there have been a plethora of favorite albums & favorite bands & favorite songs threads since the conception of this board, so rather than chock another trite conversation into that pile, i decided to be a little more consistent & evolving. i happen to be a music geek who's constantly spinning whole albums (rarely individual songs), & each week i break out new records to listen to (some new, some old). instead of being typical & listing your all-time favorite albums, how about telling us which albums you've been listening to recently -- old favorites, new discoveries, anything you've been addicted to lately. hopefully, in this way, we can share new music with each other, adapt to our surrounding members' tastes & keep this moving for a longer period of time.

as of late, i've been really digging beck's new album (the information) -- at first spin, it seems tame & unexciting coming from an artist lauded for complete reinvention, but after it catches its groove, there's a real craft & skill underlying the crisp beats & his brooding timbre. neutral milk hotel's everything is EP has once again caught my guard, as well as old favorites from the smiths (strangeways, here we come), live radiohead (i might be wrong - live recordings) & vintage rod stewart (the rod stewart album/an old raincoat won't ever let you down).

how about you guys? what's caught your attention musically lately?

p.s. please don't take this topic as liberty to post needless album covers in abundance -- seriously, nobody cares.

"Robot Hive/Exodus" by a band called Clutch!

Song Review: A Greatest Hits Collection - Stevie Wonder
Billy Joel 3-disc Anthology (mixed by myself) - Billy Joel
The Beatles - The Beatles

East Coasting- Charles Mingus

YES! finally someone comes out and says it.

oh come on, no one uses the "official" term for the white album -- grow with the times, DJ.

Dylan's newest, Modern Times. It's really great.

i saw dylan in late august when he came to connecticut on his current tour of baseball stadiums - while most people were a bit put off or disappointed by his new vision to recreate & rearrange his songs, i thought the country flavor he added to them kept it both interesting & fresh. his new album follows the same path, while adding disparate threads of blues & pre-WWII music. it is very good, you're right - i see the creative rebirth starting with time out of mind, onto love & theft, & now into modern times is really providing a rather wonderful foundation for his late career & serving us all well. i think i prefer L&T though.

Continuum - John Mayer
Hail to the Thief - Radiohead
Dirt - Alice in Chains
Modern Times - Bob Dylan

Nobody cares? Then why did you start this thread? If I want to show you what I've been listening to, I'd rather show the album covers than just list the albums.

With that said:

because the title will do -- we'll know what you're talking about if we know the artist by the name & the title. why do we need a picture for it, what does that enhance? we don't need a cover for every album, it's about the music, not what the cover looks like. this isn't "album covers you've been listening to," it's "albums you've been listening to."

hey it seems i'm not alone either!

But with that notion, to be finicky about it (though no more finicky than said notion), the name of the album is but a face, a falsehood. Who cares what the music is called, or even who it is by? I for one value the subconscious link between recognising an album cover and browsing a CD store.

if we're going to be so specific about it, posting a link to the mp3 might suffice -- but who is going to listen to the whole entire album just to know what you're talking about? if you hear something you like, you go "hey man, who's this?" if you're watching a movie you like, you go "what's it called?" you don't say "let me see what the cover looks like."

i was just running on a basis that would provide we know what you're listening to, & obviously the simplest way is a word, a title -- not pictures. i was just trying to keep the thread from getting cluttered. but honestly, we should probably drop this subject now before the topic gets ruined (because i'm sure everybody & their grandmother has their own two cents to add ).

My grandmother's dead.

But I agree.

At home:

Blackalicious - Blazing Arrow
Fun Lovin' Criminals - Every album

In car:

MC Solaar - Mach 6
America - Greatist Hits

blackalicious is dank, though i'm partial to nia myself.

turi -- have you ever checked out black star, with talib kweli, mos def & DJ hi-tek? kind of similar, though talib is most definitely a superior MC.

I hope you're not offended that I laughed my ass off at this post.

How about this?

Yesterday...and Today by The Beatles.

Modern Times by Dylan...one of the best albums by anyone in years.

I like the retro feel to your thread. first off the use of the words album, spin, groove. I have over 500 albums and I haven't listened to any of them for almost two years. But I have listened to them god awful compact disc's quite often. I will list the six currently in the changer in the car. I will refrain from posting pictures because back when you truly could spin an album and listen to a groove you were not able to post pictures on a non existing internet.

Folker Paul Westerberg
Last Man Standing- Jerry Lee Lewis
The Clash- From Here to eternity
Elivis Costello- Get Happy
Joe Jackson-Look Sharp
Besterberg-Paul Westerberg

As I'm packing some old albums, I'm trying to get my favorite ones on CD. I just ordered the Beatles White Album which I am really looking forward to. The album is old, scratchy and kind of thrashed. Can't bring myself to throw it away though, along with the 8x10 pics.

Another cd I ordered (if anyone under the age of 50 remembers) is "Love It To Death" - Alice Cooper. Believe or not all you youngsters, I had that on an 8-track. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to listening to that again as well.

I'm certain I won't replace all my albums with cd's but certain ones are must.

TIS

Public Enemy - Fear Of a Black Planet
Big Daddy Kane - Long Live The Kane
Boogie Down Productions - Edutainment

DMF -- that elvis costello album is five-star all the way, one of his better early-day efforts: his loving tribute to stax & old-school soul & R&B. i've heard lots of good things about the "comeback" jerry lee lewis album as well, how is it?

TIS -- i would have never taken you for an alice cooper fan! that's kinda funny. i hear he's coming out with a christmas album too, will you be snatching that up, as well?

I'd actually prefer album covers be posted. I think the artwork serves HUGE importance in the presentation of an album, and it is one of the bigger reasons why I still buy the majority of my music.

And if an album cover is interesting looking, chances are, it'll intrigue someone, and they will feel motivation to check that album out, and then we have a cool inner-working of cultural diffusion among the boards.

So, I care. And I thrive on it. If not for album covers, I'd probably end up on the street, selling my body for hard drugs.

anyone who checks out an album just because of what the cover looks like needs to get their head checked -- that's like dating someone solely for what they look like. talk about shallow.

my entire point here was that, just as in the DVD thread, when people start posting pictures, the entire discussion breaks down -- no one even discusses anything about the music, or the movie, or what have you; instead, people just clutter up the entire thread with useless pictures. & then what? i create a topic i actually want to talk about in vain, because everybody would rather post a bunch of pictures. go ahead, go to the "dvd discussion thread," is there any discussion being done? no -- it's just become a dvd-cover-posting-marathon. that's what i wanted to avoid. i can't believe i actually had to explain that, but there you go.

now, in a last ditch effort to keep this from turning into a "should we post a picture or not?" debate, can we please comply & talk about the music?

A list of useless pictures is better to look at than a useless list, though, right?

I find there's often a correlation between quality of cover art and quality of music. But I'm not going to generalise and say it's always the case.

And the most frustrating thing about cover-posting is that many albums don't actually have a title on the cover, and since the image comes from Amazon, you can't find out in the properties of the image, either.

So, if you're going to post an image, I encourage a worded follow-up, if only for reference. It would take me hours browsing a chainstore looking for a cover as opposed to looking for a cover under the R section or something.

Forty Licks - Rolling Stones

A great compilation will all the stones big hits

it is incredibly difficult to compile a definitive rolling stones collection due to the sheer quality & quantity of their (early) career, though i must admit -- albums aside -- i'd take the brief & concise hot rocks over forty licks anyday. i must agree, however, that FL is the most comprehensive stones compilation on the market (excluding the singles boxset).

i've been spinning meat is murder by the smiths pretty rapidly this week, but i'm kind of caught in a dilemma with this album -- there are fans who consider it to be the band's best, & there are fans who consider it to be the band's worse. by those means, it could hardly be called either underrated or overrated due to the steadfast dedication from both sides -- i have to say i'm on the side that believes it to be a great album though (but by no means their greatest). "how soon is now?" is, while not even closely representative of the smiths' sound, a fantastic single, while "i wan't the one i can't have" & "that joke isn't funny anymore" both hold their own against the rest of the band's discography.

i've also been listening to alot of the vaselines this week, but because they don't have any albums currently in print (besides their catch-all compilation), i've been stuck on some of their infectious & irresistible singles (some of the best indie pop singles of all time).

Hey, Ant.

I didn't realize you started posting on here again. Hit me up on AIM. You did once recently, but you must have caught me at a bad time. Same s/n.

About the Thread (lately when not listening to Verdi, Wagner, or Mozart):

Archers Of Loaf - Icky Mettle
The New Radicals - Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too
Nasum - The Shift
Panic - Strength In Solitude
Pedro The Lion - (mainly) It's Hard To Find A Friend, and The Only Reaseon I Feel Secure
Motorhead - Overkill
Discharge - Hear Nothing Say Nothing
Disfear - Misanthropic Generation