Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Great Music - Double Albums

Great Music is a feature where I recommend music. In the coming weeks, Great Music will focus on great double albums. When choosing great albums, double albums often get the nod over single albums. Some of the best albums of all time are double albums because double albums have double the music. A great example of the double album is Stevie Wonder's 1976 Songs in the Key of Life, discussed in this post.

Warning - The album pictured at left, Yes's 1973 disaster, Tales From The Topographic Oceans is not a great double album. Tales represents what can happen when a double album goes very, very wrong. 15 minutes of legitimate music, 2 albums, only 4 songs, over 20 minutes each.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hootie's new album is pretty good, but not getting a lot of attention. They really sound great and they're getting political again (a la "Drowning" from their first major release) this time in regard to the war. As for double albums, I don't want to steal your thunder but let's hear it for Pink Floyd's "The Wall."

Nice blog.

Anonymous said...

No way, you're not heaping the damage on the Topo! "Ritual" rocks.

As one Amazon reviewer put it "This song is trying to teach us that while that knowledge is available, each of us can only access that knowledge when it becomes a part of our personal knowledge, and more than just having it as personal knowledge, it must be accessible and understood to be useful." 'Nuff said.

Great double albums?
Stones - Exile on Main Street
Zep - Physical Graffiti
Dylan - Blonde on Blonde
Yo La Tengo - Genius/Love

I've heard Wilco's double LP, Being There, is supposed to be really good, but I haven't checked it out.

- Krebby

Seed said...

Points for The Wall, White Album, Exile, Physical, and Blonde (last 2 both 1975).

Haven't heard Genius/Love.

I don't think live albums count, not a real album with new material. Its kind of like saying that a Greatest Hits album is a great album.

Being there is good but not great when compared to the real thing (Exile).