I'm drunk and listening to the Dark side of the moon for the first time. It feels like a trip / experience. Wondering if there are any albums that have the same effect. Doesn't have to be the same genre
What musical album is more of an experience / feeling than just an 'album'?
DiscussionJohn Coltrane's A Love Supreme
You either get it or you don't, but it is a religious experience in saxophone.
Also a jazz pick, the album Lanquidity by Sun Ra.
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8mo
Ole is very good as well.
Kamasis The Epic will take you on a ride as well
Great album, though I think his albums Ascension and Meditations fit what you say even more
In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew by Miles Davis
Sketches of Spain does it for me.
Sketches of Spain is wild. Miles Davis was coming off that funky Hard Bop phase and he and Gil Evans made something absolutely crazy. Sounds nothing like the time.
My first thought was Bitches Brew. Then I also thought, how about Kind of Blue on a rainy day?
And A Tribute to Jack Johnson!
+1 for In a Silent Way. Listening to it makes me feel like I'm lucid dreaming or something. It was one of Miles' first fusion albums but to me it sounds way trippier than anything he did after it. It's so intricate and yet it's listenable enough that I can put it on as background music and it still creates a strong mood. Maybe my favourite jazz record.
The Cure - Disintegration
I came here to look for this album and was surprised that it is not near the top
I’ve listened to this album completely so many times. I found it when I needed it most.
Such a brilliant album. Truly greater than the sum of its parts.
I'm just so happy there are still people listening to Dark Side for the first time. What I wouldn't give to listen to it for the first time again!
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8mo
The first time I ever heard it, was when I got it for Christmas in 2008 when I was 20. Coincidently, almost as if it was a divine intervention, my buddy stopped by after I opened presents and gave me an 1/8 off mushrooms. My parents and our neighbor were downstairs playing cards, and I went into the kitchen to make a milkshake with the mushrooms. As in blending it, my dad comes in and asks for some. I tell him he wouldn’t like it, because it was BlackBerry. He proceeds to tell me that, yes, he WOULD like a BlackBerry shake because that’s HIS ice cream in using lol. So I came clean, told him that there’s mushrooms in there, and he says, “well why didn’t you just say that?”, and pulls out two plastic cups. In my disbelief, we both had a special moment to ourselves in the kitchen that night, and laughed quietly as we drank our milkshakes away from my mother and the neighbor. I went upstairs, shut my door, add proceeded to have the most amazing experience of emotions as I listened to The Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety for the first time, without any interruptions, as I laid on my bed in the darkness of my room. After, I went downstairs to get some water, only to find my parents and my neighbor trying to play monopoly, all the while my dad is laughing like he’s in grade school and my mother and her friend can’t for the life of them figure out why everything is so funny to my dad. While I’m in the kitchen trying to figure out how to drink my water without myself launching into a laughing fit, my dad and I make eye contact and exchanged a thousand words without speaking a single one. It was one of the greatest memories I have.
I listened to Kid A from Radiohead cover to cover for the first time in a while the other day, definitely felt like a fresh new experience for me after having not heard it for some time.
I spent a good bit of time at the end of high school and beginning of university listening to Kid A and Amnesiac together, end to end, repeatedly and often.
Today at age 40 I’m still not 100% sure if that was an outward expression of how fucked up and damaged I was at the time, or potentially an underlying cause…
OK Computer fits that bill too - hell, In Rainbows too, and the Smile album, as well as Atoms for Peace etc.
basically anything involving Johnny Greenwood or Thom Yorke.
OK Computer for sure. The panic and the anxiety in the whole album, the way it finishes with The Tourist. “Hey mannn, slow downnn …” and then the whole album just ends with a single little ding of a bell. Like holy fuck, I need an aspirin after that.
One night I had to drive about an hour down a two lane road mostly through the middle of nowhere. It was an early summer night and there were thunderstorms off in the distance. I had kid a in the cd player and rolled the windows down while I drove. I “felt” the album so much more than when I’d listen to it on my computer while I was studying.
Good call - I haven’t listened to it in ages, but I think the bends is also quite a flowing experience of an album too(?)
I think each of their releases flow in its own way, as each album has its own unique soundscape. Kid A has very ambient undertones throughout it though which I think help aid to the "continuity" of the album. The Bends is still a certified banger for sure though.
Yeah, I agree! How to disappear completely is just phenomenal. Completely takes me out of myself when I listen to it.
Man, I need to revisit those albums - I used to play them to death in my teens!
Radiohead’s material is as relevant today as when it came out. That stretch of albums from The Bends through In Rainbows is one of the best runs in music history.
Was gonna say this very album
Continue your Pink Floyd exploration with Animals
Then Wish You Were Here
Meddle is my fav
I tried to kill myself 27 years ago and had to have a ton of surgery and the recovery was really long. I used to listen to Meddle every night as I tried to fall asleep. It carried me for like a year when I had virtually no will to try to make it. Holds a really special place in my heart. Fantastic album!
Thanks for sharing this. I just lost a friend to suicide yesterday. I'll throw on Meddle tonight as I fall asleep
I apologize on his/her behalf. Sometimes there is pain we cannot withstand, or at least think we can't.
Echoes by Pink Floyd takes up the entire second side off of the album Meddle and clicks in at about 23 minutes. That one song is a whole experience in and of itself.
Animals has aged very well and indeed is a very unique sonic experience. The album is a work of genius (geniuses).
dogs.. favorite track on that album what a ride man. goes without saying ,gotta wear head phones
Dogs is one of the greatest tracks ever recorded
I’m partial to Pigs (three different ones)
Great shout. Genuinely don’t understand how ‘Animals’ doesn’t get the appreciation it deserves.
Sheep is proper metal. I seen Roger Waters live a few months ago and it was amazing when this song came on
The Downward Spital, Nine Inch Nails. Just uh, strap in eh?
Came here to say the Downward Spiral and The Fragile both take the cake for me. So much depth and exploration, with a nice slow burn. Both of these albums can really "take you somewhere". I used to be a big Trent Reznor hater for no real logical reason, but after giving NiN the time of day he's skyrocketed to top 3 artists for me, haha.
Buyer beware. I told you my album would take you places. I never said they were places you wanted to go!
Turns out as a human being, Trent is one of the good ones as well.
He married an old friend of mine. Great dad! And great husband!
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8mo
The fragile is arguably the best album Trent has ever done. A double disc overdose of emotion.
This is one of only 3 CDs that is still in my car.
and if interested the others are White Pony & Lateralus
PHM was awesome, then Broken came along which was more guitar based...but TDS...man, I bought it the day it came out, only had one listen before I had to go out, Mr Self Destruct just smashed you in the face, and I couldn't think about anything else that night.
TDS stayed in my CD player for at least 6 months.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F# A# ∞
And lift your skinny fists.
And allelujah!, Mladic is ridiculous
Literally in the middle of listening to that album right now.
Anything by Godspeed You! Black Emperor
I saw them live twice last year and took my friend to one of their shows who had never listened to them. Halfway through the show he had his eyes closed and was swaying back and forth to the music in his own world. So this.
In 2000 I'd just moved to Seattle alone for a job and (I'm dating myself even more here) was browsing Usenet newsgroups and someone recommended GYBE in the alt.music.sonic.youth group. They were playing two shows in one night at the Crocodile Cafe and since I was tired that night I went to the opening all-ages show. Not even two minutes in and I while I was sober I felt like I was on a ton of opiates or something like that. I mean it just made my whole body feel euphroic. I went ahead and got back in line and got tickets to the second show and it was just as mind blowing. Never seen them live again sadly but have seen A Silver Mt Zion since.
For Emma, Forever Ago by Bon Iver
That album became even bigger due to the whole backstory of him making the album by himself in a cabin in the woods somewhere. At the time everyone was like "who the hell is this guy and why is he living in a small cabin in the woods?"
And having lived in northern Wisconsin when I first heard it, during winter besides, it really hit a certain spot for me. I still feel cold whenever I hear it.
Mars Volta: De-Loused in the Comatorium
Amen to that! I'd toss in Frances The Mute as well.
Omar Rodriguez-Lopez is a master at creating soundscapes with crazy riffs and noises and shit. He's definitely a master at that. Both Mars Volta and At the Drive-In put out some amazing music. Frances the Mute and Relationship of Command are both masterpieces also.
I was going to post this. I used to trip balls to this album from start to finish. It took me places!
I think the moment is the conceptual “death” of the albums character, but the way they wrap up the song “This Apparatus..” is so dramatic and breathtaking.
I think you mean the last track, "Take The Veil Cerpin Taxt". On "This Apparatus" the vocals have a detuned effect that create a disturbing atmosphere. On a side note, I had an ear infection a few years ago where it dampened sound and I had so much fluid/inflammation that all sound was exactly one note lower in pitch than the other ear. That meant all sounds, all the music I heard, sounded exactly like the effect on his voice in "This Apparatus". Imagine living your life like this for almost 2 weeks and that was my experience.
Literally listening to that album right now. (I’m on Eriatarka)
Along with this, Relationship of Command
Sigur Ros - ( )
heaven or las vegas
cocteau twins
it is heaven.
Elizabeth Fraser, the singer from the Cocteau Twins also sang Massive Attack’s “Teardrop” - so if her voice moved you with that (as well it should) - the whole Heaven or Las Vegas album will move you too!
I can’t disassociate “Teardrop” from the tv show House MD. I hear it and I see Hugh Laurie limping down a hospital hallway.
I’d go with Garlands but that’s just me.
I listened to OK Computer as a teeneager when I was first seriously getting into music and it blew me away.
I remember feeling emotions that I had never felt before and I still listen to it this day.
It's hard to really explain it. If you haven't listened to it, I suggest getting the lyrics for each song, get yourself into a relaxed mood, In a quiet safe space and just let it take you places.
I feel like all of their records have the potential to do that, from The Bends through In Rainbows, is a special run of albums.
Yoshimi battles the pink robots.
I find The Flaming Lips kind of hit-or-miss, but this album is absolute perfection. It really seems to capture a theme like the ultimate pop-rock opera. It's polished and accessible, just an all-around great listen.
It's the only flaming lips I always go back to. On my album rotation for life
Soft bulletin is pretty great though. Give it one spin if you like Yoshimi that much. The drums on that album… it’s just so so good and recorded so perfectly imo.
This one is probably in my top 5 most played individual records. At least top 10 but probably top 5
2112 - Rush
To Our Childrens Childrens Children - Moody Blues
This guy progs
I ought to dig deeper in Moody Blues. Only know Days of Future Passed and I love it
Rush I'm fully aware of and love
I'll second Rush. Such a good album.
Hemispheres for me but I start with Cygnus X-1 Book 1
try listening to some Mike Oldfield, you could start with his first album Tubular bells, that is a trip/experience.
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness by The Smashing Pumpkins
Pink Floyd-The Wall
They take you on a journey with a man descending into madness.
I've listened to it more times than I can count and to me it feels more like a man going through the stages of grief
watch the movie, it gives context
Im gonna go out on a limb and say that the person posting that they've listened to The Wall "more times than they can count" has probably already seen the movie.
Bladerunner soundtrack by Vangelis
Sonic landscape.
Breakfast In America by Supertramp
Such a fantastic album from a fantastic band. Every track is like a religious experience. Can’t go wrong with em
Talk Talk - Sprit of Eden. Put it on, it'll change your life.
Led Zeppelin Physical Graffiti.
It genre hops from bluesy rock to heavy metal to Eastern melodies and country ballads and acoustic interludes with all kinds of exotic instrumentation. It's a great, great album and one of my top 10 all time faves.
Get stoned and listen to this and you will be in musical heaven.
This double album is really deep. The first record is just plain epic, In My Time of Dying and Kashmir anchor the first 2 sides. The 3rd side is experimental and cool, and the 4th side could have just been throwaways. But instead there are great covers of old blues tunes. Boogie with Stu is one of Zeppelin's best. Great stuff. All the way through.
ten years gone might be my favorite zeppelin song. im not always a huge fan of robert plants singing, but it just works in that song. and its one of, if not the, best guitar parts page has written. epic is absolutely the right word.
Tool - Lateralus As far as I'm concerned, one of the best albums out there.
Can’t believe no one mentioned The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust, by David Bowie. Every song is a part of the biography of one of Bowie’s alter egos.
Edit: by the time I posted.. of course someone right below me mentioned Ziggy.
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Definitely Billy Shears’s first choice!
It’s an album that everyone has probably heard the songs individually...but played in sequence, back to back, in the ‘right’ context...it becomes an experience.
that re-mix/re-master from a few years ago really made the album sound huge and fresh. A Day in the Life is over-the-top amazing in headphones.
David Bowie - Blackstar
Feels like a self eulogy.
Modest Mouse- Good News for People who Love Bad News feels like a nice coherent story. I always liked it as a full listen.
That's more or less the case with any modest mouse album for me. Whenever teeth like god's shoeshine comes on some playlist I usually just end up listening to the whole album.
Lonesome Crowded West is probably my favorite album, but for somebody going in fresh, GNFPWLBN feels like a good jumping in point. It’s also the most storylike. A fair few of the tracks on Lonesome feel like one-offs.
I listen to The Lonesome Crowded West yearly while driving through northwest New Mexico. It fits so perfect with the landscape. My kids always go nuts when the song Shit Luck comes on.
Also Moon.
The Mollusk by Ween
Our next song is the The Blarney Stone…..by Ween.
-Ween at their own shows
Songs for the Deaf by Queens of the Stone Age
Abbey Road
Especially Side 2!
The end of this album is ABSOLUTELY a journey. When I first heard it as a teen I was gobsmacked. I still love it!
Sturgill Simpson - Sound and Fury. Listen to the album. Then, watch the accompanying anime.
I picked Sailors Guide. Beautiful album. Everyone with kids should listen. Sound and Fury is terrific too. Hell everything he does is pretty great
The Who-Quadrophenia and Tommy both fit this description,
Rick Wakeman-Journey to the Center of the Earth.
BTBAM - Colors
Deafheaven - Sunbather
Contortionist - Language
Seconding Sunbather
Sunbather is a hugely satisfying album by its very nature. It still rests as one of my favorite modern metal records. Near perfect
Grace - Jeff Buckley.
Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV: From Fear Through The Eyes Of Madness by Coheed and Cambria
Worlds by Porter Robinson
For Lack Of A Better Name by Deadmau5
Luminaria by Aviations
Sundowning by Sleep Token
Honestly, any of Sleep Token's albums. They're all a journey.
Gorillaz - Demon Days
Always felt to me like the soundtrack to an unproduced play/movie about the last survivors from earth onboard a distant spaceship encountering their first inhabitable world post-Earth.
Always felt to me like the soundtrack to an unproduced play/movie
I get the same kind of cinematic feel from Hot Fuss -- although the scope is murder, jealousy, and intrigue among highschool kids (which seems to be what they were going for -- a cohesive setting).
Pet Sounds - Beach Boys
Ok Computer - Radiohead
Rumors - Fleetwood Mac
Songs For The Deaf - Queens Of The Stone Age
The Black Parade - My Chemical Romance
Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino- Arctic Monkeys (This one is subversive though)
Songs for the Deaf was the first one I thought of. That album single-handedly got me back into rock and metal.
I love The Black Parade as well though, I used to listen to it on the bus ride home from university.
Scrolled way too far to find Pet Sounds. It’s one of the most cohesive albums ever produced. It just flows from one song to another and everything just fits together.
Paul Simon's Graceland and Prince's Purple Rain.
On the more mellow side:
Sade -- Diamond Life
Massive Attack -- Mezzanine
Mezzanine feels like different forms of anxiety and depression with the exception of the two Exchange. I always listen to it ready for an experience
Coheed and Cambria - Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV: Volume 1; From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness - especially by the time you get to the end of the Willing Well suite at the end
Sleep Token - Take Me Back To Eden - I haven’t felt catharsis at the end of my album like that in a long long time.
The Joshua Tree by U2 is as close to a perfect album as you can get I think. Particularly on long drives
Most 70s Prog Rock bands released at least one or two concept albums or double albums. Recently I think streaming is killing concept albums the way it killed long musical intros.
Check out King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard if you like concept albums. Polygongwanaland might be a good start.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Electric Ladyland
Queensryche-Operation Mindcrime
That's such a great album, but I can't listen to the songs singularly...gotta be whole or nothing
Came here to post this, saw them live in Denver back in the day opening for Metallica and they played Mindcrime all the way through, blew my mind. Great album.
Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here also
Autobahn by Kraftwerk
Depeche Mode - Black Celebration
OK Computer.
Used to be my “airplane album”. Would throw it on every time I flew. Now it’s the self-titled first Young the Giant album.
Counting Crows - August and Everything After Dashboard Confessional - So Impossible EP Tori Amos - Boys for Pele
ELO-Out of the Blue
Deathconsciousness - Have a Nice Life
Thick as a brick - Jethro Tull
Plastic Beach's a religous experience and a half, for me.
Almost any Gorillaz album can be under this category.
They've a few misses, but their classics are legendary.
Illinois by Sufjan Stevens
Terrapin Station - Grateful Dead
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8mo
Boston/Boston, Wish You Were Here, Animals/Pink Floyd
Listened to In Rainbows and A Moon Shaped Pool on acid (different occasions), and was overwhelmed with profound but cathartic sadness, but each album had its own nuance to the type of sadness. I didn’t put either on with any intention other than listening to some nice beats, but boy, was that a bad idea in a good way. Compared to In Rainbows, A Moon Shaped Pool was just devastating. Despite listening to it a million times already, it wasn’t until I was on acid that I realised one of the tracks has what sounds like hospital machinery beeping, and it was over for me then lol. In rainbows felt like a still valid but sort of petulant sadness angst grief, kind of coming to terms with stuff, but still having the energy to keep on keepin’ on. AMSP felt like insane, complicated, arduous and truly life changing grief. 10/10 recommend listening to Radiohead on acid if you got some deep sadness you need to cry about and can’t afford therapy lol.
Genesis’s 70s material, specifically Foxtrot or Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
Oh the Tron Legacy soundtrack is a fucking masterpiece, definitely get that one.
Van Morrison - astral weeks
Nofx - the decline
Fleetwood mac - rumours
Queens of the stone age - like clockwork
John frusciante - empyrean
Jagged Little Pill. Been the soundtrack to my 20’s so far 😂
MGMT - Congratulations
I swear the album feels like the waves of a shroom trip.
Neutral Milk Hotel's two LPs, On Avery Island and In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, are both unique sonic experiences and listening to them should be a rite of passage for anyone who wants to get deep into 90's and 00's indie.
Promises, by Floating Points and Pharoah Sanders. It’s a ride…
The Wall
Polygondwannaland gizz
I'd argue Tenacious D's albums are an experience. They tend to have a common story thread moving through the album. They have skits, and the songs often tie into the skits. I love them, dearly.
Ten Pearl Jam
Illinois - Sufjan Stevens. Absolute masterpiece of a complete album.
Astral Weeks is the only album I would never listen to on shuffle .... And the only album I almost always listen to as a whole album and not the songs by themselves
Outside by David Bowie
"Tommy" and "Quadrophenia" from The Who.
Tubular Bells..Mike Oldfield
Any Sigur Rós album. My favorite is ( ), aka untitled…absolutely brilliant and a must listen from start to end.
Quadrophenia by The Who
Basically any Tool album (most notably Lateralus)
Devin Townsend's Ocean Machine: Biomech.
Each track gets better as the album progresses, and the trio of Funeral, Bastard and The Death Of Music are tremendous.
Ayreon - Into the Electric Castle
The Mars Volta - Deloused In the Comatorium
Dream Theater - Metropolis Part II: Scenes From a Memory
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8mo
+1 for this album! I'm a huge LP fan and it's so corny to say this but this album is absolutely their magnum opus :) so different from what they usually produce at the time and this album helped me opened up to all kind of music. Mike Shinoda mentioned that Aphex Twin influenced his music and it's this album I often thought of
Love waking up early and going down to the beach to listen to Morning Phase by Beck. That album with a sunrise over the water is pretty perfect.
Mastodon - Leviathan. Based on Moby Dick
You could say this about Blood Mountain and Crack The Skye as well. Just monumental albums.
The KLF - Chill Out……lights out and hit play….settle in for an amazing journey….mind blowing.
Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest
A sailors guide to earth- Sturgill Simpson
The Verve - Urban Hymns
...And You Will Know Them By The Trail of Dead - Madonna
All Them Witches - Nothing as the Ideal
I want to say Yes' Tales From Topographic Oceans. It's controversial within the fandom since there is a camp split between Close to the Edge and Tales. I think both are right since Tales is super intimidating due to the length, but once Tales clicks with you, there is no going back and I consider it the band's masterpiece.
Gish Smashing Pumpkins
The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me - Brand New
Yes - Close to the Edge