Best double album ever?

[Spiritinthesky]

What has been the best double album ever?
The Wall? Electric Ladyland? Exile On Main St? Physical Graffiti? The White Album?


Vote for your favourite double album. http://www.thisdayinmusic.com/pages/double_album

 

[John Watt]

Hey, Spiritinthesky! You already named my only consideration for best double album,
and that's "Electric Ladyland" by Jimi Hendrix and friends.
In this technophobe recording society of counting beats per minute and autotuning vocals,
if you count the number of guitar tones, overdubs and stereo movements of sound,
no other album recorded anywhere by anyone has as many and as different.
No other rock album features as many new effects that were built to Jimi's specs.
The fact that Bob Dylan returned to the studio to re-record "All Along the Watchtower",
to use the rhythm changes Jimi gave his chords, says much towards the level of musicianship.
While all other rock star guitars were devalued at least 50% after the American economy crashed,
only Jimi's instruments kept increasing in value, a bankable reference for this financial age.
When Miles Davis was asked what he had on his turntable, for a long time he said Jimi Hendrix.

Please listen to Jimi when you are relaxed with the headphones on. That's what he recorded for.
He forewarned us, saying he didn't necessarily want to take us higher, but make our world wider.
That's still happening, the wah-wah, phase shifters and flangers he helped design,
are now ubiquitous with radio, TV and all studio recordings.
James Marshall of Marshall Amplification has a sign over his office door, saying,
"Jimi Hendrix put us on the map". Now I'm stacking the argument.
As Jimi sang, "If I don't see you in this world, I'll see you in the next, don't be late, no, don't be late".
I hope you aren't.
'Nuff said.

 

[teddy]

Weird Tales from Inside the Goldmine

for the variety of the music. Still listen to it after all these years

teddy

 

[EddieRUKiddingVare]

Me I would pump for We're Only In It For The Money (WOITFTM) 1967

Zappa and the Mothers...
We're Only in It for the Money is the third studio album by The Mothers of Invention. Released on March 4, 1968 on Verve Records, it was subsequently remixed and re-recorded by Frank Zappa and reissued independently by Rykodisc Records in 1986

 

[teddy]

Are you including double albums which could have been sqeezed onto one LP but made more money that way?

teddy

 

[EddieRUKiddingVare]

^ You mean like Sgt Pepper lol

 

[teddy]

There seem to be a lot of them about. Even Joni Mitchell, who can do very little wrong in my not humble opinion, was accused of this

teddy

 

[John Watt]

I just have to add, especially if it eases your mind about Joni Mitchell.
Don't forget, albums, especially double albums, were about the artwork.
Joni Mitchell is a very good artist, her paintings in galleries and selling as a professional.
I can still say Electric Ladyland in this respect, but then,
what Electric Ladyland am I typing about,
the one that was released in England with, at the time, hard-core artwork,
or the cover that was released in North America, more sociable?
I bought "Are You Experienced" without hearing any Jimi,
seeing another student bring it in to high school, and liking the cover.
I was winning prizes and selling artwork at the time myself,
so that album was a serious influence, and a non-rock star one.
What was the cover hanging on the wall the most, King Crimson, acid face.

I wasn't sure about "The Hissing of Summer Lawns",
yeah, I'm still not sure.

And that Aussie is going to ostracize me, you, you, you...
getting vegetables to respond to you, you... yeah...
where did you get what amounts to a totally rare California bootleg?

 

[Florestan]

Electric Ladyland certainly is a frontrunner for the best double album. I also like Johnny Winter Second Winter, which was sort of a double album but one side of the second disk was blank, later to be rectified when released on CD with a couple of bonus tracks added.

 

[Dorsetmike]

For me it's the Ray Charles and Cleo Laine release of Porgy & Bess.

 

[bob32116]

Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

Honourable mentions:

Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Joni Mitchell - Don Juan's Reckless Daughter
Steven Wilson - Grace For Drowning

I don't like The Wall or the "white album".

 

[bob32116]

I also like Johnny Winter Second Winter, which was sort of a double album but one side of the second disk was blank, later to be rectified when released on CD with a couple of bonus tracks added.

This must be extremely rare, surely?

My father had a recording of the Wintereiss song cycle by Franz Schubert, consisting of two vinyl disks, one of which had one blank side emblazoned with the warning "DO NOT PLAY THIS SIDE"! I have never encountered that phenomenon before or since.

 

[John Watt]

This brings to mind a book published by the radical Abbie Hoffman,
that had a front and back cover, entitled,
"Steal This Book". I never did, even if free radicals are important to me now.

 

[Florestan]

This brings to mind a book published by the radical Abbie Hoffman,
that had a front and back cover, entitled,
"Steal This Book". I never did, even if free radicals are important to me now.

I wonder if you can get that book anymore. I bet it is a fascinating read.

 

[John Watt]

So many people stole the book, the publisher lost a lot of money.

Considering the very heavy organ, classical and symphonic members here,
I'm surprised no-one mentioned "The Four Seasons" double album, Vivaldi,
a Walter/Wendy Carlos synthesizer production.
He first hit it big with "Switched On Bach".
Because I didn't understand the mechanics of Bachs' cathedral organs,
I didn't know his peeps were pumping it up and pushing it, way'head'a my time.