[Music] The Most Complete Album

[Icy Gull]

Perhaps we should have another thread for best artwork for an album

It was so important in the days of vinyl. So many fantastic album sleeves and inserts. Dark Side of The Moon, the Hangman's Beautiful Daughter and most Yes albums spring to mind ( Never was a fan of Yes as a band though)

I really miss flicking through album sleeves to choose what I want to listen to. Just not the same on an iPod.

 

[CHAPPERS]

Music for the Jilted Generation.

 

[CHAPPERS]

prodigy - music for a jilted generation

Boom.

 

[jakarta]

It was so important in the days of vinyl. So many fantastic album sleeves and inserts. Dark Side of The Moon, the Hangman's Beautiful Daughter and most Yes albums spring to mind ( Never was a fan of Yes as a band though)

I really miss flicking through album sleeves to choose what I want to listen to. Just not the same on an iPod.

Hawkwind Space Ritual, brilliant (if mad) Album and the Sleeves & Inserts matched it.

Sorry this is a Wikipedia Quote but it is absolutely accurate...

The sleeve was designed by Barney Bubbles and came in 3x2 panel foldout, the outer 6 panels being colour, the inner 6 panels being monochrome, the discs in psychedelic patterned orange & yellow inner sleeves were folded into this. It made Q Magazine's 100 greatest album covers list.
The outer foldout features an illustration of Miss Stacia flanked by the hounds of King over stage shots of the band.
The inner foldout features three panels of a photograph of outer space with three illustrations on each panel headed by lines from a Hawkwind song.
Inner panel 1: features a vintage photograph of a naked woman with listed credits.
Inner panel 2: chac bacab – features an image of a female nipple as a planet, and a legend of the Earth as a living entity.
Inner panel 3: kan bacab – features an image of a foetus suspended in space with the legend "The Universe resounds with the joyful cry I AM. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Naked I came out of my mothers womb and naked shall I return thither."
Inner panel 4: Features a mandala with the legend "Everything exists for itself, yet everything is part of something else. The One and the many contain in themselves the principles of time and space. The way up and the way down are one and the same."
Inner panel 5: Features a dedication from Lemmy to John the Bog, Supernova and Sue Bennett. zac bacab, tec bacab and bac bacab expounds upon religious and cosmological myths and sciences, starting with the William Blake poem "To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour", ending with the Alfred Whitehead quote "Give up illusions about ideas of order, accept nothing of inherited norm. Spread joy and revolution. It is the business of the future to be dangerous."
Inner panel 6: features a winged superhero grasping an electrical cable and lightning bolts, perched upon an Earth situated in a void.

Good stuff this LSD...

 

[Buzzer]

Has anyone mentioned Everything But The Girl 'Walking Wounded' yet? Also Apollo 440 'Electroglide in Blue' and St Etienne 'Foxbase Alpha'. A few mentions for Radiohead on here already but I'd go for the Bends as their most complete album.

The most complete album of all-time for me is Carole King's Tapestry. I'm not sure anything comes close.

 

[cheshunt seagull]

Joni Mitchell - Hejira
Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left
Gram Parsons - Grievous Angel
Gang of Four - Entertainment
Fairport Convention - Liege & Lief
Steely Dan - Aja

 

[METALMICKY]

See my post above. I don't think you can say an album is complete without, at the very least, considering all elements of the art. And all the elements I state above affect how I receive and perceive an artistic statement....so they all play a part in my opinion.

And if it's just about the songs then greatest hits compilations have legitimacy which doesn't make sense to me.

Just wondered why you feel that Metallica's Master of Puppets ticks more boxes than the Black album?

 

[Super Steve Earle]

I would like to offer:

Bridge over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkel
Crosby,Stills and Nash by CSN
Deja Vu by CSNY
A Night at the Opera by Queen

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Erm.

I would not include greatest hits or live albums for the points you make. Also the songs will have been culled from earlier studio albums.

I am a little lost on art work though.

As an example Armed Forces by Elvis Costello was intially issued in a limited run with a fold over back cover.
Later vinyl copies only had a standard single sleeve.
Obviously all the art work is much reduced on CD copies and non existent for digital copies.

So as an album which version do you use when considering whether it is a complete album or not.
How does this work if you weren't around for the first release are you now barred from considering purely on the music.

Perhaps we should have another thread for best artwork for an album

Good point. The three albums I mentioned above I have on vinyl.

But to answer your question about which version I use I don't have a check list of items I need to satisfy myself with. Complete albums, in my mind, kind of creep up on you or find me unexpectedly. I don't sit down and ponder them with a set of hard rules. I think Beggars Banquet is a complete album and I only have this on CD. I don't have digital downloads.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Just wondered why you feel that Metallica's Master of Puppets ticks more boxes than the Black album?

Good question. I certainly won't argue if you were to say their most complete long player is Black album. And the more I think about all their roads led to the Black album. In fact all the arguments I have for MoP can also be applied to that as well. For me though, MoP was a huge statement to the world of rock and metal, a statement that this new form of music could break out into the broader world of rock. The Black album obviously took this even further though.

 

[mooey]

NWA straight outta Compton

 

[colinz]

Quote Originally Posted by Herr Tubthumper View Post
Great thread idea. I have often spoken about "complete" albums with my music chums. I personally think a complete album is a lot more than just an all-killer-no-filler long player. Aside from the songs, complete to me means the art work, the narrative and/or theme of the record, the vision, the circumstances of the record, the mood of the band at that time, and the build up to the record etc etc. Obviously a lot of these elements are not in the band's control so a band cannot fully engineer a complete album by themselves (in my humble opinion.)

In that case it'll have to be .

 

[Whoislloydy]

Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace
Nirvana - Nevermind
N.W.A - Straight Outta Compton
Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
The Ramones - The Ramones
INXS - INXS
The Beatles - Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band
The Beatles - Rubber Soul
Bob Dylan - Bringing it All Back Home
The Strokes - Is This It
The Strokes - Comedown Machine
The Libertines - Up The Bracket
The Jam - All Mod Cons
Red Hot Chili Peppers - By The Way
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication
Muse - Origin of Symmetry
Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run
Kings of Leon - Youth and Young Manhood
Kings of Leon - Aha Shake Heartbreak
Oasis - (What’s the Story?) Morning Glory
Oasis - Definitely Maybe
The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses
The Rolling Stones - Exile On Main Street
Sex Pistols - Never mind the Bollocks
NAS - illmatic
NAS - illmatic XX
Kasabian - West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum
Kasabian - Kasabian
Kasabian - Empire
Fleetwood Mac- Rumours
Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
AC/DC - Back in Black
Prince - Purple Rain

 

[happypig]

Machine Gun Etiquette by The Damned
Transformer by Lou Reed
Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen
Another Music in a Different Kitchen by The Buzzcocks
Lysergic Emanations by The Fuzztones
Stoneage Romeos by Hoodoo Gurus
Youth & Young Manhood by Kings of Leon
Eliminator by ZZ Top
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (The fillum sound track)

 

[METALMICKY]

Good question. I certainly won't argue if you were to say their most complete long player is Black album. And the more I think about all their roads led to the Black album. In fact all the arguments I have for MoP can also be applied to that as well. For me though, MoP was a huge statement to the world of rock and metal, a statement that this new form of music could break out into the broader world of rock. The Black album obviously took this even further though.

Good points. I think the Black album was the next big stepping stone and gained them a whole new audience. I find it strange that many hardcore cans decry it as the start of the 'sell out'. But for that album their career might have stalled badly on the back of And Justice For All album. It ci gained a few gems like One & Blackened but was seriously undermined by the awful production and lack of audible bass in the mix. The simpler arrangements, crisper production and catchy hook lines of the Black album took them to the next level just as MOP moved them on firmly from the redness of Kill Em All.

Are you seeing them on the Hardwired UK tour?

 

[spence]

Machine Gun Etiquette by The Damned
Transformer by Lou Reed
Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen
Another Music in a Different Kitchen by The Buzzcocks
Lysergic Emanations by The Fuzztones
Stoneage Romeos by Hoodoo Gurus
Youth & Young Manhood by Kings of Leon
Eliminator by ZZ Top
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (The fillum sound track)

Love the Rocky Horror soundstrack

 

[spence]

Another album from my youth i really enjoyed was Duran Duran Arena

 

[Guinness Boy]

Haven't the time to read the whole thread so maybe a fair bit of repeating others' choices here but:

The Libertines - Up the Bracket
Marvin Gaye - What's Going On
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
Steely Dan - Aja
and
Paul Simon - Gracelands

sprung immediately to my mind.

Interestingly none of them are really "my type" of music yet they are all albums I could listen to over and over again.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Are you seeing them on the Hardwired UK tour?

Certainly am seen them but in Hamburg next March.

 

[kevo]

Haven't the time to read the whole thread so maybe a fair bit of repeating others' choices here but:

The Libertines - Up the Bracket
Marvin Gaye - What's Going On
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
Steely Dan - Aja
and
Paul Simon - Gracelands

sprung immediately to my mind.

Interestingly none of them are really "my type" of music yet they are all albums I could listen to over and over again.

There's quite a range there. What is your type of music, classical?!