The Perfect Album

How about the whole of side 2?

 

Slayer - Reign in Blood

 

"Arthur" & "Village Green Preservation Society" - The Kinks
"Killer" - Alice Cooper
"Pet Sounds" - The Beach Boys
"Cheap Trick" (1977) - Cheap Trick
"Pinkerton" - Weezer
"The Who Sell Out" - The Who

 

A Perfect album.

 

Echo and the Bunnymen - Crocodiles
The Cars - The Cars
Pink Floyd - DSOTM
Roxy Music - Avalon
The Doors - The Doors
Tom Petty - Damn the Torpedos
Crowded House - Woodface
Sasha and Digweed - Northern Exposure
Jimi Hendrix - Are Your Experienced?
Psychedelic Furs - Forever Now
Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
Noel Gallagher - Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds


that's enough for now...

 

But "Pure and Easy" is already there (in spirit) at the end of "The Song is Over". I'd vote for "I Don't Even Know Myself" as the missing / substitute track.

 

The Beatles--Revolver
Miles Davis--Kind of Blue
Frank Sinatra--Only the Lonely
Tom Waits--Closing Time
Joni Mitchell--Blue
Marvin Gaye--What's Going On
The Band--S/T
Neil Young--After the Goldrush
Ray LaMontagne--Till the Sun Turns Black
Bob Dylan--Blonde on Blonde
--Blood on the Tracks
Beach Boys--Pet Sounds
Bruce Springsteen--Darkness on the Edge of Town
Van Morrison--Common One
....a partial listing, in no particular order.

 

...and the flaws are part of their charm.

 

Yep.


A couple of the top of my head:
Herbie Hancock's Madien Voyage
Coltrane's A Love Supreme
Richard Galliano's Ruby, My Dear
The Dictators' Blood Brothers

 

A couple more:

Fleetwood Mac "Rumours"
Little River Band "Diamantina Cocktail"

 

A great album as is - but my vote would be to have the elusive track "Mary" come between "Bargain" and "Love Ain't For Keeping". That would, in theory, be perfect.

 

This is a great, harmony filled album and was my first experience back in 1977 of a hugely overlooked band by most. The song "Home On Monday" is mandatory listening from this album. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTA1l_79MtY

My personal favorite album by L.R.B. was the follow-up, "Sleeper Catcher", which was not quite "perfect", but it was very close for me. Again, a mandatory listen from that album would be "Fall From Paradise", which I feel is one of the best tracks that they ever cut. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0hYqA8L02k

Sadly, somewhere between "Diamantina Cocktail" and "Sleeper Catcher", their drummer discovered those, then new, funky sounding electronic drums and because of it, most of "Sleeper Catcher" sounds VERY dated!

 

Elliott Smith - Either/Or

 

Thanks to another thread on the forum, I'd like to add an album that I forgot was perfect...

Donald Fagen "The Nightfly"

 

Another vote for the stone roses s/t, with or without fools gold. You could add most of the b-sides and it would still be perfect.
Others I can think of off the top of my head
Big Country - The Crossing
Trashcan Sinatras - someone mentioned Cake, but I'm gonna go with I've Seen Everything
Belle and Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister
The Lilac Time - & Love for All
The Pooh Sticks - The Great White Wonder
These have stood the test of time for me, there is some newer stuff that I think will join the list soon:
Lucky Soul - The Great Unwanted
Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career
Jens Lekman - Night Falls Over Kortedala
Hmm I guess all 80s or newer. I think to me a lot of the classics from the 60s and 70s *are* classics, but not "all killer no filler"

 

Supertramp - Breakfast In America

El Chicano - Cinco (hey don't laugh... this one kicks grass... and the sound on this is incredible!)

 

Boston - S/T

Def Leppard - Pyromania

Iron Maiden - Piece of Mind

 

Meat Loaf - Bat Out of Hell
Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska
George Harrison - All Things Must Pass
Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks

I also agree with:
The Who - Who's Next

Close:
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin IV (if only Four Sticks wasn't included)
Fleetwood Mac - Rumours (Songbird and Oh Daddy aren't quite five star songs)
Oasis - Definitely Maybe (Columbia and Bring It on Down aren't quite as good as the rest)

 

The companion thread to that one about 'song song shy of a perfect album'.

I'm not a Yes fanatic (or even that deep in prog) but have to agree that Close to the Edge essentially is perfect. Also, King Crimson "Larks' Tounges in Aspic". Perhaps the Sinatra-Jobim album. Neil Young's EKTIN. John Fahey's "Rivers and Religion". John Martyn's "Road to Ruin". Joni's "Court and Spark" (maybe "For the Roses" too) Gene Clark's "White Light". And so many near misses.....

 

How about some Hip Hop?

Nas, Illmatic
Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Black Star
Common, Like Water for Chocolate
De La Soul, Stakes is High

 

I love All Things Must Pass, but the jam album automatically removes it from any perfect list. Remove that third record and I agree with you on that.

 

It's probably easier picking the perfect pop single because even the brilliant albums have at least one below par track: Joy Division - Day Ot The Lords, Neutral Milk Hotel - The King Of Carrot Flowers Part One, Roxy Music - Grey Lagoons.

However Low by David Bowie is an exception. Every track gets 10/10 from me, so it would be my choice.

 

I'm gonna be honest. I love a lot of albums but I don't think they're the primary or best form of pop music communication and I truly feel the "perfect album" has not been made.

Some Frankensteinian noodling around has crafted some perfect compilations, though. Take The Great Twenty-Eight or Sam Cooke's Portrait of a Legend. I currently have Endless Summer in the car and after being burned out on the Beach Boys for a couple of years I'm rediscovering how much of a brilliant entity that record is.

And individually, I think both #1 Record and Radio City have their problems of imbalance but when combined on the CD issue, they cancel each other out and make each other better and that's as blissful an hour of music as we're ever gonna get.

Going more recently, Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy has fewer weak moments than any record I can think of from the past several years but it's still a little long for me, to the extent I don't listen to it all the way through nearly as often as I break it up into pieces.

 

Hm, trying to not over think it here too much and go off my impressions of what are perfect records to me:

Led Zeppelin IV (if you take away the FM radio burnout, it's pretty much a perfect record except I don't like "Rock N' Roll" that much)
Yes Fragile
Jethro Tull's Stand Up & This Was
Black Sabbath s/t (I'd easily include Paranoid if not for "Rat Salad" which is a bore and blatant filler)
The Who Who's Next (I'm hardly the biggest The Who fan, but this record has struck me as being incredibly strong)
The Beatles Abbey Road (it works perfectly for me and, like The Who, I'm not the biggest Beatles fan)
Iron Maiden s/t
Ken Andrews Secrets of the Lost Satellite
Swervedriver Raise
Captain Beyond s/t
.....

Wow, too many, really, I'll just leave it at that. If I'm reading really long lists, I space out and I imagine everyone else does, too.