track for track of original material created for that album.CD
I must go with Rubber Soul.
Per Wikipedia
Rubber Soul is the sixth studio album by the English rock group The Beatles, released in December 1965. Produced by George Martin, Rubber Soul had been recorded in just over four weeks to make the Christmas market.
This is a choice from the heart as I know many people would choose THE WHITE ALBUM if they were choosing the Beatles output. But every track on here brings back memories of meeting Phil, graduating from high school, going off to college, senior proms. You get it.
What about you?
32 comments:
Patti - Oh, I know just what you mean about releases being favourites because of the memories they bring back. Hmmmm.... I know what you mean about the "White Album," too, but for the Beatles, my pick would be Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. For sentimental reasons as well as quality, I'd choose Billy Joel's The Stranger and Pink Floyd's The Wall. Oh, and The Who's Tommy. See? I can't pick one favourite.
ps Just noticed my word verification word is sting. Musically appropriate...
Miles Davis, Kind of Blue. Every note fits perfectly and the sound is so mellow.
The Rolling Stones' Aftermath, The Doors' The Doors, Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited.
Sgt Pepper, The Stones Between The Buttons(first record I ever bought).
First five records I ever bought were soundtracks to Broadway musicals. I didn't know there was any other kind of music until I was around 12.
May have posted this already, but here goes again. KIND OF BLUE, for sure, but very close second: Ralph Towner and Gary Burton's MATCHBOOK (1975)
I don't know if I could pick just one CD. So many that I love:
Raindogs by Tom Waits
Still in Hollywood by Concrete Blonde
Furnace Room Lullaby by Neko Case
Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen
K by Kula Shaker
and on and on and on...
Oh, boy some great pics here. Nebraska just knocked me over. Sometimes Miles is a little too progressive for me. Wish I could acquire the ear for him. My jazz taste is very traditional. Oh, THE WALL was such a great one.
I'll try to be conservative and list just a few:
Bob Dylan-Blonde on Blonde
Neil Young-Tonight's the Night
Rolling Stones-Exile on Main Street
Beatles-Rubber Soul
Nirvana-Nevermind
It was tough holding it down to five. You've just about got to include the Beatles, and I think "Rubber Soul" is a much better pick than the vastly overrated "Sgt Pepper". But they're tough to pick. Probably no other band made so much great music without making that obvious One Great Album.
More great ones. Does the sheer number of excellent CDs (to me at least) negate the ability to call one great.
I don't know if I have a favorite album, but I do know I've played Van Morrison's WAVELENGTH a zillion times. It never gets old.
GEORGE!!!!!
When I was younger, it was Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Now, it's the Abbey Road album.
I like RUBBER SOUL a lot too, but the CD I have is not the same as the original album. Songs are in a different order and there are some not on the original. Anyway, I'd go with ABBEY ROAD before THE WHITE ALBUM.
But it's not my favorite CD.
What is? That changes from week ro week, sometimes day to day. I'll have to think on it.
Jeff M.
This is such a hard question--and ask me tomorrow and I may have a different answer, but for right now: I've always thought RUBBER SOUL and REVOLVER should be a double-album--in my mind they are on one continuous loop and I often forget which songs are on which of the two albums. Anyway, I love them both as they represent the bridge between the beloved mop-top Beatles of the early 1960s and the hippy Beatles of the late 1960s. Those two together is/are my favorite.
I don't think the sheer number of excellent albums negates the ability to call one great. You just choose from a hundred or so excellent albums and pick your favorites. As mentioned in my earlier post I don't think the Beatles made one single great album, but they deserve to be on the list for their overall achievement and "Rubber Soul" is my favorite. It's just as difficult with artists like Dylan and Young, who each made any number of great albums. You just pick your favorite. But sticking just to the "great albums" tag I'd omit "Rubber Soul" and substitute something like Television's "Marquee Moon" or Patti Smith's "Horses" or one of the Velvet Underground's albums.
OK, 5 choices that never disappoint, depending on my mood at the time:
Rolling Stones, Let It Bleed
Genius: The Best of Warren Zevon
Smokey Joe's Cafe: The Songs of Leiber & Stoller (Broadway original cast)
Grateful Dead, American Beauty
Jimmy Cliff, Many Rivers to Cross (soundtrack)
Jeff M.
Jackie wants to vote too:
Carole King, Tapestry
Meat Loaf, Bat Out of Hell
Santana, Supernatural
Marc Anthony (first English language album)
Los Lonely Boys
Jeff M.
I adore Tapestry. Very eclectic tastes, Jackie.
We loved Smokey Joe's Cafe. Can't remember where I saw it.
Changes all the time. These would be consistently near the top of the pile.
The Stone Roses first album.
Early REM - Life's Rich Pageant or Murmur
David Bowie, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust
Pixies, Bossanove or Doolittle.
Placebo, Placebo
Carter USM, 101 Damnations
Rory Gallagher, Tattoo Lady
Divine Comedy, Casanova
The Frames, Dance the Devil
Joan Armatrading, Love and Affection
Pink Floyd, Delicate Sound of Thunder
David Gray, White Ladder
If I have to go with one, then perhaps the Stone Roses.
Chicago Transit Authority (AKA Chicago's 1st album)
Chicago II
Chicago - Stone of Sisyphus (I could list more, but I shan't)
Springsteen - Born to Run
KISS - Alive!
Peter Gabriel - Passion
Branford Marsalis - Romances for Saxophone
"Star Wars" - original 1977 soundtrack
Sting - Brand New Day (not his best, but my favorite)
Almost any early Beatle album, but Meet the Beatles has a strong hold on me.
CSN&Y. I played the grooves out of that one.
Peter, Paul, and Mary. The one where they're in front of the brick wall.
Woodstock.
Rolling Stones: 12 X 5
Bob Dylan: Blonde on Blonde
The Moops: Moopmania.
I'm the only person on the face of the earth who knows this truth but the greatest album of all time is Cheap Trick's HEAVEN TONIGHT. It's the only album I bought in 6th grade that I never stopped loving. Most I discarded, some I grew to hate then loved later in life but this record (I still have it on vinyl) has been with be since pre-first kiss through marriage, middle age and father of two.
I love much more respectable stuff too, from Duke Ellington to Prince but HEAVEN TONIGHT sits in my heart like the first Star Wars movie..
I don't know this CD. What have I been missing?
Interesting the Stones' albums, so many different picks. I agree with Bob on CSNY. Scott - STONE OF SISYPHUS arrived in today's mail! I love the first one, CTA really a lot!
I can't argue with Rubber Soul, nope. Great, great album.
Patti,
I just re-read your original post and realized I didn't quite put forth the answers you were wanting. You were wanting the best/favorite original albums that correspond to our memories of life, not just great albums.
Here's the irony: as a child of the 80s, I listen to almost no 80s material.
From the list I already gave, the Star Wars soundtrack is crucial to my understanding of both orchestral music and soundtracks. Sting's Brand New Day was released the year of my wedding so it always will remind me of that wonderful year. And Kiss: Alive! still remains my first, favorite album by my first favorite rock band.
@Richard R. - Wow. Great to know that SOS is still finding listeners. I rank it as high as #3 on my all-time list, just behind I and II.
If I had to chose only one, without a doubt: Black Sabbath: We Sold our Soul for Rock and Roll.
RUBBER SOUL certainly ranks as my favorite Beatles LP of all time, Patti. But as far as my favorite album by any artist, it might be neck-and-neck with PET SOUNDS by the Beach Boys, Brian Wilson's masterpiece.
Ironically, Wilson has often said that he was inspired to do PET SOUNDS after hearing RUBBER SOUL. He felt challenged to do an album as good or better.
And Paul McCartney has noted that he and Lennon felt challenged by PET SOUNDS to seek the eclecticism of REVOLVER. The Byrds certainly were making an impact on the Beatles by this time, too (in fact, Deb is hardly alone among the Beatles fans I usually hear from who cite REVOLVER as their favorite...you hear a lot of votes for THE BEATLES, Patti?). RUBBER SOUL, the US version, was the first Beatles album I listened to a lot, but I'd have to rate the surrounding duo, HELP! and REVOLVER (in their original UK configurations) even higher ("Run for Your Life" alone is enough to leave a bad taste that even "In My Life" and the fuzz bass in "Think for Yourself" can't overcome; taking "Norwegian Wood" the wrong way originally, as if the man is avoiding being mousetrapped, improved the lyric somewhat).
So, my choices would include:
Brubeck Quartet: TIME FURTHER OUT: MIRO REFLECTIONS
Mingus Orchestra: MINGUS MINGUS MINGUS MINGUS MINGUS
Duke Ellington, Max Roach, Chas. Mingus: MONEY JUNGLE
Big Star: 3RD/SISTER LOVERS
The Byrds: FIFTH DIMENSION
Jawbox: MY SCRAPBOOK OF FATAL ACCIDENTS or the GRIPPE cd (which includes the GRIPPE album and the four-song ep they released just before)
Lambert, Hendricks & Ross: THE HOTTEST NEW GROUP IN JAZZ
George Russell Smalltet: JAZZ WORKSHOP or the George Russell Orchestra (also with Bill Evans): LIVING TIME (there's little chance that the Bill Evans/John Coltrane/et al. group around Miles Davis for KIND OF BLUE can really be "too progressive" for any jazz listener these days, Patti, even if they are using the modal improvisation Evans taught the group after learning it from Russell)(I think the phrase you're reaching for with much of Davis's fusion work of the '70s is "too boring"--even the Scientologists at the core of Return to Forever were much more in touch with groove, much less Weather Report)
Nina Simone: BACKLASH (one of her European albums...actually, I have that one only on vinyl, now that I think of it)
At least one DG reading of Holst's THE PLANETS...I think a Karajan and Berlin recording.
Turek's performance of the GOLDBERG VARIATIONS
The Weavers: REUNION AT CARNEGIE HALL 1963, despite Erik Darling
I wish it was on CD: a Johnny Cash anthology promoing Victoria Station restaurants, which took train songs from throughout his CBS catalog...even the reworked version of the restaurant's jingle he'd written at the end was pleasant, and the rest was mostly brilliant. DESTINATION VICTORIA STATION
The first three Miriam Makeba albums.
Among the Firesign Theatre albums, I'll opt at the moment for THE GIANT RAT OF SUMATRA (though sneaking fondness for the little-heard EAT OR BE EATEN).
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