It's really hard for me to do this, since I don't think of albums from different artists as a collective. My musical tastes are so incredibly varied... and I place much more value on each individual artist's best album, vs the best albums ever recorded, period.
Joseph Arthur: Redemption's Son This album is particularly dear to me. Joseph is dealing introspectively with the loss of his father, grappling with his spirituality, stumbling around trying to find love, and searching for his place in the world. All of which I can relate to very closely.
Lindsey Buckingham: Out Of The Cradle This album pretty much repeats the exact same themes as Joseph Arthur's
Redemption's Son: dealing with the loss of his father, losing the love game, questioning spirituality, and trying to find his niche.
Madonna: Bedtime Stories This is Madonna's most lyrically honest, open album. Much like Joseph Arthur's
Redemption's Son, and Lindsey Buckingham's
Out Of The Cradle, Madonna is struggling with the loss of a parent (her Mother), love, her identity, religion, sexuality, fame, etc. The way the album transitions very slowly and seamlessly from R&B to ethereal/existential/spanish sounding is genius in my book. It's like tracing the metamorphosis Madonna herself is going through internally at the time.
Fleetwood Mac: Tusk This is Fleetwood Mac's opus. Their creative pinnacle. The last pure album they released, in my book. Perhaps the most creatively honest and revealing, too.
Amy Winehouse: Back To Black This album is a revelation to me. Amy's spot on '60s Soul/R&B/Blues sound tinged with her deliciously gritty and soul-bearing lyrics single handedly breathed new life into a genre I felt was long since dead for good. It's unfortunate Amy's personal problems overshadow the HUGE musical talent she is.
Sheryl Crow: Sheryl Crow It's hard picking any one of Sheryl's amazing (and DIFFERENT!) albums out as the best, but for a combination of reasons, this one wins for me. As her sophomore album, and the first album she produced all by herself, we find Sheryl really coming into her own musically. She deals with everything from relationships to politics and American life in this one. She almost single handedly made retro sounds and the '70s cool again with this album. This album is a moment in time for me personally... this was a soundtrack for me as a teen in high school.
Led Zepplin: IV Hard for me to chose just one of their albums, but I think this is their pinnacle in my book. The way Led Zepplin fused delta blues with hard rock and created their own genre will always fascinate me. I love their weaving of familiar blues themes with current events, love, fantasy, and literature. All of this totaled creates a rich tapestry few other bands have the ability to craft.
Eagles: Hotel California Yes, this one may be cliche, and worn out... but when you really listen to it, you're reminded of why it was the goliath it was. The album tracks are where it's at for me. Joe Walsh's and Randy Meisner's tracks are the highlights in my book. Even 30+ years on, all of the themes running through this album are still incredibly current to this day: loss of paradise, loss of innocence, building people up just to tear them down, trying to find lessons from failed relationships, overindulgence and demise, etc.
Pink Floyd: Dark Side Of The Moon This is the very definition of concept album to me. I still feel this one was ahead of it's time. I love the abstract way it approached painful reality. The punctuation of familiar sounds into the twisted and ethereal soundscape. Doesn't get much better than this in my book.
At this point, I hate to cop out and do more Mac related stuff... but I'm tired, and I want sleep. So I'm taking the easy road out!
Fleetwood Mac: Mystery To Me To me, there's a very distinct reason why Fleetwood Mac released it's 1975 album as a self-titled record: they were signaling that Fleetwood Mac was a wholly new band, and all past incarnations were moot. The band that released
Mystery To Me is absolutely a different band than released
Rumours. That said, I think this is 1967-1974 Fleetwood Mac's strongest album. Every single song is worth it's weight in gold. This album showcases Bob Welch best as the HUGE talent he was. This is the one album where the line between Bob's love of the mystical, and Christine's straight forward pop truly blurred. Christine was recording some very ethereal songs, and Bob was recording some very pop songs. There's a unified sound between the two writers that wasn't really seen before or since. This is such a great pop album.
Stevie Nicks: Bella Donna I got this album the day I discovered Stevie, and it's always been special to me. I love it's classic themes of relationships, loss, fame, and lust. There's an air of restraint to this album, of simplicity. There's no gimmicks like Stevie's later albums. No filler. Drugs were still working for her, and not against her on this album. You can tell she was breathing fresh air for the first time in years simply being able to record the album at all. There's an effervescence about it, despite it's often dark material.