Not One Wasted Second; The Pursuit of the Perfect Album - article discussion

I'm a big fan of many included so far. Many are close to being perfect but these two, for me fit that bill:

Radiohead - OK Computer
Pink Floyd - TDSOTM


Very close personal favourites here, based on part of the criteria that I never tire of any part of the albums:

The National - High Violet
The Strokes - Is This It
Joris Voorn - Balance 014


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The Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd. Greatest album ever.
Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd. Opus to Syd.
Ommadawn - Mike Oldfield. Oldfield's first great album.
Amarok - Mike Oldfield. Defies believe that it is composed and played by one man!!!
Brothers In Arms - Dire Straits. Knopfler conquers the world.
Amused to Death - Roger Waters. As good as some Pink Floyd albums.
 
This is a slightly odd question that Ed has posed, interesting to ponder perhaps, but I'm not sure it's that coherent an exercise.

Perfect albums must also imply that they're great albums, there's an overlap by implication I'd argue.
But there'll be albums which are just merely good, but meet the criteria of being thematically consistent, flow well, and are a good listen with no obvious skipping required. For some, these will also meet the criteria for consideration. But perfect albums they do not make.

Someone (picking at random here) above suggested a Gomez album - now, I quite liked them back in the day, but you'd be hard pushed to find that album in discussions of great albums of that era. It might be a well put together piece, and be broadly listenable the whole way through, but it cant be considered a perfect album because its also not a great album. One of many such examples being proposed.

So to me, and I may be in the minority, there are a bunch of widely considered great albums, and a subset of these may (may!) be regarded as truly perfect in the way Ed's question was phrased. But the overlap between great and perfect may be so high that I'm not sure what the worth is of isolating those great but imperfect albums. All you're left with are those with landmark, classic or near enough status.

In the last 25 years or so, OK Computer would figure very highly as a landmark piece of work - and the reason it figures so highly is how perfect it is. In other words, the most perfect albums are also the greatest. Introduce a track or two that are incongruous for their lower quality and you just dilute both greatness and perfection.
how about ignoring all and any of that and stick with personal choice for whatever reasons. I mean, it's not something that you can do without being highly subjective.
 
how about ignoring all and any of that and stick with personal choice for whatever reasons. I mean, it's not something that you can do without being highly subjective.
Just responding to the nature of the question.

After all, what does listing your favourites achieve?
I / you / we have / had our favourites irrespective of answering the question.

The articles aim is to find some commonality.

If its entirely subjective, then presumably one would have no objection to regarding both a Spice Girls album as similarly perfect as Dark Side of the Moon, or OK Computer.
 
greetings fellow album lovers
So i have just joined avforums just to contribute to this discussion. Love the albums already mentioned(oasis, stone roses, blondie, chemical brother,pink floyd, fleetwod mac, chemical brothers, boy the list can go on )
my suprise that beck is missing
beck: guero, odelay and even sea change
Explosions in the sky: how strange innocence ( great guitar playing and drumming)
Fugees : the score
lauryn hill: the miseducation of layryn hill
cinematic orchestra: ma fleur
Interpol : our love to admire
i can listen and enjoy till the cows come home, hopefully they never will.
 
So many great choices, best thread for a while

Previous shout outs

Prodigy fat of the land
Prince Sign of the times
Sade diamond life
KD sessions a blast from the past
Jean Michael Jarre oxygene


New to the mix

Florence and the machine lungs , (massive breakthrough album)
Lana del Rey born to die, (a slice of subverisve americano highs lows light and shade a great end to end story telling album)
Oasis what's the story or definitely maybe (gritty local heros)
Amy Winehouse back to black , a great album of a tortured sole at top of their game
 
you can't. People can't even stick with just one album.
Music is like food, way too subjective.

Thats obviously not true, or too literal.
There is such a thing as good food and bad food.
I don't take critics lists too literally (some get over exercised about precise ordering), but they have some value. The problem is when people dont like the selection that critics (lists) make, the response is "well its all subjective anyway".

When it comes to music (popular music at least), there will be from time to time recordings / albums that have a large impact, both because of their quality, ambitions, execution, impact and cultural resonance. Those are great albums, and generally not too controversial. How people order them in lists matters less.

Not all art is created equal.

Anyway, back on topic, I do still think that trying to distinguish between great albums and perfect albums (as Ed articulates) is an odd exercise. The perfect is a subset of the great.
 
Just catching up on this thread, but lovely to see Floodland mentioned. Not a duff moment on it, and so evocative. Awesome.

And the SoM are one of the few bands where a compilation could be included in a perfect album list. Some Girls (and to lesser extent A Slight Case of Overbombing) has enough "weight" (importance? impact? cultural significance?) to be included in the list.

Same thing with Joy Division's Substance. I wouldn't dare to include Unknown Pleasures or Closer over Substance.
 
Supertramp - Crime of the Century, My favourite album.
Paul Simon - Paul Simon, his first solo album and his best in my book.
Fleetwood Mac - Tango in the Night, simply great songs.
The Blue Nile - A Walk across the Rooftops, took a little while, but love this album.
Norah Jones - Feels like Home, her best album imo. Great production.
Joni Mitchell - Hits, fantastic songs. Everyone should have this in their collection.
 
Adding my own personal favourite. I'm a huge fan of live concert BluRays and CDs and The Airborne Toxic Event live at Disney Hall, LA is an absolutely amazing BluRay / CD 2 pack. I guess that means the CD can count as an album. The name of the band would make you think heavy metal. In fact it's more melodic, musical and closer to Coldplay / Keane and a host of more instrumental bands (I'm rubbish at this, someone else chime in and explain it better). Basically, give it a try, it's amazing.

Annoyingly, can't find it available to buy in the UK. You may need to hunt around a bit Amazon product ASIN B0058OHCSQ
 
Anyway, back on topic, I do still think that trying to distinguish between great albums and perfect albums (as Ed articulates) is an odd exercise. The perfect is a subset of the great.
It's an interesting point and perhaps part of the discussion that Ed was trying to induce and as you specifically used one of my own album choices in your first post (namely Gomez's 'Bring It On') I feel I ought to wade in.

For me, the distinction between an album being one of your all-time favourites, simply by being one you love listening to (which sadly clearly the Spice Girls example you gave would fall into for some people!) and being 'perfect' lies for me largely in the combination between the technical merit aspects of the album and the level of enjoyment I get from listening to it, but there are many more factors besides.

In the spirit of Ed's title, in my original post I did try and explore some of the factors that made my choices perfect for me. But others may use their own criteria. On the subject of commonality though, this is perhaps the area that some could be reached.

The final choices will always be different though because of the differences in personal taste.

The idea of technical perfection versus enjoyment in music is an interesting one though, highlighted by some notable tracks and albums that have been created in recent years using AI (essentially just an output from computer algorithms). Technically perfect? Maybe. But do they reach into your soul the way music really ought to? Actually, I've heard a couple of really good examples, but that is still another question entirely and one that surely has to be part of the criteria for being a perfect album, but which maintains the subjective element. Thus why commonality can never be found.

In that regard, no-one has managed to work out what it is about music that makes it enjoyable, other than the fact that particular types of music for particular people affects a particular part of the brain causing a dopamine rush (much as drugs, sex and food do) and while there will always be certain examples that manage to excite that response more widely, there will probably never be a single album that manages the feat for absolutely everyone. And certainly not while maintaining technical brilliance, artistry, individuality and any of the other factors which for me make an album great.

Ed's question asked for 'your' perfect albums, which to me inherently incorporated personal preference and subjectivity.

But as to the question of 'the' perfect album, well surely that doesn't exist.

Some great choices on here though and a great way to listen to some albums I've never heard before, enhanced by the fact that they are, at least in one person's eyes, 'perfect', which makes the whole exercise more than worthwhile.
 
I don't have any Led Zeppelin, but I've always heard good things. Can you be a bit more specific so I can find a copy and get my first taste?
I have all of Led Zeppelins studio.albums and few live ones but you could start with Led Zeppelin l or Led Zeppelin ll they have all of Led Zeppelins albums on Spotify so you can try before you buy
 
It's an interesting point and perhaps part of the discussion that Ed was trying to induce and as you specifically used one of my own album choices in your first post (namely Gomez's 'Bring It On') I feel I ought to wade in.

For me, the distinction between an album being one of your all-time favourites, simply by being one you love listening to (which sadly clearly the Spice Girls example you gave would fall into for some people!) and being 'perfect' lies for me largely in the combination between the technical merit aspects of the album and the level of enjoyment I get from listening to it, but there are many more factors besides.

In the spirit of Ed's title, in my original post I did try and explore some of the factors that made my choices perfect for me. But others may use their own criteria. On the subject of commonality though, this is perhaps the area that some could be reached.

The final choices will always be different though because of the differences in personal taste.

The idea of technical perfection versus enjoyment in music is an interesting one though, highlighted by some notable tracks and albums that have been created in recent years using AI (essentially just an output from computer algorithms). Technically perfect? Maybe. But do they reach into your soul the way music really ought to? Actually, I've heard a couple of really good examples, but that is still another question entirely and one that surely has to be part of the criteria for being a perfect album, but which maintains the subjective element. Thus why commonality can never be found.

In that regard, no-one has managed to work out what it is about music that makes it enjoyable, other than the fact that particular types of music for particular people affects a particular part of the brain causing a dopamine rush (much as drugs, sex and food do) and while there will always be certain examples that manage to excite that response more widely, there will probably never be a single album that manages the feat for absolutely everyone. And certainly not while maintaining technical brilliance, artistry, individuality and any of the other factors which for me make an album great.

Ed's question asked for 'your' perfect albums, which to me inherently incorporated personal preference and subjectivity.

But as to the question of 'the' perfect album, well surely that doesn't exist.

Some great choices on here though and a great way to listen to some albums I've never heard before, enhanced by the fact that they are, at least in one person's eyes, 'perfect', which makes the whole exercise more than worthwhile.

Hmm, not sure. The purpose is not specifically about technical perfection.

Not one wasted second is about albums that are taught in their construction, dont have incongruous tracks or passages, and are thematically coherent and consistent.

My broader point is that calling these perfect at the same time is a little odd.

The greatest of albums will more or less satisfy the above criteria, albeit to different extents.
But amongst these will be those that are perfect or as close to as makes any sense descriptively.

But again, there will be those works that are efficient in a way that satisfies the criteria, but to call them perfect when they are not truly great is where the difficulty lies. Again, I liked Bring it On plenty at the time, but it would be surprising to find it high on any retrospective of even the most impactful and relevant works of the late 90s/early 00s.

Anyway, maybe its just me - I dont like the juxtaposition of perfect with the not one wasted second criteria. It would confer greatness on less than great albums. Again, maybe just me.
 
Well here is one of my favourites that I can listen to without skipping a track.
Massive Wagons - Fight the System.

Shameless plug... sorry, but they've just released their latest album and it's their first top 10 album.
 
Can't believe no one's mention Muse's The Resistance. I had this on continuous play in my car for about a year and love every track.

Interesting to see others' view of perfection. Several people have mentioned The Final Cut by Pink Floyd - this was the album that completely turned me off them after being a big fan. I hated it and didn't listen to any of the subsequent PF releases until years later!
 

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