Rank you favourite band/group/artist's best albums and Top 3 tracks on each.

[MarloStanfield]

http://www.mickeysfishing.com/

[Qwyjibo]

For me Wilco and Radiohead are 1a and 1b when it comes to music.

Radiohead:


1. OK Computer (1997)
- Paranoid Android, Airbag, Let Down

2. Kid A (2000)
- How to Disappear Completely, Idioteque, Everything In Its Right Place

3. The Bends (1995)
- Street Spirit, Fake Plastic Trees, Planet Telex

4. In Rainbows (2007)
- Reckoner (the best Radiohead song IMO), All I Need, Nude

5. Hail to the Thief (2003)
- There There, I Will, Sail to the Moon

6. Amnesiac (2001)
- You and Whose Army, Pyramid Song, I Might Be Wrong

7. Pablo Honey (1993)
- Creep, Stop Whispering, Anyone Can Play Guitar



Wilco:


1. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)
- I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (best Wilco song IMO), War on War, I'm The Man Who Loves You

2. Summerteeth (1999)
- A Shot in the Arm, Via Chicago, Can't Stand It

3. Being There (1996)
- Monday, Misunderstood, Kingpin

4. A Ghost Is Born (2004)
- At Least That's What You Said, Spiders (Kidsmoke), The Late Greats

5. Wilco (The Album) (2009)
- Wilco (The Song), You Never Know, One Wing

6. AM (1995)
- Casino Queen, I Must Be High, Box Full of Letters

7. Sky Blue Sky (2007)
- Impossible Germany, You Are My Face, Either Way

[Manute for Ever!]

A friend just sent me this, a Ween song I hadn't heard:

http://www.homestarrunner.com/brainkriegween.html

[goldenryan]

THE HIVES

Veni Vidi Vicious
(Die, All Right!,Hate to Say I Told You So,Main Offender)

Tyrannosaurus Hives
(Abra Cadaver, No Pun Intended,A Little More for Little You)

The Black and White Album
(You Dress Up for Armageddon,Try It Again,Won't Be Long)

[Lebowsky]

For me Wilco and Radiohead are 1a and 1b when it comes to music.

Radiohead:


1. OK Computer (1997)
- Paranoid Android, Airbag, Let Down

2. Kid A (2000)
- How to Disappear Completely, Idioteque, Everything In Its Right Place

3. The Bends (1995)
- Street Spirit, Fake Plastic Trees, Planet Telex

4. In Rainbows (2007)
- Reckoner (the best Radiohead song IMO), All I Need, Nude

5. Hail to the Thief (2003)
- There There, I Will, Sail to the Moon

6. Amnesiac (2001)
- You and Whose Army, Pyramid Song, I Might Be Wrong

7. Pablo Honey (1993)
- Creep, Stop Whispering, Anyone Can Play Guitar



Wilco:


1. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)
- I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (best Wilco song IMO), War on War, I'm The Man Who Loves You

2. Summerteeth (1999)
- A Shot in the Arm, Via Chicago, Can't Stand It

3. Being There (1996)
- Monday, Misunderstood, Kingpin

4. A Ghost Is Born (2004)
- At Least That's What You Said, Spiders (Kidsmoke), The Late Greats

5. Wilco (The Album) (2009)
- Wilco (The Song), You Never Know, One Wing

6. AM (1995)
- Casino Queen, I Must Be High, Box Full of Letters

7. Sky Blue Sky (2007)
- Impossible Germany, You Are My Face, Either Way

Reckoner is such an incredible song. That whole album is a gem, but that song is just something else.

[Lebowsky]

Great thread.


The Thermals

(from wikipedia)
The Thermals were formed in 2002 by Hutch Harris and Kathy Foster, who had been band mates before, most notably the aptly named group Hutch & Kathy. Their first album, More Parts per Million, was released in 2002 with band mates Jordan Hudson (on drums) and Ben Barnett (on guitar) [1]. Their follow up fuckin A was mixed by Death Cab For Cutie member Chris Walla, although the sound remained much the same [2]. Ben Barnett had dropped out of the band by this point, so Hutch Harris took over on guitar for this album.

Their third album, The Body, The Blood, The Machine, would win them the most recognition, appearing on multiple top album lists for 2006 (including NPR's, The AV Club's and Pitchfork's)[3]. Jordan Hudson dropped out of the band during the recording of another planned third album, so Kathy Foster took over percussion duties in the recording studio, with Lorin Coleman playing on tour [4]. Produced by Brendan Canty of Fugazi, it was a politically charged concept album designed to showcase a path of religious tyranny that America might take [5].

Their most recent album Now We Can See was released on a new label, Kill Rock Stars and produced by label associate John Congleton, with Foster still working as the percussionist on the album. Westin Glass joined the group as a drummer after the album was finished and supported them on tour. He is the band's current percussionist.

The body, the blood, the machine (2006)



A pillar of salt
Here's your future
Power doesn't run on nothing

More parts per million (2003)



A passing feeling
No culture icons
Goddamn the light

Fuckin A (2004)




How we know
Forward
Let your earth quake, baby

Now we can see (2009)



Now we can see
You dissolve
When I was afraid


Next posts: Calexico, Love, The flaming lips

[RidonKs]

i generally keep pink floyd at the very top of my list, so i suppose i'll go with that - although i've distanced myself from them a wee bit over the past month or so. i've tried to rank the albums in my head, and always failed, so this will be a bit of an experiment.



1.

the 'shine on you' suite bookending this album might just be the greatest song the group ever wrote. a totally magical opening that includes one of the most incredible build-ups in the history of music, and which leads into that iconic four note riff - i'm listening to it right now and still blown away. i prefer the opening five parts, but the latter half hits home just as well. the instrumentation, from organ to sax to that entrance of the timing of the percussion (nick mason had to be among the top of the business in that regard). that leads us into 'welcome to the machine' another pure waters masterpiece that is practically spine-chilling. obviously 'wish you were here' needs no introduction. musically this is one of floyd's most typically classic rock albums, and incorporates a little less jazz and funk than its counterparts. now there is an issue, and it happens to be with that floydian (can i do that?) cohesion that became such an enormous part of their sound - 'have a cigar' doesn't really fit. it's a pretty rockin funk track thats got cool lyrics and a classic gilmour solo (although the synth throughout is a little overdone and somewhat annoying) - but right smack dab between 'machine' and 'wish you were here', it breaks apart the album. maybe not a terrible thing for certain bands to incorporate some versatility, but for a band like floyd and a guy like rogers to create an album that doesn't flow perfectly together - its a flaw.

with all that said, its musically the absolute best floyd has done in my opinion. lyrically its less blatant than 'the wall' or even 'dark side', and a little more refined and abstract. it keeps to a theme, but it requires concentration on the part of the listener to understand that theme. nothing wrong with making the audience work.

ranked tracks:

1. shine on you crazy diamond
2. wish you were here
3. welcome to the machine
4. have a cigar



2.

okay, the masterpiece. it was actually incredibly difficult to grant this track second standing over what will come next. very difficult. but if i had to order them, this is the way i'd do it.

so what do we have with dark side - sure as hell a broader theme than wish you were here. it deals with everything from life to death, rise to fall, greed to wisdom, and of course, sanity's slow destruction into madness. the thematic scale is grand and the music provides a perfect accompaniment. so lets begin.

we open with an entire mess of sounds, each symbolically representing... something - a heartbeat, a ticking clock, pissed off voices, a cash register, a helicopter, maniacal laughter. turns out each sound is taken from a certain track on the remainder of the album. so what does the opening combined tracks 'speak to me' and 'breathe' stand for? perhaps a synthesis of your life. the lyrics are the most beautiful and second only to brain damage in hard-hitting metaphorical message. 'long you live and high you fly, but only if you ride the tide, balanced on the biggest wave, race towards an early grave'. wow.

i won't go through each and every track. some of the messages are clear as day, others aren't. the business of 'on the run', the forever iconic 'time' (not to mention an incredible reprisal of 'breathe' at the end), the search for the heavens in 'great gig', propensity for greed in 'money', othership in 'us and them', and a slow decay into madness during the remainder of the album, the is finalized with one of the great dual song transitions moving from insanity in 'brain damage' directly into the ultimate godly perspective of 'eclipse' - and the final message at the end which needn't be spelled out, if only because of the numerous connections and conclusions any given mind could make. 'and all thats to come, and everything under the sun is in tune, and the sun is eclipsed by the moon'. what is the sun? what is the moon? figure it out for yourself.

ranked tracks:

1. brain damage / eclipse (i refuse to separate them)
2. time
3. breathe / speak to me (again)
4. the great gig in the sky (has another track like this ever been created since? if it has, i'd like to hear it)
5. money
6. us and them
7. on the run
8. any colour you like (coincidentally the only track in which waters had to part in writing)



3.

nothing like a bloated pig flying over a filthy factory. if you created a sort of pink floyd scale based on their traditional sounds, this album would easily be in the far radical spectrum - and do trust that isn't anything close to a bad thing. the more i think about it, the more i consider this record a sort of synthesis between old pink floyd (saucerful, piper, live ummagumma) and the sound for which they would later become famous. i don't know how to describe it any other way. a lot of hard hitting rock, but there is a tinge of soothing floydian melody that the listener can't help but notice.

conceptually, this album is... interesting. again, whereas wish you were here presents a complex weave of themes to be understood only upon contemplation, animals rubs its message in your face. not in a completely spelled out fashion, but certainly to more of an extent than the aforementioned two albums (but not as much as the wall).

'dogs' is undoubtedly among the greatest tracks floyd has ever written. its a lesson in instrumentation and transition from as many unique sounds as it uses. so many tempo changes with how many gilmour solos? 3? 4? and 17 minutes long folks. a masterpiece if there ever was one. 'pigs' is the most lyrically complex and difficult to figure out track. 'sheep' is okay (in comparison to the rest of the album anyways - clearly great on its own).

and we have another bookended album, this time with both front and back pieces exactly the same musically, and written/performed entirely by mr. waters. a self-proclaimed love song, and as strange of one as you'll likely find. it presents a wonderful metaphor though, if you're willing to read far enough into the lyrics.

ranked tracks:

1. dogs
2. pigs
3. pigs on the wing
4. sheep







bleh, maybe i'll finish this some other time. lol


edit: as a side note, one of my favourite melodic transitions (i guess thats what it would be called) ever occurs in dogs. there are two notes there that are absolutely jawdropping in the context of the rest of the song, and particularly the 4-5 minutes that are directly prior.

link

to get the full gist, i'd start right around 3:40 when gilmour starts his solo. you're going to want to keep listening until at least 6:00 - but by then, you should know exactly what i'm talking about. jesus it sounds good.

[mbell75]

1. 2112-Its 21 minutes long so just as good as 3 songs



1. Red Barchetta
2. Limelight
3. Tom Sawyer



1. Prime Mover
2. Time Stand Still
3. Mission

[i seen hippos]

1.

1. Doom Mantia
2. Wizard in Black
3. Son of Nothing

2.

1. We Hate You (GOAT rock song)
2. Dopethrone
3. Vinum Sabbathi

3.

1. The Chosen Few
2. Dunwich
3. Torquemada 71

4.

1. Black Butterfly
2. Devil's Bride
3. Electric Wizard

5.

1. The Sun Has Turned to Black
2. Flower of Evil
3. Eko Eko Azarak

6.

1. A Chosen Few
2. Master of Alachemy
3. We, The Undead

[Maniak]

Guns N Roses

Im going to pick 4 albums(Use Your Illusion I and II, Chinese Democracy, and Appetite for Destruction.)

Im not going to rank the albums in order from best to worst, though.



1.November Rain
2.Live and Let Die
3.Don't Cry



1.Knockin' On Heavens Door
2.You Could Be Mine
3.14 Years

This album was great. I cant leave out mentioning Civil War, Yesterdays, Get In The Ring, So Fine, and Dont Cry(Alt Lyrics)



This is one of the greatest albums ever. Ranking this is impossible. Sweet Child O' Mine is #1, but after that, its a tie between...

Welcome to the Jungle
It's So Easy
"Nightrain"
"Out ta Get Me"
Mr. Brownstone"
Paradise City"
My Michelle"
Think About You"
You're Crazy
Anything Goes
"Rocket Queen"



Obviously not their best album, but still has some very underlooked songs...

1.Better
2.Chinese Democracy
3.There Was A Time

HM to Shacklers Revenge, Street Of Dreams, If The World, Scraped, Sorry, IRS, and This I Love.

[Manute for Ever!]

i generally keep pink floyd at the very top of my list, so i suppose i'll go with that - although i've distanced myself from them a wee bit over the past month or so. i've tried to rank the albums in my head, and always failed, so this will be a bit of an experiment.



1.

the 'shine on you' suite bookending this album might just be the greatest song the group ever wrote. a totally magical opening that includes one of the most incredible build-ups in the history of music, and which leads into that iconic four note riff - i'm listening to it right now and still blown away. i prefer the opening five parts, but the latter half hits home just as well. the instrumentation, from organ to sax to that entrance of the timing of the percussion (nick mason had to be among the top of the business in that regard). that leads us into 'welcome to the machine' another pure waters masterpiece that is practically spine-chilling. obviously 'wish you were here' needs no introduction. musically this is one of floyd's most typically classic rock albums, and incorporates a little less jazz and funk than its counterparts. now there is an issue, and it happens to be with that floydian (can i do that?) cohesion that became such an enormous part of their sound - 'have a cigar' doesn't really fit. it's a pretty rockin funk track thats got cool lyrics and a classic gilmour solo (although the synth throughout is a little overdone and somewhat annoying) - but right smack dab between 'machine' and 'wish you were here', it breaks apart the album. maybe not a terrible thing for certain bands to incorporate some versatility, but for a band like floyd and a guy like rogers to create an album that doesn't flow perfectly together - its a flaw.

with all that said, its musically the absolute best floyd has done in my opinion. lyrically its less blatant than 'the wall' or even 'dark side', and a little more refined and abstract. it keeps to a theme, but it requires concentration on the part of the listener to understand that theme. nothing wrong with making the audience work.

ranked tracks:

1. shine on you crazy diamond
2. wish you were here
3. welcome to the machine
4. have a cigar



2.

okay, the masterpiece. it was actually incredibly difficult to grant this track second standing over what will come next. very difficult. but if i had to order them, this is the way i'd do it.

so what do we have with dark side - sure as hell a broader theme than wish you were here. it deals with everything from life to death, rise to fall, greed to wisdom, and of course, sanity's slow destruction into madness. the thematic scale is grand and the music provides a perfect accompaniment. so lets begin.

we open with an entire mess of sounds, each symbolically representing... something - a heartbeat, a ticking clock, pissed off voices, a cash register, a helicopter, maniacal laughter. turns out each sound is taken from a certain track on the remainder of the album. so what does the opening combined tracks 'speak to me' and 'breathe' stand for? perhaps a synthesis of your life. the lyrics are the most beautiful and second only to brain damage in hard-hitting metaphorical message. 'long you live and high you fly, but only if you ride the tide, balanced on the biggest wave, race towards an early grave'. wow.

i won't go through each and every track. some of the messages are clear as day, others aren't. the business of 'on the run', the forever iconic 'time' (not to mention an incredible reprisal of 'breathe' at the end), the search for the heavens in 'great gig', propensity for greed in 'money', othership in 'us and them', and a slow decay into madness during the remainder of the album, the is finalized with one of the great dual song transitions moving from insanity in 'brain damage' directly into the ultimate godly perspective of 'eclipse' - and the final message at the end which needn't be spelled out, if only because of the numerous connections and conclusions any given mind could make. 'and all thats to come, and everything under the sun is in tune, and the sun is eclipsed by the moon'. what is the sun? what is the moon? figure it out for yourself.

ranked tracks:

1. brain damage / eclipse (i refuse to separate them)
2. time
3. breathe / speak to me (again)
4. the great gig in the sky (has another track like this ever been created since? if it has, i'd like to hear it)
5. money
6. us and them
7. on the run
8. any colour you like (coincidentally the only track in which waters had to part in writing)



3.

nothing like a bloated pig flying over a filthy factory. if you created a sort of pink floyd scale based on their traditional sounds, this album would easily be in the far radical spectrum - and do trust that isn't anything close to a bad thing. the more i think about it, the more i consider this record a sort of synthesis between old pink floyd (saucerful, piper, live ummagumma) and the sound for which they would later become famous. i don't know how to describe it any other way. a lot of hard hitting rock, but there is a tinge of soothing floydian melody that the listener can't help but notice.

conceptually, this album is... interesting. again, whereas wish you were here presents a complex weave of themes to be understood only upon contemplation, animals rubs its message in your face. not in a completely spelled out fashion, but certainly to more of an extent than the aforementioned two albums (but not as much as the wall).

'dogs' is undoubtedly among the greatest tracks floyd has ever written. its a lesson in instrumentation and transition from as many unique sounds as it uses. so many tempo changes with how many gilmour solos? 3? 4? and 17 minutes long folks. a masterpiece if there ever was one. 'pigs' is the most lyrically complex and difficult to figure out track. 'sheep' is okay (in comparison to the rest of the album anyways - clearly great on its own).

and we have another bookended album, this time with both front and back pieces exactly the same musically, and written/performed entirely by mr. waters. a self-proclaimed love song, and as strange of one as you'll likely find. it presents a wonderful metaphor though, if you're willing to read far enough into the lyrics.

ranked tracks:

1. dogs
2. pigs
3. pigs on the wing
4. sheep







bleh, maybe i'll finish this some other time. lol


edit: as a side note, one of my favourite melodic transitions (i guess thats what it would be called) ever occurs in dogs. there are two notes there that are absolutely jawdropping in the context of the rest of the song, and particularly the 4-5 minutes that are directly prior.

link

to get the full gist, i'd start right around 3:40 when gilmour starts his solo. you're going to want to keep listening until at least 6:00 - but by then, you should know exactly what i'm talking about. jesus it sounds good.

I love The Wall, love Dark Side of the Moon, but I never had a chance to hear Animals. A friend just lent it to me an HOLY ****!!! You weren't wrong!

[RidonKs]

I love The Wall, love Dark Side of the Moon, but I never had a chance to hear Animals. A friend just lent it to me an HOLY ****!!! You weren't wrong!

nice man. its a relatively underappreciated floyd record, considering it was released during their reign over english rock. i really need to get it on vinyl, but its impossible to find a used copy. same deal with 'with you were here'.


i won't do enormous write-ups for the next three. suffice to say they're a small step down from the top three, in my opinion. only a small step though.



4.

everybody knows this one. the ultimate concept. in reality, its not the best concept album out there, but it is the best story-based concept out there. right alongside 'a prince among thieves' and 'operation: mindcrime'. very consistent sound throughout. its not quite as unique or complex musically as the three albums i listed above, and that's why it takes a bit of a backseat. still, to write an entire double album as good through and through as this is quite the accomplishment. kudos mr waters.



5.

it kicked off the pink floyd sound of all four aforementioned albums. 'echoes' remains one of the bands greatest accomplishments, even with the few minutes of scary mess smack dab in the middle. it runs together nicely, and while i don't think there's a specific concept, the lyrics are quite profound - particularly on 'pillow of winds' and 'fearless', as well as 'echoes'. i hated the upbeat jazz joint 'san tropez' upon first hearing it, and have since come to love it. overall a very very solid album.

ranked tracks:

1. echoes
2. fearless
3. san tropez
4. a pillow of winds
5. one of these days
6. seamus



6.

apparently a number of the songs here were originally included in waters idea for 'the wall' - but the band didn't bite, and they ended up being rejected. and upon hearing this album, you can really really see just how well they fit in with 'the wall', only to an extreme. this is, for all intents and purposes, a waters solo album - and it captures his true visionary sound as well as any other album does. in this case, its to the detriment of the album. rogers writes incredibly emotional music, but often with the same basic structure - i have a feeling it was when gilmour and mason and wright gave their input that the music took on more of a jazzy or funky appearance - a typical sound that is all over 'dark side' and 'wish you were here' and 'meddle'. with sole writing duties for this album, rogers went a little bit too far, and by rejecting the input of his bandmates, he created an album that lies just too far outside of the bell curve. its hard to explain, and you'd have to listen to it to know what i mean. examples of this over the top sound can be heard in 'paranoid eyes', 'your possible pasts', 'the post war dream', and even 'the gunners dream' (which is still absolutely gorgeous by the way).

its also got a comfortably numb pt 2, that was without any doubt meant to be included by waters in the wall. the title track of the album uses the exact same structure and instrumentation, but just doesn't do it as well as 'comfortably numb'. the criticism from the rest of the band, mainly gilmour is sort of accurate here - the songs, in some cases, are just a bit too similar. with that said, its still an incredible album, and far and away the most political that floyd has ever produced.

best songs:

the gunners dream
two suns in the sunset (wonderful metaphor)
paranoid eyes
get your filthy hands off my desert

[Dasher]

I will produce a Top 5 for Prince as his discography is very deep. I am partial to his early work, and consider his peak to be the ten year stretch from 1978-1988. These years began with For You and ended with Lovesexy. Ask me next week, and my order may be different.

My top 5 are as follows:

[LIST=1][*]Dirty Mind Top Tracks:"Dirty Mind", "When You Were Mine", and "Sister"[*]Purple Rain Top Tracks:"Purple Rain", "Darling Nikki", "I Would Die 4 U", and "The Beautiful Ones"[*]Sign O' The Times Top Tracks: "Strange Relationship", "I Could Never Take the Place of Ur Man", "Starfish and Coffee", and "If I Were Your Girlfriend"[*]For You Top Tracks: "Just As Long As We're Together", "For You", "Soft and Wet", and "Baby"[*]Controversy Top Tracks: "Do Me, Baby", "Controversy", and "Annie Christian[/LIST]HM:1999, Batman, Musicology, Parade, Around the World in a Day, The Black Album, and Diamonds and Pearls

[IInvented]

Tupac Amaru Shakur

1. Me Against the World
2. All Eyez on Me
3. 7 Day Theory

1. Pain Featuring Stretch
2. My Block Remix
3. Changes

Eminem

1. The Marshall Mathers LP
2. The Eminem Show
3. The Slim Shady LP

1. Stan Featuring Dido
2. Lose Yourself
3. Till I Collapse Featuring Nate Dogg

Nas

1. Illmatic
2. It Was Written...
3. Stillmatic

1. Nas Is Like
2. One Mic
3. N.Y. State of Mind

[Manute for Ever!]

I will produce a Top 5 for Prince as his discography is very deep. I am partial to his early work, and consider his peak to be the ten year stretch from 1978-1988. These years began with For You and ended with Lovesexy. Ask me next week, and my order may be different.

My top 5 are as follows:

[LIST=1][*]Dirty Mind Top Tracks:"Dirty Mind", "When You Were Mine", and "Sister"[*]Purple Rain Top Tracks:"Purple Rain", "Darling Nikki", "I Would Die 4 U", and "The Beautiful Ones"[*]Sign O' The Times Top Tracks: "Strange Relationship", "I Could Never Take the Place of Ur Man", "Starfish and Coffee", and "If I Were Your Girlfriend"[*]For You Top Tracks: "Just As Long As We're Together", "For You", "Soft and Wet", and "Baby"[*]Controversy Top Tracks: "Do Me, Baby", "Controversy", and "Annie Christian[/LIST]HM:1999, Batman, Musicology, Parade, Around the World in a Day, The Black Album, and Diamonds and Pearls

By far my favourite Prince song