Do you secretly believe that the best album is still "out there"?

I don't play the 'best album' game anymore, I couldn't even name my top ten, I'm not that inflexible. But I'm always discovering new and wonderful music and re-evaluating music I already have. I already think I have a lot of the greatest music ever recorded. But it's a journey without an end.

 

No. But I like for at least 5% of my listening to me to stuff I haven't yet heard, so the buying continues.

 

I can tell you from experience that there are a LOT of great/mind-blowing/how come I haven't heard this before? recordings in jazz. If you decide to go that way I hope your journey is as rewarding as mine has been.

 

No. It still is The White Album, for me.

 

I haven't heard a lot of classical, so for me, it's pretty likely.

 

Revolver was made before I was born so it was "there" when I got "here".

 

I don't think of albums in terms of how they rank against each other, not because I'm intellectually opposed to the idea, but simply because I lack any kind of gift for it. I know that Exile on Main Street resonates with me differently from There's a Riot Goin' On, which strikes a different chord in me from Horses and King of the Delta Blues and Ascension and New Skin for the Old Ceremony and Sandinista! and so on. It's all so personal and difficult to qualify in comparative terms. Exile on Main Street isn't There's a Riot Goin' On; they're both recorded works of music that I love, but beyond that, they're entirely distinct in my mind. I don't know whether Exile is "better" than Riot because that's no more relevant an issue to me than whether my watch is "better" than my shoes just because I happen to wear and love both.

What I can state is that I have a fairly good idea of which albums I would reserve my highest esteem for. That pool of albums keeps expanding all the time, and I'm always prepared to add to it with each new album I listen to. I'm also happy to reevaluate albums from time to time that I might have misjudged or overlooked. In that sense, I not-so-secretly believe that many, and maybe most, of my "best" albums are still out there. Absolutely.

I also know that I'm nowhere near as discerning as I'm presenting myself to be. That's what you risk when you torture your simple thoughts into shapes more convoluted than necessary, I suppose. In terms of my enjoyment at the moment I'm listening to a given album, roughly 90 percent of my collection is probably drowning in the pool of my favorite albums.

 

Unless you've heard every album ever made you can't ever be really sure ...

I have thousands, but have probably only heard 1% (or less) of albums that have been released.

 

There is no "best album ever" for me anymore. Could be "Exile on Main Street", London Calling, Sign o the Times, The Clash, 69 Love Songs, Daydream Nation, Paul's Boutique, Funeral Dress any number of Dylan...it has to be a combination art and life. There are albums I turn more than others because they mean something to me but I also find 50 or so new albums a year so.... The new Courtney Barnett may not be the "best album ever" but it sure is my "favourite album right now" and that counts too.

 

Yes, of course. And the best 45 too.

 

Frankly, I wouldn't put it past Courtney Barnett to make the best album ever. I'll write an addendum to my previous post taking it all back if she does.

Go, Courtney.

 

Yes but it won't be well known

 

Hey, back in my younger and dumber days, I thought I might be the artist to make that "best album ever"...obviously, I did not, nor did I ever come remotely close!

 

I would be so happy if I could find albums I like as much as the ones I love now.

I'd settle for "as good as"...

Do I think it's going to happen? No.

I'll believe it when I hear it.

 

Yes. The proof is there in the fact that my two favorite artists produced my favorite albums by them late in their careers - Kate Bush with Aerial and Todd Rundgren with Liars - and by discovering artists that can excite me as much as any of my old favorites like Noe Venable's The World Is Bound With Secret Knots.

 

The thought that there is a lot of stuff out there I may well really like keeps me going. It 's more likely to be old than new music, but i try to keep an open mind and an open ear.

 

There's still quite a few missing Smile tapes, lyric sheets and forgotten (?) lead vocal melodies so it is possible.

 

If I shared my sentiments it wouldn't be a secret.

 

I openly believe there's no such thing as "the best album," just like there's no such thing as the best painting, and that music is so varied that it's really impossible sometimes to make comparisons....I mean I couldn't even take, say, Grumiaux's recording of Bach's solo violin partitas and sonatas, Sonny Rollin's The Bridge and James Brown's Live at the Apollo and The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan and tell you which is greater even among just albums of the early '60s. I believe there's tons and tons of great recordings already many that are out there and since no one has heard them all each of us has plenty of great recorded music to discover, and there's tons of great new music being written and great new performances being recorded all the time, so there's more to come for all of us.

 

On second thought, I do not secretly believe it. I explicitly, openly and joyously believe it.

 

Oh I still discover stuff I didn't know of, that blow me away and that I obsess over for weeks, even months.

Lately it's been this album:

 

I don't think I'll ever find anything that has the visceral impact of the best albums of my youth however there's always new quality material out there to be discovered, The Last Internationale and The Heavy are two recent ones for me.

 

All of the comments up to now and those to follow will be right. My `Best Ever Album` may not be yours nor yours mine and that`s the beauty of this thread. My `Best Ever Album`, paradoxically named `Forever Changes` is nearly 50 years old but I truly hope I will come across an album, old or new that will become my new `Best Ever Album`, the search goes on....

 

Maybe this is the best album: