Choose Your Own Adventure

[baystateoftheart]

Yes, this is a fanciful premise, but hear me out...

Incredibly powerful aliens have taken over Earth. It is unclear if their intentions are good or evil, but they are fixated on music. They have decided to destroy all music produced after World War II and wipe it from the minds of everyone, so that they can observe how humans in the 2020s would start over. Somehow, you are the last person on Earth whose memory has not yet been erased. Before they erase your memory and destroy all the music, the aliens let you pick one album from each of the first ten pages of the BEA overall chart to preserve for humanity. Which ten albums do you choose, and why?

No cheating! You must pick exactly one album from each page or no albums will be saved at all.
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[Tha1ChiefRocka]

1st Page: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

2nd Page: Pet Sounds

3rd Page: Remain In Light

4th Page: Blonde on Blonde

5th Page: GKMC

6th Page: In Utero

7th Page: What's Going On?

8th Page: A Love Supreme

9th Page: Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven

10th Page: Physical Graffiti

So, I think one of the goals would be to get as diverse a group of music as possible, and at least one from each decade. Of course our overall 100 is loaded with 60s and 70s albums, rightfully so, but it limits it in that regard. I'll right why I chose these later.

[LedZep]

1st page: Dark Side Of The Moon, I'm willingly sacrificing Bowie's finest and probably the most influential album ever in Sgt Pepper

2nd page is a slaughter, but maybe VU & Nico. I mean Led Zeppelin IV, Pet Sounds, Doolittle, London Calling and The Queen Is Dead will be sorely missed.

3rd page In The Court Of The Crimson King, again a tough one. Didn't realize that Is This It is 21st, damn that's high. RIP Loveless and TPAB

4th page Disintegration. I already have 2nd best Pink Floyd album so no point in picking their best, Animals. Kind of Blue is a hard one to kick out...

5th page Marquee Moon, Blood On The Tracks and GKMC were close

6th page I pick Low here. Ten, Pink Moon and Siamese Dream are probably better imo, but this one is a bit different and you can't ignore David Bowie when he is THE alien

7th page Daydream Nation, although I could just as well pick Closer. Sigur Ros and Marvin Gaye wouldn't be bad at all though

8th page Illmatic. Love me some Love, After the Goldrush is my favourite Neil Young record and A Love Supreme is a tough one to lose, but yeah it's Illmatic.

9th page Lift Yr. Skinny Fists, again I like Blue more, but this one's different. Spiderland had a fair shot too. What the hell is A Moon Shaped Pool doing that high?

10th page Madvillainy I guess.


After reading the premise again and looking at the list as a whole, I'd pick GKMC over Marquee Moon, Closer over Daydream Nation and A Love Supreme over Illmatic, just for diversity sake.

I think this is a fairly decent and interesting list:
Dark Side Of The Moon, Velvet Underground & Nico, In The Court Of The Crimson King, Disintegration, Good Kid Maad City, Low, Closer, A Love Supreme, Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven, Madvillainy

I guess humanity would forget about punk, metal and electronic music as well as funk and R&B. But more experimental stuff would surely be more prominent after some time, and pop, rock and hip hop scenes would be killer.
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Finally updated the overall chart

2020s
90s

[revolver94]

havent really looked at the overall in ages - curious to see how its changed

1-10: ok computer
it was between this and kid a, of any of those albums those two are the most cohesive I think, and really the ones i want to listen to the most

11-20: pet sounds - best album of all time ! +those melodies

21-30: oof my fav of these is the strokes but I'm going to save Dylan - highway 61 for the lyricism! i know i wont save Dylan elsewhere

31-40: Kanye, MBDTF. depending on where good kid maad city is in here this might be the only rap album saved :O

41-50: Wilco, Yankee hotel foxtrot. to me this album feels more like an album than any other, like it just flows song to song so well

51-60: defo gonna save low by bowie here! i guess this is the only synthier/electronic pick I've had so far, but i think that says more of our top 100 than me

61-70: we're saving the boss - bruce springsteen with born to run. thought id get thru this without any old school rock but i guess this is fine.

71-80: this might be my favorite chunk of the top 100 yet! going with kate bush - hounds of love. so many of my favorite artists are just kate bush disciples

81-90: wow i really jinxed this section, not sure at all which to save. honestly I'm gonna save magical mystery tour, lol. haven't had much psychedelic here yet. and probably the most underrated beatles release.

91-100: i prefer velvet underground s/t but I'm going to save sound of silver. my second fav on the page and some more of the electronic sounds we need.

wow the top 100 is still pretty rock heavy. not surprised but i could feel it more than i think i ever have before when taking it in slices like that.
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My top songs of the 2010s
and
Spotify link

Last.fm

[babyBlueSedan]

Going to do this page by page without going back and changing my picks.

1. Revolver: Man, this is a lot different than I remember. In Rainbows is #7?? Could have gone Funeral or Bowie here but Revolver is a pop gem and the world can't lose "For No One."

2. London Calling: Agreed with LedZep that this is a slaughter. Velvet Underground, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Pixies could all be here instead but the variety of London Calling makes me pick it.

3. To Pimp a Butterfly: Grabbing some hip hop the first chance I get. Remain in Light would have reminded the world of funk but TPAB has George Clinton on it so problem solved. Loveless is also a shame to exclude.

4. Disintegration: Would have gone MBDTF if I hadn't picked TPAB.

5. Illinois: Almost went Dylan or Wilco but we need something from the 00s indie scene and it doesn't get better than this. Also indirectly teaches the world about minimalism.

6. In Utero: This page was pretty so-so comparatively so I went with my personal favorite.

7. Agaetis Byrjun: Would have gone with Sonic Youth if I already hadn't picked Nirvana. Wish I could have picked Gaye to save soul but...I don't really like that album.

8. Illmatic: Sorry jazz / John Coltrane.

9. Blue: Bums me out to not pick Godspeed but we've got Sigur Ros and if we can't have Dylan, Mitchell is the next best better thing. Plus we need at least one album by a woman. Why is Moon Shaped Pool at 82???

10. Sound of Silver: Have to save my favorite song in "All My Friends," and by saving LCD Soundsystem I'm kind of saving all the bands they copied too. Now the world will know that music is for dancing too.
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And it's hard to be a human being. And it's harder as anything else.

[Jameth]

1. Sgt. Pepper’s
2. Zoso
3. In The Court
4. Are You Experienced
5. Marquee Moon
6. Pink Moon
7. What’s Going On
8. A Love Supreme
9. Blue
10. Madvilliany

I tried to pick the 10 albums that best exemplified musicianship, songwriting/composition, or studio technique, while keeping it as diverse as I could. #4 was initially really tough, since I was forced to choose between Hendrix and Coltrane. I had picked Kind Of Blue, but A Love Supreme saved the day.

Marquee Moon and Madvilliany are really interesting, because those two albums would have little to no context if you were hearing them in 1945. Maybe less than the others.
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Can you play free, or in three, or agree to try something new?

[Norman Bates]

1. Abbey Road
2. Pet Sounds
3. Loveless my favourite, but they should know about Dylan if they don't so Highway 61 Revisited
4. Unknown Pleasures
5. Good Kid. Not my favourite on the page (although a splendid record) but as yet I'm still unsure if some great hip-hop is gonna turn up in the first ten pages so that.
6. Pink Moon
7. What's Going On (what ever is Lonerism doing anywhere near the top 10,000???)
8. Toughest page yet. A Love Supreme.
9. Weakest page yet. Purple Rain - I'd like to save some Prince, even though this particular LP would not have been my pick.
10. Madvillainy - hey I should go back to that page with Kendr... well, never mind.

[Patman360]

1. Sgt. Pepper (based purely on current mindset, was pretty much a toss up with Kid A)
2. Doolittle (edging out Pet Sounds)
3. Loveless (comfortable enough despite liking the bulk of other stuff there)
4. Unknown Pleasures (fairly comfortably)
5. Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City (having a Pearl Jam renaissance and I've always loved Sujfan but it's not Michigan so Kendrick takes it)
6. Pink Moon (easy, Astral Weeks got the closest)
7. The Blue Album (literally just a toss up with Sabbath, Sonic Youth and Marvin Gaye)
8. Carrie & Lowell (for the moment, hesitated on Neil Young and Nas)
9. Blue (pretty comfortable here)
10. The Velvet Underground (recency bias as I've been playing it a lot lately, hesitated on Surfer Rosa and Pinkerton)
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2023
2022

[Yann]

[baystateoftheart]

Here are my picks and commentary from my first run through:

The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars - David Bowie

Honestly the top ten is a bit underwhelming in terms of importance to such an endeavor. I considered choosing one of the Beatles albums, but this one is my favorite in the first ten and they don't have a significant enough advantage in terms of positive influence potential or musical diversity contributed.

Pet Sounds - The Beach Boys

Yes, this is my favorite album of all time, but this might have been the most brutally hard choice. The positive influence of the Velvets on music history is immense (possibly the greatest of this top 100), and there's more stylistic diversity on their debut (proto twee pop and proto noise rock on one album!) than on Pet Sounds. It's irreplaceable, and it's also an amazing album. However, Pet Sounds also has massive positive influence, and I think other "replacements" for it in the rest of the top 100 come less close to capturing that than the "replacements" for its competitor do. If this thread were happening in 2019, this choice wouldn't be necessary because VU&N were still in the top ten...

Loveless - My Bloody Valentine

Kendrick Lamar and King Crimson were both very hard to pass over here. To Pimp A Butterfly is in my top ten, but there is another even better album of his coming up later. And I'd rather have a world without prog rock as we know it than a world without shoegaze as we know it.

Unknown Pleasures - Joy Division

Disintegration is another album in my top ten that was agonizing to pass over. It is the best album in this bunch. Blonde On Blonde is another strong contender, and it is hard to imagine a world without Dylan. However, the roots of his music were established before WWII to a significant extent thanks to Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, and more. So perhaps we'd get a rough approximation, maybe even by the man himself. But Unknown Pleasures is the most irreplaceable. You could get something like Disintegration as a result of picking Unknown Pleasures, but not vice versa. The world needs post-punk.

Good Kid, M.A.A.D City - Kendrick Lamar

This is the GOAT hip-hop album and a perfect choice to restart the genre due to its balance of gangsta and conscious themes. Blood On The Tracks is another really tough loss though.

Pink Moon - Nick Drake

This was a rather soft batch relatively speaking. I was tempted by Low, but I've already picked a Bowie album. Perhaps I'll swap Low in here and go with a Beatles album in my revisions. Anyway, a brilliant contemporary folk album is a valuable addition.

What's Going On - Marvin Gaye

No-brainer for me. Not only easily the best album of these ten, but a great way to restart soul.

A Love Supreme - John Coltrane

This is my favorite album of the bunch, in my top ten, and the best possible way to restart jazz. However, what a brutal ten. Illmatic, Dummy, Thriller, and Hounds Of Love would all be excellent picks. And while I wouldn't have chosen them in this context, Forever Changes, After The Gold Rush, and Carrie & Lowell are all phenomenal records.

Blue - Joni Mitchell

At least one solo album by a woman is necessary, and this is the best one in the top 100 and easily the best of the ten choices here. It also scratches the lyrical itch left unfulfilled by passing over the Bob Dylan records.

Madvillainy - Madvillain

My favorite record of these is Odessey And Oracle. However, I think it adds less new ground to the mix sonically than Madvillain. Who knows, it may sneak in during revisions. I am also tempted by Sound Of Silver because we need something electronic, but I don't think it's a great representation, and I may fix that gap in revisions. Also humanity in 2020 would obviously rediscover electronic music in some form.
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