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Location: Chicago | The grab-bag record has been around since the Victrola. Today it's a vast SWAMP of digital gumbo. What ALBUM(S) do you cherish that have the "Sergeant Pepper's" UNITY where songs fit like color-bands in a rainbow?
I nominate a few favorites of my own:
Wishbone Ash "Argus"
Jethro Tull "Benefit"
Miles Davis "Kind of Blue"
Hendrix "Are You Experienced?"
Joni Mitchell "Blue" |
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Posts: 5576
Location: big island | about all pink floyd's stuff |
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Location: big island | and the who's "tommy" |
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Location: Marlton, NJ | Who "Quadrophenia" |
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Location: big island | oh...and alan parsons project, "turn of a friendly card" |
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Location: Marlton, NJ | The older Moody Blues stuff. |
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Posts: 3969
| +1 Pink Floyd
Yes - Close to the Edge
Rush - 2112
Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick
(wow, I just had a flashback) |
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Posts: 3145
Location: Marlton, NJ | TSO - "Beethoven's Last Night", "Christmas Eve and Other Stories" (Going to see them again this year... yeay!) |
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Location: Florida Central Gulf Coast | Originally posted by lanaki:
about all pink floyd's stuff +1 |
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Posts: 8307
Location: Tennessee | "Broken Toy Shop" - E
"Vinyl" - Dramarama
"Echo" - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
"Nomad" - The Aqua Velvets
"Skylarking" - XTC |
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Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | S.F. SORROW - The Pretty Things |
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Posts: 10777
Location: Keepin' It Weird in Portland, OR | +3 on the Pink Floyd.
Jethro Tull - Aqualung/My God.
David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust.
Harry Nilsson - The Point.
The Who - Tommy. |
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Location: Jet City | +1 on 2112
and add Queensryche's Operation Mindcrime and maybe even Iron Maiden's Seventh Son of a Seventh Son |
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Posts: 131
Location: Yalova/Turkey | Most albums by Genesis, Alan Parsons Project, Yes, Pink Floyd, Songs from the Capeman by Paul Simon, Dire Straits (Brothers in Arms)... and many more... "666" by Aphrodite´s Child... |
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Location: GA USA | Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger |
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Location: Sydney, Australia | +4 on the Pink Floyd. |
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Location: Yucaipa, California | ...David Gilmour "On An Island"
...The Allman Brothers "Live At Fillmore East"
...Fleetwood Mac "Future Games" |
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Posts: 1320
Location: Round Rock, TX | The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love
The Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
Joni Mitchell - Court and Spark (+1 on Blue)
Crosby, Stills and Nash - Crosby, Stills and Nash
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young - Deja Vu
Brian Eno - Music For Airports
David Bowie - Outside
The Art of Noise - The Seduction of Claude Debussy
Little Feat - Waiting for Columbus
Paul Kennerley (prod.)/Various Artists - White Mansions and The Legend of Jesse James
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - Will the Circle Be Unbroken, vol. 1 The later volumes are very good, but this one's more coherent and the best overall.
Randy Newman - Bad Love
King Crimson - pick one, but especially Larks Tongues in Aspic and Thrak
Gentle Giant - again, pick one. I especially thought The Power and the Glory fit this category
Weather Report - Birdland
Manhattan Transfer - Extensions and Mecca for Moderns
OK, OKAY!! I'm stopping... |
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Posts: 4389
Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | Albums that I cherish ... with unity? Mmmh.
Supertramp --- Breakfast in America
Nitty Gritty Dirt Ban --- the circle album
and
a bunch of the Pink Floyd albums |
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Posts: 4996
Location: Phoenix AZ | Unfortunately the concept of flow (or "concept LP") has been lost with the demise of the vinyl LP. Serious vinyl listeners such as myself would NEVER lift or drop a stylus in mid LP. You always listened to the ENTIRE LP SIDE.
With the advent of CDs, random digital access and god-forbid ipod "shuffle play" the entire idea of "flow" has been lost. I mean what vinyl listener in his right mind had ever listened to JUST "Eclipse" on the Dark Side Of The Moon LP. Never happened, at least for me.
What we have today is you go to itunes and buy JUST the 1 or 2 songs on the "LP" that you want, or steal them from some server linker like Limewire. "Flow" is an ancient concept that only old farts like us probably even know what it is. |
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Location: NW Washington State | Album? What is an album? |
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Location: Phoenix AZ | ... which pretty much demonstrates my point. |
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Location: NW of Philadelphia | Originally posted by numbfingers:
Album? What is an album? I was going to say:
Its what you see when Al bends over.
But I decided against it.
+2 on Rush - 2112
Boston's first 4 albums (Boston, Don't Look Back, Third Stage, Walk On) |
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Location: NW Washington State | Even though I thought I was a "serious vinyl listener", I'll sometimes play just a track or two from an LP. The new era of musical ADD is perfect for me! |
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Location: Chicago | Dave: that what I meant by saying "Today it's a vast SWAMP of digital gumbo."
To be fair, most vinyl from the Golden Years was haphazard, lacking any compelling logic or "spirit" from track to track. As long as I've been listening to music, a TRUE ALBUM (as a unity) has been a rarity. More so now, post-mortem. |
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Location: PDX | Definitely "Kind of Blue" and i'll add "A Love Supreme" and "Crescent" from John Coltrane, to name just two.
Then there is the whole classical catalog that could be mentioned.
_____
gh1 |
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Location: Boise, Idaho | Another one of those scary times when I agree totally with Dave. I don't think I've ever used the random function on a CD player after the first time I bought one. When my Sony changer finally got down under $300, I bought it and it's been great all these years, but I always play each CD all the way through and often try to combine CDs into a theme.
One of the problems I have with the way music is marketed these days, is that I still think in terms of albums and I want to hear several songs on an album before I buy it. Obviously, the current generation just downloads a song and tosses it in with all the other songs on the ipod or whatever. (My choice of the word "whatever" was a deliberate attempt at irony. I couldn't bear to use the word "like" 47 times per paragraph.) |
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Location: Phoenix AZ | Originally posted by Mark in Boise:
Another one of those scary times when I agree totally with Dave. They're getting more frequent, aren't they ... |
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Location: Boise, Idaho | Especially since you started using your drop down menu of comments. It's hard to disagree with someone who doesn't say much. |
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Posts: 29
Location: Citizen of the Galaxy | Originally posted by Gallerinski:
Originally posted by Mark in Boise:
Another one of those scary times when I agree totally with Dave. They're getting more frequent, aren't they ... |
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Location: Chicago | I am still impressed by CCR "Green River": it's like ONE song.
Van Halen (their first LP) is amazing that way too. |
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Location: Location Location Location | The Point by Nilsson, Jesus Christ Superstar, Tommy. |
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Location: Phoenix AZ | Tubular Bells |
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Location: Vernon CT | Originally posted by Gallerinski:
Unfortunately the concept of flow (or "concept LP") has been lost with the demise of the vinyl LP. Serious vinyl listeners such as myself would NEVER lift or drop a stylus in mid LP. You always listened to the ENTIRE LP SIDE.
With the advent of CDs, random digital access and god-forbid ipod "shuffle play" the entire idea of "flow" has been lost. I mean what vinyl listener in his right mind had ever listened to JUST "Eclipse" on the Dark Side Of The Moon LP. Never happened, at least for me.
What we have today is you go to itunes and buy JUST the 1 or 2 songs on the "LP" that you want, or steal them from some server linker like Limewire. "Flow" is an ancient concept that only old farts like us probably even know what it is. I think a big reason for that is most "LP's" today only have one or two good songs as compared to back in our day 60's 70's & even 80's many LP's deeper cuts where as good or better then the one or two songs that had air play. OMHO. |
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Location: Location Location Location | Tubular Bells or any Liberace greatest hits album. |
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Location: Phoenix AZ | Oxymoron |
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Location: Chicago | What was cool is that a band like Tull or the Beatles or Floyd would have a very distinct "phase" or sound for a given LP: never repeated but PERFECTION throughout the one record. Where has THAT gone? Every Rolling Stone I get touts the "NEXT GREAT THING" only to have most vanish. |
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November 2008
Posts: 1119
Location: Michigan | Originally posted by dobro:
What ALBUM(S) do you cherish that have the "Sergeant Pepper's" UNITY where songs fit like color-bands in a rainbow?
Easy for me, Tull's "Thick as a Brick". One album, one song...sides. |
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Posts: 1456
Location: Texas | Actually, there are still bands creating "albums" that hold up well in the "Unity" theme that started this thread, at least as I interpret it:
The Decemberists - "The Crane Wife" comes to mind…
(FWIW, John Lennon claimed in one interview that Sargent Pepper was never meant to be a unified or "concept" album… who knows?)
Sometimes it was just one side; I always felt that side two of "Abbey Road" demanded to be listened to all the way through…
…and if you don't know what "side 2" means…
isn't it past your bedtime? ;) |
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Posts: 117
| Coheed and Cambria - In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3
It is the album that to me most defines the word "epic" in music form. It also has some pretty nice guitar work in some songs. [= |
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Posts: 355
Location: Wichita, KS | ++ again for Pink Floyd (especially "Dark Side", "Wish You Were Here", and "Animals")
++ again for most Alan Parsons albums (all of the "Project" albums plus "The Time Machine" and "A Valid Path")
Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, and Howe - their one eponymous album before rejoining Yes
wilblee: Interesting choice of the Manhattan Transfer albums. Those didn't come to mind immediately for me, but I have to agree. |
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Posts: 1320
Location: Round Rock, TX | Yeah, the Manhattan Transfer have some really cool songs, but those two albums are great albums.
Some others that occurred to me
Donald Fagen - The Nightfly and Kamakiriad
Steely Dan - Gaucho, although I could argue for many of their albums
UK - UK
Kate Bush - The Hounds of Love
Amin Bhatia - Interstellar Suite
Anne Dudley and Jaz Coleman - Songs from the Victorious City
Vangelis - Most any of 'em, but especially Heaven and Hell, China and El Greco
Ry Cooder & V.M. Bhatt - A Meeting By The River
Warren Zevon - Life'll Kill Ya |
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Location: Chicago | +1 on Coheed & Cambria, Cooder, Vangelis, Steely Dan |
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Location: Michigan | as artie johnson use to say on laugh-in
veeeeeeery interesting GWB
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_200 |
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The ALBUM as a true UNITY: FAVORITES?