Your Favorite Album Thread

[WestPhillyPunisher]

In no particular order:

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles

Songs in the Key of Life, Stevie Wonder

Rumours, Fleetwood Mac

Live At Budokan, Cheap Trick

Arrival, ABBA

[seismic-2]

This is today's list. If you ask me again tomorrow, you could well get a completely different selection. In just the order that I thought of them first:


Joni Mitchell's first album, "Song to a Seagull". Her second album ("Clouds") and her third ("Ladies of the Canyon") would do equally well, of course.


"Forever Changes" by Arthur Lee and Love. Perhaps an idiosyncratic choice, but then it's my list. Today's list, that is.


"Who's Next". That's a band that's got to have some album on the list, any day.

[seismic-2]

(continued, since you're allowed only 3 links per message).


"Countdown to Ecstasy" by Steely Dan. There have been a very few days in my life when I sat down and just listened to every single Steely Dan album one after the other, all the way through. Those were good days.


"Led Zepellin IV". You may proceed to roll your eyes and make disparaging comments now.

[PaulBullion]

This is today's list. If you ask me again tomorrow, you could well get a completely different selection. In just the order that I thought of them first:


Joni Mitchell's first album, "Song to a Seagull". Her second album ("Clouds") and her third ("Ladies of the Canyon") would do equally well, of course.

See, I don't really like Joni's voice until her smoking habit matured it a little more.

[TriggerWarning]

Showtime, Storytime - Nightwish. It a live album from their headlining concert at the Wacken metal festival in 2013 with their current and best lead singer doing their older songs as they hadn't released an album of her stuff yet.

[seismic-2]

See, I don't really like Joni's voice until her smoking habit matured it a little more.

It's true that I put her early albums on the list more nearly for the songs than for her singing. (The songs sounded better when covered by Judy Collins or Tom Rush, for instance.) Her later chain-smoking voice was of course especially well suited to the jazz-oriented albums that she was then turning out at that stage of her career. Ironically, I prefer Bob Dylan's later vocals to his early ones precisely because he quit smoking, and he started singing more nearly from his larynx than through his nose.

[Tien Long]

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.

Hey, thanks for the shout out! It's amazing how albums can remind you of those places, particularly those places at that particular time.

Selections seem great all. Hope to take a listen of some of these in the future!

[PaulBullion]

It's true that I put her early albums on the list more nearly for the songs than for her singing. (The songs sounded better when covered by Judy Collins or Tom Rush, for instance.) Her later chain-smoking voice was of course especially well suited to the jazz-oriented albums that she was then turning out at that stage of her career. Ironically, I prefer Bob Dylan's later vocals to his early ones precisely because he quit smoking, and he started singing more nearly from his larynx than through his nose.

Turbulent Indigo is the Joni album I keep going back to.