Columns Retired Columns & Blogs |
Santana: Borboleta. Timeless , his best .
Plenty of albums have one or two great tracks, but once in a while, an album will be near-flawless from start to finish. Name an album that you think is perfect from beginning to end.
Marc Cohn by Marc Cohn. I used to have this on redbook and enjoyed it immensely. Lost it in a house fire and after a few years have picked it up on Mobile Fidelity's Ultradisc II Gold CD. Wow! Better than ever! It probably helps that my gear is upgraded also, but this is one of very few albums I've heard where I enjoy every track. His other album Rainy Season is very good also.
Victor Feldman, The Artful Dodgers. On what was only Victor Feldman's second album as a leader in six years, the multi-instrumentalist stuck to piano and electric keyboards to perform a mostly straightahead jazz set. Assisted by either Chuck Domanico or Monty Budwig on bass, drummer Colin Bailey and a guest appearance by trumpeter-vocalist Jack Sheldon (on the second of two versions of the memorable "Haunted Ballroom"), Feldman is quite creative on four of his originals and particularly on fresh versions of four standards: "Limehouse Blues," Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely," "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" and "St. Thomas." This CD reissue is well worth picking up.
From 1975, Dream by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. As near perfect an album as I know of. Not so much in the sense of every song being a killer, but of the whole collection hanging together as a single entity. An album that should be listened to from start to finish. A classic of the "country/rock" era.
Rock music: there are plenty, but, but, by a large margin I think that would be Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. There's not a single weak song and the record flows wonderfully. It's a real trip. Runners up, would be Wish You Where Here> and Zappa's Apostrophe. Classical? No contest. Most classical records are by definition "concept albums". Take a trip with Beethoven, Villalobos, etc, etc, etc...
I've been going through my vinyl again, so here are a few: James Gang, Rides Again, Moby Grape, S/T, The Morrells Shake & Push, Treat Her Right, Tied To The Tracks, Tull, Stand Up, Junior Wells, Hoodoo Man Blues, Human Sexual Response, In A Roman Mood, NRBQ, Scraps.