Best Albums

[Chris Miller]

Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream

From Jimmy Chamberlain's militaristic snare drum report bringing in the anthemic Cherub Rock, to the buzzsaw wall of guitar on Soma, to the melancholic Disarm, Mayonnaise, and Spaceboy, there isn't a bad song on this album. Truly Corgan and Chamberlain's masterpiece (James Iha and Darcy were reportedly nice enough to show up for the album pictures...). Melon Collie and The Infinite Sadness tried to replicate the magic found in Siamese Dream, but never got there. This album made me stop listening to Def Leppard.

[Chris Miller]

Pink Floyd - Animals

Pink Floyd, in my opinion, sounded the best when they were working together as a tight cohesive unit, instead of Roger submitting 80% of the work, Dave 19%, and Rick and Nick phoning it in. Animals is far and away the most "group effort" of any of their post 1968 work.The Wall and Dark Side have already been mentioned in the thread, and will forever be (deservedly so) trumpeted as greats of rock history. As a lifelong Floyd fan, however, my favorite album has always been Animals. I think Floyd had always been at their best when not limiting themselves to six minutes per song or less (see Echoes, Atom Heart Mother suites, all of the Shine On sections), and instead composing legitimate pieces of sustained musical wonder. Pigs (Three Different Ones) has always been the stand out track for me, Roger is at his venom spitting politically unrested lyrical best, and David Gilmour delivers biting solo after biting solo. Speaking of the guitar god that is Gilmour, the dueling leads on Dogs is still something I can listen to on a daily basis.

[Chris Miller]

Blind Melon - Blind Melon

Not much to expand on, just a great dirty sounding Southern Rock album. If you've only heard No Rain, you've heard the weakest song on the entire album. Best way to describe them if you're not familiar with what they do best is to call them an updated version of Skynrd meets James Gang meets:

The Allman Brothers Band - At Fillmore East

Just legendary. If you have the ability, please get this on vinyl. Please turn out all lights, and kick back with a few frosty ass beers, and please listen to the scorchingest version of Whipping Post you can imagine.

[Chris Miller]

The Beatles - Abby Road

What can be said that hasn't been said? From John's political rally cry to get Timothy Leary in office (you knew that's what Come Together was about, right?) to George's romantic opus about the woman Eric Clapton was soon to steal (and write Layla about), to Ringo's ridiculous drug induced hallucination-turned indulgence from the other guys Octopus' Garden, this epic masterpiece has hours of discussion material and greatness. The highlights for me, though, are Paul's contributions, IE: The medley (which was mostly Paul) and You Never Give Me Your Money, the song with one of my favorite bass intros ever (when it comes in, playing with the piano melody, just heartbreaking sounding).

[B_Metal]

Cash's America recordings belong here.

I would agree with that. Even though mostly covers they all sound like Cash originals which is really hard to do.