This. Along with Ladies of the Canyon, by Joni Mitchell, which I was so busy playing over and over and over back when it came out that I somehow missed Laura Nyro’s stuff altogether. So, both of 'em.
Also, Surrealistic Pillow, by Jefferson Airplane. Besides qualifying for not having a bad song on it, it gets the After-50-Years-I’m-Still-Not-Sick-of-It award.
Indigo Girls - Rites of Passage
I want to include a few Springsteen albums but there’s always maybe one song I don’t like quite as well as the others, or at least that I feel doesn’t fit in as well. I guess The River is one where I love every song.
That’s a good one!
Jethro Tull - Thick As a Brick
Not a bad song on the album!
**Sepultura - Roots ** Truly the greatest heavy metal album of all time. Shame Max Cavalera left the band after their pinnacle. No metal album has approached it.
**Alice in Chains - Dirt **I just really like every single song. I do grow tired of it some days, but I have to admit, it’s perfect.
U2 - Joshua Tree - Wow, what an album. I don’t even like this kind of music and I stand in awe of how great it is.
Nirvana - Nevermind Yep, it’s 10/10.
Manhattan Transfer - Vocalese. Everything on the album is super-fantastic.
Bonzo Dog Band – Tadpoles (Their first three albums are great, but I like this one the best).
Allman Brothers Band Live at Fillmore East
Soft Machine – Third (Amazing Jazz-Rock-Progressive fusion)
Joe Cocker – Mad Dogs and Englishmen
J. Geils Band – Full House
Elton John – Honky Chateau
Kinks – Low Budget
Paul McCartney and Wings – Band on the Run
Joni Mitchell – Ladies of the Canyon
Procul Harum – Procol Harum
Queen – A Night at the Opera
Indigo Girls Indigo Girls
Moody Blues Days of Future Passed
Pink Floyd The Wall
Blondie Parallel Lines
2 Nice Girls 2 Nice Girls
Grieg’s Holberg Suite by the Netherlands Guitar Quartet
Carpenters A Song for You
They Might be Giants Flood
Carmen featuring Maria Callas
Cabaret original cast recording
Nirvana Nevermind
Pretty much anything by the Klezmatics
No! Don’t just write a name of an album. You must elaborate!
Mmmmmmm…nice to run into some other Laura Nyro fans here. Every time I’ve tried to start a thread about her I’ve run into a wall of silence.
Her New York Tendaberry (1969) is almost as good as Eli and the Thirteenth Confession (1968), but has a couple of misfires. And the abortion song, “Gibsom Street,” spooks me out every time I hear it…and it’s a real downer after the transcendent “Save the Country.”
I started listening to Nyro years after she passed, thinking she was another excellent chick songwriter like Joni Mitchell or Carole King…but Laura stabbed me in the heart like no one else.
Also, The Fabulous Sounds of the Pacific Northwest (1984) by the Young Fresh Fellows. Debut album. Not as famous as most of the artists on here, but good golly, for a first album, it’s an AMAZING collection of great melodic/snarky pop/rock songs.
I agree about Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks, which has several of his best songs EVAR (“Tangled Up in Blue;” “Idiot Wind;” “Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts”) but I don’t think it reaches the interstellar heights of Highway 61 Revisited.
How can one possibly top an album that begins with “Like a Rolling Stone” and ends with “Desolation Row” ?
I’m not the hugest nirvana fan. I do like nevermind, of course. BUT the real winner is nirvana unplugged.
Rush - Moving Pictures. Every song is perfect. Though some, like Red Barchetta and Witch Hunt, are more perfect.
Also, U2’s The Joshua Tree, already mentioned above and for the same reasons.
Ooo…nice pick. I do like that Pacific Northwest power pop/punk scene or whatever you want to call it. Are you familiar with Pure Joy, the Fastbacks, Flop?
Well, there’s a lot of albums that work for me as an entirety, as that’s how I tend to listen to music, but since Led Zeppelin is fresh on my mind because of another thread, I’ll have to go with Led Zeppelin IV. The weakest song on that album might be “Four Sticks,” but I still enjoy it from start to finish and would never dream of skipping over it. I may be a little sick of Stairway, though.
(And, actually, that’s how I first ended up buying that album. Somehow, when I was 15 years old in 1990, I managed to go my whole life not hearing Stairway on the radio or anywhere else. I’ve heard other Zeppelin songs on the radio, but not that one for some reason. Maybe the classic rock station I listened to just didn’t play eight-minute tracks, or I was just incredibly unlucky, I don’t know. At any rate, I was getting a bit peeved that I apparently had this big black whole in my musical knowledge that I saved up some cash, walked down to Venture, and bought the cassette version of IV. And I remember loving every song on that album. Except for Stairway. I was so disappointed when I finally heard this legendary song that kept coming up in conversations with my guitarist friends. Eventually, I did warm up to it and to this day, I still think the album is solid from start to finish.)
Joni Mitchell- Court and Spark
Every song is just perfect, track order is perfect.
Traffic- John Barleycorn Must Die
Side one of this is my “perfect album side”
Jellyfish- Spilt Milk
I put this in because everyone should know about Jellyfish. So much work went into this album, and this band, and they deserve so much more recognition than they got.
Phish-Junta
I’m from New England. I was a ski bum in the 80s/90s. It’s the law. (See also, Seal’s first album)
Joe Jackson-Joe Jackson’s Jumpin’ Jive- One listen is all you need.
The **Ukelele **man raises a good point and pretty much closes the discussion, in my opinion…
…and then I think about Blonde on Blonde…
mmm
Lots of fine choices. I will go low-brow and cite The Sweet, Desolation Boulevard:
The U.S. Track list is:
“Ballroom Blitz” (Chapman, Chinn) – 4:07
“The 6-Teens” (Chapman, Chinn) – 4:06
“No You Don’t” (Chapman, Chinn) – 4:36
“A.C.D.C.” (Chapman, Chinn) – 3:28
“I Wanna Be Committed” (Chapman, Chinn) – 3:14
“Sweet F.A.” (Scott, Tucker, Connolly, Priest) – 6:16
“Fox on the Run” (Scott, Tucker, Connolly, Priest) (7" version) – 3:28
“Set Me Free” (Scott) – 3:59
“Into the Night” (Scott) – 4:25
“Solid Gold Brass”.
Some songs best heard in an end-to-end listen, but the run of songs from Ballroom Blitz to Fox on the Run are glam-fabulous. The whole thing holds up suprisingly well.
The Rolling Stones-Sticky Fingers: Remarkable album that never lets up. This is truly such a departure from the 60’ Stones with the arrival of highly competent lead guitar of Mick Taylor and with what now is common for the Stones. A greasy horn section that punctuates the music like no guitar can. This songs are so accessible with great hooks.
The Rolling Stones-Exile on Main Street: Another album from the boys that is wonderful to listen to straight through. This would be my deserted island album if I was forced to choose one. I am fascinated with this record for precisely the opposite reason listed above. These songs are hard to get into on first listen or second, or third. However, 40 years later and I’m still finding treats throughout the songs. The mix is muddy and Mick is buried so it makes the listener work. The songs are not nearly as accessible but that makes it genuine somehow. The Stones (at the peak of their powers and the height of Keith’s addiction) decided to ignore a traditional release and instead went deep into their roots and released a double album that almost challenged the listener to like it. Hooks? Not so much. The songs themselves range from rock to gospel to country to whatever. The Stones really went deep on this album. They were never quite the same afterwards.
I was lucky enough to see Laura play, sometime in the 90s. As evidenced by her choices in the songs she covered, she came out of the soul tradition, nothing like Joni or Carole, though Carole did share that New York sensibility, her songs had nowhere near the depth.