Very rarely do I like every song on an album. Close to never, if you don’t include Greatest Hits-- and I don’t. Nowadays there’s no need to buy whole albums to get to the songs you like. Does anyone still buy whole CDs? Here are my precious few I Love Every Song On This CD list:
Tapestry-- Carole King
Songs About Jane-- Maroon 5
Jagged Little Pill almost makes the list since I love all the songs very much. All except Mary Jane.
P.S. I feel like I’m starting far too many threads here in CS and this one is a repeat of one from years back. But I got a lot of good music suggestions from it and I’m still curious about other people’s opinions.
I very rarely buy individual songs. I usually buy the whole CD or pay for the whole album download.
Usually there are one or two songs that I don’t particularly like but the price break in downloading the entire album is better than individual selection. I listen to a lot of blues artists who don’t get heavy rotation on the air or other free access areas like Pandora. So I have to buy a lot of music “unheard”.
It’s rare that I’m disappointing. That sometimes happens when I download a new artist but its not enough to change my spending habits.
I think all of the Peter Gabriel solo albums up to “So” were without a dud. It took “Us” and the songs “Only Us” and “Blood Of Eden” to break that streak.
There are dozens of albums where I love every song. Some include:
Spirit – The Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus
It’s a Beautiful Day – It’s a Beautiful Day
Bonzo Dog Band – Urban Spaceman
Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin and Led Zeppelin IV
Procul Harum – Procul Harum
Rick Wakeman – The Six Wives of Henry VIII
Beatles – Revolver, Rubber Soul, Abbey Road
Rolling Stones – Let it Bleed
The Who – Who’s Next and Who Are You?
Soft Machine – Third
Emitt Rhodes – Emitt Rhodes
The Reverend Payton’s Big Damn Band – The Whole Fam Damily
The Clash – London Calling
Traffic – John Barleycorn Must Die
The Band – The Band
Allman Brothers Band – Live at Fillmore East
Elton John – 11/17/70
Flash and the Pan – Lights in the Night (ignoring the CD Bonus tracks)
Jethro Tull – Aqualung and Thick as a Brick
I almost mentioned The Way Up by the Pat Metheny Group, but figured that was cheating for the same reason as Thick As A Brick. (There’s only one song on each of these albums).
Van Morrison’s Moondance is the only one I can think of that fits the bill. Pure gold from start to finish.
A few of my favorite albums fall one or two tracks short:
John Mellencamp, Scarecrow
Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run and Born in the USA
The Blasters, eponymous release
John Fogerty, Centerfield
Dwight Yoakam, Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.
I’m the opposite. Rarely do I dislike more than 1 or 2 songs on an album I like, and quite often I like every song.
Pop music is notorious for just trying to get a couple of radio hits and filling the rest of the album with garbage, so if that’s the kind of music you’re into, you will find it harder to find albums that you enjoy from start to finish. I was really into Poison when I was real young, and even as an 7 year old kid I would listen to some of the deeper cuts on their albums and think, “ok, this is fuckin’ corny.”
“Tronic,” Black Milk
“The Cold Vein,” Cannibal Ox
“Davy,” Coconut Records
“The Bake Sale,” Cool Kids
“One of the Boys,” Katy Perry
“Illmatic,” NaS
“Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix,” Phoenix
“All Your Summer Songs,” Saturday Looks Good to Me
I primarily buy albums; I buy singles from artists who I don’t expect to enjoy entire albums from. I won’t be buying Black Eyed Peas’ latest, for instance, but I’ll download the singles.
About Aqualung, Tull played at my university back in 2005 and they played, though not in order, every song on Aqualung, every one of which I do love. It turns out that 2 days later they recorded “Aqualung Live” a live version of the album so I guess they were practicing.
I would also add:
AC/DC:
Back in Black
Highway to Hell
Wilco: A Ghost is Born
Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Wilco: Summer Teeth
Wilco: Mermaid Avenue Vol 1
The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
The Beatles: Abbey Road
The Beatles: Beatles For Sale
The Beatles: A Hard Day’s Night
Paul Simon: Graceland
The Band: The Band
Paul McCartney: Band On the Run
Paul McCartney: Flaming Pie
Horsefeathers: House with No Home
Johnny Cash: American IV: The Man Comes Around
Shearwater: Winged Life
The Frames: The Cost
The Frames: Burn the Maps
Fireman: Electric Arguments
Bon Iver: For Emma, Long Ago
Elliot Smith: From a Basement on a Hill
The Magnetic Fields: 69 Love Songs Vol 1
Jeff Buckley: Grace
Atherton: Skyline Motel
Gary Jules: Trading Snake Oil for Wolf Tickets
Now, some people will tell you that this is almost a perfect album, except for the final track, Les Boys. I don’t know where these people come up with their crazy ideas, because no such song was ever recorded. I think these are the same people who believe they saw movies called Highlander 2 or Star Trek V, or a TV show called The Star Wars Christmas Special.
Seriously, one of the things I love about mp3 players is that I can rip Making Movies and just leave off the final track.
Andrew Bird, Armchair Apocrypha
Anna Ternheim, Separation Road
Basia Bulat, Oh, My Darling
Camera Obscura, Let’s Get Out of This Country
Dar Williams, The Green World
Eisley, Room Noises
Emiliana Torrini, Fisherman’s Woman
The Hush Sound, Goodbye Blues
Jeff Hanson, Jeff Hanson
Joanna Newsom, Ys
Kate Bush, The Kick Inside
Laura Marling, Alas I Cannot Swim
Mariee Sioux, Faces in the Rocks
Piñataland, Songs for the Forgotten Future, vol. 1
Universal Hall Pass, Mercury
Venus Hum, Big Beautiful Sky
I almost always buy full albums (usually from Amazon MP3).
Offspring- *Americana *is one that always surprises me. When I start listening I always feel like I’m going to skip a few clunker songs. But the album together is one of the most cohesive albums as a whole. The songs individually are okay but together they make something greater than the sum of its parts.