Ledgie Top Tens: Album Edition

[Nikolaj]

These lists are awesome, I've seen so many entries that make me want to change my original ten. Hejira's list alone...wow- and the nods for 'Physical Graffiti' and 'Goodbye Yellowbrick Road'- two I shouldn't have forgotten.
The major reason I still have a minor mental block about Bella Donna comes down to the title song and to this:
"PONY."
"PHONEY"

It just made me die, a 100 years ago, that a songwriter I thought was the female Bob Dylan had 'pony' in a song to begin with, then for her to rhyme it with 'phoney'...I swear it broke my heart, back on the edge of 17, as I was. On the day it was released, and as I played that first song, I thought ' Oh no! Pony! Phoney! I can never play this song for anyone!'
Maybe it's an animal thing? Pony? Chimpanzee? No animal references ever again, SLN! Though 'cat in the dark' was gorgeous...

PS- come to think of it, the brilliant JM's 'painted ponies' of 'The Circle Game' don't bother me, it's a song and a half. Maybe I need to finally get over the 'pony/phoney' Bella Donna couplet, all these years later!
--Oh, good choice! About time someone mentioned Dark Side Of The Moon, another one I can't believe I forgot about! I have to agree that as concept albums go, Dark Side is brilliant.

[ontheEdgeof17]

The Beatles: The White Album

Fleetwood Mac: Tusk

Kylie Minogue: X

Madonna: Like A Prayer

Original Broadway Cast: Spring Awakening

The Argument: Recess Seranade

Mika: Life In Cartoon Motion

Kylie Minogue: Impossible Princess

Vanessa Carlton: Heroes and Thieves

Kelly Clarkson: My December

[Dodfather]

Originally Posted by ontheEdgeof17

Kylie Minogue: X

Kylie Minogue: Impossible Princess

Ooooohh! Great choice on Impossible Princess! I'm a huge Kylie fan and have been for over 20 years and this is by far her best album. Cowboy Style is wonderful. Not that I'm adverse to her more all-out pop though - the Rhythm of Love era is Kylie at her Better-The-Devil-all-out-pop best!!

I tried and tried to love X but I just couldn't. 2 Hearts was a good first single, something a bit different from her, but other than In My Arms and a couple of other I just couldn;t get into it. I kept hoping it would grow on me like Body Language did but no.

I'm interested, since you have such a high opinion of the album, what do you think of Nu-di-ty?

[louielouie2000]

Originally Posted by Dodfather

louie - 2 great choices! I wish Bedtime Stories wasn't Madonna's forgotten album. Surely American Life deserve that dis-honour, haha. I'd love to see her some of the tracks from it live, especially Take A Bow, which is in my top 5 Madonna songs ever.

I'm a huge Sheryl Crow fan and think that this album and The Globe Sessions are her finest hours. Hard To Make A Stand is just brilliant, but then most of this album is. Detours is only ok though. I hope her next album is better!

Agreed... I hate that Bedtime Stories is so often looked over. Like I said before, I think it's Madonna's most lyrically honest, soul bearing album. Which is probably why she herself tries to cover up this album like a cat does it's defecation in the litterbox!

I was jockeying back and forth on whether to pick the Globe Sessions or Sheryl's self-titled album, too. They're both terrific. I've followed Sheryl since '94... and agree Detours wasn't her strongest effort (though I really did enjoy it, and the statements it made). In the end, I think there's a tinge of self indulgence in Globe Sessions that places it a close second for me .

[Zombie]

I love reading everyone's lists. This is so much fun, and it's introducing me to some stuff I never really listened to before. So to everyone that's participated so far, thank you!

[Silver Springs]

.bump.

In no particular order.

1. Joni Mitchell - Blue. (I put Little Green first. Silly me listening to the song while typing). I have decided that if ever I came back into another life as a musician, if such a concept runs in reverse, I would adore if it if I were to come back as her. I couldn't fathom containing such genius.
2. Buckingham Nicks - Buckingham Nicks. It took me a long while to find the Vinyl album, I was £50 lighter but it was much more than worth it. I confess to not expecting great things at first, only hoping to own the gem if not enjoy it. But the simple yet heartening tones that have come to highlight Stevie and Lindsey at their best turned me into a deep worshipper of it. It's one of my favourites to meditate to.
3. Loudon Wainwright III - Last Man On Earth. Not many appreciate his sardonic, crass and often offensive takes on anything from politics to personal grief. But I find a profoundness to his lyrics that I can't help but love.
4. Fleetwood Mac - Either Tusk or Tango In The Night. I had to hold myself back from picking the standard of Rumours. But I simply cannot decide between these two albums. They both in their own way highlight why exactly the band deserve their status today
5. R.E.M. - Around The Sun. Not well appreciated at all by R.E.M. fans as a whole (only topped by the dire Reveal) but I find the melancholy tone of this album endearing.
6. Alanis Morissette - Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie. Despite how much her somewhat "woah is me" tone has begun to grate on me over the latter years, Alanis and this specific album helped me through high school.
7. Sarah McLachlan - Afterglow. As with Alanis, although I could never find Sarah annoying at all, she helped me keep my head above the water just enough to breathe when times got difficult. This was my "gateway" album.
8. Eva Cassidy - Live At Blues Alley
9. 4 Non Blondes - Bigger, Better, Faster, More. I like to believe that this album helped trigger my "help myself" instinct, at least for a short while.
10. Tori Amos - Under The Pink

[estranged4life]

Not in an order...mmmm-'k?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ride_the_Lightning
"Ride the Lightning" - Metallica - The sophomore slump sure as hell didn't apply to this album. Another album to decompress to (See SYL's "Alien" below) and a classic that makes me nostalgic for the high school days of my youth when I sat throughout grades 10-12 with headphones on never hearing a word of the many teachers I had.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Puppets
"Master of Puppets" - Metallica - Just the flow of the music along with the lyrical content made for a true classic IMO. Add Cliff Burton's "music theory" to the thrash and you come of with some brilliant musical entities (ie "Orion")

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbey_Road
"Abbey Road" - The Beatles - If anyone listened to this album and still cannot understand the brillance of it, then there's nothing I can say to make ya understand. What a way for a band to go out!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_%28album%29
"Alien" - Strapping Young Lad - Pure unadulterated hate & equal parts aggression...A great album to listen to decompress when one feels like going to Postal/Lubby's on the world. Works for my sorry ass!!! Has the one song that describes my life and all it's f**kups: "****storm" I have yet to hear any metal album as 'heavy' as "Alien"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall
"The Wall" - Pink Floyd - Still an album I can see parts of myself in, as the character "Pink" either being overprotected by his Mother or being 'abandoned' as with Pink when he calls his wife from overseas. Even at age 9, when "The Wall" was released I was attracted to what I heard - when I was a teenager the lyrics hit home with me. I put up my own 'Wall' to keep people out (And to an extent I STILL do) when I felt I was about to be psychologically hurt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innuendo_%28album%29
"Innuendo" - Queen - Hard to imagine such a great album being recorded as a member of the band is dying, and that member knew his time on this globe were coming to an end. Freddie Mercury's will to go out with this triumph of will to go on to the VERY VERY end is worth the admission alone. And one can also sense the emotions building due to Freddie's illness by the multitude of emotions each track on Innuendo can bring out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somewhe...me_%28album%29
"Somewhere in Time" - Iron Maiden - What a way to followup "Powerslave", with a melodic yet heavy album. Includes the great track "Wasted Years" which as a 16 year old turd (which I was when it was released back in 1986) I could relate to since I saw my teen years as possibly being my "golden years".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diary_o...an_%28album%29
"Diary of a Madman" - Ozzy Osbourne - No matter what most say about this followup to "Blizzard of Ozz", this one to my ears sounds superior. Randy Rhoads was just starting to show what he was capable of creating when adding classical music musical aptitude to a heavy-metal setting. Things clicked in both categories with the tracks "You Can't Kill Rock N Roll" and the title track "Diary of a Madman" (Which still gives me chills with the acoustic guitar intro). One could only know what Randy would have done in the genre of metal had his life not been cut short.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Reveries
"Ghost Reveries" - Opeth - What happens when a death metal band goes more towards the progressive Pink Floyidan light? Ghost Reveries. Sure, the death growl vocals are still presence, but the musicianship behind those vocals (Which are NOT throughout the whole album - When Mikael Åkerfeldt sings cleans it is a great thing, Dude can sing in a clean voice better than most regular vocalists) are something you cannot find in music these days, equal parts artsy 70's progressive and equal parts pure melodic death metal. One the best albums in the past 5 years IMHO.

and finally...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Deg...ner_Turbulence
"Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence" - Dream Theater - Disc 2. The 46:16 that this title track takes you through is emotionally unbelievable. A 8 part opus dealing with the struggles of life issues of various characters makes one wonder how some survive the pain in the wake of suffering from "mental health issues" of bipolar, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, post-partum depression, autism, and dissociative personality disorder.

This album has a particular place in my heart, because it helped me back in late 2003 when Debbie was diagnosed with cancer, and at the time I was afraid I would lose the person I loved and cared about, and more important I would lose my friend...But we know how that story ended, don't we?

This CD was in the cd changer each and everyday for the 200+ mile roundtrip drive to OKC from Dec.2003 to April 2004 to be there for Debbie to be her own personal (male) cheerleader and to pick her up when she was just too tired to fight on.

It still helps me now...But that is because I am now suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and understand the lyrical content of the track "War Inside My Head"...Which is what happens to me on a daily basis.

If I had to pinpoint of these ten picks "Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence" is the king!