SPIN's 5 Albums I Can't Live Without

[Methead]

Wish You Were Here is a better album than Dark Side and I'll die on that hill.

I'm pretty sure Animals will always be my favorite though.

[Willets Point]

Yo La Tengo: Painful (1993), Electr-O-Pura (1995), I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One (1997), and And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out (2000)

[kcmets]

I'm pretty sure Animals will always be my favorite though.

Animals is my favorite too. Considering adding that as #4.

[batmagadanleadoff]

But The Wall never really did anything for me. I've owned it practically since it came out, first on vinyl, amd then later on CD. And in the almost 45 years since its release, I don't think I've listened to it start to finish more than twice....

To tell youse the truth, when I wrote this post yesterday, I think I exaggerated a little bit. I don't think I played The Wall straight through from beginning to end more than once, not twice. I think I played it in its entirety when I first bought the album on vinyl. And that's it. When I bought it again on CD years later, I only listened to some of it. And I don't think I've played it at all in decades. I just have little, if any, interest in it.

[Edgy MD]

If this is the thread where the Floyd bubble is burst, so be it.

[kcmets]

The movie kinda sucked, except the animated parts.

[Methead]

I dunno, I think the Wall really needs to be heard start to finish, like most Floyd albums. The fact that a lot of those songs are played individually on the radio is a detriment. To me, The Wall is slightly underrated (whatever that means) by most people.

I saw the movie once and fell asleep though.

[Marshmallowmilkshake]

I know it's largely a star turn for Waters, but the best songs are the Gilmour-driven pieces that stand alone far better than a lot of the story-advancing songs from Waters alone. Young Lust, Comfortably Numb, Run Like Hell, Hey You, Mother, Brick Part 2 were all on the radio by themselves, and The Thin Ice is really good at the beginning.

Side two is very, very dark. Like, too dark. Side four doesn't really give us a good resolution. They tear down the wall, but does that mean he's recovering -- or dead?

I know a lot critics slammed it. I looked it up in a Rolling Stone anthology last night and it is relegated to half of a sentence -- seriously -- after most of the page goes on about Dark Side.

Per Wikipedia, Village Voice critic Robert Christgau regarded it as "a dumb tribulations-of-a-rock-star epic" backed by "kitschy minimal maximalism with sound effects and speech fragments", and that its worldview is "self-indulgent" and "presents the self-pity of its rich, famous and decidedly post-adolescent protagonist as a species of heroism". And I am sure he worked all day on that line.

Melody Maker declared, "I'm not sure whether it's brilliant or terrible, but I find it utterly compelling."

Looking at the timeline, it came out in late 1979 when punk was declaring itself the be the contrast of everything Pink Floyd was, disco was not all dead and new wave was taking off, so it's kind of out there by itself. It also inspired Bob Ezrin to tell the guys in Kiss he could do the same thing for them with a concept album and darn near killed the band with The Elder.

Bruce Hornsby's cover of Comfortably Numb is really cool if you like Hornsby, and I do.

[Edgy MD]

I likes the movie more than the alboom.

[seawolf17]

The fact that we're even having the debate at all means The Wall doesn't make the cut, I'd think.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

And even the soulful, mellow skills of Bruce Hornsby can't make me like Comfortably Numb

[TransMonk]

Wish You Were Here is a better album than Dark Side and I'll die on that hill.

I'm pretty sure Animals will always be my favorite though.

I won't argue with any of this.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Here's a pretty impressive four album run we missed. We missed the group, too, who once - for several years - were the biggest thing in Rock and Roll. Their four album run won't top the very best of them, but it'll hold its own against pretty much everything else offered here. Easily.
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The Unforgettable Fire, The Joshua Tree, Rattle and Hum, Achtung Baby

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

I think I did mention U2 above when I boldly dared anyone to put their best 4-pack against Midnight Oils!

[Edgy MD]

Rattle and Hum can also makes somebody's live pack, but the studio recordings are mostly all better than the live traxxx.

[Marshmallowmilkshake]

Rattle and Hum can also makes somebody's live pack, but the studio recordings are mostly all better than the live traxxx.

I've always thought Rattle and Hum was kind of a mess. Bono starting it by saying "Charles Manson stole this song from the Beatles, we're stealing it back" gets the whole thing started in a cringy way. Helter Skelter? Really? But I agree about the studio tracks. Desire and Angel of Harlem are among the band's best! The Darlene Love Christmas cover for the first Very Special Christmas album was recorded during these sessions, too, and that's the highlight of that album.

[batmagadanleadoff]

It's tough for a double album to be great (which is part of what makes Songs in the Key of Life so special). Think of how much better the White Album would be minus the filler and experimental stuff. The Wall has the same issues.

Leaving aside compilation/live type albums, the number of double albums from the pre-CD days that garnered both critical and commercial acclaim is a small list.

I'm guessing that one reason double albums aren't typically solid all the way through is by design. The artists felt so burdened by the time restrictions of the single album back then that when they decided to record a double album, they couldn't resist experimenting and taking risks with the extra time allotted. Or sometimes, they just didn't have four sides worth of material so rather than pare down their one and a half album, they raided their vaults to fill out the double album

Here are two top notch double studio albums, fluff free, I'd think:

[Edgy MD]

Yet I don't hear a whole lot of demand for "Jamaica Jerk-Off" in the circles I run with.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Yet I don't hear a whole lot of demand for "Jamaica Jerk-Off" in the circles I run with.

That's 'cause after they've heard Bennie and the Jets, they wanna hear it again right away.

[Edgy MD]

Are the "B&tJ" album and single versions the same?

[batmagadanleadoff]

Are the "B&tJ" album and single versions the same?

I'm pretty sure they're the same even though it's over five minutes long. It sounds like a live song but it's not. The audience sounds were overdubbed in the studio. Wanna know which single isn't quite like the album version? In-a-Gadda-da-Vida.

[Fman99]

OK, here we go.

Beach Boys - Pet Sounds

I still listen to this end to end on a regular basis. It puts me in a state of peace that no other music does.

The Band - Music from Big Pink

Another one. They zagged when everyone else zigged. Consummate musicianship.

George Harrison - All Things Must Pass

His peak as an artist, before, during and after the Beatles. There are so many excellent songs. I can even appreciate them through the layers of orchestrated mush that Phil Spector doused them all with.

Paul McCartney - Ram

If you know, you know. Maybe the first ever indie record?

Mark Lanegan - Whiskey for the Holy Ghost

I bought it when I was 25, and listened to it once or twice and put it aside. I didn't get it. I circled back to it 10-15 years later and it was a revelation to me.

[Fman99]

For the 4 straight albums I also go with the Stevie Wonder batch. I pondered this one quite a bit.

[RealityChuck]

Wish You Were Here is a better album than Dark Side and I'll die on that hill.

I'm pretty sure Animals will always be my favorite though.

I was a Pink Floyd fan fairly early. I bought Dark Side the week it came out. It wasn't quite a disappointment, but I felt it was not up to the standards of Ummagumma, Atom Heart Mother, and Meddle -- dumbing down the music a bit. It was OK, but not an album I played all that often. Wish You Were Here was a recovery.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Here's how some of these four album runs rank according to Rolling Stone magazine's first list of the 500 greatest albums. That first list, published in 2003, is widely criticized as being hugely and disproportionately comprised of white male voters. RS eventually overhauled its initial list with a more inclusive panel of voters.

Stevie Wonder

Talking Book 90
Innervisions 23
Fullfilingess First Finale NR
Songs in the Key of Life 56

The Rolling Stones

Beggar's Banquet 57
Let it Bleed 32
Sticky Fingers 63
Exile on Main Street 7

Pink Floyd

Dark Side of the Moon 43
Wish You Were Here 209
Animals NR
The Wall 87

Michael Jackson

Off the Wall 68
Thriller 20
Bad 202
Dangerous NR

Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin I 29
Led Zeppelin II 75
Led Zeppelin III NR
Led Zeppelin IV (Zoso) 66

David Bowie

The Man Who Sold the World NR
Hunky Dory 107
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars 35
Aladdin Sane 277

Now the Beatles, they're in their own category according to RS2003. They're the Babe Ruths of pop music.

The Beatles

Rubber Soul 5
Revolver 3
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band 1
The Beatles (The White Album) 10