1) Traffic - Shoot Out At The Fantasy Factory (1973)

2) Genesis - From genesis to revelation (1969)

3) Jethro tulls first album (THIS WAS) - 1968

4) Genesis - Selling england by the pound (1973)

5) Jimi Hendrix - Electric Ladyland (His last album (2 records)) - 1968

Off the top of my head;

1) Frank Zappa (MoI) - We're Only in It for the Money (68)

2) Frank Zappa - Hot Rats (69)

3) Miles Davis - Kind of Blue (59)

4) 4Hero - Parallel Universe (94)

5) Aquasky - Orange Dust (97)


All original mix' (7'' & 12'')

It's hard to pick just five of your favorite albums, but here it goes:

Funkadelic by Funkadelic

Streetcleaner by Godflesh

Naive by KMFDM

Krush by DJ Krush

Funhouse by The Stooges.

Thank you for your list.. Yes i suppose it IS hard to limit to 5!!

Ke$ha - Animal
Slayer - Show No Mercy
ICP - The Amazing Jeckel Brothers
Cryptopsy - None So Vile
Dolly Parton - Jolene

At this very moment?

1. Return to Forever - Romantic Warrior
2. Yes - The Yes Album
3. Rush - Caress of Steel
4. Wayne Krantz - Two Drink Minimum
5. Robin Trower - Bridge of Sighs

. Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band
. Station to Station by David Bowie
. In Utero by Nirvana
. Bitches Brew by Miles Davis
. Strange Days by The Doors

Bonus and most recent new personal favorite: Avant Hard by Add N To (X)

.

It's tough picking five. Here goes nothing.

1. Leo Kottke - 6- and 12- String Guitar (aka the armadillo album)
2. The Rezillos - Can't Stand The Rezillos*
3. Sunforest - Sound Of Sunforest*
4. Nick Lowe - Nick the Knife (stylized as Nick the Nife on the album cover)*
5. Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles I

The list includes styles covering American Primitive, Punk, Psychedelic Folk, Witch House, among others.
*these albums picked for the bass playing and the daft lyrics.
Alastair Donaldson aka "William Mysterious" - The Rezillos
Herbie Flowers, Joe Mudele (session musicians) - Sunforest
Nick Lowe - bass & vocals

1. Dir En Grey - Dum Spiro Spero
2. Tori Amos - Night of Hunters
3. Madredeus - O Paraiso
4. Stam1na - SLK
5. Arkona - Yav

It's pretty much impossible to choose, so this list would have looked different if I did it any other day.

My top three albums happen to be from the Beatles, but if I have to do the definitive albums (not necessarily my favorite LPs for some) for five groups/artists, I'll go with...

The Beatles- Rubber Soul (the UK version)
REM-Reckoning
David Bowie- Hunky Dory
The Kinks- Face To Face
Velvet Underground- Velvet Underground and Nico

^ I used to have Face-To-Face Kinks but haven't thought about it in years! I'm off to check the tracklist; is it still good?!

^ Well, yours is a strange collection, MicShazam! So many unknowns for me, I can hardly tell which is the artist and which is the album title.

As everyone mentions, it's pretty impossible to choose. In fact, this is the method I used:
i) scan my cd titles
ii) identify some faves
iii) ask myself, "Which fave would you actually like to hear right now?"

That's how I came up with:-

1. Astral Weeks by Van Morrison
2. Church of Anthrax by John Cale and Terry Riley
3. From Spain to Spain by Vox
4. Toumastin by Tamikrest
5. Strictly Personal by Captain Beefheart

EDIT: Of course, if I'd done the same exercise in my car instead of my house, I'd have five different albums!

Dir En Grey is a Japanese metal/rock band that seems to annoy a lot of people. Their music can be sort of weird, but also very beautiful. The vocalist is amazing, but also the very definition of an acquired taste. I actually very much would NOT recommend that you check them out :laughing:
I think you'd be wasting your time.

Stam1na is finnish thrash/progressive-metal or something. I love their use of melody and harmony.

Arkona is russian folk/pagan/progressive metal.

You probably know Tori Amos at least somewhat, as she's had some occasional radio play over the past two decades.

Madredeus is Portugese folk music that often comes quite close to the traditional fado style of music.

I don't think my top 5 would consistently contain so many metal bands if I did a new attempt every month.

Not too familiar with these either. I know Beefheart and Van Morrison somewhat. No idea about the rest. Never even heard Tamikrest mentioned anywhere - and I go through a LOT of music websites!

I'll have to come up with one next time I'm shopping for groceries and see what happens. Right now I'm listening to Judie Tzuke and feel like she ought to have a spot in the top 5. A mere top 5 means excluding so many great things.

Strictly vinyl:
1. Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band - Trout Mask Replica
2. Boom Bip & Doseone - Circle
3. Cromagnon - Cave Rock (it'd be cooler if I had the original Orgasm version though)
4. Renaldo & the Loaf - Songs for Swinging Larvae
5. Throbbing Gristle - Second Annual Report

Honourable mention: Angus Maclise - New York Electronic, 1965

Didn't know you would put that album this high. I'll have to give it another spin.

Just off the top of my head without looking through my drives, and thinking about all the actual full albums that have gotten the most plays over the recent years, here's what I come up with:

1. Clutch - Earth Rocker
2. Billy Cobham - Spectrum
3. Steve Stevens - Flamenco A Go-Go
4. Steve Hackett - Bay Of Kings
5. Dwight Yoakam - This Time

You're surprised that I'd dig a weird album? :D

It was pretty instrumental in getting me into hip hop and shaking my pretty surface level view of the genre. The strangeness of it made it alluring and showed me what hip hop is capable of while the hip hop roots that hold the album together helped me learn how to appreciate the genre more appropriately. It's also an album that I can return to and still uncover new things about, which is always good in my book.

It's almost not weird enough, being that it's placed right under Trout Mask :laughing:

I think it might be a surprisingly good gateway album for people who think of hip hop as being boring. So, people like me, basically. It's definitely one of the hip hop albums that's come the closest to grabbing my full attention.

I have Bay of KIngs, and while I love Steve Hackett and like the album very much, especially Horizon, Black Light, and Skye Boat Song. I thought the recording sounded too thin. I thought it had a sound of being recorded in large hall that left the guitar sounding distant and faint. That is just my two cents about the quality of the audio, it's not meant to reflect negatively on the music on the album or Steve Hackett's talent.

He did record most of it by himself, so the sound quality might have been a little sub-par, but most reviews tend to overlook those facts. The guitar sounds like it was recorded in a large hall because it was. Natural acoustics are what drives the tone of most of the tunes. I love it for it's simplistic pureness in that effect. I once played the title track on a guitar I was thinking about purchasing, and it impressed the store owner enough to make him come over and ask what it was. I bought that guitar and still play it. It always reminds me of that day.

Horizon is one of my favorite pieces to play on guitar when I am in a guitar store, however no one ever asked me what I was playing. :/

Don't get me wrong, I like the music, it just a thin sounding album to my ears. It doesn't make me dislike the music, just that while listening to it I always feel it could have sounded better. I've strained my ears on even worse recordings on YouTube. So its not disliking lo-fi recordings, probably I am more to accustomed to studio recorded guitar albums, and secretly wish that Bay of Kings was one of them. I've heard Julian Bream and Christopher Parkening record in a church with a high vault ceiling or large room for the effect of reverberation that a spacious room provides and the quality of the recording still comes out sounding a little bit fuller.

I get ya. Lotta variables in there, so... *shrug*

Picture sitting on the top deck of a house boat in the very front with your legs dangling where all you can see is water while moving slowly through a morning fog about 50 feet off the coast of a lake as Bay Of Kings plays gently in your ears through your headphones. That was quite a moment, and my first experience with that album.

I try to keep my mustache free of albums.

Re: Hackett

Learned "Can Utility and the Coastliners" note for note back in the day.

Such a unique and fun solo to play.

That is why 6- and 12- String is my favorite album. Imagine driving on the road where you see nothing but farms and tree covered hills and mountains. The sound of American Primitive guitar playing matches perfectly the rural scenery. It's an experience where sight and sound become one because they compliment each other so perfectly. That was quite a moment, and my hundredth experience with that album, 6- and 12- String.

I've never heard that one in it's entirety. Now I have to.

Reminds me of the Ender collab with George, Mousetown.

I should actually mention that I didn't mention that I knew the owner, so that had to factor in there somewhere too. It's not like I was channeling my inner Hackett, just the melody of the tune caught his ear. More of a tribute to his songwriting, and just a memorable kinda thing for me.

I gotta give this an honorable mention too. All his Pikes series start to meld together, but this one stands out for me. I listen to it a lot. Cranked.

The Cure - Disintegration
Harold Budd - The White Arcades
The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
The Velvet Underground & Nico
Edgar Froese - Epsilon In Malaysian Pale

. Suck It and See by Arctic Monkeys
. In Rainbows by Radiohead
. You Want It Darker by Leonard Cohen
. A Night at the Opera by Queen
. Viva Hate by Morrissey

^ :wave: Welcome to MB, Nate. Having a do-over, I see! ;) Though tbh, I prefered your first list-of-five:-

^ Thanks for the explanation - I might explore the last three on the list.
^ Tamikrest play desert blues with lots of solid elec guitar. Best (and slowest) track on Toumastin, imo:-



From Spain To Spain is a bold reinterpretation of medieval music, or so says the cd cover. But Vox don't appear on Youtube, so you'd have to dip into the catalogue of Real Music, their US distributors. Actually, as they are German, you could just take a train across the border, and start asking.

@ Plankton: I saw Dwight Yoakam play in a London pub once. The girl I was with liked him more than I did - which I put down to the extraordinarily tight jeans that he used to wear.
@ Neapolitan: I also fell in love with my first Kottke album; for me it was Greenhouse

After liquidating some assets, I only have five albums in my small and slowly-rebuilding vinyl stash. And I guarantee they're not going to surprise anybody.

1. Pet Sounds
2. Sgt. Pepper's
3. Aladdin Sane
4. Bridge Over Troubled Water
5. The Stranger (Billy Joel, not Albert Camus)

Dwight used to be real pretty, not sure about now though. Have you seen Sling Blade? How about Panic Room? lol If it wasn't for Pete Anderson, I don't know if I'd feel the same way about his stuff, but if you can get past the sometimes Kermit TF quality of his voice he's quite talented.

Sorry, never heard of Sling Blade, Panic Room or Pete Anderson I'm afraid. :(

How about Pinto Bennet? Do you know him? Same era, same pub, same girl, we used to go and listen to him too; good music, and to my relief, less sex appeal:-

Great stuff, more of a Bombino man myself

No, I've never heard this dude. Not really something I'd go out and buy tho, tbh. Yes, less on the sexy. lol

.

That was the answer to final Jeopardy the other day, the one contestant didn't get it cause she didn't fully spell out as "Sgt. Pepper Lonely Heart Club Band." Alex Trebek is one tough Canadian cookie, eh?

^ Yep, he's really good too:- http://www.musicbanter.com/country-f...no-agadez.html

^ Yes, he's more for a fun night out than a sit-at-home-and-listen guy.

^ Why not go for it, Grace? I wonder if "album" just means vinyl? Any idea? That's what some people seem to be putting, but my list was just of cds. But that's me; I'm the total bad-boy rebel of this site!