What makes a good Album?

[Vern Gagne]

Are one or two songs enough to carry an album, or does the majority of the album have to be good?

[Cartman]

well what would you rather spend 12 bucks on? An album with two REAL good songs which you could download and burn anyways.

 

OR

 

Spend your 12 bucks on an album that has 8-10 pretty good songs on it?

[PLAGIARISM!]

This is of course fairly subjective and ambiguous, but then I suppose most topics are and it's never stopped us before. My favourite albums are for the most part, great all the way through. I can't offhand think of an example of an album I consider great that only has a couple of two songs.

 

Take Electric Six for example. I don't mind admitting that I liked 'Danger, High Voltage' and think 'Gay Bar' is shite but a lot of fun to dance to and harmless, but having heard their album, if I had spent money on that piece of shit I don't know if I could have forgiven myself.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

An abundance of good songs is the first step, but they have to form a cohesive unit somehow. Some variation, some tracks that stand out..hard to define, really.

[Ed Wood Caulfield]

To me, a good album must have more than 3 good songs on the album. I'm not asking for all the songs to be great, but 3 good songs on one album isn't going to make me buy the entire album. I can just download the three songs I like.

[Edwin MacPhisto]

One or two isn't nearly enough. It's either got to be a collection of songs wherein I never want to skip any of them, or an album that's cohesive enough all-around that a problem song or two in the middle isn't a big deal.

 

Most of the time you *can* judge this by listening to a few songs, maybe one single and two or three album tracks. I'll download anything, but I'll only buy what I really like after that test.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Another thing that works..an album so diverse that it's hard to tell exactly what sound the band was after..perfect example..Meddle, by Pink Floyd. "San Tropez" licks goats on its own, but sandwiched in there, it doesn't really bother me as much. Albums like this mask bad tracks better than albums with one solid sound.

[Edwin MacPhisto]

Same thing goes with the Stones' Exile on Main Street. If you grabbed ten random tracks off it and just threw them on a disc in no particular, it'd probably suck. But together, the way they are, they connect perfectly. And eventually the songs do grow on you, but it takes a while--it took me about 6 or 7 listens all the way through for the album to finally click, and now it's one of my absolute favorites. I like an album that challenges me.

 

I also really love albums that sort of rise and build the whole way through, so the entire album feels like one sorta unified experience, as much as that sounds like ridiculous hippie bullshit. The most recent example is Trail of Dead's Source Tags & Codes. It sorta floats about, all building to the big venting purge on "Days of Being Wild," climaxes cathartically on "Relative Ways," and then has the epilogue with the piano piece connecting "Relative Ways" and the title track to finish it off. I think I'm going to listen to that right now, actually.

[WrestlingDeacon]

It's more than the songs that make a good album. That would mean that greatest hits albums are the best albums ever, because they have all the good songs. However, as The Kids in the Hall tell us, greatest hits albums are for housewives and little girls.

 

Edwin and AoO are hitting it on the head pretty much. It has be a cohesive unit, where you can just hear the songs fitting together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. This doesn't mean everything has to be a concept album, but you can tell that there is a focus and a theme there. One of my favorie albums is Aja by Steely Dan and that's one where one track just blends right into a next, but each with a distinctive sound and flavor to it.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Tool's Lateralus is probably a better modern example, I think. It's not a case like a lot of Frank Zappa's stuff, where he just forgoes song breaks, and sort of forces everything together into one big jam. The songs can all be listened to on their own, but when put together..holy shit. That album breathes on its own.

[Edwin MacPhisto]

Tool's Lateralus is probably a better modern example, I think. It's not a case like a lot of Frank Zappa's stuff, where he just forgoes song breaks, and sort of forces everything together into one big jam. The songs can all be listened to on their own, but when put together..holy shit. That album breathes on its own.

Coincidentally listening to that right now. It's a gloomy, rainy day--perfect atmosphere. This is the only album released in the last few years that is in my all-time all-time all-time favorites list. Top 10 levels right here.