Five-star albums

Roos4eva

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Pretty much any album by QOTSA but especially Like Clockwork, S/T and Songs For The Deaf. Villains atm is a solid four stars but could get higher.

The Beatles - Abbey Road and Sgt Peppers

Beastie Boys - Ill Communication

Tool - Aenema and Lateralus

A Tribe Called Quest - Midnight Marauders

Kyuss - Welcome To Sky Valley and Blues For The Red Sun

Justin Timberlake - FutureSexLoveSounds

Royal Blood's two albums wouldn't be far off, either.

Death From Above 1979 - You're A Woman, I'm A Machine

Any album by RATM

Most Deftones albums

They're the ones that spring to mind, atm.
 

browncow

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For me, whether it be because of hours spent listening to records with my old man when I was a kid, or albums that shaped my teenage years, i would have the following.

Pink Floyd - The Wall
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
Queen - A Night at the Opera
Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde
The Beatles - Abbey Road
INXS - Kick
Michael Jackson - Thriller
Nirvana -Nevermind
Nirvana - In Utero
Pearl Jam - Ten
Pearl Jam - VS
Pearl Jam - Vitalogy
Stone Temple Pilots - Purple
Tool - Aenema
You Am I - Hi Fi Way
Weezer - The Blue Album
Oasis - Definitely Maybe
Oasis - (What's the Story) Morning Glory?
Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magic
Radiohead - OK Computer
Green Day - Dookie
Jebediah - Slightly Odway
Foo Fighters - Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters - The Colour and the Shape
Soundgarden - Superunknown
Pavement - Slanted and Enchanted
REM - Out of Time
REM - New Adventures in Hi Fi
Cold Play - A Rush of Blood to the Head
QOTSA - Songs for the Death
The National - High Violet
Band of Horses - Infinite Arms

Fair to say the 90's shaped my taste in music and I have never found a band or been drawn to music like I was in my teenage years.
 

Silent Alarm

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No Turn On The Bright Lights?

Five star, flawless albums are boring anyway. I mean yes some are amazing but how many do you really love?

It's a bit like when you're 15 and getting into music and think you like Wilco and In The Airplane Over The Sea but then look back on it and realise it just isn't anything you're into; it's boring, beige, never-fun and always-difficult to you.

I've softened on my stance on them, quite get the hype and respect their legacy now, but I still think people wanking on about The Beatles constantly is so boring. It's a bit like still being into indie rock and nothing else like your taste hasn't shifted since you could legally buy beers. You can like stuff that is seen as bad and listening a lot to an album that's been forgotten is no crime.
 

browncow

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No Turn On The Bright Lights?

Five star, flawless albums are boring anyway. I mean yes some are amazing but how many do you really love?

It's a bit like when you're 15 and getting into music and think you like Wilco and In The Airplane Over The Sea but then look back on it and realise it just isn't anything you're into; it's boring, beige, never-fun and always-difficult to you.

I've softened on my stance on them, quite get the hype and respect their legacy now, but I still think people wanking on about The Beatles constantly is so boring. It's a bit like still being into indie rock and nothing else like your taste hasn't shifted since you could legally buy beers. You can like stuff that is seen as bad and listening a lot to an album that's been forgotten is no crime.

I never really got into Interpol. Might give Turn On The Bright Lights a go.

I still love nearly all of the albums on my list. I would say I would give them all a listen at least once every year or two and I still go through stages where I will have a burst of obsessiveness with one or two of the bands and have them on high rotation for a few weeks.
There would be countless other albums from the same period in the 90's that I loved at the time, but after having listened to them again after having 'grown up' and having kids etc, I find them less than inspiring to down right bad.

I have always been a guitar band lover, whether it be 90's rock or indi rock or some acoustic based artists. For some reason I just cannot get into 99.9% of bands/songs which are heavily reliant on synth or electronics.
Not sure why, as I can relate to lots of those songs being catchy, hooky or whatever you want to find in them, but they don't resonate with me emotionally.

So yeah, I am probably one of those people who's taste in music is quite similar to what it was when I was 18, but I would like to think a bit more refined and developed, but still very much in the same ball park as it used to be.
Kind of suck to be honest :)
 
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Sep 15, 2011
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No Turn On The Bright Lights?

Five star, flawless albums are boring anyway. I mean yes some are amazing but how many do you really love?

It's a bit like when you're 15 and getting into music and think you like Wilco and In The Airplane Over The Sea but then look back on it and realise it just isn't anything you're into; it's boring, beige, never-fun and always-difficult to you.

I've softened on my stance on them, quite get the hype and respect their legacy now, but I still think people wanking on about The Beatles constantly is so boring. It's a bit like still being into indie rock and nothing else like your taste hasn't shifted since you could legally buy beers. You can like stuff that is seen as bad and listening a lot to an album that's been forgotten is no crime.
Five star albums are boring; you do say some truly strange things about music, but this may be the strangest yet. Believe it or not, not everyone listens to music based on how much social cache they think it might give them. Most people listen to music because they like it. Yes, tastes and opinions can change over time, but then that would suggest an album is not actually a five star album and you would rejudge it accordingly. On the other hand, I can listen to Ten, OK Computer, The Suburbs and Go Farther in Lightness and appreciate their brilliance, despite the fact that they range from early '90s to late '90s to 2010 to 2017.

As for the Beatles, the idea that the only people who 'wank on about the Beatles' are crusty old types whose opinions haven't changed says more about your understanding of music than others. I wasn't born when the Beatles broke up and I can still recognise their brilliance (along with music critics and fans everywhere). There's a reason they are widely regarded as the best band ever.
 

Silent Alarm

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How is The Suburbs a five star album?

You might really really like it but to me, a five star album is not just something good, but has some level of universal praise. There is no harm in saying your favourite album is a 'four and a half,' but there's a degree of universal acclaim, movement, or cultural relevance to one.

OK Computer has it, not sure the other two are.

I mean you're talking about poxy Gang of Youths. My hate for them is pretty well documented but it came out about a month ago!

Like yeah, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy got this status almost instantly. But that's a bit different. It's an album from one of the biggest artists in the world who sells millions of albums and headlines wherever he plays; it is rap and at a 'vibey' point where it felt it was becoming popular (again) in the mainstream. It got a 10 from the biggest 'alternative' music website in the world. It got insanely good reviews from other massive music press, cultural magazines, newspapers, people on forums... Gang of Youths are a piddly band who begin and end within the walls of Festival Hall and sing about, like, drug addiction or something. While Kanye sort of ain't what I like these days, there is a sense that his album was like... good... interesting... had some interesting production.

The Suburbs, dunno, probably my favourite Arcade Fire album but I think they were building pretty substantially to arena level and it's not like they really reinvented themselves, changed the landscape, they didn't even have lead singles on pop radio – have never heard Ready to Start let alone Wake Up or Reflektor on Nova, Fev going 'Arcayde Fy-yah there!' Don't feel like it's considered something they have to live up to, it's overlong, lots of filler on it, and kinda feels like their first record still holds that place as their biggest statement, best album, and with the better narrative around it... started it all... got the hype... still even that's a sort of line ball. Maybe.

Is This It – seen as an important guitar album because it reintroduced guitars in a cleaner way, it was simple songwriting, the tracks were solid, they had a look. It was a good album at the right time with an image built around it. Turn On The Bright Lights made that song a whole lot darker and started employing a certain angularity Franz Ferdinand jumped on and a mood shitty acts like Editors capitalised on.

The Beatles started all these sounds and tropes that were built on in the 70s: psychy stuff, clean stuff, succinct three minute songs in certain styles. They're riffed on by long haired bros and pop producers still.

What I'm saying is, sometimes these albums lauded by so many publications, seen as important legacy records, genre-creators, trend-setters... sometimes they're s**t. Hate all that early Pitchfork stuff. Beastie Boys are *in arseholes. I don't get Led Zeppelin. You get what I'm saying?

A five star album is something that could comfortably sit alongside all these records and for whatever reason, don't seem too out of place. Pet Sounds and 3 Feet High and Rising – white, WASPy, about 30 years before black dudes using new technology... different but they could both sit on that shelf.

If you want to talk about your favourite albums there's probably a thread for that.
 

Silent Alarm

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also this furphy I like music based on trends and s**t. I actually like some passé lame s**t no one would call cool.
 
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The thread clearly asked what your five star albums are, I don't think critical acclaim is necessary at all. I wanted to know what people considered perfect albums, for whatever reason, and how many they had as the number of albums people consider five stars offers some insight into how they listen to and rate music. I don't care if critics think Pink Floyd's The Wall is a five star album because I don't really like Pink Floyd.

For mine, The Suburbs is a great album, not a bad song, ebbs and flows, but I understand others would rate Funeral as their best. It has a metacritic rating of 87, though, so it's obviously highly regarded anyway. Likewise, Pearl Jam's Ten. Go Farther in Lightness is what inspired this thread because, from the first moment I heard it, I rated it perfectly. Even though it's brand new, I rate it alongside those previously mentioned albums. It, too, is getting strong reviews, including five stars.

As for the Beatles are lauded because they are brilliant, showed more songwriting skill, development and evolution in 10 years than some musicians show in a lifetime. Not everyone has to like their music, but I would expect people who understand music to get why they are rated, and I don't think it's just because of 'legacy'.
 
From my childhood:

KISS - ALIVE!
Michael Jackson - Thriller
Guns ' Roses - Appetite for Destruction
Dire Straights - Brothers in Arms
AC/DC - Back In Black
 

MC Bad Genius

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For an album to get 5 stars from me it needs to have no dud tracks (of course it can have "filler" tracks - but none that I would always skip past), it must be full of songs that mean something to me, should definitely sound great (even if that sound is really lo-fi) and can put me in the right mood no matter how I'm feeling at that point.

So my list is:

Weezer - Blue. I put this on the other night around 1am and strummed along on an acoustic and it was the best night I've had in ages!

Spoon - Kill The Moonlight. You only realise how amazing this album is when you listen on headphones. Blows my mind every time.

Ben Folds Five - Whatever And Ever Amen. Wall-to-wall hits and probably the most virtuosic pop star in history. I'd rate him higher than any guitar god you care to name ... plus he flogs them all with his songwriting to boot.

Sufjan Stevens - Seven Swans. It's probably not his "best" album, but it's a slab of 5-star perfection to me that will instantly calm me down. I think I might put this one on when I get home today actually.

Eels - Electro-Shock Blues. I can't even begin to describe this album. It's a paradox of complete and utter despair mixed with a strange sense of hope. Heart-breaking from start to finish, but somehow there is life and humour in there too.

Beck - Midnite Vultures. I would go out to clubs more if they played this album from start to finish. It's not as cool as Odelay, but there are more ideas bursting out of almost every song than you'll find in a lot of acts' whole career.

I've got tonnes of albums that would be 4.5 stars (Revolver, In Rainbows, Ramones debut, almost every other Beck album, Check Your Head, Evil Empire, Halcyon Digest, Hunky Dory, Kid Sam's only album etc etc etc), but those 6 are the only ones that I'd bestow a perfect rating on.
 

Silent Alarm

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I've moved past my Weezer phase. I used to defend albums like Maladroit and Red as fun listens and containing some good tracks but I just cringe now. But throw on The Blue Album in summer and sing along... so good. Feels like a rap album when you hit a full track.
 

raskolnikov

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5 for me:

Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Michael Jackson - Thriller
Oasis - WTSMG
Pulp - Different Class
Eurythmics - Revenge
 
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