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The All-Time Greats Thread - Flawless or not.


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No, I've never been to that Wintergreen Resort, but I'm sure I've stopped at that White's travel center Petro in Raphine.

And yes of course it was Massanutten. My parents were getting too old to drive down to their timeshares in Massanutten and Williamsburg in the late 90's so they started bugging my sister and me to use their weeks. We each used a few of them to be polite but timeshares at the old folks' resorts weren't really my cuppa tea.

I remember my whole family staying somewhere near UVA at Charlottesville sometime around my 17th birthday, summer of '78 it must have been, back when I had a bright and promising future haha. My parents were taking me on a tiki tour to look at a few potential colleges. We saw William & Mary and UNC Chapel Hill on that trip as well I believe. Of course a year later I ended up at USC Columbia and being the fuck up that I am I flunked out after the first year anyway and they invited me to fuck off. Could have been worse I suppse, USC was cheap as fuck back then even for out of state students, I reckon dad would've been a lot more pissed off had he spent UVA or W&M money. 

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I clicked through this thread and realised that I haven't posted in here, largely because the definition of flawless for me I think means I might have never heard a flawless release.  I need to think on this but I can't see me being able to put that much in here, surely the more I put in the more I am diminishing the flawlessness of the releases I do put in here?  Although, I am constantly discovering new music so I suppose the concept of finding something new to sit alongside an existing example of a genre/sub-genre isn't exactly alien.

Threads that make me think are not my favourites.  I am off to the Forum Games section to post spurious band names, loosely related words, album titles in alphabetical order (although if I keep ending up on X, Y or Z that can fuck off) and the endless playlist that is my existence whilst I ponder this thread some more.

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You see now I (as always) look at this differently. I don't see how something being flawless or exemplary or exceptional or whatever word you want to use diminishes anything else. That to me is like flawed woman-logic, i.e. if she admits another woman is hot then in her mind that somehow diminishes her own hotness. Can't they both be hot/flawless?

Each album has music on it that is what it is regardless of what music other albums might or might not have on them. Regardless of what has come before or what could be yet to come. When we listen to an album we are having a personal intimate experience with that music. And if something speaks to you and effects you and gives you pleasure without some major glaring imperfection or flaw and you form a real connection to that music then I think it's ok to recognize it as "flawless." A great album is a great album. If there were only 2 or 3 of them why would we waste so much time trying to find more?

Because the purpose of a thread like this is to bring to light albums we think are special or noteworthy. Don't think we need to get hung up on the word "flawless" because it's easy to just say "Well nothing's absolutely perfect and without flaw so I have nothing to contribute." We had a thread on the other board, something like list your 5/5 albums and people got so worked up about how almost nothing really deserves 5/5. Just about everything is a fraction off perfection and I was like JFC guys don't overthink this, just list your very most favorite exhalted albums. Some dudes posted like 4 or 5 or 6 I think I listed 60-something.

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39 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

You see now I (as always) look at this differently. I don't see how something being flawless or exemplary or exceptional or whatever word you want to use diminishes anything else. That to me is like flawed woman-logic, i.e. if she admits another woman is hot then in her mind that somehow diminishes her own hotness. Can't they both be hot/flawless?

Each album has music on it that is what it is regardless of what music other albums might or might not have on them. Regardless of what has come before or what could be yet to come. When we listen to an album we are having a personal intimate experience with that music. And if something speaks to you and effects you and gives you pleasure without some major glaring imperfection or flaw and you form a real connection to that music then I think it's ok to recognize it as "flawless." A great album is a great album. If there were only 2 or 3 of them why would we waste so much time trying to find more?

Because the purpose of a thread like this is to bring to light albums we think are special or noteworthy. Don't think we need to get hung up on the word "flawless" because it's easy to just say "Well nothing's absolutely perfect and without flaw so I have nothing to contribute." We had a thread on the other board, something like list your 5/5 albums and people got so worked up about how almost nothing really deserves 5/5. Just about everything is a fraction off perfection and I was like JFC guys don't overthink this, just list your very most favorite exhalted albums. Some dudes posted like 4 or 5 or 6 I think I listed 60-something.

I get what you're saying, but I've put up various lists of my favorite bands and albums sliced and diced along different axes enough times that I don't remember them all. I probably don't even agree with them all anymore. And flawlessness has never been a requirement for me. I don't love any of my favorites less because of their flaws - in fact I probably love them more because of things I perceived as flaws at first, that forced me to think differently and made me a different kind of music-enjoyer in the process - but if I'm thinking about them in terms of whether or not they're actually "flawless" I have to acknowledge that flaws are there. If I was forced at gunpoint to pick one "favorite" album in all of music, it would probably have to be "Moving Pictures", which I've consistently loved for over 30 years, and I still think the last song sucks. "Operation: Mindcrime"? Great songwriting, but I have to admit it's melodramatic, politically naive, juvenile, and I dunno about that snare sound. Opeth's album "Morningrise" was hugely important to my music taste and development as a songwriter and it probably had the biggest single impact of any album on me, but depending on my mood it can really drag, the lyrics are goofy, and again, the last song is kinda meh. I save it for special occasions. So that's three of my absolute favorite albums in the world that just don't qualify. On the other hand I can think of a few albums that are more consistent, more coherently put together - less "flawed" - but also less interesting. Every time I try to put a list together in here that I think fits, it falls apart. 

BTW none of that is to say that I think you're "wrong" in any way. Have at it. I just get hung up on this idea of what constitutes a "flaw" and I feel paralyzed.

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I think "flawless" was probably a poor choice of words for the thread title. On the other hand maybe the OP was truly in search of that one flawless album, his white whale so to speak and I'm totally misunderstanding. Either way I agree that we've all probably listed our favorites so many times compiled in so many different ways that it all becomes redundant at some point especially as our opinions change over time and as you say we can't remember what we've listed. That said I can never say no to a chance to make another list.

But also you do bring up a good point that one man's flaw is often another man's attribute. Or what you might think of as a flaw at first you can learn to see as an album defining high point. Funny how our own opinions of certain music can change so drastically over time both positively and negatively. 

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...I think it should be pointed out that the title of the thread says "most flawless"....and I took that to mean list something that qualifies as a record that is closest to your ideal listening experience in a particular record....the records I listed happen to be some of the ones I can listen to anytime with no hesitation and always enjoy...

....for me....I don't judge records on a particular value scale outside of what makes it enjoyable to me....something that is inherently personal to the individual...

 

...every piece of art has a value to someone...be it some "shitty" comedy starring a random Wayons brother or a short story like "The Fiend" by C Bukowski, with its extremely "distasteful to many" subject matter...something of value can be gleaned from either by someone....I tend to find more value in Bukowski than in "Scary Movie 1, 2, or 8(...or whichever number they are up to...).....

 

...with that said...here are a couple more that always are enjoyable for me....

 

BLACK FLAG - Nervous Breakdown

JOHN COLTRANE - Giant Steps

 

 

 

 

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I took it as "favorite albums of all time". That's what these topics always end up being.

I'll add G'N'R - Appetite for Destruction. Definitely the best debut for a hard rock band that I was there for. Never topped it with the albums that followed however. Use Your Illusion could have been fairly equal if they would have combined the 2 and had a decent editor.

Best song: Rocket Queen

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3 minutes ago, markm said:

Ha-we've done the Massanutten thing as well. My daughter liked their water park. 

Back to the subject of flawless albums:

John Coltrane -The Complete Africa Brass sessions-the only time he used a big jazz band-and a transitional album between his earlier BOP classics (I.e., Blue Trane), famous sheets of sound (Giant Steps) and his later avant-garde which can be challenging. Eric Dolphy contributes and gives the album a transcendent, exotic trance sound-not the most obvious choice (Love Supreme)-but the Africa Brass sessions are a fascinating meeting point-a real gem.

Neurosis-Through Silver and Blood -Concept and execution-one of a kind-heavy music that is challenging, rewarding and aims for a synthesis of intangible elements I would have to call art. 

 

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  • MacabreEternal changed the title to The All-Time Greats Thread - Flawless or not.

Hahaha awesome!! I love how accommodating you lot are, willing to change thread titles just to suit our silly little complaints. This instance makes perfect sense to me though as it has been pointed out that almost nothing can be considered to be completely and truly 100% without flaws.  And I know that makes people exclude things that they love but maybe they see some tiny little flaw there that they think disqualifies it. Which is of course nonsense. Because at the end of the day who's really to say what's a flaw and what's a feature?

 

One of my all time favorites by a German band that never gets mentioned:

Morrigan- Celts

 

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On 5/22/2021 at 1:05 AM, GoatmasterGeneral said:

No, I've never been to that Wintergreen Resort, but I'm sure I've stopped at that White's travel center Petro in Raphine.

And yes of course it was Massanutten. My parents were getting too old to drive down to their timeshares in Massanutten and Williamsburg in the late 90's so they started bugging my sister and me to use their weeks. We each used a few of them to be polite but timeshares at the old folks' resorts weren't really my cuppa tea.

I remember my whole family staying somewhere near UVA at Charlottesville sometime around my 17th birthday, summer of '78 it must have been, back when I had a bright and promising future haha. My parents were taking me on a tiki tour to look at a few potential colleges. We saw William & Mary and UNC Chapel Hill on that trip as well I believe. Of course a year later I ended up at USC Columbia and being the fuck up that I am I flunked out after the first year anyway and they invited me to fuck off. Could have been worse I suppse, USC was cheap as fuck back then even for out of state students, I reckon dad would've been a lot more pissed off had he spent UVA or W&M money. 

Yeah guys, my neck of the woods and hometown! Albemarle county, Charlottesville was 'going into town' and about 20 min away. Not sure if I consider it home anymore, but my Mom lives there, right near downtown. I made it through my 4 years at UVA and was probably one of the poorest kids there, fwiw. Worked my way through, took maybe $20K in loans for all 4 years - I don't even know if that would cover 1 year these days, I expect not. Anyway I borrowed and mooched my share of booze and drugs and had my share of fun along the way. But looking back I was not your typical UVA student, to put it mildly. Universities are corporations, first and foremost, and I want to throw up when I see the incessant and never ending mythology of Thomas Jefferson used as a promotional gimmick for the school. I mean, I do appreciate the history, but those weasels sending me solicitations for money don't give two shits. I don't just throw those letters away I tear them up. All that college donation club membership is the stupidest and lamest form of social ladder climbing. Fuck all of those people.

Sorry to get all negative...um an all time flawless record, maybe one not one has mentioned already..? Hows about Morbid Saint - Spectrum of Death

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3 hours ago, Hungarino said:

Yeah guys, my neck of the woods and hometown! Albemarle county, Charlottesville was 'going into town' and about 20 min away. Not sure if I consider it home anymore, but my Mom lives there, right near downtown. I made it through my 4 years at UVA and was probably one of the poorest kids there, fwiw. Worked my way through, took maybe $20K in loans for all 4 years - I don't even know if that would cover 1 year these days, I expect not. Anyway I borrowed and mooched my share of booze and drugs and had my share of fun along the way. But looking back I was not your typical UVA student, to put it mildly. Universities are corporations, first and foremost, and I want to throw up when I see the incessant and never ending mythology of Thomas Jefferson used as a promotional gimmick for the school. I mean, I do appreciate the history, but those weasels sending me solicitations for money don't give two shits. I don't just throw those letters away I tear them up. All that college donation club membership is the stupidest and lamest form of social ladder climbing. Fuck all of those people.

Sorry to get all negative...um an all time flawless record, maybe one not one has mentioned already..? Hows about Morbid Saint - Spectrum of Death

Fuck my alma mater. I graduated undergrad at Florida State 20 years ago and those motherfuckers are still sending me requests for money. Like I paid you already, get lost. I think my total expenditure for undergrad was $1200/semester or around 12 grand total. That's maybe a year or 2 now. Grad school at a state school was 16 grand. Looking at a doctorate but the 32 grand I'm seeing everywhere will definitely keep me from committing. Not sure what I gain with a PhD anyway, but never say never. College is a scam, always has been albeit a necessary one.

Back on topic. Since we're going with favorites. I'm going to throw in a few non-metal choices.

Joy Division - s/t debut

David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

Rush - Moving Pictures

Mazzy Star - Among My Swan - I have such a boner for Hope Sandoval.

Wipers - Youth of America

Massive Attack - Mezzanine

Miles Davis - Bitches' Brew

Bad Religion - How Could Hell Be Any Worse?

Rancid - ...and Out Come the Wolves

Beastie Boys - Check Your Head

Metal albums I'd throw in the mix

Manila Road - Crystal Logic

Blood Incantation - Starspawn

Emperor - Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk (although I prefer ITNE)

Judas Iscariot - Heaven in Flames

Bathory - Under the Sign of the Black Mark

Megadeth - Rust in Peace

Necrophobic - The Nocturnal Silence

 

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10 hours ago, Hungarino said:

Universities are corporations, first and foremost, and I want to throw up when I see the incessant and never ending mythology of Thomas Jefferson used as a promotional gimmick for the school. I mean, I do appreciate the history, but those weasels sending me solicitations for money don't give two shits. I don't just throw those letters away I tear them up. All that college donation club membership is the stupidest and lamest form of social ladder climbing. Fuck all of those people.

Wait, your universities want donations from you after you graduate and you're put on some sort of "Cool kids" list for it? That's pretty fucking shameless. I thank my lucky stars that Sweden so far hasn't gone private with it's higher education, though I'm sure some really wants it to happen. I took out about $48 000 in student loans for my 6 years at uni so I wouldn't have to work part time. I'm paying back about $150 a month, with the plan to be at 0 by retirement I think (it's an automated plan). Do you get paid to do PhDs in US? It's considered a job, right?

 

As for flawless albums, I have a real soft spot for Arjen Anthony Lucassen's earlier works. Past 10 years have been a bit hit n miss, but The universal migrator etc is amazing. But the one I've listened to the most is easily this one. A theatrical prog rock metal opera concept with the cream of metal vocalists (as usual) about a guy in a coma. Riveting, huh?

Ayreon - The Human Equation

 

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On 5/23/2021 at 8:43 PM, navybsn said:

Fuck my alma mater. I graduated undergrad at Florida State 20 years ago and those motherfuckers are still sending me requests for money. Like I paid you already, get lost. I think my total expenditure for undergrad was $1200/semester or around 12 grand total. That's maybe a year or 2 now. Grad school at a state school was 16 grand. Looking at a doctorate but the 32 grand I'm seeing everywhere will definitely keep me from committing. Not sure what I gain with a PhD anyway, but never say never. College is a scam, always has been albeit a necessary one.

 

 

....I guess I was lucky....my entire Art School education was paid in full with an N.E.A. grant....grad school too....I also had about 35Gs saved up by age 18 from working....fortunately my N.E.A. grant was grandfathered in after that fucking DEVIL Reagan gutted the National Endowment for the Arts in the mid 80's....if I ever finish my PhD work (...which I doubt I will...), I'm changing my last name to Metal...just for WhiteNoise.....

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29 minutes ago, MarkhantonioYeatts said:

....I guess I was lucky....my entire Art School education was paid in full with an N.E.A. grant....grad school too....I also had about 35Gs saved up by age 18 from working....fortunately my N.E.A. grant was grandfathered in after that fucking DEVIL Reagan gutted the National Endowment for the Arts in the mid 80's....if I ever finish my PhD work (...which I doubt I will...), I'm changing my last name to Metal...just for WhiteNoise.....

Wow. I graduated from art school 17 years ago and I'm still paying. My wife will probably be paying for hers for even longer. "But paying for it makes you appreciate it more", they said. "A bachelor's degree opens doors", they said.

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1 hour ago, MarkhantonioYeatts said:

....I guess I was lucky....my entire Art School education was paid in full with an N.E.A. grant....grad school too....I also had about 35Gs saved up by age 18 from working....fortunately my N.E.A. grant was grandfathered in after that fucking DEVIL Reagan gutted the National Endowment for the Arts in the mid 80's....if I ever finish my PhD work (...which I doubt I will...), I'm changing my last name to Metal...just for WhiteNoise.....

There can be only one Doctor Metal bro.

Of course since the govt paid to change his face and he's been on the lamb for the last 30 years as a deep cover sleeper agent for a clandestine agency that cannot be named, for all I know he could have left San Diego, come east, grown a long white beard, gotten leg extensions, killed the real Marko and he might have been posing as you for several years now. Yeah for all I know you could be him, although that's highly unlikely since you haven't mentioned Budgie or Blue Cheer or Randy Rhoads or Dick Dale even once. Nevermind regaled us with tales of how you smashed your way through busloads of fresh faced 16 year old USDA prime California virgins. And we know the real Doctor Metal couldn't go two weeks without doing that. So yeah I guess odds are you're probably not him. 

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1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

There can be only one Doctor Metal bro.

Of course since the govt paid to change his face and he's been on the lamb for the last 30 years as a deep cover sleeper agent for a clandestine agency that cannot be named, for all I know he could have left San Diego, come east, grown a long white beard, gotten leg extensions, killed the real Marko and he might have been posing as you for several years now. Yeah for all I know you could be him, although that's highly unlikely since you haven't mentioned Budgie or Blue Cheer or Randy Rhoads or Dick Dale even once. Nevermind regaled us with tales of how you smashed your way through busloads of fresh faced 16 year old USDA prime California virgins. And we know the real Doctor Metal couldn't go two weeks without doing that. So yeah I guess odds are you're probably not him. 

....these are stories I'm not privy to...but I do love DICK DALE and BLUE CHEER was pretty fucking sweet too....you two must've had some mondo falling out or something....

...I always got along pretty well with him, myself....but he probably thought I was some wacked out psycho and didn't want to rock the boat....

....what's it gonna take to get you two crazy kids back together?.....

....matching sabertooth skin loincloths?....

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So, I thought about this and I did actually sit through a week of listening to what we used to term as "5 Fist" records on the old Terrorizer forums and I realised that not a lot in my collection qualified for this number of fists/stars/horns ups/insert random measuring mechanism here.  In fact a few I had logged in my catalogue sheet as 5 got downgraded in all honesty and I am revisiting more over the bank holiday weekend.

One that did make the grade still was Iron Maiden's sophomore full-length.  Killers is for me Maiden's finest hour.  Having always preferred Di'anno to Dickinson (and that is not me saying Bruce is crap) there's a poignancy to Killers for me in that this was Paul's swansong and that spunky attitude the band had over their first two album releases clearly went with him.  Although Bruce brought them range in great quantities, I kind of liked the isolated slum that the first two records depicted in my head.  Killers was the last Iron Maiden album that had something to say from start to finish, mixing the historic aspects to their song writing with the urban threat of the title track, the suicidal melancholy of Another Life and Innocent Exile emphasising a grounded feeling to the album content alongside these more fantasy and macabre historic references.

It was also Rigg's finest hour with the paintbrush in my view and I can still sit for hours staring at that cover art.  With a shit ton of single, demo and EP releases under the belt by this point it was a shame that Di'anno's reliability was his downfall as the promise of what was to come beyond Killers was immense and that growth was severely restricted by the rickety structures of Number of the Beast.  Whereas the sophomore had effortlessly secured a gritty and gnarly style of metal that felt tight and focused, the band on their third release meandered badly and made probably their worse album in my book.  Hence Killers stands head and shoulders above most of what Maiden have done.  Further cementing the great foundations they built with their debut (which sits at 4.5/5 incidentally) the follow up album was already more mature and felt even richer in the song writing stakes. 

I have spent hours with the vinyl version of this record and it is a real milestone in my metal education in my early teens.

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