Your top 5 favorite albums of all time

[BillyG]

Siamese Dream remains awesome. Great list of songs from Melon Collie, that album is 10 songs away from a time defying classic, just it's 10 songs too many.

I need to listen to Animals, Matt. I have never been a big Floyd fan, though there is a handful of songs I can enjoy should my ears come across them.

[Chris Miller]

Certainly the wrong thread to do it, but what the hell. Chris Miller Ranks the Floyd Albums:
1. Animals
2. Dark Side of The Moon
3. Wish You Were Here
4. Meddle
5. The Wall
6. A Saucerful of Secrets
7. Piper at the Gates of Dawn
8. Atom Heart Mother
9. The Final Cut
10. A Momentary Lapse of Reason
11. Obscured by Clouds
12. The Division Bell
13. Soundtrack from the film More (not that it's bad by any stretch, it just really doesn't seem like an album, more a project for a movie...which it was...)

[Matt]

I'd move 'The Final Cut' up a couple of spots, but yeah...that's pretty accurate.

I'd also put Gilmour's S/T solo album at about #4.

[Chris Miller]

Eh, I like Final Cut for about 1 Minute and 5 seconds these days.

The one minute is the guitar solo on Fletcher Memorial. The 5 seconds is the drum fill right before it.

[Matt]

got a soft spot for a few tracks on there, especially 'Not Now John'.

[Matt]

My 6-10, by the way:

6. Black Sabbath - 'Heaven and Hell'
7. Blue Oyster Cult - 'Cultasaurus Erectus'
8. Pink Floyd - 'Animals'
9. Iron Maiden - 'The Number of the Beast'
10. Queen - 'Queen II'

[Bobby Bear]

In no particular order...

1. Elvis Costello: My Aim is True
A few years after I started getting serious about music, I got an issue of Q magazine with a huge list of "essential" punk albums (Inflammable Material, The Clash, Singles Going Steady...) and, amongst all the scrunched up faces and tough guy poses, there was this jazzy cover with a dude holding a guitar like a gun. It didn't look very "punk" to my barely teenage self, still to properly comprehend the meaning of the term, but it stuck with me. A number of years later, I took a chance on the album, as I had with so many from the list and others like it. I'm glad I waited because my maturing palette instantly fell in love with every swingin', romantic note of this pop masterpiece. Not only did Declan McManus show me that restraint and melodies can trump the mightiest of chops, he destroyed that niggling voice in my head that it ain't punk to write about girls (Aaaaaaaaaaaaaalisooooooooonnn....) It does sound 34 years old and yet it doesn't sound 34 years old. Diverse, charming, evergreen.


2. Weezer: Weezer (Blue Album)
Still the quirky alt-pop benchmark. This album, which I didn't like at first because it wasn't 10 "Buddy Hollys" (what can I say, I was very particular in high school) soon became the first album I habitually listened to in its entirety. There's not a doubt in my mind it's still the album I've listened to most. Wry nerd fuzz rock par excellence.


3. Sugar: Copper Blue
Bob Mould basically invented modern alternative guitar playing and Copper Blue is the sound of the maestro perfecting the art. It's no exaggeration to say it's an awe-inspiring collection of chugging power chords, prickly arpeggios, and stratospheric harmonies. The deceptively simple lyrics and songwriting work beautifully whether it's been a good day or a bad year. Being a great "breakup album" is one thing, but it's quite another to be both a strong breakup and "love is all around" album. It's no coincidence this is the only vinyl I've ever bought.


4. The Afghan Whigs: Black Love
Booze. Broads. Bullets. This is the soundtrack to the greatest gangster movie never made; and that's precisely why you've got to listen to it the whole way through to get the full effect. It's less a concept album than it is an aural noir epic with its own narrative, right down to the bookend train "entrance/exit". Greg Dulli's impossibly cool growls elevate the potentially pompous to the truly magnificent. To hear the soul (literal and figurative) of this record is to truly appreciate just how empty so much music, especially in the rock bracket, really is.


5. Japandroids: Post-Nothing
Two Canadian gentlemen who sound like a Death Star blowing up inside another Death Star, Japandroids are probably what you would get if My Bloody Valentine jammed with the punk kids in the garage down the street. A refreshingly honest, manifesto-free riffstorm. Best served: LOUD and repeatedly.

Rage Against The Machine is... about how much you enjoy that one note.

"Bulls on Parade", literally, has a one-note chorus (F#.) That's some good octavin'! I still prefer their debut, but I think a big part of that is the fact that it's a seminal bass jam album.

I'm afraid to revisit Siamese Dream.

My Gooner friend already beat me to "don't be."

1. Zero
2. Bullet with ButterflyWings....

No room for "Jellybelly", "Here Is No Why", or "Where Boys Fear to Tread?"

[Captain Russ]

Weezer's rhapsody in Blue was on there until I couldn't agree with myself on it or Pinkerton for inclusion.

Nice list, Bobby. And a 'Droids shoutout too. OHYEAAAAAHOHYEAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH

[Nathan]

"Bulls on Parade", literally, has a one-note chorus (F#.) That's some good octavin'! I still prefer their debut, but I think a big part of that is the fact that it's a seminal bass jam album.

When they go back into the last "Bulls on Parade" at the end I get goose bumps everytime. That doesn't happen much anymore.

[Abraham Smashington]

PINKERTON 4LYFE

[Captain Russ]

I'm with you, up until "Butterfly" begins.

I know it merits inclusion thematically, but gahtdamn, Rivers.

[Chris Miller]

I've decided that "What Went Wrong with Weezer" is most definitely the departure of Matt Sharp. Sure, the bass playing has been covered competently, but Sharp brought a distinct sense of whimsy and fun to Rivers' obnoxious self loathing and nostalgia (don't get me wrong, self loathing is a time honored part of rock and roll, but Sharp's high vocals and screamed callbacks seemed to take River's mooning for being a highschooler from obnoxious to endearing.)

[Captain Russ]

Hired Gun Tattoo Bro is an enabler.

Same with Green Album Sweater Guy.

[Chris Miller]

From what I remember, Mikey - the Green Album Sweater guy, was really really crazy.

And it's obvious I think that Cuomo needs an editor, that guy was probably also Matt Sharp. Sucks for him that he hitched his trailer to The Rentals (he didn't think Rivers was going to come back to the band after he went back to college), and it really sucks for Weezer fans, too.

[Captain Russ]

I remember Mikey and the story that he had been committed to an asylum at one point.

Rivers really does need someone to call him on his shit, but he's sadly gone the way of many artists before him in becoming so insular that that is nearly impossible now.