The link provided is to Jamie Monger's (writer for AMG) top 20 picks. Jamie has introduced me to a lot of music over the years and I respect his choices and know it must have been damned hard coming up with just 20.
I realize that on any given day your top 5 could change so don't feel "fixed" to the list you provide. I also realize that you may have your top 5 jazz, top 5 trip hop, top 5.... whatever.
I know it's somewhat of a BS premise but still, can you think of 5 albums that stick with you? 5 albums that have informed your taste in music, 5 that you measure all else against? 5 that have changed you?
Ok, if anyone wants to put almost all of the albums mentioned in this thread on shuffle, here they are in a single, humongous, grooveshark playlist
I'll have to give Skylarking another listen then. All I really know is Nigel. But that's a sweet song. English Settlement is so consistent though.
Bjork : Vespertine Spoon : Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga Beatles : Abbey Road Radiohead : Amnesiac Smashing Pumpkins : Siamese Dream
No particular order: Revolver - The Beatles You Are What You is - Frank Zappa I'm Your Man - Leonard Cohen Figure 8 - Elliott Smith Mule Variations - Tom Waits A couple notables that I have a hard time leaving off are Midnite Vultires (Beck) and #1 Record (Big Star); can't fit 'em all though.
I actually do prefer the white album to Revolver, it just has such variety, from Revolution and Dear Prudence to Rocky Raccoon and Back in the USSR.
If you ask me what the best collection of Beatles songs is I'll say white album, absolutely. As far a albums go, ones that are to be listened to all the way through, its not even top 3 for me. I put it behind revolver, rubber soul and abbey road. Each of those is a masterpiece. White album gets interrupted by shit, as thenewgreen points out below. That said, happiness is a warm gun and helter skelter are probably my favorite songs of theirs.
My favourite song has to be either Paperback Writer or Julia
Julia is the only Beatles song ever released that features only John playing. Written for his mother, as I'm sure you know. Wonderful, wonderful song. Paperback Writer has such a kick ass guitar riff. Reminds me of this old post: Ask Hubski -Best Beatles Guitar Riff
you know what else has great guitar, Helter Skelter. I just love the energy behind it.
Hell yeah. Also Revolution. -Was the first song that introduced what "distortion" is to me.
I have a question about Revolution. Was the original the slow or the fast one? I love both but they each have a different feel.
I had the reverse, I used to spell the bug Beatle when I was a kid. I was kidding about Yoko.
The White Album was the first Beatles album I owned and therefore has a special place for me. Glass Onion, Mother Natures Son, I'm So Tired, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Helter Skelter.... WOW. But still, there's some bullshit there too: Revolution 9, Honeypie, Piggies etc. Revolver on the other hand is perfect. If they shaved off a few tunes from the White Album, it would be too. But from a nostalgia perspective, it is perfect to me. "looking through the bent back tulips, to see how the other half lives"
Almost_A_Robot and b_b, I'm pretty sure the slower (acoustic) version Revolution 1 was the originally recorded version but they actually released Revolution (bad ass version) first as a single. I'm not sure what the thinking behind this was? Why not have both on the album? It's not as if they were overly picky about what made the album and what didn't, right? John at this point is a pretty hard dude to deal with from a managerial standpoint (not that he was ever easy) and I'm guessing it was by his design. Not sure really though. If you've got more, I'd be glad to learn about it. I blame Yoko.
Yoko was good for John but bad for the Beatles. Also on a side note I always thought beetle was spelled like the Beatles I realized this about a month ago and it hit me like a truck.
Yeah they took a risk with a lot of the songs on the White Album, some are not hits but I can still appreciate Revolution as a sound collage. My favourite thing about the beatles is the stories behind the songs.
As a ridiculous Beatles fan I highly suggest reading Here, There and Everywhere by Geoff Emerick. By far the best account of the Beatles recording process and cool anecdotal stuff that I've ever come across. If you are interested in how the songs came to be, sonically, then check it out. Been trying to get b_b to read it for almost a year ;-)
That's a pretty tall order! I am far from being very well versed in musical history, and my musical tastes are still rapidly developing, so I wouldn't feel confident giving anything close to a definitive list. But here are some albums I have consistently enjoyed over the last few years (despite changing tastes) and which still get heavy rotation from me today: - "Dive Deep" by Morcheeba
- "Resurrection" by Common
- "People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm" by A Tribe Called Quest
- "Blue Lines" by Massive Attack
- "The Score" by Fugees I really love music that feels textured, organic, warm, and a little rough around the edges. It may be that I'm just looking in the wrong places, but I find it difficult to find music like that lately. Lots of bands seem to be moving toward clean, smooth and cloudy sounds -- which I like, sometimes, but are outside of my comfort zone. If anyone has any recommendations for me -- old or new -- let me know! One recent release that I've really been enjoying is Wax Tailor's "Dusty Rainbow from the Dark," which drew me in immediately.
Sorry, more than five... I was going to browse through my iTunes library and make a rough list first, and then pare it down, but I decided not to choose. Had to skip so many good albums as it is... A Wizard, A True Star - Todd Rundgren Fragile - Yes Waiting for Colombus - Little Feat Based on a True Story - Fat Freddy's Drop Eat a Peach - The Allman Brothers Band Troubador - J. J. Cale The Black Parade - My Chemical Romance Reckoning - REM A Farewell to Kings - Rush Nonsuch - XTC
My older brother, whom I idolised, made a mixed tape for me with a couple of songs from that album - "Travellin' Light" and "Gypsy Man". He also introduced me to Genesis (pre-Collins), with some tracks from "A Trick of the Tail". What a great gift he gave me with that.
My father in law gave me 3 things 1. His guitar -1978 Gibson J50, His daughter and J.J. Cale's Troubador. I think Troubador may have been the thing he was most excited to give me
I'll go: 1. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot -Wilco 2. Revolver -The Beatles 3. The Bends - Radiohead 4. The White Album - The Beatles 5. Pet Sounds - The Beach Boys These are all albums that for different reasons have had an impact on me, albums that I will never tire of. If it is not possible to use two albums by the same band you can take out one of the Beatles albums and replace with Sea Change by Beck. Now I really want to get The Bends on Vinyl. What a kick ass rock album. Also, all the links I've provided are for "full listen" audio via youtube so you can stream the whole albums if you'd like.
In no particular order: 1. The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper 2. Rush - Permanent Waves 3. Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon 4. Porcupune Tree - In Absentia 5. Devin Townsend - Addicted I can never grow tired of any of these. Narrowing it down to a mere five was much harder than I thought. I feel that if you were to ask me this again in a day or two, you'd have a different list.
I know that a lot of people really love Ben Folds, I've never really gotten in to his music. I do respect how he approaches music and some of the interesting things he's done. I love the other mentions you have on your list, so I ought to give Ben a shot.
This is an impossible question, but here are a few from my top artists on last.fm. Not sure that counts as "albums that changed me", but I certainly spent a lot of time listening to them. (I'm excluding stuff like The Beatles and Pink Floyd because - who doesn't know those already?) - Tricky - Maxinquaye - #triphop
- Аквариум - Десять стрел - #russianrock
- Bluetech - Prima Materia - #psychill
- Goran Bregović - Ederlezi - #balkanbeats
- Elsiane - Hybrid - #downtempo
- Infected Mushroom - Converting Vegetarians - #trance
- Planum - Spying Imagination - #melodicpsytrance
- Nystagmus - The Immaculate Perception - #psytrance
- Johnny Hollow - Dirty Hands - #rock
- Gotan Project - La Revancha del Tango - #electrotango Honorable mention - She Za - Замочим Любовь - #electronicpunk ok, i'll stop now... but there's so many more genres i did not mention... oh man. PS. huzzah for grooveshark.
Huzzah indeed. Thanks for the links to what proved to be an eclectic mix of albums I'd never heard of before.
Anytime :) Now i'm inspired to start trawling through my last.fm history and posting more music videos here, so be it on your head thenewgreen...
Good list steve. It is cheating, but I can see why. That's a damned hard decision. I put The Bends on my list because that album blew my mind when it first came out. Plus it's really their last full on "rock" album imo. Love it. Love all of them, but the Bends is as much about the album as it is about that time of my life, you know what I mean?
I know exactly what you mean. My radiohead experience is all jacked up and backwards. Aside from hearing Creep on the radio years before - The first song I heard... or I should say video I saw - was late one night at a friend's house on MTV (remember when they did that? like actually showed music videos?). Anyway - I remember it was just kind of on in the background. And the video sort of pulled me in. and the conversation just trailed off. who is this weird looking dude sitting in this car... and why is the camera panning around like this? I only caught the last part of the song/video, but I was completely hooked. I watched for a couple more hours hoping they would play it again. I went over the next night about the same time hoping it would be on again. ---Did you catch that all of you people born after 1995? We couldn't just pull up shazam or youtube and rewatch something... we had to sit up all night and hope that it would come on the radio or MTV again.--- anyhow - it did come on that night - and I was hooked big time. Bought OK Computer. a year or so later my friend was listening to the bends in his car. I had to have it. Next stop was Pablo Honey. BOOM. The guitar was so crunchy and delicious I could almost taste it. Over the next few years it was about buying every bootleg and live CD I could find. Then I realized sometimes their live shows are amazing and sometimes they had been drinking and the shows (and recordings) sucked. So I backed off for a while on the bootlegs and stuck to the studio releases. I buy them on vinyl now. Vinyl + Digital download might be the single greatest accomplishment of mankind in this century so far. I got a fever. and the only cure, is more radiohead. And at this point - honestly, I just don't have enough time to listen to it all. Thom and Johnny have both cranked out enough solo stuff to swim in for hours.the Bends is as much about the album as it is about that time of my life
Aside from the bootlegs, have you seen Radiohead live before? If so, did you get a good night or a drunk night? I remember when Pablo Honey came out, I was introduced to it by a guy named Corby and whenever I hear it I remember him. His claim to fame was that he could slam an entire 40 of Old English in less than a minute. -Pretty difficult and pretty stupid. So now, the song Creep reminds me of malt liquor.---Did you catch that all of you people born after 1995? We couldn't just pull up shazam or youtube and rewatch something... we had to sit up all night and hope that it would come on the radio or MTV again.---
HA HA HA, that's awesome steve. I remember waiting with my eyes glued to the television with our VCR ready to record so I could capture whatever video it was that I wanted to be able to re-watch. I would love to go through the boxes of VHS tapes in my parents basement to see what is on them. I bet there are some crazy ones.
twice. Both awesome. Once I bought tickets. The other - for my birthday I made my wife promise not to buy the $150 tickets for Red Rocks. She obliged. But we did drive up there and sit on the mountain above the venue and listen to the show for free. I think it was the Kid A tour. One of the best concerts I've been to.
Also -- You familiar with the Fruit Bats album Mouthfulls? I was heavy in to that album when I first met my wife. It will forever remind me of that time of my life. Good stuff.
I get email updates from his "fan club", unfortunately he never comes to my neck of the woods when I can see him. It's been a few years now. If you get the chance, do go. Not sure if I mentioned this before, but I've met him a couple of times and he was a really nice guy. Nothing big, just "hello" and some small talk. You remember the day that the electricity went out in the US on the east coast/midwest? They called it the "blackout", I met him that day and we talked about whether he'd be performing if the power didn't come back? He played that night at the Ark in Ann Arbor. He was walking down the street, whistling.
Love the Fruitbats and Andrew Bird. I've met Andrew a couple of times, very nice and extremely shy fella. One of the best shows I've ever seen was Andrew at the Ark in Ann Arbor MI. Small room, BIG show.
Wire - the dot-dash single (or the reissue of Pink flag that has it) Birthday party - Prayers on Fire. Nation of Ulysses - plays pretty for baby Spaceman3 - the perfect prescription John Fahey - Blind Joe Death
Purely a list of the albums that got me into music, not an exclusive list of my favorite albums. 1. Cream - Disraeli Gears
2. Minor Threat - Complete Discography
3. Jimi Hendrix - Band of Gypsies
4. Bad Brains - Attitude
5. Joy Division - All of em
6. Miles Davis - Kind of Blue My list of favorite albums is about 25 albums long now, it's too hard to get it down to five. If I had to take one album to a desert island it would probably be Glen Gould's 1955 recording of the Goldberg Variations.
Metallica: Ride the Lightning
Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin IV
Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon
Queen: A Night at the Opera
Burial: Untrue
The Who: Tommy
Between the Buried and Me: The Parallax II: Future Sequence (New, better than Colors)
Mastodon: Leviathan It's quite a pity just to narrow the list down to a top five, so here are a couple albums I love listening to. There's a lot of great albums to choose from...