Inspired by one or two recent posts got me to thinking what are the cornerstones of my musical likes.
Over the years and decades I have accumulated much much music in a variety of formats. 1,000s as many of us will have done. 100s of artists.
But when I think about it there is probably 15-20 albums by say 10 artists or so and assorted tracks that I go back to repeatedly. Play multiple times every year. And probably represents a very high % of my total listening
In no order
Beatles – 2 or three albums and some singles
Stones – sticky fingers/let it bleed/beggars banquet
David Sylvian – 2 or 3 albums and various tracks
Eno – music for films Apollo: Atmospheres
Japan – Tin Drum
Byrne/Eno My life in the bush of ghosts
Little Feat – lycanthrope
Robert Palmer – his Littke Feat Covers
Physical Graffiti
Electric Ladyland/ various Machine Gun
Hejira/Hissing of Summer Lawns/ Don Jaun
Stone Roses first
How soon is now
Innervisions
Quadrophenia
Muddy Waters – Hard Again
I could do a top 100 list but once past 30 or 40 probably don’t listen to (or am drawn to) that much.
The time I have means there is a gravitational pull to a core centre.
(Nothing with flutes – pet hate)
***
And what inspired the post. Bridge of Sighs.
Out of interest, @leem, what Sylvian albums do you like most? I’m a big fan, but I usually find that fellow fans rate Secrets From The Beehive, Gone To Earth and Brilliant Trees highest, whereas my favourites are Dead Bees On A Cake and Blemish.
In no particular order
Gone to earth
Snow borne sorrow (nine horses)
The first day ( w Fripp)
Blemish & good son v only daughter
And comps
A victim of stars
Everything & nothing
Sleepwalkers
Not Dead Bees On A Cake? Why don’t other Sylvian fans like that album as much as I do? To my ears it’s his most “commercial” album. (Perhaps that’s why?) The nine-and-a-half minute opener, I Surrender, is my favourite Syvlian song (along with Blackwater). Nice to see someone else likes Blemish and The Good Son vs. The Only Daughter. I’m also quite fond of Manafon and Died in the Wool. Not so keen on the Robert Fripp collaborations though. My favourite of his collaboration albums is Flux + Mutability.
I think my “core” would be, broadly, pop music from around 1973 to around 1988. The performers I like either operated in that period or are newer acts clearly influenced by that time (e.g. Daft Punk). I rarely dip into the 60s unless it’s the big guns (Beatles, Bowie, Monkees).
The album-led bands like Led Zep, Floyd or Yes somewhat passed me by. This doesn’t stop me from enjoying LPs, but I am more likely to listen to a varied playlist than an entire album.
There is a vast amount of pop music that is terrible, particularly in the 50s. I bought singles and albums like a mad thing for about 20 years and then I just stopped.
This is a much more interesting subject than just ‘What I think are the best albums of all time’ considerations – which ones do you go back to over and over again, in the face of overwhelming numbers of alternative choices that stack up, ever more numerous year by year but which continue to get scant attention?
Your list contains a fair few that are among my ‘core likes’; Abbey Road, the White album & Revolver, the Feat’s Electrif boot, the early Palmer albums from Sally to Double Fun, and Joni’s jazz period with Jaco – all permanently on the pile next to the deck.
I’d add the following fairly regular listens:
Talking Heads – Fear Of Music.
Crimson – COTCK, Islands & Lark’s Tongues.
Joe Gibbs – African Dub 3 (permanently in the car).
King Tubby – Meets Vivian Jackson.
Chuck Prophet – Balinese Dancer (permanently in the car).
Lee Perry – Super Ape & Double Seven.
Camel – Snow Goose.
Procol Harum – A Salty Dog.
Caravan – Do It All Over & Grey And Pink.
Moodys – Question & EGBDF.
Culture – Two Sevens.
Yes – The Yes Album (permanently in the car).
Misty In Roots – Counter Eurovision (permanently in the car).
Dusty – In Memphis.
Steely Dan – the first three albums (permanently in the car).
John Martyn – Solid Air & Live At Leeds.
That’s way more than 20 or so, but I think I could grab and carry the lot out of the house through smoke and flames if it came to it, and they’d make a great desert island playlist should I be shipwrecked somewhere.
Balinese Dancer is one of my go-to listens as well.
I’ve got a fragile heart, seized by desire
For one taste of your mouth I would cake-walk through fire….
Gets me every time.
I forgot Hot Rats. Always with me, and my ringtone is Peaches en Regalia.
And a delayed nod to @Stimpy, who gave me my CD copy of Misty In Roots. Big love fella.
My “Frequent Flyers” and Standbys:
Gong “You”
“801 Live”
“The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown”
King Crimson – “Lark’s Tongues In Aspic”
King Crimson – “Red”
Aretha Franklin “Aretha’s Gold”
Soft Machine “Volume Two”
Oliver Nelson “The Blues And The Abstract Truth”
Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto – “Getz/Gilberto”
Terry Riley – “A Rainbow In Curved Air”
Wayne Shorter – “Speak No Evil”
Funkadelic – “One Nation Under A Groove”
Stevie Wonder – “Innervisions”
Brian Eno – “Another Green World”
“Nick Mason’s Fictitious Sports”
Little Feat – “Electrif Lycanthrope”
“Was (Not Was)”
Weather Report – “Heavy Weather”
Joni Mitchell – “Hejira”
Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Max Roach – “Money Jungle”
Much like you, Mike and the other chaps above. My required albums, owned in all formats and now on my phone for playing whenever. What was once a brick of vinyl taken up and down staircases as I moved digs is now smaller than my little finger’s finger nail. The albums (non-exhaustively), comprise:
801 live
Electric Lycantrophe
Hissing of the Summer Lawns
the first 2 hatfield and the North albums
the first 2 national health albums
Gong’s Flying Teapot trilogy
Roxy and Elsewhere
Zappa live in New York 1976
Apostrophe, Overnite Sensation, and One Size Fits all
The first 2 PiL albums
The Scream – Siouxsie and the Banshees
Tin Drum
The first 4 Cramps albums
Raw Power, Fun House – Iggy and the Stooges
All the Steely Dan albums, plus The Nightfly
Yessongs
Bowie from Hunky Dory to Heroes inclusive
Todd Rundgren’s Something/ Anything, AWATS, Todd, and Initiation (yes, including “A treatise on cosmic fire”)
Stevie Wonder’s 1970s run of genius.
The The’s 80s output
Like Minds – Corea, Gary Burton, Pat Metheny and Roy Hayes
Imaginary Day – Pat metheny Group
Esperanza – Esperanza Spalding
I’m going to take a contrary position. Instead of albums I return to over and over again which are the ones that I have to consciously limit myself to not playing overmuch lest overfamiliarity cause them to lose their magic. These would be:
Hounds of Love
All Mod Cons, Setting Sons, Sound Affects
Parallel Lines
Virtually all Bowie from Hunky Dory to Scary Monsters
Heaven Up Here
The Queen Is Dead
Man-Machine Trans Europe Express and Computer World
Led Zep IV
Steve McQueen
Sign O The Times
Automatic for the People
JuJu
Darkness on the Edge of Town
New Gold Dream
Our Time In Eden
Blue Lines
Nowhere
Doolittle
These albums are so core I would be bereft if I listened to one of them and didn’t feel the magic. Latest one in early nineties. I guess more recent stuff has not acquired this power from living with the music for decades. More recents pushing for a slot: sound of Silver, Second Toughest…, Discovery
Discovery? I never had you down as an ELO man.
I’m here all week, more’s the pity.
I’m not a million miles away from that list.
Tho they were a singles band at heart Lowlife needs adding too
I have a FiiO that is loaded with my “core albums” that I tend to listen to late at night. A few that get very regular plays…
Genesis – Selling England / Trick of The Tail
Kate Bush – Aerial
Steven Wilson – Hand Cannot Erase
Steely Dan – Aja
‘Til Tuesday – Welcome Home
Supertramp – Crime Of The Century
Camel – Snow Goose
Muddy Waters – Folk Singer
Albert King – Born Under A Bad Sign
Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here
Joni Mitchel – Blue
Mojo – Hymn To The Immortal World
Pretenders – Get Close
There are a lot of artists whose every album I own, but quite a few I seldom listen to – Springsteen, for example, whom I really have to be in the mood for. There are other ‘classic artists’ where I return to a few core albums again and again – mid-period Beatles, mid 60s Dylan, 70s Jackson Browne, Rumours era Fleetwood Mac….
Then there are some I can binge on quite happily, listening to all their albums, often sequentially in order to remind myself how they developed – Byrds / Gene Clark, CSNY / Neil Young and their various permutations, Joni Mitchell, Tom Petty, REM, John Mellencamp, Mark Knopfler. Some, like Cowboy Junkies or Chuck Prophet, I can listen to endlessly finding something new in each listen, and then not listen to at all for a year or two.
Amongst more recent artists there are a small number that I keep going back to without having a particular favourite album, whose latest release I would happily buy without auditioning first – Laura Veirs, Israel Nash, Thea Gilmore, Jonathan Wilson, Felice Brothers, Decemberists, Jason Isbell, Drive By Truckers….
So fairly traditional tastes I guess, and a strong element of brand loyalty – which pretty much sums me up!
I have a standing Top 10 albums which never seems to change:
1. Who – Quadrophenia
2. Pink Floyd – The Wall
3. Sex Pistols – Never Mind The Bollocks
4. Stiff Little Fingers – Inflamable Material
5. Beatles – Abbey Road
6. Henry Priestman – The Chronicles Of Modern Life
7. Big Country – The Crossing
8. Marillion – Misplaced Childhood
9. Dexys Midnight Runners – Searching For The Young Soul Rebels
10. Carter USM – 30 Something
Got a Top 5 for Films too:
1. Quadrophenia
2. Spinal Tap
3. Blues Brothers
4. Trainspotting
5. Still Crazy
Other “core” likes: Carry On Films, Football, Cars, Formula One, Trivia
Love most of the others so out of curiosity I’ve just ordered the Henry Priestman one as l’ve never heard it (and prefer physical product). There’s always more stuff to discover!
I tend not to play whole albums these days as there are far too many distractions to allow me the luxury of 40 minutes’ listening time. These are the albums I can find time for though:
Pavlov’s Dog: Pampered Menial
Talking Heads: Remain In Light
Van Der Graaf Generator: Pawn Hearts
Gong: You and Roanne 1973 (first disc)
David Bowie: Heroes
Grace Jones: Nightclubbing
Country Joe and The Fish: Electric Music for Mind and Body
The Flames: Soulfire
Freedom’s Children: Astra
Laurie Anderson: Big Science
Robert Wyatt: Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard
Quiet Sun: Mainstream
I rely a lot on single tracks to give me a shot of energy when needed. The main ones are:
A Louse is Not a Home (Peter Hammill)
Ogre Battle (Queen, from the first Rainbow concert of 1974)
Highway Star (Deep Purple)
Ndangariro (Thomas Mapfumo)
Whole World is Africa (Black Uhuru)
Happiness (Black Uhuru)
Lust For Life (Iggy Pop)
I Got My Mojo Working (Mike Bloomfield)
Immigrant Song (Led Zeppelin, from How The West Was Won)
Perhaps not energy but Late Night Shopping (in various mixes by David Sylvian – unsettling to listen to at 1am in the dark)
I don’t know if it belongs here – but, hey, who cares! – I’ve recently picked up a ‘1001 Albums You Must Listen Too Right Now’-type book from the Chazzer, and, unlike most people who purchase such a publication, I’m studiously trying to avoid listening to anything in it… championing Out Of Our Heads over Let It Bleed, Beatles For Sale over Abbey Road, Another Side of Bob Dylan over Blonde on Blonde etc. etc.
The air’s fresher there and the soil far less trampled upon. Girls liked those albums more, too.
I can understand that although my list didn’t follow)
Here is my list. I’m sure to think of more as soon as the edit time rolls over to zero, but here goes (in no particular order):
Rumours – Fleetwood Mac
Tusk – Fleetwood Mac
Tattoo You – Rolling Stones
Abbey Road – The Beatles
All Roxy Music’s studio albums, with the possible exception of the first one (Roxy Music) and the last one (Avalon), which I am less keen on.
Live – Roxy Music (2003)
All David Bowie’s studio albums between (and including) Hunky Dory and Let’s Dance
All Elvis Costello’s studio albums up to (and including) Blood & Chocolate, plus Brutal Youth
Together Alone – Crowded House
Stone Roses – Stone Roses
Bridge Over Troubled Water – S&G
Swagger – The Blue Aeroplanes
Friendloverplane 2 – The Blue Aeroplanes
Heaven Or Las Vegas – Cocteau Twins
Four Calendar Cafe – Cocteau Twins
Nashville Skyline – Bob Dylan
The Trinity Session – Cowboy Junkies
Bossanova – Pixies
Peter Gabriel I & II
You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever – Orange Juice
Fisherman’s Blues – The Waterboys
Too Close To Heaven – The Waterboys
A Girl At Her Volcano – Rickie Lee Jones
All R.E.M’s albums up to (and including) Monster
… I’m going to stop now … I could go on and on ….
Oh yes, and The Pretenders’ first album.
Loads of things, but boil it down to Little Feat, Jethro Tull and Steely Dan and we’re at the core. A side order of Miles and Rory Gallagher Sir? Yes please!
Oh and Richard Thompson obviously.
Well, I could write a list of albums that used to be my core albums – but that would be a falsehood now, because I have (for a number of reasons) very little time to listen to music these days, and spend all of it listening to the new albums I’ve bought most recently.
I know what my core albums sound like, I don’t need to listen to them.
The only albums that are slightly older purchases but still get listened to every now and then are a few albums I keep in my kitchen to play when I’m cooking or washing up afterwards. But those aren’t “core music” necessarily; just albums that gets me in the mood to cook!
I probably listen to more music now than I ever have, what with WFH and earbuds when I’m in the lab at work but I’m the same in that most of what I listen to is new. I might play an old album if I’m going to see someone live but then it/they goes back on the shelf.
I think the albums that I play most of are by Fountains of Wayne and there’s not any particular one that gets more play than any other.
I guess the 1st two Big Star albums also get several outings a year but other artists I like (eg Sparks, Elvis Costello, XTC) have such a big catalogue now that I’m unlikely to play any one of their old albums once in a year.
Stuff I listen to a lot in some kind of order:
Wilco/Jeff Tweedy, Radiohead, Manics, Teardrops/Cope, Stones, Neil Young, Van Morrison, Zombies, Dylan, Fabs, Beach Boys/Brian Wilson, Springsteen
And recently Now Yearbook sets from 78-82, disco, soul, electronic stuff, pop,punk, ska etc. I love it
Any Rock ‘n’ Roll, any ska/rocksteady, any 60s soul/funk, any 50s/60s Modern Jazz, 60s film soundtracks… and then:
‘Please Please Me’ to ‘Rubber Soul’ – The Beatles.
1963-65 – The Rolling Stones.
‘Get The Picture’ & ‘Emotions’ – The Pretty Things.
The Beach Boys and The Byrds up to 1969.
‘Strange Days’, ‘Waiting For The Sun’, ‘The Soft Parade’ – The Doors.
‘Another Side…’, ‘John Wesley Harding’, ‘Nashville Skyline’ – Bob Dylan.
Columbia era – The Pink Floyd.
The four Tyrannosaurus Rex albums.
Jimi.
One-off British pysch albums from 1967 to 1969 (e.g. Rainbow Ffolly, July, Art etc.).
In other words, ‘rock’ acts before they became ‘RAWWWKKK!’ acts, got ugly, took harder drugs, wore appalling clothes, had dreadful hair, and played baseball stadiums with the stage in another zip code from most of the audience.
To keep it simple, I guess my core would be:
Miles Davis
The Beatles
The Stones
Weather Report
Steely Dan
British Jazz 1960-75
I was tempted to say Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Duke Ellington, Eno. Miles alone has over two hundred albums, including box sets. Heck of a lot of music in that small list.
Maybe so – but do you enjoy them all equally? Are they all “core”, as defined by the OP?
I don’t think you can go far wrong with any of those four. I enjoy Coltrane’s free jazz, Miles’s flirtation with Pop and Hip Hop, Eno’s singing voice and The Duke is always perfection. I’d be happy to add Bowie’s entire catalogue.
I’ve just recently set up a new Raspberry Pi music server in my bedroom.
So far I’m just playing my Duke Ellington albums on it.
Solid gold all the way, with occasional diamonds. And there’s lots of it too.
My other one, in the living room, is playing the new arrivals from this year, so far. Some of it new releases, some of it upgrades from stuff I previously had as mp3s, the rest of it old stuff that I missed out on previously.
May I add Aretha?
I have a couple of core themes in my favourites…
80s Indie/pop/rock especially Scottish acts Aztec Camera, Orange Juice, Waterboys, Momus, early Simple Minds, Talking Heads, Shriekback.
Idiosyncratic Singer Songwiters – Jonathan Richman, Roddy and Edwyn’s solo stuff, Lyle Lovett.
Ambient/Instrumental/Experimental – Lots of Eno, Sylvian, Fripp in various incarnations, Radiohead, Reich, Pärt etc.
Funk especially good compilations but also the Holy Trinity of Brown, Clinton and Stone, Mayfield, Withers.
Mostly I listen to three hour long minidisc compilations of the individual artists or genres, Spotify playlists and lots of radio. My music collection is all over the genres but they’re the main areas of interest. I’m not averse to a bit of modern but no set genre.
I’ve been thinking about how to approach this. Some have gone with core themes, some have gone with core artists and included their entire repertoire. Some have fallen back on favourite genres.
So, I’ve gone back to the OP: “But when I think about it there is probably 15-20 albums by say 10 artists or so and assorted tracks that I go back to repeatedly. Play multiple times every year. And probably represents a very high % of my total listening”.
I started off with a long list – then brutally hacked away at it until it matched the sentiment of the OP (lots of good stuff had to be removed) – it’s more than 20 items, of course, and more than 10 artists. However, I listen to these multiple times every year; they probably do represent a very high percentage of my listening; and therefore are probably my core listening.
VdGG – Godbluff/Still Life/World Record
Yes – Fragile/Edge/Topographic/Relayer
Tull – Aqualung to Minstrel
King Crimson – Starless and Bible Black/Red/USA
Bach – Goldberg Variations (particularly but not exclusively Angela Hewitt)
Sibelius – Symphonies (particularly but not exclusively HPO/Segerstam)
John Coltrane – Ballads
Procol Harum – Salty Dog/Home/Barricades/Grand Hotel
Ella Fitzgerald – Complete American Songbooks
Diana Krall – The Girl in the Other Room
Slapp Happy/Henry Cow – Desperate Straits
Hatfields x 2
National Health x 2
Led Zeppelin – Graffiti and Presence
Gong – You/Shamal/Gazeuse
Gentle Giant – Power and Glory/Interview
Roxy – first 4
Soft Machine – 3/4/5/7
Greasy Truckers Party – the Man set
Greasy Truckers at Dingwalls – the Gong set
Going through my collection, there are many great individual albums which I treasure (2 Step to Heaven, Mouth Music, Rising Above Bedlam), artists who have deeply-loved periods (early OMD, mid-late Clash), but the following are the acts who I cherish above all, who haven’t failed in anything – or if they have, their peaks are so high, I’m prepared to overlook their weak later releases (NO, TSOM).
I also tried to group them to give a sense of why I love them so, though sometimes they slip between categories, which I try to reflect.
Amazing vocalists (av) – the sound and texture of their voice is the key factor:
Leonard Cohen, Maggie Rogers, Mariem Hassan
Atmosphere creators (ac) – wizards at creating a musical mood without needing focused listening:
Cowboy Junkies (av), Dead Can Dance (av), Lamb, Luna, Modest Mouse, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Propaganda (idi), Quantic, Saint Etienne, Spacemen3, Zion Train
Infectious dance instigators (idi) – I just can’t, I just can’t control myself:
Chumbawamba, Fluke, The Grid, Louis Prima, New Order, Systema Solar (av).
Magicians (m) – everything they touch turns to gold, whether catalysts for others or main drivers:
Andrew Weatherall, Barry Adamson, Justin Adams, Kirsty McGee (av), The KLF, Laurie Anderson (av), Manu Chao, Neil Young (nm).
Noise merchants (nm) – I love to drown in their sound:
Gallon Drunk, Lounge Lizards, The Sisters of Mercy, Third Ear Band, Young Gods.
Currently I mostly listen to instrumental stuff, especially post-rock, plus quite a bit of modern prog… However my core tastes are soul music and disco. No ‘deep cuts’. The big hits, floor-fillers. Something like Boogie Nights, to be honest.