your 10/10 albums

[Massed Gadgets]

Then check the Psychedelic albums thread where we were discussing it...

http://forum.neptunepinkfloyd.co.uk/vie ... 13&t=23488

[rememberaday]

To Moom: maybe I wasn't clear enough, what I meant was I had sent you a PM on RYM. That's what. I agree with you sometimes that google can be cold. But still, that's a sad but true fact.

Well now, that Massed Gadgets is here : do you really consider Cottonwoodhill to be a 10/10 album? I listened to it three times yesterday and I liked it less each time. I always find Dawn Muir's vocals a bit over the top, it can be a bit sexy at times, but usually it's unsettling. The music is really minimalistic, mostly just a riff repeated over and over again to get you into a cosmic groove. It's great but it I'd rather it be rated an 8 or a 9 rather than a ten.

As far as current 10/10 albums, I've just order Manuel Gottsching's Inventions For The Electric Guitar and I think's it' s perfect till now (almost finished listening to Echo Waves, about a 2 minutes left). What are you thoughts?

PS. to Massed Gadgets - What Sula Bassana album to do you recommend starting out with? I'm deciding either Dark Days or The Night. Either way, I have high expectations.

[moom]

Oh, sorry about that.

And MG, thanks

[Massed Gadgets]

I love Cottonwoodhill, but I would not consider it a 10/10 album. As for Sula Bassana, personally, I would go for The Night...HOWEVER...be aware that The Night on many of its tracks has a bit more of an electronic influence. The title track is definitely rock, but many of the other tracks explore the melding of electronic rhythms with psychedelic guitars and whatnot. I love it, but it may not be your thing. Dark Days, to me, is not as strong an album overall, but it is more rock oriented, with some proggy influences in some of the songs, and it does have the epic Surrealistic Journey which I love.

[nosaj]

The Wall. Sure it is a bit of a downer, but I think it is well produced. AND, what makes it 10/10 for me is the effort that went into make four sides of a vinyl album. Really, that is something that impresses me. I remember having conversations in high school about which side people liked the best.

[rememberaday]

The Wall. Sure it is a bit of a downer, but I think it is well produced. AND, what makes it 10/10 for me is the effort that went into make four sides of a vinyl album. Really, that is something that impresses me. I remember having conversations in high school about which side people liked the best.

The Wall is pretty patchy in terms of quality for me. I would have liked it better if they had cut off many of the tracks and released it as a proper single album (though that would have somewhat interfered with the rock opera side of it). Personally, I hardly find The Wall to be a downer, more like a sort of sympathy album for people like Pink who feel alone and against odds with the world. I find Wish You Were Here to be more of a downer, and even then, that album has two cynical tracks in Welcome To The Machine and Have A Cigar. Usually I find artists like Nick Drake and Joy Division more depressing.

Anyways, I finished listening to Inventions For The Electric Guitar and it is just magnificent! I'm going to get E2-E4 next. My 10/10 albums for now is probably Space Ritual by Hawkwind, and Irrlicht by Klaus Schulze.

[rosm]

The Wall is pretty patchy in terms of quality for me. I would have liked it better if they had cut off many of the tracks and released it as a proper single album...

I don't agree with you on that, but I do have that sentiment about The Beatles's White Album. There is so much crap on it, it could never be my 10/10. Even though there are also very lovely songs on it.

[rememberaday]

There is so much crap on it

They should have released a concept album - one side of great songs (Dear Prudence, Julia, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Blackbird) and another side of shitcrap (Back In The USSR, Ob-la-di-Ob-la-da, Yer Blues, Why Don't We Do It on The Road & and an extended version of Revolution 9) and called the album as "Segregation".

Some double albums, though, can be really great - Tago Mago and Zeit come to mind.

[moom]

That's funny, people complain about length and the track list of the White Album (almost wrote "Double Album" ), and yet the album is still considered a huge classic. And no, I don't have a problem with that.

[rosm]

They should have released a concept album - one side of great songs (Dear Prudence, Julia, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Blackbird) and another side of shitcrap (Back In The USSR, Ob-la-di-Ob-la-da, Yer Blues, Why Don't We Do It on The Road & and an extended version of Revolution 9) and called the album as "Segregation".

Some double albums, though, can be really great - Tago Mago and Zeit come to mind.

Nice idea.
I have heard Tago Mago and Zeit, but apparently I didn't like them enough to play them more often.

[rememberaday]

That's because you're too unhip to like albums you can get stoned to, fella! This is the psychedelic shite, maaaaaaaan! *takes another six tabs of acid*.

What ye think of Ze Grateful Dead, comrade?

[rosm]

What ye think of Ze Grateful Dead, comrade?

What I've heard of them, didn't make me want to investigate them.

[my breakfast.]

Meat Puppets - Meat Puppets II. Their debut album (Meat Puppets I ya dig?), and their In A Car EP, show very little of where this comes from. Sure the guitar playing is sloppy, the singing is waveringly off key and the whole thing sounds under-rehearsed, but it is the sound of a band constantly gunning 10% - 20% over their actual talent line, which just makes it sublime. Curt and Kris Kirkwood grew up listening to country music, then got into hardcore punk, so there is a bit 'classic rock' shaped hole in their music because they hated and ignored it. This is a band creeping around the jocks at highschool, with their Boston albums and asshole views, and instead listening to the Grateful Dead whilst not stooping to the bland regularity of being a 'Deadhead' (though Franklins Tower was in their early repertoire). And the band wound up punks by holding up a fuck-off massive mirror. Hey, here is a band holding onto their beliefs and aesthetics doggedly, whilst the supposedly anti-collectivist punks had a shit fit because they didn't sound EXACTLY like Greg Ginn and co. It is 100% more punk to go and say 'hey we like country and psychedelia, and we will stick to it!!!'.

In terms of the album itself, it is a shame Kurt Cobain had to go and throw a spotlight onto those three 'unplugged' songs. I guess he had a fetish for being in an underground band when his own band surfaced big time and could no longer be part of the cool SST circle. Plateau is a mature piece of songwriting, and oddly philosophical in its outlook (given that you can hear at best 2% of the lyrics on Meat Puppets I this is a stone-weapon-to-atomic-bomb level of improvement). However Curt's increasingly solid finger picking guitar style (check out I'm a Mindless Idiot) is a noticable not to country, whilst New Gods is still a solid hardcore punk number (that just happens to incorporate weird chord changes at will).

[Ashes andDiamonds07]

The Wall
WYWH
Dark Side
The Final Cut
TDB

Closing Time (Tom Waits)
You Want It Darker (Leonard Cohen)
All Things Must Pass (George Harrison)
Plastic Ono Band (John Lennon)
Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band (The Beatles)
White Album (The Beatles)

[twcc]

^^^
Wow, an interesting selection. On release I may have put 'The Wall' as 10/10, but I am not quite so sure now. Both 'WYWH' and 'Dark Side' retain their 10/10 and are pretty well flawless. 'The Final Cut' is good and improves with the follow-up enhanced releases but it's certainly not 10, as for TDB at best I rate that as 8/10. I agree 'All Things Must Pass' is 10/10, 'Sgt Pepper' with it's packaging, inner sleeve, lyrics on the back and content is near perfect but even that is only 9.5/10, I'm sorry but 'The White Album' is too inconsistent to achieve a 10 from me, 'Revolver' is likewise almost a 10 but inconsistent.
.
What would be mine?, well 'Dark Side' and 'WYWH' are in there, I will echo your 'All Things Must Pass' from George. I would add 'Ziggy Stardust' from David Bowie, especially the 5.1 mix as that is the reference for me ... in the past I would have used 'Hotel California' as the audio reference and on release that was 10/10 from me but it has dropped a peg, or two, now; I also love 'Highway 61 Revisited' but even that is 9.5/10 now.