Well, here are my essential albums though YMMV:
Interesting…I would have said buy this album solely on the strength of “Stuck Inside of Mobile (with the Memphis Blues Again),” which is probably my number 2 Bob song of all time.
Number One Bob Song being “Desolation Row,” the stunning wind-up to HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED, which also gives you “Queen Jane Approximately,” “Ballad of a Thin Man,” and Bob’s only hit record, “Like a Rolling Stone,” which, try as I might, I’ve never been able to get tired of.
Actually “Like a Rolling Stone” was the first of three Top 10 songs Dylan had.
1965 - LARS- #2
1967 - Rainy Day women #12 & 35 (Every body must get Stoned) - #2
1969 - Lay Lady Lay - #7
FYI.
I am so, so, so happy to see that there are other people out there who consider The Who an absolutely essential band. And someone else likes Quadrophenia??? Get OUT!!
So, anyway, here’s my essential picks.
Who’s Next and Quadrophenia~The Who
Desire~Bob Dylan (come on, guys.)
Everybody Knows This is Nowhere~Neil Young
Steal Your Face~Grateful Dead
London Calling~The Clash (brilliant, brilliant, brilliant)
Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme~Simon and Garfunkel
Morrison Hotel~The Doors
Led Zeppelin II
Legend~Bob Marley and the Wailers
Crosby, Stills and Nash (original self titled release)
For some excellent mixes, I highly recommend the soundtracks for Grosse Pointe Blank, Billy Elliot and Almost Famous.
Thanks for the info. I was gonna say, one reason NOT to get BLONDE ON BLONDE is because of “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35.” Which, try as I might not to, I got tired of about the third time I heard it.
Anything by Van Morrison. Especially the early stuff. Also “Kind of Blue” by Miles Davis; “Living With the Law”, Chris Whitley; “Cure for Pain”, Morphine; the new Warren Zovon, “Life’ll Kill Ya”.
Van Morrison’s Greatest hits vol. 1 is an exceptionally good album
I feel that I must recommend The Tragically Hip. They are my favorite band, and with 9 CD’s out they have a wide selection to choose from. If you like the Cowboy Junkies, you will like The Hip.
Also if you are more into rock, The Matthew Good Band has a new disc coming out in the US (it’s been ot in Canada for a while now) called Beautiful Midnight. I highly recommend this album also.
And of course you can’t go wrong with Rammstein for heavy industrial rock.
Hey ** Corvus **…how YOU doin’ 
New rammstein album, April 3rd…check out the new single Sonne…
I also have to recommend, if you’re looking for good puss rock, Elton John’s Live In Australia is one of my top ten CDs of all time, great orchestration. And, I’ll admit it here…Journey’s Greatest Hits is one of my all time faves…GOD I LOVE IT! JOURNEY!!!
jarbaby
Check out a band from Scotland called Blue Nile. Very cool stuff.
In addition to the choices given, I’ll add
Kinks – Lola vs. Powerman and the Moneygoround.
Flash and the Pan
Allman Brothers Band Live at the Fillmore East
Derek and the Dominoes – Layla
Steely Dan – The Royal Scam
Traffic – John Barleycorn Must Die
Pink Floyd – Atom Heart Mother
Talking Head – Fear of Music
Springsteen – The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle
I would be sure to check out Tom Waits. Bone Machine or Rain Dogs is a good place to start.
“Professor” Jett said:
I have heard this group being described as “neo-tribalistic”, and that sounds interesting. I don’t think I’ve heard them, though. Do they still tour around?
An open question anyone still listening:
A friend suggested that the best way to begin a music collection in this day and age is to go to Napster and just start downloading and burning onto CDs. Is that how it really works? I haven’t checked that deal out yet, so I don’t know the first thing about it. Is it Rocket Science, or what?
.
~D!~
I’m doin’ fine good lookin’, how you doin’? 
::ahem::
Really?
A new album?
Sweet. That’s definitly on my to buy list.
Hi again Dichotomous,
As you can tell I love talking about music. One of my favorite topics. 1) Rusted Root is ‘tribalistic’ in that they are very excellent percussionists. They incorporate this into their music well. They still tour. They are from the Pittsburg area and tour back east more often than they do out west. Their last album came out in 1998 and was very good. I saw them in Boston (and was lucky enough to meet them before their show). Cool people, great live show. They should be due for an album soon and hopefully tour behind it. They played some on the H.O.A.R.D. tour some years back too. Get “When I Woke”. A fantastic album. If you like DMB, you’ll appreciate their similarities. RR are much less subdued though. Much more into rowdy jams.
Napster is super easy to understand. Download the program, connect, click on search, type in what you want to find, download it, enjoy! Simple and intuitive. 5,000,000,000,000 people can’t be wrong!
A few more really ‘essential’ albums to own.
Springsteen - Born to Run
Black Crowes - Southern Harmony and Musical Companion
Grateful Dead - (for the live experience) Hundred Year Hall
- (for a studio album) Workingman’s Dead
Neil Young - After the Goldrush or Harvest
Stevie Wonder - Talking Book or Songs in the Key of Life
Carole King - Tapestry
Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation of Millions…
Fairport Convention - Unhalfbricking
Incredibly wonderful recommendations all around. As a boomer, though, I have to say it was a little painful to see the Beatles besmirched. To each his own.
If you’re into electric guitar instrumentals at all, I’d recommend “The Return of the Hellecasters”, or any of the three Hellecasters albums. They touch on practically all genres; rock, jazz, blues, a little country, even allusions to classical. Guitar music really doesn’t get any better than this.
I second that! No dissin’ the Beatles! My list only counts for right-this-minute:
Beatles - Revolver
Beatles - Rubber Soul
Beatles - White Album
Pretenders - Greatest Hits
Allman Bros. - Eat a Peach
Pink Floyd - Pretty much all of it
Pete Townsend - All the Best Cowboys have Chinese Eyes
Cream - All of it
Eric Clapton - Anything blues – fergit the top 10 crap
Joni Mitchell - Blue
Indigo Girls - Most everything they do
Annie Lennox - Everything solo and with the Eurythmics
Nice listing so far.
Talking Heads are essential. For live, get the name of this band is talkingheads. Studio, my fav is more songs about buildings and food
Clash is essential. I am a sucker for Sandinista!
The soundtrack to The Harder they Come, reggae, Jimmy Cliff, is essential.
Another soundtrack that is essential is Repo Man. The title track by Iggy Pop is worth the price, but the whole collection just grows on you.
English Beat Special Beat Service was the first cd I ever bought. One of my all time favorites. My most cherished cd is Will the Circle Be Unbroken organized by Nitty Gritty Dirt Band but everybody plays on it. I grew up listening to it, and had to wait for its cd release. Transitioning between vinyl and compact disc was a big fat pain, there were years when it looked like your fav would not make the digital cut. Thank god for Rhino.
If you like the Wallflowers and the Dave Matthews band, check out XTC. They’ve been around for absolutely ages and have albums that vary in tone from punk (White Music, Go2) to new wave (Drums and Wires, Black Sea) to straight up rock (Oranges and Lemons) to . . . . Jeez, how do you classify an album like English Settlement? Or Nonsuch? For a very good sampling, see if you can’t pick up Upsy Daisy Assortment, which mixes singles and album tracks from all but their last two albums. If you like it, you’ll love everything they’ve done.
I’ll try to make some more recommendations when I get home this evening, but you really can’t go wrong with XTC…
sliv suggested
Did they do the song Dear God some years back? If so, I must confess, that’s the only song I’ve heard of theirs. If not, then I don’t think I’ve heard any.
Thank You, everyone, for your input.
This thread has offered so many good suggestions, and I am proud to say I’m not as big a music dud as I feared, since I do have many of the albums mentioned. (Although admittedly some of them are hand-me-downs.)
I was happy to hear that DMB has another release coming out 02/27. Should be good.
Yes, “Dear God” is indeed an XTC song, and their most famous here in the States. Did you like it? It can be found on Skylarking, as well as any of their Best Of’s. (That is, unless, you’re thinking of the Midge Ure song of the same name.)
You may have, depending on how cool your local radio stations are, also heard “Senses Working Overtime”, “Mayor of Simpleton”, “Making Plans For Nigel”, and possibly “The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead” (which also has had a nifty video made for it).