Forums >Off the Beaten Path>Perfect Albums
Annnnnnnd I feel old. lol
Also interested to note, courtesy of Wikipedia: the album peaked all the way up at #171 on the Billboard chart...in 1991, 8 years after released. Same year it finally achieved platinum status. Some things just take time to be fully appreciated I guess.
Dave
Speaking of feeling old, August and Everything After is 20 years old in September. I loved Counting Crows first two albums, and their live discs Across A Wire are just phenomenal. I guess when you lead with an album like August, there's only one place to go -, what happened to those guys.
Hip Redux
August was one of those albums I would listen to over and over and over....
Prince of Fatness
Someone mentioned Neil Young's After The Goldrush, perfection. I also think Harvest and Harvest Moon by are in the same pantheon.
Someone mentioned Neil Young's After The Goldrush, perfection.
I also think Harvest and Harvest Moon by are in the same pantheon.
That would be me. Neil had a lot of good stuff. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, American Stars 'n Bars, Rust Never Sleeps., etc.
Not at it at all.
Christian Mistress-Possesion
Elder-Dead Roots Rising
My Bloody Valentine-Loveless, Isn't Anything, MBV
TV on the Radio-Return to Cookie Mountain
Electric Wizard-Dopethrone
Fugazi-Repeater-In on the Kill Taker, 13 Songs
Talk Talk-Laughing Stock, Spirit of Eden
Rolling Stones, Beggars Banquet
Talking Heads-Fear of Music
Bob Dylan-Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde
The Jimi Hendrix Experience-Are you experienced?
Van Morrison-Astral Weeks
Charles Mingus-The Black Saint and Sinner Lady
Stooges-Raw Power
Iggy Pop-Lust for Life
Public Image-Second Edition
Wire-154
T-Rex Electric Warrior
Captain Beefheart-Trout Mask Repica
Slayer-South of Heaven
Joy Division-Unknown Pleasures
Black Sabbath-Paranoid
Miles Davis Kind of Blue
PJ Harvey-Dry, To Bring you My Love, Rid of Me, Is this Desire
Puker
I agree with the nominations of Violent Femmes and Nothing's Shocking. I'll add Morphine- Cure for Pain and The Black Keys- Brothers to my list. I get annoyed with music pretty easily, so even on great albums, there are usually songs that annoy me.
Feel sick and dirty, more dead than alive.
Kind of Blue- Miles Davis
Soul Station- Hank Mobely
Live at Bourbon Street- Lennie Breau
MTA:Maiden voyage-Herbie Hancock
This thread has been a great list of albums to add to the library. Although, interesting that it's not a large one. Very difficult to hit one out of the park and achieve "perfect" statues. I think if more than one person can agree on one, that's amazing, since music is such a personal thing, one person's ear manna is another one's needle-in-the-ear. I picked up Lou Reed's Transformer a few months ago after watching a Great Albums show on Netflix. Listened to it once. Very poor recording. A few good songs. Worthy to many of being on that show, and perfect to some, but really not a stellar product to my ear. I love Pink Floyd, but I put their Animals album in the same poorly recorded category. One listen was enough, but I've listened to Dark Side Of The Moon, The Wall, and Wish You Were Here a ton of times.
Does anyone have any self-produced and released albums on their list? Another moniker might be "local". I included Dan Gilbert's The Great Recession Goodbye on mine. I've listened to it a few dozen times since I got a copy off Amazon last year. It's cohesive in theme, the songs are well-recorded, sparse, sung, with wonderful, simple melodic reverberated guitar.
Revenge of the Nerd
I commend your choice. I didn't expect to see this one make the list. There are 28 tracks on the album. I own the CD and have my favorites but I rarely listen all the way through. Perfectly imperfect.
Speaking of Lou Reed, I had never heard anything from this album until recently. Perfection is in the ear of the beholder. This one is perfect ... perfect for driving vermin or unwanted guests out of the house.
One of these days is none of these days.
~ H.G. Bohn
Agree with many of the albums already listed here.
I can't believe someone posted B-52's Cosmic Thing, though. I thought I was the only one, haha. That really is a perfect album. Puts me in a very good headspace.
Since they are currently on tour, I'll add one in for Depeche Mode: Violator.
Also, to add more rap to this thread, Notorious B.I.G., Ready to Die.
#artbydmcbride
Crosby Stills & Nash (first album)
Cat Stevens (Tea for the Tillerman)
Bob Dylan (Blonde on Blonde)
Runners run
I'm madly in love with Audioslave's first album. Every single song. Chris Cornell has an amazing voice. I just listened to the whole thing yesterday.
I listened to Metric's Fantasies, in its entirety, this morning. Thank you, Metric, for restoring faith in my ability to love music made within the last 5 years.
"If you have the fire, run..." -John Climacus
I keep going back to that album, and to the song "I am the Highway" especially. I've said many times that I'd give up one of my pinky toes to be able to sing like Chris Cornell.
A list of my PRs in a misguided attempt to impress people that do not care.
Lots of stuff I love here, I'll add some I didn't see posted yet:
The Roots: Undun and How I Got Over are two of the best records of the decade - any genre
Interpol: Turn On The Bright Lights
Queens Of The Stone Age: Songs For The Deaf
Afghan Whigs: Gentlemen
Outkast: Stankonia
Pixies: Surfer Rosa
Funkadelic: One Nation Under a Groove
The Clash: London Calling
R.E.M.: Life's Rich Pageant
I've got a fever...
I've been in the midst of a lot of "it was 20-years ago today" nostalgia lately, having graduated from college 20 years ago and gotten my first real job. August and Everything After was one of the soundtracks to that period of my life, and although I wouldn't call it a perfect album, it was certainly one of the great debut albums -- not a clunker on it, very consistent. Interesting that when it came out, I was drawn to the wide open tracks like "Omaha", "Mr. Jones", and "Rain King" that crackled with possibility; now it's the tracks like "Time and Time Again", "Perfect Blue Buildings" and "A Long December" (from their 2nd album) and their undercurrent of melancholy that I come back to.
As far as perfect albums, I'd go with Revolver. I'd like to say Dark Side of the Moon or Wish You Were Here, but both of those have tracks on them that I'll hit "skip" on every time, so they fall short.
On your deathbed, you won't wish that you'd spent more time at the office. But you will wish that you'd spent more time running. Because if you had, you wouldn't be on your deathbed.