The Greatest Ever
It is hard to find perfection. Sure, this blog dabbles in it on a regular basis, but otherwise life is sometimes a fruitless search for those things that are perfect from head to toe. So it is in the world of music, but sometimes you do come across albums that are spotless from the first song to the last.
John Sellers , in his excellent book Perfect From Now On (which we are reading now), calls them “dingers”: albums that lack a song that you tire of in five plays or fewer. Among his list are Guns N’ Roses: Appetite for Destruction, The Shins: Chutes Too Narrow, U2: The Joshua Tree, and The Strokes, Is This It. I’m not sure about the five plays or fewer, so I’m focusing on albums I like every single song on. This is quite a tough list to make. Some albums have 12 awesome songs, but one clunker that I never really fully liked. Or I might actually like that one oddball song, but not enough to count the album as “perfect”. Those that almost make the cut, with the song that prevented them:
The Beatles: Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band (Within You, Without You)
Led Zeppelin: Houses of the Holy (No Quarter)
Foo Fighters: Foo Fighters (Exhausted)
Nirvana: Nevermind (Something in the Way)
Pearl Jam: Ten (Why Go)
And now, without further ado, are the albums on which I like every single song:
Smashing Pumpkins-Siamese Dream
The Beatles-Abbey Road
Radiohead-OK Computer
R.E.M.- Automatic for the People
Weezer-Weezer (the blue album)
Now, I’m not saying these are my 4 favorite albums of all time (although all of them would make the top 10-20) But every single song on them is good. Great, even.
One of my wishes (besides the ability to fly, produce cash from thin air, and to be the best air guitarist in the world) is to see, in my lifetime, the release of an album that EVERYONE agrees is the best album of all time. Sure, many albums are universally loved, and always at the top of any All Time List that various magazines put out. Sgt. Pepper, Exile on Main Street, Ok Computer, Led Zeppelin IV. But the key is that people debate over these things. I want an album that makes everyone give up their arguments, throw in the towel, and fall down on the ground and roll around in pure acknowledgement that no one has ever released anything greater.
It would be nice to have this happen in other artforms as well, like movies or TV Shows. I thought the tobacco-spitting cupcake scene in Cabin Boy might qualify it for consideration, but alas that movie has not aged very well (but that scene will forever live in my heart). And while the Different Strokes episode where Sam is kidnapped was tension filled, there were other episodes that were lacking. So I’ll keep wishing for that day. Until then, I’ll be listening to Abbey Road while watching the series finale of The Wonder Years.
