Black Monk Time – Monks
Chips from the Chocolate Fireball – The Dukes of Stratosphear
Flood – They Might Be Giants
Kimono My House – Sparks
The Mollusk – Ween
The Operating Theater – Brian Dewan
Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! – DEVO
Rain Dogs – Tom Waits
Teenage of the Year – Frank Black
Wowee Zowee – Pavement
And honerable mention for Kenji so that I can name one of my favorite works from Wales:
Straight Outta Newport – Goldie Lookin Chain
Yeah, Dexter Gordon’s Go is a hell of an album
@ Hellshocked: Having listened to a lot of it, I’ve got your favourite Silvio Rodriguez album lined up at amazon, ready to press the key when i feel a teeny bit richer, R’s favourite is cheaper but currently unavailable.
@ Riss: if i were to pick a Welsh album it would be by Gorki’s Zygotic Mynci, or Manic Street Preachers, or Meinir Gwilym, or Carreg Lafar….
Some of my near misses: Fleet Foxes, Beethoven Spring Sonata, The Union (Elton and Leon Russell), OK Computer, Elephant, Songs of Leonard Cohen, Com Que Voz (Amalia Rodrigues), Ali Farka Toure, The Queen is Dead, Beethoven’s 6th, Akku (Raushan Orazbaeva)…
lots more to check out from lists here…
way to go riss! sparks, monks, and pavements best album =)
Youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu knows it!
Flood is a damn fun album
I wore that cassette tape out a couple of times in junior high and They Might Be Giants is still my favorite band.
I have too many favourites, so I will list a few that had “emotional significance” to my life.
Pieces Iscariot – Smashing Pumpkins
Siamese Dream – Smashing Pumpkins
Out there and back – Paul Van Dyk
Nick Cave and the Badseeds – The Boatman’s Call
Daydream – Mariah Carey
Stoosh – Skunk Anansie
Appetite for Destruction – Guns n Roses
Older – George Michael
Mechanical Animals – Marilyn Manson
all Roxette and Kylie Minogue albums
I have too many favourites, so I will list a few that had “emotional significance” to my life.
Pieces Iscariot – Smashing Pumpkins
Siamese Dream – Smashing Pumpkins
Out there and back – Paul Van Dyk
Nick Cave and the Badseeds – The Boatman’s Call
Daydream – Mariah Carey
Stoosh – Skunk Anansie
Appetite for Destruction – Guns n Roses
Older – George Michael
Mechanical Animals – Marilyn Manson
all Roxette and Kylie Minogue albums
I’ve been wondering when this one would come up! And, yeah, we get 25 books, but only 10 pieces of music?? :(
Also, if I don’t start seeing more Philip Glass here I’m gonna start breaking shit.
Ranked (somewhat arbitrarily):
1. Einstein on the Beach – Philip Glass
2. Drumming – Steve Reich
3. New Clouds – White Rainbow
4. Psychic Secession – Yellow Swans
5. Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph – Frog Eyes
6. Adult Life – Carlos Giffoni
7. Symphony No. 10 – Shostakovich
8. Street Horrrsing – Fuck Buttons
9. Strawberry Jam – Animal Collective
10. Symphony No. 9 – Beethoven (I know it’s an uninteresting choice, but I just love it so much)
Honorable Mentions:
Skeletal Lamping – of Montreal
Back When I Was 4 – Jeffrey Lewis
Destroyer’s Rubies – Destroyer
Blood Lightning 2007 – Burning Star Core
Almost everything else by Philip Glass – especially Music in 12 Parts and Dance I-V
I was expecting more musical selections than for books, hence 10 not 25 each- mainly to make less work with counting! But it’s fine for people to add their near misses, for general interest.
Skeletal Lamping is the Of Montreal album I wish I could love. Too schizo for me, though.
Difficult. When it comes to classical music, for me it’s ALL about interpretation. A piece by Monteverdi might sound phenomenal played by one orchestra, and abysmal if I hear it from another conductor. So, I’ll leave classical music and such out – with one exception to show what I mean.
Chronological:
Bernard Herrmann – Vertigo [score] (1958)
Etta James – At Last! (1961)
Bo Hansson – Sagan om ringen (1970)
Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli – ABM plays Claude Debussy Préludes, Livre 2; Franz Liszt Eglougue from Années de Pèlegrinage; (Live Recording Stuttgart 1982)
Danny Elfman – Batman [score] (1989)
Balanescu Quartet – Michael Nyman String Quartets 1-3 (1991)
The Cranberries – Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? (1993)
Alanis Morissette – Jagged Little Pill (1995)
Joan Osborne – Relish (1995)
Aimee Mann – Lost in Space (2002)
I love different versions of the Magnificat. At 20 minutes there are bound to be ups and downs, so many sections treated differently.
Well, Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s version of Monteverdi’s “L’orfeo” from the 1960s almost made it onto my list, but it’s so damned long, that it lost to some of the shorter (and thus easily more consistent) albums on my current list. Perfection is difficult to achieve… ;-)
Il n’y a plus Rien – Léo Ferré
Einstein on the beach – Philip Glass
Apocalypse de Jean – Pierre Henry
Songs of Love and Hate – Leonard Cohen
Possession – GOD
The Downward Spiral – NIne Inch Nails
Laughing Stock – Talk Talk
Requiem for an almost lady – Lee Hazlewood
Noches en los jardins de Espana – Manuel de Falla
Spillane – John Zorn
To help me narrow my selections I left out some selections that were before the age of albums.
Only ten picks… A couple of my favorites first. I like almost everything by the following five.
Henry Flynt – Back Porch Hillbilly Blues
Philosopher and musician, all of his stuff that I have heard is great!
Holy Modal Rounders – Indian War Whoop
Captain Beefheart – Mirror Man
Meredith Monk – Dolmen Music
Oidupaa Vladimir Oiun – Divine Music from a Jail
Now it is jazz time. There is so much wonderful jazz and classical music!
Muhal Richard Abrams – Rejoicing with the Light
Paul Bley – Open, to Love
Solo piano, lots of space, great late night listen
Sun Ra – Magic City
Eric Dolphy – Out to Lunch
Great compositions… if only…
La Monte Young – Well Tuned Piano
Nathan – for me, Skeletal Lamping is by far the best of Montreal album. It perfectly marries all of Kevin Barnes’ (often contradictory) tendencies – it’s got:
-twee
-funk
-experimentation
-masturbatory self-loathing
-masturbatory esoteric references
-masturbatory oversharing
I think it’s Kevin Barnes’ most masturbatory album, and that’s why I love it so much. Give it another listen, if you can! False Priest was kind of bad, and Paralytic Stalks was just okay. My favorite of Montreal albums:
1. Skeletal Lamping
2. The Gay Parade
3. Coquelicot Asleep in the Poppies
4. Hissing Fauna
5. Sunlandic Twins
I definitely like their more conceptual albums better than their more song-oriented ones.
And I’m happy to see some Einstein on the Beach love, Floserber!
Yes, I think it’s Glass most incredible masterpiece, it’s music from space he received telepathically from an extraterrestrial mathematician sufi!
My ten:
Joanna Newsom – Have One On Me
Joanna Newsom – Ys
Joanna Newsom – The Milk-Eyed Mender
Pink Floyd – Echoes
Antony and the Johnsons – I Am a Bird Now
Cat Power – The Covers Record
Jeff Wayne – The War of the Worlds
King Crimson – In the Court of the Crimson King
The Mountain Goats – The Life of the World to Come
Neutral Milk Hotel – In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
These are also on there in spirit:
Pink Floyd – Atom Heart Mother
Laura Marling – Alas, I Cannot Swim
Bruce Springsteen – Nebraska
Diamanda Galas – Malediction and Prayer
Shocked that I’m the first person to vote for The War of the Worlds! :o
I thought of it Lily! It’s a great piece of work but I have no real emotional attachment to it so it was one of many things discarded
Joanna Newsom is a very interesting musician, I’m all for harp music, her unusual lyrics seem to owe a little to Dylan Thomas, but her ickle girlie voice irritates me a bit. Less so in her latest album.
I hope someone will pick a Manic Street Preachers album, they should be better known in the States but i guess their politics hasn’t helped. Forget the commercial junk and image, early Elton classics should be on someone’s agenda.., even a late offering with Leon Russell nearly made my 10.
British P.M David Cameron has named Dark Side of the Moon his favourite album (not for this poll, i hasten to add). No great surprise there, with his age and its standing- not a leftfield choice, for sure. Isn’t at least one of Pink Floyd into fox hunting? Or is that just Bryan Ferry? Roger Daltrey too?
Manic Street Preachers – The Holy Bible might have made my list.
Good call on Antony and the Johnsons.
I’ll try again, but I’ll focus on one genre I like very much: the symphonic poem or tone poem (or other program music but no film music because then again choosing ten would be impossible).
-Night on Bald Mountain – Modest Mussorgsky, 1867
-Scheherazade – Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, 1888
-The Swan of Tuonela – Jean Sibelius, 1895
-A Contemplation of a Serious Matter, or The Unanswered Question / A Contemplation of Nothing Serious, or Central Park in the Dark in the Good Old Summertime" – Charles Ives, 1906
-Isle of the Dead – Sergei Rachmaninoff, 1908
-Eine Alpensinfonie – Richard Strauss, 1915
-The Planets – Gustav Holst, 1918
-Apotheosis of this Earth – Karel Husa, 1971
-Gogol Suite – Alfred Schnittke, 1980
-Fog Tropes – Ingram Marshall, 1981
In no particular order
Graceland – Paul Simon
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath – Black Sabbath
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – The Beatles
Magic Potion – The Black Keys
Ella in Berlin – Ella Fiztgerald
Legend – Bob Marley
Buena Vista Social Club – Buena Vista Social Club
Thriller – Michael Jackson
Burnside on Burnside – R.L. Burnside
Appetite for Destruction – Guns N’ Roses
On a normal day Who’s Next, Rumours, and albums from The Doors and Led Zeppelin would be on this list. But I opted to include some eclectic stuff as well and a newer album, just because.
PS – What’s the deal with all the Springstein love? Seriously.
PSS – High five to Oxy for recognizing Sgt. Pepper. I’d call that that greatest album of all time, not just the best Beatles album.
more ♥ for the gunners!!! yeeeah
What’s the deal with all the Springstein love?
I love Springsteen. Well, I love 2 1/2 of his songs. Born to Run and Thunder Road are incredible. And so is about half of Jungle Land.
Hellshocked
@Kenji:
I’m not sure how well Silvio Rodriguez or Chavela Vargas will play to someone who isn’t familiar with the cultural contexts that gave birth to them, but that is my favorite song/performance by Rodriguez. As for Chavela, you’ve seen/heard her if you’ve seen “Frida”, albeit a worn down and very old.