“Favorite” album/“Best or most popular album”

Hmmmm....

Genesis
Personal favourite: The lamb Lies Down On Broadway
Recommendation: Foxtrot, or Selling England by the Pound. Not The Lamb, it's a little challenging and needs a few listens.

Midnight Oil
Personal favourite: Diesel and Dust
Recommendations: D&D or Blue Sky Mining. Others are great too, but those two are the most immediately accessible.

Joni Mitchell
Personal fave: The Hissing of Summer Lawns
Recommendation: Court and Spark

Elton John
Personal fave: self-titled
Recommendation: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Disclaimer: I'm not intimately familiar with most of the post-1980 albums.

Icehouse
Personal fave: Measure For Measure
Recommendation: Man of Colours

Porcupine Tree
Fave: Fear of a Blank Planet
Recommendation: Stupid Dream, or Lightbulb Sun

That will do for now.

P.S. "Lightbulb" is a word, isn't it? My system keeps putting a red squiggle under it.

 

Bowie
Best: "Heroes"
Most Popular: Hunky Dory
Favorite/Most Played: Tonight

Beatles
Best: White Album
Most Popular: Sgt Pepper LHCB
Favorite/Most Played: Please Please Me

Dylan
Best: Highway 61 Revisited
Most Popular: Blood on the Tracks
Favorite/Most Played: Desire

Lou
Best: Street Hassle
Most Popular: Transformer
Favorite/Most Played: New York

Iggy
Best: The Idiot
Most Popular: Lust for Life
Favorite/Most Played: New Values

Paul
Best: Ram
Most Popular: Band on the Run
Favorite/Most Played: McCartney II

Pink Floyd
Best: Wish You Were Here
Most Popular: Dark Side of the Moon
Favorite/Most Played: Animals

Pavement
Best: Slanted & Enchanted
Most Popular: Crooked Rain
Favorite/Most Played: Wowee Zowee

Stones
Best: Sticky Fingers
Most Popular: Exile on Main St
Favorite/Most Played: Emotional Rescue

Costello
Best: Get Happy!!
Most Popular: This Year's Model
Favorite/Most Played: King of America

 

I enjoy your 3 categories!

 

Led Zeppelin─Physical Graffiti [favourite]
Led Zeppelin─untitled, IV [best]

Badfinger─Straight Up [favourite& best]
CCR─Cosmo's Factory [favourite& best]
Kinks─Arthur [favourite& best]

 

Led Zep
Favourite: Houses of the Holy
Best: IV

Steely Dan
Favourite: Can't Buy A Thrill
Best: Pretzel Logic
Most popular: Aja

David Sylvian
Favourite: Brilliant Trees
Best: Secrets of the Beehive

Wayne Shorter:
Favourite: Native Dancer - wonderful jazz fusion collaboration with Milton Nascimento
Best: Speak No Evil

Weather Report:
Favourite: Night Passage
Best: prob. Mysterious Traveller
Most popular: Heavy Weather

 

As do I!

 

Cool list; enjoy the three categories. I'm curious - why are your favorites/most played outliers from the other two categories? Any favorites that overlap into best, or more popular, for you?

 

John Foxx

Best Metamatic

Favourite The Garden

 

I actually do think VILLAGE GREEN is the best, but its perhaps more one to really get into once you know the Kinks a bit more. SOMETHING ELSE is perhaps a bit more commercial.
I actually got into mid period Kinks through the excellent KINKS KRONIKLES collection and would recommend this as a good place for someone who only knows the hits to move to next.

 

But in a it a favourite?

 

Favorite- Come On Home

Best- Silk Degrees

An embarrassment of riches.

 

I admit that I haven't heard most of his albums in full, but I personally prefer Down Two Then Left over Silk Degrees.

 

"Best" is a slippery slope with art, as it is always a subjective evaluation. But here are some examples of albums that are often cited or acclaimed the most, followed by my personal favorite.

Bruce Springsteen
Most acclaimed: Born To Run
My favorite: The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle

Joni Mitchell
Most acclaimed: Blue
My favorite: Court & Spark

The Eagles
Most acclaimed: Hotel California
My favorite: One Of These Nights

The Doors
Most acclaimed: The Doors
My favorite: Waiting For The Sun

 

Marshall Tucker Band - Best - Searchin' for a Rainbow, Favorite - Carolina Dreams

Billy Joel - Best - The Stranger, Favorite - Piano Man

Fleetwood Mac - Best - Rumors, Favorite - Fleetwood Mac

Creedence Clearwater - Best - Cosmo's Factory, Favorite - Pendulum

 

Great choices!

Of course, "best" is a silly adjective, and I agree there is subjectivity involved. "Most acclaimed" or "Most popular" or "Most representative" or "Definitive/quintessential" are far better terms. They have a lot syllables though! So, forgive the one word summation as a short cut. "Best" has subjective parameters along with objective parameters (sales figues, chart placing, critical acclaim [again subjective!] and hopefully people will take this into account. Room for debate here.

Your favorites above are mine too, except some days Strange Days is my favorite...

 

Thanks. Well said. The Doors are indeed a hard group to decide on when it comes to a clear-cut favorite. All of their albums, in my view, have their share of definitive moments. LA Woman is probably the other "top favorite" of mine that I would list alongside Waiting For The Sun, depending on the day.