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[jough]

Hey kids,

AllofMP3.com is doubling their prices on Friday, so I'm in the process now of getting everything from them that I want while it's still only a penny per megabyte.

I know there are a number of other music threads but we never really got to the nut of "YOU MUST MUST MUST HEAR THIS".

So while I wait for the entire Rolling Stones catalog to download, I thought I'd ask for suggestions as to albums that you think anyone who is at all interested in music should own.  I'm thinking of a Top 5 Most Essential type of list.  Double albums and boxed sets could still count as 1 selection.

To start things off I'll offer my own lists:

Classic Rock
1) The Velvet Underground "Loaded"
2) David Bowie "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars"
3) The Beatles "White Album"
4) Frank Zappa "Hot Rats"
5) The Who "Tommy"

Alternative Rock - UK
1) The Smiths "The Queen is Dead"
2) Blur "Parklife"
3) Roxy Music "Avalon"
4) Belle & Sebastian "If You're Feeling Sinister"
5) Elastica "Elastica"

Alternative Rock - US
1) Jane's Addiction "Nothing's Shocking"
2) Morphine "Cure for Pain"
3) Nirvana "In Utero"
4) The Pixies "Trompe le Monde"
5) Tom Waits "Rain Dogs"

Punk Rock
1) Sex Pistols "Nevermind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols"
2) The Dead Kennedys "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables"
3) The Clash "London Calling"
4) The Misfits "Misfits"
5) The Dead Milkmen "Big Lizard In My Backyard"

These lists are completely arbitrary and don't necessarily represent my favourites, but you get the gist.

[andalucia]

1) The Velvet Underground "Loaded"
4) The Pixies "Trompe le Monde"
5) Tom Waits "Rain Dogs"

Sorry.  I know the point is not to respond to your lists, but still, I am shocked (shocked!) that these are not The Velvet Underground, Doolittle, and Closing Time, respectively.  I can understand the choice of Rain Dogs (it's my second-fave), but the first two just perplex me, sorry.


that (totally unnecessarily) said,
Some Essentials.  They are not in an order mostly.
0.  Miles Davis, Kind of Blue (ZERO because I think that, tied with the first two Velvet Underground albums, it is essential not in an essential albums way, but more in the way that oxygen is, in that I hesitate to even have it im my list)
1.  Neutral Milk Hotel, Aeroplane over the Sea
2.  Sonic Youth, Washing Machine and/or Murray St.
3.  They Might Be Giants, eponymous and/or Flood
4.  Ry Cooder, Into the Purple Valley
5.  Some Bob Dylan album.  I'd say Blood on the Tracks or Bringing it All Back Home
6.  Nick Drake, Pink Moon
7.  Patti Smith, Land

I'm sure I'll think of more.  I am the list-writing kind of geek.

Edit.
Here I am again.
It's been a long time since I was significantly into punk, but I disagree fervently with your choices for necessary punk albums, so I've formulated my own.
1.  Television, Marquee Moon
2.  X-Ray Spex, Germfree Adolescents
3.  Richard Hell & the Voidoids, Blank Generation
4.  Zounds, The Curse of Zounds
5.  Stiff Little Fingers, Inflammable Material.

I'm going to not say anything about the Sex Pistols.
And I will try to go a week without making any subsequent lists, as I think I have a problem.

[Nabubrush]

I have those two Pixies albums, and Flood - and none of the rest. Oh my word that is fun.

[St_Zartan]

What Springs to Mind:

My Bloody Valentine, Loveless
The Auteurs, New Wave
Lush, Split
Boards of Canada: Music Has the Right to Children
The Fall: Hex Enduction Hour / This Nation's Saving Grace / The Wonderful and Frightening World of...
Big Black: Atomizer EP / Songs About fuck*ng
Stereolab: Refried Ectoplasm, Switched On v.2 / Peng!

Where I Agree with Selected Artists But Disagree with Albums, Politely:

Belle & Sebastian: Lazy Line Painter Jane (three EP box set)
Sonic Youth: Daydream Nation
The Smiths: Louder Than Bombs

[slink]

Sublime's eponymous is usually the first record that leaps to mind when I think of things people ought to own. Cure for Pain is second.
I'd probably end up listing about 180 of the 290 or so artists currently in my catalogue, were I to think about it.

[Nabubrush]

I have Marquee Moon and love it, but it never makes me think 'punk'.

[jough]

Yeah, Television is totally new wave.

Some good suggestions of things to try out.  I have a number of those mentioned of course.

And please, show some respect - "Loaded" is the VU's best album, and they are my favourite band.

Also, I was tempted to go with Doolittle but Trompe le Monde edged it out by being spacier and being more replay worthy for me.  I wouldn't want to give up either, but if I had to choose I'd trick the world.

[AugustWest]

The Band -- The Band

[V-Adore]

I will humbly argue that Apollo 18 and John Henry are also TMBG essentials. Also, if you're going to buy the eponymous, you might as well get the Then: The Earlier Years two-CD set, which actually covers the entirety of their first three albums plus some other rarities. Good times.

Other essentials, at least IM(ns)HO:

Moxy Fruvous, Bargainville and You Will Go To the Moon
R.E.M., Document, Life's Rich Pageant, and New Adventures in Hi-Fi (there are like six or seven essential R.E.M. CDs, but if I had to pick three, these would be them)
Mono Puff, It's Fun to Steal
The Flaming Lips, Yoshimi Battles the Pink *****s (Hello, choir, how are you this fine afternoon?)

[Nabubrush]

John Lee Hooker. Muddy Waters. Etta James. Sinatra. Early 70s Stevie Wonder. Marvin Gaye and Al Green. Aretha and Otis Redding. P Funk.

The Stones up tilll about Some Girls. Van Morrison. Earth Wind & Fire and Commodores. Prince.

Queen. Thin Lizzy.  Motorhead. Misfits Collections. Bad Brains. One of the first two Iron Maiden albums. Black Sabbath (anything before Technical Ecstasy).

Beck, Weezer, White Stripes.

I second (or third) REM, Smiths, Pixies, Bowie, Jane's Addiction, Zappa, Clash, Nirvana.

[Limmo]

Harold Budd, Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois: The Pearl
Steve Tibbetts: Safe Journey
James Brown: Love Power Peace
Miles Davis: In a Silent Way
Peter Gabriel: Up

Also, what Nabu said. ( Except for the White Stripes )

"Loaded didn't have Maureen on it, and that's a lot of people's favorite VU record.  So we can't get too lost in the mystique of the Velvet Underground."  - Lou Reed

[miles]

And please, show some respect - "Loaded" is the VU's best album, and they are my favourite band.

Whoa--blasphemy!  VU & Nico is clearly the best.

[miles]

I have Marquee Moon and love it, but it never makes me think 'punk'.

That album is so beautiful.  I guess it's punk in the way that the Talking Heads and Patti Smith are punk.

I love making lists but am really bad at it, so I'll do my best to stay as close to a top 5.

1)Charles Mingus:  Black Saint and the Sinner Lady
2)Slint:  Spiderland
3)Built to Spill:  Keep it Like a Secret and/or Perfect From Now On
4)Tortoise:  Everyone Now Living Will Never Die
5)Red House Painters:  Down Colourful Hill
6)Fugazi:  In on the Killtaker
7)The Jesus Lizard:  Liar
8)Calexico:  The Black Light and/or Feast of Wire
9)Funkadelic:  Maggot Brain
10)Mekons:  Fear and Whiskey
11)John Coltrane:  Love Supreme

And I second the suggestion that you must own a Bob Dylan album.  I suggest Blonde on Blonde and Highway 61 Revisted as well.  Though if I had to choose....I'd shoot myself.

I realized that this isn't really in any particular order, so I don't know why I numbered it.

Edit:  Jesus I suck at making lists.  Can never limit myself.  How could I forget Talking Heads "Remain in Light?"  And from last year, Madvillain's Madvillainy.  It's my favorite hiphop record of all time, and I would find it very difficult to live without it.  That's enough.

[jough]

Yes yes, I have over 5,000 albums already, so I have many of these artists entire catalogues.  

I did realize that the only Talking Heads I had was the two disc Sand in the Vaseline, though, so I'm remedying that now, along with some other blind downloads.

I discovered the Flaming Lips earlier this year when listening to a KCRW "Morning Becomes Eclectic" show where they played live with Beck, doing mostly Beck songs but a few of their own, and I promptly acquired all three of their albums and find that they are excellent, especially Yoshi.

And of course I have Dylan - right now I'm just sticking with Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde (don't tell anyone you don't have Blonde on fuck*ng Blonde!), and Biograph, the boxed set.  That's enough for now.

Good call on Miles's "In a Silent Way" - one of the few I've never heard - but unfortunately they don't have it, so I'll have to pirate it the old fashioned way.

[Nabubrush]

When I began to make my list I had intended including the caveat "but you already have all of these" but I forgot by the end. The problem with discussing music with people who have 5000 albums is you have to be hugely obscure if you want to suggest something they don't have. I am a bit surprised your collection had deficiencies in the Stones and Talking Heads, though.

Let's see . . . Little Sue, Radio Birdman, Brad "Shame", Clutch, Blossom Dearie (not that obscure), Forreals, Hellacopters, Pink Martini, Rocket from the Tombs, Poison Idea, and Roman Candles.

Also, did anyone mention Steely Dan, Elvis Costello, RatM, Ramones, Teenage Fanclub, Warren Zevon, or the Red Hots?