I realize we've had several polls in the past with our all time favorite albums, but I was just listening to Doolittle and wanted to start a thread where everybody just named their number one album of all time.

Doolittle - Pixies

The Queen Is Dead - The Smiths

Wonderful album

The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds

Amazes and cleanses every time.

Today it is...

Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited.

OK Computer.

Forever.

I will always hold Are You Expienced as the top album of all time. Compared to every other album it just blows them away. Thw only album where not only every songs is good, every song is excellent.

OK Computer, no question.

Elliott Smith - Either/Or

I think Are You Experienced is my 2nd favourite album of the 60s. (which means it would be in my top 50 all time... yeah I'm really much more a 90s, 00s guy)

Loveless- My Bloody Valentine
etherial warm and fuzzy goodness.


and i hold are you experienced in VERY high regard #15 for me!

Alright... I stand corrected! I've just never heard many people talk about it much.

Joni Mitchell - "Blue"

Neutral Milk Hotel - "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea"

Gets me emotionally every time.

Love - Forever Changes

Mixing psychedelia with horn and string arrangements? Nice

Robert Wyatt - Rock Bottom

The Clash, London Calling.

MAGMA-Mekanik destruktïw kommandöh.
Magma was a French musical cult phenomenon that had their own dress code (black robes) and even developed their own language (sort of teutonic apocalyptic gibberish). Band leader Christian Vander renamed himself Zebëhn Straïn Dë Geustaah.
'Mekanik destruktïw kommandöh' sounds like nothing else, number one in a league of one. A description of it should go something like 'The sound of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana played by a pack of Neanderthals, while John Coltrane is lurking somewhere in the background'. It's my desert island disc, though MDK is not so much designed for the average tropical palm beach in the Pacific, more for a long, long stay during those dark tough winters on, say, Nova Zembla. HORTZ FUR DËHN STEKËHN WEST!

Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

But I don't think it'll be my favorite for the rest of my life.

London Calling.

Probably Blonde On Blonde is usually my favorite, although sometimes I like Are You Experienced and Highway 61 Revisited more.

Probably Revolver...
but Pet Sounds (and the undersung SUNFLOWER) are frequent competitors for the spot.

The Cure - Disintegration

London Calling

I often find 'Are You Experienced' hard to rate. On the version I've always known,the remastered CD version,there are 17 tracks since their 3 singles and B-sides are on there. This tracklisting is almost unbeatable,but the original 1967 release is significantly weaker.

Paul Simon - Graceland

(Long time since my last post)

"Velvet Underground & Nico" for me.
Never get tired of it.

either Revolver, OK Computer, or London Calling

all three are flawless in every sense of the word.

Bricolage - Amon Tobin

(which is also the best album not in the top 3000 or bubbling under)

And I mean it. Sometimes I'm not quite in the mood for The Beatles, or for The Rolling Stones, or for Pet Sounds or Radiohead. I'm always in the mood for Bricolage, somehow.

I vacillate between Charles Mingus - The Black Saint and The Sinner Lady, John Coltrane - A Love Supreme, and Stevie Wonder - Innervisions. All are absolute masterpieces.

london calling

Bringing It All Back Home.

On quite a few days of an average month, my favourite would be Dylan's "Live 1975: The Rolling Thunder Revue". I'm flabbergasted that it's not even bubbling under the AM top 3000. The things he does to well-known and lesser-known songs alike in reinterpreting them on stage is not a bit less impressive than the fabled 1966 concert recordings, the official release of which sits at AM #559.

OK Computer - Amazing.

I have "Copper Blue" and "Beaster" (both with Sugar) on the same minidisc. I usually fall aslepp after a few songs and wake up somewhere in "Beaster". The usefullness of these albums is huge and a feeling of sanity always appears.

"Doolittle", "Forever Changes" or "Marquee Moon" is the best if you press me for an answer.

Beaster is one of my favorite EPs, and its 30 minutes so it might as well be an album.

If i had to choose one album, it would be "Double Nickles on the Dime"

The White Album

The only double album where even the fillers are totally indispensable!

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars

The Beach Boys - Surf's Up

such a hard question... it's not like making a top 10 list where you get 10 chances and is 8 of them are ok, it's good enough. one chance here, and you better make sure you don't change your mind a week later.

if i try to ignore all bias, i would say that pet sounds really is the best album of all time. for me, nevermind and ok computer both make an impressive claim to the throne, but pet sounds wins.

forget who picked blue, but whoever it was, well done. it took me a long time to "get" joni mitchell but ever since i have, that album has been finding its way closer and closer to my heart. i don't think it's no#1, probably about top 20 for me. anyway, you obviously understand that album completely and considering how much trouble i had figuring it out, that's quite an accomplishment so well done to you.

AYE is another album that took me ages to get, but now i love it. seven songs off it are deservedly mentioned on the AM top 3000, and two more are bubbling under (get red houes back into the list, it totally deserves to be ranked). that's pretty impressive...

Kid A

With OK Computer, and In Rainbows as close second and third.

Tindersticks (Second Album)

With Joy Division - Closer and Talking Heads - Remain in Light as close second and third.

The Beatles - The White Album

Wilco- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

To me it's the perfect storm of melody, experimentation, and lyrical content. It took on an accidental poignancy after 9-11 that doesn't exactly hurt it either.

Prince- 1999

Everything I love about music is encapsulated somehow in this album. It is my musical genesis, and I've probably bought over 30 copies of it.

Have you bought friends copies Moonbeam?

Laura Nyro - Eli & The Thirteenth Confession

I think I elaborated on my favorite choice before, but #1 for me if Frank Zappa's 1979 album Sheik Yerbouti.

I'll put in a fifth vote for London Calling, though My Bloody Valentine's Loveless is extremely close.

Speaking of Frank Zappa, I just listened to Absolutely Free again for the millionth time. It's all very weird and silly, probably not adjectives for "all-time favorite." But the fact that I've heard it so many times, and that it blows my mind every time....

Dark Side Of The Moon. Period.

I don't know. It's much easier to find my favorite song (Baba O'Riley) than favorite album. I must say What's the Story Morning Glory or Dark Side of the Moon.

Radiohead's 'Kid A'.

The music album turned metaphysical experience. The musical equivalent of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Pet Sounds.

As soon as I heard it I could understood why everyone loved it, and after a few listens I was hooked.

The Beatles - Abbey Road.

Talk Talk - Spirit of Eden

Mojave 3 - "Excuses for travellers"

Great call on Innervisions. I am not a big fan of "All in Love Is Fair", and my next least favorite track is "Jesus Children of America." But, Innervisions and Talking Book are both fantastic works.

Abbey Road is my favorite as well. Dark Side of the Moon and Who's Next are right up there.

I was a teenager in the 90s. Nevermind is my soundtrack for life.

Tom Waits - Small Change

#3 would be Neutral Milk Hotel, though.

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one to love this record.
For me Mojave 3 is a kind of a "british-Wilco". I like Wilco but they're maybe too "typical-american" for me. As a european I feel closer to UK pop/folk and Mojave 3 is THE good deal in this style of music.
I have a special history with "Excuses for travellers".
At the time of its release, I haven't heard before of Mojave 3 (they have released 2 records before that one) nor Slowdive. I've read a good review of "excuses for travellers" in french magazine Magic! that talked about kind of "desert-island album". Instantly that gave me the envy to purchase the record and then it was a shock for me, I fell in love with this record. In 2000, I was in the army during 10 months. That weren't good times for me. As a real peaceful guy, I found that all the army stuff was dumb and useless. I was far from my home and felt very melancolic. And when I felt that way, my only "sweet home" where I could feel good was "Excuses for travellers". I remember when the Officer did his round of the bedrooms at 22 o'clock to tell us "It's time to turn off the lights and to sleep", I discretly took my walkman and listened to Mojave 3 with my headphones. It helped me to get out of me all the stress of the day and led me to sleep peacefully. Now in 2009 looking back at that, I found this a little funny. But when you're sad and far from home, you clutch at what you can. It's an album that I still listen, 2 or 3 times a year, especially when I feel melancholic (like today). It's like a close friend who understands your pain without needing to talk.

I don't have one yet! It's so hard to pick one! When people ask my favorites albums of all time, i never put a order. I always put in alphabetic order, i can't pick one. I love all of them equal, its strength and its weakness. I love how Joni Mitchell's Blue is naked, how The Pixies' Surfer Rosa is raw, how Liz Phair's Exile In Guyville is honest, how PJ Harvey's To Bring You My Love is mysterious, how each moment of Tori Amos' Little Earthquakes are confessions that at first don't look what they really are. I could describe all my 1827 albums, how they are, but it would be a waste of time, no one would read such a big reply. It's hard, each album it's different, even when they share the same artist, i guess this what acclaimedmusic.net makes, give us a list of 3000 terrific albums (excluding the bubbling under) that are hard to pick just one. Maybe one day, i might pick one and say, this is it, this is the one! But nothing so far, every time i pick one, another album suddenly becomes even better, or surprises me. I guess is The Way Things Are for me.

Interpol's Turn On The Bright Lights.

Perfect.

It is still Nine Inch Nails "Pretty Hate Machine" and has been for the past 22 years!!!

OK Computer, hands down.

Close call between my top three:

1) Abbey Road
2) Who's Next
3) Talking Book

Astral Weeks

The Verlaines - Bird Dog

Prabably : Sign 'o' the time - Prince.

Radiohead - In Rainbows

It's a popular choice, but OK Computer has been my favourite album ever since I heard it as a teenager 14 years ago. I can still vividly remember the day I fell in love with it. I had just come home from school and was lying on my bed listening to it with my headphones on. The music overwhelmed me so much that I understood (for the first time) how exceptional music could make the world seem like a better place. I've been listening to a lot of albums since then, almost hoping that I would find something that would surpass it... but nothing has surpassed it yet.

The Velvet Underground - White Light/ White Heat
Miles Davis - Bitches Brew
Grizzly Bear - Yellow House
New Order - Brotherhood
Elliot Smith - Either/Or

Hard to say which one is the best. They change everytime I listen to them.

One album? The Suburbs.

I know.

Funeral is second. It had six big-time songs: Neighborhoods 1, 3, and 4, Wake Up, Haiti, and Rebellion (Lies).

Suburbs had ten: The Suburbs, Sprawl II, We Used to Wait, Ready to Start, Modern Man, Suburban War, Half Light II, Month of May, Empty Room, City with No Children.

2010 is overrepresented in my top 10/25/50/100. I can't explain why, especially because 2009 is so low (and was at the time). But here are my overall top ten:

1. The Suburbs
2. Funeral
3. VU and Nico
4. Free Energy - Stuck on Nothing
5. Zeppelin IV
6. Highway 61
7. Marquee Moon
8. Born to Run
9. OK Computer
10. Belle & Sebastian Write About Love

Those three from 2010 are the only ones that look weird in that company. Doesn't make sense to me, either.

.
another vote for prince's masterpiece ' sign of the times '
.
his genius cant be denied after listening to this album...
.
needs remastered badly though...

"Dark Side of the Moon. Period."

It really can't be anything else, can it? There's just far too much depth to that record, both in terms of texture and atmosphere, for anything else to ever rival it. It's just so...perfect, all pieced together in such a brilliant way I haven't heard since, save for OK Computer, and perhaps Mingus's The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady.