What makes an album good in your opinion?

[Dis]

Roorback? Damn, and I call myself a Sepultura fan. I was unaware a new album came out.

Nation took a little while to adjust to. But I like it. In fact I like it better than Against. Against had a few good songs, and many good riffs. But none of the songs really stand out. I'll have to check out Roorback.

[self biased]

heh.. i splurged and bought the import of nation, complete with a cover of 'bela lugosi's dead' when it was released a couple of years ago.

Mister Green's got some mighty big shoes to fill, and he doesn't do a wholly lackluster job of it, either. i'm more dissappointed in Andreas. sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. igor to some extent, too.

i'm still kinda in the dark about what exactly happened to drive max from sepultura. i've been mostly too embarrassed to ask.

[Sikander]

I'd say that a good album has at least a majority of good songs. Secondly, those songs should work well together so that you'd almost hate to listen to one alone without the others.

[molly bloom]

Oh this is a hard one....

Songs and music help, so do words, and covers...

But seriously. Some albums possess a sound, a particular all encompassing atmosphere, that lasts over both sides- I'm thinking Roxy Music's first two albums, 'The Velvet Underground and Nico', Patti Smith's 'Horses', Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On', David Bowie's 'Station to Station' and 'Low', Sly and the Family Stone's 'There's a Riot Going On', Brian Eno's 'Music For Films', Kraftwerk's 'Autobahn', Magazine's 'Real Life', Siouxsie and the Banshees 'The Scream', Emmylou Harris 'Wrecking Ball', 10 000 Maniacs' 'In My Tribe', P.J. Harvey 'To Bring You My Love', Aretha Franklin 'Live at the Fillmore West', the soundtracks to 'Koyaanisqaatsi', 'The Wicker Man' and the original 'Get Carter' and 'Assault on Precinct 13'....

Other albums, although good enough in some ways, seem more like a random assemblage of songs, that just don't gel. I'm thinking of things like Siouxsie and the Banshees 'Join Hands', the Stone Roses 2nd album, Talking Heads' 'Speaking in Tongues', St Etienne's 'Good Humour'...

All I know is that the first selections were albums that when first purchased on vinyl were played repeatedly, without losing their fascination. The kind of thing where I sat with a paper tablet in hand, crouched in front of the speaker, trying to get all the lyrics down (when lyric sheets didn't automatcially come with the album), where I'd get up an hour earlier before school just to run through the album before breakfast, where seemingly trivial details on the album covers could loom large in the imagining...

Of course that's in the days when album covers were real objets d'art- not glorified postage stamps in jewel cases that crease and tear flimsy paper sheets.

[Tripledoc]

Complexity. The devil is in the detail, as the saying goes.

[Theben]

If you can listen to an album all the wat thru then it's a good one.

[monolith94]

Basically, this sums up everything a good album should be:

http://members.aol.com/bocad/lb_one.jpg

[Brundlefly]

Re: What makes an album good in your opinion?

Originally posted by Albert Speer
what seperates an album that you find amazing from one that is mediocre?

long as they go real deep on that thug sh*t, it's all wood...

[Buck Birdseed]

Tricky. Songs are much easier, but I keep finding exceptions to any theories I posit for what makes a good album.

1. A truly great album should only have great songs on it, if it fails the "nearly every song a potential single" criterion there's no need to go futher.

...but I've got at least one album I love with only one good singular song on it (the rest are all partially-structured sketches that run into each other), but rather a mood running through the entire thing. Silverbullit's Citizen Bird is the falsifying case.

2. A mood has to run though the entire thing capturing the magic of a recording session.

...but I've got at least one album I love which consists of a series of singles released over a two-year period with only their nominal genre in common. There's still a consistent mood but it's down to the group rather than the session. The Paragons' On The Beach With The Paragons is the falsifying case.

3. A truly great album should have no lulls in the quality but should keep a consistent high level throughout.

...but I've got at least one album I love with some dull crud in the middle but great songs flanking beginning and end. Kraftwerk's Autobahn is the falsifying case.

Aaaargh!

[rev]

Well, I think there are two types of 'albums':

1. A collection of songs; and
2. A musical work, start to finish.

Most CDs are examples of the former. Examples of the latter: Pink Floyd, "The Wall" ("Dark Side", yada, yada), Guster, "Lost and Gone Forever", Coldplay, "Parachutes".

For an album of the latter to be good, IMHO, it either has to run a full gamut of emotion seamlessly or it has to cover a single set of emotion or a set of closely-related emotions.

For an album of the former to be good, it merely has to have consistent production and sound, with no reason to skip or rearrange tracks.

Albums that are a musical work, start to finish, however, have greater capability of being timeless.

[Al B. Sure!]

damn don't yall listen to any real music? i can understand no rap but come on... don't you like music that sounds good not this rock ****? yall need to listen to some earth, wind, and fire, stevie wonder, d'angelo, prince, brian mcknight, r.kelly, maxwell, musiq, isley brothers... come on.

[Immortal Wombat]

AS: The big difference between the artists you list (or at least the one's I've heard of) and "rock ****" is the difference between songs and music. Songs as songs are fine, but they are limited by what can be expressed in terms of the human voice, and the capacity of language to express concept, emotion, etc. Music bypasses expression.

[rev]

I highly recommend the album "Deltron 3030" by "Deltron 3030" (aka Del Tha Funkee Homosapien).

That is an album.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
damn don't yall listen to any real music? i can understand no rap but come on... don't you like music that sounds good not this rock ****? yall need to listen to some earth, wind, and fire, stevie wonder, d'angelo, prince, brian mcknight, r.kelly, maxwell, musiq, isley brothers... come on.

I was unaware that Aretha Franklin, Sly and the Family Stone, Marvin Gaye, Kraftwerk and Brian Eno counted as rock and all that sheeit, let alone the soundtrack albums I mentioned. Of course, Albert , you realize you didn’t ask for a comprehensive list of people’s listening, or favourite albums, so don’t expect to get an enormous spectrum of music reflected in the albums mentioned.

I could have for instance, listed as some excellent albums D.J. Shadow’s ‘Endtroducing’, Massive Attack’s ‘Blue Lines’, Portishead’s ‘Dummy’, Prince’s ‘Sign of the Times’, Tricky’s ‘Maxinquaye’, St Etienne’s ‘So Tough’, Billie Holiday’s ‘Songs for Distingue Lovers’, albums by Leftfield, Shara Nelson, Shirley Brown, Gil Scott Heron, Mahalia Jackson, Alberta Hunter, Memphis Slim, The Four Tops, Terry Callier, Nina Simone, Julia Lee, Solomon Burke, Mory Kante, Baaba Maal, Roni Size and Reprazent, Goldie ....well, you get the picture.

[monolith94]

Also, Ray Charles and Curtis Mayfield are great too.