Best albums, beginning to end.

What are some of your favorite music albums that are great from start to finish? There are a lot of great albums out there, but it always seems there are several songs thrown together at the last minute to fill up the rest of the space so it can be rushed into stores.

The album that got me thinking about this was Mars Volta's Deloused in the Comatorium.

Also Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon.

I'm sure there are others I will think of as time goes on. Please share your favorites.

There are too many to list all the greats at once, but as they come to me, I'm currently addicted to Animal Collective's Strawberry Jam. It's my second favorite album of the year, behind Radiohead's In Rainbows.

Yeah, I've been listening to In Rainbows a lot as well. That's another good album that doesn't seem to have a weak song.

Cage - Movies for the blind

Louis Logic - Misery Loves Comedy

Aesop Rock - None Shall Pass

Arsonists - As the world burns

Immortal Technique - Revolutionary vol. 2

Coldplay-X and Y
Jet-Get Born
Beatles- All the studio Albums
Oasis-Defintley Maybe

Bruce Springsteen: Born in the USA and Darkness on the Edge of Town

Led Zeppelin: Physical Graffiti

Guns N Roses: Appetite for Destruction

The Doors: The Doors

Rolling Stones: Let It Bleed

The only 60's Dylan album, despite most of them being masterpieces, that I can say is perfection from beginning to end is John Wesley Harding. There's honestly not a hiccup or snag hit on that album, every song is brilliant.

José Gonzalez's Veneer.
Grooverider's Mysteries of Funk.
The Avalanches' Since I Left You.

There's more; those are the first three to come to mind.

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here

Three come to mind:

Rubber Soul - The Beatles
Torch - Carly Simon
The Times They Are a Changin' - Bob Dylan

I'll go with two live albums, if I may.

Elvis: Aloha from Hawaii and Sinatra: Live at the Sands. Not a bad song on either album, and in my opinion, the two greatest live albums ever recorded.

Kind of Blue - Miles Davis

In The Wee Small Hours - Frank Sinatra

Sinatra sings for Only the Lonely - Frank Sinatra

Songs for Swingin' Lovers - Frank Sinatra

The best Sinatra album fitting this thread, IMO, is "Ole Blue Eyes is Back". Wonderful retrospective songs.

Metallica - Metallica aka The Black Album
Queen - A Night at the Opera
Guns N Roses - Appetite for Destruction

Van Halen -1984 (written as MCMLXXXIV on the front cover) is the sixth album by American hard rock band Van Halen. One of the band's more popular albums (in terms of both record sales and chart performance), 1984 is the final album featuring singer David Lee Roth, who later left the band in the spring of the following year over escalating tensions between him and guitarist Eddie Van Halen, as well as Roth's desire to pursue a solo career.

1984 peaked at #2 on the Billboard Magazine album charts (#1 at the time was Thriller, which featured an Eddie Van Halen guitar solo on "Beat It," which Roth had criticized [1]) and contained future hits "Jump," "Panama", "I'll Wait", and "Hot for Teacher." "Jump" reached #1 on the magazine's singles chart...

A different version of "House of Pain" appears on the band's Gene Simmons financed 1976 demo (along with "Runnin' With The Devil"). Although the signature guitar riff of the chorus remained unchanged, the 1984 version is significantly different, featuring a new introduction, different music and vocal melody for the verse, and an extended solo section. Also, the lyrics are about a relationship gone bad (and possibly S&M sex) whereas the 1976 seems more horror-oriented (featuring an early "death grunt" vocal by Roth).



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_%28Van_Halen_album%29

Happy Mondays-Pills thrills and Bellyaches (1990)
Oasis-Whats the story morning glory (1995)
Hard fi-Stars of cctv (2005)

Beatles-Revolver
Travis-The Man Who
David Gray-White Ladder

Wow
The top 3 would be in my list. The bottom 2 would'nt but are still great albums..
Talk about great minds thinking alike Goombah

Wow, Yogi, that is amazing! I equate each one of those records to a certain time in my life, although I was not even born when The Doors & Stones' albums were released. I was also a young pup when Darkness & Graffiti came out. There was a period of about 6 months that I listened to Appetite every day on the way home from school.

I wore my vinyl copy of Appetite out i played it that much. I was a massive G n' R fan back then,but then so was everyone else it seemed
I was lucky enough to see them live twice. shame they split and Axl lost the plot a bit but hey thats rock n' roll i guess

Guns N Roses used to be awesome

Axl Rose is from where I was born

Noting that there is another thread designed for posting top ten album lists that I am way to lazy to bring up, I'll post my approximate top ten albums of the moment here, in no precise order.

Kid A Radiohead (2000)
( ) Sigur Rós (2002)
Blood Sugar Sex Magik Red Hot Chili Peppers (1991)
Sung Tongs Animal Collective (2004)
Double Nickels on the Dime Minutemen (1984)
Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven Godspeed You! Black Emperor(2000)
Maggot Brain Funkadelic (1971)
Meddle Pink Floyd (1971)
Energy Operation Ivy (1989)
Group Sex Circle Jerks (1980)

...But that's all bound to change over time.

Are those all albums that you can put into your cd player and listen to every single note of every single song?

I think favorite albums for some people may be different than what I was trying to raise here as a topic, although knowing you LLC, your top albums are probably chosen because you like every song of each and every album.

For example, Blood Sugar Sex Magik by Red Hot Chili Peppers would be very close for me on this topic but there are two or three songs that I don't particularly care for so I wouldn't personally list it here (not saying you shouldn't!)

Someone said on FCM a while ago that the definition of a perfect film might be that if you were to take anything away or add anything, it would lose its impact.

That means every omission, and every inclusion, must be justified and motivated. A film has to be "note perfect", and if we are to apply that to a music album, you get the same thing.

I never, ever, ever, ever put an album in without the intention of listening to the whole thing. To me, it's like putting in a film and skipping over scenes, or reading a book but skipping whole pages or even chapters.

Blood Sugar is actually, in my eyes, the perfect example of the type of album I think you're looking for. The only song that I would say falls short of amazing is the title track, but you can't help but listen to it, because the entire album as a whole is simply amazing.

But, yes, I'd say all of those albums fall into the criteria you've established. But then again, I'm not simply a casual music fan.

blow-haard..but anyway 'Is This It?' from the Strokes is an amazing album inspiring bands today.