My Take
In my case, the albums that have become my favorites are the ones I feel I absolutely have to listen to from start to finish. Of course, there are standout tracks, and some, though good, might pale in comparison to others. But it’s the experience of listening to the entire album that captivates me.
Examples:
- “Flowerboy” by Tyler, The Creator.
- “Affinity” by Haken
- “Brat” by Charli XCX
- The debut album by Gentle Giant
What are your favorite albums and why?
A Perfect Circle - Thirteenth Step is my perfect album.
They aren’t even my favorite band, but there isn’t a bad moment on it.
I’m gonna give it a listen as soon as possible (as soon as i finish another of my hundreds of listens to Deine Lakaien lol). I’m already a Tool nerd, so that’s gonna be a fine music session for me :-)
A bunch of “classics”…
- Rumours
- Tapestry
- An Evening with John Denver
- …and then there were three…
- Boston
- Double Vision
- Out of the Blue
Yes… I am an oldster.
I’d put Trick of the Tail on there too!
Absolutely. Maybe Aja?
“My beautiful dark twisted fantasy” by Kanye West.
To me it’s such a ride from beginning to end. It’s his magnum opus
Pretty much. I wouldn’t presume to say "masterpieces " but easily the most important quality of my favorite albums is that they’re strong from start to finish.
A few that come to me right off:
Lloyd Cole and the Commotions - Rattlesnakes
Fountains of Wayne - Fountains of Wayne
The Presidents of the United States of America - The Presidents of the United States of America
XTC - Black Sea
They Might Be Giants - Flood
The Rainmakers - Flirting with the Universe
Was (Not Was) - What Up Dog?
Morphine - Cure for Pain
Presidents! Hell yeah, that’s such a fun album
They just might be my all time favorite band.
They’re one that I really want to see live, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. Seems like the band members all moved on to other things
You can still get some of the PUSA goodness by checking out Chris Ballew, he’s been putting out some nice records as a solo act. I love his 7th album, Void Crusher.
I’ll admit, I’ve not listened to much of Fountains of Wayne’s first album, more the others. They’ve been one of my favorites about as long as I can remember though. I tend to resonate with a new song of theirs every year or two. Do you have any favorites off their first album?
It’s hard to pick a favorite - that’s the point. Every one of them is good.
That said, the first one that popped into my head was Leave the Biker, and Survival Car, Joe Rey, Radiation Vibe, Sick Day and Sink to the Bottom come to mind quickly and easily.
I second Flood.
Third. Perfect album.
The Magnetic Fields’ Sixty-Nine Love Songs
They’re not all masterpieces, but out of 69 tracks, the supermajority are bangers, with enough variety in tone to keep from being too much of the same thing.
Agreed. Several of my favorites include musical interludes that aren’t songs, one of them dissonant and weird, but to me, essential to the flow of the whole album:
- Rook, by Shearwater
- The Stand-Ins, by Okkervil River
- The Execution of All Things, by Rilo Kiley
- Wincing the Night Away, by The Shin
- In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, by Neutral Milk Hotel
I guess they’re also full of literate lyrics, and unusual subjects, too. 🤔
I have favorite albums and then I have the 3(maybe 4 now) perfect 10 albums.
What makes a perfect 10 album? Like you I have to listen to it from start to finish. There’s not a single skip or down track on the album. They have exquisite and timeless production quality. These albums sound good even in the worst quality. On top notch files they’re the best of the best. They hit me at a time in my life where they just clicked emotionally.
For the longest time the 3 were and are:
-
Animals - Pink Floyd - It’s their best album. It has a zen like flow state to it. There’s no pretentious bullshit on it. Sounds amazing.
-
Ten - Pearl Jam - Jeremy is one of the first songs I remember hearing as a child. The rest of the album is just as good. Also amazing sound quality. Flows perfectly across the whole album.
-
Exoplanet - The Contortionist - It’s late summer 2010. An album finally came out that dethroned Colors by BTBAM from 3 straight years of nonstop listening. That album was P1 by Periphery. I didn’t think anything could possibly top that album. It spawned a whole new genre almost instantly. Then on the last day of August, Exoplanet drops. I was floored. Much better sound production. It ebbs and flows with a grace not heard of in Deathcore. It has these magical peaks and valleys all throughout the album. Not a single miss. It’s crushing. Then it gently sets you down and tucks you in bed as the alarms of the spaceship you just had a musical journey on are softly beeping away in the distance. It’s the single best Deathcore album to ever be released. It’s so far and above everything else most people don’t even count it as Deathcore. It book ended one era of music as another one just began and what a way for Deathcore to end it’s dominance.
The fourth album that’s slowly adding itself to the list is Lonely People With Power by Deafheaven. It does all of the things the other 3 do. It hit at the exact time I needed that album. It tells these crazy stories throughout lyrically and musically. There’s not a single skip on the record. It’s honestly up there as one of the best metal of any type albums of all time IMO. The only thing that’s preventing me from adding it to the list is time. Those other records have a longevity unmatched by most. If I still feel the way I feel about LPWP in 5 years, then yeah it’s a perfect 10.
Deafheaven is great, although I’m usually sucked into New Bermuda. I’m not a huge metal person, and I don’t know if it’s their best album, but it’s the one I go back to the most frequently.
-
Does all the songs in your favorite music album are masterpieces?
Never did them wasn’t.
how do you determine an album is one of your favorites?
- I listen a lot to it. Some of my favorites albums (or tunes) I’ve been listening to most of my life since I was a little boy (now nearing my 60s)
- I have favorite recordings of certain pieces. Even more so in regards to classical music, which happens to be the genre of music I listen the most to and have been listening to since I was a child, thx to my parents listening to it and quickly allowing kid-me me to use their LPs (that was back in the 70s, they were kinda high-tech back then ;)
- I can sing the song and, when there are, I know the lyrics from memory. That’s one of the reasons I can safely say Jacques Brel and Georges Brassens are along my favorite French singers ever. The other reasons being that, for anyone able to understand French, they’ve written some of the most amazing songs ever… But there would be many more favorites of mine that have written master pieces, and not just in French ;)
A lot of classic albums, for me, tend to have a connection running through all the songs. The album is a work in itself rather than just being a collection of random songs by the same artist.
The Prodigy - Music for the Jilted Generation
Alanis Morisette - Jagged Little Pill
C2C - Tetra
Fuel Fandango - Aurora
Sepultura - Chaos AD
Hard Funk Trio - Mustang
These are all albums I can listen to and genuinely enjoy every track … I can’t give a particular reason. Most albums have tracks that I prefer to skip over, just not these ones.
Looking at it, that’s a pretty international lineup … purely by accident, lol … artists from the UK, Canada, France, Spain, Brazil, and Argentina :-)
Always good to see someone pick …Jilted Generation over Fat of the Land. I do like the latter, but MFTJG is perfection.
Fully agreed.
Yes.
I loved Fat of the Land, had the available singles before the whole album dropped. But not every song is that good.
Experience is close for me (plus it’s a nostalgia trip), and I also enjoy all of Invaders Must Die.
But Jilted is wall to wall Goldielocks perfect porridge :-)
Yeah, love Experience too, except for I think it maybe lacks the best mixes IMO of Charly (Alley Cat) and Everybody in the Place (Fairground). Can’t remember 100% off the top of my head, but I think it’s those two.
The live recording of death of the dancers isn’t the best either … I’m not a fan of live tracks for most bands, though
Fuel Fandango: “Despertaré” - one of my favorite videos ever.
Yes, all songs are masterpieces.
Repion - Repion
Everything by Audioslave
Early Bjork
City and Colour - The Love Still Held Me Near
The Car is on Fire - Lake and Flames
Hello fellow Haken fan! Affinity and Visions are my favorites of theirs. I also love Phantom Island by King Gizzard.
Most music is pretty medicore. I can only name a handful of artists with more than one really good song.
Most music is pretty medicore
medicore? I have heard of metalcore, must be related. But there area many other genres! classical, jazz, blues, folk, pop, Rock & Roll, funk, disco, electronic… it’s not most metalcore (and probably not medicore either, whatever that is).
Most of the music I listen to either doesn’t come in albums, or is in a 40+ track OST. However, there are a few which I can say are enjoyable in their entirety.
UNDERTALE OST is 101 tracks, and while some of the tracks are ambient noise and sound effects, Like 93% of it is great. Basically anything Toby Fox does has a high rate of enjoyment from me.
Medium by Clark Powell is entirely a masterpiece—not only the individual tracks, but how they interact with one another, and what they represent to the story of their context.
Nothing Is Quick in the Desert by Public Enemy has a great listening experience, where nearly every track blends into the next. Not typical for the music I usually listen to.
It certainly isn’t for everyone, but The Caretaker’s Everywhere at the End of Time is excellent. The middle section up until nearly the end can be pretty abstract, but there’s a certain… bliss that can be derived from it.
There’s more, but these are the ones that immediately come to mind.
