Nah, fair play, at least you’re honest about what you like. I admire your lack of pretentiousness, to be honest.Are you new to the contest? It's been well established that even deaf people have better music taste than me
Music RedCafe's Favourite Albums Of All Time Contest (THE RESULTS)
- Thread starter Dirty Schwein
- Start date
Pixies were probably Kurt Cobain’s favourite band, funnily enough.
No. 2 - In Utero (Nirvana)
Total Points: 69
Number Of Lists: 11
Highest Position: 1
Voter Of Highest Position: @sullydnl @Irwin99
No. 1 - Nevermind (Nirvana)
Total Points: 94
Number Of Lists: 11
Highest Position: 1
Voter Of Highest Position: @The Cat @onemanarmy @Kylar Stern @Old Ma Crow @jderbyshire
Two great albums. I prefer In Utero's more raw/corrosive vibe but not surprised more people opted for Nevermind.
Great band. I regularly listen to Peace Frog from Morrison Hotel such a great track.
I like all the albums in that top five and voted for several of them, but it's very much the top five of a football forum full of Dad-aged men.
Well done @Dirty Schwein. If nothing else, an excuse to listen to old albums and make lists distracted from the football at a fortunate time.
Well done @Dirty Schwein. If nothing else, an excuse to listen to old albums and make lists distracted from the football at a fortunate time.
I like all the albums in that top five and voted for several of them, but it's very much the top five of a football forum full of Dad-aged men.
Well done @Dirty Schwein. If nothing else, an excuse to listen to old albums and make lists distracted from the football at a fortunate time.
Kids these days would probably be distracted after round 3. (Am i doing this right?)
That's it everyone, hope y'all enjoyed it and thank you for voting and getting involved.
This was the last in the "RedCafe's Favourite..." series (4 years ago was the first one!), hope y'all had some fun
Cheers for all of your time and effort in putting this together, @Dirty Schwein! It's been great hearing people's thoughts and seeing their choices. These sorts of things are quite time consuming and a bit of a faff to put together, so thank you!
So Nevermind is the favourite album and Witcher 3 is the favourite video game (IIRC). Redcafe has good taste!
Cheers for time invested @Dirty Schwein … might have an idea for a similar thread.
I thought it was Metal Gear Solid 1?
What won best film and TV series? The Godfather and The Wire?
MGS came second, it was leading the entire week until the last few voters came in.
Godfather won movies with Alien at number 2 and The Wire win TV with Sopranos at number 2.
The first time I listened to this all the way through, it blew me away and it has continued to do so every time I listen to it. No other album comes close for me. One of favourite Nirvana tracks, Aneurysm, is the only thing missing.. Unfortunately I never saw them live as I was into rave and dance music.
No. 1 - Nevermind (Nirvana)
Total Points: 94
Number Of Lists: 11
Highest Position: 1
Voter Of Highest Position: @The Cat @onemanarmy @Kylar Stern @Old Ma Crow @jderbyshire
@Dirty Schwein thanks for your time putting all this together, not least for revisiting albums and showcasing stuff I’d not heard of or bypassed.
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Well done DS. Shit list though
Sliver would have fitted on it too.
This is a very English/Irish list as expected.
Thanks @Dirty Schwein
Thanks @Dirty Schwein
Fair play @Dirty Schwein , great work!
A top 10 list with Nirvana, Radiohead, The Pixies, The Doors, The Smiths and Nas in it is alright by my book!
A top 10 list with Nirvana, Radiohead, The Pixies, The Doors, The Smiths and Nas in it is alright by my book!
Pet Sounds is one of those albums that advanced what was possible in pop music, not only from the recording techniques, but also in terms of harmony. The 3 Wilson brothers never sounded better, and Mike Love is thankfully pushed into the background. This album is the first look deep inside Brian Wilson's mind, and in there we find a host of insecurities as well as the stirrings of schizophrenia and depression, plus musings on LSD users, social alienation, and infidelity. Brian basically took complete control of the writing and recording process on this album, something that forever chapped Mike Love's ass. Apparently Brian was such a perfectionist when it came to the vocal harmonies that he had them repeat their parts many times, leading Mike to comment that Brian could hear things only dogs can hear, which led to the album title. Mike is and always was a jealous cnut.No. 16 - Pet Sounds (The Beach Boys)
Total Points: 39
Number Of Lists: 8
Highest Position: 2
Voter Of Highest Position: @Solius @Wing Attack Plan R
This record features the best Carl Wilson lead in their catalog, God Only Knows. In terms of vocal groups, this is probably the best album ever made. The Beach Boys "played" their instruments, but this record featured exclusively Wrecking Crew players in a dozen different studios. Brian thought of this record as a solo album with Beach Boys backing vocals, basically, and brought in Tony Asher to help with lyrics, having grown weary of Mike Love's insistence on songs about cars and meeting girls. Brian had already decided he was retiring from touring and this started his years of studio recording and creating sounds that couldn't be recreated live. He has stated he wanted to make an album to rival Rubber Soul.
I recommend putting on headphones and playing this record really loud. You can hear the genius of Brian's vocals and arrangements, and when you compare this to his output only a few years later, after cocaine and smoking had ruined his voice, it's nothing short of tragic. It's important to remember that Brian was all of 23 on this record, and this was their 11th album in 4 years - (Surfin' Safari, Surfin' USA, Surfer Girl, Little Deuce Coupe, Shut Down Vol. 2, All Summer Long, Christmas Album, The Beach Boys Today!, Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!), Party) - which is nothing short of prodigious. Yeah, there is some filler on those albums and some really bad songs, but there are also classics on every one of those. Pet Sounds represented the point where Brian took a step back, or stepped off the merry-go-round, and tried to create a perfect album with no filler.
Pet Sounds has influenced and inspired bands like The Beatles, Weezer, Super Furry Animals, The High Llamas, Death Cab For Cutie, Apples In Stereo, Cornelius, Vic Chesnutt, Centro-Matic, Architecture In Helsinki, The Wedding Present, Questlove, Talking Heads, Yo La Tengo, Deftones, Chairlift, and many, many more.
The evolution of The Beach Boys from a California beach culture facsimile of Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons into a cultural touchstone and a fountainhead of new music finally happened on this album. It also coincided with Brian get fecked up on LSD, evening out with marijuana and pills, and then going back up on cocaine. He had one more great album in him, Smile, but the reception to Pet Sounds initially and the constant shit-talking from Mike Love, plus his numerous affairs and copious drug use pretty much marked the end of Brian Wilson the touched by God genius in the sessions for Smile, which was not given a proper release until the early 2000s. Pet Sounds, then, represents the closest approximation to a musical accompaniment of Brian Wilson seeing God when he was tripping balls on LSD, and from that experience deciding he wanted to make a record of pure love.
Get it.
2 Kendrick Lamar albums and ZERO from Drake?!
Frankly shocked I'm the only person who had this at #1. The Clash pulled off miracle after miracle, a highwire act that no one else came close to achieving. The first two albums had them sounding more or less like a roughed up version of a bar band. Mick Jones was busy ripping off The Who, and while those first two albums are also brilliant, they are eclipsed by the magnus opus of London Calling.No. 11 - London Calling (The Clash)
Total Points: 46
Number Of Lists: 9
Highest Position: 1
Voter Of Highest Position: @Wing Attack Plan R
Starting with the album art, it's both a statement of intent and proof of concept. The lettering is homage to an Elvis Presley album, except instead of a grinning, white-toothed Elvis, it's got Paul Simonon smashing his bass guitar in a splay-legged pose that looks like he's trying to split the earth in two. But with their cover of Brand New Cadillac, The Clash were stating that as much as they were taking an axe to the old world, they still loved rock's roots. Punk was still loose enough in 1979 (released in 1980 in the USA) that it hadn't calcified into rules and uniforms. So sometime during the recording process of this album, they had a band meeting and decided they did not give two fecks about what their fans wanted -- or expected.
And it shows.
London Calling has songs that loosely fit into rock, rockabilly, jazz, dub, ska, R&B, pop. In their minds, there was nothing more "punk" than making a punk album that had nothing to do with punk. Somehow the sheer brazenness paid off. Topper Headon (drummer) was probably the best musician in the band, but the tunes don't rely on musicianship, The Clash nailed a vibe and embodied an ideal that no band has ever matched. They looked cool as feck. They came up with a sound that is theirs alone. Even for people who don't like reggae, they end up liking The Clash's version of dub (Guns Of Brixton). They even have saxophones on this record (Wrong Em Boyo)! It's madness.
This album also has Mick Jones really stepping up his game, with Lost In The Supermarket, The Card Cheat, the hidden track Train In Vain, and Paul Simonon contributing one of their most iconic songs (and his first and only lead vocal) The Guns Of Brixton. Jones and Strummer's styles complemented each other perfectly here, a bit of rough and a bit of smooth. You have a ballad like Lost In The Supermarket alongside Joe's love paean to Spain, Spanish Bombs. Elsewhere, Joe Strummer really dove headfirst into his role as the people's poet. There are songs about the Spanish civil war, Montgomery Clift's car accident, cocaine and corporate types, and the struggle of trying to stay rebellious while the world moves on with wives and children. Some of his all-time best lyrics are here, including "I believe in this and it's been tested by research, he who fecks nuns later joins the church" (Death Or Glory).
If you haven't seen Rude Boy, you should, just to see how incendiary these guys were. I never got to see them live, although I did see Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros. I bought London Calling when I was 13. It is one of the foundational albums of my life. It's a loose, almost ramshackle, drunken dance through musical genres, but at its core it displays a savage intellect and a rejection of the punks-are-dumb stereotype. They stood with and apart from their contemporaries like The Damned and Sex Pistols, sounding nothing like either of them but somehow all 3 propping up the edifice of punk rock nonetheless. The Clash marked the first attempt at having some kind of real social consciousness, some ethical component to a band's work. Crass picked up on this later and ran with it, but The Clash directed people's attention to things like US imperialism, racism, and war.
The Clash left an impact crater in fans' lives and aspiring musicians' lives in an echo of The Beatles' impact before them and Nirvana's impact following them. People are still trying to nail the casual combat look they perfected. People are still trying to mean something in their music, still trying to keep the flame lit that Joe Strummer sparked into life. Rancid, Channel 3, Social Distortion, Stiff Little Fingers, The Specials, Red Rockers, The Pogues, Billy Bragg, Manic Street Preachers, Green Day - any number of rock-based punk bands have total hero worship for them. Basically every rock band and album since 1980 is some combination of Beatles and Clash influences. So there are probably plenty of kids out there who don't know The Clash but they love Green Day, which is basically a tribute act.
London Calling also a love letter to pot, cocaine, heroin, and beer. Headon became a full-blown junkie and was fired in 1982. Mick Jones got fired for the same thing. The Clash soldiered on for one more shitty album. Joe went drug-free but his early years still caused his heart to give out at 50 years old. Their legacy is still everywhere. There are people like me who were forced to listen to The Beatles as an adult, and while I recognize that The Beatles are the most talented/genius pop group of all time, I like The Clash more. I can't explain it.
This album (and Pet Sounds) is a must for any rock fan.
Fixed!
Thanks again for doing this, @Dirty Schwein , interesting to see what the Caf regards as great albums. It's given me a lot of records to try out.
Yeah Morrison Hotel is just a great album. Peace Frog, Roadhouse Blues, LandHo, and Waiting for the Sun make it one of the best albums.
This was a nice ride, thank you Dirty Schwein!
Not surprising that Nevermind won out, but In Utero is the better album for me.
He ain't like us.
I didn’t follow this after I voted in the 90s round (for the top 2 that won it). Lovely to see Nirvana take the top 2 spots
Indeed!
Nice one @Dirty Schwein, top effort once again and much appreciated.
Great albums and obviously a lot on here know their music.
if I was going to be critical I would say there is a lack of soul music in the list but that is just me.
if I was going to be critical I would say there is a lack of soul music in the list but that is just me.
Arctic Monkeys is on the list twice but no AM on there? It’s their best album IMO. Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino is shite.
To Pimp A Butterfly is also utter shite. It’s a good list overall though. Wouldn’t disagree with Nevermind. I’d have Rumours by Fleetwood Mac a lot higher though. It’s a top 10 for me.
To Pimp A Butterfly is also utter shite. It’s a good list overall though. Wouldn’t disagree with Nevermind. I’d have Rumours by Fleetwood Mac a lot higher though. It’s a top 10 for me.
A big thanks to Dirty Schwein for taking this on - it's been real fun!
Two Nirvana albums at the top though. Not that I dislike them, but they are so overrated - Nevermind might sneak into my top 300, In Utero certainly wouldn't. I like them more than I like, say, Led Zeppelin, but I have a harder time understanding why they're so highly rated. Same grating harmonics every song. Other than the Kurt Cobain thing I don't really see what they offer that you won't get better and more interesting from quite a lot of other bands. But that's just me.
Two Nirvana albums at the top though. Not that I dislike them, but they are so overrated - Nevermind might sneak into my top 300, In Utero certainly wouldn't. I like them more than I like, say, Led Zeppelin, but I have a harder time understanding why they're so highly rated. Same grating harmonics every song. Other than the Kurt Cobain thing I don't really see what they offer that you won't get better and more interesting from quite a lot of other bands. But that's just me.
OKC easily better than both Nirvana albums and no way should Nirvana own the top 2 spots. Also surprised by the lack of Bowie on the list. No Pumpkins either?
No Bowie and no Dylan. Suspect the vote for them was split across too many quality albums.
I don't really mind Nirvana, and no surprise that they won, but it's just a bit basic. At least OK Computer made it to third. Great work @Dirty Schwein !