Favorite Albums of All Time

[Chronic Insomnia]

I know this has been done like twelve thousand times on other forums, but this is more intimate this way. I feel like a cigarette already...wink wink nudge nudge.

Anyways. I am not sure what number we want to go with here, but let's list our favorite albums of all time here. We can go top ten, top twenty, or just list off what you want on here. We can also add to them as we think of them. I know a top ten will not be enough for me, but I will do my best.

Michael

[droidofages]

Oh man... I'm gonna have to think about this one...

[Chronic Insomnia]

Here is my first section of albums.

In the Alternative category these comes to mind.

The Refreshments - Fizzy, Fuzzy, Big & Buzzy (personal favorite)
Smashing Pumpkins - Gish
The Posies - Frosting On The Beater (personal favorite)
Jellyfish - Bellybutton, Spilt Milk
Nirvana - Nevermind
Alice In Chains - Facelift
Faith No More - The Real Thing
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik
Radiohead - OK Computer
Incubus - Make Yourself
Gin Blossoms - New Miserable Experience
Foo Fighters - There Is Nothing Left To Lose
Cake - Fashion Nugget
Blind Melon - Blind Melon
Bush - Sixteen Stone (The first one only)
Candlebox - Candlebox (only the first one, after that they sucked)
Dada - Puzzle
Toad The Wet Sprocket - Dulcinea
Pearl Jam - Ten, Vs.
Soul Coughing - El Oso

In the Pure Rock category I pick these. (now before we get too upset about some of these cheesy rock albums, I want to put this out there. These are albums that are FUN to listen to and perfect for parties and stuff. Not ground breaking albums with necessarily ANY integrity.)

AC/DC - Back In Black
Def Leppard - Pyromania
Guns -N- Roses - Appetite For Destruction
Skid Row - Slave To The Grind
Nickelback - Dark Horse, Silver Side Up
Van Halen - Van Halen, 1984, Women and Children First
Whitesnake - Whitesnake
Daughtry - Daughtry, Leave This Town

Classic Rock Stuff

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
The Eagles - Greatest Hits Collection
Billy Joel - The Stranger, Glass Houses
Boston - Boston
The Beatles - Everything after Hard Days Night
Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
Jimi Hendrix - Are You Experienced?
Led Zeppelin - pretty much everything
The Who - Who's Next
ZZTop - Eliminator
Stevie Ray Vaughn - Texas Flood
Steve Vai - Passion and Warfare
Van Morrison - Moondance

Hard Rock/Thrash Metal, etc.

Metallica - All
Megadeth - Peace Sells, But Who's Buying?, Rust In Peace
Pantera - Vulgar Display of Power, Far Beyond Driven
Tool - Undertow, Aenima, Lateralus

Cheesy 80's stuff, unclassified.

Prince - 1999, Purple Rain
Depeche Mode - Violator
George Michael - Faith
Firehouse - Firehouse
Warrant - Cherry Pie
Bon Jovi - Slippery When Wet
Tesla = Mechanical Resonance
The Crystal Method - Vegas

These are my favorite albums from across the entire genre of music. I am one of those people who can listen to just about anything. Anything except for Country and Rap basically. I know a lot of these might sound cheesy, but in the right context, which a lot of times are parties or background music, these stand out for me.

Feel free to rip me apart for any of my selections, but beware, if you open up on me, I will be at liberty to open up at you...and defend my musical tastes, fair warning (oh yeah another great album from Van Halen.)


Michael

[droidofages]

OK, this isn't necessarily what the world should consider the best albums of all time. This is more of a list of a few albums that have had the most profound effect on me personally. Because of this, it's bound to change tomorrow, but here we go:

I'll start with the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. This is my earliest memory of listening to music on my own. Putting this record on the record player and placing the giant, 70's style headphones over my ears and half my head before being transported to amazing worlds, forever affected the way I consume music. George Harrison's Within You Without You specifically was a particular eye opener for a middle class white kid in a rural-ish suburb.

Joni Mitchell's Court and Spark is the first time I noticed music as an intensely personal connection between one listener and one artist. To this day, listening to Joni's music feels like falling in love and having your heart broken in three to eight minutes.

One other musician to come close to this kind of intimacy for me was Bjork with her album Vespertine. Not only is the subject matter uncomfortably personal at times, the production provides the same effect with closely mic'd vocals and warm, inviting arrangements. I'd highly recommend checking this one out in headphones as it's like Bjork is whispering in your ear for most of the album.

Nick Drake and Victoria Williams are two other singer songwriters that have also engendered an appreciation for straight-up songwriting free of studio trickery and ear candy which I tend to lean towards during most of my music consumption. Specifically Nick Drake's Five Leaves Left and Victoria Williams' Loose. Although Nick's music can be incredibly depressing and Victoria's vocals are on par with Neil Young's and Bob Dylans' as far as quirkiness goes, both are remarkable craftsmen... craftspeople?

Black Sabbath's self titled debut and Paranoid were my introduction to heavy metal at a young age, thanks to my big brother. Although I continued with early Metallica, I never really appreciated heavier music again until Soundgarden's Bad Motor Finger, which I bought blind on a whim. I was in a record shop and found a twenty dollar bill in my pocket. Total serendipity which I took as a sign to buy something from a band I'd never heard of before. I liked the cover art of BMF and took it home that night. As it turns out, I had seen and loved the video for Jesus Christ Pose before hand but didn't make the connection until I heard the song again on the CD that night. Following that was Tool, Pearl Jam, Temple of the Dog, Screaming Trees, Alice in Chains, Smashing Pumpkins, Blind Melon and all the other great grunge/rock/metal bands of the 90's that brought a little creativity back to guitar rock for many of us.

Speaking of 90's bands, Blind Melon's Soup was a remarkable and shamefully overlooked sophomoric effort from a promising band cut short. Everything about this album was amazing from Hoon's tortured lyrics, to the light-year jump in arrangements and songwriting, to the masterful production. Although their first is better known and a great album in its own right, Soup was an evolutionary leap for them and it still breaks my heart that we'll never see what the next step would have been.

Another one from the nineties: Tricky's Maxinquaye was a staple of the trip-hop movement and ahead of its time for production value. Only George Martin's work with the Beatles inspired me to get into music production more than what I was hearing on Maxinquaye and Blind Melon's Soup.

John Coltrane's Favorite Things was my introduction to jazz. I knew I liked some of what I heard in this intimidating genre of music but had no idea where to start. Thanks to a little guidance from someone more versed than I at the Sam's I worked at in Vancouver, this treasure made it's way into my life and I haven't looked back since. Although it may not be my favourite jazz album, it'll always be one of the most treasured for the affair it started with similar music.

Tortoise's Millions Now Living Will Never Die and Stereolab's Emperor Tomato Ketchup were amazing hybrids of the rock, jazz and electronic music I was enjoying at the time. This new genre many were calling Post Rock has turned out to be one of my fav's in recent years and continues to influence my buying habits. I've got close to a dozen Stereolab and Stereolab related albums now. Even more so with Tortoise if you include it's sister band the Sea and Cake, who I can listen to any time of the day in any mood at all, and who also shares a drummer with Tortoise but has a bit more of a pop influence in their songwriting. The two albums I mentioned initially had remarkable cross-over appeal for everyone employed at the five story record store I worked at on Seymour Street in Vancouver. You have to understand that the guitar rockers, the hip hoppers, the hippies, the jazz heads and the shoe gazers all seemed to find something in these two creations that appealed to everyone. Really didn't happen very often.

Any Sea & Cake or Sam Prekop albums for being listenable at any time, any mood or any setting. While mildly influenced by the arrangements and production of post rock, light, airy pop music is probably a better description as at times Mr. Prekop's vocals remind me of the Cure's Robert Smith or a similar eighties vocalist in a way.

De La Soul's 3 Feet High and Rising and the Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique were my real introductions to hip hop. Although I did have License to Ill, it kind of fell into the same testosterone overdose category as Public Enemy, NWA, Ice Tea, etc. It really wasn't until Paul's Boutique and 3 Feet High and Rising that I saw the potential of hip hop for myself. Diggable Planets, Cypress Hill, the first two pee-pants-Fergy-free Black Eyed Peas albums, K-OS and others have kept my interest since.

Daniel Lanois' Acadie and the Beauty of Wynona. Two beautiful albums from the singer/songwriter/producer who helped to launch and enhance the careers of legends like U2, Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson to name a few. His first album Acadie found its way into my cassette tape collection on the same day as 3 Feet High and Rising believe it or not and helped me to see Acadian music as more than fiddle-dee-dee kitchen party soundtracks, and continued to steer my ear towards great production value.

the Dirty Projectors' Rise Above & Bitte Orca are very recent releases that challenge, intrigue and delight my ears. As I've mentioned in my previous posts about them, their avant garde-ish pop sensibilities with incredible vocal arrangements catch my ear with quirky individuality and promise of more surprises to come. Refreshing and new are the qualities I especially appreciate with these guys.

Dave Brubeck's Time Out, while not necessarily my favourite, was my first Brubeck album in what would evolve into a collection of over two dozen. Brubeck introduced weird time signatures and jazz in general to a wider (whiter?) audience not unlike Elvis did for blues/rock. Accessible and unintimidating, Brubeck may be one of the better entry points for people looking to get into jazz without being overwhelmed by manic bebop or strange fusion. One toe is in the more familiar big band era, while the eye is trained on the horizon and what jazz had in store for the future.

the Grateful Dead's Blues for Allah and Workingman's Dead are on this list for two very different reasons. Like so many others, when I heard the name Grateful Dead, images of burnt out ex-hippies noodling incessantly came to mind. While known for their live performances, these two studio productions can be lessons to those making assumptions about a handful of guys making music. Assumptions usually based on the era, the fans and the dogma associated with the band rather than the music itself. While Blues for Allah showcases the jam-band jazz/world influential nature, Working Man's Dead may be the biggest shock to those who have never actually sought out the Dead. This album has to be one of the greatest Americana style recordings in existence with a beautiful fusion of country, blues, bluegrass, folk, rock and just plain ol' solid song writing and production. It's definitely one of the gems in rock history for me.

Ween's Chocolate and Cheese and Jellyfish's Spilt Milk found their way into my collection around the same time and were both joyous expressions of silly fun and experimentation that hadn't found its way into my listening rotation since Magical Mystery Tour or Yellow Submarine. While Ween is a little more bombastic and strange, Chocolate and Cheese is a pretty safe entry point for the uninitiated. If you ever get a chance to see these guys live, jump at it. Out of the countless acts I've seen, Ween was one of the strongest performances I've ever had the pleasure of witnessing. They do pretty much any style of music you can imagine and they do it remarkably well and usually for at least three hours! Jellyfish's Spilt Milk was a successful expression of love for the Beatles and Beach Boys style of psychedelic concept album recording with creative arrangements and a palpable sense of joy. Lenny Kravitz's Are You Gonna Go My Way went a long way to prove that you could make a great album with nothing but vintage gear too. A real slap in the face for the Pro-Tools cultists of the time.

While everyone vaguely interested in reggae has owned Bob Marley's Greatest Hits at one point or another, or perhaps Exodus with it's lovely ballads and radio friendly tracks, it was Rebel Music that truly started my longstanding love affair with reggae, skiffle, ska and dub. Like many, Bob remained as the only reggae artist in my collection for years until I went to a King Cobb Steelie show. The engineer was playing a slew of dub during the set break and I approached him asking for some recommendations. Within a week, I bought my first dub record at Rotate This in Toronto: Scientist's Scientific Dub. What an eye-opener that was. I haven't looked back since with dozens of albums from King Tubby, Sly & Robbie, Noel Ellis and many others taking up space on my shelf of records.

OK, I could keep going here but this is more than enough rambling for one post. Hope there's one or two on the list that ends up on someone else's. Nothing like sharing music with others. (Just sent some music to Jimmy Palmiotti yesterday actually!)

[Mike]

My top 12 in random order:

Philosopher Kings: Famous, Rich and Beautiful
The Refreshments: Fizzy Fuzzy Big and Buzzy
Mighty Mighty Bosstones: Question the Answers
Motley Crue: Motley Crue
Billy Joel: the Stranger
The Misfits: Famous Monsters
Kiss: Rock and Roll Over
The Offspring: Smash
Monster Magnet: Power Trip
Stone Temple Pilots: Core
Tenacious D: Tenacious D
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy: Big Bad Voodoo Daddy

My stipulations are thus: I have to be able to put a CD in and listen to it front to back, no skipping tracks. If I can do that, it makes the list.

[Chronic Insomnia]

You might be the only other person I have EVER talked to who likes "The Refreshments". If you like the Refreshments, have you heard the Roger Clyne CD called, "iAmericano!? It's a great CD if you like the Fizzy, Fuzzy, Big and Buzzy album.

I will give you the nod on the Billy Joel pick also. Another Billy Joel album that is listenable all the way through without skipping a track is, "Glass Houses" I could pop that disc in right now and listen to it front to back.

Michael

[monibolis]

Marilyn Manson - Antichrist Superstar
Pantera - Vulgar Display of Power
My chemical romance - Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge
Madonna - The Immaculate Collection
El personal - No me hallo www.lastfm.es/music/El+Personal
Madlita Vecindad - El Circo www.myspace.com/malditavecindadoficial