A no brainer, Sgt. Peppers in college 20 kids crammed  in a blacklight lit room passing some joints when Peppers was played. This was not Motown.

Another Joplin's Big brother and the holding Companie's Cheap Thrills. Playing that on a portable record player on the college baseballs team bus getting told by my coach I was a commie for listening to that Crap andall the while, the ROTC players screaming for smoky, tops and the temps. The 60ies, what a time to be a teen.

Paul Simon's 1991 "Concert In The Park".  One of the best live recordings I have heard.  Highly recommended.  Jerry Harrison: Casual God's.  Fantastic.  Anything by Jennifer Warnes.    

I third the suggestion of Supertramp's Crime of the Century.  I bought this LP in 1974 because I liked the album cover and have been playing it regularly since.  Nothing like it before or after.

My favorite CD is Glenn Frey "Solo Collection"

I'll get slammed for this one but the very best I have ever heard through my system is Patricia Barber, "Cafe Blue" but on super audio CD. I have it on a regular CD but the SACD brings out so much more I never could hear on the CD.

 

I am nominating the following titles simply because they have been released only on CD. There are others, but these are the ones that immediately come to mind:

 

- The Houston Kid by Rodney Crowell. A perfect album. Johnny Cash makes a guest appearance on one song: "I Walk The Line (Revisited)".

 

- The self-titled album by The Notorious Cherry Bombs, a supergroup comprised of Rodney Crowell, Vince Gill, and Tony Brown. Great songwriting, singing, and playing.

 

- When The Clock Strikes 12 by Slo Leak, a collaboration between Danny Kortchmar (his name should sound familiar) and Charlie Karp. An album of VERY unusual, highly original music.

 

- Greetings From Planet Love by The Fraternal Order Of The All. A parody of psychedelic music by Andrew Gold and Graham Gouldman. Brilliant!

 

- Well Of Mercy by Michael Kelsh. Kelsh is an excellent singer/songwriter, this album featuring production by Bill Halverson (and executive production by Rodney Crowell) and musical accompaniment by Rusty Young, Joy Lynn White, and John Cowan.

Rodney’s liner notes read "Townes Van Zandt and Jackson Browne come to mind when I think about Michael’s particular brand of romantic truism." The album’s credits include these details: "We recorded these songs at Rodney’s house. Halverson used his favorite 1940’s Neuman." (his mis-spelling, not mine ;-). That Neumann is of course the legendary tube microphone, each surviving example worth a small fortune.

 

- Bowl Of Surreal by Chewy Marble, an L.A. Power Pop Group. Members included: Brian Kassan---original bassist in The Wondermints, Brian Wilson’s road band; Derrick Anderson, The Bangles road bassist (a fantastic musician!); and yours truly on drums (only half the album. The album’s recording was delayed, and prior commitments called me away before it’s completion).

 

- Moontan by Evan Johns and The Hillbilly Soul Surfers. A 13 song romp through American Roots music, including Hillbilly, Blues, Surf, and Rock ’n’ Roll. Evan played his Telecaster plugged straight into a blackface Fender Super Reverb cranked to 10. Evan preferred the Deluxe Reverb, but his was stuck in Austin, so he used the studio’s Super. When the recording engineer opened the amp’s isolation booth with Evan playing, it sounded like a jet taking off!

 

- Toad Of Titicaca by Gurf Morlix. Gurf was for years Lucinda Williams’ guitarist, harmony singer, and band leader. He has made a number of good solo albums, including this one.

 

- Bakersfield Bound by Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen. Chris and Herb have long collaborated, including their time together in The Desert Rose Band. This album is at least as good as any of that excellent band.

 

- Wires & Wood by Johnny Staats. An incredible Bluegrass album, singer and mandolin player Staats receiving musical accompaniment by a who’s-who of Bluegrass masters: Sam Bush, Tim O’Brien, John Cowan, Tammy Rogers, and Jerry Douglas (you know him from Alison Krauss’ band Union Station.). Another perfect album!

 

- Last but not least, Down To The Well by Kevin Gordon. I learned of Kevin in an interview with Lucinda Williams, and boy am I glad I did. Kevin is a fantastic songwriter and singer, and this album is absolutely fantastic! If you like John Hiatt (who doesn’t? ;-), you will also like Down To The Well.

 

 

I listen to a lot of progressive and avant-garde music, so a huge part of my collection is by bands, musicians, composers that are not popular.

Of course I listen to most of the better known prog bands: Yes, Genesis, ELP, King Crimson, Steve Wilson, Riverside, etc. But the great thing about prog and its associated subgenres, is that popularity is almost completely unrelated to quality.

None of these is 'the best', since, for me, they are all so good, it is hard to rate one over another.

This is a very short prog only list, I could make similar lists for jazz, and modern and contemporary classical, too.

Eskaton - 4 Visions (1981) / French progressive band, with this brilliant album of beauty, intensity, emotion, and incredible musicianship.

Thinking Plague - In Extremis (1998) / US band with one of the best examples of avant-prog. Atonal, dissonant, creative. Amazing musicianship. 

Arti e Mestieri - Tilt (1974) / Italian band that straddles the line between jazz-rock fusion and prog. There are more great melodies on this one album, than many bands compose in a lifetime. And the drummer, Furio Chirrico, is an absolute beast, who belongs in the same class as Billy Cobham or Lenny White.

The Contortionist - Language (2014) / US technical-metal band, loaded with emotion, and chops from hell. Very complex.

Echolyn - As The World (1995) / US prog band, with great, complex multi-part vocals (in the Gentle Giant vein). Great melodies, playing, complexity all over this recording. And it rocks!

Discus - Tot Licht (2003) / Indonesian band that bends Mahavishnu Orchestra style fusion, Indonesian Gamelan percussion, prog, and contemporary classical, and somehow make it work. Very unique. The leader, guitarist Iwan Hasan, has major chops.

I could go on for pages...

 

 

Addendum to above post:

Commander Cody led his band from the piano, as does Terry Adams in NRBQ. Terry’s piano (and clavichord) playing is an amazing amalgamation of influences, from Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis to Thelonious Monk and Sun Ra. Terry is perhaps the most percussive/aggressive/physical keyboard player of all time! (Jeff Conally---aka Monoman---of Garage Band The Lyres a close second). Anyone who has seen & heard Terry live knows exactly what I’m talkin’ ’bout.

And then there is NRBQ’s bassist, the wonderful musician Joey Spampinato. One of the four greatest bassists I’ve had the pleasure of hearing live (the other three being John Entwistle---The Who of course, Rick Danko---The Band, and Jerry Scheff---a T Bone Burnett favorite). Joey is currently being treated for cancer. In 2021 True North Records released a fund raising album for Joey, entitled Party For Joey---A Sweet Relief Tribute To Joey.Spampinato. Keith Richards chose Joey for the band he assembled when he made his Jerry Lee Lewis documentary. He then offered Joey the bass chair in The Stones when Bill Wyman quit the band. Joey turned him down , electing to stay in the world’s true Greatest Rock ’n’ Roll Band, NRBQ.

@peporter: Love Cody & his great band(s)! I saw them a few times in the early 1970’s, when original pedal steel player The West Virginia Creeper (Steve Davis) was still in the band (his drinking got him kicked out). I played a gig with The Creeper in 1975, which was a LOT of fun.

And the band’s guitarist Bill Kirchen is one of my favorite Telecaster players. He made quite a few albums for Hightone Records (a great, great label) and a number of other indies. He was pals with other great Tele players, including the late Danny Gatton and Evan Johns (Evan played and sang on, and wrote a few songs for, Danny’s Redneck Jazz album).

Danny Gatton was an absolute virtuoso on guitar (Vince Gill nicknamed him The Humbler ;-) , who tragically committed suicide in 1994. Like Jeff Beck, Danny’s other passion was classic American Hot Rods.

I did an album with Evan Johns that was released in 2001 (Moontan, on Big Cypress Records 1019), which was quite an experience ;-) . Another heavy drinker, Evan’s liver finally led to his death in 2017, at a hospital in Austin Texas.

Are you into NRBQ? Their classic line-up included another great Tele player, Al Anderson. He left the band in the 1990’s, deciding to focus on songwriting and relocating to Nashville. He has a few solo albums of his own, well worth owning. I saw NRBQ live about six months ago, and they still rock like mad! One of the greatest live bands I've ever seen & heard, and I've seen & heard a LOT.

As an addendum to my post above, I should have mentioned that the musicians on both of these albums are so good they just make me laugh and wonder how did they do that? They are both a blast to listen to. Hope you enjoy them also!

1. Live From Deep in the Heart of Texas, Commander Cody and the Lost Planet AIRMEN A perfect picture of Austin bar music circa 1973. There's a lot going on here and it's rowdy!

2. Live @ Gruene Hall- Seth James. Texas blues at it's best! One of the best live blues albums you will ever hear!

On a good system with a great sweet spot, you are there, in the club.....and I' m not from Texas....

Kiren - yasuaki shimizu it's a surprising slow build but further I the album you will feel enveloped

 

 

 

@sgreg1 Rory rules he is the greatest of them all..

and for everyone else The Beatles rock.... of that there can be no doubt

Captain Beyond

Will the circle be unbroken. It's raw and has amazing imaging.  The song "Tennessee stud" literally LEAPS out of your speakers with amazing imagery

 

@tonyzvault51 
That CD I mentioned will not knock anyone’s socks off, sound quality-wise.  
I mentioned it as a CD of importance because it seems to be so rare and because it contains particular performances (of transcendent beauty) exclusive to it. 
There are plenty of far more sonically excellent recordings of Gould out there if Gould is something you like.  
The CBC Glenn Gould television show “Glenn Gould on Bach,” if I’m not mistaken, is the performance of Cantata No. 54 from which the CD’s recording (sonically limited but musically incredible) is sourced.  
I would personally recommend watching this on YouTube. Gould’s oratorical acumen and intellectual profundity is highly rewarding to listen to in between the musical performances.

Heretobuy: +1

the Centennial Collection of Robert Johnson is the holy grail for those who love blues but could never get completely into the (understandably) noisy earlier releases, which made concentrating on the music difficult.

How one man could produce such a complex sound still blows me away. Supposedly Keith Richards remarked, upon first listening: “Who’s the other guy”!

Osamu Kitajima – Beyond The Circle
If you system can handle this,

then you are on the right course!

Mezzanine - Massive Attack

Bille Eilish  Happier than ever

Eva Cassidy  Songbird

 and Ella and Louis

 

Thomas

 

 

The Steve Wilson remix of Chicago II sounds pretty good to me along with  The Beatles Abbey Road.

More than any other single group, The Beatles expanded the range of what rock and roll could be more than any other group before or since. To deny their achievement by demoting it to some lesser form because of that achievement is perverse. The Beatles vs. Rolling Stones question is quite similar to the Raymond Chandler vs. Dashiell Hammett in hardboiled crime fiction. The Beatles like Chandler tend to win by acclamation, and because of that Stones and Hammett partisans push their belief with a particular zeal. Like Hammett, the one area where the Stones have the decisive advantage is toughness. The difference between the two in both cases is little more than a nickel's worth. If I were getting on a lifeboat and had to jettison either my Beatles or my Stones records, I'd keep the Beatles.

Here are a few, and no I'm not a huge grunge fan, but the Unplugged CDs are extremely well recorded:

Supertramp Crime of the Century

Supertramp Even in the Quietest Moments

Stone Temple Pilots MTV Unplugged

Alice In Chains MTV Unplugged

Nirvana MTV Unplugged

Natalie Merchant MTV Unplugged

Memoirs of a Geisha Soundtrack

I just read Tylermunn's post about Glenn Gould and have downloaded his collection on Youtube.Is this a fairly good quality sound? Thank you Sorry to go "out there",but,to me Grand Funk Railroad's "On Time" has some amazing passages-the guitar crossing over from one channel to the other for example.I think this is my first podt for some time,so I hope I'm doing it in the approved manner

LOL on the Beatles debate.  

Ask: Who are the greatest of all rock bands?  

I do believe the Beatles would be on the list.  

Diana Krahl, The Girl In The Other Room and Roger Waters, Amused To Death.

 

PS : Jim Morisson rest in peace in Paris. His grave is at Père Lachaise cemetery with lot of flowers.

You are wellcome. Just listened the entire cd yesterday evening with a friend. The solo on the drums is wonderfull in the WASP track.

@lucky53 You induced me to put on my first-day-it-hit-the-stores LP of The Doors' L.A. Woman. To be sure, the opening cut is a little relentlessly hard-left/hard-right/center, but it's also pretty clean. Luckily, the second and third cuts are far better. It's still very much left-right-center, but there's a lot less compression and a good deal more space.  I've just made it to the title track. Tone quality and clarity are getting ever better. The band is rocking. Yeah!

Gumbedamit Saint Albans. I live in the neighborhood.

 

 

 

A second + for Jazz at the Pawnshop.  A new 2021 2-disk CD version from

AudioNautes is Ultimate HQ/Direct from original tapes/blah/blah and

is even more stunning.  Amazing that this is a live recording from the '70s.

With 11,000 CDs and a very diverse music library/music genre that is too difficult to choose.  I have many more great sounding (mostly uncompressed) CDs versus my 28,500 LPs to choose from (LPs can suffer from compression, vinyl problems, subgenerational mastering e.g. Angel classical records versus EMI originals, U.S.Beatles versus Parlophone, etc).  

@gumbedamit Without Googling, Queens? I know Louis Armstrong lived there.

@heretobuy . I grew up with Fats Waller's grandson, his great grandson is actually an NBA player.. I grew up in a famous area in NY where there were tons of musicians  and artist; James Brown, Fats Waller, Count Basie, Leana Horn, heck even Al Roker, LL Cool J, many others. When we were little and didn't have a neighborhood pool, Count Basie would open is pool to the kids in the neighborhood. Can you guess the area in NY? :)

Beck - Sea Change.   Mofi special limited edition CD.  Beck at its best, for me.

Great and timely post as recently been organizing/cataloging my CD collection: 

Kiri Te Kanawa: "Mozart Opera Arias", London Symphony

Buena Vista Social Club (one of several CD's produced by Ry Cooder I love)

Ry Cooder "Jazz", "Paradise and Lunch", etc.

Gary Burton: "Reunion"

Paul Michael Meredith: "The Luxury of Love"

The Collected History of La Scala.

Wow that's hard but I have a few that are the best sounding in CD format.

Eva Cassidy "Nightbird" 

Palladin Ensemble "An Excess of Pleasure" on Linn label.

Jennifer Warnes " Famous Blue Raincoat"

Not sure if these are the best streaming selections and definitely NOT in my top tier of Vinyl releases. 

Donald Fagen “ The Nightfly “ and Andreas Vollenweider “ Book of Roses”

 

 

Donald Fagen “ The Nightfly “ and Andreas Vollenweider “ Book of Roses”

 

 

The Doobie Brothers- Taking it to the Streets

All their albums are well recorded

The best cd album in my collection is Steve Miller's Fly Like an Eagle Gold DCC cd and it's the remastering by Steve Hoffman that puts this cd a cut above the rest.

@kb673 You said, “You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.”
A clear insinuation I don’t have my facts straight, or am willfully denying “the facts.” That’s where my use of the words, “you don’t want to play this game” came in.
I’ll just cliff note it here for you:
(from Encyclopedia Britannica)
“Tin Pan Alley, genre of American popular music that arose in the late 19th century.”

Just because “(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?” is a bit less fancy (although the two top singles of 1911, Irving Berlin’s ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’ and Harry Von Tilzer’s ‘I Want a Girl’ are pretty darn simple songs) than the typical pop songs of the ‘00-‘40s doesn’t make those early-20th century songs “not pop.”

If pop is, as you say, a “genre,” then how does describe and define this, “genre”?  
I’ll happily receive, with open arms, these “facts” I am ignorant of.

1978 Denon release of Archie Shepp and Dollar Brand titled Duet. The cleanest, most revealing recording I've ever heard in any format, regardless of genre. Excellent dynamic range, unmolested transients, superb definition. Play this when you want to gauge just how revealing a system truly is.

https://www.discogs.com/sell/release/2738403?ev=rb

 

I have a couple I never get tired of Jeff Beck Wired and Special Efx Confidential

@tylermunns  

Terms "pop" and "rock and roll" have been in use by music industry professionals, since early- to mid-1950s.  I entered into what I thought was a discussion.  If this is your idea of a game, you can declare yourself the winner by forfeit.

I've had this for a while now, but finally cracked it open: Spheres II by Delerium.  Spacey, ambient, juicy, spooky, moody instrumentals.   Sounds exquisite. 

Blood Sweat and Tears, Original Master Recording. 24 kt Gold Plated. 

all-right.

Let's call the common stuff mainstream whether it's rock or pop or hop of any kind.

Mainstream usually can be found in thrift stores for less than a buck

Any SACD on a PS Audio SACD player. And standard CDs shine brighter as well. Agree with the above regarding Live at Fillmore East, and Take Five.

 

For the category of great live CD performance and mediocre recording quality, I would nominate Delaney & Bonnie & Friends On Tour, With Eric Clapton.