Essential Studio Albums

[liebzz]

Harold of the Rocks. Fuck yeah

To be fair, unlike many of the other albums on this thread, I have more than 30 years of listening to this one.

[VinylGuy]

Alice In Chains - Facelift

No surprise that I’ve been around this album for a long long time - especially the opening four tracks We Die Young, Man in the Box, Sea of Sorrow, and Bleed the Freak. Those at least are drilled forever into my brain. It Ain’t Like That is probably a touch behind that. And yet, for all the love this album gets, it actually may be my least favorite of the Layne Staley era. But I placed this where I did because the reputation on this album is that it leaned more into the hard rock/metal of the time rather than the music that would explode in less than a year. I am not sure on this listen that this is the case, as this played for me right in the sweet spot of the Seattle bands. Still a classic in any event, and essential to understanding the moments leading up to that big break.

The Essential Track: Man in the Box

Up Next: Jane’s Addiction - Ritual De Lo Habitual

This one is a fascinating example of a great debut that gets kinda tossed over by the second and third album. I did enjoyed it a lot back then, but its sound is kinda repetitive enough to not listen to it these days. And yes, Layne is truly awesome here, his voice sounds huge.

[liebzz]

Alice In Chains - Facelift

No surprise that I’ve been around this album for a long long time - especially the opening four tracks We Die Young, Man in the Box, Sea of Sorrow, and Bleed the Freak. Those at least are drilled forever into my brain. It Ain’t Like That is probably a touch behind that. And yet, for all the love this album gets, it actually may be my least favorite of the Layne Staley era. But I placed this where I did because the reputation on this album is that it leaned more into the hard rock/metal of the time rather than the music that would explode in less than a year. I am not sure on this listen that this is the case, as this played for me right in the sweet spot of the Seattle bands. Still a classic in any event, and essential to understanding the moments leading up to that big break.

The Essential Track: Man in the Box

Up Next: Jane’s Addiction - Ritual De Lo Habitual

This one is a fascinating example of a great debut that gets kinda tossed over by the second and third album. I did enjoyed it a lot back then, but its sound is kinda repetitive enough to not listen to it these days. And yes, Layne is truly awesome here, his voice sounds huge.

Those first four tracks and It Ain’t Like That are so amazing. Agreed on all those fronts though.

[liebzz]

Fugazi - Repeater

I’m certainly not the word in any way on punk rock, but this has to be maybe the best pure punk rock album I can ever remember hearing. It’s got abrasiveness, speed, a healthy dose of piss and vinegar - but all the same it feels like there’s stuff happening in these songs that transcends that simplicity. It may be the way the guitars interlace while Brendan Canty is killing it on drums that makes it more interesting than a pop punk band just banging away on a couple of chords, but this one for me blew away the last one and is masterpiece level stuff, insofar as the genre goes for me. Turnover, Repeater, Merchandise, and Blueprint in particular, all in the first half, really drew me in.

The Essential Track: Blueprint

Up Next: Social Distortion

[liebzz]

Social Distortion

Funny that I always thought of this band in my head as a sort of pop punk band, but on this I am really hearing a straight down the line sort of 90s alternative rock thing. Not quite punk, not quite classic rock, but some kind of meshing of the two. This very obviously means that this is right down my wheelhouse - the kind of stuff I’d pick off the shelf for the last 35 years. So Far Away, Let It Be Me, Story of My Life, and It Coulda Been Me are really so 90s. The cover of Ring of Fire is pretty great. The winner for me is Ball & Chain, which kind of melds all of this into a highly coherent and engaging track.

The Essential Track: Ball & Chain

Up Next: Bad Religion - Against the Grain

[lvc]

Is it too late to ask whether this thread is truly only hitting “essential” albums or just tons of albums from “essential” artists?

Like e.g. I appreciate the Rolling Stones but only maybe 3-4 of their albums are essential in the grand scheme of recorded music history.

[liebzz]

Is it too late to ask whether this thread is truly only hitting “essential” albums or just tons of albums from “essential” artists?

Like e.g. I appreciate the Rolling Stones but only maybe 3-4 of their albums are essential in the grand scheme of recorded music history.

I think that’s quickly become fast and loose. It’s largely turned into an archival project that’s used albums that are not necessarily essential to recorded music history as context for other albums, sometimes by the same artist, sometimes not, for gaining a larger understanding of some essential albums by their definition.

More succinctly, this is sort of a sequel to the essential live albums thread that ballooned like the POVs of the latter Game of Thrones books. And I’m cool with that because I get to continue to organize my efforts to listen to archival albums during my commute and tell you all about it.

[lvc]

I’ll allow it while noting that your “more succinctly” was just as long as your ostensibly “less succinctly”. Carry on. The pedants are done with their pedantry.

[LoathedVermin72]

go to hell lvc

[liebzz]

Bad Religion - Against the Grain

This is a more straightforward punk album - the sort of which seemed to spawn a bunch of bands in the 90s pushing this sound. They use their powers here for good, delivering 17 tracks in 34 minutes of social commentary, even if at some point this suffers a bit from all the songs sounding a little too similar. Anesthesia is a nice exception to that rule, and may also be the lengthiest song here, which may partially explain why I was really drawn to this one the most. I will say the vocal harmonies and innate ability to nail these choruses is quite impressive.

The Essential Track: Anesthesia

Up Next: Green Day - 1039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours (39/Smooth plus the early EPs)

[liebzz]

I’ll allow it while noting that your “more succinctly” was just as long as your ostensibly “less succinctly”. Carry on. The pedants are done with their pedantry.

It was one line less. Technically more succinct.

[lvc]

[liebzz]

Green Day - 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours

39/Smooth is the root of this released in 1990, but might as well, since we’re here and it’s the only version I think in print, cover that plus the contemporary EPs all thrown together into this. I first heard this during the initial Green Day craze in and around ‘94/‘95, and haven’t really revisited since. 39/Smooth shows a band with a lot of potential, and the length of that alone probably would have done good. At the Library, I Was There, Green Day, and Going to Pasalacqua were my favorites there. After that, it does start to grow tired though the songs are decent enough throughout. I had forgotten about I Want to Be Alone, which I always really enjoyed. I’m not a Green Day zealot, but I can harmlessly enjoy them from time to time.

The Essential Track: Going to Pasalacqua

Up Next: Revered Horton Heat - Smoke ‘em if You Got ‘em

[liebzz]

Reverend Horton Heat - Smoke ‘em if You Got ‘em

When we started going through the punk albums here just in the last couple of days, I remembered this band, which I was really into in college. I wild mash up of punk and rock-a-billy coined psychobilly, Reverend Horton Heat bring both punk energy and country swagger in a real unique way. The songs that most represent these thoughts are the album closing Love Whip, Bad Reputation, Big Dwarf Rodeo, and Put It To Me Straight. They also loved to throw in a tongue-in-cheek country track just to add a little more for a band that is fun and rarely jumps into too serious a topic, fitting perfectly - Eat Steak is such a track here. Fun fun album.

The Essential Track: Bad Reputation

Up Next: Mother Love Bone - Apple

[liebzz]

Mother Love Bone - Apple

Understanding, or at least trying to get a sense of a future where this band created music past this album, is a bit of a complicated task. This is because they are such a wild mix of the alternative rock that’s forthcoming, the rock music that was contemporary to that moment, and there’s a touch of glam here as well. Perhaps that cocktail was set to take them to the stratosphere, perhaps this sound as it was had a short shelf life to be quickly supplanted by Nirvana (like everyone else). Who knows, and maybe it doesn’t matter either way. There’s a lot of moments on this album where that cocktail seems to tap into some level of genius - This Is Shangrila, Stardog Champion, Holy Roller, Bone China, Come Bite the Apple and Captain Hi-Top all rock and are some level of pure fun in those big riffs. Stargazer, Man of Golden Words, and a re-recorded Crown of Thorns add the weight behind their slower approach. The elements were all there, and this is a great album I didn’t properly appreciate until Chris Cornell gave these songs life in concert on that 2016 Temple of the Dog tour. This album is even more of a beast on this listen than other listens.

The Essential Track: Man of Golden Words (it could have been any I listed on here, this time it’s this)

Up Next: Temple of the Dog

[liebzz]

Temple of the Dog

One of the sequences I was frankly extremely excited to engage with was listening to this album immediately after Apple. It lends new context and new perspectives on this album - a below radar tribute to Andrew Wood that would take years before people realized it was out there, and to have this album kind of obtain this mythic status amongst fans of Pearl Jam and Soundgarden - but it always had a sense of hindsight to it, and this listen makes it all feel much more immediate. And in that, I got a new sense of the sheer f*’in power of the music here, and in particular, Chris Cornell’s voice, of which with all apologies to the Soundgarden albums that preceded this album, a coming of age for one of the most powerful voices ever in rock music giving one of the most absolutely powerful performances across this album. Ever.

Every song just hit me on this listen like a ton of bricks, and this album jumped yet again hugely in what I would have anticipated for this thing. A one off to mourn, to celebrate, and to provide a cautionary tale of a lost friend just absolutely breaks the listener here if you surrender yourself and sink into every stunning moment on this album. I don’t need to list highlights here because they all have their purpose and power - I feel like I could go on there and write a chapter of a book on these. Incredible.

The Essential Track: Say Hello 2 Heaven

Up Next: The Tragically Hip - Road Apples

[wease]

Your Savior is still the funkiest, grooviest track Matt’s recorded. So damn good.

[Birds in Hell]

Your Savior is still the funkiest, grooviest track Matt’s recorded. So damn good.

Best song on the album and, yes, Matt kills it.

[liebzz]

The Tragically Hip - Road Apples

It must have been 20 years ago that I watched the documentary of this band’s last tour and concert, and I recall thinking they were amazing and I needed to get into this band…and then that faded into the rear view, and I never did as I intended. This thread has given me a new start at this, and it’s remarkable how this band reminds me of my fandom for The Black Crowes (even if they don’t sound that similar) - just seems like tailor made near perfect classic rock music. This album is undoubtedly that for me. Another one where it feels like listing the highlights is nearly the whole album, so won’t bother with that, but know there were several songs deserving of what shows up on the next line.

The Essential Track: Long Time Running

Up Next: Primus - Sailing the Seas of Cheese

[liebzz]

Primus - Sailing the Seas of Cheese

This was actually the album that made me a fan of this band back in maybe 1994? I had heard Pork Soda and My Name Is Mud, which kick-started things, but when I grabbed this album is when I was fully sold. The bass playing goes without saying, but Jerry Was a Race Car Driver, Tommy the Cat, and Those Damned Blue-Collar Tweekers completely blew me away with its irreverence and of course a band that was so good. As I listened in more Eleven, Here Come the Bastards, Sgt. Baker, and American Life also became favorites. Fish On provides connective tissue to Frizzle Fry (the slightly better of the two albums). This is just another great great Primus album.

The Essential Track: Jerry Was a Race Car Driver

Up Next: Phish - A Picture of Nectar