This may not necessarily be your favourite one, but instead something that came along at a certain time in your life and resonated deeply
Mine is Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen
May these days make my top 5 Bruce albums, but probably not my top 3. It was released in 1984 when I was 22, I am guessing it was released on the UK on Fri June 8th, I had been a fan for about 4 years and had seen one live show (still the best I ever saw), after the low key solo Nebraska album there was some excitement at a new offering with the E St Band. I had probably already heard the first single, a UK flop called Dancing in the Dark (initially only got to no, 28 ).
I was living in North London and simply had to get it on the day of release, I had a one hour lunch break so I got the bus to HMV and picked it up, on the way back to work I stopped off at my place. I had time to play the first 2 tracks Born in the USA and Cover Me. It sounded vibrant, exciting and modern, couldn’t wait to hear the rest…
Over the next year and a bit I pretty much played it at least once a day, often several times a day. So I am guessing that in that time it was probably heard it in full at least 500 times, not sure I listened to any other albums other than it! After that period I may have bought another album (The Smiths? Lloyd Cole and the Commotions?) and stopped playing it so much. Probably over the next 20 years I may have played it once or twice a year, I play it less often now, but still like it a lot when I do (80s production notwithstanding).
What’s yours?
Love `Forever Changes`, because it`s the greatest album ever recorded. OOAA but they are wrong.
You may well be right (about this one)
Probably the right answer for a couple of years in he late 80s. Along with the Readers Digest Rolling Stones compilation box thing I bought on the cheap at a jumble sale
??? It was released in 1967.
Shock revelation: some people buy records – and listen to them – in the years after they were released.
I know… bizarre… there’s nowt so queer as folk.
PS. Ten people bought Forever Changes in 1967.
That’s 8 more than bought Velvet Underground &Nico in the same year
Aladdin Sane.
The first record I bought on the day of release, it was love at first listen: dirty, filthy rock ‘n’ roll crossed with lipstick smeared theatricality.
Blonde On Blonde because it’s the greatest album …see above.
I should also add that at the time I played it 4 zillion times I only had another dozen or so albums in my collection. It was bloody hard back then I’ll tell you when an LP cost as much as the Prime Minister’s wages, not that we had a Prime Minister, couldn’t bloody afford (contd p94)
Superb choice Lodey.
Dylan album I most listen to would be Planet Waves or Street Legal but as to the record that has been most played over my life , crikey, hmmm possibly Veedon Fleece.
New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84). Came to it later than its follow-up, Sparkle In The Rain which I don’t listen to much at all these days (too bombastic). I still cannot find fault with a single note/phrase on NGD. It’s a ridiculously self-assured album which as its title suggests, shimmers, glistens and is weighty. Love the downturn in mood towards the end as we have the more pensive Hunter & The Hunted (replete with Herbie Hancock keyboard solo) and the mighty King Is White And In The Crowd.
Have listened to this thousands of times.
To think: they made this when they were about 21-22 years of age. Bonkers!
That is a great shout. It’s just fabulous isn’t it? Can’t lay claim to my most played although mine will be the same era. …
That’s probably my most played too. I’m not much of a Simple Minds fan but I love this album and play it all the time. As recently as last week a friend and I sat in my den arguing over which track to play first. I agree with everything you said.
Many listens of this one for me too. Never gets old, also not a big Minds fan and I hated the gig I saw soon after it came out.
As with Lodes above, it must be one that I had when I only had a handful of LPs. The first one I ever bought was With The Beatles just after Christmas 1963, so my guess is that is the one that has been heard most as I played it to death. Every note of it is engraved on my soul.
Probably Gentlemen Take Polaroids by Japan.
It’s still one of my favourite albums and my favourite of theirs.
I was 17 when I became aware of it, the year after it was released. It came along at a time in my life when I was shifting from adopting music that I had grown up with and seeking music for myself.
A wonderful, confusing time of discovery and change.
My vinyl copy skipped during My New Career and I played it so often that it’s disorienting when I hear it now and it doesn’t jump in the same place.
Absolutely brilliant record – I’d only owned a ‘best of’ and Tin Drum until fairly recently but dug back into the rest after reading the very fine book ‘A Foreign Place’ and dug up the rest of the catalogue. They invented the early 80s right there.
Abbey Road.
Abbey Road is certainly my most listened to Fabs album (excluding the Red and Blue compos)
Blue compo for me – bought it when I was about 12. Played it to death because it was the only album I had other than the red compo which was played slightly less. I dont think I’ve played it since I was about 15 but I had already set a benchmark that wont be topped.
For Fabs it’s probably A Hard Day’s Night.
I honestly wouldn’t know – perhaps The Beatles 1
Them’s big some big cojones, TJ.
Reminds me of nothing more thanthe scene in The New Avengers when John Steed has infiltrated an organisation of bad hombres pretending to be monks and while he is among them they drop their robes to reveal they are all wearing Nazi uniforms, simultaneously crying “Heil Hitler!”.
Exposed as an intruder, Steed valiantly offers a “Rule Britannia” by way of response.
Coming to this thread with Beatles 1 betrays a fellow with no fear of exposure as being declared “not one of us”. I can only salute you!
I’ve never listened to the 1 album.
Except I have… thousands of times. We all have. Think about it.
When I got it for Christmas, I probably had a handful of CDs. It was my first real exposure to The Beatles’ music. I loved it then, and it’s still the default choice when I fancy listening to them again.
But…but…no Strawberry Fields Forever…!
No ‘Old Brown Shoe’ either. I’m really missing out.
I don’t think I could work that out. I certainly listened to The Dream Academy’s first album loads when it came out, but before that I must have played The Beatles’ red album so often I almost wore the grooves out. Over the past 30 years though I’d say it’s probably Abbey Road.
Hard to say but I suspect the two I’m going for win because they are more than 35 years old… Del Amitri and The Jam must come close but I do have long periods of not listening to them. That goes for the gorgeous “Sulk” as well which is a treat for special occasions. The two I can’t separate because I gorged on them when they came out and go back to them time and again are Aztec Camera’s “High Land Hard Rain” and Haircut 100’s “Pelican West”. I’ve listened to them both in the last couple of weeks and they just don’t age nor diminish to these ears. They were also 2 of the first I picked up when I started trying to replace my “divorced” vinyl. ..
Caravanserai. Untouchable.
Love that album ……..but !
“Harvest” – Neil Young.
The Who – Quadrophenia and Pink Floyd – The Wall.
2 albums first heard around age 14/15 and never diminished
Never Mind The Bollocks must be up there, as are the catalogues of The Jam, The Clash and Stiff Little Fingers
That’s way too many albums. One!
Quadrophenia would be the one with the most resonance.
Perfect soundtrack (and film) to angsty teenage years
Probably “Aqualung”, followed by “Dixie Chicken”.
Could add Aja and Royal Scam to this…
Hoy Hoy!
Probably ‘The White Album’ or My Life in the Bush of Ghosts or Drums and Wires or Jordan: The Comeback or Hex Enduction Hour or Pet Sounds or Come On Feel the Illinois or Kilimanjaro or Pink Flag or Split or Low or Power, Corruption and Lies or Histoire de Melody Nelson or La Question or The Name of this band is Talking Heads.
I must of heard each of these at least 200+ times each and lots of others. These were the ones that spring to mind.
Fulham Fallout, of course. It’s either that or Shape Up and Dance.
Which one? There were 10 apparently. Bet it was the Angela Rippon one.
Really? I only know the Felicity K album, not these tribute acts.
Here you go, you old goat: https://www.discogs.com/label/755778-Shape-Up-And-Dance
Certainly helps me to get plenty of exercise.
Hurrrrrr
Nah, Isla St Clair I reckon.
I’d guess it’s Astral Weeks. Among my favourite albums it’s the one that seems to suit any mood or occasion: sunny stoned, grey and raining, posh dinner party, driving, town or countryside, threesome in a bath full of jelly, etc.
Ah, that was you! That bloody jelly got everywhere, didn’t it!
Well yes, but that was kind of the point.
That’s no sponge finger…
True.
Dylan album I most listen to would be Planet Waves or Street Legal but as to the record that has been most played over my life , crikey, hmmm possibly Veedon Fleece.
Mine would be either Tusk or Country Life, or possibly Armed Forces…. or Tattoo You.
I realise that’s not very good when it comes to my most played album, but for me they all capture the very late 70’s/early 80’s, when I was at secondary school and wont to spend a lot of time in my bedroom with my record player, cassette player and homework.
Tusk I got for one Christmas. I’d bought Rumours and loved it to bits (I do sometimes wonder what the 16 year old me saw in a bunch expat Englanders/West Coast Americans working out their personal problems in song), but was more taken with Tusk. When not doing my homework, I’d either listen to it, sat on my bed studying the small photographs on record sleeves (each disc had two covers, and those two double-covered discs had another sleeve) or, I’d turn out the lights and listen to it in the dark.
I had Country Life, which I am listening to now, on a cassette that someone had recorded for me. I also had Stranded and For Your Pleasure. Roxy was one of those bands I got into backwards. I’d bought Manifesto and I think I got introduced to earlier Roxy by a class mate, whose older brother had liked them. I listened to all three albums loads, but – at the time – Country Life was the one I liked most … as I write this I have Casanova in the ears and there is A Really Good Time and Prairie Rose (“Texas. Oh, what a state to be in!”) to come. Now, I’m not sure, I think Stranded might edge it. That, or For Your Pleasure!
Armed Forces, in the fold-out sleeve, was because of a girlfriend (probably my “first” girlfriend in any real sense, very brief… and almost certainly an ex-girlfriend by the time I was listening to the record in a lovelorn state) was very keen on Elvis C. It got even worse when I got Almost Blue. Anyway, I’m over it now.
Tattoo You? Just because … Start Me Up had come out and I spent my pocket money on the album and saw the Stones on the Still Life tour at Wembley in … I just looked it up … 1982. I tend to listen to Tattoo You these days when I am running, but I’ve got to finish my run by the end of the first side because the second side is too slow.
My most listened to album in recent years is Blackstar. Every time I went running for about a year, trying to finish 5km before it did.
Probably Parallel Lines and The Kick Inside.
Using the theory of it being something from when I’d got properly musically obsessive, only had enough cash to have a few albums to play (with) and that I’ve also carried on playing, then I’d guess at one of these
“Oil and Gold” – Shriekback
“Low Life” – New Order
“The Flat Earth” – Thomas Dolby
“The Covenant The Sword And The Arm Of The Lord” – Cabaret Voltaire
Actually it’s probably “Low Life” thinking about it, as that was also the second CD I ever bought, so the combined plays resulting from those two factors probably settles it.
Me too. If vinyl did scrobbling, it would probably be closely followed by ‘Eureka’ by The Bible.
Fair Warning…Van Halen.
Their fourth studio album and featuring some of Eddie’s most astounding guitar playing.
From fret melting shred…One foot out the Door, to slow, squealing blues…Push comes to Shove, his playing is literally (for 1981) peerless.
And the guitar sound….God the sound….
And Dave, staying in his admittedly limited range, actually sings on this album
That was the first Van Halen album I ever bought and I still like it.
Discovering the debut a few months later changed that to being my favourite!
I’d guess Creedence’s Cosmos Factory. First album I ever bought and for a while the only one I owned, and then, for a while, still preeminent in a fairly small collection of records. Still play it occasionally, and it is always the record I have played first when I’ve bought a new machine – cassette player, CD player, new Hi-fi, Spotify subscription, Sonos, etc etc.
After that I’d guess probably Blood on The Tracks, Highway 61 Revisited, St Dominic’s Preview, or maybe the Beatles blue album.
Easy! L.A. Woman. Bought it, my 2nd LP purchase, in 1971, uncertain really why it was the one, possibly Riders on the Storm. Loved it then, the poetry and politics of Morrison designed perfectly for the mind of a 14 year old, But I never stopped loving it, it remaining credible when others faded from my belief. I know the band gets knocked as puerile pseudo-intellectual tosh nowadays, but is is still a monster in my mind and ears.
Those who knock The Doors have never been in a band that made such a glorious sun-soaked sound of sex and possibilities that was enjoyed across the globe, and particularly so chez Master Fox.
The naysayers are just jealous, talent-free minnows running scared and bewildered before the gaping jaws of (That’s enough pseudo-intellectual tosh. Ed.)
Or they are David Crosby
As Lodestone said, probably something from the time you had a half-dozen albums and played them to death. So pick from Hunky Dory, LZ IV, The Wall, Rust Never Sleeps.
The first albums I had was when somebody gave me a cheap cassette player and two tapes – Jailbreak by Thin Lizzy and Dancehall Sweethearts by the mighty Horslips. I remember playing those over and over again until they were no longer playable.
For a couple of years in my mid teens I played little else but Appetite For Destruction.
The only other album that comes to mind which I could happily listen to three times in a row when it first came out was The Strokes’ Room On Fire. I used to keep the CD at work and remember playing it endlessly, which is funny because I can remember my first ever listen (at home), and thinking it was a bit meh. I still often find ‘first listens’ of albums a chore, however amazing they turn out to be.
No longer in my collection – Simon and Garfunkel greatest hits.
Still in my collection a toss up between Elvis Costello King of America and Songs of Leonard Cohen
It would have to be something like Electric Ladyland, or maybe The Last Record Album. Or even Electrif Lycanthrope – I listened to my cassette of that non-stop on a drive to the south of France once. It was literally the only tape I had.
Air guitaring to The Fan whilst driving is not a recommended approach to safe arrival.
Air drumming too – ah, carefree days
The Last Record Album is simply perfect. Eight tracks balancing three different voices in terms of both songwriting and singing produced by a band functioning as a single unit, covering a range of styles and emotions beautifully. The drumming, the bass playing, the keyboards are majestic, topped off with twin electric guitars. Each side’s opener sets the tone and the closer encourages flipping the disc and starting again. Its sequencing is flawless. It’s a proper LP, lasting under 40 minutes but rewarding many repeat visits. Gorgeous.
I once tried to squeeze Hi Roller in from the box set. Even editing out the count in didn’t work. It’s not that Hi Roller lacks quality, it simply disturbed the flow.
Yes, they made the right decision leaving it off TLRA. Like you say, the album has a wonderful balance to it. It’s rhythmically sophisticated but I think it’s in the arrangements and the chordings that Little Feat shifted up a gear and into their imperial phase, with songs like Romance Dance and All That You Dream. And of course, one of Lowell’s finest songs, Long Distance Love.
Yes, they made the right decision leaving it off TLRA. Like you say, the album has a wonderful balance to it. It’s rhythmically sophisticated but I think it’s in the arrangements and the chordings that Little Feat shifted up a gear and consolidated their imperial phase, with songs like Romance Dance and All That You Dream. And of course, one of Lowell’s finest songs, Long Distance Love.
Couldn’t agree more. I listened to it endlessly in my first year at poly and every time I play it on transported back to a year that completely changed my life. I’m going to play it now actually.
Couldnt see the author this post on the screen of my phone but knew who it had to be.
Referring to Nick Duvet.
It’s hard to say – a couple of candidates posted above in Aqualung and Caravanserai.
I think the most likely choice though would be a toss up between Roy Harper’s HQ and Free’s Fire and Water.
@Carl forgot about Fire and Water.
‘Every single day got a heartache coming my way’
God knows how many times I have sung that
By some distance it’s ‘The Stone Roses’. 25 years of love and it still gets a monthly spin. God knows how many times I played it in the early years.
Was probably mine too in the early 90s.
Probably a toss up between ‘My Aim Is True’ and ‘New Boots and Panties!!’ Now that I have a 90 minute commute twice a week, my time is split between various podcasts and my iPod. It’s amazing how often ‘Sweet Gene Vincent’ and ‘Welcome to the Working Week’ come up.
Probably Electric Ladyland or The White Album or John Barleycorn or Time Out Of Mind, which took up residence on the car stereo for ages, loved the more humble, less cocky version of Dylan.
Actually, when I think about it, it’s Journey in Satchidananda.
Oddly enough I was wondering along these lines only yesterday as I played It’s Everly Time while knocking up one of my signature dishes. Given that I’ve been listening to it constantly since 1960, it’s probably the winner. It may be the perfect pop album, and contains this unimprovable masterpiece.
Lexicon Of Love, I’ve probably listened to every week since I first borrowed it from the record library in 1986. Similar story with High Land Hard Rain too.
Blimey, your fine is going to be eeeeenormous!
Hang in there @myoldman there’s lots of love round here for “Lexicon Of Love” but some of the oldies don’t get that modern 80’s stuff…. Great to see another HLHR fanboy. See my choice up there are bit….☝
I meant for the record library! Do keep up. I love LoL. Anything else by the tinfoil turtles, nah, pifflewick and codsballs. Ok When Smokey Sings is fine.
Beauty Stab is a fine, fine album.
Mustn’t grumble.
Doh! Please accept my apologies with all of my heart…..
A fine album. Nowhere near my favourite ever but an old fave.
No idea. But the album that I’ve never tired of for the longest amount of time is My Bloody Valentine’s ‘Loveless’ – this still sounds extraordinary 28 years on
After The Goldrush
Forever hereafter known as After The Goldfish.
Rubber Soul and Revolver. Have been listening to both regularly for thirty years. Still love them, still able to hear new details.
The Clash – The Clash.
Throughout 1977 I recorded various songs onto my mono tape recorder ambiently (ie using the built in condenser mic) from John Peel and even Radio Luxembourg – Remote Control, I’m so bored with the USA. Finally got myself a copy on New Year’s Eve 1978/79 and inspired by Elvis Costello’s example stayed up all night listening to it repeatedly.
Over the next year I learnt to play acoustic guitar using the Clash Songbook that was out at the time. Ironically the first song I ever learnt to play was Career Opportunities and I ended up years later working as a careers adviser.
I have continued to listen to it on a regular basis and even now, as a mellow middle aged man, the Kinksy clipped chords and yobbo fuck the world vocals and certainty/simplicity of the world view still, in the right circumstances do it for me. I find nothing better for housecleaning and washing up accompaniment or generally singing along and acting the angry old rebel.
Join me now for a cathartic singalong “Who needs the Parliament, sitting making laws all day. They’re all fat and old. Queueing for the House of Lords” – so stupid it’s clever or is it the other way round.
Funnily enough the one thing I don’t do to it these days is play guitar. Despite the fact that I have two acoustics and 1 electric scattered around my house and at my girlfriends I very rarely pick them up these days. Must make the effort soon.
I still love that album & it gets regular plays on the headphones ( usually as I’m doing the bins or ironing). There was a time when I played Never Mind The Bollocks at least once a day, but The Clash has outlasted it for me.
Same here…
48 Hours is almost the perfect “Getting ready to go out” track.
Even after 40 years I cannot resist a Bruce Lee style leg up when Joe shouts “Kick It For Kicks”
Not for much longer though….me backs getting worse.
Okay, after giving it mucho thought, my best guess is Neither Washington Nor Moscow by The Redskins (not played it yet this year, mind).
This is a tough one. I suppose it’s probably the first album I ever bought, namely the original “Elton John – Greatest Hits”.
In recent years, the albums I’ve played the most have been ambient discs, because I play them when I’m working, and need something that doesn’t disturb my concentration. so I’ve given heavy airtime to:
Eno’s Discreet Music and “Thursday Afternoon” (and many others by him),
Harold Budd’s Luxa (and about 15 other discs by him),
“Für Alina” by Arvo Pärt,
“And Their Refinement of the Decline” by Stars of the Lid (ambient fans – if you’ve not heard this record, BUY IT NOW!)
“Le Pas du Chat Noir” by Anouar Brahem (and many others by him),
“Early Piano Music” by Ketil Björnstad (and many others by him),
“The Melody at Night, With You” by Keith Jarrett (and many others by him),
“Drowning by Numbers” by Michael Nyman (and many others by him),
“Songs from before” by Max Richter (and many others by him),
Fordlandia by Jóhann Jóhannsson (and many others by him),
“Vorleben” by Dustin O’Halloran
“Concert Program” by the Penguin Café Orchestra (and many others by them),
“November” by Dennis Johnson
Oh dear. I’ve done my usual. Listed more records than the OP asked for!
I did that too, but got away with it.
Dude, I compared the whole site to a bunch of Nazis and got away with it…,
You Redskins fans think everyone is Nazis 😉
According to an article from the Guardian it’s a deutschbag of Nazis.
Having worn out three vinlys and now on my third CD, I would say Aja.
Probably Silver Town by The Men They Couldn’t Hang. The closest they got to chart success, briefly hit number 39 and to my ear, the album where they almost achieved a sound which would have increased their audience beyond the original fanbase. However, in a career dogged by bad luck, the first single, Rosettes, had to be cancelled due to the Hillsborough disaster and the momentum was lost.
I’m pleased to report that they’re still touring and recording. Recent album, Cockahoop, is very good indeed and if you fancy a lively, sweaty night out with a good natured audience of mainly middle aged blokes and their wives and families then they’re hard to beat.
Katy Lied by Steely Dan. But given that I bought it on release in 1975 that gives it a good starting point over others that have had a lot of plays.
3 albums.
As per Foxy – Caravanserai.The Who – Who’s Next and the only record that I have a second copy having worn out the first – Lou Reed’s Rock’n’Roll Animal. Dissed by some as overthetop proto heavy metal, “of course the originals were better” yadda yadda. But from that glorious extended guitar intro by Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter on to the seminal riff of Sweet Jane. Heroin! FFS. I was 16 I transcribed the lyrics painstakingly, lift arm replay transcribe, repeat. Absolutely astounding. It had drugs, poetry, guitar pyrotechnics, the lot. It took me back to the first VU album and then, to my mother’s abhorrence, an infatuation with Berlin and the camp of Transformer.
I would say that All Mod Cons – one of the first 10 albums I owned, secondhand copy of course, will have accumulated more plays over the past forty years than any other. It sounds more diverse than Setting Sons, which has a heavier sound that you need to more in the mood for. AMC has light and space as well as crunch and shade.
Note to posters: Name one album only please. Anybody showing off and naming multiple ones will be severely reprimanded and banned from the website for one week 😉
* not really
@dai , I did list 3 but only “really” nominated Rock’n’Roll Animal
Noted.
Frequent play of discs corresponds to a time when I had less money and fewer albums to choose from.
That was a long, long time ago. I nominated two because I genuinely couldn’t say which has been played more. Nothing to do with showing off.
I wasn’t serious! Some have named whole output of certain artists though!
Mine must be ‘A Wizard, A True Star’ by Todd Rundgren. About 1975 or so Johnnie Walker played ‘I Saw The Light’ by TR quite often. Being enamoured of the track, and belonging to Dougie Knight’s Record Library in Belfast, I decided to investigate the album which featured this track. There were a number of TR albums available, but a couple didn’t have the track listing on the sleeve, so I took a punt on the one with the weird blue cover. Turns out it was the ‘wrong’ LP, but it was the greatest thing I ever heard, and it still has that effect on me today.
Oh, splendid choice Gary and I think I discovered AWATS in a very similar way. Something/Anything was a double and a bit more expensive, so I bought the latest album instead. No regrets at all
Legend – most nights, from 2010 to 2017, Bob Marley sequentially helped my two daughters drift off in their daddy’s cradling arms, suspended over his two skanking legs. No Woman, No Cry, I know better than my own heartbeat.
Nice story. One Love!
Thanks! Like you, l could have gone for a Penguin Café Orchestra album – When In Rome – as I loved that before the kids came along and sometimes added tracks from that into the bedtime playlist.
I know nothing about this band but I have this album and it is magnificent.
@attackdog. There are probably many on here who could tell your chapter and verse on PCO, but it was initiated and led by Simon Jeffes, who did the strings for the Sex Pistols version of My Way apparently. I just love the transcendentally peaceful and absorbing mix of folk, jazz and classical chamber music he and his musicians created.
and also scoring the orchestrated version of EMI on The Great Rock n Roll Swindle
And therefore presumably the God Save The Queen Symphony (I think it’s on the b-side of Something Else)
Yup, that was him too
(I actually forgot about that one)
Just discovred he also produced Keys To Your Heart by The 101ers (Joe Strummer’s pre-Clash band)
It does actually appear in the film during the record-burning sequence.
Thanks Sal – if I had known in advance its albeit tenuous connection with the Sex Pistols, I would not have touched it with a barge pole.
As my vinyl copy is lost in the loft I have heard sections of it used in TV productions, but have just now ordered the CD and looking forward to immersing myself in its gentle caress again.
Probably XTC’s ‘Nonsuch’, or ‘English Settlement’.
Closely followed by Genesis ‘A Trick Of The Tail’, Steely Dan ‘Gaucho’, Thomas Dolby ‘The Flat Earth’ and Tears for Fears ‘The Seeds of Love’.
TALK TO ME MULU!
That’s the duff track I rarely play.
Duff? Each to their own. I like the song’s internal tension, the rainforest vibe, the atmospherics, the drama.
I now have an overwhelming desire to hear “Woman In Chains”. I’m also going to check the dates on my tickets for TFF at Hampton Court in June…..
I also have to review my previous suggestions. Of course I have listened to “Songs From The Big Chair” More than any other album
Two votes on this thread for The Flat Earth and none for The Golden Age of Wireless… interesting!
PS. One of the predictive options for Wireless I got just then was Wullie. That would have been a different album altogether.
There’s some great stuff on Wireless, and I’ve played it a lot, but nowhere near as often as The Flat Earth. I suspect this is because I love the title track so much.
Astronauts & Heretics was a bit of a mess, but there’s some good stuff on it. ‘Eastern Bloc’ is a great ‘let’s-whack-the-volume-up’ track.
I still think the whole Boaty McBoatface thing could have been resolved satisfactorily by calling the research vessel SCIENCE!!!, and painting the name on the side in upper case at a quite serious f*ck-off size.
Seeds of Love has had a lot of play, mainly because it’s one of the few albums in my collection that has no duff tracks whatsoever. No skipping necessary. Bought shortly after I got my first CD player.
It’s not my most played, though. That must go to “The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown” which is probably my oldest surviving vinyl album, from the days when I only owned about a dozen albums. It still gets the occasional play. Runner-up, though not especially close is probably Gong’s “You”, also from my pre-CD days.
Since 2017 (i.e. when I reinstalled iTunes) it has been:
Jefferson Airplane – The Best of Jefferson Airplane
Pulp – Different Class
The Decemberists – Castaways & Cutouts
Now 41 (Disc 2)
I think it’s between ‘Kind Of Blue’ ( which I play far too often but cannot get sick of ) or Laughing Len’s ‘Songs Of Love And Hate’. A close 2nd ( or 3rd) would be Ry’s ‘Bop Til You Drop’
As a youngster, I’d have been staggered at the very suggestion that those top 2 could give such lasting satisfaction.
Country Life was a contender, as were Close to the Edge and Soft Machine Seven….
But on balance, it has to be Still Life…there was a period when it was never off the turntable…and on reflection, that period lasted more than 30 years…I still play it often, but not quite so obsessively…
The other possibility was an old 1960s DG pressing of BPO/Von Karajan, playing Sibelius’ 4th symphony and the Swan of Tuonela….also seemed to playing all the time….
Still Life? The live Stones album?
My apologies for lack of clarity – I had forgotten that one….
No….I meant Still Life, the Van der Graaf Generator album….
thank God for that. Stones Still Life is a stinker. Is that the one with the worst version of Like A Rolling Stone I’ve ever heard?
Never mind the Bobs, I was disappointed that they didn’t cover the Suede song on that. Somebody might point out that it hadn’t been written yet, and that Suede were probably still in junior school in 1981, but…. there’s always an excuse.
No it is from 1981, LARS started appearing in their setlists in the mid 90s. You are probably thinking of Stripped (which is excellent), although that particular cover version is a bit of a stinker.
it has to be Miles Davis – Kind of Blue. I’ve spent a fair number of years working away from home through the week and it is a great companion for travelling – reflective, uplifting, and always worth another listen.
Every device that I have owned that is capable of taking music has had Kind of Blue added to it – even my Kindle!
Since it’s come up elsewhere I’ll say Exile On Main St. which I had thought of posting here earlier. I taped it from the local library some time around 1979. Eventually purchasing a CD in the 90s and then second hand vinyl a few years ago. There is a richness and depth here. More horns and backing vocals than other Stones records of that era. Never quite get a complete handle on it so one never tires of it. Sounds of another time, of the deep south, recorded in another deep south, but also very much early seventies. The roots show but it’s not pastiche or parody. They made a complete, coherent world you can go into and get lost in. They put the art before the posturing for once.
This is a difficult question……
I was going to say the White Album, but I don’t think I’ve actually listened to it all the way through for years now.
Tubular Bells maybe…. but I’ve had long stretches where I have just never listened to it at all.
I was completely obsessed with the Avalanches’ Wildflower, to the extent where I listened to it two or three times a day and nothing else. But I sickened myself on it in the end, plus it’s a relatively recent album (2016) so I feel as if it still needs a good few years to bed in.
On balance I think it must be Highway 61 Revisited. I can’t think of a period in my life since I discovered it (1995 I think) where I have not listened to it at least once every couple of months. When I’m looking for a CD to play in the car I always seem to end up choosing that.
I played Wildflower a lot when it came out. Now relegated to a go to album when I’m on the spin bike and want to lose myself.
I used to keep a tally of plays (sad I know.. I know..)
Top played albums are mainly ones I bought in my late teens – I’m 56..
The BEATLES The Beatles (The White Album) 1968
Jeff BECK There And Back 1980
John MARTYN Grace And Danger 1980
PINK FLOYD The Dark Side Of The Moon 1973
SUPERTRAMP Even In The Quietest Moments 1977
Hmm..
Jeff Beck’s “Blow By Blow” must be fairly high in my Also Ran list.
I bought vinly in the dire (first CD player in 1997), but mid-dire bought my first cassette player for … erm … the bathroom, and with it three tapes.
I played the Stones’ debut, “Beggars’ Banquet,” and a particularly dubious cassette of “Village Green Preservation Society” for £1.99, when you couldn’t get VGPS anywhere, to death.
If I could avoid the dire … even in the bath – I avoided the dire … even in the bath.
Eh?
I think he means the eighties.
Hmmm… there are two, and both Jean Michel Jarre albums.
I had a friend at school who introduced me to JMJ by getting me to watch Rendezvous Houston with him in 1986. Lee’s not with us any more and he was a really great guy, so sometimes when I listen to Equinoxe I think about him. Everyone goes on about Oxygène being influential, but Equinoxe is a way better album: more tonal colour, more variety, and making use of sequencers. The run form Equinoxe 4-7 is basically prototypical EDM.
The other is Zoolook, which tanked here when it was released, but it quite possibly the most artistically interesting thing he’s ever done, harking back to his musique concrete roots, and being a thing that pushed the fairly new Fairlight (along with Peter Gabriel, he was one of the first people to take delivery of one, and used it initially on Magnetic Fields). And then there’s the other personnel: Laurie Anderson, Marcus Miller, Adrain Belew. Bits of it have a whiff of the nascent 80s NY hip-hop and dance, and the centrepiece, Ethnicolor is an epic piece of music. I think it’s one of the great lost albums of the 80s, and one that has had selective influence on a number of musicians.
Both of them had a HUGE effect to me in my teens, and I come back to them both again and again
Albums I still listen to from first purchase – all have had massive effect on me – all played many hundreds of times over the years.
Joni – Hejira
Hatfield and the North – The Rotters Club
Gong – Camembert Electrique
Jon Hassell – Powerspot
Spirit – 12 Dreams of Dr Sardonicus
Deep Purple – In Rock (nearly 50 years!)
Kate Bush – Sensual World
I could go on…
Ooh! Hejira. That’s an album I wish I’d listened to a lot more.
Come to think of it, I don’t really listen to it. It’s on in the background when I’m focussed on something else.
Sensual World is a good shout.
Oh don’t bloody ruin that one as well!
Mmmmm, yes.