On a more on-topic note, a great album certainly has good songs on it, and it certainly represents a synthesis of influences that is unique and diversely cultivated, but I think it's gotta go farther than that. Over the course of a really great album, the listener must be exposed to an array of emotional or sonic experience, but should come away with a sense that the work is ultimately and essentially cohesive. On an album like
Loveless, I feel like I'm taken by the music into its own little world and shaken around like a little doll, thrown up, thrown down, and finally left to float on my own. I guess a really great album has to have a real arc, a well-struck balance of variety and unity. That, and having the songs and sounds to keep me reeled in, are of utmost importance.
Oh, and
Here you go. Come an' git me.
(edit, having now seen the above post) I must say that yes, I am one of those who really, truly does not like
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea for my own rather well-articulated reasons that I will not share here because they are not on-topic and further discussion on this specific subject could degenerate into at least a modest flame-war. I rather bluntly gave my opinion of
Aeroplane in the hope to quell what as I saw as a shared opinion here that the term "classic album" can be used objectively. I've never been too huge on
Slanted & Enchanted either, but that's neither here nor there. If there is any place in this thread for "maybe classic, but I can't stand it," I would appreciate more discussion on the subject; otherwise, let's drop it.