I do not know why we never made one of these, but now is as good as a time as any.
First of all, to differentiate this from the specific genre threads, this is a thread to discuss the general of music. What are your favorite albums? Bands? Albums? What bands have you discovered recently? What type of music is really hitting your current mood?
To kick things off, I think I'll just requote my favorite album list here:
My top three are:
1. Frank Zappa - We're Only in it for the Money
2. The Mountain Goats - Tallahassee
3. Minutemen - Double Nickels on the DimeOther non-ordered favorites:
Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation
(this is rivaling the Minutemen at the moment for that spot)
Neu! - Neu!
Lightning Bolt - Wonderful Rainbow
Whipping Boy - Submarine* (I only discovered this one about a couple weeks ago and it's climbed up fast)
Andrew W.K. - Close Calls with Brick Walls
Red House Painters - Rollercoaster
Amesoeurs - Amesoeurs
Atheist - Unquestionable Presence
Repulsion - Horrified
Sleep - Holy Mountain
Melvins - Houdini
De La Soul - Three Feet High and Rising
Xiu Xiu - Knife Play
Neurosis - Through Silver in Blood
Hammers of Misfortune - The August Engine
My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
Gospeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
Kyuss - Welcome to Sky Valley
Eric Dolphy - Out To Lunch!
Miles Davis - Bitches Brew
Fugazi - Repeater
Flipper - Generic
Amebix - Monolith
Cap'n Jazz - Burritos, Inspiration Point, Fork Balloon Sports, Cards In The Spokes, Automatic Biographies, Kites, Kung Fu, Trophies, Banana Peels We've Slipped On and Egg Shells We've Tippy Toed Over
Dead Kennedys - Plastic Surgery Disasters
Hüsker Dü - Zen Arcade
Wipers - Is This Real?I could go on for a while listing favorites. Not a lot of my favorites are actually too far down, but that's just how it is. There's a point where bands/albums are well known because they are really that fantastic. That isn't to say that only well known bands can be great, but a lot of those albums left a much larger impression on me then some of my obscure niche dabblings. If I named every album that I loved, then we might be here for a while…
To be fair, the non-ordered contains a lot of more "in the moment" albums. There are many more that probably slipped my mind due to my current mood as well, but it is what it is.
Edit: Now with samples!