So ... what's your favourite ever album?

bloodandtears

axisus said:

digitalscream said:

Bellycaster said:

Off the top of my head, I'd have to rate Operation Mindcrime as "one of" my favourites. There's just so much choice, but I do think that Queensryche album is a work of genius.

There are a whole stack of albums which were highly influential in my life, but Mindcrime stands head and shoulders above them all in terms of what I'd choose to listen to now.

Such a shame what happened in the band's later years, but...right there, right then they were at the top of their game and nothing else came close.

I bought it back in the day as there was a lot of talk about it. I just didn't feel the love and didn't play it much. I'd like to revisit the album but my copy is vinyl and I've had no room for a record player for the past 30 years. 

@axisus

Philly_Q

axisus said:

digitalscream said:

Bellycaster said:

Off the top of my head, I'd have to rate Operation Mindcrime as "one of" my favourites. There's just so much choice, but I do think that Queensryche album is a work of genius.

There are a whole stack of albums which were highly influential in my life, but Mindcrime stands head and shoulders above them all in terms of what I'd choose to listen to now.

Such a shame what happened in the band's later years, but...right there, right then they were at the top of their game and nothing else came close.

I bought it back in the day as there was a lot of talk about it. I just didn't feel the love and didn't play it much. I'd like to revisit the album but my copy is vinyl and I've had no room for a record player for the past 30 years. 

It's got some great songs but I've always had a problem with the concept/storyline and the spoken word parts - I know I'm in the minority but I think it's all a bit banal/childish and it spoils the record for me.  I'd rather listen to Empire.

Kebabkid

Live & Dangerous - Thin Lizzy

Apart from being mesmerized by the iconic cover and picture of Phil Lynott, the gate fold pics, the Les Pauls (I still want a  Brian Robertson's Black Custom LP or to pimp something to match it) has a huge impact on me as a 15yr old.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_and_Dangerous

It made me smile the first time I heard it and it still makes me grin from ear to ear.
It was also the album that taught me How to play Guitar - bending, vibrato, picking out harmony lines, melodic playing, power chords, scales etc and helped my playing enormously

Philly_Q

Kebabkid said:

Apart from being mesmerized by the iconic cover and picture of Phil Lynott, the gate fold pics, the Les Pauls (I still want a  Brian Robertson's Black Custom LP or to pimp something to match it) has a huge impact on me as a 15yr old.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_and_Dangerous

It's not necessarily one of my absolute favourite albums, but I do love the cover and the whole package, the gatefold and inner sleeves with all the live photos, the little playing card symbols for the band members, Scott Gorham's hair...!

And yes, I love that look of a black LP Custom with cream plastic parts.  I'm not sure if that's primarily attributable to Robbo, or to Peter Frampton - it could be both.

I've got a nasty feeling my copy is missing one of the two inner sleeves - it just had a plain white paper one.  But I could be mixing it up with somebody else's double live album.

Boromedic

Argggghhh, just one is impossible but today it's this, the best metal band of all time, they were 20-21 when they wrote and recorded this and the leap from Kill Em All (also a stone cold classic) was insane. Blew the genre wide open and made the rest look like amateurs.

Sesh

I think right now it is Stephen Malkmus' eponymous first solo album.
It really builds on Pavement's style with a really strong selection of songs that's just a bit more cohesive. 

Matt_McG

I really can't pick one, but, right now:

Tom Waits - Raindogs  (although I listen to Bone Machine, Swordfishtrombones, and various Ribot/Zorn projects just as much)

or (and this came up above)

Radiohead - In Rainbows  

---

I think that it's interesting that neither of these are the artist's early work. 

prowla

Close To The Edge - this guy just about says it all.

A close second is this one.

Musicwolf said:

So many to choose from but, for a long while, it was this one

axisus

@prowla Glad to see that someone else around here likes a bit of prog - the most maligned of all genres!

CTTE is epic, Moving Pictures is superb, although doesn't make my top 5 Rush albums!

west

Gaucho - Steely Dan  ... Bodacious Cowboys both ..... x

prowla

axisus said:

@prowla Glad to see that someone else around here likes a bit of prog - the most maligned of all genres!

CTTE is epic, Moving Pictures is superb, although doesn't make my top 5 Rush albums!

:-) I’ve still got the T-shirt from the Moving Pictures tour!
I like all of their albums (bar Feedback); probably Grace Under Pressure and Clockwork Angels come next. 

west

west said:

Gaucho - Steely Dan  ... Bodacious Cowboys both ..... x

I just visited after a long absence with a libation...  pour me a cuban breeze gretchen ... drink scotch whisky all night long and die behind the wheel , tears were shed ... Living hard will take its toll ...   X

thecolourbox

As always with these threads, I like to point out that I have a distinction between "favourite" and "best", as they are not necessarily the same thing. "Best" for me would be Sgt Pepper, because... Well, because. But I'm willing to admit I don't listen to a lot of styles of music so there's probably all kinds of other stuff that is just as good which just isn't for my demographic.

My favourite album, which is what the post is about, would probably be The White Stripes - White Blood Cells. There are better albums I'm sure, and in fact I think strangely De Stijl is actually more stylistically my favourite Stripes album, but I think White Blood Cells is where the style, aesthetics, songwriting, performances and production all come together for what is still my favourite band 20 years later.

Obscure lyrics a lot of the time, which I like. The archetypical White Stripes era Jack White guitar tones, basically fuzz or crunch. Catchy songs (Hotel Yorba, Fell in Love with a Girl, Now Mary) as well as more intense efforts (Union Forever, Aluminum). In fact even one of my favourite songs from the follow up Elephant was recorded during the same sort of time as White Blood Cells ( I Just Don't Know What to do with Myself).

I just feel like it is a great collection of everything the band were about, before the bright lights of fame, and it still astounds me (and them!) that a band making such minimal raw songs influenced by country blues on an eight track in their house actually managed to make it.

If nothing else, the lyrics to Little Room are such a great summary of staying grounded:

When you're in your little room, and you're working on something good,

Well if it's really good, you're gonna need a bigger room

And when you're in your bigger room, you might not know what to do,
You might have to think of how you got started, sitting in your little room

Love it

DesVegas

After long thoughts on this I'm going with Vs by Pearl Jam.

Not a bad track on it and most albums in my experience always have a bad track on them

Sporky

For me, probably the next one that grabs me. Its a movable feast. 

26.2

Television - Marquee Moon or The Beatles - Revolver. Just can’t split them. 

TTBZ

Too hard to pick just one but depending on what mood I'm in its probably one of these:

QOTSA - Songs For The Deaf

RATM - self titled

Mastodon - Crack The Skye

Nirvana - Nevermind

Rancid - And Out Come The Wolves

dindude

Probably Automatic for the People R.E.M. I was 17 when it was released. The previous year I was branching out of my widdly guitar-nerd norm, and had taken in Out of Time and then gone backwards through all of R.E.M.’s 80’s back catalog, and couldn’t believe how consistently good it was. So by the time Automatic came out I was cuing up on release day for it and absorbed in the reviews and interviews of the time etc. 30 years on, it’s been played at some point probably every year so doesn’t seem to have that nostalgia hit as it’s travelled with me. I put on Find the River only the other day in the car. It was called a masterpiece at the time and it still is. 

sev112

Axe Attack Volume II

RocknRollDave

https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/arts-entertainment/appetite-for-destruction-wins-best-album-of-all-time-if-were-honest-2014062688000