Good Albums

There is an art to making a good album. Historically, I would have meant a vinyl record with two sides with (standard format) content up to 27 minutes each.  Later I would have meant a one sided CD with up to 72 minutes of content. When I say album I mean either of these formats and also modern digital releases with 30-90 minutes of content -- with some caveats. A general criteria is that all the material  is from the same artist. What I mean by "good" is the following:

• All tracks are good. You don't feel like taking out a couple for other playlists and never playing the whole album.  
• The original order that the tracks are in is important. You never dream of playing the album on shuffle (shudder). 
• The album as a whole is better than the sum of its tracks. There is some synergy going on that you appreciate. 

I have a few albums I have in my collection I consider to be "good" and I list them below. Some of these are the few albums I collected as an early teenager (in vinyl). It is honestly hard to say whether the albums are really that good, or they were just imprinted on my teen brain (because when you only have six records as a teen, you listen to them a lot). A good album is not necessarily about good artists. My favorite band is arguably Yes (who I consider to be musically talented and innovative), but they have no good albums by my criteria. There is always at least one regrettable song on every Yes album. Old vinyl albums that have been re-issued on CD or digital formats suffer from a couple of issues. Firstly, there was pacing to the album that came from turning to the second side that is lost. I imagine that people that made good albums used this break consciously when they put the tracks together. Secondly, CD reissues often come with "bonus" content. These have to be deleted to have the good album experience that the creators intended.  

• Alanis Morissette, Jagged Little Pill. 
• The Beatles, Magical Mystery Tour. 
• The Beatles, Revolver. 
• The Beatles, Rubber Soul. 
• The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. 
• The Cars, The Cars.
• Concrete Blond, Bloodletting. 
• David Bowie, Hunky Dory. 
• Evanescence, The Open Door. 
• Fleetwood Mac, Rumours. 
• Franz Ferdinand, Franz Ferdinand. 
• Franz Ferdinand, Tonight. 
• Franz Ferdinand, You Could Have It So Much Better. 
• Hoodoo Gurus, Mars Needs Guitars. 
• Hoodoo Gurus, Stoneage Romeos. 
• Interpol, Our Love to Admire. 
• Jean Michel Jarre, Oxygene. 
• Jean Michel Jarre, Oxygene 7-13. 
• Jethro Tull, Aqualung. 
• The Killers, Hot Fuss. 
• Magma, Mekanik Destruktiv Kommandoh. 
• Marina and the Diamonds, The Family Jewels. 
• Metric, Fantasies. 
• Pink Floyd, The Dark Side Of The Moon. 
• The Pretenders, Learning to Crawl. 
• The Proclaimers, Sunshine on Leith. 
• Rufus Wainwright, Want One. 
• Sigur Ros, Takk. 
• Soundgarden, Superunknown. 
• Tom Waits, The Heart of Saturday Night. 
• The Tragically Hip, Fully Completely. 
• The White Stripes, Get Behind Me Satan. 

A few last thoughts:

• I have always had a preference for artists that write their own music. I had not realized the preference was that strong until I looked back at the list I made. 
• I have to listen to all these again to check which ones make the cut and if I have missed any other good ones in my collection. 
• The soundtrack from the first Shrek movie is great to listen to as an album, but misses the single Artist criteria. Also the soundtrack for High Fidelity. 
• The EP "The Tain" by the Decemberists would have been on my list, but it is too short. Also "Nine Black Poppies" by the Mountain Goats. 
• Vinyl enthusiasts are hipster wankers. Get a good quality digital recording and add a vinyl noise post-processor if that is the sound you really want. Feel free to invite me over to your place with the fancy new record player (which you probably call something else), bring me a gin and tonic, and prove me wrong. 
• I am not a music expert so you can safely disagree with any of my choices and opinions.