Ask Lemmy

Most music is pretty medicore. I can only name a handful of artists with more than one really good song.

From what I listen, only Nujabes' Luv(sic) Hexalogy I consider a masterpiece. I have to listen to it start to end. Though personally I have to be in the correct headspace to fully appreciate it.

There aren't a lot of other albums that I have to listen front to back that comes to mind. Although there are lots of songs that I listen to frequently. According to Spotify (before I canceled my sub earlier this year) I'm a Muse fan lol. Top artist I listened to for 5 years straight (I didn't subscribe to Spotify that long) Almost always dominate my yearly Top 10.

Yes, all songs are masterpieces.

Repion - Repion

Everything by Audioslave

Early Bjork

City and Colour - The Love Still Held Me Near

The Car is on Fire - Lake and Flames

There‘s (or at least can be) a difference between an album full of bangers and a album you enjoy from beginning to end in one sitting. But I’m with you on this one. Thinking about it, the following albums come to mind:

Tower of Power - „Soul Vaccination“

Linkin Park - „Meteora“

Opeth - „Blackwater Park“

Queensrÿche - „Operation Mindcrime“

Queen - „A Night At The Opera“

Fleetwood Mac - „Rumours“

Tracy Chapman - „Crossroads“

Elende - „Todbringer“

Tenhi - „Kauan“

While I‘m writing this, it occurs to me, that it’s impossible for me to name a favourite album. I can’t even name a favourite album for each genre.

how do you determine an album is one of your favorites?

• I listen a lot to it. Some of my favorites albums (or tunes) I've been listening to most of my life since I was a little boy (now nearing my 60s)
• I have favorite recordings of certain pieces. Even more so in regards to classical music, which happens to be the genre of music I listen the most to and have been listening to since I was a child, thx to my parents listening to it and quickly allowing kid-me me to use their LPs (that was back in the 70s, they were kinda high-tech back then ;)
• I can sing the song and, when there are, I know the lyrics from memory. That's one of the reasons I can safely say Jacques Brel and Georges Brassens are among my favorite French singers ever. The other reasons being that, for anyone able to understand French, they've written some of the most amazing songs ever... But there would be many more favorites of mine that have written master pieces, and not just in French ;)

A lot of classic albums, for me, tend to have a connection running through all the songs. The album is a work in itself rather than just being a collection of random songs by the same artist.

Does all the songs in your favorite music album are masterpieces?

Never did them wasn't.

I have favorite albums and then I have the 3(maybe 4 now) perfect 10 albums.

What makes a perfect 10 album? Like you I have to listen to it from start to finish. There's not a single skip or down track on the album. They have exquisite and timeless production quality. These albums sound good even in the worst quality. On top notch files they're the best of the best. They hit me at a time in my life where they just clicked emotionally.

For the longest time the 3 were and are:

3. Animals - Pink Floyd - It's their best album. It has a zen like flow state to it. There's no pretentious bullshit on it. Sounds amazing.

4. Ten - Pearl Jam - Jeremy is one of the first songs I remember hearing as a child. The rest of the album is just as good. Also amazing sound quality. Flows perfectly across the whole album.

5. Exoplanet - The Contortionist - It's late summer 2010. An album finally came out that dethroned Colors by BTBAM from 3 straight years of nonstop listening. That album was P1 by Periphery. I didn't think anything could possibly top that album. It spawned a whole new genre almost instantly. Then on the last day of August, Exoplanet drops. I was floored. Much better sound production. It ebbs and flows with a grace not heard of in Deathcore. It has these magical peaks and valleys all throughout the album. Not a single miss. It's crushing. Then it gently sets you down and tucks you in bed as the alarms of the spaceship you just had a musical journey on are softly beeping away in the distance. It's the single best Deathcore album to ever be released. It's so far and above everything else most people don't even count it as Deathcore. It book ended one era of music as another one just began and what a way for Deathcore to end it's dominance.

The fourth album that's slowly adding itself to the list is Lonely People With Power by Deafheaven. It does all of the things the other 3 do. It hit at the exact time I needed that album. It tells these crazy stories throughout lyrically and musically. There's not a single skip on the record. It's honestly up there as one of the best metal of any type albums of all time IMO. The only thing that's preventing me from adding it to the list is time. Those other records have a longevity unmatched by most. If I still feel the way I feel about LPWP in 5 years, then yeah it's a perfect 10.

A Perfect Circle - Thirteenth Step is my perfect album.

They aren't even my favorite band, but there isn't a bad moment on it.

I believe in this and its been tested by research, he who fucks nuns will later join the church. A double album where all but maybe 1 song fantastic.

Somehow it's really important to me that an album has a coherent concept from beginning to the end to make it something i consider a masterpiece. There aren't many albums that hit that mark.

The most important one for me is from Deine Lakaien - 20 Years of Electronic Avantgarde, where their minimalistic electronic sounds with the haunting vocals find their perfect counterpart with the Frankfurt Philharmonics.

If any of you have a bit of time on their hands, PLEASE give it a listen.

Edit: I really beg you all to give it a whirl. Especially beginning from CD1 - Madiel to CD1 - Over and Done is nearly perfect. I have never found anything resonating with myself as much as this sequence. A special shoutout for The Mirror Men.

Pretty much. I wouldn't presume to say "masterpieces " but easily the most important quality of my favorite albums is that they're strong from start to finish.

A few that come to me right off:

Lloyd Cole and the Commotions - Rattlesnakes

Fountains of Wayne - Fountains of Wayne

The Presidents of the United States of America - The Presidents of the United States of America

XTC - Black Sea

They Might Be Giants - Flood

The Rainmakers - Flirting with the Universe

Was (Not Was) - What Up Dog?

Morphine - Cure for Pain

A bunch of "classics"...

• Rumours
• Tapestry
• An Evening with John Denver
• ...and then there were three..
• Boston
• Double Vision
• Out of the Blue

Yes... I am an oldster.

The Prodigy - Music for the Jilted Generation

Alanis Morisette - Jagged Little Pill

C2C - Tetra

Fuel Fandango - Aurora

Sepultura - Chaos AD

Hard Funk Trio - Mustang

These are all albums I can listen to and genuinely enjoy every track ... I can't give a particular reason. Most albums have tracks that I prefer to skip over, just not these ones.

Looking at it, that's a pretty international lineup ... purely by accident, lol ... artists from the UK, Canada, France, Spain, Brazil, and Argentina :-)

The album I think of when this question comes up is Consolers of the Lonely by The Raconteurs. Every song is so expertly crafted; it’s a smooth effortless listen from beginning to end. Highly recommend.

i think an album can be all masterpieces but the album itself isn't a masterpiece. it's very rare, but it's happens! if the album just sounds like a playlist and not a cohesive whole, i can't really call it a masterpiece. in a masterpiece of an album, each song elevates all of the others. sometimes that means telling a story, sometimes that means musical ideas pop up in multiple songs, and sometimes it's an inexplicable quality that just glues the whole thing together. all of my favorite albums are like that, a whole greater than the sum of it's already great parts

'Are', not 'does'.

Sorry, it's bothering me too much.

Agreed. Several of my favorites include musical interludes that aren't songs, one of them dissonant and weird, but to me, essential to the flow of the whole album:

• Rook, by Shearwater
• The Stand-Ins, by Okkervil River
• The Execution of All Things, by Rilo Kiley
• Wincing the Night Away, by The Shin
• In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, by Neutral Milk Hotel

I guess they're also full of literate lyrics, and unusual subjects, too. 🤔

Booker T and the M.G.'s Universal Language

The album was dedicated to M.G.'s drummer Al Jackson, Jr., who was murdered in 1975;[2] the remaining members recruited Willie Hall to replace him on this album.[3] The group would not record another album for seventeen years, returning in 1994 with That's the Way It Should Be.

There's something so deep and unique about this album. Last Tango in Memphis is my favorite track, but this is one of the few albums of any genre I enjoy just putting on and listening to all the way through.

So I have a band where I like almost every album they have put out. Like maybe two exceptions. Some are more meh but its kinda hard to point to a favorite as it likely moves over time. I sorta have a consistent favorite song but boy there are many I like almost as much. I also really like some albums from other artists. All the ones I like I like all the songs on it.

The Magnetic Fields' Sixty-Nine Love Songs

They're not all masterpieces, but out of 69 tracks, the supermajority are bangers, with enough variety in tone to keep from being too much of the same thing.

I really don't have favorites with a lot of stuff. Music is one of them. I like practically everything. None of it is liked more than another; more that I like different things for different reasons.

“My beautiful dark twisted fantasy” by Kanye West.

To me it’s such a ride from beginning to end. It’s his magnum opus