I'm not asking for any top ten lists, or any of that. I just want to know. Right now. For each and everyone of you. What is your favourite album ever by anyone?
For me, it's gotta be Bob Dylan's Blood On The Tracks. Not only is it my favourite Dylan album, it's my favourite album. Not only does it contain at least 7 out of my 10 favourite Dylan songs, but it may even contain 7 out of my 10 favourite songs period. Each song is like a short story, or a sonnet (depending on the length), and each time I hear them I get something new out of them.
It's an album that's been there for me pretty consistantly since I was 15, when times have been good and bad. So that's why I pick it.
Last edited by BlueChair on Thu Sep 25, 2003 11:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
Blood On The Tracks has been a part of my life since high school as well. You're A Big Girl Now, Idiot Wind, If You See Her, Say Hello.....these songs have helped define me and my views on life & love in many respects. If it's not my all time favorite, it is definitely right up there along with at least three or four other Bob Dylan albums.
Aw hell, Bob will always be my favorite. I'm gonna cheat a little and say that if I am allowed to make my own two-cd mix of The Basement Tapes then that would be my vote for Greatest Album Ever. Songs that are on the official release such as Tears of Rage, Clothesline Sage, This Wheel's On Fire, Goin' To Acapulco, Yea! Heavy And A Bottle of Bread spill over with brilliance. There is a TON of incredible material that has still never seen the Columbia Records light of day. I'm Not There (my favorite Dylan song), Sign On The Cross, You Ain't Goin' Nowhere #1 (insane, insane, insane) and inspired covers of Tupelo, All American Boy, Bonnie Ship The Diamond, Rock Salt & Nails, Four Strong Winds and Folsom Prison Blues among several others. I've gotta think about it for a little bit and then I can whittle it down to the two cds that I would pick.
1. Odds & Ends
2. A Fool Such As I
3. Million Dollar Bash
4. Bonnie Ship The Diamond
5. Goin' To Acapulco
6. Please Mrs. Henry
7. Lo and Behold!
8. Apple Suckling Tree
9. Clothes Line Saga
10. Tears of Rage
11. (Be Careful of) Stones That You Throw
12. Sign On The Cross
Disc Two-
1. All American Boy
2. You Ain't Goin Nowhere #1
3. Tupelo
4. Yea! Heavy and A Bottle of Bread
5. Down In The Flood (Crash On The Levee)
6. Tiny Montgomery
7. Nothing Was Delivered
8. Don't Ya Tell Henry
9. Rock Salt & Nails
10. This Wheel's On Fire
11. Open The Door, Homer
12. I'm Not There
Taken as a whole, those 24 songs would be the cornerstone of my argument that Bob Dylan is the greatest english-language artist of the 20th century.
If I cheated too much and need to choose a proper, commercially released album then I would have to say that Gillian Welch & David Rawlings' Time (The Revelator) would be my pick.
Somewhere, out there, someday, someone will record a version of "The Threepenny Opera" by Kurt Weil and Bertolt Brecht in English with a really good translation (the best known one, by Marc Blitzstein, is bowdlerized) and a really good cast and original arrangements, Hawaiian guitar and all.
The closest I've heard was from an early eightie or late seventies Joseph Papp production starring Raul Julia (as Mack the Knife), Ellen Greene anbd Blair Brown that had a greally great translation. Though some of the arrangements sounded rushed. (They should have either done a double album, or got Nick Lowe involved, so they could deal with the problem of "groove cramming.)
If you haven't heard "Pirate Jenny", "Cannon Song," "Solomon Song" and best of all "The Procurer's Tango". among many others, well, there's a lot more here than "Mack the Knife" (love the Bobby Darin version, but it ain't really the real thing.)
Don't have an all time fave album, but this is the one which brings back the most happy memories, and also contains my favourite ever song: 'Babies'. Reminds me of the hot summer of '95, lying in a field doing naughty things behind a festival's stage in Warrington whilst listening to this through two little speakes attached to a Walkman. Forget 'Different Class', this is the definitive Pulp record.
