ihatemusic

top 10 is impossible for me to think about, but I took a shot at a top 50 from the past 50 years. I'm sure I'm leaving some out and will update this as I think of others, but here's my attempt for now, chronologically:

John Cage/David Tudor-Variations II (Columbia/Edition RZ) (1961)
Sun Ra-Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy (Saturn/Evidence) (1963)
Bob Dylan-Bringing It All Back Home (Columbia) (1965)
Karlheinz Stockhauen-Telemusik (DG/Stockhausen Verlag) (1966)
Intersystems-Free Psychedelic Poster Inside (private press/Streamline) (1968)
Dr. John-Gris-Gris (Atco) (1968)
Skip James-Devil Got My Woman (Vanguard) (1968)

Funkadelic-Funkadelic (Westbound) (1970)
The Stooges-Fun House (Elektra) (1970)
Can-Tago Mago (United Artists) (1971)
Rolling Stones-Exile On Main Street (Rolling Stones/Atlantic) (1972)
Sly and the Family Stone-Fresh (Epic/CBS) (1973)
Dadawah-Peace and Love (Wild Flower/Dug Out) (1974)
Sand-Golem (Delta Acustic) (reissued as Ultrasonic Seraphim by United Durtro) (1974)
Taj Mahal Travellers-August 1974 (CBS Japan) (1975)
Congos-Heart of the Congos (Black Art) (1977)
The Clash-The Clash (CBS) (1977)
Modern Lovers-Modern Lovers (Beserkley) (1977)
Captain Beefheart-Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) (Warner Brothers) (1978)
Gang of Four-Entertainment! (EMI/Warner Brothers) (1979)
Slits-Cut (Island) (1979)
Specials-Specials (2-Tone) (1979)

Fela Kuti-Coffin for Head of State/Unknown Soldier (Barclay) (1980)
Talking Heads-Remain In Light (Sire) (1980)
Keith Hudson-Playing It Cool, Playing It Right (Joint International) (1981)
AMM-The Great Hall (disc 2 of Laminal) (Matchless) (1982)
Minutemen-Double Nickels on the Dime (SST) (1984)
Pere Ubu-Terminal Tower (Rough Trade) (1985)
Beastie Boys-Paul's Boutique (Capitol) (1989)

Neil Young-Weld (Reprise) (1991)
Tom Waits-Bone Machine (Island) (1992)
Ween-Pure Guava (Elektra) (1992)
Willie Nelson-The IRS Tapes: Who’ll Buy My Memories? (Sony Music Special Products) (1992)
James Booker-Resurrection of the Bayou Maharajah (Rounder) (1993)
UGK-Super Tight (Jive) (1994)
Portishead-Dummy (Go!) (1994)
GZA-Liquid Swords (Geffen/MCA) (1995)
Kevin Drumm-Kevin Drumm (Perdition Plastics) (1997)
Ground Zero-Consume Red (Sank-ohso / Creativeman) (1997)
Taku Sugimoto Opposite (hat NOIR) (1998)

Morton Feldman-All Piano (performed by John TIlbury) (LondonHALL) (2000)
Kevin Drumm-Sheer Hellish Miasma (Mego) (2002)
Keith Rowe/John Tilbury-Duos for Doris (Erstwhile) (2003)
Radu Malfatti/Taku Sugimoto (Raku Sugifatti)-Futatsu (IMJ) (2003)
Sachiko M/Toshimaru Nakamura/Otomo Yoshihide-Good Morning Good Night (Erstwhile) (2004)
Keith Rowe/Sachiko M/Toshimaru Nakamura/Otomo Yoshihide-ErstLive 005 (Erstwhile) (2005)
nmperign/Jason Lescalleet-Love Me Two Times (Intransitive) (2006)
Graham Lambkin-Salmon Run (Kye) (2007)
The Magic I.D.-till my breath gives out (ErstPop/Erstwhile) (2008)
Ami Yoshida/Toshimaru Nakamura-Soba to Bara (Erstwhile) (2009)

Of course, the longer the list the more you realise you've forgotten / missed out.. nice idea though Jon, I think I'll have a go at this one myself just for fun..

Actually found the top ten relatively easy. This one is much trickier! Needs some thought.

wow jon. i've heard many of the albums that list and am fond of many, though there are a handful of items i've yet to hear.

might have to participate.

me too, thank you

The good things about a top 10 is that it forces people to think about which recordings they wouldn't want to go through the rest of their lives without hearing.

A top 50 gives too much space for people to list stuff that might tickle their fancy at the moment but which really isn't indispensable in the long-term. Witness mudd saying on the other thread that half of the stuff he listed the last time we did this, he wouldn't list anymore.

negative potential wrote:A top 50 gives too much space for people to list stuff that might tickle their fancy at the moment but which really isn't indispensable in the long-term. Witness mudd saying on the other thread that half of the stuff he listed the last time we did this, he wouldn't list anymore.

speak for yourself, I've already had to make some painful cuts and will have to make more as I think of others (Automatic Writing needs to be added, for instance).

OK. Trying with these 50 recs
---
Charles Mingus - The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (1963)
John Fahey - Vol. II: Death Chants, Breakdowns and Military Waltzes (1963)
Stan Getz & João Gilberto - Getz/Gilberto (1964)
John Coltrane - Live in Japan (1966)
Patty Waters - Sings (1966)
Albert Ayler - Live in Greenwich Village: The Complete Impulse Recordings (1967)
Captain Beefheart - Safe as Milk (1967)
Pärson Sound - Pärson Sound (1967)
Philip Cohran and the Artistic Heritage Ensemble - On the Beach (1968)
David Tudor - Rainforest (1968/73)
Dr. John - Gris-Gris (1968)
Don Cherry - Eternal Rhythm (1969)
Gal Costa - Gal (1969)
Pharoah Sanders - Karma (1969)
Sly and the Family Stone - Stand! (1969)
Curtis Mayfield - Curtis (1970)
Jimi Hendrix - Band of Gypsys (1970)
The Stooges - Fun House (1970)
Baby Huey - The Baby Huey Story: The Living Legend (1971)
Can - Tago Mago (1971)
Funkadelic - Maggot Brain (1971)
Mauricio Kagel - Acustica (1972)
Fela Kuti - Afrodisiac (1973)
João Gilberto - João Gilberto (1973)
Lee 'Scrath' Perry / The Upsetters - Upsetters 14 Dub Blackboard Jungle (1973)
Sun Ra - What planet is this ? (1973)
Mulatu Astatke - Éthiopiques 4: Ethio Jazz & Musique Instrumentale 1969-1974
Robert Ashley - In Sara, Mencken, Christ and Beethoven There Were Men and Women (1974)
Brast Burn - Debon (1975)
Taj Mahal Travellers - August 1974 (1975)
Anal Magic & Rev. Dwight Frizzell - Beyond the Black Crack (1976)
Jorge Ben - África Brasil (1976)
Karuna Khyal - Alomoni 1985 (1976)
Iannis Xenakis - La légende d´Eer (1977)
Les Rallizes Dénudés - '77 Live (1977)
Arthur Doyle - Alabama Feeling (1978)
Dinosaur - Kiss Me Again (1978)
Sly & the Revolutionaries - Black Ash Dub (1980)
Glenn Branca - The Ascension (1981)
Ike Yard - Ike Yard (1982)
Junior Delahaye - Reggae (1982)
Horace Andy - Dance Hall Style (1982)
Morton Feldman - String Quartet (II) (1983, Ives Ensemble 2002)
EPMD - Strictly Business (1988)
AMM - Newfoundland (1993)
Company Flow - Funcrusher Plus (1997)
The Shadow Ring - Hold Onto I.D. (1998)
MIMEO & John Tilbury - The Hands of Caravaggio (2002)
Corrupted - El mundo frio (2005)
Keith Rowe, Sachiko M, Toshimaru Nakamura & Otomo Yoshihide - ErstLive 005 (2005)

(edit: replacing a Sun Ra by another Sun Ra!)

jon abbey wrote: speak for yourself, I've already had to make some painful cuts and will have to make more as I think of others (Automatic Writing needs to be added, for instance).

Well yes, on such a thread, everybody is speaking for themselves. Aren't you always saying it's silly to have to preface pronouncements on taste with disclaimers about subjectivity, since that should be a given?

I'll try to explain my reasoning on top 10 vs. top 50:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember you saying once that most Erstwhile releases you only listen to a couple of times after they are released, even the ones you like a lot.

Yet at the end of your top 50, you've got a bunch of Erstwhile releases.

To me, that's the difference between a top 10 and top 50: if I get to list 50, I'm going to list a lot of stuff that I always want in my collection, but which I can go a long time without listening.

So stuff like Kind of Blue or Metal Box or Entertainment, I can hardly go a week without hearing. That's top 10 material. Whereas something like the Velvet Underground's White Light/White Heat, or Lidingö, while I would never want to purge my collection of those recordings, since I know I'll want to hear them again at some point, I can also go a looong time without having to hear them.

oh, that is a good list! I meant to put the Xenakis on mine, that Jorge Ben record is fantastic also.

is the Dinosaur just the Sire 12 inch? I do love that, but hard for a 13 minute track (plus a B-side) to crack a list like this.

Alex, everything is about meta-discussion with you. feel free to ignore this thread if you don't like the concept.

negative potential wrote:So stuff like Kind of Blue or Metal Box or Entertainment, I can hardly go a week without hearing. That's top 10 material.

there is no album in my collection like this, there's just too much music in the world.

jon abbey wrote:Alex, everything is about meta-discussion with you. feel free to ignore this thread if you don't like the concept.

I just think people should think about the concept. A lot of people have yet to list 50. That's a good instinct. People should really sit on it for as long as possible before finally cutting loose, so as to avoid a list that is "25 things I cannot go without hearing, plus 25 things I enjoy listening to recently".

there is no album in my collection like this, there's just too much music in the world.

There's too much music in the world that all sounds the same.

Dude, that's like saying, "there's so many paintings in the world, why do people get all tripped up about Guernica?"

jon abbey wrote: ... there's just too much music in the world.

feeling this.

negative potential wrote:There's too much music in the world that all sounds the same.

actually, quite the opposite is what I mean, there are huge areas of music and artists that I love that I still had to leave out on a list of 50. a list of 10 (FOR ME) would be pointless and absurd.

in fact, Antoine's list points out some of those areas: Fahey, Hendrix, early seventies Brazilian music (Rogerio Duprat productions mostly, I considered Gilberto Gil-Cerebro Electronico).

I've personally already gotten more out of his list than out of that entire other thread, but as always, your mileage may vary.

a contentious "here are a few of my favorite things" thread-pure IHM!

A list like this would be tough for me to do. If I were to do it, though, it would be very idiosyncratic, the stuff I most like listening to as opposed to the "best" or "essential" stuff when judged against historical context, etc. For example, I can easily see how one of Dylan's 65-66 electric albums would need to be on such a list, but I doubt I'd put one of them on mine if I was actually trying to list my 50 favorite albums. And if I were to go the other direction, with a "top" 50 that doesn't necessarily correspond to my personal taste, then I'd be really bad at that because I have certain narrow areas that I'm interested in, and large areas of music that I have no interest in whatsoever.

I will think about it though and maybe do one of these as well.

negative potential wrote:

there is no album in my collection like this, there's just too much music in the world.

Dude, that's like saying, "there's so many paintings in the world, why do people get all tripped up about Guernica?"

honestly, I'd agree with that question about Guernica. because there are so many tons of tremendous works of art. I'd ask it about the Mona Lisa. I'd ask it about Twombly's Fifty Days at Iliam. All phenomenal works for one reason or another but do you need to visit them regularly?

so, I'm with Jon on records too. aside from relatively new releases/acquisitions that I need to listen to a bunch to digest, you'd be hard pressed to find any cd/lp/cassette/whatever that I explicitly pull out of my collection to hear more than a couple times a year. I even go years without hearing albums I anyway consider deeply influential on the development of my own taste. there's just that much great, and tremendously varied, music out there.

OK here is fiftyish. Done reasonably quickly but all mean a lot to me personally and from various points in time. First ten were my Top Ten:

Morton Feldman - String Quartet II - Ives Ensemble, Hat Hut.
Trilogie de la Mort - Eliane Radigue.
I'm The One - Annette Peacock.
Hex Induction Hour - The Fall.
Uncle Meat - Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.
Butch - The Geraldine Fibbers.
Get Up With It - Miles Davis (Or preferably The Complete On the Corner Sessions).
Marquee Moon - Television.
Kevin Drumm - Imperial Horizon.
Alice Coltrane - Ptah, the El Daoud.

The Necks - Drive By.
John Coltrane - Complete Africa Brass Sessions.
This Heat - Deceit.
Sun Ra - Space Is the Place.
Cecil Taylor - Silent Tongues.
Wire - Pink Flag.
Robert Fripp - Exposure.
James Dillon - The Book of Elements.
Messiaen - Catalogue d'oiseaux.
Albert Ayler - Ghost Box.

Marilyn Crispell - Nothing Ever Was Anyway.
Max Romeo - War in A Babylon.
Henry Cow - Concerts.
Arthur Russell - World of Echo.
Super Furry Animals - Love Kraft.
King Tubby & V/A - Dub Trilogy: A History of Dub.
Phil Niblock - Touch Three.
Pauline Oliveros - Deep Listening.
Taku Sugimoto - Opposite.
Corrupted - El Mundo Frio.

Barry Guy - After the Rain.
Brainticket - Psychonaut.
Cardiacs - Sing to God.
Carla Bley - Escalator over the Hill.
Ben Frost - By the Throat.
Incredible String Band - Wee Tam and the Big Huge.
Art Ensemble of Chicago - Urban Bushmen.
Circle X - Prehistory.
Cluster - Cluster II.
Lester Bowie - The Great Pretender.

Davy Graham - Folk Blues and Beyond.
Ballads - Derek Bailey.
Ornette Coleman and Charlie Haden - Soapsuds.
Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell - El Corazon.
The Durutti Column - The Return of the Durutti Column.
Stockhausen - Stimmung.
Keith Rowe and John Tilbury - Duos for Doris
La Monte Young - The Well Tuned Piano
Loren Connors - Night Through: Singles and Collected Works.
Miroslav Vitous - Infinite Search.
Popol Vuh -In Den Garten Pharaos.
Sonny Sharrock - Ask the Ages.
Edward Vesala - Ode to the Death of Jazz.
Steve Reich - Music For Eighteen Musicians.
V/A - No Age: A Compilation of SST Instrumental Music.

And just a few essential single tracks:
T Rex - Metal Guru.
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band - Faith Healer (Live).
Patti Smith - Piss Factory.
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Placebo Effect.
The Auteurs - Lenny Valentino.
Cornelius Cardew - Golden Mountain in Beijing.
Galaxie 500 - Tugboat.
The Fall - I Feel Voxish.
This Heat - Health and Efficiency.
The Only Ones - Miles From Nowhere.
Richard Hell & the Voidoids - Blank Generation.

Phew!