Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Inspired by a Facebook tag: My Favorite Albums

I've never done the Facebook tag thing, but I just might this time. If nothing else, I'll post my expanded list here, and yes, these all made me stop and have to listen to them for days. The theme is this:

"Think of 20 albums that had such an effect on you that they changed your life or the way you looked at it. They sucked you in and took you over for days, weeks, months or years. These are the albums that, no matter how they were critically received, shaped your world."

So here we go, in no order. And again, way more than 20 here.

Pink Floyd- Dark Side of the Moon
Jimi Hendrix- Electric Ladyland
Bob Dylan- Blonde On Blonde (lots of other Dylan could go here)
Seal- Seal I (Seal II is also damn good)
REM- Automatic For The People
Counting Crows- August And Everything After
Frank Sinatra- Songs For Swinging Lovers
Frightened Rabbit- The Midnight Organ Festival
The Beatles- Abbey Road (any album from A Hard Day's Night on, but AR is my fav)
George Harrison- All Things Must Pass (I like this more than most Beatles albums)
Wilco- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (I also love A Ghost Is Born)
The Blue Nile- Hats
DJ Shadow- Endtroducing
Miles Davis- Kind of Blue
John Coltrane- A Love Supreme
Nick Drake- Five Leaves Left
U2- The Joshua Tree (War, The Unforgettable Fire, and Achtung Baby could go here)
Prince- Sign O' The Times (lots of other Prince could go here)
Marvin Gaye- What's Goin' On
Eric B And Rakim- Paid In Full
Crowded House- Woodface
Bob Marley- Legend
Sufjan Stevens- Come On! Feel The Illinoise!
Talk Talk- Spirit of Eden
Woody Guthrie- Dust Bowl Ballads
Del Amitri- Change Everything (Waking Hours could go here too)
Joni Mitchell- Court and Spark
The Beach Boys- Pet Sounds
Sam Cooke- Live At The Harlem Square Club, 1964
Dave Matthews Band- Crash(I was a huge fan back in the day; Remember Two Things also)
James Brown- Star Time (yes, it's a box set)
Stephen Sondheim- Sweeney Todd OST (I know, this doesn't really count)
Eels- Blinking Lights And Other Revelations
Wu-Tang Clan- Enter The 36 Chambers
Nas- Illmatic
Jeff Buckley- Grace
The Clash- London Calling
Talking Heads- Remain In Light
Big Star- Third
Eagles- Hotel California
Big Country- In A Big Country
Bruce Springsteen- Born To Run (several other Springsteen albums could go here)
Led Zeppelin- IV (really, the first four could go here, but IV is my fav)
The Who- Tommy (I like it more than Quadrophenia)
The Band- The Band
Chicago- Chicago II (Chicago Transit Authority and III are also very good)
The Flaming Lips- The Soft Bulletin
The Doors- The Doors
Green Day- American Idiot
Michael Jackson- Thriller (Off The Wall is also excellent)
Fela Kuti- Confusion/Gentlemen


More to come!

2 comments:

  1. Now that's an eclectic list! I like most of these albums. Let me see if there are any I don't like: I guess Jeff Buckley would be it. I just don't get him, and I was a fan of his father. And I've never heard a few of the albums: definitely not DJ Shawdow's and Nas's (I've onlyheard songs of his).

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  2. I have an extremely eclectic taste in music. I'm thinking of taking the Jeff Buckley album off, actually, since I realized I like individual songs more than I like the whole album.

    The DJ Shadow album is a mind-blowing experience when you first listen to it, since it's ALL samples of other music, and it works so seamlessly together that it seems composed. No DJ had done anything remotely close to the level of quality and musicianship that Shadow presented on that album, and very few have gotten close since, including Shadow, who has never put out something as good. I just also love the album as a whole; it flows very nicely.

    The rap albums on there, with a few more to come likely, are all albums that both make you feel and think at the same time. I think rap has a unique ability to do that, since it's such an inherently visceral, in-your-face genre, but it also focuses much more on words than most other musical genres. My favorite album on there in regards to rap is Paid in Full, which is just quality all the way . But Illmatic floored me when I first heard it; Nas is frighteningly intelligent and creative.

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