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.

[SK8R LUNG]

first album that comes to mind for me is Untrue by Burial.



my memory of hearing this album for the first time was this feeling of hearing something so fully-formed and independent of anything else that existed in pop music, yet at the same time familiar or understanding something i had felt for a long time. as if someone had pointed out a colour of the rainbow to me that i had never seen before, but only because nobody had taught me the word for it yet. 

as time goes on i think burial's more extended explorations may make the songs on this album feel a bit underdeveloped or one-note (not that i feel that way, i think every track on this album is perfect lol), and somehow i think all of pop music after this album is kind of aware of its influence, but it's not really something people commonly talk about as like a landmark, gamechanger album.

[Jassassino]

There's a couple I want to post about and write about, but one takes priority; that's 'An Insatiable High' by Masayoshi Takanaka.
(Mooooom! Grandad is talking about Takanaka again!)


This album is such a versatile and tight piece of art. Takanaka is one of, if not my number one all-time favourite musician these days, and his guitar solos are so intricately characteristic of him as a person - it's rare, truly rare I feel, that somebody's absolute personality can shine through an album, but listening to this - I feel like I'm with him on a beach in Brazil, sipping a cocktail and listening to him groove. He knows exactly when to punctuate the song with jazz rhythms and fun, funky licks and the samba style backing gives it a perfect backdrop. I've listened to this album the whole way through countless times on longer runs, and where I previously said it's versatile - that's where it really shines and demonstrates itself to be so - it can not only accompany you on a chilled out afternoon in the garden with some friends on a summer's day, it's not only beach or rest and reset tracks, but it's upbeat, fun, motivating dance tunes which you can pace yourself to whilst on a run, sun beating down on your shoulders and sweat lightly dripping from your hair - when you feel like you can't take another step, songs like Sexy Dance or E. S. P. come on your shuffle and your foot just naturally lifts with a bubble of air beneath and a slight jolt of energy down your calf. 

One of the first times I listened to this album on a long run was when I ran from my home village in Kent to a neighbouring seaside town - along the route, there's a mile long straight road with nothing but wheat fields surrounding it - in the distance, you can just make out the beach and sea around 4 or 5 miles out, past the field on the left is a train track - never before have I felt bliss (an insatiable high, if you will) as running down that road whilst listening to this album, running down that road, sun on my back and a train gradually rolling by. I'd recently finished replaying Persona 4 Golden for the first time in a while at that point, so I felt a deep fondness for 'small town' life at that time too, and it felt truly cathartic to enjoy that experience as a more wholesome, unique element to where I lived just before moving to London.