Board 8 > Board 8's 500 Favourite Albums of All Time [LIST IN HERE]

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RateYourMusic
The music of Eluvium is very cinematic, in that I am frankly surprised Matthew Cooper has not been tapped to produce film scores in the past few years. The modern classical music he creates bespeaks epic grandeur in a way rarely seen outside of Philip Glass' film work. Lush, resonant orchestration that quietly revels in its own beauty. "Prelude to Time Feelers" is the big stunner, a gradually building piano melody that picks up speed and intricacy with the addition of each instrument until it tumbles through the sky like fireworks (no coincidence that the finale "Repose in Blue" ends with actual fireworks).

?uestlove
More than anything, De La Soul Is Dead prepared me for my profession. 1991 was such a banner year for hip-hop, such a coming of age. By that point, I had done all the basic homework on my fundamental hip-hop, which meant stealing all James Brown records from anyone over 50 who had neglected their record collection in basements and thrift stores and Goodwills. I also collected all of the Ultimate Breaks and Beats compilations, which were the CliffsNotes of breakbeatology and the fundamentals for all classic hip-hop records between '88 and '90. On 3 Feet High and Rising, De La used basic psych-rock stuff, but De La Soul Is Dead took obscure sampling to a whole other level. It was incredible to hear how they disassociated themselves from the very movement they built with that album.

It wasn't until I got to know those guys that I truly understood the hell they went through between '88 and '94, which literally put down a safe, plush-carpeted rug for the Roots to walk on once we stepped in the door. De La Soul pioneered this alternative lifestyle that I make a beautiful living at today and all they have to tell me are these humorous tales of pugilism. Like they got kicked off of the LL Cool J Nitro Tour for being too violent. And I'm like, "Wait a minute. Come again?" And they're like, "Yeah, motherf***ers started some s***, and we went over there and just busted them in the head." I joke all the time that the only outbreaks of violence that have ever occurred at Roots shows have always been at Toad's Place up at Yale-- of the four times we've been to that club, three of them have broken out into massive bar fights. But that's some drunken frat s***.

It seemed rather impossible that De La Soul would ever strike pay dirt again with an artistic statement as great as 3 Feet High and Rising. I guess people look at De La Soul Is Dead as sort of a blueprint for the disenchanted rapper, but every moment was jaw-dropping, from the production to the skits to their rhyme style to the sequencing. That was my blueprint from then on.

All Music
Without reservation, Blue Train can easily be considered in and among the most important and influential entries not only of John Coltrane's career, but of the entire genre of jazz music as well.

About.com
On Blue Train, Coltrane is on the verge of inhabiting his future musical persona, but is still firmly planted in hard bop. His combination of blues riffs, bebop lines, sheets of sound, and Coltrane changes crackles with volatile energy, as though each element were a reactive chemical.

All Music
Producer David Bottrill gives the band a well-deserved epic sound, reminiscent of the '70s with a big, clean style that highlights the group's virtuosity and their amazing dynamics. Those dynamics come instantly into play on the set's opening number and first single, "Dance of the Manatee," as the group shift from U2-ish swelling, chiming, guitar passages into thundering hard rock. Singer Darroh Suddereth follows suit, careening between alt rock to classic rock vocals, then down into the menacing growl of metalcore.

Pitchfork
Closer is even more austere, more claustrophobic, more inventive, more beautiful, and more haunting than its predecessor. It's also Joy Division's start-to-finish masterpiece, a flawless encapsulation of everything the group sought to achieve. The hypnotically abrasive "Atrocity Exhibition" leads to the relentless yet somehow still economical "Isolation", the group more capable in its playing and confident in the arrangements. The dirge "Passover" implies that the band is every bit aware of its morbid power, while "Colony" marks a return to the heavy riff of Unknown Pleasures

RapReviews
While no album may ever top his debut's brilliance, this one comes close enough to make even his most passionate haters happy to hear the raw essence of hip-hop revealed in all it's true glory.

Boomkat
Giving your album a symbol for a title is a gesture of Prince-like arrogance, and the fact that the aforementioned symbol is a cross, coupled with biblically-themed song titles ('Waters Of Nazareth', 'Let There Be Light' etc.), might prompt you to arrive at the conclusion that this Parisian duo have a Messiah complex. The electro-frazzled funk of 'Genesis' (the first track of course) is accordingly epic-sounding, with a tongue-in-cheek fanfare at the beginning that quickly gives way for some distinctly unholy slap bass.

Wikipedia
Slippery When Wet is the third studio album by Bon Jovi, released in August 1986 by Vertigo Records.

Rolling Stone
All That You Can't Leave Behind gets serious about simplicity. The songs aren't obscured by excessive production, but the band doesn't commit the common sin of boring people silly in the name of scaling back. The Edge's guitars are even more self-effacing than usual, showing up only as conveyors of accent and texture.

RateYourMusic
Wolfgang Voigt's latest and final work, Pop, is perhaps his finest and most aurally impressive album to date. Textures found on the first untitled track are that of a stream, trickling down rocks, flowing while nature around it vibrantly blossoms. Most of the album carries that similar hissing and ringing undercurrent of sound, as if you're drifting down a river in a secluded forest. When compared to his previous albums under the Gas moniker, the pulsating beats and gloomy samples have been mainly lifted in favor of complete and total sonic bliss. It's still a very personal and in depth deconstruction of minimal sounds, but this time, perhaps, it's a more immediately digestible version of his ultimate goals.

From: OmarsComin | #013
No "listed by" ?

Pitchfork
With their 2004 beast, the aptly titled Leviathan, Mastodon finally find their niche as a thinking man's metal band. Blending Voivod's neuro-thrash, Therion's majestic gloom, Morbid Angel's spirit of restless and morphing liquid black melody, and EyeHateGod's Southern rock gone awry, Leviathan is nothing short of supernatural. Evincing a decade's worth of maturity gained in just two short years, Mastodon have authored a bombastic modern interpretation of Herman Melville's Moby Dick, the classic metaphor for mortality's eternal (and unwinnable) struggle with divine injustice.

RateYourMusic
Lyrically, unlike his past albums, Tupac is on a thug tip. I know that's surprising, but consider just how many prophet poet laureates have the words "Thug Life", with the "i" cosmetically designed to be a bullet, tattooed across their f***ing stomachs (aside from Mya Angelou) and perhaps you'll be less startled by this revelation. But it's certainly a gangsta rap album, and Tupac decided to exploit this fact by misspelling seeming every song title (Ha ha, I was just thinking about the fact that Tupac couldn't even spell his own name right. And he spelled it with a number!) There are a couple of quasi social/reflective songs ("Life Goes On" most notably), but for the most part All Eyez on Me is a celebration of the gangsta lifestyle, and really, considering that Tupac had just been removed serving nearly a full year in the Hell of prison, that's to be expected. It can grow a bit tiresome over the span of 2 hours and 15 minutes, but 'Pac's energy on the microphone never wavers.

RateYourMusic
I think what is the most surprising is that even the songs on here that were never singles are just as catchy and well assembled as the ones that were. I dare you to find a bad song on here...you can't! The real shame is that this album so far has yet to be ever released on cd so we are left trying to hunt the record down or dealing with compilations that omit things and this needs to be heard as an album I think.

AV Club
Up until now, every Spoon album has felt tonally unified, but Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is more scattershot, as though Daniel weren't sure whether he wanted to make his big pop push, keep pursuing rhythmic deconstruction to its logical end, or just give up entirely and make A Series Of Sneaks again. For those who thought Spoon's one-two punch of Girls Can Tell and Kill The Moonlight marked the group as a contender for the "Best American Band Of The '00s" label, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga may be a disappointment. But buried in that disappointment is a handful of songs as good as any in the Spoon catalog—which, slipshod presentation aside, makes them as good as any indie-rock being made today.

AV Club
Throughout Sainthood, Tegan & Sara invest small, relatable subjects—the embarrassment of unconscious gestures, the loneliness of sexual yearning—with the urgency of a teenage love-note. And after wallowing in romantic martyrdom for roughly half an hour, the Quins end Sainthood with “Sentimental Tune” and “Someday,” a rousing one-two finale that aspires to real joy. It’s another inside-out move for Tegan & Sara; they’ve pulled apart self-doubt and found the self-regard that lines it.

All Music
...it is easy to fall into hyperbole when describing Bohren's music, they themselves are masters of the restraint necessary for this type of jazz to work and be compelling. This is slow, dark, and especially lush jazz, perfect for a booth at the back of a narcoleptic lounge, with a cigarette slowly burning down past the filter, watching secret lies being passed between one-night lovers.

Sputnik Music
Pale Ravine is an entirely successful electronic/neoclassical album which delivers an almost hypnotic array of tracks that serve as a wholly effective piece of music, but one which really needs to be played when you are in the correct state of mind. Not perfect at all, but at times it almost seems like that is what Deaf Center was aiming for, because perfection, sometimes, isn't the most effective way of conveying a message.

From: Kibago | #028
oh, and #483 has no highest vote. <_<

From: sonten1 | #029
can you post the albums that don't make the list somewhere as well?

From: VincentLauw | #017
Fables

who else voted for these or is it just my votes? hah

Pitchfork
While songs here evoke moments of Ys and Milk-Eyed and Newsom's harp is still the dominant musical focus, it's striking how much Have One on Me feels like its own thing. Not a progression, exactly, more of a deepening. You can feel roots going down and an edifice being built. Her voice has gained depth and she sings with more force and clarity, so that's part of it. And the arrangements are more judicious and draw less attention to themselves (some tracks are just harp, others add horns, strings, and percussion, but with a lighter touch). But the bigger difference seems to be the overall mood, which is expansive and welcoming. The best songs feel more like conversations rather than artworks to be hung on the wall and admired from several paces away. Newsom seems to sing from somewhere deep inside of them, and her earthy presence has a way of drawing you in, bringing you closer to her music than you've been before.