Perfect* albums

[NateDog]

What albums do you think are exceptional pieces of work? When I say perfect, I suppose it could mean a few things.

- I'm not talking about favourite albums here. I mean chances are you will view some of your favourite albums as perfect, but there are plenty of my favourites that I would label as far away from that.

- The asterisk is to give a little leeway. Maybe there's an album that might have one track out of 12/13 that you think is just a little off or doesn't fully fit in in comparison to the others. That's no big deal. But I think anything more than that means it probably doesn't qualify.

- Your reasoning for calling albums perfect can be anything. Maybe it's 10 bangers out of 10, maybe it's the track sequencing, maybe it's the journey from start to finish, maybe it's because it came before or after something else and it just was exactly what was right, maybe it is something else. But I want to know why you feel this way whatever the reason is.

I'm not looking for a massive list in one go, but if that's your style then go for it. 

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The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age Of The Understatement

Quite a raw album and a fairly short one, the first one by TLSP (a collaboration between Miles Kane and Arctic Monkeys' Alex Turner), but fantastic from start to finish. I've always thought they would actually really suit doing a Bond theme some day and there are a few tracks from this that give me that feel in particular. Starts with a bang but I love the move towards a gentle end. Probably just behind Arctic Monkeys' AM, I think this is the best piece of work Turner has produced.



The Strokes - Room On Fire

Really I could and probably should have put Is This It here too, but Room On Fire just feels like such a perfect sequel and brings just the right amount of freshness from the former. Someone once said to me of another debut album and second album, "the first was the show, this is the after party" and to me that perfectly describes Room On Fire. Meet Me In The Bathroom is still one of my favourite tracks of all time.



Lorde - Melodrama

I liked some of Lorde's earlier work Pure Heroine and still listen to it, but it did still feel a bit like, well, an album made by a 16 year old to an extent. She said that Melodrama was an album about one single house party, and you can definitely get that, but in general it just feels like a much more vulnerable album. It flows so, so well. I didn't feel that her follow-up came anywhere close to reaching the same heights, but I keep returning to this.