I'm talking about songs that are just so goddamn brilliant that even though you know the whole album is great, you just never feel motivated enough to listen to the rest of it, cuz this one song just blows it away. Is this just me who feels this?

Personally, I'm thinking of 'Waltz #2' by Elliott Smith and 'Ladies And Gentlemen We're Floating In Space' by Spiritualized.

Ok. Halleluja from Grace and Karmacoma from Protection.

The Message on whatever Grandmaster Flash album that is.

I'll Be Your Lover, Too from His Band and the Street Choir.

Killing in the name of, from RATM

Every Grain of Sand from Dylan's Shot of Love

Pulp's Common People.

I totally agree for Common People.
But I have to disagree for Killing in the Name, which is probably the most boring song on the album, and for Waltz #2, it is indeed the best song on the album, but since it follows Tomorrow, Tomorrow you should at least listen to those 2 in a row

I would personnaly add The Strokes - Last Nite
Beta Band - Dry the Rain
Soundgarden - Black Hole Sun
LCD Soundsystem - Tribulations (+ Movement)
The Streets - Turn the Page
The Avalanches - Frontier Psychiatrist
MC5 - Kick out the Jams

Used to be true about Idioteque, but I tend to listen to Kid A as a whole now

Battles - Atlas
Hall & Oates - I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)
The Who - Pinball Wizard

Don't agree with Common People, I can bear to listen to Different Class completely.

I do agree on Dry the Rain, Pinball Wizard, Black Hole Sun and Tribulations. LCD Soundsystem's debut album is more a collection of independent singles anyway, to be listened to singularly. In that respect, Sound Of Silver is better.

Further nice songs on, imho, lesser albums:
The Who - My Generation, David Bowie - Heroes, Eagles - Hotel California & Rolling Stones - Miss You.

And a few guilty pleasures where I avoid listening to the album: Men At Work - Down Under, Tanita Tikaram - Twist In My Sobriety & The Cardigans - Lovefool.

I think You Really Got Me is a slightly better song than My Generation, but that The Who Sings My Generation is a whole lot better than the Kinks first album, so I could pick YRGM, except for the fact that it really should be judges as a single (the album is just filler).

How about "American Pie"? That song is almost too good for Don McClean's entire career, let alone whatever album it's on.

You just listed 4 of my favorite albums and 2 bubbling under Andre.

These are very personal tastes

Guns n Roses : Sweet Child Of Mine (sorry Neo)
U2 : One
Alain Bashung : La Nuit Je Mens (for the French)

Down Under is a great song Andre !
Good memory

dire straits - sultans of swing
jefferson airplane - white rabbit
queen - bohemian rhapsody
queens of the stone age - everybody knows that you're insane
radiohead - creep
simon and garfunkel - bridge over troubled water (i know people will disagree here)
slayer - angel of death

by the way, spot on linesome panda with frontier psychiatrist. since i left you is also an excellent song though... i think those two songs are too good for that album.

Down Under is a great song Andre !
Good memory

Ah, that reminds me - Men At Work's Cargo has 2 BRILLIANT tracks, and the rest is mediocre to awful. "It's a Mistake" and "Overkill" are great '80s pop.

You don't like The Only Living Boy in New York, Moebid? I can understand the rest even though it's the only S+G album that I really like but Only Living Boy is just as much a masterpiece as Bridge Over Troubled Water.

Radiohead's "Creep" is a good one. For some reason the two that really come to my mind are Bob Dylan's "Hurricane" and Jesus Jones' "Right Here, Right Now."

"Brownsville Girl" may be the most obvious Dylan pick.

sonofsamian

that's memory lane ...
Must be 20 years since I haven't listened to "Cargo"
used to own it. I remember "Overkill" but not "it's a mistake"
the singer had a great voice

Beatles, "Please Please Me"
ABC, "The Look of Love"
Madonna, "Ray of Light"
Husker Du, "Could You Be the One"
Eurythmics...basically, the first single from every album

That Men At Work singer, Colin Hay, was playing at my student union a few weeks ago. The student newspaper i write for published a very positive review of it.

I Like Chopin from Gazebo's I Like Chopin. That's a horrible record, except for that beautiful song.

Here's some

1. Smashing Pumpkins - For Martha
2. Arctic Monkeys – A Certain Romance
3. Neutral Milk Hotel – Song Against Sex
4. Frank Zappa / Mothers of Invention – Brown Shoes Don’t Make It
5. The Strokes – You Only Live Once
6. Dismemberment Plan – Sentimental Man

I’m an album guy so this was a little difficult.

I think Only Living Boy in New York is way better than Bridge. Too me it stands above everything in the S&G catalog.

What, Jonah?!?

On Avery Island has a lot of wonderful songs. Song Against Sex isn't even the best one. Three Peaches, Naomi and Where You'll Find Me Now are even better. It's a great album.

well Rune, like with any album, I can always revisit it, but I've given Avery Island quite a few extra chances, and except for the first song it just sounds tinny and indistinct.

Maybe my listening of Aeroplane before finding a copy of Avery Island shapes how I hear it, since that album has a clear forceful sound.

Has anyone taken a look at Musichound’s Rock N’ Roll Guide entry for Neutral Milk Hotel? They give On Avery Island the perfect score of 5 bones while Aeroplane was given either a “WOOF!” or 1.5 bones, claiming the songs on that record sounded “half-written”. I have to find that book again, because their short review was really bizarre. Aeroplane is DEFINITELY not a horrendous sophomore slump.

Jonah – I actually enjoy Adore quite a bit; it’s chock full of gems (Ava Adore, Perfect, Crestfallen, etc.), but I will admit that “For Martha” is something special. (I recently found a live version of it that’s 18+ minutes long!) You’re dead on about The Strokes though.

And I haven’t read that particular review of “In The Aeroplane…”, but I wonder if the writer feels like a idiot for his ridiculous claim. Half-written? He probably stopped the disc after “King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. 1” and drew the conclusion based on that.

OK, it turns out that I am organized enough to have put the MusicHound Rock Essential Album Guide on an actual bookshelf, as opposed to a stack in my closet or an unlabeled box.

And it turns out the reviewer did not say that Aeroplane had "half-written" songs. Must have been another outrageous review I remembered.

The reviewer gave two bones (out of 5) to Aeroplane, saying that it:

"lacks its predecessor's quirky richness and ear-opening arrangements. It's suprisingly stripped down, with Magnum howling -- often tunelessly -- over the vigorous strum of his acoustic guitar."

I guess the reviewer (Greg Kot, who I think is one of the cohosts of the radio show Sound Opinions) was polishing his music journalism trophies while Ghost and its euphoric coda were playing. Stripped down? WTF? Even if some songs are accompanied by just a guitar, Jeff Magnum's voice has the power of a whole backing orchestra.

But it isn't as scathing a review as I remembered, but if On Avery Island is a album with a perfect score (very rare in this book if you don't look at the entry for the Beatles), Aeroplane does not deserve that bad a review. The book was published in 1998, so maybe the star had not quite risen on that record.

Another review in this book that I remember was pretty shocking was for Tool's Aenima. I'm not as devoted to this album as others, but here's what the reviewer said.

"The long wait for Tool's sophomore full-length culminated with the dismal, unfocused Aenima, a dense, dour and pondeorous disc that lacks the best qualities of Undertow"

Ouch! They give it 1.5 bones after giving Undertow 4.

"The long wait for Tool's sophomore full-length culminated with the dismal, unfocused Aenima, a dense, dour and pondeorous disc that lacks the best qualities of Undertow"

Omg, that's my all time favorite album. What an idiot reviwer, who probably doesnt listen to an album twice before judging.

The View - Same Jeans
British Sea Power - Please Stand Up