We haven't had a what's your favourite albums ever type thing in quite a while

[METALMAN]

Mine are:

1. Belle & Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress (2003)

I love every song on this album and I have so many great memories related to it. I know a few people that don't like Belle & Sebastian's newer music, such as this. They are silly.

Best songs: All of them really, but particularly "If She Wants Me" and "I'm A Cuckoo".

2. Ryan Adams - Gold (2001)

Again, another album on which I love every song. Particularly impressive given that there are seventeen of them.

Best songs: Answering Bell; Wild Flowers

3. The Libertines - Up The Bracket (2002)

I haven't listened to this in a while but this is the album that really got me into good music, so it couldn't not be here. I've listened to this hundreds of times since it came out.

Best songs: Death On The Stairs; Up The Bracket

4. Death Cab For Cutie - We Have The Facts & We're Voting Yes (2000)

Just a collection of great songs really. I love the production on this.

Best songs: Title Track; Company Calls

5. Ben Folds Five - Ben Folds Five (1995)

For me, nothing Ben Folds has done ever since has got anywhere near this. Since first hearing this, I have looked forward to every subsequent release by him, only to be disappointed. As for this album, it is a masterpiece packed full of catchy and brilliantly arranged songs. An excellent summer album.

Best songs: Sports & Wine; Where's Summer B?

6. Belle & Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister (1996)

Stuart Murdoch himself regards these as the best songs he has ever written, and he may have a point. This is a record where the rudimentary production only seems to increase its charm.

Best songs: The Stars of Track & Field; Get Me Away From Here I'm Dying

7. Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left (1969)

This is my favourite folk music album and yet another that I never tire of despite numerous listens. This is an album that is more evocative and haunting than any other I have heard.

Best songs: Day Is Done; Time Has Told Me

8. Belle & Sebastian - Tigermilk (1996)

Released only four months before "If You're Feeling Sinister", which is quite an amazing feat. Tigermilk is much the same as it. Catchy pop songs with so much more hidden underneath.

Best songs: She's Losing It; The State I Am In

9. Arcade Fire - Funeral (2004)

An exhilarating album that was made to be played live. It was experiencing this in what was by far the best show I've ever been to that really cemented this album's place in my favourites.

Best songs: Haiti; Rebellion(Lies)

10. James Taylor - October Road (2002)

The best ever waking up with a hangover album, and although it came more than thirty years since James Taylor's first release it is by far the best thing he has released in his excellent music career.

Best songs: September Grass; Belfast To Boston

11. Neil Young - After The Gold Rush (1970)

The second best ever waking up with a hangover album. And just brilliant in every way.

Best songs:Tell Me Why; Don't Let It Bring You Down

12. Sigur Rós - Takk... (2005)

This is an album that I like to listen to when I go to sleep - because listening to it the dark makes in even more absorbing and atmospheric. Not because it is boring. Because it isn't.

Best songs: You need to listen to it all together really. But Saeglopur and Glósóli.

13. Bright Eyes - Lifted or the Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground (2002)

This is another album that means a lot to me, and one that I've been listening to a lot recently - mainly because one of my friends plays it at every possible moment. Not that I mind, because it is a really excellent album.

Best songs: You Will. You?Will. You? Will. You?Will.; Nothing Gets Crossed Out

14. The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead(1986)

An iconic album that I don't really need to say much about. Just excellence.

Best songs: Frankly, Mr Shankly; I Know It's Over

15. Prince - Purple Rain (1984)

This is the true 80s pop masterpiece. >_>

Best songs: When Doves Cry; Purple Rain

Honourable mentions:

Spoiler: Click here to view

The Beatles - Rubber Soul

Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out Of This Country

Death Cab For Cutie - Narrow Stairs

Death Cab For Cutie - Transatlanticism

Frightened Rabbit - The Midnight Organ Fight

Idlewild - The Remote Part

Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim

Leonard Cohen - Songs Of Love And Hate

Your turn now ^_^

Edited June 28, 2009 by metalman

[RPS]

Rock

The Clash - London Calling (1979)

Brilliant from top to bottom. I'm not a fan of older albums, but this is hands down one of the best albums of all time.

Blur - 13 (1999), Think Tank (2003), Parklife (1994)

Three classic albums by the same band, each with a different and distinct sound, but each is just as the good as the one before it.

Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? (2006)

Amazing album. Kevin Barnes truly is original and one of the true innovators making music these days. The Past is a Grotesque Animal is one of the most amazing songs ever.

Soft

Antony & The Johnsons - I Am A Bird Now (2005) & The Crying Light (2009)

The guy just speaks to me on so many levels... it's weird. I don't think I've ever cried before listening to music before I listened to Antony...

Broken Social Scene – You Forgot It In People (2002)

In 2002, I was a kid who liked punk music and the louder the better. Broken Social Scene taught me how to apperciate and love other types of music. Without BSS, I'd probably be listening to the same music as before.

Elliott Smith - Figure 8 (2000)

This is one of my favorite albums - the only Elliott Smith album I own on vinyl - but after someone in my family attempted suicide it became a bit too hard to listen to him. That's how powerful Smith's voice, lyrics and music is. So hauntingly beautiful.

Dance

M.I.A. - Kala (2007) & Arular (2005)

I love M.I.A. and make it known that I think she is the most brilliant person making music these days. Both of her albums in my opinion are full-fledged classics and I haven't stopped spinning them yet.

Hercules & Love Affair - Hercules & Love Affair (2008)

I've had last.fm for three years. Hercules and Love Affair released their only album one year ago. They are my sixth most listened to band and the most listened to album. I think its evident I love these guys.

Daft Punk - Discovery (2001) & Homework (1997)

Like BSS, without Daft Punk I wouldn't like other types of music. It opened my mind and my ears to new sounds and to new types of music. So good.

[Crybaby Bunting]

I'd go into a stupidly long list of albums that I've been obsessed with over the past year or so... but I could quite happily live with listening to the following albums for the rest of my life. (well, from what this month has probably proved. Next week I'll have dumped all these albums and started listening to Croatian bluegrass )

Dream Theater - Octiverium

Pixies - Doolittle

Rush - Permanent Waves

Muse - Origin of Symmetry

Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream

[JStarr]

Prince - Sign o' the Times

--Purple Rain was awesome, but top to bottom, Sign had something for everyone. Pop, rock, funk, and some of the most gorgeous ballads ever.

TOP TRACKS: Adore, I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man, If I Was Your Girlfriend, U Got the Look

Terence Trent D'Arby - Symphony or Damn

--TTD's voice has always been divine, but he strapped on the guitar and rocked the fuck out on songs like "She Kissed Me" and "Succumb to Me."

TOP TRACKS: She Kissed Me, Delicate, Baby Let Me Share My Love, Castilian Blue, Are You Happy?

Funkadelic - One Nation Under A Groove

--"Who Says a Funk Band Can't Play Rock," indeed.

TOP TRACKS: One Nation Under a Groove, Who Says a Funk Band Can't Play Rock?!, Lunchmeataphobia (Think! It Ain't Illegal Yet!)

Nellie McKay - Get Away From Me

--She was 19, pissed off and brilliant when she made this album. Looks like Doris Day, sings like a less nasal Cyndi Lauper, raps like Eminem, swears like a sailor.

TOP TRACKS: Sari, Ding Dong, It's a Pose, Won't U Please Be Nice, Clonie

PM Dawn - The Bliss Album

--They branched out far beyond rap, and they really started getting melodic on this album.

TOP TRACKS: Looking Through Patient Eyes, More Than Likely, I'd Die Without You, Plastic

Eh, I'll stop there.

[Mr Evil Guy]

Magnetic Fields - 69 Love Songs

Arcade Fire - Funeral

Architecture in Helsinki - In Case We Die

Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary

The Smiths - The Queen is Dead

of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?

Magnetic Fields - Get Lost

Belle & Sebasiten - If You're Feeling Sinister

The Strokes - Is This It

TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain

[Mick]

AC/DC - Back in Black

Well aside from bias of AC/DC being my favorite band, all the songs on this album are awesome. I have heard over the years every song on it played on rock stations, I think that maybe the only other album by AC/DC to even remotely get that kind of exposure is Highway to Hell (wow, I think I've heard maybe three of the songs from their played). It's stood the test of time, tied for second in total album sales with Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, behind Thriller for the most albums sold.

What makes it even more remarkable is it was AC/DC's first album with Brian Johnson, taking over for what was then the recently deceased Bon Scott. If Highway to Hell put AC/DC on the map, then Back in Black made it a damn national landmark.