[Music] Top 10 favorite complete albums

I have been thinking about this lately. It's extremely rare that I love all the songs on an album. I decided it would be fun to see what complete albums people love. On all the albums listed, I could listen to any track on the album and be completely happy with it. I'm restricting myself to 1 album per artist, otherwise this would be a top ten list of my favorite David Bowie albums. I'm also excluding musicals (I make an exception for Tommy because it existed as a rock album before they were able to make a stage show a reality).


10) Mika- Life in Cartoon Motion

9) Red Hot Chilli Peppers- Blood Sugar Sex Magic

8) Alanis Morrisette- Jagged Little Pill

7) Supertramp- Breakfast in America

6) Weird Al- Dare to Be Stupid

5) They Might Be Giants- Apollo 18

4) Tori Amos- Under The Pink

3) Matthew Sweet- Girlfriend

2) The Who- Tommy

1) David Bowie- Hunky Dory

I REALLY wanted a Queen album and a Beatles album on here and while I love many of their songs, there are always at least 1 or 2 songs that I always bypass unless it's a greatest hits album.
 
This reminds me, Bowie, I owe you $30 for Amazon since you're the winner of that summer playlist request I made many moons ago. You won, yes, because you were the only genuine entrant, but also you won because you did real good. I feel bad for forgetting.

As for some albums I unequivocally love every song on, that's tough. I've given this some thought too.

Barenaked Ladies - Maroon
Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More

Damn, ten is hard. I'll have to think about this.
 
10 is a lot to come up with and it's like 2am, so for now I'll give you these:

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication
Incubus - Make Yourself
Foo Fighters - There Is Nothing Left To Lose (really want to put Colour and the Shape here, it's a tough call)
The Protomen - Act I (The Protomen)
Ellie Goulding - Lights
Gogol Bordello - Super Taranta!
Pearl Jam - Ten

Aaaaaaaaand that's all I can do off the top of my head. 7's not bad though.
 
I am not at home right now and I rarely rememer album names.
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I got to see Roger Daltrey perform it live in 2011. They offered recordings of the concert for a modest fee and an awesome lanyard, so I have that, too. :D
 
Shit. Ok, lets do this, in no particular order (would be WAY too hard).

1. Pink Floyd- Dark Side of the Moon

2. Failure- Fantastic Planet

3. Bad Religion- Against The Grain

4. Fireside- Uomini D'Onore

5. The Beta Band- Heroes to Zeroes

6. God Lives Underwater- Empty

7. Soul Coughing- Lust in Phase: The Best of Soul Coughing

8. Tool- Undertow

9. The Weakerthans- Reconstruction Site

10. Therapy- So Much For The 10 Year Plan

It's a very specialized list, all albums I listen to all the way through. I could probably pick a couple dozen more, honestly.
 

Zappit

Staff member
Ten? They won't be in order. That's just asking far too much. This probably isn't even my honest-to-God favorite ten...

Dookie - Green Day
Babel - Mumford and Sons
Amaryllis - Shinedown
Ten - Pearl Jam
Foxy Shazam - Foxy Shazam (You might not know them, but this album is really enjoyable.)
Bat Out of Hell - Meat Loaf
Back in Black - AC/DC
Born to Run - Bruce Springstein
Americana - The Offspring
Piano Man - Billy Joel
 
I think the fact that it is so hard to name just ten albums for most people speaks to the sheer volume of filler that is on most albums.
 
I think the fact that it is so hard to name just ten albums for most people speaks to the sheer volume of filler that is on most albums.

This, I am at 3 albums right now that I can think of that I can listen to start to finish. I'm sure I can come up with more. Just need to think.

1. Pearl Jam - Ten
2. Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf
3. Alice in Chains - Dirt
 
I can listen to most albums all the way through too, but there's very few that I can say I like every song on. That's what I was trying to think of.
 
To be fair, many of the people on my list have multiple albums that I can listen to front to back and enjoy the whole thing.

I'll add a few more in no particular order.

REM- Monster
Annie Lennox- Diva
Dada- Puzzle[DOUBLEPOST=1375072004][/DOUBLEPOST]
At this point I can say "Top 10 artists I can listen to all the way through".
There's also the fact that quite a few people nowadays don't even buy entire albums, so don't even know what hidden gems lie behind the singles released on an album.
 
There's also the fact that quite a few people nowadays don't even buy entire albums, so don't even know what hidden gems lie behind the singles released on an album.
:eek:

So wrong it hurts. I remember listening to albums and being unimpressed with them, putting them away, only realizing they are genius long after they'd be considered 'in their prime'. Drivin N Cryin's Fly Me Courageous is a prime example of this.
 
My problem is more narrowing it down to just ten, I could easily put multiple albums from Foo Fighters, Flogging Molly, Incubus, or RHCP on my list.
 
Here's my list, but I'm not restricting artists to one appearance. If an artist made 2 great albums, I'm gonna list them:
  1. Incubus - Light Grenades
  2. Metric - Fantasies
  3. Incubus - Make Yourself
  4. Fuel - Sunburn
  5. Spoon - Gimme Fiction
  6. Silversun Pickups - Carnavas
  7. Stone Temple Pilots - Purple
  8. 311 - Transistor
  9. Third Eye Blind - Blue
  10. Foo Fighters - The Colour and the Shape
Wow, that was hard to narrow down. I could have easily done a Top 20 list.
 
Incubus was a tough one for me since they tend to change their sound so much between albums. I've never really disliked any song of theirs, and was having a really hard time choosing between Make Yourself, Morning View and A Crow Left of the Murder.
 
In no particular order because, yeah, that would be insane to try to do:

1. NIN-The Downward Spiral
2. U2-Actung Baby
3. M83-Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
4. Smashing Pumpkins-Pisces Iscariot
5. Joy Division-Unkown Pleasures
6. Nirvana-In Utero
7. Pedro the Lion-Control
8. Pink Floyd-The Wall
9. Radiohead-Kid A
10. Hum-You'd Prefer An Astronaut
 
Another one of those how can you pick your favorite child lists...

1. Pink Floyd The Wall
2. Talking Heads Remain in Light
3. Oingo Boingo Good For Your Soul
4. Devo Freedom of Choice
5. Sex Pistols Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols
6. Robert Cray Band Strong Persuader
7. Robert Earl Keen Walking Distance
8. John Prine John Prine
9. New Order Substance - I know a greatest hits album - but DAMN!
10. Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show Sloppy Seconds
 

Dave

Staff member
Goodness. Top 10? In no uncertain order, I think:

  1. Pink Floyd - The Wall. This should be on every list ever.
  2. Green Day - American Idiot. I like Dookie a lot, but this album is a modern masterpiece. A frickin' concept album! Nobody does these (or at least few artists) anymore!
  3. Poets of the Fall - Temple of Thought. I am SO THANKFUL to NR for posting about this group. I had never heard of them and now they are one of my favorite groups.
  4. Alan Parsons Project - Turn of a Friendly Card. Frankly, there are several APP albums I could have picked, but this one was one of my first. Also could have picked "On Air".
  5. Barenaked Ladies - Stunt. Chickity China the Chinese Chicken, you have a drumstick and your brain stops ticking...Classic!
  6. Avenged Sevenfold - Nightmare. I know A7X fans like the older stuff, but Nightmare has real emotion as it was written during and after the death of their drummer, Rev.
  7. Alice Cooper - Welcome to my Nightmare. The old one, not the new one! A classic album showcasing the showmanship of Mr. Cooper.
  8. Dream Academy - The Dream Academy. A group most of you haven't heard of. Well, you've probably heard "Life in a Northern Town" but they never really achieved the fame I thought they should have.
  9. Meat Loaf - Bat Out of Hell. Another classic album, this one was pretty much a rock opera in and of itself.
  10. Roger Waters - Radio K.A.O.S. I know it's almost cheating having Roger Waters and Pink Floyd, but Radio K.A.O.S. deserves a mention. The story makes the music as much as the music makes the story.
I could name a lot of other Pink Floyd, Alan Parsons & A7X, but I had to limit this to 10.
Honorable Mentions:
  • Live - Throwing Copper
  • Stephen Page - The Vanity Project
  • Styx - The Grand Illusion
  • Crash Test Dummies - God Shuffled His Feet
  • Supertramp - Breakfast in America.
Damn. Crash Test Dummies needs to be in my top 10, but I don't know which one to drop.
 
Paul Simon - Graceland
Blues Traveler - Hook
R.E.M. - Green
Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More
Nickel Creek - Nickel Creek
Brad Paisley - Part II
Foo Fighters - The Colour and the Shape
Pearl Jam - Ten
Streetlight Manifesto - Everything Goes Numb
Rancid - And Out Comes the Wolves
TMBG - Apollo 18
Everclear - So Much for the Afterglow


I want to put the RHCP and Tom Petty on here, but I don't have their full albums.
 
This is kind of an odd list because of the criteria of liking all songs on an album (along with no more than one album from an artist... or else my first four would have been Metallica).

Metallica - Master of Puppets
Apocalyptica - Reflections
Primal Fear - 16.6 (Before the Devil knows you're dead)
Amorphis - Skyforger
Dream Evil - The Book of Heavy Metal
Ioannis Anastassakis - Orbital Attempt
Nightwish - Wishmaster
The Offspring - Days go By
Sabaton - Carolus Rex
Trivium - In Waves
 
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