I have been listening to a lot of music in my travels lately. It got me to thinking about the great albums of the past 25 years. Best written, performed and produced. The "Sgt Peppers" or Pet Sounds. If I had to pick 3, for me it would be:
Blood Sugar Sex Magik - cover to cover a masterpiece. Their writing and playing were on point and Rick Rubin did an unbelievable job producing. The depth inside the music is unreal. Mouth forks, trash cans, toy pianos.
OK Computer - rarely does am album come out that sounds like nothing before it and be almost perfect. The guitars on this album are among the best. Songwriting was amazing and it's a very passionate album.
Black Messiah - D'Angelo. This album, to me, is a generational album. In my top 5 of all time. The funk of Sly, soul of James and his own darkness. Every song has great blending of genres. Hell, one song has steel pedal twang in it. This album doesn't get its due because the music industry sucks , but 20 years from now this will be considered one of the most influential albums of all time.
Til The Medicine Takes - Widespread Panic
Transistor - 311
3030 - Deltron
Too High To Die - Meat Puppets
Audioslave - self titled
Rodrigo y Gabriela - self titled
Drunken Lullabies - Flogging Molly
Queens of the Stome Age - Songs for the Deaf
Them Crooked Vultures - self titled
Above - Mad Season
Today We Sail - Boris Garcia
Some great choices already. I'll add:
Suger, Cooper Blue (barely makes the 25 year threshold)
Temple of the Dog (ditto the time criteria)
Queens of the Stone Age
Looking forward to shagging down the ones noted that I haven't heard.
One of the most ambitious albums of my lifetime. Mind bending concept, defies categorization, and features some downright blistering musicianship
Anderson Paak - Malibu
Benjamin Booker - Benjamin Booker
Chance the Rapper - Coloring Book
Leon Bridges - Coming Home
Raphael Saadiq - The Way I See It
Tame Impala - Lonerism
Moses Sumney - Mid-City Island [technically an EP]
Daft Punk - Random Access Memories
Earlier stuff:
Jeff Buckley - Grace
A Tribe Called Quest- People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm
Maroon 5 - Songs About Jane
Green Day - Insomniac
NOFX -Punk in Drublic
Any of Rancids first four albums
Lifetime - Hello Bastards
Catch-22 Keasbey Nights
Bouncing Souls - Maniacal Laughter
The Copyrights -North Sentinel Island
Jeff Buckley - Grace
Okkerivl River - Down the River of Golden Dreams
The Decemberists - Castaways and Cutouts
The Reindeer Section - Sons of Evil Reindeer
Anthony & the Johnsons - I am a Bird Now
Bands of Horses - Everything All the Time
The National - Boxer
The Antlers - Hospice
Josh Ritter - Hello Starling
Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Original Soundtrack, Jeremy Soule (Composer)
The Music of Hans Zimmer: Definitive Collection
And my personal favorites:
Sun; Thomas Bergersen, composer
Battlecry, Invincible, Miracles, Illusions are all masterpieces from 2 Steps from Hell.
If you like that stuff and you haven't listened to The Shape Of Punk To Come by Refused, you need to.
It's unlike any other hardcore album I've ever heard.
40oz to Freedom should have been mentioned at least 137 times more. Can't pick a "greatest" but holy shit that's a great album. Easily the most stolen album of my college yrs too
And ya...QOTSA, Black Keys, White Stripes, Them Crooked Vultures all could find their way in. Just at the tail end of the 25 you still have Metallica's Black album & GnR Use Your Illusion (tho the latter as a start to finish album maybe not...still lots of great stuff).
A couple that I didn't see on quick look:
Jack White - Blunderbuss
Damian Marley - Welcome to Jamrock. Just got reacquainted last night...so good
Play - Squeeze
When I Was Cruel - Elvis Costello
Painted From Memory - Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach
Back to Black - Amy Winehouse
Woodface - Crowded House
Burning Questions - Graham Parker
Monster - REM
Vitalogy - Pearl Jam
Achtung, Baby - U2
2. Slim Shady LP
...and the rest aren't even close. People who didn't even like eminem were buying his music and even in a time when piracy in music became a big thing, he still blew up the charts. The lyrical content on Marshall Mathers LP is untouchable and like he said, eminem from that point was his "own competition"
Maybe others are Linkin Park-hybrid Theory. That didn't have the shelf life as MMLP did. I was listening to that all the way until the eminem show came out in 2002.
I don't want to put Nirvana Never mind, if that is even elligible.
Jeff Buckley - Grace
Okkerivl River - Down the River of Golden Dreams
The Decemberists - Castaways and Cutouts
The Reindeer Section - Sons of Evil Reindeer
Anthony & the Johnsons - I am a Bird Now
Bands of Horses - Everything All the Time
The National - Boxer
The Antlers - Hospice
Josh Ritter - Hello Starling
Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
I like a lot of these as well. The National may be my favorite band. I think High Violet is their best album but Boxer and Alligator are right up there too. Bon Iver deserves mention on this thread and I like The Antlers a lot too. Anthony & the Johnsons took me a while to get into but it's a beautiful album. I'll have to check out some of these others. Good stuff.
40oz to Freedom should have been mentioned at least 137 times more. Can't pick a "greatest" but holy shit that's a great album. Easily the most stolen album of my college yrs too
And ya...QOTSA, Black Keys, White Stripes, Them Crooked Vultures all could find their way in. Just at the tail end of the 25 you still have Metallica's Black album & GnR Use Your Illusion (tho the latter as a start to finish album maybe not...still lots of great stuff).
A couple that I didn't see on quick look:
Jack White - Blunderbuss
Damian Marley - Welcome to Jamrock. Just got reacquainted last night...so good
Jason Isbell - Southeastern
Jayhawks - Hollywood Town Hall
Ryan Bingham - Mescalito
Dave Alvin - King of California
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
You should check out Lucero, they are also an excellent live band if you have the chance to see them.
4. Nirvana - Nevermind
3. Jeff Buckley - Grace
2. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
1. Radiohead - OK Computer