I prefer albums with a lot of good songs rather than a few great songs and a bunch of songs that I skip.
Once I'm skipping three songs, I tend to think of it as songs vs an album. Almost all the listed albums "All Killer No Filler" as Sum-41 says.
| Relative Rank | Album | Year | Description | Notes/Outstanding tracks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Kate Bush - Hounds of Love | 1985 | Awesome on many levels: music, vocals, poetry. | No less-than-great-tracks. Second side a great trip. |
| 3 | Poe - Haunted | 2000 | Awesome on so many levels: music, vocals, poetry, concept. | "Doesn't transcend the genre, it perfects it." Twenty years after I heard that quote, I finally understand it. I actually joined a record club to get 10 free copies, which I handed out to friends (that was the tail end of when that was still a thing). |
| 120 | Radiohead - OK Computer | 1999 | Expands the genre but stays within it. ("Kid A" and "Amnesiac" transcend it) | |
| 125 | The Cure - Wish | 1993 | 3 guitars, angsty; great bass lines (of course) | My favorite lineup. Open, Cut, End. |
| 2 | Midnight Oil - 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 | 1985 | No filler, very creative, not an unnecessary note, plenty of spacing in the arrangements. Starts minimally, builds | Nick Launay does some really creative producing here. |
| 140 | Midnight Oil - Redneck Wonderland | 2000 | Angry, edgy, high energy melodies, great stuff deep in the album. | |
| 4 | Kate Bush - Aerials | 2005 | as good as anything she's done, the second disk "A Sky of Honey" is a single theme (like "the Ninth Wave") | |
| 300 | Sonic Youth - Goo | 1990 | Sonic Youth: Accessible! | Doesn't transcend the genre, it perfects it. |
| 400 | Gang of Four - Shrinkwrapped | 1999 | Great Melodies over Driving Bass, Feedback & Sampling. | "Natural's Not In It" (from way back) is probably my favorite "right-handed" guitar song. |
| 300 | The Posies - Frosting on the Beater | 1993 | A capstone of whatever that music was that grunge ended. Heavy power pop - but great talent, craftsmanship and range. | "Dream All Day" and "Burn and Shine" stand out. Precursor album "Dear 23" is also very good. |
| 160 | Midnight Oil - Resist | 2021 | Up there with the best they've done. A great final album - a great foundation for that final world tour (much better than the Great Circle tour which had no new album). | |
| 350 | That Petrol Emotion - Chemicrazy | 1990 | Great Guitar Pop start to finish. | |
| 120 | Sinead O' Connor - The Lion and the Cobra | 1987 | passion | Jackie, Troy, and everything else |
| 130 | Sinead O' Connor - Faith and Courage | 2000 | passion | |
| 200 | Bob Mould - Workbook | 1989 | punker goes beyond punk to write great guitar songs with structure and pacing. solid start to finish | |
| 200 | Fatima Mansions - Viva Dead Ponies | 1990 | The most beautiful politically angry album I know. Beautiful voice. | Great pacing. Ballads erupt into beautiful angry yelling. |
| 200 | Throwing Muses - the Real Ramona | 1991 | 10 really good songs, a compellng full listen | University is a solid album ("Shimmer") |
| 300 | Elastica | 1995 | many great guitar pop tunes | |
| 300 | Concrete Blonde - Mexican Moon | 1995 | great vocals, solid folksy tunes | |
| 400 | Concrete Blonde - Bloodletting | 1990 | In retrospect. "Mexican Moon" has a more better tracks. An easier start to finish listen. | Tomorrow Wendy, Love is Blind Ambition |
| 400 | Rush - Signals | 1982 | Ever song really interesting | |
| 300 | Linkin Park - A Thousand Suns | 2010 | their most coherent album | the only LP album I can listen to all the way through. "Blackout" |
| 250 | Lucius - Wildewoman | 2013 | gorgeous dual vocals, earthy emotional tunes | great concert NPR Music Front Row - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxB2dtzu0I8 |
| 300 | Lucius - Good Grief | 2016 | gorgeous dual vocals, earthy emotional tunes | |
| 105 | Leprous - Live at the Rockefeller Music Hall | 2016 | gorgeous vocals, metal power | Moon is my favorite song right now (1/2024) |
| 200 | Alexisonfire - Otherness | 2022 | four excellent songs | "San Soleil" and "World Stops Turning" |
| 110 | Devin Townsend - Empath | 2019 | great vocals, wall of sound, intro to Devin | "Evermore" got me started, "Oh, this is his 18th studio album!" |
| 200 | Inspiral Carpets - Life | 1990 | Madchester! Fun. Driven by keyboards and bass. | |
| The Naked and Famous - Passive Me, Aggressive You | 2010 | DIY power pop? some really good tunes that hold up well fifteen years later | ||
| 100 | U2 - The Joshua Tree | 1987 | This very well may be the most significant album of my time. | I had kind of dismissed this album with time, but 20 feet from The Edge in The Sphere, the intro of "Where the Streets Have No Name" just hit me with the impact of this album. |
| 110 | U2 - War | 1983 | Still carves out its niche in the sonic landscape of rock and roll. | |
| The Mars Volta - Deloused in the Comatorium | Catchy prog is hard. great start to finish album, loopable. |