, but it can't break my top.. I don't know, 50 or 100 because if I had to listen to the rest of that caterwauling I'd go nuts.

Originally Posted by PatW

This is hard because my top fives changes from time to time.


1. Rubber Soul ------- Beatles

2. Secret Garden -------- Secret Garden

3. Double Fantasy ------- John Lennon ( I enjoy only his songs)

4. Moody Blues .......Days of Future Past

5. TSO ------- Beethoven Last Night