Essential Albums

CantGetNoSleep

What albums would you call essential to any music collection?

suckslikeafox

Appetite for Destruction - Guns N'Roses
Nevermind - Nirvana
Funeral - Arcade Fire
Thriller - Michael Jackson
Led Zeppelin IV


for starters

delbertgrady

Kate Bush: The Kick Inside
Miles Davis: In a Silent Way
Jacqueline du Pre/Sir John Barbirolli: Elgar - Cello Concerto
Randy Newman: Good Old Boys
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: Architecture and Morality
Planxty: Planxty
Todd Rundgren: Something/Anything?
Bruce Springsteen: Born to Run
Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense
The Who: Who's Next
Neil Young: On the Beach

Xavi6

Muse - Origin of Symmetry
Arcade Fire - Funeral
Radiohead - The Bends/OK Computer
Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights
Bright Eyes - Fevers & Mirrors
Rage Against The Machine - Rage Against The Machine
Oasis - Definitely Maybe
Stone Roses - Stone Roses
Doves - Lost Souls/The Last Broadcast
Jimmy Eat World - Bleed American
Stereophonics - Performance and Cocktails
Idlewild - In Remote Part
Foo Fighters - Colour and the Shape
Alkaline Trio - From Here to Infirmary
Death Cab For Cute - Plans
Metallica - The Black Album
Weezer - The Blue Album
Green Day - Nimrod
Offspring - Smash
Bush - Sixteen Stone
King Adora - Vibrate You
Skunk Anansie - Stoosh

Lol and that's just for starters!

cornbb

That would surely depend on the tastes of the collection's owner? Otherwise the list would run into tens of thousands!

Nirvana - Nevermind
Radiohead - OK Computer
Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 85-92
Miles Davis - Birth of the Cool
Beethoven - 9th Symphony
The Grateful Dead - American Beauty
Leftfield - Leftism
Brian Eno - Music for Airports

etc etc

Kold

Radiohead - OK Computer/The Bends/Kid A
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon/Wish you were Here
The Beatles - Revolver/Sgt Pepper
Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
Bob Dylan - Highway 66 Revisited


These are if you want your collection to look like a cliché of course. I'd think you were a Q reader if I spotted all these. However, if I were to see the following, I'd be fairly impressed:

Radiohead - All 7 LPs but ESPECIALLY Amnesiac
Nas - Illmatic/Stillmatic
A good bit of Pink Floyd doesn't hurt
Eliott Smith - XO
Aphex Twin - Richard D James LP/Druqkz
MF DOOM - Madvillainy/MMFOOD/Dangerdoom
Air - Virgin Suicides OST
Blur - Parklife
Arcade Fire - Funeral
Captain Beefheart - Safe as Milk
Daft Punk - Homework
Tool - Aenima
Tupac - Don Killuminati
Any Grateful Dead/Jurassic 5/Led Zep/Mogwai/Primus
Burial - Untrue

That's all good popular stuff in the genres I enjoy the most rather than my favourite albums, can't really advise you when it comes to experiencing Metal/Punk/Reggae and whilst I love a lot of classical, I really couldn't tell my head from my arse in such a huge catalogue.

Mr. Presentable

delbertgrady wrote: »

Kate Bush: The Kick Inside
Miles Davis: In a Silent Way
Jacqueline du Pre/Sir John Barbirolli: Elgar - Cello Concerto
Randy Newman: Good Old Boys
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: Architecture and Morality
Planxty: Planxty
Todd Rundgren: Something/Anything?
Bruce Springsteen: Born to Run
Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense
The Who: Who's Next
Neil Young: On the Beach

Good list! Add
Las - The Las

JimiTime

Beatles - White Album/ Actually everything post Rubbersoul

Led Zep - 1, 2, 4 and houses of the holy

The Who - Who's Next

Michael Jackson - Off The Wall

Stevie Wonder - Innervisions

The Band - The Last Waltz

Carole King - Tapestry

Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks

Ray LaMontagne - Trouble

Thats for starters anyway. Oh I lament the days when guitar music was fresh and full of talent.:(

'Ol Jack Chance

The Basement Tapes - Bob Dylan & The Band

Ballads of the Old West - Johnny Cash

Boxer - The National

Nighthawks at the Diner - Tom Waits

Boys and Girls in America - The Hold Steady

Scubadevils

As has been said, I could type here for ever with this type of list, but here are a few random essentials that spring to mind...

Talk Talk - Spirit Of Eden/Laughing Stock

The Cure - Disintegration/Seventeen Seconds/Faith

The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead/The Smiths/Strangeways/Meat Is Murder

Cocteau Twins - Treasure (and I'm sure more, these are an old new discovery for me)

Massive Attack - Blue Lines/Protection/No Protection/Mezzanine

Steve Reich - Phases Box-Set

The Orb - Adventures.../U.f.orb

The Prodigy - Experience/Music For the Jilted Generation

Photek - Modus Operandi

7th Plain - The 4 Cornered Room

Deadbeat - Something Borrowed, Something Blue

Gas - Nah Und Fern

Will stop now, will never end when I start with electonica!

HalloweenJack

David Bowie: Ziggy Stardust
Jimi Hendrix: Axis: Bold As Love
Prince: Purple Rain
Talking Heads: Fear Of Music
Funkadelic: Funkadelic
Dr. Dre: The Chronic
Notorious BIG: Ready To Die
Nas: Illmatic
OutKast: Aquemini
Ice Cube: Death Certificate
Wu Tang Clan: Enter The Wu Tang (36 Chambers)
Sun Ra: The Futuristic Sounds Of Sun Ra
Arcade Fire: Funeral
Fela Kuti: Zombie
Parliament: The Clone Of Dr. Funkenstein
Ohio Players: Honey
Basement Jaxx: Crazy Itch Radio
Róisín Murphy: Overpowered

Some of the albums I own that everyone should have.

Photi

[insert list of album titles with no explanation why here]


Ridiculous thread.

IanCurtis

Stone Roses - Stone Roses
The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
Portishead - Dummy
Neil Young - Harvest
Suede - Dog Man Star

These are perfect albums, not a duff track on any of them

IanCurtis

Photi wrote: »

[insert list of album titles with no explanation why here]


Ridiculous thread.

Chill out ffs

Scubadevils

Photi wrote: »

[insert list of album titles with no explanation why here]


Ridiculous thread.

Erm, ok. :rolleyes:

Stompbox

Kold wrote: »

Radiohead - OK Computer/The Bends/Kid A
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon/Wish you were Here
The Beatles - Revolver/Sgt Pepper
Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
Bob Dylan - Highway 66 Revisited


These are if you want your collection to look like a cliché of course.

What's cliched about good music?

Rigsby

Photi wrote: »

[insert list of album titles with no explanation why here]


Ridiculous thread.

I agree. What might be a "must" in one person's collection, might end up in another's bin.

Placid_Casual

Photi wrote: »

[insert list of album titles with no explanation why here]


Ridiculous thread.

I kind of agree, most of the lists are basically "here's my favourite albums"

Having said that, here's some albums that I think are very important (I don't think any album is essential) due to the influence they have had on other musicians. That doesn't mean everyone will necessarily love them - though actually I am quite fond of most of these.

The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
The Velvet Underground & Nico
The Clash - London Calling
The Sex Pistols - Never Mind The Bollocks (actually, I don't even particularly like this but it was very influential)
The Beatles - Sgt Pepper & Revolver (and others you could argue)
The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead

Of course, there are many more besides

PrivateEye

long post, but a list with no explanations won't sell you an album!

Leonard Cohen- Songs Of Love And Hate.

I think this is Cohens best album by a country mile. It's also worth stating the others are amazing too...... hope that puts things in perspective. This album started a love for Cohens music that is still strong.

The Pogues- Rum,Sodomy and the Lash.

It opens with the Sickbed Of Cuchulainn and closes with The Band Played Waltzing Matilda. Everything in between is just as good. Cait O' Riordan singing I'm A Man You Don't Meet Everyday is one of my favourite tunes to date.

Rilo Kiley- The Execution Of All Things

One of my favourite bands, and their best work to date. Clever indie pop, with (for the most part) a fantastic lead female vocalist in Jenny Lewis. Worth picking up.

Cat Power- The Covers Record

Cat Power, cover versions, 41 minutes of brilliance.

Public Enemy- Fear Of A Black Planet

Completely changed my mind with regards Hip Hop music. As they used to say, hip hop is (was?) just punk music for the black community. Fight The Power is the strongest piece of hip hop I've ever heard.

Moving Hearts-Moving Hearts

Truly influential traditional/folk act. Hiroshima Nagasaki Russian roulette and No Time For Love brought politics back to folk music in Ireland. They added jazz and even rock influences to their music, and the guitar solos in No Time For Love added power to the song. A band where you'd find uillin pipes alongside a bass guitar, I don't think any Irish act has matched them since.

"In Boston, Chicago, Saigon, Santiago, Warsaw and Belfast,
And places that never make headlines, the list never ends"

The Smiths- The Queen Is Dead

best thing my parents ever handed down! No need to say much about this one, you probably own a copy.

Alkaline Trio- Goddamnit

I took my username from an Alkaline Trio song. As of late they're far from magic, but the early releases packed some punch. Green Day, The Damned and The Misfits all end up in a horrific train crash...and Alkaline Trio rise from the wreck. Opens with the angry 'Cringe' (wide eyed. knee deep in surprise!) and closes with an acoustic number. Pop punk? never.


Johnny Cash- Orange Blossom Special

"Well I don't care if I do-da,do-da,do-da..."

Moneymaker

For anyone wanting to get into prog metal/prog rock/death/power/doom metal, these would be a must:

Dream Theater: Images and Words, Scenes From A Memory - A group of really ****ing talented musicians get together, add some prog metal and Dream Theater is your result. Well written, and some orgasmiclly good instrumentals.

Opeth: Blackwater Park, Ghost Reveries, Still Life, Watershed, My Arms Your Hearse - These guys blow me away on a daily basis. The seamless swings from clean singing, jazz style, to savage, brutal, pounding death metal doesnt sound too appealing, but these guys make it an artform.

Kamelot: The Black Halo, Epica - Power metal at its finest.

Porcupine Tree: Fear Of A Blank Planet, In Absentia, Deadwing - Listen. Be blown away.

Dark Tranquillity: Character, Fiction - Melodic death metal bliss.

Pain of Salvation: Remedy Lane - Probably the best written album ever to grace the metal genre. It ebbs and flows like no other.

Machinae Supremacy: Redeemer, Overworld - Unique and fresh. See for yourself.

Spock's Beard: Snow, V - Biblically good prog rock.

Between the Buried and Me: Colours, Alaska - Both albums are a total mind****, but when you get to grips with the style it will blow you away.

Riverside: Rapid Eye Movement, Second Life Syndrome - Polish prog rock ftw.

Threshold: Dead Reckoning - See Dream Theater, only different.

I could be here all day but these are probably my favourites.

I'd include a list of non-metal stuff, but most of those have been covered by previous posts, so whatever.

Robbo

Photi wrote: »

[insert list of album titles with no explanation why here]


Ridiculous thread.

[Esoteric list of albums to show how varied and arch my musical taste is]

If you think in list format, perhaps a career as a talking head on a Channel 4 "Top 100...Most Painful Internet Threads...EVER" is for you. I'm sure Stuart Maconie could do with a break.

Setun

delbertgrady wrote: »

Kate Bush: The Kick Inside
Miles Davis: In a Silent Way

Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense

I like you Two of my favourite albums.

To add to the above:
Something by Ry Cooder.
Anything by John Coltrane.
Tourist by St. Germain.
See Through/Mosquito by the Necks.
Any decent Satie collection (played by Clidat)
Go Plastic!
Unity by Larry Young.

/runs away from keyboard before entire collection is catalogued

ByrdsFan

King Crimson - In The Court Of The Crimson King
Neil Young - Tonights The Night
13th Floor Elevators - The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators
Bob Dylan - Desire
Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band - Trout Mask Replica
Country Joe & The Fish - Electric Music For The Mind And Body
Cream - Disraeli Gears
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Déjà Vu
David Bowie - Station To Station / Low
Derek & The Dominos - Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs
Fleetwood Mac - Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac / Rumours / Tango In The Night / Then Play On
Frank Zappa - Freak Out! / Absolutely Free / Joe's Garage / We're Only In It For The Money
George Harrison - All Things Must Pass
Grateful Dead - Anthem Of The Sun / Terrapin Station / Aoxomoxoa
Big Brother & The Holding Company - Cheap Thrills
Jefferson Airplane - After Bathing at Baxters / Crown of Creation
Jimi Hendrix - Are You Experienced / Electric Ladyland
Led Zeppelin - I , Houses of The Holy, Presence
Pink Floyd - The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn / Animals / Ummagumma
Pixies - Doolittle
Santana - Santana
The Allman Brothers Band -The Allman Brothers Band / Idlewild South / Eat a Peach
Beatles - Abbey Road / The White Album
The Byrds - Younger Than Yesterday / 5th Dimension / The Notorious Byrd Brothers / Ballad Of Easy Rider / Sweetheart of the Rodeo
The Doors - Morrison Hotel / Strange Days
Velvet Underground - White Light White Heat

& a few more I cant think of

tinkletoes

Director- We thrive on big cities
Red Hot Chili Peppers- Californication
Linkin Park- Hybrid Theory
We are Scientists- With love and squalor
Leonard Cohen- Songs of Leonard Cohen

Boom_Bap

The Zombies - Odessey and Oracle
Bob Dylan - Desire
Marvin Gaye - What's Going On?

rowlandbrowner

Photi wrote: »

[insert list of album titles with no explanation why here]


Ridiculous thread.

agreed,

i've seen nothing here but people listing off the usual “top 100 albums”, with no surprises in their choices and no reasons given for the album being so essential.

laoisforliam

Dylan- Blood on the tracks
The stones- Exile on main street
Pavement- crooked rain
Beatles- Rubber soul, White album, Sgt peppers,
Elton John- Honky Chateau
Oasis- Definatly maybe etc etc
Stone Roses - Stone roses

Hardrain

Bob Dylan's Time Out Of Mind. His had not released an album of originals since Oh Mercy in 1989 and comes out with this sheer master class in heartbreak and isolation. Songs such as Love Sick, Standing in The Doorway and Not Dark Yet are among his finest his vocal on Not Dark Yet is the sound of a man on his deathbed. An amazing album.

Perfect for any night in on your own with the curtains closed and the wind a howlin'

I rank this album up with the standard of the 60's and mid 70's.

Sublime album.

grumpytrousers

Here's a few then

Stones - Exile on Main St.

They say that The Beatles White Album should have been cut down to a single record and it would have been all killer/no filler, and to an extent you could make the same case for Exile. But that would be to take away from its inherent charm. It's a rag bag of odds and sods that just positively reeks of decadence, drugs and debauchery. It's got the most barnstorming opener in Rocks Off, where there's a machine-gun rattle of Keefs telecaster and Jagger snarling 'oh yea' and away you go. Barnstorming rockers, blistering sax-lines, low-slung funk, cartoon country and quite possibly the most soulful thing they ever did in 'Let it Loose' which some of you might know as the song from The Departed where Jack is having a go at Leonardo in the poolhall. For the last 30 years, the Stones (minus a temporary break in '95 when they did their unplugged 'Stripped') album have been a parody of themselves. This is them lean, mean and dangerous. Would you let your daughter marry a Rolling Stone? Hell, you wouldn't let her live within twenty miles of one on the strength of this album

Dexys Midnight Runners - Searching for the Young Soul Rebels.

You know Dexys from countless weddings where you got into a huddle with the rest of the crowd and stumbled and jigged through Come On Eileen. Forget that. Expunge such thoughts from your head and listen to this. It's Brummmies. In donkey jackets. Playing Soul Music. Nowadays i wonder at what it is A&R men look for in bands when they're deciding to sign them. I would *dearly* love to meet the man who gave this the green light (see - reference to one of the songs on the album there) cos the stuff he's got in his medicine cabinet has just got to be good.

The Beatles - Abbey Road

It was a toss up between this and Hard Days Night for me, but this wins out purely on the grounds that it's magical. Not for the tunes, per se, but (as i may have said before) for the fact that despite the fact the feckers couldn't, or wouldn't talk to each other, they could still pull off an album of this magnitude. McCartneys 'Oh Darling' shows that for all the fey balladeering he was prone to doing, he could rock out and rip seven shades of crap off his vocal chords. Lennons 'I want you' is almost apocalyptic and the circular end riff is just immense in how it just builds and builds and builds to, er, nothing. Harrisons two contributions aren't just two of the finest Beatles songs ever, they're just two of the finest songs ever. And that's before we've hit the final straight of Side Two, kicking off with Golden Slumbers through to The End where they all muck in with three raggged-to-f*ck guitar solos and Ringo does his *only* drum solo. That's the magic. Showmen to the end. If you're gonna leave the punters screaming for more, that's how you do it. And then break up the band.

Warren Zevon - Exciteable Boy.

Here's a thought. Never go shopping for records when you're drunk. I did it once and a pal of mine brought this over to me and slurred that i should get it and if i didn't like it he'd give me the money. Bought it and knew nothing of it and from start to finish it's a belter. It's got Werewolves of London on it (which y'all might know from that Kid Rock thing doing the rounds at the moment) but it's got other gems like Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner and my own favourite 'Lawyers Guns and Money'. For a song title like that alone, the album is worth considering. But for the 35 minutes (cos it's that short) of solid gold clever (but not smart-arsed) tune-smithery, it's worth cherishing.

Housemartins - Now Thatt's what I call quite Good

I know it's a compilation and strictly speaking, it's probably not allowed. Tell you what. Screw the rules. This is all you'll ever need from Hulls finest. The singles are brilliant, taking in sexual harassment in the workplace, greedy property developers, land-grabbing farmers and that's before you've gotten to the wonderful nuggets like the a-capella version of 'He ain't heavy, he's my brothers'. It's Paul Heaton at his most barbed, backed up with loads of furiously crunchy guitars, Fatboy Slim mucking about on the bass, and a guy who later spent time in chokey for GBH with an axe, playing drums. The Beautiful South, this ain't. Throw in hilarious sleeve notes documenting their continued lack of success in New Zealand and you've got 24 cuts of prime 80's power pop.

JimmyJay

John Frusciante - Curtains
Excellent song writing and musicianship.