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sophia_sol) wrote2020-10-06 08:41 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2020-10-06 08:41 pm
Entry tags:
top 10 albums
I was fascinated to go through Rolling Stone's recent updated list of what they consider the top 500 music albums ever. Of those 500 albums, I have listened to..... all of 5 albums in their entirety. Rolling Stone and I have very different taste in music.
(the albums I've listened to: Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon & Garfunkel, The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance, At Folsom Prison by Johnny Cash, 1989 by Taylor Swift, and Joshua Tree by U2)
So I thought maybe I'd put together my own list of my top albums. Note that I am making my calls based on what I like best as an album experience rather than based on who my favourite musicians are, or which albums contain my favourite songs, or how much I like the musical/movie a soundtrack is from.
Here's my current top ten! There's exactly one album on my list that also appears on Rolling Stone's top 500.
1. Hadestown, by Anais Mitchell
A concept album telling the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. It sketches everything out strongly enough that you can get a sense for the story but lightly enough that there's....there's room in it. You have to put yourself into it to get things out of it. Fascinating, fabulous, and evocative.
2. The Prince of Egypt Soundtrack
One of the few albums I can listen to basically endlessly without getting sick of it. One of the few albums where I love the instrumental music pieces instead of skipping over them for the singing. It's just really really good.
3. The Black Parade, by My Chemical Romance
It's delightful, bombastic, intense, and emotional. An album written around the theme of death, but it's not at all a sad experience to listen to. It's fascinating and dramatic and wonderful.
4. Coal, by Kathy Mattea
A lot of albums of traditional folk music are just like "here's a collection of neat songs!" This one is organized around a particular theme: the coal mining industry in the USA. Each song is great, and they work together to build a picture of what the industry was like to live as a part of, and Mattea's voice is great, and it's just. It's incredible. But it's hard to listen to too often because its material is pretty depressing!
5. Piece by Piece, by Maria Dunn
This is an album of folk music where each piece is about someone who worked in a particular sewing factory in Canada, over the course of that factory's history. Maria Dunn did a bunch of research and interviews, and all the stories she tells are based in reality. Each song is great on its own, and the picture they build together of women's labour history is wonderful. I cry most times I listen to this album.
6. Play, by Great Big Sea
When I was a teen this was the only Great Big Sea album I had and I listened to it endlessly and I am SUPREMELY familiar with it, to the point that when one song ends, I get the next song on the album stuck in my head because the album is so much a singular whole in my mind. Also it's upbeat and fun and I always find it energizing to listen to.
7. Splendor & Misery, by clipping.
It's just. So cool???? A rap concept album about future and space and slavery and robots and running away and building connections, with a sound that is incredible and works together beautifully with what the album is saying.
8. Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, by OK Go
The sound in this album is distinct from any of OK Go's other albums and it's just a good coherent and cohesive sound, even if the songs don't have any other connection to each other. And it's got some of my faves of OK Go's songs on it too. It's just a really satisfying experience to listen to.
9. Aims, by Vienna Teng
Once upon a time when Aims was the new and exciting album in fandom, someone put together a project of having different vidders create one vid per song on the album to create a kind of vid album, and it was a really cool project and it was what introduced me to Vienna Teng as an artist! The vids make the album feel like a special thing in my mind, and the songs are incredible. And all these years later I still semi-regularly rewatch Landsailor byraven
10. Rebecca English Demo
Usually musical demo albums are just a collection of songs, which depending on the musical can be kind of incoherent and hard to follow because the plot and character development happens between the songs. This demo album has little narrative sections between each song telling you what's going on! It is specifically designed to be listened to as an album, rather than a keepsake for a fan who already knows the musical. It's great! (It doesn't hurt that it is also a genuinely compelling musical)
(the albums I've listened to: Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon & Garfunkel, The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance, At Folsom Prison by Johnny Cash, 1989 by Taylor Swift, and Joshua Tree by U2)
So I thought maybe I'd put together my own list of my top albums. Note that I am making my calls based on what I like best as an album experience rather than based on who my favourite musicians are, or which albums contain my favourite songs, or how much I like the musical/movie a soundtrack is from.
Here's my current top ten! There's exactly one album on my list that also appears on Rolling Stone's top 500.
1. Hadestown, by Anais Mitchell
A concept album telling the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. It sketches everything out strongly enough that you can get a sense for the story but lightly enough that there's....there's room in it. You have to put yourself into it to get things out of it. Fascinating, fabulous, and evocative.
2. The Prince of Egypt Soundtrack
One of the few albums I can listen to basically endlessly without getting sick of it. One of the few albums where I love the instrumental music pieces instead of skipping over them for the singing. It's just really really good.
3. The Black Parade, by My Chemical Romance
It's delightful, bombastic, intense, and emotional. An album written around the theme of death, but it's not at all a sad experience to listen to. It's fascinating and dramatic and wonderful.
4. Coal, by Kathy Mattea
A lot of albums of traditional folk music are just like "here's a collection of neat songs!" This one is organized around a particular theme: the coal mining industry in the USA. Each song is great, and they work together to build a picture of what the industry was like to live as a part of, and Mattea's voice is great, and it's just. It's incredible. But it's hard to listen to too often because its material is pretty depressing!
5. Piece by Piece, by Maria Dunn
This is an album of folk music where each piece is about someone who worked in a particular sewing factory in Canada, over the course of that factory's history. Maria Dunn did a bunch of research and interviews, and all the stories she tells are based in reality. Each song is great on its own, and the picture they build together of women's labour history is wonderful. I cry most times I listen to this album.
6. Play, by Great Big Sea
When I was a teen this was the only Great Big Sea album I had and I listened to it endlessly and I am SUPREMELY familiar with it, to the point that when one song ends, I get the next song on the album stuck in my head because the album is so much a singular whole in my mind. Also it's upbeat and fun and I always find it energizing to listen to.
7. Splendor & Misery, by clipping.
It's just. So cool???? A rap concept album about future and space and slavery and robots and running away and building connections, with a sound that is incredible and works together beautifully with what the album is saying.
8. Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, by OK Go
The sound in this album is distinct from any of OK Go's other albums and it's just a good coherent and cohesive sound, even if the songs don't have any other connection to each other. And it's got some of my faves of OK Go's songs on it too. It's just a really satisfying experience to listen to.
9. Aims, by Vienna Teng
Once upon a time when Aims was the new and exciting album in fandom, someone put together a project of having different vidders create one vid per song on the album to create a kind of vid album, and it was a really cool project and it was what introduced me to Vienna Teng as an artist! The vids make the album feel like a special thing in my mind, and the songs are incredible. And all these years later I still semi-regularly rewatch Landsailor by
raven10. Rebecca English Demo
Usually musical demo albums are just a collection of songs, which depending on the musical can be kind of incoherent and hard to follow because the plot and character development happens between the songs. This demo album has little narrative sections between each song telling you what's going on! It is specifically designed to be listened to as an album, rather than a keepsake for a fan who already knows the musical. It's great! (It doesn't hurt that it is also a genuinely compelling musical)
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Also, just thinking about Aims makes me feel fuzzy and nostalgic about college, which is when I first heard it. *goes to add all the rest of these to my to-listen*
PS OH and how could I forget Hurray For the Riff Raff's The Navigator!
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She's doing an online concert in November which costs 10 dollars and is at a fully reasonable time of day!
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I think it's not too bad if you've already read/seen/heard another adaptation (I saw the donghua first), bc the characters are color coded + you already know who the characters are. (The color coding REALLY helps.) However, I don't actually have faceblindness, I'm just bad at faces, so I can't say how difficult it would be.
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I think it does work better for fic than vids to be unfamiliar with the canon... Somehow it's easier to context clue your way to understanding
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Thank you for this fascinating post. Our musical tastes overlap, so you've provided me with many hours of listening to something new and nifty!
I finally caved and subscribed to Spotify, so here's the first nine albums as a playlist:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6n9pqR7D3ZrIsKn3MfHWU4?si=EMHtnTe9T8K7Mp8IlaXEow
One can create a free account to listen in a scrambled order with intermittent ads.
In an earlier life, I was an alto/rhythm guitarist in lefty bands that played all the rallies and benefit concerts, so I was very excited to learn about numbers 4 and 5.
I was also introduced to number 9 by a vid, but I can't remember which one. It wasn't any of the nine listed at the archived Aims Vid Album Masterpost (Sticky Post), which I learned about via Fanlore. But that just gives me more reason to perseverate on Vienna Teng, always a welcome thing. (Oh, and Landsailor totally made me weep.)
small squee: our archival tools are actually working!
Your post inspires me to list my top ten of the current moment -- I hope I can make it happen. Thanks again for filling my head and heart with lovely music.
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