Every album I’ve ever encountered seems to have a mixture of bangers and one or more meh or outright flops. It’s easier than ever to skip over the tracks now, but as the question asks: what’s is, in your opinion, the perfect album, or does one/can one even exist?
Didn’t find one yet.
For me, in a perfect album would be songs which only have the same kind of feeling. You know, you won’t switch from a sad song to the biggest banger. And the songs would be alphabetically sorted so that when you put them into directory, you don’t have to keep deciding whether to have them sorted alphabetically or by track no., because they would be in the same order. But that’s just my weird problem. Would be cool if it was same in chronological order.Sounds like LMFAO is right up your alley 😅
Name the genre and I’ll give you one.
Edit: not like make the album, I’ll just tell you about one
Acid jazz
20 Jazz Funk Greats
Uhh… Are we thinking of same album?
I mean, I just googled it to double check and only one thing came up
Throbbing Gristle isn’t the first name that comes to my mind when someone says acid jazz. I like the idea of this person putting it on expecting Brand New Heavies and getting atonal noise.
P. Orridge is rolling in their grave… but like happy rolling
Do deep house but deep house for somebody who normally likes folk Punk
I think TBNH by The Brand New Heavies may only have a less than optimal track but other than that it’s absolutely fire
Alternative/ grunge.
Or movie OST.
Nirvana unplugged in new York
Eh… the best stuff on their unplugged set was the covers. Bowie and Meat Puppets tracks. Hard to give an album a “best of its kind” designation when the best tracks are covers
That’s a weird qualifier. The album is perfect. The question wasn’t “is it perfect if you omit cover songs?”
Alt rock is broad, but if we’re going with grunge, I’d say Nevermind, although purists will say that’s not totally grunge. You run into similar issues with Ten. Both albums are insanely good start to finish though.
In terms of movies, Bernard Hermann or Ennio Moriconne. Both had some bombs and also some bomb ass stuff. When they were on point they were amazing.
Both Ten and Nevermind are, for me at least, perfect albums. In fact, Ten is the first one I thought of when I read the thread title.
When it comes to soundtracks, Moriconne’s “The Mission” is also an example of perfection for me.
Lord of the Rings OST by Howard Shore
movie OST
I find Arrival’s soundtrack by Johann Johannsson pretty much what you would consider a perfect album. All tracks are great. Obviously it’s a matter of taste at the end of the day.
Yeah. Very atmospheric iirc. Never thought to pick it up - will give it a listen.
Paul Simon - Graceland is utterly unique and every track is a masterpiece
The same can be said for Pink Floyd - The Wall
In Extremo - Raue Spree (live)
No, but there can be perfect albums for an individual.
For me, there’s a decent number. I tend to have broad taste in music, so I have the advantage of genre access in this kind of thing.
Master of Puppets, Metallica, was the first perfect album I ran across. Not a single track I wanted to skip, and it’s still pretty much impossible for me to make a playlist that includes Metallica that doesn’t have the entire album on it. For years, I would play it to go to sleep to, my tape deck could auto flip, so I would just dub a few from the vinyl (showing my age here lol) and use them for that.
Iron Maiden’s Somewhere in Time is another.
Adele, 21 is brilliant from front to back.
Tracy Chapman, New Beginning is a fucking masterpiece.
Springsteen’s Born in the USA is perfect.
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, the album by that name is a great one.
Depeche Mode, Violator. There’s not a stinker on it.
Guns & Roses, Appetite for Destruction was and is a perfect album for sure.
John Lennon did it with Imagine, though barely; there are a couple of tracks that aren’t as good as the rest, but they’re still amazing overall.
Linkin Park could have two; One More Light is definitely perfect in my ears, and hybrid theory is right there with it, though I don’t mind skipping a couple of tracks off of HT sometimes.
Nappy Roots managed a perfect hip-hop album (which isn’t actually easy with me) in Watermelon, Chicken and Grits. Sublimely perfect southern rap. Every track a winner.
Biggie did Ready to Die, and I’d argue it’s the second best hip-hop album of all time.
The greatest is Run-DMC with Raising Hell. How can you top that album as a whole? Every track a banger, every rhyme a killer.
The list could go on. Obviously, I tend to lean into rock, metal, and hip-hop as my most listened genres, but there’s at least one album for me in almost any genre. I’m sure if I delved deeper in some, I would find more.
I’ve gone though a few of these lol. We must be the same age. Ish.
French album for those who speak French : Les Étoiles Vagabondes - Nekfeu
Makes me go through all emotions, excellent writer. It is just the best album to me.
Haven’t heard it, but I’ll look it up. There’s Italian. Japanese, Malay, etc in my collection. I don’t really understand much, but some of the music is brilliant. Thanks!
Beastie boys - Paul’s Boutique Blackalicious - Blazing Arrow Against Me! - Reinventing Axle Rose Justice - Justice The Rapture - Pieces of the people we love
Perfect albums that come to mind :
Pink Floyd - Animals
Depeche Mode - Violator
Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
Dire Straits - Dire Straits
Curtis Mayfield - Superfly
Daft Punk - Discovery
Iron Maiden - Seventh Son of a Sseventh Son
Death - Symbolic
Rush - Moving Pictures
You fucked up the markdown. You need to put two newlines between or a bullet point before each line.
Or two spaces after a line.
Like this. It renders tighter.Thanks, corrected it !
Wallflowers - Bringing Down the Horse
Eve 6 's debut album.
Jesus Nightlight is the only speedbump, but that’s mostly due to placement. If it was the closing track, it would have been a totally different experience.
Disregarding that one song being in an inopportune position, it’s the only perfect album I know of.
I need to learn to listen to albums as a whole, not as a collection of tracks. But that’s just me.
I was wondering the same thing and then I found Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon.
So the answer is yes, my perfect album exists.
And then I found Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here, and I realized two perfect albums exist for me, so far
Surprised nobody mentioned Rumors by Fleetwood Mac.
It’s a great album but there is one song on it that is pretty mid, Oh Daddy. I don’t think it can be called the perfect album
I disagree. I know that one’s not as typical/upbeat as much of their other stuff, but I think it carries just as much weight and is a powerful song that helps complete the album.
This album is one of the greatest album OAT in my book, like top 5. A perfect album with no dulls, one of the best exemples of what a 10/10 is.
Giving it a listen! Thanks for the recommendation.
of course!
It’s only gets mentioned every time someone asks this question.
Looks like I’ve become ‘that guy’
lol
As other have said, it’s subjective, but here are some albums I’d consider perfect:
- R.E.M. - Murmur, Reckoning, Lifes Rich Pageant, Automatic for the Prople
- Orbital - In Sides
- Marvin Gaye - What’s Going On
- Leftfield - Leftism
- Beatles - Abbey Road, Sgt Pepper
- Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space
- Underworld - Second Toughest in the Infants
- Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
- Massive Attack - Blue Lines
- John Coltrane - Blue Train
- Velvet Underground - Velvet Underground and Nico
- Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited
- Nas - Illmatic
- Portishead - Dummy, Portishead
- Chemical Brothers - Exit Planet Dusr
- Tricky - Maxinquaye
- Jim White - The Mysterious Tale of How I Shouted Wrong-Eyed Jeaus
Blue Lines over Mezzanine? I usually mention Mezzanine in threads like this because the fact it was released in 1998 really doesn’t come across at all.
Blue Lines over Mezzanine?
Every day of the week - don’t get me wrong, Mezzanine is great, but for me Blue Lines is absolute perfection :-)
Tool – 10,000 Days
Oh yeah that one’s a good one
Queen - A kind of Magic
Alanis Morissette - Jagged Little Pill
Jagged Little Pill is the first album that comes to mind for this question, but if I’m honest I’d skip the track “Perfect”.
No. Next question.
Next question: Why is LibertyLizard so good at being wrong?
Lots of practice. Next question.
