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

[caladri.livejournal.com]

I have been totally ruined by digital music. I used to listen to CDs in track repeat mode, and that's basically how I listen to music today. My iTunes 'Recently Added' smart folder thingo, which is where I go to listen to stuff I've just eagerly acquired, defaults to 'repeat item' mode. I have 75 listens for a 3m19s song I added about a week ago, and songs with 10, 11, 10, 15, 18 and 10 listens that were ripped at around the same time.

Actually, even in my childhood some of my fondest memories are of singles, there's something ineffably cool about them, or at least there was in the late '80s and early '90s.

I think the last time I listened to an album repeatedly on vinyl was Pet Shop Boys' "Actually" — on tape was Pet Shop Boys' "Introspective" (or perhaps the Twin Peaks soundtrack.) It's harder to remember for CDs since there have been road trips and times when CDs got left in a car stereo for months, but perhaps that's not the same thing.

I do sometimes listen to just a single album on random repeat, which is perhaps closer, but not quite the same.

There are albums that generally come together and which I don't get sick of, though.

The Church's "Destination" has very listenable lows and fantastic highs. Likewise for a-Ha's "Scoundrel Days" and And One's "Bodypop". Hm. And: Anything Box's "Peace"; Aphex Twin's "Selected Ambient Works 85-92"; Concrete Blonde's "Mexican Moon"; The Cranberries' "No Need to Argue"; Dar Williams' "End of the Summer"; Deacon Blue's "Raintown"; ilyAIMY's "Myxomatosis Failed"; IRIS' "Wrath"; the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu's "Shag Times"; Kate Bush's "Hounds of Love"; Machines of Loving Grace's self-titled album; Madonna's "Confessions on a Dance Floor"; Ministry's "With Sympathy"; Nelly Furtado's "Loose"; New Order's "Republic"; Oingo Boingo's "Dead Man's Party"; Ozzy Osbourne's "Ozzmosis"; Peter Murphy's "Deep"; Propaganda's "A Secret Wish"; Tears for Fears' "Elemental"; Thomas Dolby's "Astronauts & Heretics"; Tori Amos' "Little Earthquakes"; The Tribe's "Abort"; Wolfsheim's "Casting Shadows" and Yellow Magic Orchestra's "Technodelic".


Some things are basically all highs, though, and I suppose are more what you're asking about: Cocteau Twins' "Heaven or Las Vegas"; Depeche Mode's "Violator"; Electronic's "Electronic"; The KLF's "The White Room Original Motion Picture Soundtrack"; Peter Gabriel's "So"; Talk Talk's "It's My Life"; Thomas Dolby's "The Sole Inhabitant"; many Toad the Wet Sprocket albums; Toy Matinee's self-titled album; Underworld's "Underneath the Radar" and Xymox's "Twist of Shadows".

I've even surprised myself with a very-late-to-the-party addition of the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds".

And there are things I much more appreciate as albums than as collections of songs, like most albums by the Smiths, Kraftwerk, Nine Inch Nails, Pink Floyd, VNV Nation, the Razor Skyline, Prefab Sprout, Japan and The The; The KLF's "Chill Out", of course.

I won't enumerate all of the Pet Shop Boys albums, but most of them fall into some category like that.