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Favorite albums by your favorite artists?


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We all love music, we all have our favorite artists, and those artists have catalogs of music. 

What's your favorite album (doesn't have to be the best) by some of your favorite artists?

  • Queen: Jazz.  It's just got a little everything Queen in it, and it's all good.  Bawdy Fat Bottom Girls, guitar-slinging Dead on Time, silly Bicycle Race, and perfect Queen, Don't Stop Me Now.
  • Cheap Trick: Cheap Trick.  It's just darker in theme and tone than their breakthrough successful pop-rock.  All Shook Up and One on One fill my top three, but I listen to most of their albums.
  • Metallica: Master of Puppets.  The sound engineering was perfect on this.  I like the music too.  And Justice for All was a little too slick, though Garage Days has Master of Puppets production, but a lot more fun was had.
  • U2: Zooropa.  Maybe because I was newlywed when it came out, but I couldn't stop playing that album for a year.  It took the sonic departure that was Achtung Baby to an extreme and over the edge, then brought it back.  Sure, Joshua Tree and Unforgettable Fire, but I think Zooropa caught them in their grown up early-mid thirties on top of the world.  Or I'm full of it.  Still mu favorite.  Reminds me of Abbey Road.
  • Beatles: Abbey Road.
  • Kate Bush: Hounds of Love.  Pinnacle and focal point of her catalog.  A hell of a thing.
  • Thomas Dolby: Aliens Ate my Buick.  Yeah, the "Blinded me with Science" guy actually has seven or eight albums, and they're almost all very good.  Aliens Ate my Buick, though, had fun and is a sonic and whimsical blast, including Airhead, Hot Sauce (with a tempestuous latina and a jackhammer in it), and the moody Ability to Swing and Budapest by a Blimp.  The Flat Earth and Astronauts and Heretics are close second-favorite albums.
  • Motley Crue: Dr. Feelgood.  I was in high school in the days of Shout at the Devil and Theatre of Pain.  I was a long-haired goody-two-shoes and liked Ratt and Dokken and Krokus and all that.  I got the Crue but never really liked them.  Dr. Feelgood is slickly produced, all power, Kickstart my Heart indeed, and I can listen to it straight through.  I recently listened to Theatre and Girls and thought they were really crap except for the released songs.
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Not trying to be highbrow at all on the first two, but you asked:

  • Miles Davis: Kind of Blue.  to me it's the absolute best event ever put on tape.  There is never a time or mood or situation where I do not enjoy it.  Every single note.  It is as if the perfect set of musicians met at the perfect time (January or February of '59) at the exactly right time in each of their careers and were suddenly hipped to Miles' newfound modal approach to jazz.
  • Dave Brubeck Quartet: Time Out.  not just Take 5, all of it.  Blue Rondo ala Turk?  It's just spectacular start to finish.  Another I can listen to anytime.
  • Rush: Permanent Waves/Moving Pictures.  As I've made apparent too often here, I am a fan of the entire Rush catalog, but these two albums I can listen to with other people; even girls.
  • ZZ Top: El Loco.  Another band where I enjoy the entire catalog, but El Loco to me has one foot in the pre-Eliminator world and just the toe of the other foot in the sonics of Eliminator.  A spectacular view into the experimentation of the Reverend Billy G. and his response to the music changing around him.
  • Skillet: Alien Youth.  Regardless of your theology (or lack thereof), this is a perfect blend of hard rock, synths and killing-it vocals.  Skillet has gotten progressively harder and more sophisticated in every regard.  This now twenty-ish-year-old album catches them while they're all still snarling scary kids from the youth group of some big church in Germantown. 
  • Kings X: Dogman.  I realize the correct choice is Gretchen, but Dogman is the one I listen to most frequently.  The sonics(!), harmonies, lyrics, it's just spectacular.  And, yes, of course Gretchen and the rest of them, but Dogman is my choice for album.
  • Foghat: Foghat Live.  Hands down the greatest live rock album ever recorded (apologies to All The World's A Stage and Exit Stage Left)?  I think maybe.  Disagree if you must, but this is what powered junior high/high school for me.
  • Prince: 1999.  I don't think my life would be the same without this album.  I can't begin to list the sheer influence (good and bad) of just this album, let alone Prince (again, good and bad).
  • David Lee Roth: Eat Em And Smile.  You're fired from the (possibly) hottest rock band in the world and what do you do?  Hire musicians better than (okay, arguably) those in the hottest rock band in the world, bring them together, write songs with all of the swagger you brought to the hottest band in the world and get it all on tape.  I realize opinions on DLR are all over the place and maybe he should have hung it up years ago, but give this thing another listen.  It is an absolute riot with bewildering musicianship and as much swagger as could be put down on tape.  Vai, Sheehan and Bissonette are incredible individually, but coalesce on this album in a rare and tight form.  I hated to see the breakup of Van Halen, but this was an incredibly good consequence.  I never got into any of the subsequent material nearly as much.  I think everyone on the album had something to prove.  And they did.

I yield the balance of my time to the floor and reserve the right to amend my comments.

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1 hour ago, velorush said:

Not trying to be highbrow at all on the first two, but you asked:

  • Miles Davis: Kind of Blue.  to me it's the absolute best event ever put on tape.  There is never a time or mood or situation where I do not enjoy it.  Every single note.  It is as if the perfect set of musicians met at the perfect time (January or February of '59) at the exactly right time in each of their careers and were suddenly hipped to Miles' newfound modal approach to jazz.
  • Dave Brubeck Quartet: Time Out.  not just Take 5, all of it.  Blue Rondo ala Turk?  It's just spectacular start to finish.  Another I can listen to anytime.
  • Rush: Permanent Waves/Moving Pictures.  As I've made apparent too often here, I am a fan of the entire Rush catalog, but these two albums I can listen to with other people; even girls.
  • ZZ Top: El Loco.  Another band where I enjoy the entire catalog, but El Loco to me has one foot in the pre-Eliminator world and just the toe of the other foot in the sonics of Eliminator.  A spectacular view into the experimentation of the Reverend Billy G. and his response to the music changing around him.
  • Skillet: Alien Youth.  Regardless of your theology (or lack thereof), this is a perfect blend of hard rock, synths and killing-it vocals.  Skillet has gotten progressively harder and more sophisticated in every regard.  This now twenty-ish-year-old album catches them while they're all still snarling scary kids from the youth group of some big church in Germantown. 
  • Kings X: Dogman.  I realize the correct choice is Gretchen, but Dogman is the one I listen to most frequently.  The sonics(!), harmonies, lyrics, it's just spectacular.  And, yes, of course Gretchen and the rest of them, but Dogman is my choice for album.
  • Foghat: Foghat Live.  Hands down the greatest live rock album ever recorded (apologies to All The World's A Stage and Exit Stage Left)?  I think maybe.  Disagree if you must, but this is what powered junior high/high school for me.
  • Prince: 1999.  I don't think my life would be the same without this album.  I can't begin to list the sheer influence (good and bad) of just this album, let alone Prince (again, good and bad).
  • David Lee Roth: Eat Em And Smile.  You're fired from the (possibly) hottest rock band in the world and what do you do?  Hire musicians better than (okay, arguably) those in the hottest rock band in the world, bring them together, write songs with all of the swagger you brought to the hottest band in the world and get it all on tape.  I realize opinions on DLR are all over the place and maybe he should have hung it up years ago, but give this thing another listen.  It is an absolute riot with bewildering musicianship and as much swagger as could be put down on tape.  Vai, Sheehan and Bissonette are incredible individually, but coalesce on this album in a rare and tight form.  I hated to see the breakup of Van Halen, but this was an incredibly good consequence.  I never got into any of the subsequent material nearly as much.  I think everyone on the album had something to prove.  And they did.

I yield the balance of my time to the floor and reserve the right to amend my comments.

Totally agree on the first two. After that, I will veer off in all sorts of directions. I suppose I would pick one each by such as the Stones, Floyd, Beatles, etc, not because they are necessarily the "best" but because of what they recall about that point of my life. Farther afield on this group I am sure, i would probably pick something by Bonnie Raitt and a few others in the "same" genre, which generally means BEFORE the world knew who they were. Or, of course, one of the Ella Fitzgerald/Louie Armstrong releases. Yeah, call me an old timer......

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This may take awhile, so maybe a few posts or edits...

Alphabetically:

AC/DC:  the early albums are great and have some of my favorite songs, but "Highway to Hell" is the one that I come back to as an album.

Aerosmith:  The early albums are classic but for some reason I just love "Done with Mirrors"

Alice Cooper:  Welcome to My Nightmare.  I put grooves in the grooves of this album...

Be Bop Deluxe:  Live! In the Air Age.    amazing live album.

The Black Crows:  Amorica.  Hard choice but the right choice.

Black Sabbath:  Hard choice.  Sabbath Bloody Sabbath probably  influenced me more, but Paranoid is the Album I listen to more of most often...

Blue Oyster Cult:  Some Enchanted Evening.

Cheap Trick:   Cheap Trick.  The first album is fucking amazing.

Elvis Costello:  Armed Forces.   Get Happy is great but it has to get to second in line.

Grand Funk Railroad:  Closer to Home

Joe Jackson:  Look Sharp.  The live 1980/86 is great also.

King's X:  Faith, Hope, Love

Led Zeppelin:  Led Zeppelin II

Living Colour:  Time's Up.  Hard choice here.

Nirvana:  Nevermind

OK GO:  Oh No

Pink Floyd:  Animals

The Police: OUTLANDOS D'AMOUR

The Pretenders:   Pretenders.   God this was hard to choose.  Pretenders II is soooo goooood.  But One won...

Primus:  Pork Soda

Queen:  News of the World.    Jazz is great but News of the world is my High school Senior album.  It has a place...

Red Hot Chili Peppers:  The first album probably influenced me most but I listed to Blood Sugar Sex Magic the most.

Rolling Stones:   Some Girls    I was late to the Stones party, but this album clicked with me.

Rush:  Permanent Waves    This is harder because while I really like a lot of Rush songs,  some, not so much.  So, I really like two or four songs per album.

Squeeze:  Cosi Fan Tutti Fruitti

Steely Dan:  Aja

Styx:  The Grand Illusion.   Another high school album

Talking Heads:  The name of this band is Talking Heads

Van Halen:  Fair Warning   The ultimate excess

Weezer:  Can't choose.  Maladroit or Pinkerton....  Ask me later.

ZZ Top:  again can't decide:  Degüello or Tres Hombres or Eliminator  I always like them but they were not always at the top of my listen list.

 

One other band that is not so well known.  The Psychodots/Raisins:   Everything and More

 

This was a fun list to do!

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AC/DC- I do love the Bon albums but Back In Black is so damn good.

Van Halen-Fair Warning 

ZZ Top-Tres Hombres 

Supersuckers-Sacrilicious Sounds 

Beastie Boys-Paul's Boutique

Lionize-Jetpack Soundtrack 

Rush-Moving Pictures

 

 

 

 

 

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Most of the posts on this thread prolly have selections that would also be 'desert island' selections, only they'd be limited in number.

Allman Brothers: An Evening With...First Set

Ventures: On Stage

Atlanta Rhythm Section: Are You Ready?

Blues Oyster Cult: Secret Treaties (Some Enchanted Evening close behind)

Cream: Wheels of Fire

King Crimson: Meltdown

Pink Floyd: P.U.L.S.E.

Tangerine Dream: Logos

Alan Parsons: Try Anything Once

ZZ TOP: Fandango

Hawkwind: Space Ritual

Motorhead: No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith (deluxe edtion w/ five bonus tracks)

Yes: Yessongs

Outlaws: HIttin' the Road

The Band: second/'brown' album

Vanilla Fudge: The Beat Goes On

Rush R30

etc

 

 

 

 

 

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Merle Haggard - Going Where the Lonely Go
John Prine - The Tree of Forgiveness
Bob Dylan - John Wesley Harding
Eddie Hinton - Very Extremely Dangerous
Frank Zappa - One Size Fits All
Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band - Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)
Mink DeVille - Cabretta
Ramones - Ramones
Willie Nelson - Teatro
Booker T and the MGs - Melting Pot
Little Feat - Sailin' Shoes
Benny Goodman - The 1938 Carnegie Hall Concert
Ray Charles - Ray Charles at Newport
The Allman Brothers Band - At Fillmore East
Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys - The Tiffany Transcriptions (Vols. 1-9)
The Kinks - Muswell Hillbillies
Marty Stuart and the Fabulous Superlatives - Ghost Train: The Studio B Sessions
Leon Russell - Carney
Traffic - John Barleycorn Must Die
Tom Waits - Rain Dogs
Doug Sahm - Doug Sahm and Band
Roky Erickson - The Evil One
John Lennon - Plastic Ono Band
NRBQ - Grooves in Orbit
Lefty Frizzell - Saginaw, Michigan
Johnny Cash - At San Quentin
Hank Williams - The Complete Hank Williams

 

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My top dessert island  or long jail sentence albums in no particular order.

Montrose first one. 
Rush first one. 
Deep Purple Smoke on the Water. 
Alice Coopers Love it to Death and Killer. 
Blue Oyster Cult first one.

ZZ Top Tres Hombres.

 

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Loudness: LIghtning Strikes

Giant: Last of the Runaways

Survivor: Hard to pick, because there are so many good songs on their first few albums, but I'll go with their first album: Survivor

Night Ranger: Dawn Patrol

Van Halen: Women and Children First

Shino (林晓培): Shino For

刘虹嬅 (Ginny Liu): 一人跳舞

刘春如 (Stacy Lau): 一直如此 (her only album)

Metallica: Master of Puppets

Triumph: Thunder 7

Alice in Chains: Facelift

Yngwie J. Malmsteen: 

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+1 on Foghat Live & Highway to Hell. And Done With Mirrors  is an excellent slice of guitar heavy rock and roll that contrasts with the slick albums that came after.

Here is one: Decoration Day by the Drive By Truckers. A desert island choice for sure.

Stones Get Yer Ya-Yas Out...all it is missing is a live early version of Brown Sugar.

Muddy Waters Hard Again. The title says it all.

Mayall’s Beano album with EC. 

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Dire Straits:  Dire Straits.  The following albums all have bright spots, but the band's debut was solid played and appropriately moody...and unlike anything else on the rock chart at that time. 

Dokken:  Under Lock and Key.   Go ahead, laugh it up, fuzzball.  Pilson, Brown, and Lynch are great musicians who cut their teeth (pre-Dokken) in the same So Cal venues that the other A-list metal bands frequented.  I spun this one recently and was pleasantly surprised at how well it has aged. The songs have strong hooks, the rhythm section mix is good for that era, and Lynch's tone is his absolute best on this record, allegedly due to Michael Wagener's recording prowess, a combination of Marshall and Laney heads, and GL's Fostex 4-track being patched in and dimed.  Just listen to "The Hunter" for reference. 

Led Zeppelin:  Physical Graffiti.  Most of my high school buds raved on and on about the first four albums.  I loved those too, but not as much as this double platter showcasing the guys at the peak of their powers.  Very diverse tones and moods on this album. 

Stray Cats: Built for Speed.  Billed as a rockabilly revival act (big in England before this album was released in the USA), but really so much more than that. Tight, simple grooves, and intricate and melodic guitar licks that perfectly melded rock, jazz, and blues. 

ZZ Top:  Deguello.  Major tonal shift for the Reverend on this record and proof that the lads could emerge from a hiatus and still kick ass. 

ETA:  Agree with Toadroller on Master of Puppets, but much prefer the Crue's Too Fast for Love for, to me, the band was at its best when they were young, hungry, and barely knew what they were trying to do. 

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18 minutes ago, Biz Prof said:

Stray Cats: Built for Speed.  Billed as a rockabilly revival act (big in England before this album was released in the USA), but really so much more than that. Tight, simple grooves, and intricate and melodic guitar licks that perfectly melded rock, jazz, and blues. 

I almost put that in my initial list!  The title track would have to be my favorite by Stray Cats, too.

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Can't disagree with any of these! Great lists. I'm just gonna add one

Van Morrison - It's Too Late To Stop Now, Vol. I

To me, about the tightest live band recording out there. Van's good, but this KIX!

 

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Van Halen: FUCK - probably an unpopular opinion around these parts but it was a fantastic album at a special time for me. Plus, it was a departure from the overly processed chorusy late 80’s tones and to me, holds up better than the first two Van Hagar albums. 

Megadeth: depending on the period of my life it was either Peace Sells, So Far So Good So What, Rust in Peace or Countdown to Extinction

Dream Theater: Scenes From a Memory when I’m on a road trip. Train of Thought when I’m in a metal mood. 

Vai: Passion and Warfare

Satriani: The Extremist

Ozzy: Blizzard & Diary

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I have done the "post 10 albums that influenced you" on FB so many times that I saved this jpg;

 

11 influential albums.jpg

EDIT - compilations are typically poo-poo'd on these threads, but I prefer these titles over the rest of these bands output; 

Pantera - Far Beyond the Great Southern Cowboys' Vulgar Hits!,

ZZ Top -Chrome Smoke & BBQ,

CSN&Y - So Far,

The Very Best Of Wes Montgomery 

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On 1/12/2021 at 10:29 PM, velorush said:

Not trying to be highbrow at all on the first two, but you asked:

  • Miles Davis: Kind of Blue.  to me it's the absolute best event ever put on tape.  There is never a time or mood or situation where I do not enjoy it.  Every single note.  It is as if the perfect set of musicians met at the perfect time (January or February of '59) at the exactly right time in each of their careers and were suddenly hipped to Miles' newfound modal approach to jazz.
  • Dave Brubeck Quartet: Time Out.  not just Take 5, all of it.  Blue Rondo ala Turk?  It's just spectacular start to finish.  Another I can listen to anytime.
  • Rush: Permanent Waves/Moving Pictures.  As I've made apparent too often here, I am a fan of the entire Rush catalog, but these two albums I can listen to with other people; even girls.
  • ZZ Top: El Loco.  Another band where I enjoy the entire catalog, but El Loco to me has one foot in the pre-Eliminator world and just the toe of the other foot in the sonics of Eliminator.  A spectacular view into the experimentation of the Reverend Billy G. and his response to the music changing around him.
  • Skillet: Alien Youth.  Regardless of your theology (or lack thereof), this is a perfect blend of hard rock, synths and killing-it vocals.  Skillet has gotten progressively harder and more sophisticated in every regard.  This now twenty-ish-year-old album catches them while they're all still snarling scary kids from the youth group of some big church in Germantown. 
  • Kings X: Dogman.  I realize the correct choice is Gretchen, but Dogman is the one I listen to most frequently.  The sonics(!), harmonies, lyrics, it's just spectacular.  And, yes, of course Gretchen and the rest of them, but Dogman is my choice for album.
  • Foghat: Foghat Live.  Hands down the greatest live rock album ever recorded (apologies to All The World's A Stage and Exit Stage Left)?  I think maybe.  Disagree if you must, but this is what powered junior high/high school for me.
  • Prince: 1999.  I don't think my life would be the same without this album.  I can't begin to list the sheer influence (good and bad) of just this album, let alone Prince (again, good and bad).
  • David Lee Roth: Eat Em And Smile.  You're fired from the (possibly) hottest rock band in the world and what do you do?  Hire musicians better than (okay, arguably) those in the hottest rock band in the world, bring them together, write songs with all of the swagger you brought to the hottest band in the world and get it all on tape.  I realize opinions on DLR are all over the place and maybe he should have hung it up years ago, but give this thing another listen.  It is an absolute riot with bewildering musicianship and as much swagger as could be put down on tape.  Vai, Sheehan and Bissonette are incredible individually, but coalesce on this album in a rare and tight form.  I hated to see the breakup of Van Halen, but this was an incredibly good consequence.  I never got into any of the subsequent material nearly as much.  I think everyone on the album had something to prove.  And they did.

I yield the balance of my time to the floor and reserve the right to amend my comments.

Dogman! I loooove this album of KingsX

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Van Halen II

Gary Moore "Still got the blues"

Megadeth "Rust in Peace"

Pantera "Vulgar display of power"

Testament "Practice what you preach"

Dream Theater "Images and words"

Alice in chains "Dirt"

Meshuggah "Destroy Erase Improve"

Ghost "Meliora"

KingsX "Dogman"

Winger II

Dokken "Under lock and key"

Alterbridge "One day remains"

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