What are your 10 favourite albums and WHY?

[Wristy McSlashalot]

This isn't in any particular order.

1. Nirvana - Nevermind - Cliched, but this album was a huge part of my adolescence. I hardly ever listen to it anymore, but when I do it takes me back to happier times.

2. Wu-Tang Clan - Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) - Because, Wu-Tang Clan ain't nuthin ta fuck wit.

3. Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx - Easily one of the best hip-hop albums I've ever heard, and very underrated considering how influential it has been.

4. Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works, Part II - Because it's so different from any other music I've ever heard in my life.

5. Pink Floyd - The Wall - I couldn't decide between this or DSOTM, but this one wins because it has an involved storyline, a kickass movie and the kicking rad guitar solo on 'Comfortably Numb'.

6. Rage Against The Machine - The Battle Of Los Angeles - I used to be a huge RATM fanboy in high school, and I think they reached their peak with this album. The only other band that has influenced me this much is The Dead Kennedys.

7. Faith No More - Angel Dust - It was either this or a Mr. Bungle album, and I think Faith No More is more coherent and accessible then Mr. Bungle. Which

8. At The Drive-In - Relationship Of Command - The most energetic band I've ever heard. Easily one of the best rock albums of the late 90s.

9. The Misfits - Walk Among Us - Because The Misfits rock.

10. The Stooges - Fun House - Because Iggy Pop makes me hot.

[pulykamell]

OK, also in no particular order.

1. Sleater-Kinney - Call the Doctor. I'm just a sucker for smart girls with attitude who can write good music and rock.

2. My Bloody Valentine - Loveless. Perhaps THE best album of the 90s. Shoegazer rock marks its zenith. Walls and washes of sound, an absolutely musically engaging album.

3. Wire - Chairs Missing - Because it friggin rocks.

4. Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream - After years of hating them, one day I just woke up and "got" the Pumpkins. Haven't looked back since, and this album broke me in. Great riffs, unique sound, excellent arrangements, even like his voice.0

5. Radiohead - OK Computer - First time I heard this album, I realized just how exciting and innovative rock music can be if it really tried. Complicated, but not descending into prog-rock wankery, which I have an aversion towards. (Minus King Crimson and early Genesis. They're OK.)

6. Pixies - Doolittle - For that matter, almost any Pixies album will do for me. By far my favorite rock band ever.

7. Miles Davis - Kind of Blue - When I'm in a more laid-back sort of mood, this modal jazz-era masterpiece perfectly suits the soundtrack.

8. Li Yundi - Chopin - This CD got me through a rather distressing end of last year. Yundi's renditions of Nocturne Op 9. No. 1 & 2 are probably the most gorgeous interpretations I've heard of these two Chopin pieces. And the etudes in this volume are played with absolute precision, without sacrificing feeling. This guy is absolutely amazing.

9. Beatles - Abbey Road (or almost any Beatles album) - Pop rock at its absolute finest. I'm not going to explain. If you don't get the Beatles, you just don't get them.

10. Anima Sound System - Hungarian Astronaut - Not one of the best albums of all time, but one of my favorites. Minimalist, Hungarian dub/drum-n-bass collective from Szombathely. This album feature the folky vocals of Szilvia Bognar (who left the band to pursue her folk career.) One of two pop bands in Hungary with any international exposure. This particular early release makes for great chill-out music, and lends itself to mixing, if you're a DJ.

[Tanaqui]

1. Nevermind - Nirvana. For the same reason as the OP, basically.

2. Dookie - Green Day. The definitive southern Californians 90's pop punk album, full of fun songs.

3. Rancid - ... And Out Come the Wolves. Another classic album, packing with absolutely amazing songs.

4. Energy - Operation Ivy. The only full length album put out by one of the best punk bands ever. 'Sound System' alone would make this album a classic.

5. Wish - The Cure. My personal favorite album of an amazingly influential and talented band.

6. Disintegration - The Cure. A much more introspective and sad album than the previous one, but the inclusion of Love Song and Lullaby put this album up there with Wish.

7. Black Sails in the Sunset - AFI. Melodic hardcore at its best. The lyrics are occasionally cliched, the goth is sometimes a little over-done, but full of emotionally moving songs.

8. Sing the Sorrow - AFI. A more mature take on the above album.

9. Illusion of Safety - Thrice. Another melodic hardcore album, more mature musically and lyrically than Identity Crisis, but chock full of intelligent song-writing and just fun guitar.

9. Identity Crisis - Thrice. Their first album, more religious but less mature. Poppier than their second album, but just fun to listen to.

[TelcontarStorm]

In no peticular order...

Phil Collins-Hello I Must be going.
Jams from start to stop.

April Wine- Harder Faster
70's rock at it's finest

ZZ Top- Deguello
Mixin' the blues like no one has(including themselves) since.

Fleetwood Mac-Tusk
Best all around record this favorite of mine did

Stevie Nicks- Wild Heart
Worth the listen Just for "Beauty&Beast" and "Has anyone ever written anything for you?"

Live-Throwing Copper
Yes, Virginia, I live in a "Shit Town"

Blue Oyster Cult- Fire of Unknown Origin
The soundtrack to the Sci-Fantasy book you are reading

Yes-90125
80's rock worth listening to

Led Zeppelin-II
Another screaming blues mix.

Barry Manilow-Live
His best early stuff bonused by the Very Strange Medley

**BONUS**
Matchbox 20-Yourself or Someone Like You.
The second try fro these guys bites, but this one rocks

[astorian]

Aerosmith - Rocks
Beatles - Revolver
Byrds - The Notorious Byrd Brothers
Cream - Disraeli Gears
Deep Purple - In Rock
Dire Straits - Making Movies
Electric Light Orchestra - a New World Record
Enya - Watermark
Kinks - The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society
Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti

And my reasons? I'm not going to tell you!

[Lilacs]

This is my list, in no real particular order:

1. Revolver -- The Beatles. To me it's the most creative album they did, and one of the first I liked by them.
2. Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables -- Dead Kennedys. I love the lyrics, the attitude and the guitar riffs. Either you like Jello Biafra, or you don't.
3. Superunknown -- Soundgarden. One of the few albums I can listen to all the way through.
4. Standing on a Beach, The Singles -- The Cure. Another one I can listen to all the way through, a sample of favorites from the earlier Cure days. I can't just pick one Cure album.
5. Stull -- Urge Overkill. Not a full length album but I love all the songs on it. I have this thing about quirky lyrics. Not to mention great beats.
6. Blind -- Corrosion of Conformity. Just something how this album makes me feel when I listen to it. Hard guitar driven awesome stuff.
7. Angel Dust -- Faith no More. Just love the darkness and the slight psychosis of it. Mike Patton can do astounding things with his voice.
8. The Very Best of Cream -- Cream. Decadent. Like chocolate. Or sex. Or both.
9. Broken -- Nine Inch Nails. Not as depressing as Downward Spiral. "Gave Up" was the best live song I have ever heard.
10. Goo -- Sonic Youth. Still sounds cool more than ten years later. Takes me back to my early college years.

[fruitbat]

Public Enemy - Fear of a Black Planet
The best rap group ever at the height of its game. The sheer power of conviction on that record still blows me away every time.

The Clash - Self Titled
This band remained great throughout, but this is them at their most raw and intense. Snuck lovely melody in there as well. They are as much fun as the Sex Pistols with twenty times the talent.

Paul Simon - Self Titled
Could not be more joyful than to hear Simon untethered from Garfunkel. His songwriting talent shines on this album. "Duncan" might be his best story song ever.

Nirvana - Nevermind
A classic in much the same way as The Clash. Cobain couldn't destroy his talent for creating memorable melodies no matter how hard he tried. The interplay between the melody and the mayhew has never been better.

Robyn Hitchcock - Element of Light
I am a Hitchcock freak. I could have ten of his albums plus a few soft boys on this list. Please I beg those who have never heard him to listen. This is his loveliest album combining his strange but perfect lyrics with great instrumentation.

De La Soul - Three Feet High and Rising
Really has any album just made you smile this much.

Leonard Cohen - Songs From a Room
The best pure songwriter ever. That burlap bag voice is a complement to some of his best songs. Still going strong today.

Beck - Odelay
An astonishing display of talent. A fusion of so many music styles it is hard to separate the pieces from the whole. Each song is great. He may misstep with some albums, this is his masterpiece.

The Velvet Underground - Self Titled
I know this one is almost cliche. Really though have there been two better songs written than Sweet Jane and Rock and Roll. Case closed.

Cub - Betti-Cola
Cub is the great unknown and now defunct band. Most bands who don't quite make it fail for a reason. By all rights Cub should have sold millions of albums. Betti-Cola is a pitch perfect compilation of three minute pop songs. Clever and sweet guaranteed to make you feel good.

And BTW Pulykamell very nice list.

[Marley23]

1. The Allman Brothers Band: At Fillmore East
Timeless. The greatest live album ever. This one just lays it on you: great sound and fantastic playing from a band that could improvise and blend the blues, jazz and rock like nobody else. An album I can play by heart.

2. The Allman Brothers Band: Eat a Peach
Their last album with Duane Allman, who I (from an obviously and totally biased perspective) think is just about the most overlooked guitar player there is. No reason he shouldn't be up there with Hendrix, Page, etc. This one has some great live songs and their best studio work to that point. It's got Blue Sky and Melissa, both classics, Little Martha, a sweet acoustic tune (and the only one Duane wrote), and the epic Mountain Jam.

In a 'real' Top Ten I'd name some other Allmans albums, but in the interests of diversity, I'll move along to other bands.

3. Radiohead: OK Computer
This one blew my mind as well. I knew Creep, but hadn't really heard anything from Radiohead since. I kind of wrote them off as one of those bands people like because their stuff is depressing, basically. Then some friends of mine did a concert performance of the entire album, and since I was videotaping it, I had to listen. I was really stunned, and I borrowed the thing right after. 'Holy crap' is really all I can say. Great songs and lyrics with perfect arrangement and use of the studio. I can't wait to finally see them live next month.

4. Tori Amos: Little Earthquakes
I can rarely listen to this one because it's so powerful (and yes, most of it isn't that uplifting in my opinion). But it's raw, personal and pure. Beautiful playing, and even when you're not sure exactly what Tori is singing about, you get this sense that she's honest in a unique way. If anything ever recorded is more chilling than Me and a Gun, I don't want to hear it.

5. Bob Marley: Songs of Freedom
How could I not include something from Bob? I admit this one is cheating - I picked this because it's a 4-CD box set. But everything seems to be here. Great love songs like Turn Your Lights Down Low and Waiting in Vain, and some of the most powerful political songs ever: War, Zimbabwe, I Shot the Sheriff, Africa Unite, and Get Up, Stand Up, among many others. Remixes and alternate versions abound. And then there's Redemption Song.

6. The Grateful Dead: American Beauty
Their best studio album ever. All acoustic (minus one guitar solo), and it proves that while the Dead were known for long jams, their best songs were also just good songs. On this one, even the singing (NOT their strong point live) is great. Almost all of these songs were played live from 1971 until the band's end almost 25 years later. Everybody knows Truckin', but Ripple, Brokedown Palace, Attics of My Life, Friend of the Devil and especially Box of Rain are true gems.

7. Santana: Santana/Abraxas
I can't separate these two albums. The words "Latin rock" had probably never been stuck together when these were made, but here is a genre being invented and perfected all the same. Soul Sacrifice, Samba Pa Ti... yipes. If you think Santana's stuff now is lame, listen to these and you'll realize it's even worse than you thought. ;) :p

8. Derek and the Dominos: Layla and Assorted Love Songs
Duane Allman pushes Eric Clapton (and a great, great band) to the best playing of his career. Makes me crazy when people classify this as a Clapton solo effort on the radio. Might've been a good album without Duane, but it wouldn't have been a masterpiece. Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad rocks, I Am Yours is beautiful, and there's not much left to say about Layla that hasn't been said.

9. Jazz is Dead: Great Sky River
All-instrumental virtuoso band that doesn't cover the Grateful Dead. It reinterprets their songs and uses them as starting points for crazy, focused (which is important) improvising. The amazing Jimmy Herring plays guitar; his fingers actually move slightly faster than light.

10. Gov't Mule: Life Before Insanity/Dose
Hard rock and blues done to perfection by a power-trio keeping the spirit of Cream, Mountain and others alive. Life Before Insanity is a more mature album, but Dose rocks harder and is more diverse.

[DeVena]

Paul Simon: Graceland

Beatles: Abbey Road

Sarah Vaughn: Duke Ellington Songbook (1 & 2)

Van Morrison: Moondance

Eva Cassidy: Songbird

Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon

Benny Goodman: Live at Carnegie Hall

Blues Traveler: Four

Frank Sinatra: Songs for Swingin' Lovers

Miles Davis: Kind of Blue

Each one listed is either the best the artist recorded, or so changed everything that comes after that it's now the benchmark, post hoc ergo propter hoc. These I take with me everywhere.

[Labdad]

In no particular order:

Revolver, The Beatles. Lennon/McCartney as a great sonwriting team.

London Calling, The Clash. Not a bad cut on the album, and one of the best songs (Train in Vain) isn't even credited.

Beggar's Banquet, The Rolling Stones. There has to be a Stones album on this list, and this is my favorite. Sure it's got Sympathy for the Devil, but it's got underappreciated gems like Factory Girl and Prodigal Son, too.

Sweetheart of the Rodeo, The Byrds. Gram Parsons single-handedly invents country-rock.

The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul. Memphis soul defined.

Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. The best British blues album ever made. You've got to have Clapton on the list somewhere, and Have You Heard may be the single greatest solo Eric ever recorded. Plus, it's the first time he sang on record.

Hank Williams Greatest Hits. I had to flip a coin between Hank and Elvis. Hank came up.

El Corazon, Steve Earle. I think Steve Earle is the best songwriter working today, and this album demonstrates his range across an incredible variety of styles.

The Allman Brothers Band. Their first album. Sure, Fillmore East is a better record, but when Duane's guitar cries while Greg screams on Whipping Post, I always get chiils. Plus, Greg hits the high note in the studio.

Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylan. Every song is a classic. Dylan is totally electric, with Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper. It's got Like a Rolling Stone, Desolation Row and the title track. Bob's at the absolute peak of his form here.

And if I get to slip one in for honorable mention, it's Are You Experienced by Jimi Hendrix. Probably the most stunning debut record ever made.

[Marley23]

You said it, labdad. The studio Dreams is great, too.
Oh, and I meant to note that my list isn't in order.

[Marlow]

David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust
I consider this an essential 70's album. It's chock full of great songs, and there's no duds on it. There's really not much more to say. Buy it.

Godspeed You Black Emperor - Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada
This was chosen partly for memories, although it rocks too. I think I'd like "Moya" played at my funeral.

Botch - We Are The Romans
A really great hardcore album; I love "Swimming The Channel Vs. Driving The Chunnel".

Pixies - Dolittle
Mindblowing. Fantastic. David Bowie for the 90's. Buy it.

Blonde Redhead - Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons
A great unexpected pop record.

Prodigy - Fat of the Land
I've never really found another CD that has the right amount of rock and electronica as this one, so by default, that would make it essential.

Refused - The Shape of Punk to Come
This should be the shape of punk to come.

Sublime - 40oz to Freedom
An oddball choice; it mainly consists of covers, but it has its own scrappy charm.

Mogwai - Young Team
It was the first album that I bought that had noisy elements to it.

Kid Dakota - So Pretty
Dark, very personal pop songs.

[plnnr]

In no order:

1. Grateful Dead - Europe '72. The great studio album that would have fallen between American Beauty and Wake of the Flood is in there somewhere - it just never got made. When they go over the hump in China-Rider I crank that mother up to 11.

2. Jeff Buckley - Grace. Shimmering vocals and a whole lotta noise. A shame he had to die so young.

3. The Clash - London Calling. "Phony Beatle-mania." Plus, you got to love the cover.

4. Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers. One great big debauched pile of sex and drugs.

5. Ella Fitzgerals - Best of the Songbooks. Wonderful song follows wonderful song.

6. Pat Metheny - Travels. Because it brings back memories of being on the lawn at Wolf Trap under a zillion stars with a wonderful woman and a jug of wine. I would have sworn he was playing just for the two of us.

7. Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks. I was tempted to say Highway 61 Revisited, but went for the angry, pissed-off Dylan instead. "You're an idiot, babe. Its a wonder that you still know how to breathe."

8. The B-52s - The B-52s. Fun. Pure and Simple. "Let's dance this mess around."

9. Marvin Gaye - What's Going On? Heavy, soulful, sexy.

10. Billie Holiday - Lady in Autumn. Sure, its got strings, but it also has "Glad to Be Unhappy." And to think they arrested her on her death bed. Talk about shitty. She had the right to sing the blues.

[Lisa-go-Blind]

Originally posted by fruitbat

The Velvet Underground - Self Titled
I know this one is almost cliche. Really though have there been two better songs written than Sweet Jane and Rock and Roll. Case closed.


I think you're confused. Loaded is the Velvets album with "Sweet Jane" and "Rock and Roll." The Velvet Underground has "Candy Says," "What Goes On," "Some Kinda Love," etc.

My Top 10 (chronological order)

1) The Velvet Underground - White Light/White Heat
The Velvets at their most experimental and loud. Great songs, lots of John Cale, and influenced more bands than you can shake a stick at (see Sonic Youth).
2) Nick Drake - Pink Moon
Spooky, lovely, depressing.
3) Talking Heads - Talking Heads '77
Talking Heads at their strangest, smartest, and punkest. "Psycho Killer" is my favorite song ever.
4) The Soft Boys - Underwater Moonlight
Weird and funny lyrics with really awesome guitar work. Also influenced more bands than you can shake a stick at, but not as popular as the Velvet Underground (although that's not saying much).
5) Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes
This is the sound of adolescence. Every song's a 10 (with the possible exception of "New Feeling," which still sounds okay in the context of the album. It may be a repeat of "The Modern Lovers," but it improved on the (already great) original.
6) Husker Du - Zen Arcade
As I mentioned in another thread, the only concept album that works. The songs are unbelieveable, especially since there is 23 of them. All classics.
7) Throwing Muses - Throwing Muses
One of the few "girl" bands I like (even though I am one myself), perhaps because they aren't like other girl bands. Sounds like nothing else before it. The entire album sets a mood.
8) Pixies - Surfer Rosa
Raw, funny, rocking. It has the best songs by the Pixies, at their fastest and loudest.
9) Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation
Like "Zen Arcade," another double album where every song's a keeper. Sonic Youth was never better before or since.
10)Belle and Sebastian - The Boy With the Arab Strap
Wistful and summery, equally good as "If You're Feeling Sinister" songwise, but succeeds better at constructing a "feel."

[brianjedi]

Metallica - Master of Puppets The best album they've ever done, and some of the best metal ever recorded. I know the words to virtually the entire album.

Alice in Chains - MTV Unplugged Layne's final performance is spectacular.

Alice in Chains - Dirt Really good grunge-metal album with most of AiC's classic songs on it.

Jerry Cantrell - Degradation Trip Vol. 1 and 2 Top-quality double album that is dark and brooding, yet still eminently listenable.

Metallica - Ride the Lightning Only slightly behind Master in terms of quality.

Lynyrd Skynyrd - ...And One More From the Road Live Skynyrd, and the guitars will peel paint.

That's the best list I can come up with right now.

[Cluricaun]

I love these music ones. Next time make it 20

INPO:

Guns and Roses-Appitite For Destruction- Ass kicking rock and roll makes a comeback in 1987. This one is good start to finish.

Rolling Stones-Some Girls- I really dig the Stones, and this one has Loving Cup and Casino Boogie, two great tunes.

Chemical Brothers-Brothers Gonna Work it Out- Best driving music of all time. Disco with thought and feeling.

Public Enemy-Fear of a Black Planet- See above. Has never left my cd changer.

Dead Kennedys- Bedtime For Democracy- I bought this because I kept seeing ads for DK T-shirts in Thrasher Magazine when I was a youngin. I had never heard the music in my life. Wow. Talk about a life changer.

Faith No More- King for a Day-I think this is Mike Patton at his very best, this was the album they had been trying for from the start. Simply exceptional.

Frank Zappa-Hot Rats- I still can't believe he didn't do drugs. Strange stuff, perfectly done.

Ween-entire catolouge- I know, I should just pick one, but it's better when examined as a whole. Sometimes funny, sometimes scary, sometimes incoherent, sometimes brilliant.

Tribe Called Quest-Low end Theory- Hip Hop at it's peak. Nod your head to this.

Metallica- Garage Days- Ok, it's a cover album. True enough, but they manage to better each of the songs done. Much thrashy happiness.

[criminalcatalog]

Randomly speaking:

The Orb: Orbus Terrarum
Great atmosphere, especially in "plateau". It's like some kind of magic carpet ride through a breezy, otherworldly landscape. Very pretty sounds.

Plastikman: Consume
Simple and passive beats most of the time, but they really dig in and synch with your pulse very well. Plus, I like anything that has a tempo close to my walking speed. There's nothing like wearing some great phones and going for a long walk after smokin' some bud.

Underworld: Dubnobasswithmyheadman
Kinda the same reason as the previous album - good tempo. "dark and long" never gets old to me.

Aphex Twin: Selected Ambient Works Vol. II
Possibly the greatest on the list. My favorite "sound" is on this album... Disc 2, track 2.......I've probably heard this track a thousand times. These songs resonate like no other.

Boards of Canada: Music Has the Right to Children
If I were to make my own stuff, it would be similar to this. Especially the short tracks like "olson" or "kaini industries". They're simple, but in their simplicity is a beauty I understand.

Vangelis: Blade Runner Soundtrack
Ahhh. If you've seen the movie and like it, you know what I'm speaking about. A fitting soundtrack to a withered future.

Godspeed, You Black Emperor!: Yanqui U.X.O.
Some of it is kinda.....slow........but the last three tracks make up for it in a big way. The 30-minute piece (tracks 4-5) "motherfucker=emperor" is, to me, the pinnacle of rock instruments combined with classical strings. Whenever I hear those strings kick in about 8 minutes through track 4 I get all misty. With it, I picture Great Losses, Widowed Mothers Holding Babies, Bombs Dropping, Nuclear Winds, you get the idea.....

DJ Qbert: Wave Twisters
Fun! Much better though if you lift the tracks from the DVD...

Radiohead: OK Computer
Pretty much for the same reasons already posted by others. Radiohead, mostly on this album, have a good understanding of melody. This album flows well.

Sigur Ros: Agaetis Byrjun
Pretty, pretty music from Iceland. Some of it required a few listens, but overall it's a unique experience.

What really sucks is how you can't remember your favorites, until an hour after you make such a list.....

[UnwrittenNocturne]

In no particular order:

Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine Perhaps Mr Reznors most accessible work, and the one that first screamed his talent to me.

Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks My intro to punk..way back when. Even now it says anger and frustrated youth.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Henry's Dream A mix of his earlier iconoclastic fatalism and his developing introspection.

Bauhaus - Bela Lugosi's Dead OK, so it is only an EP. Still a shining example from the grandfathers of goth

The Cure - Seventeen Seconds By far their best, sparse pop with a twist

The Misfits - Walk Among Us It has already been said, but the Misfits rock!

The Sisters of Mercy - Floodland If Bauhaus are the grandfathers of goth, then the Sisters are its godparents (protestations from Mr Eldritch aside).

Siouxsie and the Banshees - Once Upon a Time I did not want to put a singles collection here, but it was the only place I could find 'Love in a Void' with a bunch of other real groovy Siouxise tracks. Gotta love that wild-ass voice. Catchy tunes. Still dancing to this.

Joy Division - Closer And Ian Curtis' final moments. Nuff said, but glorious at that.

The Damned - Machine Gun Ettiquette What more can I say

[CuriousCanuck]

1) Jeff Buckley - Grace - The best, most powerful album I have ever heard. From top to bottom, one of the greatest works ever. It is so sad that he was taken from this world so young.

2) REM - Automatic for the People - Again, as albums as a whole go, this was top to bottom the best album in the 90s not counting Buckley's.

3) U2 - Joshua Tree - Same as REM only in the 1980s.

4) Bob Seger - Greatest Hits - Greatest Hits CDs are somewhat a copout, but I like every song here. Are they all classics? No, but the entire album is fun. It is a great driving CD.

5) Van Morrisson - Greatest Hits - The man was a genius. Nuff Said.

6) Pink Floyd - The Wall - Does this need explanation?

7) Blues Traveler - Travelers and Thieves - Unreal. John Popper is one of the most underrated musicians out there.

8) Barenaked Ladies - Gordon - Frivolous, fun, honest, and raw. Reminds me of high school. I love these guys.

9) St. Germaine - Tourist - If you have not heard this album - GO BUY IT! It is summer on the lake in music form. Fantastic.

10) Billy Joel - Greatest Hits - I know.. THREE "GH" albums on this list, but I didn't know how else to narrow it down. I can listen to Billy Joel sing all day long.

[pulykamell]

fruitbat - Nice call on the Cub album. There's at least one other Cub fan besides us on these boards. If you like them, you should check out Tiger Trap if you haven't already.

[plnnr]

Rolling Stones-Some Girls- I really dig the Stones, and this one has Loving Cup and Casino Boogie, two great tunes.

Sorry, but no. Loving Cup and Casino Boogie are on "Exile on Main Street."

"Some Girls" does, however, have "When the Whip Comes Down."

[mouthbreather]

No list to speak of, just wanted to comment on Cub.

I read a lot about them and wound up seeing them open up for a show I went to many years ago (I'm guessing it was Fugazi's In on the Kill Taker Tour, but I could be very wrong).

Cub was very boring and unimpressive. Have any of you caught them live? Did I just catch them on a bad night?

[Ol'Gaffer]

Hmmm, only 10. Okay, in no particular order...

Billy Bragg & Wilco - Mermaid Avenue Vol. 1
Rolling Stones - Let it Bleed
Pink Floyd - The Wall.
The Pogues - Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash
Run DMC - The King or Rock
Nirvana - Nevermind
The Clash - London Calling
The Beatles - Abbey Road
U2 - Zooropa
The Grateful Dead - Workingman's Dead

That's it. Tune in tomorrow for a completely new list.

[WhiteyFoo]

In no real order:

Radiohead - The Bends - Every track is a winner. The album is just amazing. Great moves through the melodic spectrum.

Pink Floyd - The Wall - Same reasons as above.

Foo Fighters - There is Nothing Left To Lose - One of the really good current rock bands out there. Very solid musically.

Nick Drake - Pink Moon - Beautiful & haunting. Great to listen to as you blast through the back roads of Texas late at night.

Carl Orf - Carmina Burana - There is just something about good choral classical music. Although it is overused a bit in movies & tv.

Genesis - Lamb Lies Down on Broadway - My first real concept album. Some of the earlier Genesis may be better, but this one just sticks with me. Genesis after P.G. is good, but not Genesis.

Nirvana - Nevermind - The band and album that brought us out of the RATT/Warren/Journey musical Titanic we were headed for. Showed that you didn't have to be happy and in love to write a song.

Nine Inch Nails - Broken - Pure unadulterated anger and unhappiness.

Aphex Twin - Come to Daddy - Great ambient techno.

Pharcyde - BizarreRide II - Amazing hip-hop album. Mixes jazz/blues beats with tight, well thought out lyrics.

And that's 11, so sue me! (although I really need a top 15 or 20. So many good albums & bands....)

[fruitbat]

First let me say Lisa you are right. I will admit I haven't listened to a VU album in a long time. I burned the songs onto CDs and which album each track is from kind of got mixed up in the process.

Second let me say I LOVE your list. See Robyn Hitchcock above. Underwater Moonlight is a stunning and beautiful album. It sounds amazingly fresh to this day. I have seen Robyn six or seven times on tour and he puts on a wonderful live show.

I saw Cub live in Boston years ago. They were good, but not great. A little sloppy and unfocused. I am so glad to hear I am not the only Cub fan out there though. Box of Hair is also a great album. Still I listened to "Magic 8 Ball" today and can't believe they never got any radio play.

[Dryga_Yes]

The Velvet Underground - Velvet Underground & Nico This is probably the best debut album ever made. Ridicolously ahead of its time, can you imagine them writing "Heroin" and "I'm Waiting for the Man" and "European Son" while the rest of the world is listening to Sgt. Pepper's? What's even more amazing is how well the album has aged, there are almost no duds on it even though it's really eclectic and kind of experimental.

Radiohead - OK Computer Already been mentioned a couple of times, for good reason. No other album sounds like this, and I don't think any album will sound like this either.

Pavement - Slanted & Enchanted One of the best pop albums ever, IMO. Every song is a little masterpiece, and they somehow make it sound like they came up with it all on the spot. Amazing.

The Clash - London Calling PUNK RAWK! And ska. And r'n'b. And reggae. And sometimes even really catchy pop music. But mostly punk.

Slint - Spiderland This album kickstarted the whole post-rock scene in the early 90's, it's easy to see how you'd be influenced by the unnerving stop-starts and the mumbled vocals. Sometimes it sounds dense and paranoid, other times hauntingly beautiful.

Can - Ege Bamyasi Pink Floyd's much cooler cousins from Germany, they did the same thing except Can listened to free jazz and avant-garde instead of classical. Pinch is probably my favorite song ever, or at least in the top three.

Belle & Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister Happy songs for happy people. :cool:

The Beatles - The Beatles (White Album) Yes, here comes the Beatles album. It's a pretty amazing task they picked for the album, trying to fit in as many genres as possible on two vinyls. It's even more impressive how well the manage to pull the whole thing off. It has a few songs I usually skip, but it doesn't really matter compared to all the good stuff that's on here.

Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation The one album where they got the balance between thier artsy jams, occasional noise bursts and punky college rock just right. Now, I love Goo, Sister, EVOL, Dirty, Murray Street, etc. but this album is so much... MORE than those. The whole album is greater than the sum of its songs, you know.

Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left I had a hard time choosing between this and Pink Moon, but this wins though it might be for sentimental reasons. It's so horribly beautiful and melancholic and I'm stuck between crying and smiling like an idiot.

[Mr. Blue Sky]

INPO:

1. "Out of the Blue" - Elelctric Light Orchestra - ELO is my favorite group and this is one of their best.

2. "A New World Record" - Electric Light Orchestra - Very Beatle-istic. Great from end to end.

3. "Time"- Electric Light Orchestra - If there's ever been an album that deserved the Japanimation treatment, it's this one. Generally overlooked.

4. "The Kick Inside" - Kate Bush - Stunning vocals albeit odd song subjects.

5. "Love Stinks" - J. Geils Band - Substantially better than the more sucessful follow-up "Freeze Frame. Wicked guitar and drum work.

6. "52nd Street" - Billy Joel - Nice mix of pop and jazz.

7. "Plastic Letters" - Blondie - All pop albums should be this good.

8. "Abbey Road" - Beatles - It's got "Here Comes the Sun" - 'nuff said!

9. "ABBA" - ABBA - The Swedish foursome at their best.

10. "Genesis" - Genesis - The last good Genesis album before Phil Collins lost his mind.

[interface2x]

Depeche Mode "Black Celebration" - The first album to really introduce me to dark electronic music. Still their best.

Nine Inch Nails "Broken" - Doesn't let up for a second.

Mesh "Who Watches Over Me?" - Their next album will have to really kick ass to even get near this one.

Anything Box "Worth" - Extremely poignant and sad.

Delerium "Karma" - Perfect for relaxation.

VNV Nation "Empires" - Excellent lyrics coupled with kickass music.

Loreena McKennitt "Book of Secrets" - Great celtic/world music.

Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits - All their best stuff all in one place.

And then about a million cd's tie for the next couple of places.

[look!ninjas]

In no order:

Cloud 9 - George Harrison: Probably my favorite solo Beatles album. Every song a gem. Well, except maybe "I Got My Mind Set on You," which went to #1 anyway.

Disintegration - The Cure: It's the mood of it that gets me. Perfect for driving on a clear, cold night, with the stars just little white pinpricks in all that dark.

Off the Wall - Michael Jackson: By contrast, perfect for driving on a sunny day. Crank it, dance along, and suddenly even gridlock is bearable. It's a shame he went so insane.

Stereotype A - Cibo Matto: Weird and wonderful. I can go for ages without listening to it, then I pop it in and remember how much fun it is.

Doolittle - the Pixies: It's because of "Here Comes Your Man." And "Monkey Gone to Heaven." And "Debaser." And...

Little Earthquakes - Tori Amos: A great album, and the first decent album I ever owned. I had really bad taste in music until eleven or so.

Fumbling for Ecstasy - Sarah McLachlan: Mildly embarrassing, a purely sentimental choice. I listened to it nonstop while in the early stages of a massive crush, and it still reminds me of that happily melancholy lovestruck mood.

If I Should Fall From Grace with God - The Pogues: Just a really, really good album.

Love is a Dog From Hell - Maggie Estep: It's sort of rock, it's sort of poetry, but most of it is hysterically funny, especially "Stalk Me," and "Emotional Idiot." And "Fire Eater" is sweet, in an odd way.

The Beatles: I can't choose one album, much as I try, so I'll just slap them all on the list, which is cheating, but I don't really care.

[Junior Spaceman]

Even though a top 1000 would have been easier, here's the top ten as of today.

1) The Stooges - Funhouse. What's better than 35 minutes of this record? Seven hours of this record. Anyway, this is the album that is the reason I don't play in a band - the album I would want to make has already been made.

2) The Velvet Underground - White Light/White Heat. My favourite band, and their most distinctive album. Yes, I do like this to be pretentious and like something most people don't.

3) The Dictators - Go Girl Crazy. Politically incorrect, funny, brilliant, and has the line "I think Lou Reed is a creep!" Members went on to Manowar and Twisted Sister, just to confuse the issue even more.

4) The Electric Eels - Eyeball of Hell. The first real punk band, and the greatest.

5) Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Let Love In. Great songs. Really, that's the only reason I like this.

6) Ornette Coleman - Live at the Golden Circle. The peak of free jazz - swings like nothing else, and is melodic yet completely free. I could listen to this all day.

7) Johnny Cash - American Recordings. Hard to pick just one from Johnny, but this is a killer from start to finish. There's some great collections of his 1960's work which together make a body of work better than this.

8) Robert Johnson - Complete Recordings. As someone who hates most of the Blues, this has it all. Great lyrics, a fantastic voice, haunting guitar. As good as everyone says it is.

9) Fates Warning - Awaken the Guardian. A forgotten album by an almost forgotten band. Progressive heavy metal as it was meant to be - epic, overblown and heartfelt.

10) The Dirty 3 - Horse Stories. One of these days this band will be famous. Maybe they already were and I missed it. Anyway, this is a record that changed my life, and even though it's served its purpose for me, it still deserves to be in the top ten.

[Fingolfin]

Guns-n-Roses- Appetite for Destruction

Guns-n-Roses- Use Your Illusion I & II

Pink Floyd- The Wall

Collective Soul- Dosage

Prince- Sign O' the Times

Prince- 1999

The Beatles- Revolver

The Rolling Stones- Exile on Main Street

Beck- Odelay

Saturday Night Fever- Soundtrack

AC/DC- Back in Black

The Clash- London Calling

Red Hot Chilli Peppers- BloodSugarSexMagic

Abba- Gold

Fleetwood Mac- Rumors

Steve Earle- Guitar Town


O dear, it appears I have gone over 10......O well. ;)

[Enginerd]

In no particular order...

Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks. Angry, bitter, wistful, accepting, and sweetly sentimental
Paul Simon - Graceland. Fantastic from start to finish
Doc & Merle Watson - Live On Stage. Traditionals, country blues, silly children's songs, spirituals, Doc's stories, and some of the best pickin' ever recorded.
The Clash - London Calling. For the same reasons it's on everyone else's list
Beatles - Abbey Road. Because I had to pick one
Johnny Cash - Live at Folsom. Maybe prison wouldn't be so bad...
Rolling Stones - Let it Bleed/Sticky Fingers. I won't decide and you can't make me
Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska. So what? It's my list.
Gram Parsons - Grievous Angel. Gram Parsons single-handedly continues to improve country-rock
Chris Smither - Live As I'll Ever Be. Chris Smither puts on as good a show as I've ever seen, and this album lives up to its name
Tom Waits - Rain Dogs.

If you disagree with any of these, don't worry too much about it. They'll all change tomorrow.

[Nightime]

1. Big Star - Third/Sister Lovers #1 Record and Radio City are the greatest "power pop" albums off all time, but this is still my favorite Big Star recording. Listen to this when it's raining.

2. Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea Unbelievably good. "Oh Comely" is perhaps the greatest song I've ever heard.

3. Radiohead - OK Computer My favorite band, their best album. I'll never forget borrowing this and hearing it for the first time.

4. Nirvana - In Utero Better than Nevermind. Nirvana wanted to do something harsher, and they succeeded, but this is even more deeply moving and powerful.

5. Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works Vol. II What I always wanted to hear, but had no idea.

6. Nina Simone - Verve Jazz Masters 17 This is the first I heard of Nina Simone, and still the one I listen to most often.

7. Pixies - Surfer Rosa Just look at the songs: Cactus, River Euphrates, Where is my Mind?, Gigantic, Bone Machine, Tony's Theme...

8. PJ Harvey - Is This Desire? The best PJ Harvey album, which is saying a lot.

9. Rasputina - Thanks for the Ether I love their sound and their sense of humor. Also a sentimental favorite; my first girlfriend was obsessed with Rasputina for a while.

10. Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left I like this a little more than Pink Moon, if only because I find myself singing more songs from this one.

Unknown - Tim Buckley - Starsailor From what I have heard of this album, it would very likely be in my top ten. However, as far as I know it is out of print and I can't get it.


- - - - - - - - - - - - -- - -- - -- -- - -- - --- -- -- - - - -

[Skillet38]

Kate Bush - The Sensual World
King Crimson - Red
King Crimson -Starless and Bible Black
King Crimson - Lark's Tongues in Aspic
Kate Bush - The Dreaming
YES - Tormato
Radiohead - Ok Computer
Radiohead - The Bends
Yes - Going For the One
Jeff Buckley - Grace
LZ- In through the Out Door
Rush - Permanent Waves
Peter Gabriel - So
Peter Gabriel - Us
NIN - Pretty Hate Machine
Kate Bush - Hounds of Love
Sarah Mclaughlin - Fumbling Towards Ecstasy

why ? because, to me, I am the ultimate arbitor of what is good, and I'm always right :D

[Quack]

I seem to have figured out the rules to this list: 1 Beatles record, 1 Pink Floyd record, 1-3 punk rock records, a jazz/soul record, and then whatever left is personal preference. That said, I will not break the trend in any way at all.

1. Operation Ivy - Energy If anyone can listen to this record honestly and not put it in their top 10, they're crazy. This record is not only musically revolutionary, but the lyrics mean a helluva lot and that takes it a long way.

2. Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon This is the best album as an album in the history of music. Each song leans on that preceding it and that following it as though they were crutches, but they aren't. Each song could stand alone as a great piece of music, it's that they flow so well that makes this a great record.

3. Ramones - Rocket to Russia What a kick in the pants this record is. It has such high energy and great intensity for something so light and fluffy. It's a fun listen but not boring musically.

4. Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band You saw it coming: the Beatles record. Well, this is the best of them and that's all there is to say. The consistent high quality peaks with this gem.

5. Rancid - Let's Go Rancid is awesome, and once again, this is their best record. I think the overall quality of this record is better than ...And Out Come the Wolves. I think that AOCTW has the better single songs (Daly City Train, Roots Radicals, Ruby Soho). That said, Let's Go gets the edge for being consistent and high-energy throughout.

6. Elvis Costello - My Aim Is True This record just kicks my ass up and down every time I hear it. Elvis is so intense on the guitar and the vocals that this record can do nothing but rock.

7. Weezer - Maladroit This record was undoubtedly the best of 2002 and the more I hear it, the better I like it. It flows like butter from "Take Control" through "December". That's roughly 80% of the record.

8. Green Day - Kerplunk! I'm a big Green Day fan and this record just talks to me. Worth whatever you pay for just the song "Who Wrote Holden Caulfield?" let alone the other gems. This record is them before they got huge, but it shows a nice crossover in songwriting style from their first records into Dookie.

9. Creedence Clearwater Revival - Chronicle I swore to myself I wouldn't put any Greatest Hits junk on here, but this record is too good not to. It has all the good ones and a few of the more regrettable, but I love it.

10. Dropkick Murphys - Live on St. Patrick's Day This is the best live record you can buy. The band interacts a lot with their fans and plays to the intenstiy of the crowd. What maeks this a great record is that the quality is great and the song selection and ordering are superb (the cover of "Fortunate Son" and the rendition of "Finnegan's Wake" are my favorites).

[fizgig]

This is my "most-heavy-rotation-as-of-late" list (no order):

Brendan Benson Lapalco

Wes Cunningham 12 Ways to Win People to Your Way of Thinking

Guster Lost and Gone Forever

Beulah The Coast is Never Clear

New Pornographers Mass Romantic

Veruca Salt Eight Arms to Hold You

Flaming Lips Soft Bulletin

Belle and Sebastian If You're Feeling Sinister

Ednaswap Wacko Magneto

Ben Kweller Sha Sha

[fizgig]

Doh! As soon as I hit "submit" I realized I needed to list:

Brad Interiors

EELS Electroshock Blues

I am obsessed with these CD's at the moment.

[koeeoaddi]

Hangman's Beautiful Daughter - The Incredible String Band

Ladies of the Canyon - Joni Mitchell

American Beauty - The Grateful Dead

Surrealistic Pillow - Jefferson Airplane

Doc Watson On Stage 1970 - Doc & Merle Watson

Stand Up - Jethro Tull

The Lady and the Unicorn - John Renbourn

Katy Lied - Steely Dan

Liege And Lief - Fairport Convention

Highway 61- Bob Dylan

Bonus: Rubber Soul - The Beatles

These are all old (like me) and played so often that the LPs were scratched all to hell and gone and eventually got replaced with CDs. They are my all time favorites and there isn't a bad song on any of 'em.

[Sam Stone]

The Who - Who's Next.
One of the best rock and roll albums of all time. Not a weak song on the entire disc.

Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers
My favorite Stones album. Again, not a weak song on the entire thing, and some true classics.

Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Normally, I wouldn't consider saying an album was one of my all-time favorites without giving it a few years to percolate in my brain. But this one has that feel. It is an ambitious album, and that makes hitting the target of their ambition all the more impressive. This was the best album of 2002.

Warren Zevon - Warren Zevon
Warren Zevon could sell 20 million copies of his albums, and he'd still be under-appreciated. But he only sells 50-100,000 of them, and that's a shame. His songs should be heard by everyone.

John Prine - John Prine
John Prine's first album was the strongest collection of his work he ever recorded. The track list reads like a set of folk-rock standards. In my opinion, this is the best folk-rock album ever made.

Warren Zevon - Excitable Boy
His best-selling album, due almost entirely to the success of "Werewolves of London" - which is actually one of the weaker songs on the album. Worth it just for "Desperadoes Under the Eaves".

Pink Floyd - The Wall
The pinnacle of art rock. And a great album.

Lynyrd Skynyrd - Street Survivors
This could be any one of about four Skynyrd Albums. They go through my normal CD rotation one at a time, randomly. No one ever rocked harder than Skynyrd.

The Beatles - Abbey Road
This could be any one of the Beatles Albums, because they are all still in constant play in our house. But if I had the chance to save only one of my Beatles albums from destruction, this'd probably be it. But what a tough choice.

The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
'Cause damnit, they deserve to have more than one spot on this list. The Beatles still tower over everything in modern music.

[Grousser]

The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

The Beatles - Abbey Road

The Beatles - The Beatles (White Album)

Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin II

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon

Billy Joel - Glass Houses

Supertramp - Breakfast in America

Queen - A Night at the Opera

Queen - Queen II

The Manhattan Transfer - Mecca for Moderns

Worth to mention, also:
Queen, News of the World; Led Zeppelin, IV; Marillion, Fugazi; Michael Jackson, Thriller; Paul McCartney & Wings, London Town; John Lennon, Some Time in New York City; Pink Floyd, The Wall; Jesus Christ Superstar Original Movie Soundtrack; Motley Crue, Too Fast For Love; Led Zeppelin, Presence; Tomita, Mussorgsky Pictures At An Exhibition.

[Darth Nader]

My god, every single album that would have gone into my top list has been mentioned already.

Except for:

Camper Van Beethoven - Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart
It's a masterpiece. More than just "Ethnic music from a country we made up", as band members once called their sound. Looking at some of the other lists, I'm amazed no one else has mentioned this one.

Hüsker Dü - Zen Arcade
Just because.

[Shana]

Only 10....This is going to be hard!!

Bjork - Homogenic.... Say what you will about Bjork. The woman is an original. Every song on this album makes my cells sing!

Stereolab - Emperor Tomato Ketsup... Great mood music. All their albums are fabu, but this one really hit me when I first heard it.

Ladytron - 604...The 80s reinvented. Fun, intelligent dance music! The newest album is great too.

Massive Attack - Mezzanine...Brilliant, wonderful, mind boggling.

Portishead - Dummy....This one blew me away.

Radiohead - OK Computer....I've become disenchanted with Radiohead lately, but I will always go back to this album again and again. It has staying power.

PJ Harvey - Dry....I love everything this woman has done, but this album is one of my favs.

Throwing Muses - In a Doghouse....Again, hard to pick a favorite album.

The Clash - Give 'em Enough Rope....I listened to this over and over and over when I was a teenager.

The Cure - The Top...Geesh, I think that's what it's called? lol...My brain is addled, but I think that's it...

[RickJay]

The Tragically Hip, "Road Apples" - Just the best pure rock and roll album ever recorded by anyone anywhere. Tightest band I've ever heard, and this was their best work.

The Beastie Boys, "Licensed To Ill" - "Fight For Your Right" is the one song EVERY guy will get up and dance to. Slam dance, granted.

Peter Gabriel, "So" - Wasn't this his first solo album that wasn't just called Peter Gabriel? Anyway, in retrospect some of these songs sound a little over the top now, but when I was 20 it was the coolest music I'd ever heard.

REM, "Automatic for the People" - Just so many awesome, innovative songs here.

Tom Petty, "Full Moon Fever" - Gosh, do you think I'm a child of the 80's? A great, fun album, made by a guy who obviously just loves being a musician.

The Beatles, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." - Okay, I'm not entirely a child of the 80s. I had a copy on vinyl my parents had bought when it first came out. I wrecked it, I played it so much.

The Police, "Synchronicity" - New Wave in its ultimate evolution. This was the apex of the Police sound, when it was at its highest refinement but before Sting started to become lame-ass to the extreme. Also, "The Police" might well be the best band name ever, which counts for something.

The Tragically Hip, "Day for Night" - So I love 'em. I'm telling you, these guys could rock. Could being the operative word; they started to lose it after this album.

AC/DC, "Back in Black" - Another tip to the classics. Just pure, hard rock music.

Weird Al Yankovic, "In 3-D" - Well, you asked for favourite albums. This album is hysterical.

[astorian]

Originally posted by RickJay
Peter Gabriel, "So" - Wasn't this his first solo album that wasn't just called Peter Gabriel? Anyway, in retrospect some of these songs sound a little over the top now, but when I was 20 it was the coolest music I'd ever heard.

[/B]


Actually, "Security" was the first Gabriel solo album that he didn't just call "Peter Gabriel."

"Security" was his 4th solo album. I remember him telling a radio interviewer that he wanted to call that one "Peter Gabriel" as well, but was pressured by the record label to give it a title. He finally agreed to call it "Security," bu TRIED to arrange it so the title would only appear on a decal on the cellophane package! That way, as soon as the buyer removed the cellophane wrapping, the title would be gone, and only the name "Peter Gabriel" would remain on the CD or tape itself.

But that "plan" fell through.

[ignatius_reilly]

Here's my top ten, in no particular order:

1. Built to Spill: There's Nothing Wrong With Love
2. Elvis Costello: This Year's Model
3. The Handsome Family: Through the Trees
4. The Jayhawks: Tomorrow the Green Grass
5. R.E.M.: Fables of the Reconstruction (am I the only person who loves this record?)
6. Frank Black: Frank Black (I know, I know, his best work by far was with the Pixies, but whenever I listen to this one it takes me back to my senior year in high school)
7. Neko Case & Her Boyfriends: Furnace Room Lullaby
8. Allison Moorer: The Hardest Part
9. Wayne Hancock: A-Town Blues
10. BR5-49: Coast to Coast

I'm sure if you'd have asked me, the list would've been totally different last week.

[HalberMensch242]

In no particular order..i give you my top 10:

Kraftwerk-Radioactivity...amazing to think that a record made in the late 70's has as much relevance to electronic music today as it did back than...

Front 242- Evil Off...although i own the entirety of their catalogue, this one seems to stand out..sometimes subtlety wins over brute force..

Einsturzende Neubauten-Haus Der Luge...again a band like this his numerous brilliant albums, but this one seemed to condense all the "goodness" of ever other album into on coherent piece. "haus der luge" is probably one of my favorite songs of all time.

Angels of Light- Everything is good here/Please Come Home
This is by far, the culmination of everything Michael Gira was working towards when he started and ended the Swans. Simply amazing record.

The Smiths- Queen is Dead..simply amazing record..i could listen to this over and over again. Moz maybe a whiner, but he's a damn good one.

Depeche Mode- Violator.. these guys were my first taste of electronic music and to this day this album blows me away.

Sigur Ros-Agaetis Byrjun..i bought this album because i liked the cover...boy was i surprised to find what the music was actually like..

Death in June- Discrimination...you know, i never imagined myself listening to a folk band that used noise, drones, and neo-pagan themes. But boy, i picked a good band to start with..

VnV Nation- Empires...amazing melodies and heart wrenching lyrics..."Rubicon" still makes me a bit weepy.

Skinny Puppy- Too Dark Park...you know, out of all their albums, this one stands out as the one with the highest freak out factor....and who doesn't enjoy that?

[Lisa-go-Blind]

Originally posted by Darth Nader
My god, every single album that would have gone into my top list has been mentioned already.

Except for:

<snip>

Hüsker Dü - Zen Arcade
Just because.

Check out #6 on my list. ;)

[Ludovic]

All of mine I like for the same reason (with one exception): every single song on them is good. Oh, and I'm leaving out compilations, as I feel that's cheating somehow.

#1 The Wall, Pink Floyd. In addition, it has the best music ever written, period.
#2.Nest, Odds.
#3.Siamese Dream, Smashing Pumpkins. Great synthesis of Modern Rock sensibility with Classic Rock fret-wanking.
#4.Paul's Boutique, Beastie Boys. This is the rap equivalent of The Wall: It literally is classes above every other rap album I've heard, musically and lyrically.
#5.This Year's Model, Elvis Costello. I was prepared to not like him but my friend insisted I buy this. Even in the beginning it hooked me, with "no action". I was starting to get into "no action", when he broke into the "New Wave" mode of singing with the voice shift in "....but I was disconnected in time." That blew me away and I was an instant fan.
#6.What are you going to do with your life? - Echo and the Bunnymen. The songs still have the combination of the echoes(NPI) of youthful angst and consigned realism that I can relate to now. Not to mention the best voice in music outside of Bjork.
#7.Life's too Good, the Sugarcubes. Okay, so besides the obvious song, I only like "Blue-eyed pop" on that offering, but considering Birthday is by far the best song ever, this has to be included.
#8.Led Zeppelin I. Pure power.
#9.Led Zeppelin IV. Some things are famous for a reason.
#10.Aja, Steely Dan. Next to Pink Floyd, the smartest band in rock. I'm not sure if many people "get" their first-person literary style, but it's subtle genius disguised as often stupid narrators. (By the way, I'd include STP in that category. Even though the singer apparently lives out a BIT more of his songs than I previously thought :()

[Jack Ketch]

In no order:

R.E.M., Life’s Rich Pageant – When R.E.M. was fresh and you couldn’t understand the lyrics.
New Order, Low Life – Not a single bad song.
The Beatles, Rubber Soul – Because they’re the Beatles and its so hard to choose.
The Cure, Head on the Door – Not too dark for the Cure.
The Smiths, The Queen Is Dead – Why, oh why, do the Smiths make me smile?
U2, October – Another one where the band was younger and a little more raw.
The Cranberries, Everyone’s Doing It… - I like every song.
Garth Brooks, No Fences – Sorry.
AC/DC, Back in Black – One should always include a little head banging.
Queen, A Night at the Opera – Queen has the complete package.

[HookerChemical]

In order but subject to change without notice and arbitrary sentance structure:

Thick as a Brick- Jethro Tull- Perfect prog. There's enough to keep anybody interested, but not so much as to lose lost anybody who didn't go to Berklee. It does a great job of exploring related themes all the way through the album.

A Passion Play- Jethro Tull- Not quite as perfect as TaaB, but it appeals to the prog-snob in me.

Operation Mindcrime- Queensryche- Well crafted songs. Anarchy X and Suite Sister Mary are my favorites. Lots of great riffs and leads.

Fugazi- Marillion- I could listen to the last two songs on this one for days on end. Even Jigsaw, the weakest point in the album, it well crafted. This is one of my favorites to listen to while driving.

Scenes From a Memory- Dream Theater- Another favorite for driving. The contrast between delicate numbers like Through Her Eyes and Home works amazingly well. Home is the perfect centerpiece for this album.

Flower Power- Flower Kings- One great megasong plus another disk of shorter, simpeler songs. Another album with poppy bits to grab you in and intricate structures to keep you interested.

In the Court of the Crimson King- King Crimson- This one set a high bar for the future of prog rock. This one is solid with the exception of the second half of Moonchild.

Snow- Spock's Beard- Of the albums on the list, this is probably the best at linking the music to the lyrics. Every solo, fill, and riff was exactly where it needed to be to move the story along.

The Final Cut- Pink Floyd- I really can't explain why this is better than The Wall or Meddle, but it is.

Aenima- Tool- Great lyrics. Great riffs. They do an amazing job of establishing a riff then turning it inside out for the next five minutes.

Honorable mention:
OK Computer- Radiohead

[jweb]

In no particular order:

Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine
Metallica - Ride the Lightning
Tool - Aenima
Tool - Lateralus
Guns n Roses - Appetite for Destruction
The Crystal Method - Vegas
Pearl Jam - Ten
Alice in Chains - Dirt
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
Nine Inch Nails - Broken

Unfortunately, 10's the limit. I could go on for quite a while.

[Thunderclap Monolith]

In no order:

"The Unathorized Autobiography of Reinhold Messner" -- Ben Folds Five: Such great melody and structure. Every song inspires a different mood and it also works as a whole.

"The Essential Leo Kottke"-- Leo Kottke: The best of the greatest acoustic guitar player of all time. Fantastic melody and construction and amazing slide.

"Ah Via Musicom" -- Eric Johnson: He plays so fast, but he hits all the right notes.

"Songs in the Attic" -- Billy Joel: A childhood thing. I know every nook and cranny of this live set.

"Permanent Waves" -- Rush: Power trio at the peak of its powers. The best of songwriting, melody, and pure skill.

"Angel Dust"-- Faith No More: Metal at its most original and intelligent.

"Boomer's Story" -- Ry Cooder: Master of the slide guitar and a great, rootsy album.

"OK Computer" -- Radiohead: I know it's redundant to list this but it's just so lush, so seamless and achingly beautiful.

"Physical Graffiti" -- Led Zeppelin: Shows all sides of the band, good and bad.

"Presto" -- Rush: Their biggest departure. An interesting blend of sharp musicianship and pop craftsmanship. I find recent Rush tiring...this album is like a glorious cool breeze.

[The Universe Lashes Out]

I love threads like this, cause almost everyone who bothers putting together a top ten albums list has great taste. As such, most of mine have been mentioned already, but here they are anyway.

The Clash - London Calling. All over the place, and brilliant. Nineteen tracks, each as good as the last. No, better than the last. No, as good.

Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks. The definition of punk rock. You can't listen to it quietly.

Modern Lovers - Modern Lovers. Amazing pop music. Jonathan Richman is my hero.

Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation. Enough has been said about this already. Go listen to it.

Wilco - Being There. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot may end up being better, but this one already has the history. I've loved it since it came out, and it still puts a smile on my face when I put it in.

Uncle Tupelo - Anodyne. Jay Farrar when he was close to his peak as a writer. Jeff Tweedy as he started to realize he could write great songs.

Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique. Seems like every time I listen there's a new rhyme I haven't yet fully appreciated.

Radiohead - The Bends. My favorite Radiohead changes every day, but I'll go with this one right now. Some of the best straight-up guitar rock ever.

Pixies - Surfer Rosa. What everyone else said.

Dr. Dre - The Chronic. Completely changed the way music is done in rap. Everything in rap today would be different if it weren't for this CD.

[acrossthesea]

1. Nirvana- Nevermind. Because I've always loved Nirvana and that's their best album.
2. Pearl Jam- Vitalogy. Because I've always loved Pearl Jam and I think that's their best album.
3. Foo Fighters- One By One. I love the Foo Fighters, plain and simple.
4. Foo Fighters- There is Nothing Left To Lose. I'm not sure if I love this one because the songs are great or because I went to an instore cd signing performance thing when this one came out, which then made me love the songs even more.
5. Hole- Live Through This. Say what you will about Courtney Love, that's still a great album.
6. Green Day- Dookie. I really liked my sophomore year of high school, and that album was really big that year. It's my big '94 nostalgia cd.
7. Weezer- the green album. My sdmb name comes from the title of a weezer song that is on a different album, but the green album is my favorite one by weezer.
8. Alice in Chains- Unplugged. I love alice in chains. They were such a hard heavy band yet sounded so good acoustic. Layne Staley and Jerry Cantrell had some great vocal harmonies on that album.
9. Stone Temple Pilots- Purple. No reason, I just like it a lot.
10. Silverchair- Neon Ballroom. Again, I just like it a lot.

[blanx]

Many of my Top Ten have already been mentioned...

(Aside to Sam Stone- couldn't agree more about John Prine)

1) John Prine- John Prine - it's always in my car, cause sometimes you just need to sing along with Paradise.

2) Nirvana- Nevermind. Nirvana changed music for me

3) Peter Gabriel- Us- if only for the duet with Sinead O'Connor on Blood of Eden

4) Sinead O'Connor- The Lion and the Cobra One word- Troy.

5) Public Enemy- Fear of a Black Planet/ It takes a nation of millions to hold us back. These two made me, an unhip white kid from the 'burbs, want to go fight the man.

6) Johnny Cash- any of the American records with Rick Rubin- his version of U2's "One" surpasses the original.

7) Pixies Surfer Rosa- ditto to what others said.

8) Steve Earle and the Del McCoury Band- the Mountain- bluegrass and Steve Earle.

9) The Pogues- Rum, Sodomy and the Lash- every track is a winner

10) Van Morrison- Astral Weeks.

[saramamalana]

I think of this as the "desert island list." In no particular order:

1) Radiohead - OK Computer. (I can't even explain the rush I get when that album starts)

2) Fleming & John - The Way We Are

3) Guster - Lost and Gone Forever

4) Ben Folds Five - Ben Folds Five

5) The Who - Tommy

6) Godspell - movie soundtrack

7) Folk Implosion - One Part Lullaby

8) Better Than Ezra - How Does Your Garden Grow?

9) Moxy Fruvous - Live Noise

10) Cake - Prolonging the Magic

This list of course could change if I thought about it more, but this is what comes to mind now.

[SolGrundy]

The Beatles - Revolver
It's got "Tomorrow Never Dies" on it. And just about every other song on there is one of my favorite Beatles songs, too. Even the horribly depressing "For No One" is a great melody.

Emergency Broadcast Network - Telecommunication Breakdown
This is the band that took live video feeds from sattelite and used them as samples; this album was remixed/engineered/whatever by "big-name" electronic artists like Meat Beat Manifesto. It would win just on the concept alone, but manages to be excellent music as well. One of those albums I have to listen to all the way through. (Plus the videos included on the disc are just brilliant.)

The Pogues - If I Should Fall From Grace With God
One of the best bands ever, at their peak. Great songwriting from Shane MacGowan, and stunning musicianship from the rest of the band. I mentioned in another thread why this is my favorite; it's the first one where they started to break out of just doing traditional Celtic style music and did whatever they felt like.

Pizzicato Five - Happy End of the World
Unless I'm mistaken, this was the first P5 album that was released in the US the same as it was in Japan, instead of being a compilaton of previous releases. If that's not true, it certainly feels like it -- it holds together as an album instead of just feeling like a bunch of songs. And it's got "Trailer Music," one of my favorites.

Indigo Girls - Shaming of the Sun
It was a toss-up between this and their self-titled album. I chose this one mostly for the song "Leeds," which is just amazingly powerful, and "Shame on You" which is just amazingly catchy. This one strikes the right balance between the spare two-acoustic-guitars of their first couple of albums, and the over-production of their subsequent ones.

Yoko Kanno/Seatbelts - Cowboy Bebop, Vol. 1
I thought at first that soundtracks were immediately disqualified from best-of lists, but then I wondered why. This is just a brilliant collection of music that happens to have been used in a television series. Yoko Kanno's my hero; she can do any kind of music possible.

Art of Noise - In No Sense? Nonsense!
This is about the only "concept album" that's ever worked for me. Apart from the opening version of "Dragnet," which was done for the movie, everything else is about speed and motion.

The Pixies - Surfer Rosa
For the reasons everyone else mentioned. Plus it's the Pixies album with the most Kim Deal.

Chemical Brothers - Dig Your Own Hole
I listened to this one so many times when it was released that it now plays on a constant loop in my subconscious. "Get Up On It Like This" is one of the best tracks on any album ever.

Led Zeppelin - IV
It got me through high school.

[dead0man]

NOFX-Punk in Drublic - A very complete "punk" album full of creamy goodness and nugget.
Pink Floyd-Animals - Underated by most quasi-Floyd fans that don't know any better(which is where I was 2 years ago)
Led Zeppelin II - A lot of my favorite Zep songs are on this album
Aerosmith Toys in the Attic - At their peak before the drugs really got to them (you could argue that its Rocks, and I would understand)
Soundgarden- BadMotorFinger - Best "grunge" album, here is where punk meets hard rock
Nirvana-Bleach- Pure Nirvana
NOFX -Pump up the Vailium- Solid album showed me they still had "it"
Led Zeppelin-Houses of the Holy-Most of the rest of my favorite Zep songs can be found here
The Who-Tommy-I needed a Who album and I had typed out "Who's Next", but that has some weak cuts on it, of course Tommy does to, but its got a lot of really strong songs on it.

Yeah I know its only 9, to many others could go here Back in Black, ZOSO, Dark Side of the Moon, Meddle, Wish you were here, Physical Graphiti, Rocks, Get Your Wings, Nevermind, and about 20 more I could make a good argument with myself about.

[Jeff]

1. The Tragically Hip - Day for Night. The band hit a serious groove with this one; Gord Downie's eclectic vocals were at their peak, and meshed so very well with the music.

2. The Tea Party - Transmission. A Zepplin-esque band experimenting with eastern instruments and melodies decides to add electronica to the mix: the result was magnificent. Songs like Gyroscope, Babylon and the title track kick major ass.

3. Radiohead - OK Computer. Everyone else's favorite as well, I see. Not that that's a bad thing.

4. Faith No More - Angel Dust. "Would anybody tell me/ If I was getting....stupider?" These guys were so ahead of the music game, their stuff still sounds fresh.

5. Tool - Aenima. Hooker with a Penis. Best. Song. Title. Ever. Gotta love a band which can pull off screaming F*** YOU, BUDDY! at their fans.

6. Tom Waits - The Bone Machine. Tom Waits is a god.

7. Weezer - The Blue Album. Still the best work this band ever did.

8. The New Pornographers - Electric Version. The only bad thing I can say about this album is that it needs more Neko Case. The world needs more Neko Case.

9. Tom Waits - swordfishtrombone. The start of Tom's "weird" period (which never actually ended).

10. Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral. It's too bad Trent's style has been co-opted, watered down and homogenized by the media and chumps like Marylin Manson. Hearing Trent scream out "I wanna f*** you like an animal!" sounded great 10 years ago before we all became so damn jaded.

[buckyogi]

Alphabetical by artist:

The Beatles (White Album) -- The Beatles
The scariest album of all time: all that "Paul is Dead" stuff, and what was up with Manson?

Cheap Thrills -- Big Brother and the Holding Company
Joplin at her raw, electric best.

Loud Guitars, Big Suspicions -- Shannon Curfman
The best album of the last ten years. How could she have only been thirteen when she recorded this?

Bitches Brew -- Miles Davis
Is it jazz? Is it rock? Who cares!

Meat Puppets II -- The Meat Puppets
My favorite album in my favorite genre (alternative/punk/new wave).

Road to Ruin -- The Ramones
On which the Ramones learn to rock gracefully without losing a speck of passion.

Metal Machine Music -- Lou Reed
Lou Reed is God. This album is why.

Murmer -- R.E.M.
Simply one of the most achingly beautiful albums ever recorded.

The Stooges -- The Stooges
Lyrics I still relate to even though I'm 44, and the greatest wah-wah pedal album ever.

White Light / White Heat -- The Velvet Underground
Sister Ray is the soundtrack of my life.


For an expanded list, see my Web site:

Buck Yogi's Favorite Albums (http://www.buckyogi.com/about/albums.html)

[An Arky]

There are probably 20 or so that sort of revolve in my top 10...

TODAY's picks are, in no particular order.

The Jam - All Mod Cons
Quite a leap from the previous two albums, this album hooked me when I was 15 and I've probably listened to it weekly since

The Clash - Give 'Em Enough Rope
Sure, London Calling is classic and the first album was seminal, but this one ROCKED...

AC/DC - Let There Be Rock
This was loud, rude and nasty. You could hear drum pedals sueak and amp feedback rattling the snares. Awesome.

Cheap Trick - At Budokan (I & II)
They were a truly great live act at this time. Hooks, power and humor in one package...

The Beatle - Rubber Soul
Nothing I can say really. A definitive album.

The Kinks - Are the Village Green Preservation Society
It has a loose, wildly creative feel. It's my Sgt. Peppers, in a way...

The Plimsouls - The Plimsouls
Their relatively un-heralded debut has a 60s soul feel that is near perfect 3 minute pop.

Elvis Costello - This Year's Model
Speaking of near perfect 3 minute pop...This was the first (and nearly only) album where you can hardly hear the guitar that I liked.

R.E.M. - Murmur
Absolutely stunning. They made "alternative rock" possible, IMHO.

The Psychedelic Furs - Talk Talk Talk
A very good pop album and quite a departure from their debut. This was a soundtrack for the summer of my 18th year, when I had a hopeless crush on a girl...

[Parrothead]

Wow. Quite a few that I like have been mentioned, but I have some that haven't...

I don't know if I can get to 10, but let's go (in the order that they occur to me, I'm just typing stream of consciousness...) Many of the songs in list make it because of when I heard them, as much as what I heard. They just came along at important times in my life.

Alanis Morisette "Jagged Little Pill"
"Under Rug Swept" is good too, but JLP just has so many songs that I enjoy listening to...

The Police "Synchronicity"
Makes the list despite the fact that Mother may be the worst song ever.

Pat Green "Three Days"
Country seems under-representated on everyone's list. Oh, hell, this makes the list simply because I fell in love while listening to it. And I still am, even if she's not so sure anymore.

Paul Simon "Graceland"
I tried really hard to pick "Rhythm of the Saints", but "Graceland" is simply better.

Led Zepplin "IV"
Stereotypical, and mentioned here many times, but still good.

The Beatles
Call it a cop out, but I cannot pick just one.

and now for the mainstream 80's section of my list...

Men at Work "Business as Usual"
Journey "Escape"
Styx "Paradise Theatre"

Oh well, I'm tired. That list will do for now.

[Not A Tame Lion]

In the ever-popular "no particular order":

Nonsuch , XTC
Rubber Soul , The Beatles
Tunnel Of Love , Bruce Springsteen
The Juliet Letters , Elvis Costello & The Brodsky Quartet
Misplaced Childhood , Marillion
Mercury Falling , Sting
Sign O' The Times , Prince
The Man And His Music , Sam Cooke (compilation)
Pet Sounds , The Beach Boys
Temple Of Low Men , Crowded House

and probably a dozen other albums that deserve mention, but the request was only for a favorite 10.

What I find interesting about this is how these things change over time--even though none of these albums listed above is a recent release. For instance, as with others who have posted to this thread, I probably would have included a Pink Floyd album (or two) on this list a decade ago, but, while I still dig Floyd, they've slipped off the radar a bit. If you open this thread again a year from now, everyone who posts here will probably submit a different list then vs. now.

[El_Kabong]

Well, for what it's worth, here's my list, as of 2PM today. Maybe a couple of surprises on it.

Beatles: Revolver
Poised just at the perfect balance point between ingratiating aim to please and wild-assed self-indulgence.

The Band: Music from Big Pink
Sounds like a jug band from the hollers of West Virginia just dicovered electricity. Brilliant Americana, from what was mostly a bunch of Canadians, naturally.

Rolling Stones: Exile on Main Street
Uncut smack on record. Richards & Co. somehow haul up the greatest blues-based rock 'n' roll album ever.

Led Zeppelin: Physical Grafitti
The second greatest blues-based rock 'n' roll album ever.

Depeche Mode: Violator
Heartbreaking, swooningly beautiful pop songs and that rarest of entities: electronica that truly swings.

Oasis: Definitely Maybe
Noel said it all, tunewise, first time out of the gate, and no one can convey the attitude "I couldn't give a rat's ass" better than Liam.

Sam Phillips: Martinis & Bikinis
Talk about economical pop songs. Lots of inner meanings to puzzle out and not a single note more than necessary.

Massive Attack: Mezzanine
Quoth my friend Laura on first listen: "Man, that's some serious fuck music." End of story.

Lounge Lizards: Voice of Chunk
Criminally overlooked, angular jazz-rock whatsit. The last great blast of the New York beatnik hipster pose.

Boards of Canada: Music Has the Right to Children
Obscure to most (I started a thread on this album last year and got not a single reply), this weirdly handsome ambient epic, constructed out of samples from '60's educational films and leftover noises from an old Atari computer, has a crunchy goodness unequalled by anything else I've ever heard in the genre.

[BizarroRonJeremy]

Top Ten - No order
1. Nevermind - Nirvana
2. Raise - Swervedriver
3. Sublime - Sublime
4. Rage Against the Machine
5. White Album - The Beatles
6. The Chronic - Dr. Dre
7. Check Your Head - Beastie Boys
8. Paul's Boutique - Beastie Boys
9. Who's Next - The Who
10. Led Zeppelin II - Led Zep

With these 10 albums, I could survive a very long time on a desert island (with electricity of course).

[Hüsker Düde]

1) Hüsker Dü - Zen Arcade
This album has all the odds stacked against it. I mean how can a 70 minutes long, hardcore-punk, concept album that was recorded and mixed in under 85 hours possibly work? I don't know, but it does. Acoustic ballads, tape loops, psychedelic experiments, nightmarish instrumentals, raging hardcore and larynx shredding vocals. Whenever I play ‘Pink Turns To Blue’ the temperature in the room drops below zero. Listen to this at winter nights with headphones on as you watch pale northern lights dance across the night sky. This bleak masterpiece was IMHO the album where hardcore peaked.

2) My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
A blissful, sensual, hypnotic and trippy mindfuck. You can have sex while listening to this album and forget what you're doing. Seriously.

3) Fugazi - Red Medicine
Fugazi has never made a bad album, Red Medicine just happens to be the best of the best. During a period of six months 'Bed For The Scrapping' was the only song that mattered.

4) The Replacements - Tim
The 'Mats were the kings of loser anthems. 'Here Comes A Regular' should be played on the jukebox during closing time at every bar in the world; it's still only one of two songs that can make me cry.

5) Minutemen - Double Nickels On The Dime
"Our band could be your life." 44 songs and at least 41 of them are keepers. Try putting it on shuffle mode in your CD player, it works even better then. An album perfectly suited for swiling frosty beer on the back of your porch while swatting mosquitoes of your sweaty neck. 'History Lesson Pt. 2' is the second song that can make me cry.

6) Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
Disturbing, yet beautifully realized songs dealing with incestuous sex, Anne Frank, time travel and semen stained mountaintops. 'Holland 1945' is perhaps the best pop song of the 90's.

7) Built To Spill - There's Nothing Wrong With Love
I'm torn between this Built to Spill album and Perfect From Now On. This one wins because of the beautiful double punch of the childhood nostalgic songs 'Twin Falls' and 'Some.' Nobody can emote feelings with just a guitar like Doug Martsch.

8) The Stooges - Funhouse
No album is more goosebump inducing than Funhouse. Perhaps Raw Power has better songs (Search & Destroy is my alltime favorite song) but there is just something about Funhouse that appeals to me on in some primal way.

9) Pavement - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
Almost a tie with Slanted & Enchanted, but with killer songs like 'Gold Soundz', 'Silence Kit', 'Cut Your Hair and 'Range Life' it deserves to win.

10) Guided By Voices - Bee Thousand/Alien Lanes
A tie. I can't chose. I used to have both albums on a tape, they just go hand in hand. I heard Bob Pollard writes the song titles before he writes the song, that way the choruses sound original. Proof: 'Gold Heart Mountaintop Queen Directory', 'Tractor Rape Chain' and 'My Valuable Hunting Knife.'

The people on this board have great taste in music, please post more lists.

[BornOfStardust]

Oh boy...well, I'll give this a shot :) It's pretty heavy on my two favorite bands at the moment, but hey, they are my favorites and I've been listening to them a lot lately. ;) List can be subject to change depending on current listening hapits. In no particular order, because there is no way I could do a particular order:

Radiohead: The Bends - A beautiful, consistently good, and amazing album. Not much else to say. They are my favorite band.
Rent: Original Broadway Soundtrack - This has been my favorite musical since I decided to hear what all the fuss was about in...7th grade maybe?
Radiohead: OK Computer - It's on everybody's list, but with good reason after all.
Tori Amos: Little Earthquakes - GOD it's good. The woman is a musical genius, pure and simple, and she is my other favorite alongside Radiohead.
Barenaked Laides: Stunt - These guys are so fun!!! I bought the album because of "One Week" but discovered so much more. They're lyrically clever and musically pleasing...it's a great album to play and dance around in your room to.
Radiohead: Amnesiac - It's similar in many ways to its experimental predecessor, Kid A, which I also love dearly, but I personally prefer this album just a bit.
Tori Amos: From The Choirgirl Hotel - I love pretty much all of her albums, but this one also particularly stands out to me. She branches out into more electronica stuff to challenge her "girl with a piano" image, and many songs deal with her miscarriage. It's a wonderful album--beautiful, sexy, and haunting all at once.
NIN: The Downward Spiral - I haven't listened to this album in a long time...it's tough to handle sometimes. But wow, what a concept album, and what talent Trent Reznor showed on it.
Pink Floyd: The Wall - Another one on everybody's list. Ain't it great?
Tori Amos: Boys for Pele - I think this is a less traditional choice for many Tori fans, but even though it's long and can take several listens to get into, the wait is worth it. It's an album I've really taken to...I love the quirkiness and obscure lyrics, and some moments (Hey Jupiter, Marianne, and The Doughnut Song are some for me) are knock-you-on-your-ass beautiful/sad/haunting.

[BornOfStardust]

Oops..."habits" and "Ladies." I can't type. :P Also, while it's almost a toss-up for me between The Wall and Dark Side of the Moon, I go with The Wall partly because it was the first Floyd album I got--and it has Comfortably Numb, which is the song that first got me into the band.

[Semp]

This thread sucks because it makes my brain hurt thinking about it. Yet I... can't... resist! Arrgh!

Oh well, in alphabetical order:

Belle and Sebastian: Tigermilk. Damn fine wussy pop music. Just about every song on this one is a candidate for getting stuck in your head at inopportune times.

The Cure: Pornography. Remember that time you really felt like crap? Well, this album let's you know, reassuringly, that someone once felt much worse. And the music is really good, too. Excellent fuel for teenage angst.

Godflesh: Streetcleaner. Well... um... see, Godflesh made some really intense music that got lumped into the grindcore category, while they managed to not be silly characatures (sp?) the way the other bands dumped in that label were. This album is one of the only ones where at first listen my jaw slackened and my eyes glazed over whilst thinking "Oh. My. God!" That is why it's on this list.

James: Seven. I actually bought this at the same time as I got Streetcleaner (not a bad day of shopping, I must say). This is unlikely to be most James fans pick for their best, but something about it screams perfection to my ears.

Love & Rockets: Seventh Dream Of Teenage Heaven. Dog End of A Day Gone By. Saudade. The title track. Mmm, yeah. Great songs, excellent production. Fragmentary sentences. Inarticulate defense of a pick. Oh yeah, I'm there.

My Bloody Valentine: Loveless. As mentioned before, this is easily one of the best albums of the 90's. Takes a few listens to get into it, but once you do you're rendered a junkie. So good an album they've been scared to release a new album (even tossing out an entire recording session) due to the challenge of besting the predecessor.

Orbital: Snivilisation. By no means a perfect album, but it overflows with bucketloads of originality. No one ever made music like this before or after (Orbital included, unfortunately, even if In Sides was a damn good album). I swear I listened to this at least daily for a good year in college.

Slowdive: Souvlaki. Take one mopey shoegazer band and add Brian Eno producing, and you get Souvlaki. Their previous work was good, but the atmosphere of the music was dense and rather oppressive. Eno changed that and gave them a less claustrophobic/more airy sound. Yowza! Exit Eno and the band takes his idea one step further by becoming an almost inaudible "slo-core" (I heard that term on NPR once. Then never again.) band that could render any insomniac unconscious in a matter of seconds. Producers do matter, people!

The Talking Heads: Remain In Light. The eccentric art-nerds go very global in influence. Simply put: there are no bad songs here. I didn't know until I listened to it that the world moved on a woman's hips, so it's educational, too.

A Tribe Called Quest: People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm. OK, Q-Tip has a great voice and raps very well, that's the surface stuff that most people agree on cuz it's easy. But what sets this album above almost any other hip hop album it the sampling. Behind every rap is one of the greatest patisches of others' sounds that I've ever heard. Public Enemy's bombastic sounds were all well and good, but until ATCQ put this album out I would have been very hesitant to call such creations art. Now I know better.


There. That's 10. And I'm exhausted.

[tabitha]

Things I'm listening to and loving:

1. 'At The end' by IIO
2. 'american life' by madonna
3. 'getaway' by becky baeling

7-10 would actually have to be anything involving Guster or Dave Matthews..b/w those two we could certainly think of 6 albums!!

i think becky is actually really cool. Her album just came out on Universal...I love the cover she did on 'heaven is a place on earth'. every time i hear it in the club it makes me wanna dance and french roll my jeans.

;-)

[sirtonyh]

As of right now, in no particular order

Green Day - Dookie : Great punk rock
Dr Dre - Chronic : It is so clever it just never, ever gets old
Nirvana - Nevermind : Every track is simply superb
Beck - Midnight Vultures : More accessible than most of his other stuff
Prince - Sign o the Times : Hasn't really dated at all
Michael Jackson - Thriller : Ditto
Spooks - SIOSOS : Terrific lyrics, great vocals
Wu Tang Clan - 36 Chambers : Ditto, just love the RZA sound
Public Enemy - Fear of a Black Planet : So influential, great lyrics
Kid Rock - Devil Without A Cause: If Prince was a redneck ...

[Not A Tame Lion]

Hearty slaps on my hand (with the dreaded yard stick) for not including the following albums above (despite being limited to 10 by the OP):

Shadowland, k.d. lang
Dulcinea, Toad The Wet Sprocket
Little Creatures, Talking Heads
The Joshua Tree, U2

and a host of others which would make my list run to about 30 or so.

[LtningBug]

Whew, those are some good lists. Here's mine (of course, this is only of the moment, subject to change, etc.).

INPO:

U2 - Joshua Tree
Not much to say about this one. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For and With or Without You on the same album. It don't get better.

Queen - Queen
The best classic rock album I've heard. (Yes, even better than any of the Beatles music I've heard.)

Massive Attack - Mezzanine
Perfect groove.

Hooverphonic - Blue Wonder Power Milk
Barely edges out their A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular. Very smooth and groovy.

Bob Dylan - Nashville Skyline
Perhaps the least Dylan-y of all his albums. My dad used to listen to this as he drove us to go camping.

Sarah McLachlan - Fumbling Towards Ecstasy
Pure musical heroin. I consider this her best, but The Freedom Sessions and Surfacing come close.

Dave Matthew's Band - Crash
I had a tape of this playing in my car constantly during my early driving years. I can also play Crash on my guitar (but then again, who can't?).

Frou Frou - Details
Imogen Heap can ride a wave on my inhaler any day :).

Jars of Clay - Jars of Clay
Very good Christian band. This CD is home of perhaps the most moving song I've heard, "Worlds Apart."

The Beatles - Abbey Road
I only recently got this album. Very good. I still don't think it's as good as Queen.

Hmm. For the most part, I seem to have departed from the rest of the posters in the thread. Oh well, such is taste.