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The Album Everyone Should Own

musicman56

musicman56

50 years hifi & vinyl junkie
Well, this should start a few fights but I'm going with...In the Court of the Crimson King by King Crimson (1969).

Why? Well, it's one of the weirdest albums I own. In many ways it is quite unique. It is very much of it's time and yet timeless all at once. It has innovation in that it doesn't really draw on what went before (or after). No pop, no blues, no psychedelia. It puts complex arrangement and free improvisation hand in hand. Some say the lyrics are laughable but I say they are poignant. Even today they resonate:

'If we make it we can all sit back and laugh
But I fear tomorrow I'll be crying'

I bought my copy in 1972 so I have the 'pink rim' reissue rather than the original pink 'i' island label, which is a shame, but it still sounds great. Perhaps one day I'll be able to afford a first press. One can but hope.
 
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Have to agree, it’s an astounding album that has stood the test of time as well as setting a very high bench mark for everything that we now call Prog that came after. It has a distinctive cover, they use lots of Mellotron, flute and woodwind as well as having quasi mystical lyrics. And if that isn’t enough the first track is horribly prophetic, rather eerie and even though its stands apart from the rest of the LP, it is essential.

I am lucky enough to have a Mobile Fidelity copy as well as an early Pink Rim copy and the Mobile Fidelity is definitely the best version I have heard.
 
I’ll go with ‘an album everyone should own and may not actually be aware of’, and whilst I could probably justify a hundred or so I’m going to go with George Duke’s The Aura Will Prevail as so much current music seems to be channelling aspects of it. You can certainly hear very strong echoes of it in Thundercat, Kamasi Washington, Kendrick Lamar and a fair chunk of That London jazz scene.

It’s a mid-70s synth-heavy soul-jazz/funk album made a few years after Duke left Zappa’s band and very much stands up as its own thing. I was lucky enough to stumble across a mint original for a couple of quid some decades ago, but strangely it is right now in the past few years that it seems to have made it’s mark. It is funny how albums that largely floated under the radar of their own generation can be picked up by future ones. I guess VU & Nico and Tago Mago was it for my generation.

PS Pink-rim ITCOTCK here too.
 
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I think it would be very difficult to find something that everyone would enjoy, perhaps The Band The last Waltz, nearly something for everyone on it and certainly anyone that appreciates songwriting and musicianship would at least have an appreciation for it.
 
This is like suggesting any item everyone should own, unconditionally.

I’ll play, though. If you prefer rhythmic music I can suggest The Sound Defects - The Iron Horse. Sort of funk with trip-hop elements, made entirely of samples. A unpretentious work of genius for all seasons, it sounds like it made itself.
 
Snufkin said:
Have to agree, it’s an astounding album that has stood the test of time as well as setting a very high bench mark for everything that we now call Prog that came after. It has a distinctive cover, they use lots of Mellotron, flute and woodwind as well as having quasi mystical lyrics. And if that isn’t enough the first track is horribly prophetic, rather eerie and even though its stands apart from the rest of the LP, it is essential.

I am lucky enough to have a Mobile Fidelity copy as well as an early Pink Rim copy and the Mobile Fidelity is definitely the best version I have heard.
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Lucky you! A first press and the MFSL press both require you to part with circa £200 for a decent copy these days. Sigh!
 
Whilst I have a tough time trying to think up 'top ten', or indeed 'top fifty' albums, the top of every list is always 'Raw Power' by Iggy & the Stooges.
 
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