As much as I like Hounds of Love, I'd have to go with Kate Bush's Kick Inside, with the beautiful UK/EU cover of course:
Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville. The second-best album I've ever heard after only The Who's Quadrophenia.
1 = Impossible I did cut it down. Norah Jones - Feels Like Home Shawn Colvin - These Four Walls Lydia Loveless - Somewhere Else Lianne La Havas - Blood Lilly Hiatt - Walking Proof Paula Cole - Ithaca Basia Bulat - Are You In Love? Waxahatchee - Saint Cloud Annie Lennox - Medusa Aimee Mann - The Forgotten Arm Lorenna McKennitt - The Book Of Secrets Madeleine Peyroux - Standing On A Rooftop Ricki Lee Jones - Naked Songs
Hi Everybody N°1 Beth Hart (with Joe Bonamassa) - Don't Explain Other notable albums (No Greatest Hits or Live Albums) FOSTER RUTHIE Promise of a Brand New Day 2014 FOSTER RUTHIE Joy Comes Back 2017 MAGNESS JANIVA Original 2014 MAGNESS JANIVA Love Wins Again 2016 MAGNESS JANIVA Change in the Weather 2019 PEEBLES ANN Full Time Love 1992 PHILLIPS ESTHER From a Whisper to a Scream 1972 S'AIDA SHAKURA Time 2012 STAPLES MAVIS We'll Never Turn Back 2007 TURNER TINA Private Dancer 1984 WHINEHOUSE AMY Back to Black 2006 COPELAND SHEMEKIA Turn the Heat Up! 1998 FISH SAMANTHA Chills & Fever 2017 EXCITEMENTS The Excitements 2011 Bye everyone
Anything by Nina Simone Back To Black - Amy Winehouse The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill Sol-Angel & The Hadley St. Dreams - Solange Pretenders and Pretenders II Anything by The Runaways The Best Of The Ronettes At The River's Edge - Maura Glynn Turn Of The Cards - Renaissance Treasure - Cocteau Twins Live Wire: The Singles 1962-1972 - Martha & The Vandellas
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Aside from Joni, Sylvia Hotel by Cheryl Wheeler. So famous it's not even on Spotify. Greetings Live is a hoot too. She can sing beautiful or sing funny. A sort of modern day Alan Sherman. The Potato song and Shutcher Piehole are classics.
Since this thread has been revived, I'll post 5 more--a different set of 5 than my post from mid November 2020 (on page #7). 1. Aretha Franklin "Live At Fillmore West" (probably can name any Aretha album from her prime) 2. Joni Mitchell "Blue" (another pretty obvious choice, can easy substitute several other Joni albums) 3. Loretta Lynn "Van Lear Rose" (just to be contrarian and not pick "Coal Miner's Daughter") 4. Phoebe Bridgers "Punisher" (I think we've just seen the tip of the iceberg with Phoebe) 5. Lauren Hoffman "Megiddo" (or "Choreography") -- I tend to like to talk about Juliana Hatfield being an underappreciated singer-songwriter who is most known for being around in the 1990s, although in her specific case she never stopped releasing good albums and has a very solid body of work even if all music recorded in the 1990s disappeared forever. Lauren's even more underappreciated and less known. She was only 19 when her major label debut "Megiddo" came out in 1997, and this was pretty much when the movement of female-led bands and songwriters from the early 90s was fizzling commerically. She seems to have been either born too late (to have been old enough to be releasing albums earlier in the decade) or too early (to have been the age to hit the scene in the 2010s). Some people think her album "Choreography" from 2006 (very obscure, came out on a French label only, I think) is even better. Unlike Juliana, she's only put out a handful of albums and I don't think she's been a full-time musician for years.
The OP asked for "your favorite album from a female artist"...I particularly love this album. Karla Bonoff: Karla Bonoff (1977) Columbia Records If Karla Bonoff's debut album sounded like the sort of record that Linda Ronstadt or James Taylor were making at the same time, that shouldn't have been a surprise: the rhythm section of Leland Sklar and Russell Kunkel was the same, the tasteful chicken-scratching of guitarist Waddy Wachtel was present, and so was a cheering section including Ronstadt, Don Henley, Eagle associate J.D. Souther, and other charter members of the SoCal country/folk/rock club of the '70s. Also, Ronstadt had cut three of the songs on her last album and Bonnie Raitt had done one. All of this meant that, despite Bonoff's competent singing, which actually better accentuated the lyrics of her songs than Ronstadt's, it was hard for her to get out from under the shadow of the members of her peer group who had preceded her. Nevertheless, the album's ten songs paint an effective picture of the ups and downs of love, circa the mid-'70s. --AllMusic.com https://www.karlabonoff.com Karla Bonoff - Karla Bonoff Someone To Lay Down Beside Me 4:03 I Can't Hold On 3:11 Lose Again 3:41 Home 4:17 Faces In The Wind 3:06 Isn't It Always Love 3:07 If He's Ever Near 3:18 Flying High 3:26 Falling Star 3:27 Rose In The Garden 4:42
Hope Sandoval all the wwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay , esp For the rest of your life..........sexydelic to boot
Tracy Chapman - S/T Debut Joni Mitchell - Court and Spark Sandy Denny - North Star Grassman and the Ravens Joan Armatrading - Walk Under Ladders Maddy Prior and June Tabor - Silly Sisters