Ⓐaron
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- AKA
- The Man, V
Simple concept really. I'm fairly sure I can't come up with all my favourites in one list right now but I'll post a few of them.
Obviously complete objectivity is impossible in lists like this, but it would be nice to hear why you feel the way you do about your favourites.
Van Morrison - Astral Weeks (1968)
This album took a long time to click with me. There is nothing else like this album in the pop canon. The vocabulary used by this album is pretty much unique, and while other artists have tried to imitate it, no one has really come anywhere near it. Part of the reason is the compositions, which seem far too deep to have been written by a twenty-four-year-old, and part of the reason is the exquisite cast of musicians brought together to improvise the backing parts for the album. The songs aren't really jazz, and they aren't really folk, and they aren't really soul, and yet they have elements of all three. But all of this would be irrelevant if not for the emotional intensity of the album. There is an earnestness to this album that is seldom found in popular music, and for my money it is one of the most intense listening experiences ever created. If I were forced at gunpoint to list a single album as the greatest album ever recorded, I think I'd have to go with this one.
Further listening:
Moondance (1970)
Tupelo Honey (1971)
Saint Dominic's Preview (1972)
Veedon Fleece (1974)
Talk Talk - Laughing Stock (1991)
Talk Talk are essentially the inventors of post-rock, but for all that, very few other practitioners of the style sound anything like them. Maybe Bark Psychosis. Talk Talk's last two albums are undisputed classics in the field, but this is probably the better of the two, even if only by a slim margin. A lot of post-rock tends to maintain a similar mood throughout the album. On the other hand, there is a song here for every mood, and yet it manages to maintain a pretty consistent atmosphere from track to track.
Further listening:
The Colour of Spring (1986)
Spirit of Eden (1988)
Mark Hollis - Mark Hollis (1988)
Enslaved - Mardraum: Beyond the Within (2000)
This album is probably as much to blame for my immersion in metal as anything else this side of Opeth's Blackwater Park. The word "epic" is often abused these days, but this is music that really deserves the appellation, being informed by such disparate strands of culture as '70s progressive rock and Norway's Viking heritage. Future albums would incorporate more progressive rock influence, while previous albums were more rooted in traditional black metal; this album, which also happens to be their best, has a good mix of both that will serve nicely as an introduction to both periods of Enslaved, a band that has never released a bad album. Particularly noteworthy are Grutle Kjellsen's fantastic clean vocals (he would be joined by Herbrand Larsen in latter-day recordings). The only flaw is a boneheaded clip-heavy mastering job. Enslaved would fix this after Monumension, which was their last album to clip this badly.
Further listening:
Vikingligr Veldi (1994)
Eld (1997)
Below the Lights (2003)
Isa (2004)
Axioma Ethica Odini (2010)
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven (2000)
I can't really pick a favourite Godspeed record, so I'm just going with their longest, and the first I heard. There is something otherworldly about everything this band has ever recorded. They record desolate songs about the end of the world, but they don't leave beauty and hope out of their extended compositions. I can't really do their music justice with words either.
Further listening:
F♯ A♯ ∞ (1997/1998)
Slow Riot for New Zerø Kanada (1999)
Yanqui U.X.O. (2002)
Live performances
Radiohead - Kid A (2000)
Hopefully I don't have to introduce this album to anyone. I'm not sure the vocabulary has invented to describe it.
Further listening:
The Bends (1995)
OK Computer (1998)
Hail to the Thief (2003)
In Rainbows (2007)
Opeth - Blackwater Park (2001)
Few albums that came out of the metal underground have made as big a splash as this one. Mixing '70s progressive rock with death metal wasn't a completely unheard-of proposition, but few bands ever did it as skilfully as Opeth. They also haven't forgotten to leave beauty and majesty out of their songs, which makes this a nice entry point into the genre for the death metal-phobic.
Further listening:
My Arms, Your Hearse (1998)
Still Life (1999)
Deliverance (2002)
Damnation (2003)
Kayo Dot - Choirs of the Eye (2003)
This is simultaneously one of the heaviest and one of the most beautiful albums I have ever heard. I am a raging Toby Driver fanboy, so I'm not sure I'm capable of being completely objective about his music (I had to restrain myself not to put several other albums of his, and honestly I'm probably going to put at least one maudlin of the Well album in a future post in this thread), but I don't think it's exaggerating to say that there isn't really much else like this in existence. Toby structures his songs as modern classical compositions, but he uses the vocabulary of metal and post-rock to elaborate them. Several songs on this album have literally hundreds of tracks buried in the mix, and the result is something utterly dense with wonder. It doesn't hurt that several songs are suffused with enough dread to embalm a hearse, either. The sample track here, which I have in all seriousness described as the "greatest song of all time" before (it would still probably rank in my top ten), manages to go from one of the darkest, heaviest places I have ever heard in any composition to, in its five final minutes, a mood I can't even describe. Even bands like Sigur Rós and Radiohead only dream of going places like this.
Further listening:
maudlin of the Well - Bath (2001)
maudlin of the Well - Leaving Your Body Map (2001)
Dowsing Anemone with Copper Tongue (2006)
maudlin of the Well - Part the Second (2009)
Coyote (2010)
Negura Bunget - Om (2006)
Negura Bunget do for their native Transylvania what Enslaved do for Norway, but where Enslaved's music is rooted in chaos, theirs is a more pastoral take on the genre. This album is already recognised as a classic (allmusic.com has already given it five stars, which rarely happens with albums this new), and with good reason - there is nothing else in the genre that sounds like this. Unfortunately, this lineup of the band no longer exists, and it is unlikely that the splinter factions will record anything quite this majestic again.
Further listening:
'N Crugu Bradului (2002)
Măiestrit (2010)
Panopticon - Kentucky (2012)
Given that folk metal tends to be rooted in its practitioners' local forms of folk music, it's rather surprising that so few people have thought to mix metal with bluegrass. Panopticon has done this before on Collapse and It's Later Than You Think (both of which I can unconditionally recommend), but it's possible that the band's sole member Austin Lunn has taken his art to a new level with his latest release. This album is rooted in the history of his adopted home state, which bleeds through in every song. More than half the songs on the album are traditional bluegrass material, which are fantastic, but the three metal songs probably eclipse anything else he has recorded to date. The album flows fantastically as well.
Further listening:
Panopticon (2008)
Collapse (2009)
...On the Subject of Mortality (2010)
I could probably list several other dozen albums here, but I have work in the morning. I will continue this later.
List your own candidates, preferably describing why you feel they deserve to be listed. Sample tracks probably wouldn't go amiss either.
Obviously complete objectivity is impossible in lists like this, but it would be nice to hear why you feel the way you do about your favourites.
Van Morrison - Astral Weeks (1968)
This album took a long time to click with me. There is nothing else like this album in the pop canon. The vocabulary used by this album is pretty much unique, and while other artists have tried to imitate it, no one has really come anywhere near it. Part of the reason is the compositions, which seem far too deep to have been written by a twenty-four-year-old, and part of the reason is the exquisite cast of musicians brought together to improvise the backing parts for the album. The songs aren't really jazz, and they aren't really folk, and they aren't really soul, and yet they have elements of all three. But all of this would be irrelevant if not for the emotional intensity of the album. There is an earnestness to this album that is seldom found in popular music, and for my money it is one of the most intense listening experiences ever created. If I were forced at gunpoint to list a single album as the greatest album ever recorded, I think I'd have to go with this one.
Further listening:
Moondance (1970)
Tupelo Honey (1971)
Saint Dominic's Preview (1972)
Veedon Fleece (1974)
Talk Talk - Laughing Stock (1991)
Talk Talk are essentially the inventors of post-rock, but for all that, very few other practitioners of the style sound anything like them. Maybe Bark Psychosis. Talk Talk's last two albums are undisputed classics in the field, but this is probably the better of the two, even if only by a slim margin. A lot of post-rock tends to maintain a similar mood throughout the album. On the other hand, there is a song here for every mood, and yet it manages to maintain a pretty consistent atmosphere from track to track.
Further listening:
The Colour of Spring (1986)
Spirit of Eden (1988)
Mark Hollis - Mark Hollis (1988)
Enslaved - Mardraum: Beyond the Within (2000)
This album is probably as much to blame for my immersion in metal as anything else this side of Opeth's Blackwater Park. The word "epic" is often abused these days, but this is music that really deserves the appellation, being informed by such disparate strands of culture as '70s progressive rock and Norway's Viking heritage. Future albums would incorporate more progressive rock influence, while previous albums were more rooted in traditional black metal; this album, which also happens to be their best, has a good mix of both that will serve nicely as an introduction to both periods of Enslaved, a band that has never released a bad album. Particularly noteworthy are Grutle Kjellsen's fantastic clean vocals (he would be joined by Herbrand Larsen in latter-day recordings). The only flaw is a boneheaded clip-heavy mastering job. Enslaved would fix this after Monumension, which was their last album to clip this badly.
Further listening:
Vikingligr Veldi (1994)
Eld (1997)
Below the Lights (2003)
Isa (2004)
Axioma Ethica Odini (2010)
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven (2000)
I can't really pick a favourite Godspeed record, so I'm just going with their longest, and the first I heard. There is something otherworldly about everything this band has ever recorded. They record desolate songs about the end of the world, but they don't leave beauty and hope out of their extended compositions. I can't really do their music justice with words either.
Further listening:
F♯ A♯ ∞ (1997/1998)
Slow Riot for New Zerø Kanada (1999)
Yanqui U.X.O. (2002)
Live performances
Radiohead - Kid A (2000)
Hopefully I don't have to introduce this album to anyone. I'm not sure the vocabulary has invented to describe it.
Further listening:
The Bends (1995)
OK Computer (1998)
Hail to the Thief (2003)
In Rainbows (2007)
Opeth - Blackwater Park (2001)
Few albums that came out of the metal underground have made as big a splash as this one. Mixing '70s progressive rock with death metal wasn't a completely unheard-of proposition, but few bands ever did it as skilfully as Opeth. They also haven't forgotten to leave beauty and majesty out of their songs, which makes this a nice entry point into the genre for the death metal-phobic.
Further listening:
My Arms, Your Hearse (1998)
Still Life (1999)
Deliverance (2002)
Damnation (2003)
Kayo Dot - Choirs of the Eye (2003)
This is simultaneously one of the heaviest and one of the most beautiful albums I have ever heard. I am a raging Toby Driver fanboy, so I'm not sure I'm capable of being completely objective about his music (I had to restrain myself not to put several other albums of his, and honestly I'm probably going to put at least one maudlin of the Well album in a future post in this thread), but I don't think it's exaggerating to say that there isn't really much else like this in existence. Toby structures his songs as modern classical compositions, but he uses the vocabulary of metal and post-rock to elaborate them. Several songs on this album have literally hundreds of tracks buried in the mix, and the result is something utterly dense with wonder. It doesn't hurt that several songs are suffused with enough dread to embalm a hearse, either. The sample track here, which I have in all seriousness described as the "greatest song of all time" before (it would still probably rank in my top ten), manages to go from one of the darkest, heaviest places I have ever heard in any composition to, in its five final minutes, a mood I can't even describe. Even bands like Sigur Rós and Radiohead only dream of going places like this.
Further listening:
maudlin of the Well - Bath (2001)
maudlin of the Well - Leaving Your Body Map (2001)
Dowsing Anemone with Copper Tongue (2006)
maudlin of the Well - Part the Second (2009)
Coyote (2010)
Negura Bunget - Om (2006)
Negura Bunget do for their native Transylvania what Enslaved do for Norway, but where Enslaved's music is rooted in chaos, theirs is a more pastoral take on the genre. This album is already recognised as a classic (allmusic.com has already given it five stars, which rarely happens with albums this new), and with good reason - there is nothing else in the genre that sounds like this. Unfortunately, this lineup of the band no longer exists, and it is unlikely that the splinter factions will record anything quite this majestic again.
Further listening:
'N Crugu Bradului (2002)
Măiestrit (2010)
Panopticon - Kentucky (2012)
Given that folk metal tends to be rooted in its practitioners' local forms of folk music, it's rather surprising that so few people have thought to mix metal with bluegrass. Panopticon has done this before on Collapse and It's Later Than You Think (both of which I can unconditionally recommend), but it's possible that the band's sole member Austin Lunn has taken his art to a new level with his latest release. This album is rooted in the history of his adopted home state, which bleeds through in every song. More than half the songs on the album are traditional bluegrass material, which are fantastic, but the three metal songs probably eclipse anything else he has recorded to date. The album flows fantastically as well.
Further listening:
Panopticon (2008)
Collapse (2009)
...On the Subject of Mortality (2010)
I could probably list several other dozen albums here, but I have work in the morning. I will continue this later.
List your own candidates, preferably describing why you feel they deserve to be listed. Sample tracks probably wouldn't go amiss either.
Last edited:
. Not big on most of anything from before the 90's either. So here's some other random stuff I approve of greatly.
also it's a weeaboo album first 