Some of my all-time favorites:

LZII - Led Zeppelin
Abbey Road - Beatles
Selling England By the Pound - Genesis
Eponymous - Fleetwood Mac
Ok Computer - Radiohead
Honkey Chataeu - Elton John
The Band - The Band
Slowhand - Eric Clapton
Dark Side of the Moon and the Wall - Pink Floyd
Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Some Girls and Tattoo You - Stones

Man, tough question. Here's my top 10:

Tool- Aenima
A perfect circle - 13 steps
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Murder Ballads
Billie Prince Bonnie - I See a Darkness (really, gotta be the best Artist that people don't mention)
Jethro Tull - This Was / Aqualung (it's so hard to pick just one Tull album)
Pink Floyd - Animals
Led Zeppelin - first album
Guns and Roses - Appetite for Destruction
Nirvana - Nevermind
Mad Season - Above (Layne Staley was just awesome)

All mine have been mentioned but one.
I would add Styx - Paradise Theater.

Dark Side of the Moon
Abbey Road

Opeth - Blackwater Park
Wayne Hancock - A-Town Blues
Refused -The Shape of Punk to Come
NOFX - Punk in Drublic
Dirt Daubers - Wild Moon
Hank III - Lovesick, Broke & Driftin'
Kyuss - Welcome to Sky Valley
Tom Waits - Rain Dogs
Nick Cave - Let love in
Megadeth - Rust in peace
Rancid - Let's go
Death - Human

Hey, you have some good taste there!

If I had to narrow it down to 3 albums, yes albums not CD's Pink Floyd wish you were here, Dark side and Led Zep IV all perfect, no weak songs.

The Who - Who's Next. Every song is a radio staple. Absolutely solid. Love the album cover.

Rolling Stones - Beggars Banquet. No Expectations, slide guitar is great. Acoustic guitars mixed with some great electric work.

Alice In Chains - Jar of Flies. I have to listen to it straight through whenever I put it on.

Iron Maiden - Powerslave
AC/DC - Powerage
+ many others already mentioned

Kiss- Alive!
Queen- A Night at the Opera
Boston- Boston
Rush- Moving Pictures
Def Leppard- Hysteria
The Beatles- Hard Days Night
Led Zeppelin- In Through the Out Door
Ozzy Osbourne- Diary of a Madman
Pearl Jam- Ten

My wife an I just got done watching the new Kurt Cobain documentary "montage of heck" and I was sitting there thinking about how Nevermind was such an impressive album. It's simple but brilliant, just a well written piece of art.

Here are some of my favorites (no particular order):

Beatles - Abby Road
Radiohead - OK Computer (Kid A is great as well)
Coltrane - Blue Train
Beck - Sea Change
Elton John - Madman Across the Water
Bela Fleck & the Flecktons - 1st Album
Pat Metheny - Imaginary Day
Nirvana - Nevermind
Rage against the Machine - 1st Album
NIN - Pretty Hate Machine
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon

Anyway, just first few that came to mind.

Ah yes, forgot about that one. Some hauntingly beautiful stuff there.

Yup, another great one I forgot.

The Beatles - Revolver
The Who - Tommy
Prince & The Revolution - Purple Rain
Beck - Odelay
Moby - Play
Fatboy Slim - You've come a long way, baby.
Billy Joel - The Stranger
The Strokes - Is this it?

Few more:

Bob Marley - Exodus
Queen - Night at the Opera
B. Boys - Paul's Boutique
U2 - Joshua Tree
The Cure - Kiss me Kiss me Kiss me
Ozomatli - 1st album
Beethoven - 9th symphony

No jacket required!

(top albums I would primarily listen to in entirety. picking just one is hard - as I'm all over the place with what I enjoy.)

Meters - Look-Ka Py Py
Portishead - Dummy
Andy Smith - The Document II
Whitehouse - Birdseed
Funkadelic - Maggot Brain
Radiohead - OK Computer
Beak >>
Jeff Mills - Live At the Liquid Room
Ellington - Live at Newport
Slayer - Seasons In The Abyss
Dan the Automator - Wanna Buy A Monkey
Ween - Pure Guava
Massive Attack - Mezzanine
Back To Mine - Underworld
Beatles - Sargent Peppers
Kinks - Village Green Preservation Society
King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King
Pink Floyd - Meddle

Oh there are quite a few perfect albums out there. But I'll pick the less traveled here...

Pissed Jeans - Honeys
Behemoth - The Satanist
At The Gates - Slaughter of the Soul
The VSS - 21:51
The Jesus Lizard - Goat
Ink & Dagger - Drive This Seven Inch Wooden Stake Through My Philadelphia Heart
Sunny Day Real Estate - Diary
Boris - Pink
Bloodlet - Entheogen
Eucharist - Eucharist LP
Big Business - Here Come the Waterworks
Talking Heads - Little Creatures
Rye Coalition - Hee Saw Dhuh Kaet

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
Supertramp - Crime of the Century
Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
Jeff Wayne - War of the Worlds
Focus - Focus II (Moving Waves)
Alan Parsons Project - Eye in the Sky
Dire Straits - Love over Gold

I guess I'm just an old meathead, but I think 21st Century... is one of the greatest songs ever recorded, but the rest of the album bores the s.. out of me.

The Shaggs - Philosophy of the World ;P^^

Yeah, Waits, what a great artist as well. So many great albums!

Doh !
IRON MAIDEN-- Killers / Piece of Mind
MELVINS--Houdini

This is easy for me.
Weezer's Blue Album. Both the opening song "My Name is Jonas" and the Closing song "Only in Dreams" are the perfect way to start and end an album. Its a shame that after their first two albums they sucked because the first two were killer.

Now just hang on a damn minute Jamie Flowers...
The green album has some really good tracks too ! Its not a "listen all the way through" album like the blue album ( Only in Dreams is SUCH a good track),...but it is far from sucking (on a hash pipe even).

Is this Slash ? Methinks it might be.
Whomever you are Dollywood, you've got me a full day of googling/youtubing ahead. Any band called Pissed Jeans I gotta hear.

Pink Floyd - The Wall.

Jimi Hendrix Electric Ladyland.... nuf said

Queensryche - Operation Mindcrime
Airbag - The Greatest Show On Earth
Roger Waters - Amused to Death
Rammstein - Rosenrot
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon

Props to the Cure for the song "Burn"

Bathroom Laughter....ohhhh....Mikey likes.
Good thing Ive got my record store on speed-dial.

DUDE!!!!! Now that's some noise. If you fellas like that - you may find Whitehouse's - birdseed to be as soothing as i do... it sure as hell isn't for everyone though - you've been warned.

Pissed jeans has been ordered.... Thank you for that - truly.

Spot on. Some "complete" albums which you can listen too track 1 to track 10 without lifting the needle (or pushing "next track...")

Number of the Beast - Iron Maiden. Every song a metal classic. Arguably the definitive metal album.

Purple - Stone Temple Pilots. This was my desert island CD for 20 years. Maybe it still is. So many textures and melodies.

Operation Livecrime - Queensryche. Classic concept album, even better live. Going by the number of mentions in this thread, lots of others agree.

Appetite for Destruction - GNR. The right album at the right time. Every song is a winner. In 1988 everyone in my town had a copy, and everyone wore theirs out. Every party was just Appetite from start to finish. Everyone wanted to be Steven Adler or Slash. Never Axl though. Lol

10 - Pearl Jam. One of the best debut records ever? Every song on the album is a rock classic.

Pyromania - Def Leppard. Love em or hate em, Def Leppard know how to make a melodic rock song. Every song on this album is a good one.

(What's the story) Morning Glory - Oasis. Classic British rock performed by two brothers with killer eyebrows. Strong songs start to finish with some great hooks.

That's one of the reasons I like rock/metal music ... Generally you get albums which are 70-90% strong songs. Pop albums - generally one or two good songs, the rest are fillers.

rd.

Hey ! A new guy I actually like !
I only listened to that 1st Pissed Jeans track...but any band that reminds me of the Melvins I'm down for.
Your list has quite a few I need to check out as well. Love discovering/hearing new bands....so thanks gents.

it's noisy, and quite possibly the angriest stuff i've ever heard.

try these:
why you never became a dancer, dump the f'n rubbish, wriggle like a f'n eel

if you like them - go deeper. if not - don't waste your time.

This one is close for me, but the last track "Kitchenware & Candybars" ruins it....lol I learned to play guitar to this album.

Wu-Tang Clan.. Enter the 36 chambers

wu-tang-36-chambers.jpg

Nobody's angrier than Ian Mackaye. He just needs to have a drink and relax.

Holy Crap ! I thought I'd be the only Pinsider to vote for this one. Nice to know in not alone.

Agreed, Axl is a KNOB, rather closely related to Bono <<also known as ONOB

Wu Tang Clan.....aint nothin to fuck with.
36 Chambers : Goddamn NYC masterpiece.

Surprised nobody has put a Rolling Stones album here. It would be hard to find three albums in a row put out by a group better than "Beggars Banquet" , "Let It Bleed" , and "Sticky Fingers".

Anything by Queen
Zep 1-4
Seargent Pepper's
Rumors
Dark Side of the Moon
The Doors
The Stranger
Tommy
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Love Over Gold

I am a huge Stones fan Fixie...."Sticky Fingers" and "Let it Bleed" are both perfect. Kinda like forgetting Iron Maiden, there are soo many "front to back" albums, that most of us could be here all day, everyday, and still forget another great one.
Im just glad so many of you dudes seem to love music as much as I do ! My 1st love..always will be !

One of my personal fav's also.. I love me some vinyl

JB.jpg

Jock Jams vol I

The loneliest exclamation point in the world.

Thanks for a great morning laugh ! But II is better....

Also forgot :
VADER--Reborn in Chaos
CAT STEVENS--Tea for the Tillerman
HIGH ON FIRE--Death Is This Communion (absolute perfection)

For me the perfect albums are the ones in which all of the songs come together to tell a story. While there may be one or two hits that get a lot of airplay from them, they are part of something more cohesive. They aren't a bunch of great songs on one album (I mean, those do make a great album, but could be put on a greatest hits and still be good), it is one album you play from start to finish that tells a story or a series of stories.

The two albums that come to mind that are little bit more modern-
Ben Folds Five- Reinhold Messner
The Mars Volta- Frances The Mute

There are a lot of albums like this, and they are typically not the artists most popular album, and usually take awhile to appreciate what they are. We are so used to listening to a bunch of great individual songs, it is tough to listen to these albums that are more or less "stories".

Some of the finest pop music ever made.
It's a shame more people don't know about this wonderful album!
E