Listed below are the overall rankings for the best albums in history as determined by their aggregate positions in over 59,000 different greatest album charts on BestEverAlbums.com! (Chart last updated: 1 hour ago).
"I want to say that it's better than Aja but it was such a long time since I listened to that record so I would have to give it another shot before making a determination. But. I do maintain that I believe it would have more of an emotional impact if it was less over-produced, though I do understa...""I want to say that it's better than Aja but it was such a long time since I listened to that record so I would have to give it another shot before making a determination. But. I do maintain that I believe it would have more of an emotional impact if it was less over-produced, though I do understand what people are saying about Steely Dan "doing it right". The album sounds a lot like a mix of Billy Joel and Stevie Wonder, but much more jammy than both. Kid Charlemagne is a real hit. The songs with a little more grove in them, like the fOnk on this one, serves the record well and cancels out a bit of that over-produced "esteem" that they have going on. The two following songs are also brilliant, Caves of Altamira and Don't Take Me Alive. And the album remains incredibly consistent all the way through. The mouth-guitar on Haitian Divorce is really cool. Lots of different sounds on this. Brilliant musicianship all the way through. Opened my eyes to these guys I have to say."[+]Reply
"A thoroughly enjoyable and easy to listen to record that makes you want to come back and discover all the things you missed on the last listen. There is so much to discover on this record and it is also quite a positive record and really lifts you up when you hear this album. The instrumentation ...""A thoroughly enjoyable and easy to listen to record that makes you want to come back and discover all the things you missed on the last listen. There is so much to discover on this record and it is also quite a positive record and really lifts you up when you hear this album. The instrumentation is fantastic on this record and really stands out amongst other prog rock work around that time. Despite this, I do not think the album as a whole can challenge with the greatest albums of the prog rock genre as it does have weaker tracks and moments where it is easy to get sucked out of the album. Definitely worth a listen and is still a great record though. "[+]Reply
"Another enjoyable Creedence Clearwater Revival record. Bayou country, isn't as brilliant as, green river, but it's yet another great rock'n'roll LP from one of America's great rock'n'roll bands. Proud Mary, is a classic song, as is the title track. Not their best then, but still good."Reply
"The most important thing to realize going into listening to this album the first couple of times is that Syd Barrett really *was* a talented songwriter, and that even without his total mental breakdown he still would have amassed a pretty decently sized following. There are quite a few melodies a...""The most important thing to realize going into listening to this album the first couple of times is that Syd Barrett really *was* a talented songwriter, and that even without his total mental breakdown he still would have amassed a pretty decently sized following. There are quite a few melodies and chord sequences here that would have worked just fine in a normal setting, with a lyrical combination of playfulness and self-confession that would make quite an impact on their own. The opening "Terrapin" is a great example of this, as it's a rather gentle acoustic ballad that combines playful (and only somewhat nonsensical) lyrics about being a swimming fish and simple (but still kinda clever to my ears) boy-girl lyrics like, "Well oh baby my hair's on end about you." Simple and poppy, yes, but high quality simple-and-poppy, if you ask me.
But of course, it's not the normal aspects of the album alone that ultimately draw people here, but rather the way in which they provide a context for the train wreck of Syd's mind. "Terrapin," by having such 'regular' appeal, is an extremely deceptive opener, as the evidence for this album's weirdness reputation begins in full force with track two. Witness the dark aggressive (and outright disturbing) cacophony of "No Good Trying", whose most revealing moment is the line about the person Syd is singing to spinning around in a car while lights are flashing all around. Witness the hilariously catchy up-tempo, nonsensical "Love You," where Syd and Co. conjure up a vaguely Kinksy piano number and let it linger in the astral plane just long enough to totally screw it up (meant in a good way). Witness ESPECIALLY when Syd's performance (singing, lyrics, guitar, everything) goes totally off the deep end in "Octopus," all culminating in the ecstatic chanting of, "Please leave us here! Close our eyes to the octopus riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide!!!" And so on.
The easiest way, for me at least, to categorize the rest of the album is to divide it into "lucid" and "less lucid." The less lucid parts sometimes happen within the songs themselves (like the weird mumbling freak-out in the second half of "No Man's Land"), but the most frightening one comes when Roger Waters and David Gilmour (the producers) share an outtake from right before Syd's 'proper' rendition of "If It's In You," where Syd starts into the number and ends up hideously off-key in singing, "Yes I'm thiiiiiiiiiiiNNNNNNNNNNKing" and follows by mumbling only semi-coherently. Poor, poor, Syd.
What makes his collapse even more frightening and sad in my mind, though, is the ways the lucid moments show he was fully aware of it. "Dark Globe" is playful and has somewhat off-key vocals, yes, but those are serious chills down my back when he sings, "Won't you miss me? Wouldn't you miss me at aaaallllllll??" Those chills stay when I hear Syd longing for a girl in "Here I Go," in the mournful "Long Gone," and even when he's slowly singing James Joyce poetry to an elementary melody.
Beyond these, there are some songs that aren't really that super, and that kinda negate my original hopes that, even in the wake of such heavy drug abuse, his songwriting abilities would remain completely unscathed. But really, I don't think that's the point. This is an album that can be extremely enjoyable at points, yes, but it's also very sad, and more than that really has no parallel in music of which I'm aware. It's messy, it's playful, it's sad ... it's Syd. And Syd was great, despite himself. This is why I like this album terribly much, despite that I almost never bring it out. If you don't like it, I can understand, but you must also understand that those of us who do like it get a feel from it that's largely indescribable, and thus you should not condemn us or this album.
PS: Somehow, I left out mention of the album's second best song, the closing "Late Night." It's probably the best example on the album of a semi-coherent love song, one that had a great song at its core but got tweaked more than a bit by being filtered through Syd's mind. It brings a tear to my eye each time I hear it. "[+]Reply
"This is such an underrated album. Sure, it didn’t break the mold like Sgt Peppers or Are You Experienced, but it combined the best parts of those kind of musical revolutions at the time and perfected it. So what if the concept doesn’t hold up, the music still does. Steve Marriott is also the best...""This is such an underrated album. Sure, it didn’t break the mold like Sgt Peppers or Are You Experienced, but it combined the best parts of those kind of musical revolutions at the time and perfected it. So what if the concept doesn’t hold up, the music still does. Steve Marriott is also the best rock singer ever....just gotta lay that fact down."[+]Reply
"Johnny Cash stripped down to his bedrock. His career has just taken off, but he wasn't an icon. He had to deliver quality to stay on top. Did he ever. His tales of heartbreak, love, and paying his dues are highlighted by his sparse baritone voice and simple song arrangement. Country has never bee...""Johnny Cash stripped down to his bedrock. His career has just taken off, but he wasn't an icon. He had to deliver quality to stay on top. Did he ever. His tales of heartbreak, love, and paying his dues are highlighted by his sparse baritone voice and simple song arrangement. Country has never been better."[+]Reply
"Picaresque is my favorite album from the Decemberists. It starts off with a muted tribal horn i often blast before the drums beat in with Colin narrating the premise of "the infanta": "Here she comes in her palanquin / on the back of an elephant / on a bed made of linen and sequins and silk / all...""Picaresque is my favorite album from the Decemberists. It starts off with a muted tribal horn i often blast before the drums beat in with Colin narrating the premise of "the infanta": "Here she comes in her palanquin / on the back of an elephant / on a bed made of linen and sequins and silk / all astride on her father's line / with the king and his concubines / and her nurse with her pitchers of liquors and milk / and we'll all come praise the infanta". The charging literature of the song is finely offset by the quieter, pensive, recharging bridge. The lyrics on "infanta" are the best decemberists lyrics yet (and i love intelligent lyrics), replete with high-point scrabble words like "palanquin", "pachyderm" and "folderol", tied with another picaresque tune, the epic "mariner's revenge song", probably my favorite decemberists songs of all-time. "mariner's" starts in flashback mode "in this belly of a whale" recalling a "rake and a rastabout" who moved in on the narrator's mother when he was 14 "Leaving my mother A poor consumptive wretch" with a killer-yet-frail chorus delivered by Jenny wisping "Find him, bind him / Tie him to a pole and break / His fingers to splinters / Drag him to a hole until he / Wakes up naked / Clawing at the ceiling / Of his grave". The narrator later was hired in a priory "But never once in the employ / Of these holy men / Did I ever once turn my mind / From the thought of revenge" hearing about a captain known for "wanton cruelty", the man who left his mother destitute in death. There's even a pensive instrumental passage as the narrator contemplates commiting a "wicked deed" (to kill that captain) which nails the sound of the old sea (as only the Decemberists can!). Then "And then that fateful night / We had you in our sight / After twenty months at sea / Your starboard flank abeam / I was getting my muskets clean / When came this rumbling from beneath" as the whale rose from beneath which chews up all but our two antagonists. Marvelous storytelling and delivery including an energized ending. All tunes have the feel of tales of centuries ago, classic stories charles dickens or herman melville would be proud of, full of motorcars and muskets ablaze. "we both go down together" is a tale of a couple who commit suicide knowing their families will never allow them together ("Meet me on my vast veranda / My sweet untouched Miranda / and while the seagulls are crying / we fall but our souls are flying"). That Colin can make such wordsmithy, sea shanties so catchy and endearing is a testament to his intelligence and ability to tap the human condition. Like on "eli the barrow boy", the soliloquied epitaph of a loved one, singing "Would I could afford to buy my love a fine robe / Made of gold and silk Arabian thread / But she is dead and gone and lying in a pine grove / And I must push my barrow all the day". Or the humorously playful "the sporting life": "I fell on the playing field / the work of an errant heel / the din of the crowd and the loud commotion / went deafening silence and stopped emotion" . The instrumentation on this album kicks arse too, from the fiddle on "together" to the organ and horns on "16 military wives" to the accordion on "mariner's revenge song". The slower numbers work well too, from the crime scene buildup of "the bagman's gambit" ("On the lam from the law / on the steps of the capitol / you shot a plainclothes cop on the ten o'clock") and literally lost love "from my own true love (lost at sea)", to what i feel is Colin's first love song "of angels and angles". Beautiful acoustic guitar prefaces simply-felt lines like "there are angels in your angles, there's a low moon caught in your tangles", the perfectly understated closer to offset the literary bombast of "infanta". The sentiment is as saddening-sweet on "the engine driver" with a chorus pleading "and if you don't love me, let me go", and even on the lyrically-simple-life-of-a-male-prostitute of "on a bus mall" illustrating "here in our hovel we fuse like a family, / But I will not mourn for you. / So take off your makeup / And pocket your pills away. / We're kings among runaways / On the bus mall." . There's even a jab at politics in "16 military wives": "Cheer them on to their rivals / Cause America can, and America can't say no / And America does, if America says it's so". "[+]Reply