what was the last 'classic album' you got and were knocked out by?

also Nick Drake - Bryter Later - but I already knew most of the songs on that, so it wasn't quite such a revelation.

:-) :-) I'm most happy to hear that!

pre-1990: Poison, Open Up And Say Ahh....

Also that Joe Cuba Sextette Diggin' the Most I just got is pretty great, except for the English language tunes. But the tracks that Cheo Feliciano sings on are uniformly very good.

i more or less have all of his records and i have the feeling otb is his best studio album. it's the most intense of his folky/soft songwriter albums. there are no real standouts except the first song which i knew from decade. it's all pretty much made of one stone. by the way neil did many shit and average albums. most of his 90s (except ragged glory, dead man was ok) and a lot of his 80s releases (trans, reactor, landing on water etc., hawks + doves was ace) should be mentioned here.

i made a quick "best of '63/'64" playlist that i've been rocking all day. basically i wouldn't fuck with PPM or AHDN but combining my fav originals from With and For Sale, plus singles and B-sides you get the following. i do like more songs on both those records that aren't here, but it makes for a fun listen

It Won't Be Long
All I've Got to Do
All My Loving
Not a Second Time
No Reply
I'm a Loser
Baby's in Black

Eight Days a Week
Every Little Thing
I Don't Want to Spoil the Party
What You're Doing
This Boy
I Feel Fine
Yes It Is

I was always a blue-album Beatles guy, never listened to anything pre-Rubber Soul barring a few songs. But lately I have come around on the early stuff. My son is 12 and a big Beatles fan and it’s due to his influence that I have come around - listening to him learning those songs on the guitar and watching documentaries on those early years, the years when they were still a touring band. Those are some great little songs.

Like a lot of other albums in this thread I'm not sure it's considered a classic - although it topped their best album poll on ILX - but, anyway, "Penis Envy" by Crass is knocking me out right now. I'd never heard until a couple of days ago.

all time favorite!

fantastic record, prob my favourite by Crass

Jeru, your best of '63/'64 playlist is phenomenal! Been playing it a ton these past two days!

This band might be summarily (but hopefully not dismissively) classified as high-ranking B-tier sophistipop, but was pretty blown away by finally hearing Microdisney after years of only reading about them (and maybe even temporarily confusing them with McCarthy, presumably due to Sean O'Hagan having been in MD and Tim Gane in McC?); they're really hitting a Prefab-meets-Smiths sweet spot for me--I don't know George Clanton's own music, but kudos to him for having reissued Everybody Is Fantastic on his 100% Electronica label back in 2017:
https://microdisney100p.bandcamp.com/album/everybody-is-fantastic

Classic might be stretching it a bit, but only just now hearing Black Flag's Live '84' for the first time and... holy shit. This might be my favorite single disc of Black Flag. The Kira/Bill lineup with lots of gnarly, fucked up Ginn solos in a well recorded live set without Spot's production? Hell yeah.

It is really good. You should definitely also check out Who's Got The 10 1/2?, recorded a year or so later. They were absolutely on fire live in that era.

Yeah, I need to check that one out again, it's been a long time since I've heard it.

there's a recording of the London gig Marquee '84 that is probably the live set I've played the most ever. I hear something in it that reminds me of Link Wray alongside the writhing hard rock thing. There was an official live video filmed on the next night I think in Leeds.

I thought Bill Stephenson was best with Kira. quite a formidable group.
The demoes of a lot of the material they played in 84 cut with the old 5 piece line-up with Dukowski and Cadena from a few months earlier are also well worth checking out.

yes, but note those are from the summer of 1982 ;)

Not sure if it has classic status, but I really dug Johnny Bristol's Hang on in There Baby. Bristol produced Boz Scaggs' Slow Dancer the same year and you can hear the soul sound he brought to Scaggs' music here.

Currently having a “Where have you been all my life?”-level reaction to Spaceman 3’s Recurring. I remember really being let down by The Perfect Prescription about 20 years ago, so I figured Jason Pierce didn’t get good until he formed Spiritualized and never investigated this band any further. Happy to be proven wrong! This album is draggy and druggy and totally awesome! “Waves of joyyyy”

is neurovision by telex considered a classic album? cause it should be.

It is by me.

i am mad nobody told me about this album

Snrub, check out Playing With Fire, the album between Perfect RX and Recurring. For the most part it leans slow and sparse with only a couple of garage rock things and those are more Suicide than Stooges.

Also, listen to the Forged Prescriptions version of “Walking With Jesus. It will probably be up your alley.

I was kind of similar with Spacemen 3 / Spirirtualized until "I Love You" from "Recurring" was used in an episode of Reservation Dogs and was totally perfect.

I just watched that one recently <3

Steely Dan "Can'tBuyAThrillCountdowntoEcstasyPretzelLogicKatyLiedTheRoyalScamAjaGaucho". All one big wonderful album far as I'm concerned.

judee sill - heart food. so so so so good

Played Patti Smith lp "Horses".

I bought a cheap 2cd set some years ago, never much liked the album but I really enjoyed the live version on cd2.

Today, I enjoyed my blue Arista label version very much.

Funny, the record looks much like my Showaddywaddy lp from ages back.

xp Heart Food is so perfect and beautiful

Listened to Wire's Send for the first time tonight. It has 11 tracks, six of which originally appeared on the first two Read & Burn EPs, both of which I own. (I feel like Read & Burn 02 was only sold at live shows? Am I misremembering that?) Anyway, I feel like the six tracks from the EPs appear on Send in different mixes. Am I wrong about that, too?

judee sill - heart food. so so so so good

otm. Beguiling. What a massive talent.

I recently finally listened to early Scritti Politti. I like the whole evolution of Green Gartside’s thing.

Re: Wire comments. I got R&B 2 directly from the lads via their website. And I think the mixes on "Send" are all the same except for a longer version of "Nice Streets Above".

The Blasters S/T. Goddamn what a good time

Man. When I found Heart Food it soundtracked my whole life for like three months. It deserves to be as well known as Blue or On The Beach

Luna - Penthouse has been running through my head constantly the last week, ever since Shasta posted one of their songs on Is NYC Dead thread (I think). I love the guitar sounds! Never heard a note of them or Galaxie 500 before. I think I bought a Damon & Naomi CD 20 years ago based on them being big-upped on the RMBB, but it never took. I'm looking forward to listening to that CD when I pull them out of storage later this year with the benefit of being 20 years further on my music journey.

galaxie are so good. i envy someone getting to hear those albums for the first time.

imo Damon & Naomi don't sound that much like Luna, or Galaxie 500.

My only complaint about Penthouse is that 23 Minutes in Brussels isn't 23 minutes long.

Is the title a reference to the infamous Suicide bootleg?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZZ4Wzqdeok

Oh man, Elvis rated Beatles VI and Budo channeled a lot of it---I used to take that thing to off-campus parties in the late 70s, and play it between Never Mind The Bollocks and In The City---Lennon was such a screamer, and the whole cobbleset was so intensely precise, like it might come lose, and it did fly around some---take it wiki!

Beatles VI includes two tracks featuring searing John Lennon vocals, recorded specifically for the North American market:[6] "Bad Boy" and "Dizzy Miss Lizzy", both covers of Larry Williams songs, and both recorded on Williams' birthday (10 May 1965), marking perhaps the only time that the Beatles recorded material especially for North America. "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" was part of the set of their 1965 US concerts and was soon included on the British release of the Help! album, but "Bad Boy" was not released in the United Kingdom or anywhere else in the world until 1966, when it appeared on the compilation A Collection of Beatles Oldies. These two songs, along with "Act Naturally" the following month, were the last cover songs recorded and released by the Beatles until "Maggie Mae" appeared on the Let It Be album in 1970.

Beatles VI also included:

the remaining six tracks from Beatles for Sale (i.e., those left off Beatles '65, although two such songs had been released on a single in February 1965).
"Yes It Is", the B-side to the single "Ticket to Ride". This is a "duophonic" stereo remix from the original mono track, with additional echo and reverb.
two other tracks from the forthcoming UK release of Help!: "You Like Me Too Much" and "Tell Me What You See".
As on Beatles for Sale, the "Kansas City"/"Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!" medley was originally listed only as "Kansas City". After attorneys for Venice Music notified Capitol of its error, the record label was soon corrected, although the album cover never was.

Track listing
All tracks are written by Lennon–McCartney, except where noted.

Side one
No. Title Lead vocals Length
1. "Kansas City"/"Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey" (Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller/Richard Penniman) McCartney 2:30
2. "Eight Days a Week" Lennon with McCartney 2:43
3. "You Like Me Too Much" (George Harrison) Harrison 2:34
4. "Bad Boy" (Larry Williams) Lennon 2:17
5. "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party" Lennon with McCartney 2:33
6. "Words of Love" (Buddy Holly) Lennon and McCartney 2:10
Total length: 14:47
Side two
No. Title Lead vocals Length
1. "What You're Doing" McCartney 2:30
2. "Yes It Is" Lennon with Harrison and McCartney 2:40
3. "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" (Williams) Lennon 2:51
4. "Tell Me What You See" McCartney with Lennon 2:35
5. "Every Little Thing" Lennon with McCartney 2:01

Hard To Earn

I am just finally sort of mellowing out to be able to really ride with guru’s whole thing. and I love all the annoying high pitch sounds

I was listening to Step In The Arena last week, and that might be a flawless album.

Chocolate and Cheese, had no idea man. Had only heard Ween on the radio and on mixtapes made by stoners.

gabba gabba one of us

Oh shit, next thing you're gonna be downloading the Bilboa Tapes, sorting out the lore of Papa Gener's love life in song, and gettin' down with the brown on the Poopship!

They really are one of the most rewarding bands.

Nomeansno - Wrong

holy shit

I have a memory of Peel playing a whole side of Wrong when it was released, and it made such a deep impression on me. I hope it actually happened and it's not just a brain malfunction.

some of this is Led Zep level punch, Rags And Bones currently kicking my ass

i am checking this out too and wow yeah, these are very compelling jams.

was fun discovering Ween's albums for the first time and realizing I knew four songs by them already. never in a million years would've put together that they were from the same band.

war ina babylon

Wrong is a 5 star classic all the way thru, not a weak track on there!
there's no classic album just compilations but I'm currently getting knocked out by Charley Patton, holy shit that guy was versatile.
the compilations themselves are an absolute minefield though, each one takes a different approach to surface noise as ancient 78s are the only source remaining. some just play the 78s without any noise reduction which makes them difficult to listen to depending on the 78, while others overdo the noise reduction until the guitar has a gross spindly digital sheen.

Always liked the sound of my Yazoo 2xLP, not sure what would be available now digitally

yeh this is just going thru comps on slsk, will be on the lookout for LP version tho

I bought Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirrors recently. On compact disc, no less. Because it was £5.75. I have about one-quarter of the album already, scattered across Virgin's Brief History of Ambient compilations, and I was worried that it was going to be monotonous - the same basic idea repeated with variations for forty minutes. Sometimes Brian Eno turns up the reverb. Sometimes he turns it down. I was worried that Virgin's compilation people had picked the best tracks.

I had that problem with Mustt Mustt. "Sea of Vapours" and the Massive Attack remix of the title track are both on the Brief History compilation, and they're by far the best tracks on the album. Ditto Trisan. Nonetheless I can truthfully say that I have bought four compact discs in 2026. Four!

It has been over a decade since Apple last sold a computer with an optical drive, but Itunes/Apple Music can still rip compact discs. But, anyway, I was pleasantly surprised. Not exactly knocked out, but pleasantly surprised. Mirrors is diverse, consistently interesting, mostly timeless, and it has a cold unsentimentality that has aged well. It feels weird that it came out in 1980 and thus coincided with Sham 69 and the Ford Cortina. It must have felt like a portal into a different world back then.

I also bought Time Out by Dave Brubeck. I didn't knock me out, but I enjoyed it. It struck me that the basic experiment - jazz music in unusual time signatures, done in a way that sounds normal - was too successful, in that I largely didn't notice the unusual time signatures, at which point it's just a pleasant jazz album.

I was struck by the cover of his previous album, which oozes modernist 1950s rulers-of-the-world energy:
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/sWAAAOSw83dmtdjw/s-l1200.jpg