Epic Albums of Awesome: A Music List

The third album by the relatively unknown band HUM. You can't really use the word 'perfect' when it comes to music, but this album comes so close... The sonic waves of electric guitar are balanced with masterful production techniques. A truly beautiful and heartfelt album, it was released nearly a year behind schedule. Capitol Records gave HUM the axe after they completed this amazing monument to the best the 90's had to offer.

Fantastic Planet was the third and final album from the little known 90's group Failure. The title is taken from the French cartoon La planète sauvage. This sonic-electronic narrative features the creative talents of Ken Andrews and Greg Edwards. The excellent interlude material is well placed between solid songwriting and distorted musical textures.

Ken Andrews went on to form On, Year of the Rabbit, and release a self titled solo album. Greg Edwards went on to play for Autolux.

Stone Temple Pilots third studio album, featured their most complex musical passages, and incredible balance between Weiland's vocals and clever instrumentation.

In addition to all that slurry bullshit I said above, the album is incredibly satisfying to listen to. I also love the album Purple (second album), and while all the critics and people that talk too much say that the two albums are worlds apart, they aren't quite as different as people might think.

Remember when it seemed like music was going to keep getting better until all of our heads exploded? Maybe you don't. Hail to the Thief came out in 2003. I was still very enthusiastic about new music, and I got a little spoiled with the amount of decent stuff that was coming out around that time.

When I first listen to Hail to the Thief, I didn't get it. I was expecting something simpler, something easier to understand... What I didn't realize was I was hearing what was probably Radiohead's most musical and technically perfect album.

Going through each song, every single one of them has a number of great characteristics. And unlike some of their other albums, Hail to the Thief actually feels like an album. Listened to all in one sitting, you can have a full experience. Musically, it's fulfilling and exhausting at the same time. Listen carefully, and you can hear something you might not have caught last time through.

So much has been said of Pink Floyd's creative and innovative album. My first exposure to Pink Floyd was actually when I watched The Wall (I was way too young) and it scared the shit out of me. A few years later, I was able to listen to The Dark Side of the Moon on tape... and it blew my mind. What an amazing album.

Many point to U2's Joshua Tree as their greatest album. It may be their most successful and well regarded, but to me Achtung Baby is the best of their many albums. It has a timeless sound, sounding vastly different from the other bands out there in the early 90's. Every song on the album has its own reason for grabbing your attention. Until The End of the World, So Cruel, The Fly, Mysterious Ways, and Love is Blindness are among some of U2's best songs.

Heavy electric guitars, perfectly executed percussion and an endearing sense of beauty. Shiner's Lula Divinia feels like an album. Each song offers something exciting, complex, or attractive.

A perfect blending between the kind of songwriting you'd expect to find in a conventional rock album, and the synth instrumentation you'd expect to find in an electronic album. Life In The So-Called Space Age was the penultimate album from the talented band God Lives Underwater. This album has the epic feel of a band that were at the height of their creativity and talent.

Beethoven is one of the greatest of all time. There are plenty of works that I can put up here. Sometimes, I feel as though his symphonies get too much attention, at the expense of his amazing quartets. For this reason, I want to mention Beethoven's Opus 131 String Quartet. It maintains some elements of the classical era, while moving beyond the confines of his contemporaries. The first movement is organized like a fugue, but is beyond beautiful in it's multi-layered dissonances. It is truly one of the most emotional movements of music I have ever heard.

Hidden within the phasing guitar textures of Loveless, is a keen understanding of space and balance. A truly beautiful album.

I could have put a couple of Led Zeppelin albums on here, but this is the one I have heard most often. Every song could be a hit on its own. It's hard to imagine this many solid songs can occupy a single album. Led Zeppelin had the right combination of creativity, solid songwriting, and powerful musicianship and performance.

Absolution integrated Matt Bellamy's classical piano training throughout the album. An incredibly successful marriage of fast rock with romantic period progressions. a great album.

April is a departure from Vast creator Jon Crosby's earlier albums. Unlike his heavily produced "Visual Audio Sensory Theater" and "Music for People", April is essentially pared down to Jon Crosby, his acoustic guitar, and a drummer. Despite the absence of high production values, and no bulgarian choir samples, April presents some of Jon's Crosby's most grown up and beautiful songs.

Having moved past their Jackie Cane phase, and parting with the orchestra they toured with in subsequent years, Hooverphonic's 2008 album President of the LSD Golf Club did away with unnecessary character and theme songs and focused completely on making good music and nothing else. The final album with singer Geike Arneart, this album highlighted her talent, while maintaining an excellent balance with spacious and well composed instrumentation.

The latest album from Spencer Seim and Zach Hill, Tripper shows off the amazing combination of a badass guitarist and a killer drummer. Moving away from vocals and a full band they employed in There's No 666 in Outer Space, Hella has consolidated their sound to the pure and powerful duet that they began they careers with. Like their other instrumental albums, Tripper is under 40 minutes. But ever second is worth enjoying.

The third album from IAMX creator Chris Corner. The former Sneaker Pimps front man gave up trip-hop in favor of high contrast pop songs fueled with bursting sexual innuendo. His moody minor key songs are balanced with powerfully processed synth and drum lines. Chris Corner's vocals seem to improve with every album, and I hear IAMX live shows are not to be missed.

How many times can a person listen to the same musical passage and still be amazed? It can go on forever, if it's done the right way. Gorecki's Symphony number 3 begins with a movement that contains long musical phrases that repeat over and over. But it's not boring at all. In fact, it builds to an almost unbearable emotional height before slowly disappearing into nothing. And it's only one third of the way through the symphony. This entire piece evokes strong emotions and pretty much forces you to stop whatever the hell you're doing and listen, and feel the music. Each of the three movements has a different feel to it. But as a whole, the piece is one of the best 20th century compositions I have heard.

The final album from The Beatles, this features some of their most mature and emotional songs. All four members contributed to the writing of the songs. The final set of songs are connected into an odd medley that rounds out the album quite well. People that like the Beatles (hey, some people don't) all have their own reasons for liking certain albums. The creativity of the strong personalities of each member is felt in Abbey Road, and it helped give the album a unique flavor.

And yeah, I heard they were supposedly fighting all the time, but the music turned out great.

Are you a Doors fan man? Some only want to hear the early albums, and some only listen from Morrison Hotel to L.A. Woman. Some forswear The Soft Parade and some consider it their only turly progressive album. Well, I'm not gonna argue about any that. But know this: L.A. Woman is an awesome album. The band maintained their blues groove in many of the songs, but also was able to create something new in the song Riders on the Storm, and LA Woman.

The progressive rock band Yes has gone through more incarnations than most living bands. In 1977, they had their most successful group members: Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Chris Squire, Rick Wakeman, and Alan White. Yes recorded Going for the One at a waterside property owned by Wakeman. There must have been something good in that water, because the album came together beautifully. Unlike many of their earlier releases, which were essentially EPs, sets of three of four songs that didn't always seem related- Going for the One worked as both an album and a collection of great music. From the killer song Going for the One to the final track Awaken, every song traveled its own journey, but managed to return to a cohesive musical organism.

Let's not spoil it with a bunch of wards. A damn good album. Two talented musicians that knew what the hell they were doing.