Perfect Albums

[SandraMaus]

Yeah dude the Libertines rock. Frank Turner too. Even met him once. We have a mutual buddy.

I lived in the UK from 2004 until 2013 I loved all the music that came out of garages or Bandcamp during that time. Especially the Indie Rock. Concert or festival tickets were cheap. 16 June 2007 we watched Muse in the new Wembley stadium. Ticket price was 18£.

 

[Mo_Bandy]

I lived in the UK from 2004 until 2013 I loved all the music that came out of garages or Bandcamp during that time. Especially the Indie Rock. Concert or festival tickets were cheap. 16 June 2007 we watched Muse in the new Wembley stadium. Ticket price was 18£.

That is wild. I found a lot of good stuff on Bandcamp. A lot of stuff out of Austin and Nashville.

Actin Strange by the Bad Lovers is a good one. I think I even got the LP.

 

[Wonderer67]

New York Dolls first album.
Jesse Malin - Sunset Kids
Government Issue - You
The Cars - Candy-O
Fountains of Wayne - Utopia Parkway
Love - Forever Changes
The Hives - Veni, Vidi, Vicious
Kaiser Chiefs - Employment
Blur - Modern Life is Rubbish
Duke Spirit - Neptune
The Jam - pretty much everything, but Setting Sons

 

[BongoGal]

Fountains of Wayne - Utopia Parkway
Love - Forever Changes
The Hives - Veni, Vidi, Vicious

That's some good stuff!

 

[Wonderer67]

This is a fantastic thread.

 

[Wonderer67]

Id have to say
Guns and Roses - Appetite for destruction
Janes Addiction - Ritual de la Habitual
And
Hmmm...
Concrete Blonde - Mexican Moon

All great records.

 

[Mo_Bandy]

New York Dolls first album.
Jesse Malin - Sunset Kids
Government Issue - You
The Cars - Candy-O
Fountains of Wayne - Utopia Parkway
Love - Forever Changes
The Hives - Veni, Vidi, Vicious
Kaiser Chiefs - Employment
Blur - Modern Life is Rubbish
Duke Spirit - Neptune
The Jam - pretty much everything, but Setting Sons

Yeah man some good ones here. Really big Fountains Of Wayne Fan here and you can make an argument for 2-3 of their other albums. Also New York Dolls, Cars, Jam and Blur.

Jesse Malin is really really underrated and nobody ever fucking mentions that dude. I really like his album Love It To Life. Plenty of good songs.

 

[AmberLGreen]

One of my favourites is Plan B - The Defamation of Strickland Banks

I like the story telling and the different music genres on the album

 

[MyBee]

The ones I listen to front to back when I can’t sleep:
Tool - 10,000 Days
TesseracT - Portals
Taproot - The Episodes
Baroness - Yellow & Green

 

[Mo_Bandy]

One of my favourites is Plan B - The Defamation of Strickland Banks

I like the story telling and the different music genres on the album

Will have to give that a listen. Never even heard of.

 

[cdstefi]

Great thread, and some good calls.

My top three would be:

The Band, The Band (brown album). Five great musicians and three different but equally amazing singers who could all take a lead vocal or harmonise, but no flash and barely any solos, just beautifully crafted timeless songs and arrangements. Not a dud track on it. Arguably the greatest Americana album ever made.

Blue Öyster Cult, Secret Treaties. The stellar 1974 high point in a long career. So often dismissed as just a metal band, but actually incredibly versatile musicians and writers, this album is probably their most unified vision, with Sandy Pearlman's lyrical stamp of utter strangeness and connecting thread of Imaginos all over it. The song titles alone draw you in: Career of Evil, Harvester of Eyes, Subhuman, Dominance/Submission. Sounds like a track listing from a 00s death metal album but it's so much more richly textured than that, and the track sequencing is brilliant, with clever little links and abrupt changes of tone. Always a straight-through no-skip listen.

The Beatles, Revolver. Many people would pick the bookend albums to this, Rubber Soul or Sgt Pepper, but as a blinding flash of 1966 brilliance Revolver arrived at the right time with the right combination of talents peaking simultaneously. You can easily tell it's an acid and weed-inspired record but the drugs were still at the inspiring rather than deadening creativity stage. Lennon's psychedelic experiments expertly marshalled by George Martin, McCartney's taste for sweetness and whimsy just right and not cloying as he often later did. Harrison's growing fascination with India and sitars tempered by him still being a rocker at heart. It's IMHO the most perfect pure pop record ever made.

A close runner-up would be Forever Changes, somewhat analogous to Revolver in creativity but darker, much darker.

Or Dreamtime, Tom Verlaine's second post-Television solo outing and a sonic cathedral of what can be done with an electric guitar, rich multi-textured arrangements again with barely any flash solos, just a lot of clean, dynamic and very loud Fender chime. Maybe more self-indulgent than the tight brilliance of Marquee Moon, which should also be in my top three but hey, three is three.

 

[SandraMaus]

That is wild. I found a lot of good stuff on Bandcamp. A lot of stuff out of Austin and Nashville.

Actin Strange by the Bad Lovers is a good one. I think I even got the LP.

Before Bandcamp, My Space was the place for musicians to mingle. It was very popular in UK and US . British pop singer writer Lilly Allen was on of the first people who got successful trough the platform.. she was 15 when she uploaded demos on MySoace in 2005 A year later she launched her first album got a Brit for it and her own Radio show on BBC 3

 

[amber1312]

Misplaced Childhood. Marillion

 

[Mo_Bandy]

Before Bandcamp, My Space was the place for musicians to mingle. It was very popular in UK and US . British pop singer writer Lilly Allen was on of the first people who got successful trough the platform.. she was 15 when she uploaded demos on MySoace in 2005 A year later she launched her first album got a Brit for it and her own Radio show on BBC 3

Yeah I seem to remember being able to listen and download songs from there but that time is such a blur for me.

 

[Mo_Bandy]

Great thread, and some good calls.

My top three would be:

The Band, The Band (brown album). Five great musicians and three different but equally amazing singers who could all take a lead vocal or harmonise, but no flash and barely any solos, just beautifully crafted timeless songs and arrangements. Not a dud track on it. Arguably the greatest Americana album ever made.

Blue Öyster Cult, Secret Treaties. The stellar 1974 high point in a long career. So often dismissed as just a metal band, but actually incredibly versatile musicians and writers, this album is probably their most unified vision, with Sandy Pearlman's lyrical stamp of utter strangeness and connecting thread of Imaginos all over it. The song titles alone draw you in: Career of Evil, Harvester of Eyes, Subhuman, Dominance/Submission. Sounds like a track listing from a 00s death metal album but it's so much more richly textured than that, and the track sequencing is brilliant, with clever little links and abrupt changes of tone. Always a straight-through no-skip listen.

The Beatles, Revolver. Many people would pick the bookend albums to this, Rubber Soul or Sgt Pepper, but as a blinding flash of 1966 brilliance Revolver arrived at the right time with the right combination of talents peaking simultaneously. You can easily tell it's an acid and weed-inspired record but the drugs were still at the inspiring rather than deadening creativity stage. Lennon's psychedelic experiments expertly marshalled by George Martin, McCartney's taste for sweetness and whimsy just right and not cloying as he often later did. Harrison's growing fascination with India and sitars tempered by him still being a rocker at heart. It's IMHO the most perfect pure pop record ever made.

A close runner-up would be Forever Changes, somewhat analogous to Revolver in creativity but darker, much darker.

Or Dreamtime, Tom Verlaine's second post-Television solo outing and a sonic cathedral of what can be done with an electric guitar, rich multi-textured arrangements again with barely any flash solos, just a lot of clean, dynamic and very loud Fender chime. Maybe more self-indulgent than the tight brilliance of Marquee Moon, which should also be in my top three but hey, three is three.

Some solid choices here. Honestly I have never listened to any of Tom Verlain’s solo albums but probably beed to. Cheers!

 

[cdstefi]

Some solid choices here. Honestly I have never listened to any of Tom Verlain’s solo albums but probably beed to. Cheers!

I love his first as well, it's quite reminiscent of the cruelly underrated Adventure as you'd expect being close on in time. Words From The Front has some good songs but a bit of filler, and his later stuff got a bit ambient for my tastes. Still an authentic and highly influential genius though.

 

[cdstefi]

Some solid choices here. Honestly I have never listened to any of Tom Verlain’s solo albums but probably beed to. Cheers!

The last track on Dreamtime, Mary Marie, has the most perfect 16-bar solo ever recorded, by anyone. It's not super fast or twiddly or flash, it's just one that lifts a decentish song into something else. Lyrical, melodic and brilliantly economic with a cascade of ascending arpeggios and a final note that transcends its mere position on the fretboard and becomes soul and spirit and yearning and keening toward heaven.

 

[riverj]

From my neck of the woods.....

Alice Cooper - Schools Out
Robin Trower - Bridge of Sighs
Rush - Permanent Waves
Lynyrd Skynyrd - Pronounced
Ted Nugent - Blue

Sprinkle in some Blue Oyster Cult here as needed.....

 

[Wonderer67]

I shoulda mentioned Kill the Moonlight by Spoon.

That record (CD) got me thru my first deployment in Iraq. Not a bad song on it.

 

[Mo_Bandy]

I shoulda mentioned Kill the Moonlight by Spoon.

That record (CD) got me thru my first deployment in Iraq. Not a bad song on it.

Was just spinning that on vinyl. So good.

 

[Mo_Bandy]

I could have picked 2 or 3 other Teenage Fanclub records. Thirteen. Grand Prix. Shit, Bandwagonesque beat out Nirvana’s Nevermind for Spin’s album of year, but Songs From Northern Britain is the one I play the most often.. hard to pick a favorite song. Aint that Enough.

 

[Carson19820]

From my neck of the woods.....

Alice Cooper - Schools Out
Robin Trower - Bridge of Sighs
Rush - Permanent Waves
Lynyrd Skynyrd - Pronounced
Ted Nugent - Blue

Sprinkle in some Blue Oyster Cult here as needed.....

Great choices. Have you listen to Trower's first album, Twice Removed From Yesterday?

 

[Ciceri]

Three immediately come to mind….
(Two were released when I was a wee lad, props to my older sister to have good taste in music!)

Boston, Boston-
Emboldened driving rock with ground breaking instrumentation (a “special effects guitar”?! Ohhh, I want one.)

Fleetwood Mac, Rumors-
They finally coalesced into near perfection (and they crashed and burned soon after).

U2, The Joshua Tree-
The last vestiges of their Rock and Punk roots before they turned to the dark side and went Pop.

#tryingnottosoundlikeamusiccritic

Boston's debut album is my favorite. Van Halen i & ii and maybe Who's Next and DM Violator

 

[Wonderer67]

Was just spinning that on vinyl. So good.

All killa, no filla.

I could have picked 2 or 3 other Teenage Fanclub records. Thirteen. Grand Prix. Shit, Bandwagonesque beat out Nirvana’s Nevermind for Spin’s album of year, but Songs From Northern Britain is the one I play the most often.. hard to pick a favorite song. Aint that Enough.

Hard to go wrong with any one of those. Any one of those could be a great album.

 

[Wonderer67]

Which is the better album?

English Beat - I Just Can’t Stop It
Specials - The Specials

That’s a toss up to me, but if I had to bet, I’d actually choose the English beat.