Your Favorite Album Thread

[Tien Long]

Hey all. Been thinking about this for a while now. Just wanted to know what is your favorite music album. I'm talking the album that you listen top to bottom, that you truly enjoy and that truly resonate with you.

As for me, well, my favorite album has to be U2's How to Dismantle An Atom Bomb:



Love the album because of the thoughtful lyrics, the melodies and sounds, and of course Bono's singing is powerful and soulful. More importantly though, The album resonates so much with me because of when I got it. Indeed, I was really shaping my adult life in NYC at the time. I attended university in the city as well as had my first internships and jobs there too. A lot of the songs remind me of those moments. Walks along Union Square and the Village, late night strolls along the Westside Highway, and morning rush hour at the Lincoln Tunnel. It's basically the soundtrack of NYC for me .

In any case, what is your favorite album? What's the soundtrack of your life for you?

[Attila Kiss]

One album?
If only it was that easy.

[WillieMorgan]

One album?
If only it was that easy.

Yeah, how long have you got ?

If absolutely pushed for a quick answer then I'll nominate Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti. That's the tip of the iceberg though.

[numberthirty]

Man, tough one.

You start getting old enough, and there have been at least a couple of separate instances of "You" that a person could do this with.

[Tien Long]

One album?
If only it was that easy.

Yeah, how long have you got ?

If absolutely pushed for a quick answer then I'll nominate Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti. That's the tip of the iceberg though.

Man, tough one.

You start getting old enough, and there have been at least a couple of separate instances of "You" that a person could do this with.

Ha, alright alright, you don't have to limit your choices to one. Still, if possible, I was hoping if you could tell why you like this particular album.

[C_Miller]

I'm going to give a top 5.

1. Darkness on the Edge of Town by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band - I was at a transitional point in my life when I discovered Springsteen. I didn't get into the college I wanted to go to and while all of my friends went away, I was in my hometown working at McDonald's for a semester while I waited for a spot to open up. Obviously not the worst of problems, but songs like Badlands, Racing in the Street, Something in the Night and the title track hit me hard. I don't listen to as much Springsteen as I used to, but occasionally I'll still pop this one in and get all of those feelings back.

Favorite Lyric: "Poor man want to be rich/rich man want to be king/and a king ain't satisfied 'til he rules everything."

2. Separation Sunday by The Hold Steady - I'm not catholic, I've never really drank heavily, and I've never done drugs. But something about this album about religious epiphany through a hard partying lifestyle speaks to me. Craig Finn writes about these characters so well, that even though I don't really have a frame of reference, I feel like I know them. And despite them being druggies and criminals, he writes with such empathy. Musically, this is probably my favorite album on the list as it's just a fun album with a hard classic rock sensibility, but with Dylanesque clever lyrics.

Favorite Lyric: "She's got a cross around her neck that she ripped off from a schoolgirl in the subway on a visit to the city/She likes how it looks on her chest with three open buttons/She likes the part where one brother kills the other, she has to wonder if the world ever will recover/'Cause Cain and Abel seem to still be causing trouble."

3. Reconstruction Site by The Weakerthans - I discovered The Weakerthans later than any other band on this list. In fact, I discovered them five years after they released their last album. John K. Samson writes the only lyrics I've ever seen that I could truly pass as poetry. The greatest lyricists of all time all make conceits to set their lyrics to music, but Samson often shucks those songwriting rules to make sure the strength of poetry remains. There are only two songs with traditional choruses on this album. This one doesn't necessarily have my favorite lyrics, but the lyrics are still strong and I find it to be the best musically; the one I can put on regardless of mood.

Favorite Lyric: "We'll pass around the easy lie/Of absolutely no regrets/And later maybe you could try/To let your losses dangle off/The sharp edge of a century/And talk about the weather, or/How the weather used to be."

4. August and Everything After by The Counting Crows - This is the only album on my list by a band I don't consider by be in my top 5. This album reminds me of college both in that I first heard it there and it feels deadly serious yet vapid at the same time, which is a hardcore mood associated with college. This is not a challenging album in any way, but it provides a great easy listening experience with some of the most perfect blending of lyrics and music that I've ever heard.

Favorite Lyric: "Step out the front door like a ghost/into the fog where no one notices/the contrast of white on white/And in between the moon and you/the angels get a better view/of the crumbling difference between wrong and right."

5. Decoration Day by The Drive By Truckers - I love the Drive By Truckers, but their albums tend to be overly long with a lot of filler. To me, this is their tightest album and is better for it. As someone who has a lot of ties to the South, but is uncomfortable with the history, the Drive by Truckers provide an outlet for being proud of where I'm from, but still carry the shame. Decoration Day is filled with vignettes of poor Southerners doing their best to get by in a world that seems to have passed over them and again, does it with incredible empathy that these types of characters don't often get.

Favorite lyrics: "All my friends are restless, all they do is talk it down/Two or eight lanes, it don't matter, it's just another town/There's a fool on every corner, on every street, in every one/And I'd rather be your fool nowhere than go somewhere and be no one's."

[numberthirty]

I'm going to give a top 5.

...

2. Separation Sunday by The Hold Steady - I'm not catholic, I've never really drank heavily, and I've never done drugs. But something about this album about religious epiphany through a hard partying lifestyle speaks to me. Craig Finn writes about these characters so well, that even though I don't really have a frame of reference, I feel like I know them. And despite them being druggies and criminals, he writes with such empathy. Musically, this is probably my favorite album on the list as it's just a fun album with a hard classic rock sensibility, but with Dylanesque clever lyrics.

Favorite Lyric: "She's got a cross around her neck that she ripped off from a schoolgirl in the subway on a visit to the city/She likes how it looks on her chest with three open buttons/She likes the part where one brother kills the other, she has to wonder if the world ever will recover/'Cause Cain and Abel seem to still be causing trouble."

...

Credit where it's due...

That is a record that pulls off the particularly nifty trick of sounding really amazing while not really having a sound that lets you know when it was made.

[WillieMorgan]

Ha, alright alright, you don't have to limit your choices to one. Still, if possible, I was hoping if you could tell why you like this particular album.

You mean me and Physical Griffiti? Yeah, okay sure.

Physical Graffiti is Led Zeppelin's mid career zenith. It's a double album and, as such, the different songs on it represent almost a kaleidoscope of the group's different shades and textures. All the different facets of Zeppelin's oeuvre can be found here. It's an embarrassment of riches in many ways.

You made a really good point in your opening post about listening to U2 whilst walking around NYC at night. Similarly, my musical tastes have been heavily inspired by my life and different experiences from my local area. It's a far cry from New York though. I live in a much more rural environment, in a small countryside village about 20 miles north of the city of Manchester, UK. Much of the music of Physical Graffiti, as well as many other examples, puts me in mind of walking around the hills, farmland, forests, other woodlands and little rivers that have surrounded me since 1981. I first heard the album during the summer of 1992 as a long heatwave took place. Listening to the songs here immediately transports me to my own little rural idyll.

And Ten Years Gone is one of the most beautiful and underrated songs of all time.

[Kirby101]

Yes-Close to the Edge

[WillieMorgan]

Yes-Close to the Edge

That artwork never ceases to thrill me. Genius stuff from Roger Dean. Close To The Edge was another important album to me and one that, again, tapped into my 'green' environment and surroundings.

[Kirby101]

That artwork never ceases to thrill me. Genius stuff from Roger Dean. Close To The Edge was another important album to me and one that, again, tapped into my 'green' environment and surroundings.

My favorite cover he did for Yes is Tales of Tropographic Oceans, another album I love

[babyblob]

My favorite album is the first one I ever owned. meatloaf - Bat Out Of Hell 2. I was 12 and I fell in love with the songs. So powerful.

[PaulBullion]

What's Going On by Marvin Gaye


Moondance by Van Morrison


From a Whisper to a Scream by Esther Phillips


Purple Rain by Prince


Lady Soul by Aretha Franklin

[CaptCleghorn]

An old collection, but these are my favorite albums:

[WillieMorgan]

Some other much loved artists and my favourite albums by them respectively:

Sticky Fingers - The Rolling Stones
Pump - Aerosmith
A Farewell To Kings - Rush
Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd
A Night At The Opera - Queen
Ready An' Willing - Whitesnake
The Wild, The Innocent And The E-Street Shuffle - Bruce Springsteen
Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son - Iron Maiden
Ghost Reveries - Opeth
Van Halen - Van Halen
Love Over Gold - Dire Straits
Highway To Hell - AC/DC
The Principle Of Moments - Robert Plant
Master Of Puppets - Metallica
Crime Of The Century - Supertramp
Thick As A Brick - Jethro Tull
Selling England By The Pound - Genesis
Prequelle - Ghost