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Five Essential Albums

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mberan42:
In this thread we post five essential albums. They need not be "the best" albums. They need not be our "desert island" albums. They need not be cohesive albums. They only need be essential: the five essential power pop albums; the five essential sing-a-long albums; the five essential beer-drinkin' albums. You get the idea. The only extra thing I ask: why? I'll start it off.

The Five Essential Classic Rock Albums
(according to Matt; in no particular order)

[*]The Who - Who's Next
By far their greatest album. Not a concept like Tommy or Quadrophenia, just a solid, classic album. Starts out with a bang, ends with a fucking cannon blast.

[*]Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin IV
People rave about III, but I'm quite partial to IV. Not because of Stairway - I skip over it every time I listen to the album - but because it's a mature, cohesive album. I have personal reasons for liking "Going to California", and I made a terrible, awful Katrina joke when I played "When the Levee Breaks" a few months after Katrina, but overall this album is killer.

[*]Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
Man, I was all about to write about Animals, but I thought about it and if there was one essential Floyd album, it is Dark Side of the Moon. I mean, say what you will about hearing Money and Time and Brain Damage / Eclipse on the Classic Rock radio stations all the freaking time, there really is no start-to-finish better classic rock album than this one.

[*]Van Halen - 1984
Man, how can you not include this, the greatest Van Halen album ever, on this list? PANAMA!!!

[*]Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Deja Vu
This is a great album. Their best, by far. I don't have much else to say about this one.




Ok, your turn! Post five essential albums! Any genre, any category, any topic, ANYTHING! Five essential beach albums! Five essential nighttime albums! Five essential eatin' food so good you need to slap yo' mama albums!

Harun:

The Five Essential Albums Across the Metal Spectrum*


* At the Gates - Slaughter of the Soul - Although not the first to come into the melodic death metal scene, this album is highly regarded as the quintessential melodic death metal record. After this album came out, there have been so many who modeled off the guitarist(s) style, production sound, songwriting, vocal-style, etc that currently there are re-re-re-reincarnations of what At the Gates were doing more than ten years ago. Filled with low-tuned, menacing, and ultimately super-catchy guitar riffs and solos, beautiful and foreboding acoustic passages, and heavy yet clear production, this album is as close as anyone will ever get to melodic death metal perfection. Also: Tomas Lindberg's vocals will give you goosebumps (and maybe a little unease if you have never heard him). He manages to sound so abrasive and tortured, but it blends seamlessly with the music.


* Meshuggah - Chaospere - filled with endlessly groovy 8-string polymetric guitar riffs, a drummer who sounds like he has 5 sets of arms and legs, and lyrics that match this seemingly atonal and unintelligible music. But if you look (listen?) closer, you'll quickly realize that these guys are nothing sort of musical guineses (geniuii?).  What may first sound like an enormous wall of sound can eventually turn into a beautifully complex wall of sound, filled with enough variances to keep your ears busy for as long as your're willling to listen. Watch the video for New Millenium Cyanide Christ (best song title evar?) and try not to smile/bob your head to this.


* Metallica - ...And Justice for All - what's a list with a band that has the very genre they play in their name? And because choosing Master of Puppets is overrated/cliche, and for me AJFA was Metallica at their best. Faster, more technical, solid songwriting. This would have been perfect if wasn't for the absolutely decrepit production and lack of bass guitar presence.


* Cynic - Focus - One of the most unique and groundbreaking bands in metal. Blending elements of technical metal with jazz fusion, and spacey vocals (singer used a vocoder), this really sounds like music from another universe. A universe where people are really good at guitar and writing music, and have digital voiceboxes. Listen to multidimentional music from the future right now, and from the comfort of your home!


* Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath - for many metal fans, this is the album that started it all. The evil sounding triads, vocals/lyrics and distorted guitar were never heard together until this album was made. They were groundbreakers to say the least, and every single metal bands owes their existence to what these guys were doing more than thirty years ago.

 
*Note that with this list I am trying to convey the widest range of top five albums within metal as a whole. And I am not trying to name the five most classic/influential/ albums - someone else can make a list for those if they wish. Also: for practical/personal reasons I have chosen not to include black, power, and brutal death metal in my list for no reason other than I don't think any albums from the aformentioned sub-genres are essential listens. While I do enjoy some bands from those sub-genres, they are really more of a niche/specialized group of genres that while are occasionally enjoyable to listen to, are a bit more of an acquired taste than the albums I have included in this list. I could easily create separate essential album list for all gazillion metal sub-genres, but I doubt anyone here would care for them. I might however make an inessential essential top five metal albums using some of the genres I mentioned above, but I  again doubt any interest from these here forums. I'll probably still make it though when I am bored (tomorrow?!)

De_El:
five essential "no you fuck off" albums
- trainspotting soundtrack
- (GI) by the Germs
- the second annual report by Throbbing Gristle
- racer x by big black
- strap it on by helmet

Sythe:
Five Essential Albums for the Consumption of Faceblunts


Cypress Hill - Black Sunday


The Grateful Dead - Shakedown Street


Wu-Tang Clan - Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)


Amon Amarth - Versus the World


Opeth - Morningrise

Okay, this got real difficult towards the end. Ask me tomorrow, and the five essential albums will probably be The Chronic, Classics, California, Bloodlust, and Servants in Heaven, Kings in Hell.

Be My Head:
5 Essential Tech Death Albums

None So Vile by Cryptopsy


What can you say about an album like this? Their first album, Blasphemy Made Flesh would be better known if it weren't for the weak production. This album shows Cryptopsy at their peak. The production is clean and heavy, and the songs chaotic as all hell. Sadly, they started to suck bigtime after this album.

Symbolic by Death


Definitely not Death's finest effort. But this one is their most technically advanced and heavy, thus "Tech Death". The simple fact that it's a Death album means it's one of the finest in the genre. Go listen to it. Gene Hoglan fucking destroys everything on this album by the way.

Obscura by Gorguts


Armed with his knowledge of music and training in classical violin, guitarist Luc Lemay and Gorguts set out to create the most original sounding tech death album since None So Vile. Everything on this album feeds off each other, there are no leads, the drums play riffs, not beats. Luc and his bassist Steeve Hurdle more or less created their own technique of playing their instruments. This album is up there with modern classical composers like Iannis Xenakis and Karlheinz Stockhausen in my opinion.

Nemesis by Obliveon


Here is another classic album from those crazy Quebecois. It contains some of the most creative tech death ever. However the fact that they had to compete with Cryptopsy, and Gorguts sort of leaves them in the dust. If we compare them to the tech death scene in general, and not just the Quebec scene, then they kick lots of ass.

Testimony of The Ancients by Pestilence


The only non North American band on this list: Pestilence aren't really pioneers in any sense; they just put out some really great tech death in the 90s. Testimony of The Ancients is chock full of headbangingly good songs.

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