Typophile - What are your top 10 albums* of all time? - Comments

I’ve been thinking about

Richard Hards — Fri, 6 Jun 2008 14:29:23 -0700

I’ve been thinking about this for days, there’s no sign of me coming up with a definitve list, and I’m going on holiday tomorrow, so here’s a few…

Roy Harper - Stormcock, Flat Baroque and Berserk or Flashes From the Archives of Oblivion

Dylan - Blood on the Tracks

Led Zeppelin - 1

Neil Young

Joni Mitchell

and some Gong (for late at night)

@Jupiterboy Many thanks but

sihep — Fri, 6 Jun 2008 12:15:25 -0700

@Jupiterboy
Many thanks but I’ve now got pretty much all of them on CD (mostly from obscure Japanese label Captain Trip). Hadn’t actually heard of Cluster but saw them playing live at the Paradiso in Amsterdam (as part of the ’Sonic Acts’ festival) a couple of months ago and was completely blown away – one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen. There’s a short clip at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2hls_s98X4

Just one of a few very

jupiterboy — Fri, 6 Jun 2008 11:45:28 -0700

Just one of a few very dedicated labels that are bringing back and cutting high quality wax. Oddly, I’ve been able to put in requests over the last several years and have seen a good number of them become available. Also tearfully received is John Cale’s Paris 1919, and the Sundazed release of Song Cycle. Check it out. As we go up we go down

http://www.forcedexposure.com/labels/4.men.with.beards.html

You will be very pleased to see a good selection of T-Rex is on the list.

the 4 Men with Beards

Eben Sorkin — Fri, 6 Jun 2008 11:35:15 -0700

the 4 Men with Beards remaster of Chairs Missing What’s that? It sounds very interesting. This is the Wire album, correct?

jupiterboy - I like what my

Paul Cutler — Fri, 6 Jun 2008 10:30:19 -0700

jupiterboy - I like what my post provoked. Well said.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.
- William Shakespeare

pbc

All ideas, theories and statements are subject to change without notice.

I don’t have time to

Jongseong — Fri, 6 Jun 2008 09:06:53 -0700

I don’t have time to winnow this down to ten.

Anouk - Urban Solitude
Huckleberry Finn - 올랭피오의 별 (Ollaengpioeui Byeol; “Star of Olympio”)
Emiliana Torrini - Fisherman’s Woman
Guano Apes - Walking on a Thin Line
Deftones - White Pony
Kent - Vapen & Ammunition
Krezip - Days Like This
Lisa Miskovsky - Fallingwater
Radiohead - OK Computer
Siobhán Donaghy - Ghosts
Лама (Lama) - Мені так треба (Meni tak treba; “I need it so”)
자우림 (Jaurim) - Ashes to Ashes

This is a very skewed selection of my music preferences. I have not listened to full albums of most of the tracks I listen to, such is the age of single track downloads. I very rarely listen to an entire album in the intended track order anyway. If I gave a list of my favourite tracks, favourite singles, favourite artists, or favourite performances, you would get very different pictures of my musical prefences in each of the cases. And probably get wildly different answers each time you asked.

@glytch Quicksilver

terminaldesign — Fri, 6 Jun 2008 05:17:55 -0700

@glytch

Quicksilver Messenger Service’s “Happy Trails” is a much better representation of their music, which really only sounded good live, and without Dino Valente.

Good to see Blues Project and Moby Grape on your list. Add the Butterfield Blues Band, and “Stand Up” by Jethro Tull and your on to something!

JamesM

Interesting - perhaps you

jupiterboy — Fri, 6 Jun 2008 03:49:12 -0700

Interesting - perhaps you can “share” the recordings?

POLITICALLY CORRECT: the worship of form over content…

You bring up an interesting point. There is a collector side to it all that makes a fetish of the gear etc, which is silly. Being in the middle of life, and somewhat over it all, I tend not to question things that bring enthusiasm to life however.

Now there is also a legitimate lament over the loss of information and emotional engagement that goes hand-in-hand with increasingly lower quality playback, mastering, compression and all that. For example, I’ve been listening to the 4 Men with Beards remaster of Chairs Missing. Playback equipment aside, the level of clarity and separation in the recording on vinyl is much much better than any CD recording of the music I have ever heard. That applies to many CD recordings of music I dearly love. So my point is that it IS worship of content, and the form is secondary. I would be less interested in buying Scott Walker 3 on vinyl because the digital version is really good.

To share? Well, we don’t share our fonts, and I tend to view the music the same way. Still, I’m usually working on some level to get a good process for transferring higher quality vinyl recordings to a digital format, and view a good mix CD as a love letter that demonstrates a level of care and desire for communication that I believe is worth the effort. What I really love is the traditional playing of sides, where people sit around and have a meal together and progressively choose a side of an LP to listen to. That is a good sort of sharing, secondary to actually playing music together.

One last point. I find that the ability to sit down and become engaged with music is very important. In particular, if I am so stressed and put upon that I can’t make that connection there are probably other nuances of life I’m missing out on as well. Being a bit anti-consumer, I set out in 1997 to put together a mid-fi playback system that would be durable beyond the life expectancy of the average rack unit, not cost more than the average rack unit, and have the ability to engage me emotionally with the music in a way that would improve the day-to-day life of the house for everyone. Eleven years and 5 sets of tubes later, I have zero regrets.

Note: The above mentioned records are part of a payment/gift given to me by some musician friends in return for designing packaging. There are 30 or so recordings in all—mostly Cluster and Roedelius. I like some of them but would gladly get rid of them before I move. Being rare and worthy of preservation, finding the right home for them is a mission.

Interesting - perhaps you

Paul Cutler — Thu, 5 Jun 2008 21:44:50 -0700

Interesting - perhaps you can “share” the recordings?

POLITICALLY CORRECT: the worship of form over content…

pbc

All ideas, theories and statements are subject to change without notice.

@ sihep I might have some of

jupiterboy — Thu, 5 Jun 2008 18:59:53 -0700

@ sihep

I might have some of those cluster and Roedelius recordings on original Sky label wax if you are interested.

And I love that version of King of the Road on Dead Letter Office.

lol... just realized I only

Pedro Leal — Thu, 5 Jun 2008 17:09:15 -0700

lol... just realized I only covered alternative rock & Metal.

Must be my mood... Metallica are playing right now here in Portugal and I’m Going to a MUSE concert tomorrow. CAN’T WAIT

Absolutely impossible!...

Pedro Leal — Thu, 5 Jun 2008 17:05:38 -0700

Absolutely impossible!... perhaps if it was top10 of an specific style or this:

Top 10 Artists: (no specific order)

Pink Floyd
Dream Theater
Radiohead
Muse
Metallica
Pearl Jam
Red Hot Chili Peppers
A Perfect Circle
Tool
...
this feels so incomplete that I’ll leave the last space for the other ones!

Adham Shaikh & Tim Floyd -

sihep — Thu, 5 Jun 2008 16:27:36 -0700

Adham Shaikh & Tim Floyd - Drift
Cluster & Eno - Cluster & Eno
KLF - Chill Out
Sounds from the Ground - Kin
The Orb - Adventures beyond the Ultraworld
Biosphere - Substrata
Roedelius - Aquarello
Cluster - Live USA 1996
Brian Eno - Music for Airports
REM - Dead Letter Office

i went more for the ones

Ch — Thu, 5 Jun 2008 15:32:41 -0700

i went more for the ones that hit me hardest when i first heard them, not so much current rotation, tho i still love them all. i have to “turn it up to 11” as they say in spinal tap, and add:

Magical Mystery Tour
by the Beatles.

Current favourites Chic,

Chris G — Thu, 5 Jun 2008 14:34:52 -0700

Current favourites

Chic, Live at the Budokan
AC/DC, If you want blood...
Johnny Cash, Folsom Prison and San Quentin
Kate Bush, Never for ever
Kiss, Alive!
Led Zeppelin, Physical Graffiti
Michael Jackson, Thriller
Mylo, Destroy rock and roll
ZZ Top, Eliminator
ABBA, Gold (compilation, sorry)

What are your top 10 albums* of all time?

Eben Sorkin — Sun, 1 Jun 2008 23:39:05 -0700

Similar to Joe’s wildly popular “ what are you listening to ” thread, I ask:

What are your top 10 albums* of all time?

Here are mine.

1. Brian Eno - Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy
2. Bauhaus - Gotham
3. Daft Punk - Alive 2007
4. T Rex - Electric Warrior
5. Royksopp - Melody AM
6. Wire - Pink Flag
7. The Orb - Orbus Terrarum
8. Can - Soon over Babaluma
9. Japan - Assemblage
10. Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols

* Feel free to substitute Downloaded music, 8 tracks, singles, CDs or wax cylinders as you think appropriate.

Also, I would have phrased this differently except that the whole idea is so tied to the notion of the “album” in the first place that it would have seemed silly to me to phrase it any other way.