Perfect Albums

[gfish]

I'm not the biggest music person in the world. I got into it rather late, due to my sheltered, nerdly childhood -- and when I did, the first several albums I bought were Genesis and Moody Blues. I still explore new groups and genres quite slowly, though I'm maybe somewhat pointlessly proud that I've continued at more or less the same rate at least into my mid-30s. (Oh, yeah, Feb 4 marked my official entry into the middle-third of this decade. Weird.) But while there is a lot of new music I'm quite into, like everyone else I keep coming back to the music I was listening to in high school. I've come to accept that no matter how much I like new music, the chances are that I'll get tired of it sooner or later and move on, leaving just another laying of songs on my ipod that I may or may not skip when they come up. It's kind of sad that the window for finding Perfect Albums has closed. It makes me wish I had listened to more music back then! That hallowed honor only goes to a handful of albums: Nine Inch Nails' Pretty Hate Machine, Depeche Mode's Violator, and The Violent Femmes' Why Do Birds Sing. With maybe Nirvana's Nevermind and Red Hot Chili Pepper's Blood Sugar Sex Magic also placing. That's it. Those are the few and the proud which I just can't fault. I can listen to them in their entirety regularly and not get bored, and probably will for the rest of my life.

At the risk of being transparently comment-trolling, what are your Perfect Albums?

Comments

[solarbird]

No album is perfect. That said, these are awfully, awfully good, that are often not part of the usual lists (c.f. Bowie/Ziggy Stardust, Beatles/Sgt. Pepper, etc.):

She - Days Hon. mention: She - Coloris, less one (1) song.
Thomas Dolby - The Golden Age of Wireless
Blur - Parklife
Donald Fagen - The Nightfly
Great Big Sea - Road Rage
ABC - The Lexicon of Love
光宗 信吉, J.A. Seazer, and Rika ARAI - 少女革命ウテナ 絶対進化革命前夜
riddim saunter - Current (more because of the associations than anything else, but it's a solid, solid album)
Steely Dan - Aja
Ringo Shiina - Memorandum (椎名林檎 - 無罪モラトリアム)
Zebra - Zebra

It's kind of funny how many of my favourite songs are not on these albums. (C.f. Lush - "For Love". I can listen to that song on repeat for hours. And there are other good songs on that album. But..)

[caladri.livejournal.com]

Mmm, yes, Parklife and especially The Lexicon of Love! ♥ ABC so much.

Aja is definitely a masterpiece, too, but I am incredibly tickled that you mentioned ABC.

[solarbird]

The Lexicon of Love is a fantastic piece of work. I'm not a generalised fan of ABC, but that album? God. Damn. Amazing.

[caladri.livejournal.com]

I think as far as ABC goes, I have to generalize at least enough to include "S.O.S."

(You know, I think I could honestly put just about any Trevor Horn-produced album from that period on a list of Perfect Albums.)

[slantiness.livejournal.com]

This made me curious to listen to Golden Age of Wireless in full.

I can't think of any thomas dolby songs I know that aren't kind of awesome and don;t compromise me emotionally...

[solarbird]

OMG yes, do. Do, do, do. Airwaves, One of our Submarines is Missing, Flying North - just one bit of loveliness after another. Also, if don't know, there's a short and a long form version of "She Blinded Me with Science," and you want the long version, and on at least one CD release you'll get one or the other, and which you get is a crapshoot, and there's no difference in labelling.

The long version is 5:07, more or less depending on what your ripper does.

[caladri.livejournal.com]

Yes, this. Airwaves, One of Our Submarines and Flying North, in my not-nearly-humble-enough opinion, are themselves basically perfect. (Hearing them performed live, albeit reimagined, was definitely a high point in my life, especially Flying North.)