Favorite Bands, and your favorite albums from them?

[Nyth Grandbeard]

Hello gang,

I'm sure this question has been answered a dozen times on this forum but with all these new people (myself included) I wanna know what you're listening to! I wanna spice it up a little however, not only what are your favorite bands but what are your favorite albums by them and why? For me:

Band: The Residents
Album: Demons Dance Alone

Love The Residents and their whole mantra on the Theory of Obscurity, essentially just means letting their art speak for itself and not letting their actual lives really be known. Von kinda had a similar approach with his whole air of mystery about him, not letting too much out. Demons Dance Alone is their album made in response to the 911 attacks back in 2001 here in the states, and is an album about confusion and fear perfectly illustrated through the Avant Garde sounds of their music. I also really recommend Duck Stab, and Commercial Album if you want more from them.

Band: Gorillaz
Album: Self Titled

As an illustrator myself I got really drawn (no pun intended) into the visual flair of Gorillaz, and their music certainly lived up to the style. I enjoy music from various different backgrounds, not just rock. The band's constant mix of different genre's and lack of fear in trying new things always keep them fresh for me. Self Titled however is just Gorillaz in their purest form and that's why I love it so much. The seamless blend of rock, punk, dub, and hip-hop just take me back to the early 2000s and it's all so nostalgic for me.

Band: Daft Punk
Album: Random Access Memories

Daft Punk is another band which has tried it's hands at different genres but more so confined to the world of electronic music. They have dabbled in Techno, house, edm, r&b, and soft rock. I feel like their latest album (at the time of writing this) is them at their peak. I know people have some hard feelings towards sampling, but Daft Punk here keep the sampling to a minimum and instead craft a completely personal, and unique album that breathes the season of summer so well in my eyes.

and last but certainly not least

Band: Sisters of Mercy
Album: First and Last and Always

Perhaps the Sisters have stuck with me the same way that all these previous bands have, and that is by trying different things in their music. I know lots of people yearn for how the band would've been if Hussey, Adams, and Marx didn't part ways with ol' Von but in a way I don't mind with what we got. We got a really solid (not)gothic rock album, a groovy (not)gothic industrial album, and a pretty decent hard rock album all of which are on heavy rotation. FALAA will always be my favorite however, there is just something very interesting about the approach everyone in the band made to create this record. The songs are timeless, and simply amazing. This album just reeks of right time and right place, like an ancient eldritch prophecy foretold the smithing of these excellent air vibrations by some of the finest of the era. Floodland and Vision Thing are still classics in my eye, but they have a certain age to them that I feel hasn't crept up on their first album. Hopefully we haven't heard the last from the sisters yet, but regardless, we will always have what was already given to us.

How about you guys? would love to hear your thoughts!

Also mods if you're sick of this question and don't want to see it again feel free to delete this post! No harm no foul, thanks for your time!

[DJElectricDaddy]

Great question.

For me music and specific albums kinda represent a time and place, where I was when I listened to that album and the event or location was rather significant. Like how I can’t listen to NMA No Rest For The Wicked without being transported back to the Vegas Strip surrounded by all the gratuitous neon and greed and ugliness listening to that album on my wobbly old Walkman.

Anyway, favourite albums, that I never get tired of listening to, that I’ve played to death over a long period of years without tiring (my criteria for this task); in no particular order

Godspeed! You Black Emperor - F#A#Infinity
My fave album by this experimental band of merry Canadians. Great mix of instruments and found sound samples. I have every album by them but I never tire of this masterpiece and return to it at least once a month. I love long prog concept albums and the three songs on this album wind thorough phases and moods that take you on a different journey each time.

Underworld - Second Toughest In The Infants
This album was responsible for turning me to the dark side of.....electronic music. Opening my eyes to another world of bleeps and bloops. And thus began a long lasting love affair with synthesizers. Every track a ‘banger’ (as the kids say these days - wankers). No fillers here. I had just moved from London to California and my world had changed, and serendipitously so did my music. I got this album about a month after I moved into our first apartment and it will always hold a special place in my collection.

Smashing Pumpkins - Gish
From the opening drum refrain of I Am One to the waning jangles of Daydream every note, every chord change, every beat is a crafted masterpiece. Saw them on Tube or Whistle Test and was wowed. Been in love with this album from the very first seconds I heard it and that bond is as strong today. Pumpkins at their very best and most pure. They produced some great songs and more diverse albums but this album captured the very essence of Pumpkinland

The Sisters (natch) - Floodland
Anything really by our beleoved Grand Master, but this is my fave and has been for years now. For a long time I was married to FALAA. It was the album that ‘turned me goth’ and I never looked back. I found my people and found me. This album was my bedrock forever. When The Sisters re-emerged with Corrosion, like many I was torn. It was a new realease, but it wasn’t Sisterly. Where was Craig’s thundering bass, where was the chorus/flanger drenched jangly guitars. Then when Floodland came out it was a disappointment. No guitars loads of synths, this was pop music. I couldn’t dance to this. Turns out Von was ahead the game, he knew what he was doing all along. Took a few years (and Underworld to turn me on to the majesty of the VCO) but I grew to love this album more than any other. Every track a masterpiece of instrumentation, lyricism, poetry, imagery, production.

Obviously there are dozens, hundreds more albums that have stood the test of time that I love, I could literally go on for days about this. There’s also albums that are special (like Underworld) for significant reasons (like turning me on to ‘techno’). Like Blondie ‘Parallel Lines’ that my mum bought me for Xmas when I was 10 along with a tape deck to play it. My first own album that began a life long love for music. Like Pink Floyd ‘The Wall’ that my mum took me to see in the theatres and bought the album (that I subsequently nicked from them). In fact The Wall is an album that should be up above in one of the greatest. Like Meat Loaf ‘Bat Out Of Hell’ the first album I taped onto a TDK D90 from my friend. This album made me and my friend form our first band in high school. Like Hanoi Rocks ‘Million Miles Away’ the first song I played over and over and over while I pined for a girl I missed.

“Memories, you’re talking about memories......” -Deckard

[pearson]

these are not the best records of the world.
just the great blasts of my life.
(my english isn't the best,sorry.)


The Sisters of Mercy - The Reptile House E.P.

my personal blast to the world of music when i was fifteen.this record is unique and dirty and rough and heavy and ...fantastic.these vocals and feelings and words and soul is one of the best discs you'll ever hear in your life.
after all these years nothing and nobody can compare these songs with others.
this record defines power.


The Sisters of Mercy - Heartland (Bootleg/Demos)

my personal blast to world of the sisters when i was seventeen.
demos and darkness and drugs and experimental thoughts.
this record and my age of seventeen fits perfectly.


The Sisters of Mercy - Exxile in Cologne (live)

do you have any live bootleg where do you know every note and every breath of the singer?
this is mine.i like the sound,the guitars,the voice and the doctor (nice and heavy).
maybe there are better ones of the 80s and early 90s...and i like these too.
but this is it.


David Bowie - Station to Station

i'm a bowiephile.
every disc,vinyl,book or dvd is mine.
this album is the bowie record.the thin white duke.
the lost bowie.the cocaine and dark bowie.
depressions and dancing and no ending.


Underworld - Everything Everything

my personal blast to the electronic world of music when i was twenty.
great energy and art.sometimes really hard and simple.
but there is something edgy in it.
and i know there are better electronic records out there (eno,kraftwerk & co.).
this was just my first steps to electro.


Motörhead - Iron Fist

simple & clever rock'roll.
i'm not a fan of ac/dc or something like that.
motörhead is different to me.
it's rock but there is more in it.
and i like the voice and the speed (not the drug).

[alanm]

"Favourite" can be approached from different angles.
Let me

• leave off the Sisters because it's redundant to add them in this forum
• optimise for longevity plus whole album is awesome not just a few songs

This comes up

• Alice Cooper - Hey Stoopid
• Arapaho - Wicked Wonder
• Black Sorrows - Super Hits
• L7 - Hungry For Stink
• The Macc Lads - Beer Sex Chips 'N' Gravy
• Mango Groove - Self Titled
• Metallica - Kill 'Em All
• Rage Against The Machine - Self Titled
• The Offspring - Smash

That leaves out a ton of great albums that don't quite pass the "been there since before mp3" filter.