What's your favourite album ever?

Am I wrong for being a rap fan but thinking I've just never had a rap album that is THEE rap album for me? There are some overt records that are near perfection for me ("6 Feet Deep", "XXX", and a few others I'm just not placing at the moment) but I just never consider any of them my favorite album PERIOD.

I was listening to Boy In Da Corner again this week & there are obviously some truly incredible tracks on it, especially "I Luv U" (always loved "Jezebel" as well). It still remains one I don't come back to in full very often though, I think just because it's quite a bleak listen & Dizzee's riddled-with-Cockney voice does grate a bit over more than a few tracks at a time.

My favourite album of all time is a hip hop one & a flawed one at that: De La Soul's "3 Feet High & Rising", my first album purchase & ironically after years of loving listening to all sorts of music still (probably just for nostalgic reasons) my touchstone.

Illmatic
Odyssey & Oracle - The Zombies
Astral Weeks possibly, though I've not heard it for an age.

CrowleyHead said:

Am I wrong for being a rap fan but thinking I've just never had a rap album that is THEE rap album for me? There are some overt records that are near perfection for me ("6 Feet Deep", "XXX", and a few others I'm just not placing at the moment) but I just never consider any of them my favorite album PERIOD.

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I was just thinking along those lines. Perhaps this is because so much contemporary rap is mixtape based? If I was doing a top 10 I'd have to put some Gucci Mane tapes for sure. I actually think the opening 5 songs on "Ice Attack" parallel Forever Changes to me - just the opening section of an album (or mixtape) that is just perfect.

blacktulip said:

BTW I got Endless Summer out the library yesterday. Listening for the first time now.

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Anyone here who's heard my music will not have been surprised to see Endless Summer and 94 Diskont on my list. I should probably be a bit more mysterious about this stuff.

Amazing how often Funhouse is coming up. Obviously, it's a great album but...

Skid Row Slave to the Grind
Transvision Vamp Little Magnet vs. the Bubble of Babble
Belinda Carlisle Runaway Horses
Prince Batman
Dogs D’amour Dynamite Jet Saloon
Heavy D & the Boyz Peaceful Journey
Mark Morrison Return of the Mac
Aerosmith Draw the Line
The Human League Crash
Ice T OG Original Gangster
EMF Stigma
Chris Rea Auberge
Bobby Brown Don’t be Cruel
Motley Crue Too Fast for Love
C & C Music Factory Gonna Make You Sweat
Divinyls The Divinyls
Charlie Lines
Sophie B Hawkins Tongues and Tails
Morrissey Your Arsenal
TLC Ooooooh…On the TLC Tip
Soft Cell The Art of Falling Apart
Blur Modern Life is Rubbish

um, the thread topic is favorite ALBUM ever, not albumS. don't wimp out and list 10, 20, 50...force yourselves to select ONE. c'mon now.

bandshell said:

But what?

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Well, it's not exactly yacht disco.

In this age of digital listening, there are a few albums that would win out if you were allowed to skip 50% of the tracks. But taking an album as a whole, something you would listen to all the way through, then these are my winners.

Electronic:
Ed Rush & Optical - Wormhole

Non-electronic:
Gorky's Zygotic Mynci - Spanish Dance Troupe

Circle Takes The Square - As The Roots Undo

Dusty said:

Non-electronic:
Gorky's Zygotic Mynci - Spanish Dance Troupe

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love early gorkys but why this over barafundle?

Benny B said:

love early gorkys but why this over barafundle?

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Seconded.

imo it's pointless trying to narrow it down to one. any choice would be arbitrary. and I love some of these records in totally different ways, for different reasons, dunno how to compare them to each other.

left out compilations, discographies and EPs but included bootlegs, esp like for LRD where there are only bootlegs

heavy on blown out guitars, droning, d-beats, and the like

VU – everything, but if I absolutely had to pick, Live 1969 or a live bootleg, Legendary Guitar Amp maybe
Pärson Sound S/T
Monster Movie (Mooney Can > Suzuki Can)
Ash Ra Tempel 1st LP
Kraftwerk (or basically, Neu + Florian, but technically Kraftwerk) - K4 bootleg
Serge Gainsbourg - Histoire de Melody Nelson
Flower Travellin Band - Satori
Les Rallizes Denudes - hard to pick a single favorite, there's so much overlap, dunno, Heavier Than a Death I guess
Wire - Pink Flag (barely edging Chairs Missing)
Henry Flynt - You Are My Everlovin'
The Mob - Let the Tribe Increase
Discharge – Why
Antisect - In Darkness There Is No Choice
Crucifix - Dehumanization
Flipper - everything before Will Shatter died, but for an LP, Generic Flipper
Кино́ – everything (I am a total Victor Tsoi fanatic) but if I had to pick probably Группа Крови
Spacemen 3 - Sound of Confusion or The Perfect Prescription, I go back and forth
Napalm Death - Hatred Surge demo (or Scum, if it can’t be a demo)
Amebix - Monolith
Sacrilege - Within the Prophecy
Nausea - Extinction
Liquid Swords
Cannibal Ox – The Cold Vein
His Hero Is Gone – Monuments to Thieves
Boy In Da Corner

Sectionfive said:

4Hero - Parallel Universe is the jungle I would put in time capsule

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multiple jungle LPs I'd put above that. Black Secret Technology >> . and Timeless, Deepest Cut (even if it's really a 12" collection), Champion Jungle Sound, the Marvellous Cain LP. Christoph de Babalon, if you want to include that as jungle. tbh Parallel Universe isn't even in the top five of 4Hero I think, can't touch their peak 93-94 stuff (Journey From the Light, Golden Age, Internal Affairs EP, all the Tom & Jerry 12"s)

but that's just me

and @zhao - South of Heaven over Reign in Blood? no, no, no. Stoner Witch over Lysol is at least defensible

love early gorkys but why this over barafundle?

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Yes, it's really tough. Whilst Barafundle has more quirkiness and is jammed full of more ideas - there's something about the slightly more melancholy/whimsical Spanish Dance Troupe that wins me over.

Plus for personal reasons the album got me through a tough patch. Losing a close friend about the same time this came out imprinted my own meaning onto some of the lyrics. And that's often what music is about I guess!

Christoph de Babalon

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Yes! that first album, what a corker - it would end up in my top 25. Going back to it recently on a decent sound system and its Amiga roots have not aged well. Damn it sounds flat.

padraig (u.s.) said:

(Mooney Can > Suzuki Can)

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i think the only other guy in the world who thinks this is Julian Cope. Doesn't make any sense to me.

padraig (u.s.) said:

imo it's pointless trying to narrow it down to one. any choice would be arbitrary. and I love some of these records in totally different ways, for different reasons, dunno how to compare them to each other.

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well, you're no fun! everybody feels the same way you do but the challenge was to pick one. go on.

"i think the only other guy in the world who thinks this is Julian Cope. Doesn't make any sense to me."

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They had that debate on vinylvulture forum and almost everyone went for Mooney. Not me though.

it's not so much about Mooney vs Suzuki (tho I'd still take Mooney) as Can during their respective eras. early Can is much rawer, freeform, shambling trance inducing ur-jamming. the formal training and muso-ness of Czukay/Leibzeit/Karoli keeps it from ever being total freakout i.e. Amon Duul I, but still. later Can gets much tighter and more musical. tbc, Tago Mago is an amazing record that balances early and later Can, which I'd guess is why it's most peoples' favorite. Ege Bamyasi is OK but a lot more reined in, the ambient LPs I'm not into at all. in related news, my favorite Tangerine Dream LP is Electronic Meditation (and I can't stand any of the late 70s/early 80s polished sequencer Berlin school faff) and my favorite Ash Ra Tempel are the first 2 (and I think E2-E4 is fucking boring). it's a philosophic difference really. I almost always tend towards lo-fi, raw, noisy, freakout, overblown etc. I do like plenty of things that are not like that at all, but yeah I agree at heart my tastes are probably closer to Head Heritage than Dissensus.

Dusty said:

that first album, what a corker

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bunch of early DHR - Sonic Subjunkies, Ec8or, the DJ Mowgly 12", all the Moonraker/Carl Crack mixtapes on Midi War - is fuckin great, and underrated, I reckon b/c of all the later stupid and pretty terrible ATR etc digital punk thing. but very much in the same vein as Deathchant, DJ Scud, etc. think I actually started a thread about this years ago. even among those If I'm Into It stands out as a crowning jewel tho.

Leo said:

the challenge was to pick one

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what are you, the fucking favorites police? that's not a challenge, it's a demand to take a quality you can't actually measure and make an arbitrary decision

but if will make you happy, here: HENRY FLYNT - YOU ARE MY EVERLOVIN'

picked in the hopes that it will inspire others to listen and be wowed by its majestic awesomeness.