Ask Lemmy

"In case I make it," made by will wood, is my favorite album of all time, mainly because it not only has one of the best overall songs I've heard ever, but because it deeply resonates with me as a person. I suppose I choose my favorites by the overall quality but also on my personal taste.

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon - someone else said it's a cliche, but it's a cliche for a reason. It's a brilliant album that still stands up half a century later. No-one else does middle-aged angst quite like Floyd: "And then one day you find, Ten years have got behind you, No one told you when to run, You missed the starting gun... The time is gone, the song is over, Thought I'd something more to say."

Queensrÿche - Operation: Mindcrime - a narrative concept album. Nothing else sounds quite like it, and it is operatic and amazing.

Iron Maiden - Seventh Son of a Seventh Son - another narrative concept album, and the best thing Maiden did in their third musical period.

Metallica - Master of Puppets - not a concept album, but the best album Metallica made. Every song is a banger, with some absolute treasures: "Master of Puppets", "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)", and especially the mighty "Orion".

The first CD I ever bought was The Matrix soundtrack.

These days I've been listening to Tycho a lot. I like all their albums. Awake may be my favorite.

Daft Punk - Interstella 5555 is magical, especially the anime.

Orbital makes some wonderful albums as well.

When I think of my favorite albums, they tend to have come to me at a time to hit me emotionally. There may be one or two songs that aren’t my favorite, but don’t detract from the whole. Oddly enough if I listen to an entire album I prefer it be a concept album, but my favorites tend to not have one cohesive theme. My favorites ordered by time include:

The Red Album by Weezer- My dad gave me the CD when I was in middle school, we’d jam to it in the car on the way to school, and when I got an mp3 player I’d listen to just about every song often.

Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd- Yes, this is a cliche. The one time I experienced ego death was on a heroic dose of LSD in college while laying in bed with an eye mask on listening to this album for the first time. I felt that I was in on a joke, that life was so vast and yet so short. I laughed, I cried, it moved me. I gave serious consideration to what I wanted out of life for the first time instead of only wanting some direction given to me. I listened to the album many more times after that when I needed a reminder of that experience.

The New Abnormal by The Strokes- This album came out at the start of the pandemic when I was stressing out of my mind at the state of the world. I loved the album name, I love every song off the album, they all felt relatable in some way, Spotify said I was in the top .5% of Strokes listeners that year. When one song comes on from my library I’m always tempted to play the whole thing. It’s great.

The Sonic Age by The Symposium- I think this is one of my favorites. I couldn’t name half the songs, but I found the artist and the album came out shortly after my dad passed away. I really like how rushed yet smooth and relaxed the album feels, it mirrored how I felt processing his death and I could just put it on and feel fine with not being fine for a bit.

I find there are very few albums that are great beginning to end, and I'm not including "greatest hits" or "Best of..." collections.

1. The Crystal Method - Vegas
2. Bad Mojos - Songs that Make You Wanna Die!
3. GZA - Pro Tools
4. Sloppy Seconds - Destroyed (guilty pleasure of mine)
5. Eddy Current Suppression Ring - Primary Colours

The short answer is no, not all songs on an album have to be masterpieces to elevate it for me, but obviously it helps if it is consistent. As far as determination goes, if i can keep coming back and hearing more detail, gaining a better understanding of lyrical themes, or just appreciating it a little more in some other way makes it a contender. Anyway, here is a too long list I'm taking on the mp3 player to be stranded on a tropical island with.

• ABBA - Arrival
• Anamanguchi - Endless Fantasy
• Anri - Timely!!
• Beach Bunny - Honeymoon
• Big Star - Radio City
• Blu-Swing - Flash
• Built To Spill - Live
• Counting Crows - Recovering the Satellites
• Cracker - Cracker
• Crying - Get Olde/Second Wind
• Daft Punk - Random Access Memories
• David Bowie - The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars
• Dissection - Reinkaos
• Dubmood - Machine
• Frou Frou - Details
• Jamie Paige - Constant Companions (Deluxe)
• Jellyfish - Spilt Milk
• Jurassic 5 - Power In Numbers
• Kno - Death Is Silent
• Mass Of The Fermenting Dregs - MASS OF THE FERMENTING DREGS (EP) + ワールドイズユアーズ (EP)
• Mariya Takeuchi - Variety
• Mutyumu - Ilya
• Oasis - Definitely Maybe
• Paramore - Brand New Eyes
• Perfume - Game
• Puffy AmiYumi - Nice (JP)
• Radiohead - The Bends
• Rage Against The Machine - Rage Against The Machine
• Remi Wolf - Juno
• S.C.X - Breeze
• The Pillows - Happy Bivouac
• The Posies - Failure
• Roll-Ups - Low Dives For Highballs
• Sarah McLachlan - Fumbling Towards Ecstasy
• Sloan - One Chord To Another
• Sneaker Pimps - Becoming X
• Streetlight Manifesto - Somewhere In The Between
• Tally Hall - Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum
• Tatsuro Yamashita - Ride On Time
• The Cranberries - Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We
• The Shins - Wincing The Night Away
• Vylet Pony - Monarch of Monsters
• The Waterboys - This Is The Sea
• Tool - 10,000 Days
• Wednesday Campanella - Superman
• Will Wood - The Normal Album

Most of the music I listen to either doesn't come in albums, or is in a 40+ track OST. However, there are a few which I can say are enjoyable in their entirety.

UNDERTALE OST is 101 tracks, and while some of the tracks are ambient noise and sound effects, Like 93% of it is great. Basically anything Toby Fox does has a high rate of enjoyment from me.

Medium by Clark Powell is entirely a masterpiece—not only the individual tracks, but how they interact with one another, and what they represent to the story of their context.

Nothing Is Quick in the Desert by Public Enemy has a great listening experience, where nearly every track blends into the next. Not typical for the music I usually listen to.

It certainly isn't for everyone, but The Caretaker's Everywhere at the End of Time is excellent. The middle section up until nearly the end can be pretty abstract, but there's a certain... bliss that can be derived from it.

There's more, but these are the ones that immediately come to mind.

Hello fellow Haken fan! Affinity and Visions are my favorites of theirs. I also love Phantom Island by King Gizzard.

Personal favourites:

'Endless, Nameless' / The Wildhearts - from the fake-out beginning (don't turn the volume right up or you'll get a surprise) to the fade at the end, it's perfect to me. Joyously and gloriously noisy.

'Dreamweaver' / Sabbat - complex and clever thrash that gave young me a lot to think about; it's loosely based on a book about a mediaeval Christian missionary and the lyrics are incredibly dense, yet so skilfully done that you don't realise until you look at the lyric sheet and it's huge.

'Dopethrone' / Electric Wizard - for those bad mood days

'Mclusky Do Dallas' / mclusky - inventive and slightly surrealist lyrics, noisy guitars and a great drummer.

'Nothingface' / Voivod - still sounds like it was recorded five years from now despite being around 30 years old. Best description I can give is 'prog thrash' and that's not really very accurate.

'The Big Roar' / The Joy Formidable - noisy indie rock. Not going to win any awaawards for innovation but it's so well done.

Like most people's favourites, these were mostly released when I was starting to develop my own taste in music, and the release dates of most of them will tell you that means I'm getting old!

For full album plays some of my favourites are:

• Lou Reed's "New York"
• David Bowie "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars"
• The Carpenters "Christmas Carol"
• The Bodeans "Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams"
• Bob Dylan's "Infidels"
• Louis Prima's "The Wildest"
• The Boomtown Rats "The Fine Art of Surfacing"

I generally don't really care about albums and just make a playlist with only the songs I like.

Yes, all songs are masterpieces.

Repion - Repion

Everything by Audioslave

Early Bjork

City and Colour - The Love Still Held Me Near

The Car is on Fire - Lake and Flames

There‘s (or at least can be) a difference between an album full of bangers and a album you enjoy from beginning to end in one sitting. But I’m with you on this one. Thinking about it, the following albums come to mind:

Tower of Power - „Soul Vaccination“

Linkin Park - „Meteora“

Opeth - „Blackwater Park“

Queensrÿche - „Operation Mindcrime“

Queen - „A Night At The Opera“

Fleetwood Mac - „Rumours“

Tracy Chapman - „Crossroads“

Elende - „Todbringer“

Tenhi - „Kauan“

While I‘m writing this, it occurs to me, that it’s impossible for me to name a favourite album. I can’t even name a favourite album for each genre.

From what I listen, only Nujabes' Luv(sic) Hexalogy I consider a masterpiece. I have to listen to it start to end. Though personally I have to be in the correct headspace to fully appreciate it.

There aren't a lot of other albums that I have to listen front to back that comes to mind. Although there are lots of songs that I listen to frequently. According to Spotify (before I canceled my sub earlier this year) I'm a Muse fan lol. Top artist I listened to for 5 years straight (I didn't subscribe to Spotify that long) Almost always dominate my yearly Top 10.

how do you determine an album is one of your favorites?

• I listen a lot to it. Some of my favorites albums (or tunes) I've been listening to most of my life since I was a little boy (now nearing my 60s)
• I have favorite recordings of certain pieces. Even more so in regards to classical music, which happens to be the genre of music I listen the most to and have been listening to since I was a child, thx to my parents listening to it and quickly allowing kid-me me to use their LPs (that was back in the 70s, they were kinda high-tech back then ;)
• I can sing the song and, when there are, I know the lyrics from memory. That's one of the reasons I can safely say Jacques Brel and Georges Brassens are among my favorite French singers ever. The other reasons being that, for anyone able to understand French, they've written some of the most amazing songs ever... But there would be many more favorites of mine that have written master pieces, and not just in French ;)

No not at all. I have absolutely terrible taste in music. We all do and any who thinks other wise is deluding themselves.

Does all the songs in your favorite music album are masterpieces?

Never did them wasn't.

A Perfect Circle - Thirteenth Step is my perfect album.

They aren't even my favorite band, but there isn't a bad moment on it.

The Prodigy - Music for the Jilted Generation

Alanis Morisette - Jagged Little Pill

C2C - Tetra

Fuel Fandango - Aurora

Sepultura - Chaos AD

Hard Funk Trio - Mustang

These are all albums I can listen to and genuinely enjoy every track ... I can't give a particular reason. Most albums have tracks that I prefer to skip over, just not these ones.

Looking at it, that's a pretty international lineup ... purely by accident, lol ... artists from the UK, Canada, France, Spain, Brazil, and Argentina :-)

I have favorite albums and then I have the 3(maybe 4 now) perfect 10 albums.

What makes a perfect 10 album? Like you I have to listen to it from start to finish. There's not a single skip or down track on the album. They have exquisite and timeless production quality. These albums sound good even in the worst quality. On top notch files they're the best of the best. They hit me at a time in my life where they just clicked emotionally.

For the longest time the 3 were and are:

3. Animals - Pink Floyd - It's their best album. It has a zen like flow state to it. There's no pretentious bullshit on it. Sounds amazing.

4. Ten - Pearl Jam - Jeremy is one of the first songs I remember hearing as a child. The rest of the album is just as good. Also amazing sound quality. Flows perfectly across the whole album.

5. Exoplanet - The Contortionist - It's late summer 2010. An album finally came out that dethroned Colors by BTBAM from 3 straight years of nonstop listening. That album was P1 by Periphery. I didn't think anything could possibly top that album. It spawned a whole new genre almost instantly. Then on the last day of August, Exoplanet drops. I was floored. Much better sound production. It ebbs and flows with a grace not heard of in Deathcore. It has these magical peaks and valleys all throughout the album. Not a single miss. It's crushing. Then it gently sets you down and tucks you in bed as the alarms of the spaceship you just had a musical journey on are softly beeping away in the distance. It's the single best Deathcore album to ever be released. It's so far and above everything else most people don't even count it as Deathcore. It book ended one era of music as another one just began and what a way for Deathcore to end it's dominance.

The fourth album that's slowly adding itself to the list is Lonely People With Power by Deafheaven. It does all of the things the other 3 do. It hit at the exact time I needed that album. It tells these crazy stories throughout lyrically and musically. There's not a single skip on the record. It's honestly up there as one of the best metal of any type albums of all time IMO. The only thing that's preventing me from adding it to the list is time. Those other records have a longevity unmatched by most. If I still feel the way I feel about LPWP in 5 years, then yeah it's a perfect 10.

Pretty much. I wouldn't presume to say "masterpieces " but easily the most important quality of my favorite albums is that they're strong from start to finish.

A few that come to me right off:

Lloyd Cole and the Commotions - Rattlesnakes

Fountains of Wayne - Fountains of Wayne

The Presidents of the United States of America - The Presidents of the United States of America

XTC - Black Sea

They Might Be Giants - Flood

The Rainmakers - Flirting with the Universe

Was (Not Was) - What Up Dog?

Morphine - Cure for Pain

A lot of classic albums, for me, tend to have a connection running through all the songs. The album is a work in itself rather than just being a collection of random songs by the same artist.

A bunch of "classics"...

• Rumours
• Tapestry
• An Evening with John Denver
• ...and then there were three..
• Boston
• Double Vision
• Out of the Blue

Yes... I am an oldster.

Somehow it's really important to me that an album has a coherent concept from beginning to the end to make it something i consider a masterpiece. There aren't many albums that hit that mark.

The most important one for me is from Deine Lakaien - 20 Years of Electronic Avantgarde, where their minimalistic electronic sounds with the haunting vocals find their perfect counterpart with the Frankfurt Philharmonics.

If any of you have a bit of time on their hands, PLEASE give it a listen.

Edit: I really beg you all to give it a whirl. Especially beginning from CD1 - Madiel to CD1 - Over and Done is nearly perfect. I have never found anything resonating with myself as much as this sequence. A special shoutout for The Mirror Men.

The album I think of when this question comes up is Consolers of the Lonely by The Raconteurs. Every song is so expertly crafted; it’s a smooth effortless listen from beginning to end. Highly recommend.