Top 37 Greatest Music Albums by stupidusATmailDOTcom

Vinnid: Thanks. Yup, everybody should hear Souvlaki at least once before they die. ;)

Great chart man! I really need to listen to souvlaki!

Antonio: Much obliged. Keep rocking!

From Antonio-Pedro 10/26/2013 14:59

A very Good Chart With Taste To Metal To Rock

Brandon: Yup, obviously I was a teen in the early 90s. Would have picked 60s myself but no such luck I'm afraid. But music-wise 90s definitely wasn't a bad era to find oneself in.

Please, allow me to explain a little about my musical tastes.

Besides 60s music (Doors, Beatles, Hendrix, Zombies) I'm a sucker for old sentimental schlagers, chansons and ballads, really dig Motown and old school vocal groups (Platters, Drifters), enjoy old classical music (Vivaldi, Bach), classic jazz standards, flamenco, bossa nova, tango and even some modern electronic music, reggae and country.

I don't like to associate folk music with the quintessential middle class white guy who has just learned to strum a couple of chords on a guitar his mother bought him and who honestly thinks he has important lessons to give us all because someone just told him what the word political means.

The folk music I mean and hear is rowdy, usually funny and downright obscene as hell.

I don't find Rollings Stones (apart from Angie and Paint it Black) or Springsteen even remotely interesting musically and can't bear to listen to Bob Dylan's singing (much prefer Cohen instead).

I'm not a fan of punk music either if and when it just means crappy playing combined with crappy singing and crappy songwriting. And I have no idea why DJs are promoted as musicians these days.

I find rap/hip-hop incredibly hard if not impossible to really relate to as yet another small town white boy who has no connection whatsoever to Afro-American life and reality. I am of course aware of their less than rosy history in the New World.

But as far as "black" music goes I'm much more geared towards hearing ragtime, negro spirituals, work songs, Delta blues and the like. I'm pretty much as inclined to listening to rap music as I am inclined to listening to ambient noise, death metal, modern r'n'b and 80s lame disco hits with god awful samples.

I know music performed by the likes of Piaf, Holliday, Armstrong, Elvis, Sinatra, Jobim, Morrissey, Bowie, and so on and so forth, will put me sonically at ease.

Over and out.


PS. I found "I Could Live in Hope" to be a tad too bland and flat for my taste. It honestly felt more than just a little imitative work. To me Slowdive's "Souvlaki" felt almost like totally effortless, natural, process (which I'm sure it was anything but) whereas Low's music felt a bit like a fan's overlong hallelujah. It seemed to be almost completely void of those needed dynamics (IMO) that set apart music from a blanket of sounds. But I'm glad you liked it. That's the only thing that matters.

So thanks for the tips and take care!

Brandon, you did realize that my listing has nothing to do with one album being better than the next one? Like it says on top, the albums are simply arranged from the earliest to the latest.

And no, I do not consider all of these albums I've mentioned to be masterpieces, let alone important ones. But probably their best stuff around (as far as I'm aware).

Be that as it may, Souvlaki would definitely be one of the albums I'd like to take with me in case I was stranded on a deserted island (with some means to play it of course).

BTW. I'm all ears if you think I may have missed something (more) beautiful, painful, honest or playful than what's on display here. You can reply here directly or send me email.

Word of warning though: I like songs (meaning I can sing/hum/strum along to music), not attempts at songs. From what I have gathered over the years the best music tends to be rather formulaic - and more often than not rather simple to boot.

On that note, I could care less about hearing more avant-garde, sound collages, prog rock, and so on and so forth because all too frequently such aural landscapes rarely reach beyond musical masturbation (=technical proficiency).

By doing things differently just for the sake of doing things differently rarely amounts to much if anything at all.

But I am old and retarded, so take that with a grain of salt. :)

Thanks Jman. I think so too :) But I need help in expanding the list. Why don't you throw my way your 10 or so favorite albums, and I'll check 'em out (and sorry about the late reply, I'm just that way).