"5 Perfect Albums"

No album needs to be perfect in my eyes, but for today, we shall go with...

The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle: Bruce Springsteen 1973
The Soft Parade: The Doors 1969
Paul Stanley: Kiss 1978
Led Zeppelin II: Led Zeppelin 1969
A Winter Romance: Dean Martin 1959

 

Miles-In ASilent Way
Santana-Abraxas
Pete &Ronnie-Rough Mix
Eric-461
Elton-GYBR-yes a double album, not a song could be replaced

 

King Crimson, Red
Joe Jackson, Night & Day
Kate Bush, The Sensual World
Talk Talk, Spirit of Eden
Roxy Music, Avalon

 

Happy to see Mr.Wyatt on a list here, only if it's once. I vacillate between Ruth and Rock Bottom. I would probably give this on the nod for his best but, while enjoyable, Team Spirit and Soup Song are weak points for me.

top 5 80's almost perfect records

Camper Van Beethoven - Key Lime Pie
Echo and The Bunnymen - Ocean Rain
Thomas Dolby - The Flat Earth
Steve Tibbetts - Safe Journey
Waterboys - This is the Sea

Top 5 almost perfect 70's records

Robert Wyatt - Rock Bottom
Genesis - Trick of the Tail
Crime of the Century (boring and predictable but I can't deny it)
Mike Oldfield - Ommadawn
ELO - Out of the Blue

 

| ENO Here Come the Warm Jets (1974)

| THE BEATLES Abbey Road (1969)

| LOVE AND ROCKETS Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven (1985)

| STEVE REICH Music For 18 Musicians (1978)

| LOU REED Berlin (1973)

 

I forgot about Rock Bottom--that could easily have made it to my list as well.

 

Well, we certainly share musical tastes. But i’ve Never heard of. Ash My Love

 

Miles davis-kind of blue
Vince guaraldi and bola sete-and friends!
Stan getz e joão gilberto-getz gilberto
Beach boys-today!
Yes-close to the edge

 

Love these 5

 

Five perfect albums.........
Emerson Lake And Palmer- Trilogy
The Beatles- Abbey Road
The Rolling Stones- Exile On Main Street
Pink Floyd- Animals
The Doors- Morrison Hotel

 

1960s

 

1970s

 

Austrian blues rock band - terrific music!

 

Kendrick Lamar- TPAB
Amy Winhouse- Back To Black
Norah Jones- Come Away With me
Neil Young- After The Gold Rush
Bob Dylan- Highway 61 Revisited

 

1980s

 

Interesting thread but obviously what constitutes perfection to one listener might not accomplish perfection to another....

To me the perfect album must be perfect in every way , not only in performance but in production , engineering etc...but above all it must set an atmosphere for listener to get lost in....

With that being said these are my 5 selections in order of preference...

1.Van Morrison - Astral Weeks (1968)
the 1st few times I heard this in the late 1960s I didn't pick up on it....

AW was completely different than anything else released in rock up till then...

VU WL/WH was my most played album of 1968 but...

When AW finally clicked it was so devastating that it became the most powerful religious experience in music I have yet felt...

What grabbed me most was Vans amazing guitar work on AW after that everything else just fell in place...

Now 50 yrs later AW remains my #2 fav 1960s album behind The Doors s/t...

Astral Weeks is one of few perfect LPs

2.Stones - Now! (1965) is the best of the early Stones formative years...

A sexual tour of the Deep South...

The Stones have always been white romancers of black culture...

Before the prefab image Andrew Loog Oldham created for the band began to crystalize the band put together a magnificent hard blues rock album...one of the best of the genre...

The Stones knew they could never compare to their heroes Muddy , Chuck & Bo etc so they set out to shout loud enough to be heard...

Now! & Exile On Main St. are the best examples of the Stones at their most bluesy...every track is stellar

A perfect Stones LP

3.Ray Charles - Ingredients In A Recipe For Soul (1963) is a genre defining album by one of its great (IMO greatest) innovators...

After Ray took complete control of his music with ABC he released 2 albums that blended soul & C&W but...

On his 8th LP in a little over 2 yrs. on his new label RC released an absolute masterpiece of pure soul music & a album that demands to be heard by any music lover...

His greatest pure soul album...therefore making IIARFS a perfect
listening experience

4.Buddy Holly & The Chirpin Crickets (1956) is hands down the best complete studio album from the 1950s...

TCC has influenced almost every musician who heard it , not only the Beatles & Dead but many others afterwards

5.Mott The Hoople - Brain Capers (1972)...abrasive , hard & brutal BC is one of rocks greatest FU not to mention a magnificent piece of hard rock intelligence...

The best album from the best band of the early 1970s

 

Of course, there is no such thing, but some come close....

Bookends
Breakfast in America
London Calling
Darkness on the Edge of Town
Fisherman's Blues

 

Led Zeppelin II
In Search Of The Lost Chord
Tea For The Tillerman
Thick As A Brick
Led Zeppelin III
(not necessarily in that order)

 

INFERNAL MAJESTY - None Shall Defy
MORBID ANGEL - Abominations Of Desolation
PINK FLOYD - The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
CANDLEMASS - Epicus Doomicus Metallicus
UNANIMATED - Ancient God Of Evil

 

I can get behind those two.

 

I love team spirit and soup song. The trouble is I played rock bottom to death a long time ago, and now I can't listen to it any more. Plus it's so intense. And so I listened to Ruth more often which was only semi-liked by me. Then after time it revealed itself to me and I realised it was lovely in a different way to rock bottom and there's nothing on it I don't like.

 

I love Jets it is my only real fave ENO album but I would admit that it has its weaknesses I think . Still a good choice!

 

Sorry to add more about Ruth, but I kept thinking about you saying Team Spirit and Soup Song are weak points. For me those songs are a significant part of Wyatt and an import side of him that add to the album as a whole. I think they broaden the overall sense of the record.

I named my list of 5, Imperfectly Perfect for a reason.

 

As an album it’s perfect to me... the crossfades, sequencing, sides 1/2 splits, the sonics like the almost mono Paw Paw fading into the wide, wide big fat stereo of Baby’s on Fire...are very carefully thought out for a supposedly “weird” or chaotic LP

 

I’m taking “perfect” to mean I like every song (though not equally—there’s probably no such album for me). So, since I can think of way more than five examples, I’ll limit my list to the '60s...

The Band
The Velvet Underground (1969)
Moby Grape
The Beatles: A Hard Day’s Night
Dusty Springfield: Dusty in Memphis