Name a record without a single dud song on it.

close to the edge

Stone Roses s/t

The Very Best Of Des O'Connor

The Beatles - Abbey Road

Abbey Road features a dud medley instead.

Abbey Road features a dud medley instead.

― Vic Perry, Tuesday, September 22, 2015 5:59 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The Beatles - Revolver and Stevie Wonder - Innervisions are my go-tos for this. checked out all these threads and agreed with many of the selections. I realized The Spinners - Mighty Love fits the bill for me too. also just remembered The Meters - Rejuvenation is another love 'em all.

revolver and hard day's night are the only beatles albums that fit this category for me. maybe past masters vol. 1, but the german-language songs are a bit distracting.

same for me though "When I Get Home" seems a more negligible cut (than tuthers) on A Hard Day's Night. I still like it though!

reading the two currently active threads on this topic I realized that ~ peaks and troughs be damned ~ the perfect albums (as opposed to but certainly overlapping with personal faves) are ones where there's not a cut you love a fair bit less than the others.

this thread allows for a lot more leeway, since lots of albums have no outright duds, but the other open thread great from start to finish
requires that all cuts be better than adequate.

for me this excludes Wire - 154 cos I like "Once Is Enough" a lot less than the other cuts (though it's fun to see the live video of it) and to be honest there are a handful of tracks I like a lot more than the others.

also, Talking Heads - Remain In Light, absolutely LOVE all of side one plus "Once In A Lifetime" and "Seen And Not Seen", but merely like or slightly meh about the other 3 side B cuts, which I understand are some people's faves...

I agree, plenty of albums have no duds, which doesn't even necessarily make them great albums.

"Once is Enough" is insane! wwwoooooooooaaaahhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHHH and all that metallic clatter. "My advice is simple." That last song though, whatever it's called, I find it as boring as most of those kinds of experiments to actually listen to regularly.

I enshrine More Songs About Buildings & Food, not a single wasted second, completely satisfying unified start to finish sonic experience.

x-post bit:
still, I like the bassline/rhythm of "Houses In Motion" and the music of "Listening Wind". but "The Great Curve" and "Once In A Lifetime" really jump out from that record for me.

post-Vic:
so as you say I find the previous (all 3?) albums more steadily strong start to finish.

"40 Versions" has a great Bruce Gilbert lyrical content/concept though - presumably about the diverse potential personalities that exist in us all (well, most of us...). there's that line inspired by Castenada about reality existing in the spaces between things. probably sounds best on headphones or cranked up because of the production effects. one of 154's flaws is it tends to dazzle the head instead of stick in the heart. it still took over my life for a year or two.

I only heard 154 for the first time about six years ago, and I've been content to just slowly warm up to it. I've liked it the most when I'm traveling somewhere new.

Let's see. I think 77 has some trivial junk, but I always love to hear "New Feeling" "Book I Read" "Pulled Up" and probably some more too. But "First Week, Last Week" and "Who Is It" are so forgettable, "No Compassion" is ordinary (complete with a dumb false ending), and most of all I Always Hated that "Psycho Killer" is permanently considered a major TH song, to this damn day!! something every writing on them just has to mention. When I was a teenager I thought "Don't Worry About the Government" was a profound statement but now I think it's warmed over, bubblegummed Jonathan Richman. I don't get why they left better songs like "Clean Break" and "Love Goes to Building on Fire" off their first album, but I'm not sorry they did.

Fear of Music, Side One is unassailable. As with MSAB&F, I love every second, it's a masterpiece, it's like nothing else on earth, etc. Side Two is pretty great (and is also like nothing else) but over the years "Drugs" and "Animals" and "Air" have slipped for me as listening experiences, and of course there's "Electric Guitar" which I have a soft spot for, but it's still kinda not quite.

Um, Remain in Light. I nod sometimes during side one (songs one and three) and more often on side two (after the undeniable Once In A Lifetime). Huge downturn in ambition with the lyrics. (Once in a Lifetime excepted). Musically I prefer the less well-regarded My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.

but Astral Weeks fits ...

nah, Beside You fucks the vibe up track two.

OTM.

sign O the times (changed my mind about "the cross" earlier this year)

Revolver is mostly great but it has that yellow turdmarine song that disqualifies it also that Harrison song which is perhaps his least memorable tune ever written, I cant remember its name even. Ditto for Abbey Road with Maxwell Silver Hammer. It's fine if you like them but they stand out like a sore thumb in otherwise great albums.

xp "the cross" is an amazing track!

I think I prefer Rubber Soul at least looking at the tracklist I don't see anything I would skip.

Rubber Soul > Revolver for sure

the real answer is: so many records qualify, but here are a few where legitimately every song is amazing

the blue nile: hats
sonny sharrock: ask the ages (do... most jazz albums qualify?)
scritti politti: cupid & psyche
debarge: in a special way
aerosmith: rocks
celtic frost: to mega therion

though lol most of my favorite records of all time actually incorporate at least one thing that could be considered a dud. also feel like i'm always talking about the same three records on here and on the general internet (hats, c&p, in a special way) literally all the time

Are there any duds on Voodoo? i mean, i don't think so as it's my favourite record ever but maybe other people feel differently

listening to katatonia's dance of december souls rn and i love every second of this record, add that to the list

Can - Future Days

Moka, do you mean "Love You To"? it's often referred to as the least of Harrison's Indian-style tunes. but turn it up and you'll hear this fabulous bracing drone sound, an Indian(?) instrument which sounds like reversed gated/cutoff distorted guitars (more Tago Mago or post-punk). I find the song simultaneously minimal and enveloping: a washing machine tumble of sound. speaking of bracing, that opening salvo of Taxman>Eleanor Rigby>I'm Only Sleeping>Love You To as a sequence must have sounded like terra incognita in 1966. it's not until Here, There... that we're back on more familiar ground.

"What Goes On" is a dud (or at least dull as hell) for me on Rubber Soul. understandably some people hate "Run For Your Life" too (even Lennon himself?) but I first heard it in less PC times so I never took it that seriously. certainly has nothing on "Tomorrow Never Knows" as a closer.

dunno if I could ever consider "Yellow Submarine" a dud or turd, but then again I was 3 when it was released so target age for it as children's singalong. I was later scared seeing the film in the cinema at a young age (6?) so it still has an acid-eeriness for me.

Hunky Dory.

Every Beatles album has at least one track I don't care for.

Wire's 154 is the only one of their opening salvo filled with junk

junk in the good or bad way?

do you mean "The Other Window"? Gilbert's probably my fave lyricist/vocalist of them lot. in a way it's the first taster of Dome. better lyrics than "The Gift" anyway. deliciously dark/morbid wit ~ Robert Holmes and Hinchcliffe (and Saward) woulda loved it.
Rolling Stone: Wire, Get Out Of Marienbad

"The 15th" has junk lyrics of the best kind.