Winner and still champion

[jducoeur]

One of the best things about getting the huge new iPod for my birthday is that it gives me carte blanche to rip our whole huge CD collection. But me being me, I'm going through it all, listening to each disc as I go and rating all the tracks. I don't actually tend to listen to albums much on the iPod: instead, I have three main playlists titled "Good", "Better" and "Creme de la Creme", based on how each track is rated. I leave the thing on shuffle, and pick which playlist I want depending on whether I'd prefer more variety or higher quality.

My musical tastes have gradually shifted over the years -- I do a lot more electronica and metal than I once did, following my fondness for kicky and loud music. But having inventoried something like 500 discs so far, I find that the head-and-shoulders Best Album of All Time in my book is still Between the Breaks... Live! by Stan Rogers. I mean, I am *very* strict about the Creme de la Creme list, but this one album has four tracks for it (Barrett's Privateers, The Mary Ellen Carter, The White Collar Holler and Rolling Down to Old Maui). The best album by one of the greatest musicians ever, still more powerful and beautiful than just about anything else out there.

(Just to drive home how eclectic my musical tastes are, my number-two album is Aqualung -- not nearly as pretty, but perhaps the best channeling of raw anger I've ever heard in music.)

So turning this into a good Friday conversation: do you have a favorite? I mean, the One Best Album Ever?

Comments

[new-man.livejournal.com]

I don't have a second best, but the far-and-away first place goes to Donald Fagen's Nightfly. It's been my desert island album'* for years. Of the only eight songs, six are perfect, one is good, and the worst is just OK (and that's the only one of the songs Fagen didn't write). I haven't explored the 25th anniversary edition or something called 'The Nightfly Triology', but the original is as close to perfect as an album gets.


* - You're shipwrecked on a desert island. What's the one album you have with you?

[jducoeur]

Intriguing. I don't know the musician or album at all -- I'll have to explore this. Thanks!

[new-man.livejournal.com]

Sure you do. Donald Fagan is the vocalist half of Steely Dan.

I'll bring you a copy of the album.