Love Over Gold is too uneven for me (although Telegraph Road is a classic). Brothers in Arms is way too commercial. Middle of the road pop. Yes we can!
I classify an album as perfect where nearly every song works, the songs hold up after many years and perfectly capture the time they were written. For me that is sorta hard since I've listened to many albums but the first ones to come to mind are Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, Matchbox Twenty's Yourself or Someone Like You, John Mellencamp's Scarecrow, Bryan Adams' Reckless, Madonna's Like a Virgin, Green Day Dookie, Shania Twain's Come on Over, Prince's Purple Rain--in my opinion his only decent album but a darn good one.
A friend of mine was lucky enough to have Cash cover one of his songs for one of the American albums. He got to go and hang out in the studio with him while recording and I think he did some back-up vocals too. Can't recall the title though. While I'm looking at it, I'm just gonna import my Favorite Album note over from Facebook. It's a bit older and I can't believe I forgot to mention most of these here! 1) REM - Lifes Rich Pageant 2) Lets Active - Big Plans For Everybody 3) INXS - The Swing 4) Go-Gos - Vacation 5) Boston - Boston 6) Erasure - The Circus 7) Ozzy Osbourn - Blizzard of Ozz 8) Kate Bush - The Kick Inside 9) Van Halen - Van Halen II 10) Styx - Pieces of Eight 11) Cocteau Twins - The Pink Opaque 12) The Who - Whos Next 13) The Darling Buds - Crawdaddy 14) Love And Rockets - Express 15) Duran Duran - Rio
These have been mentioned already, but I love them too much: The Who - Who's Next Springsteen - Born to Run Paul Simon - Graceland New stuff: Lloyd Cole and the Commotions - Rattlesnakes Styx - Paradise Theater Neal Schon - Beyond the Thunder
Some of my personal "perfect albums:" The Clash's London Calling The Beatles Revolver Green Day's American Idiot Norah Jones' Come Away with Me Sting's Nothing Like the Sun Journey's Escape
A wonderfully mellow and erudite album. Cohen at his best, comparable in quality to the Beatles at theirs.
A couple of very strong/perfect albums I haven't seen mentioned yet: Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars David Bowie Kiko and the Lavender Moon Los Lobos
To everyone who mentioned Pearl Jam's Ten... thank you. It is one I completely forgot to mention. And Pingfah... I am so jealous. STP is a favorite of mine. (I have seen them twice but never that close.) I would also like to add: Tori Amos - From the Choirgirl Hotel Björk - Post
I'll add Willie Nelson's Stardust album. Perfect versions of some of my favorite standards and not a bad one in the bunch.
Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral, The Fragile, and With Teeth Foo Fighters - There Is Nothing Left to Lose, In Your Honor System of a Down - Toxicity Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory I could listen to those albums all day for the rest of my life, really.
CTA would definitely be high on a list of "best debut albums", for sure, along with Boston - Boston again. I'm thinking now I would have to add Kansas: Leftoverture & Point Of Know Return for full album experiences, Point moreso I haven't owned these albums for a lot of years, but almost always listened to the whole thing.
Yes, Post is a fantastic album, but have you heard Telegram? I think several of the interpretations on that album are even better than the original. Hyperballad with the Brodsky Quartet is just mind bogglingly good, parts of it are so ecstatic it actually makes you feel as though you are high when listening to it. To be honest I thought that was the album she should have put out instead of Post.
On a side note, I'm glad I didn't see them at the Chili Cookoff. Everything I heard was that it was one of "those" STP concerts where Weiland was a mess.
^ Hah, yeah that was a major worry of mine. But no, 3 times lucky here thank goodness. When they are on form, they are one of the tightest most blisteringly powerful bands I have ever seen.
Hopefully I can catch them on a good day. Of course, my new obsession is to see PJ as many times as possible before I die.