"Must-have" or huge classic albums that you "don't get"?

[KevShmev]

The Wall is better than all of them. /KevShmev in 1991 

[jammindude]

Re: OK Computer

This album has floated by my recommended list ever since it came out.  Every time I *sat down* to take in this album, I just didn't get it at all.   

But last year, I finally got around to digitizing my music collection, and I threw a mixture of albums I love and albums I've been meaning to check out more on shuffle while I was working.   And suddenly, every time a song from OK Computer came on, I was like "This is cool...what is this?"   

I will go so far as to say that OK Computer is boring and hard to get into the same way that Dark Side of the Moon (with the possibly exception of Money) is somewhat boring and hard to get into the first time you hear it.    I mean, today I find DSOTM to be one of the most brilliant albums ever made, but the first time I heard it when I was an ADD 12 year old, I just kept wondering if they were actually going to DO anything.   Because I didn't get it.  I didn't understand the concept.  I didn't get the story of "On the Run", I didn't understand how it all fit together. 

OK Computer is still growing on me, even after a year.   But the "growers" are usually the albums that stick with me the longest.

No offense, bud, but DSOTM was NEVER "somewhat boring and hard to get into".   That opening suite hit me on first listen and has yet to fade, and "Us And Them" was as beautiful and elegiac then as it is now.   OK Computer is actually getting WORSE each time I listen to it (it's not as frequent as p/g, but I periodically give it a listen to make sure I haven't grown into it.  I haven't.)

I just wasn't a real deep thinker as a kid.   Something clicked later.    The greatest band in the world when I was 12 was AC/DC

[TAC]

animals is the best floyd album anyways so the entire discussion is irrelevant

I'm not a PF fan per se, but I do have WYWH and Animals and love them both.

The Wall is better than all of them. /KevShmev in 1991 

Oh, so you've read The Hipster's Guide To Pink Floyd?

[IDontNotDoThings]

I need to check out the rest of PF's discography. I've only heard The Wall & DSOTM & they're both amazing. 

[Zook]

My contradictory opinion is DSOTM is overrated as fuck, but at the same time an excellent album. I maybe listen to it once a year if that, but when I do it's such a great listen.

[Crow]

the wall is, as a whole, pretty bad actually but there are some good songs in there, buried in the swamp of a mediocre & overblown concept album

[Stadler]

I need to check out the rest of PF's discography. I've only heard The Wall & DSOTM & they're both amazing. 

You have a lot of GREAT music and a lot of REALLY SHITTY music ahead of you. 

[The Walrus]

The Wall is so much better if you just watch the movie instead of listening to the album - sooo much filler for just an audio experience, in my opinion, but there is some truly amazing stuff there too.

[Cool Chris]

I need to think more about DSotM before feeling comfortable writing out my thoughts. But I can say without much reflection that the beginning (Speak to Me/Breathe/On the Run) is pretty damn boring and a horrible way to lead in to what would become a masterpiece.

I need to check out the rest of PF's discography. I've only heard The Wall & DSOTM & they're both amazing. 

You have a lot of GREAT music and a lot of REALLY SHITTY music ahead of you. 

  Indeed. ProTip: With the exception of Echoes and Wots.. uh the Deal, don't go backward from DSotM.

[TAC]

….unless you're on acid..

[IDontNotDoThings]

Oh yeah, I've also heard Piper, which I enjoyed quite a bit, but it's not anywhere close to that legendary status.

Anyway, I'm listening to Animals right now & it does NOT disappoint. 

[TAC]

Animals is awesome.

[jammindude]

I have delved deeply into PF's catalog, and the only "crap" I've found is half of Ummagumma, most of More, and parts of Saucerful...most of the rest is pure gold to me.

[Stadler]

Most of it IS gold, but their music was a bell-curve.  The weirder it got - at first - the better it got (like Atom Heart Mother) but then there was a point of diminishing returns where it just got... I don't know (Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast, Several Species of Small Furry Animals, Seamus...)

I LOVE More, by the way, as well as Zabriske Point. 

[IDontNotDoThings]

Back on topic, I really don't get the appeal of stoner metal. Maybe (definitely) because I'm not high enough, but my ADD-ish tendencies just screech internally at the sheer amount of repetition in these songs. 

[ReaperKK]

Animals is awesome.

Animals never clicked. I always thought it was the weakest of the big four. Dogs was the only real standout on that album.

[425]

the wall is, as a whole, pretty bad actually but there are some good songs in there, buried in the swamp of a mediocre & overblown concept album

I... agree with this Parama take. I can see why people like it, but I think a lot of the songs are just sort of there. And I find the concept and Waters' overall lyrical approach obnoxious at best and distasteful at worst.

Dark Side of the Moon lives up to the reputation, but it's the only PF I've heard that I actually enjoy start to finish. And even then Money is a clear weak point.


What other classics are there? Well, here's sort of one:

I really like Rush, but I think 2112 is overrated. The song itself is quite good (and it was my first ever epic), but the second side is pretty meh. Something for Nothing is the only song I would recommend. Passage to Bangkok, Lessons and Tears are fine and I don't like Twilight Zone.

I think that while 2112 is a big step up from Caress of Steel (where I would only rate Bastille Day and Lakeside Park) and obviously the step they needed to save their careers, A Farewell to Kings is the album where Rush actually hit their stride, and is the beginning of their very good to great run that goes through at least Grace Under Pressure (I have yet to get the albums beyond this besides Clockwork Angels.

[WildRanger]

I really like Rush, but I think 2112 is overrated. The song itself is quite good (and it was my first ever epic), but the second side is pretty meh. Something for Nothing is the only song I would recommend. Passage to Bangkok, Lessons and Tears are fine and I don't like Twilight Zone.

I kinda agree. First side of 2112(title epic) is really great, but the second side ain't that special. Permanent Waves, Hemispheres, Kings and Pictures are more consistently great albums, although each of them has one or two tracks that are solid, but not that special or great (Cinderella Man, Madrigal, Circumstances, Entre Nous, Different Strings, Vital Signs, Witch Hunt). But somehow 2112 ended up being "the bigger classic" and more popular album among masses of rock fans(many of them don't have to be big Rush fans, but they have 2112 in their home collection) than the next 3 Rush albums, although they are better than 2112, IMO.
 

[WildRanger]

Back on topic, I really don't get the appeal of stoner metal. Maybe (definitely) because I'm not high enough, but my ADD-ish tendencies just screech internally at the sheer amount of repetition in these songs. 

Have you ever listened albums as Blues for the Red Sun, Welcome to Sky Valley, Sleep's Holy Mountain, Dopethrone and Dopesmoker?

[The Walrus]

You know, I'm gonna go with 2112. I don't really get the hype about the title track, and I never have. It's not a bad song, but it sounds disjointed, and there's nothing worse for a super long track than sounding disjointed with inorganic transitions between sections. Just my two cents, though. I genuinely think Caress of Steel is a far better album and The Necromancer and Fountain of Lamneth are way better epics than 2112, with cooler subject matter to boot.

2112 does have Something For Nothing and A Passage To Bangkok (and maybe Tears but that's not always something I'm in the mood to hear), though, which are great. But as far as 'early Rush' goes (up through Permanent Waves, I guess?)... 2112 ranks close to the bottom for me, just above A Farewell to Kings.

[Sacul]

I don't get Rush at all

[425]

2112 ranks close to the bottom for me, just above A Farewell to Kings.

Woah, kinda buried the lede there from my point of view! I think Farewell to Kings is definitely better than 2112 and is probably one of their top albums.

[The Walrus]

2112 ranks close to the bottom for me, just above A Farewell to Kings.

Woah, kinda buried the lede there from my point of view! I think Farewell to Kings is definitely better than 2112 and is probably one of their top albums.

  There's no shortage of people telling me how wrong I am for thinking that in the Rush thread when I was going through their catalog last year, but AFTK is one of my least favorite Rush albums, I just don't like it much at all unfortunately. Hemispheres however could be #1 or #2 Rush album depending on how I feel at any given moment.

[425]

Interesting, especially since I feel like those are very similar albums. I would take AFTK over Hemispheres any day, but my guess is that's a minority opinion.

[bosk1]

But in total, I really can't understand some opinions about it being the best album ever made, the ultimate prog-metal album etc.

I never found O:M to be prog metal at all.

At all is pretty harsh. There's Suite Sister Mary, and if that's not progressive metal, then I'm the queen of England. But I've never thought it as a prog album. Half of it could be played classic rock radio anyday. That doesn't mean it's bad by any means, I find the story intriguing and music top notch.

Good morning, your majesty.

I have never thought of ANYTHING by Queensryche as prog metal.  And maybe I'm being a bit more rigid about genre definitions than necessary.  But just because a song is longer than 3 1/2 minutes and isn't about sex, drugs, and rock n roll doesn't mean it is "prog."  There's nothing "harsh" about that.  It's just that there music doesn't fit the genre.  Yes, their music is much more complex, thought-provoking, and artsy than most of what was out at the time.  And that's great.  And that's not what "prog" means.  But whatever.  I'm not trying to tell people what to call it.  Just chiming in on the conversation. 

[The Walrus]

Mindcrime is absolutely prog metal and this is coming from a guy who didn't know a single song from it until the start of 2018, but it's prog metal in the way that Led Zeppelin was 'metal' for the time... Rage For Order is much more progressive though, it actually does a lot of bizarre things that were out there for the time. Empire and Promised Land, not at all.

My two cents of course.

[pg1067]

Re: OK Computer

This album has floated by my recommended list ever since it came out.  Every time I *sat down* to take in this album, I just didn't get it at all.   

But last year, I finally got around to digitizing my music collection, and I threw a mixture of albums I love and albums I've been meaning to check out more on shuffle while I was working.   And suddenly, every time a song from OK Computer came on, I was like "This is cool...what is this?"   

I will go so far as to say that OK Computer is boring and hard to get into the same way that Dark Side of the Moon (with the possibly exception of Money) is somewhat boring and hard to get into the first time you hear it.    I mean, today I find DSOTM to be one of the most brilliant albums ever made, but the first time I heard it when I was an ADD 12 year old, I just kept wondering if they were actually going to DO anything.   Because I didn't get it.  I didn't understand the concept.  I didn't get the story of "On the Run", I didn't understand how it all fit together. 

OK Computer is still growing on me, even after a year.   But the "growers" are usually the albums that stick with me the longest.

No offense, bud, but DSOTM was NEVER "somewhat boring and hard to get into".   That opening suite hit me on first listen and has yet to fade, and "Us And Them" was as beautiful and elegiac then as it is now.   OK Computer is actually getting WORSE each time I listen to it (it's not as frequent as p/g, but I periodically give it a listen to make sure I haven't grown into it.  I haven't.)

I won't compare it to anything else, but I find pretty much everything Pink Floyd ever recorded to be VERY "boring and hard to get into."  Also, are you really using a word like "elegiac" to refer to rock music?

[Stadler]

Sure!   An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, often for the dead.   The song was originally called "The Violent Sequence" and was meant to sort of contemplate the effects and impacts of violence (in the Zabriskie Point soundtrack, from which it was rejected as being too "church-like").   

It's perhaps one of my three favorite musical passages in Floyd.    The Final Cut is in there, as is the Atom Heart Mother main theme. 

[jingle.boy]

I need to check out the rest of PF's discography. I've only heard The Wall & DSOTM & they're both amazing. 

You have a lot of GREAT music and a lot of REALLY SHITTY music ahead of you. 

  Indeed. ProTip: With the exception of Echoes and Wots.. uh the Deal, don't go backward from DSotM.

This.  So.  Fucking.  Much ( could even do without Wots.)

[Stadler]

I need to check out the rest of PF's discography. I've only heard The Wall & DSOTM & they're both amazing. 

You have a lot of GREAT music and a lot of REALLY SHITTY music ahead of you. 

  Indeed. ProTip: With the exception of Echoes and Wots.. uh the Deal, don't go backward from DSotM.

This.  So.  Fucking.  Much ( could even do without Wots.)

Bro.   Nothing from More?  The Nile Song?   Fearless?  If?

[Ben_Jamin]

I need to check out the rest of PF's discography. I've only heard The Wall & DSOTM & they're both amazing. 

You have a lot of GREAT music and a lot of REALLY SHITTY music ahead of you. 

  Indeed. ProTip: With the exception of Echoes and Wots.. uh the Deal, don't go backward from DSotM.

This.  So.  Fucking.  Much ( could even do without Wots.)

Bro.   Nothing from More?  The Nile Song?   Fearless?  If?

One past essential is Live at Pompeii. Its got great versions of some great older jams...especially Mademoiselle Nobs, hahaha. I wish I had a cd of those versions.

Haven't heard anything from More or the like.

[Stadler]

I need to check out the rest of PF's discography. I've only heard The Wall & DSOTM & they're both amazing. 

You have a lot of GREAT music and a lot of REALLY SHITTY music ahead of you. 

  Indeed. ProTip: With the exception of Echoes and Wots.. uh the Deal, don't go backward from DSotM.

This.  So.  Fucking.  Much ( could even do without Wots.)

Bro.   Nothing from More?  The Nile Song?   Fearless?  If?

One past essential is Live at Pompeii. Its got great versions of some great older jams...especially Mademoiselle Nobs, hahaha. I wish I had a cd of those versions.

Haven't heard anything from More or the like.

You are in luck:   It's in The Early Years, Volume 6: 1972: Obfusc/ation  (this is just one link; this set is pretty widely available:  https://www.amazon.com/Early-Years-1972-Obfusc-ation/dp/B06XSDB2W8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1537214928&sr=8-1&keywords=the+early+obfusc%2Fation)

[IDontNotDoThings]

Back on topic, I really don't get the appeal of stoner metal. Maybe (definitely) because I'm not high enough, but my ADD-ish tendencies just screech internally at the sheer amount of repetition in these songs. 

Have you ever listened albums as Blues for the Red Sun, Welcome to Sky Valley, Sleep's Holy Mountain, Dopethrone and Dopesmoker?

Dopesmoker is the only one in that list I've heard, & I didn't like it at all. I'll check out the other ones though. 

[Ruba]

I never found O:M to be prog metal at all.

At all is pretty harsh. There's Suite Sister Mary, and if that's not progressive metal, then I'm the queen of England. But I've never thought it as a prog album. Half of it could be played classic rock radio anyday. That doesn't mean it's bad by any means, I find the story intriguing and music top notch.

Good morning, your majesty.

*waves hand in a royal fashion*

Mindcrime is absolutely prog metal and this is coming from a guy who didn't know a single song from it until the start of 2018, but it's prog metal in the way that Led Zeppelin was 'metal' for the time... Rage For Order is much more progressive though, it actually does a lot of bizarre things that were out there for the time. Empire and Promised Land, not at all.

My two cents of course.

I wouldn't really call QR really a progressive band, but they have been highly instrumental in shaping the genre. Rage for Order is probably their only album that I'd put under "prog metal" banner. Even though it lacks a real epic piece, it's diverse and experimental.

Empire is rather straight-forward hard rock album, but Promised Land has shades of prog rock. There are some clearly Pink Floyd-esque moments in there.

[Sacul]

Back on topic, I really don't get the appeal of stoner metal. Maybe (definitely) because I'm not high enough, but my ADD-ish tendencies just screech internally at the sheer amount of repetition in these songs. 

Have you ever listened albums as Blues for the Red Sun, Welcome to Sky Valley, Sleep's Holy Mountain, Dopethrone and Dopesmoker?

Dopesmoker is the only one in that list I've heard, & I didn't like it at all. I'll check out the other ones though. 

Dopesmoker is definitely the slowest and most repetitive out of the bunch, listen to Welcome to Sky Valley, that's what got me into stoner metal and it's very