Essential Remnants: Name Our Number One!

rockquestionmarkWe’re in the final countdown. We’ll be announcing the No. 1 Essential Remnant in the early afternoon on Monday. Can you guess what it is? What do you think it should be? Leave your opinions in the comments…

Clue No. 1: It was the only album named by five of the six voters.

Clue No. 2: It is not one of the Rolling Stone Top 50 Albums as of last year.

19 thoughts on “Essential Remnants: Name Our Number One!

    • it did make my Top 50, btw. i love Who’s Next. saw them that tour, too. they were great.

      but, i know what #1 is.

      probably not what you would expect, but then, if you know music, you will nod to yourself and smile, and say, “yeah, that is a great album.”

    • The Exile on Main Street comments make me think my guess is wrong. With only four slots left, I have more than four candidates, so I’m bound to be disappointed to some extent. The Doors? Electric Ladyland? Rubber Soul? Cheap Thrills? Workingman’s Dead? Child Is Father to the Man? Four Way Street? (Hope I didn’t miss that any of these were further down the list.) \

      • All good interesting choices. I love the Blood Sweat and Tears. Tom had it on his list and I wish I’d had it on mine, though Al Kooper fortunately made the list via Dylan.

        Our final four are less various and mostly more obvious, one of the defining characteristics of democracy I’d say.

    • beggar’s banquet not a bad choice. neither is rubber soul. i voted for both, anyway.

      agree on the child is the father to man. just a brilliant album. with one of the best covers ever.

      i did put cheap thrills on my list as maybe the best live album ever. although spyboy (emmylou harris live with buddy miller on guitar and brady blades on drums) rivals it. highly recommend if you don’t know it.

    • Maybe its popularity is a black mark, but I just re-listened to Dark Side of the Moon, and there is certainly a lot going on there. (Though I personally like Meddle more. I guess I was just the right age to be the target audience for progressive rock in the very early seventies.)

  1. Why do I keep getting counted as everybody? “Everybody” named a jazz album,, “everybody” loves the #1 album. Everybody loves Maria Muldaur too, I guess.

  2. Let it be known that being proud to mostly mimic the stupid Rolling Stone Top 50 isn’t my idea of fun. Nor my idea of rock ‘n’ roll either.

    • are you old enough to remember gary lewis and the playboys’ “everybody loves a clown”? was produced by al kooper (who also produced “this diamond ring” with leon russell).

      we are all everybody, bro.

  3. I was thinking about this further to myself (I have no one else to think to) and I’ve decided that, if your personal top 50 is really close to Rolling’s Stone’s “what everyone’s supposed to like” top 50, then either out of all the millions (thousands? billions?) of rock ‘n’ roll (I did think that’s where this whole thing started) albums produced, these same ones always picked TRULY are the best OR people just don’t venture away from the mainstream nearly as much as they should. I don’t have to tell you which I think is true.

  4. that is true, steve. and, as i noted once i think , in reference to the RollinStone list, those are all great albums. just because they were played to death, does not mean they lose in stature or quality.

    i think it just means people like us are hungry for more breakthrough/different stuff from artists who already showed how good the can be.

  5. This is why I simply named the 50 albums I’ve listened to the most.

    When we do songs, we should all just name our 200 favorite songs with no regard for posterity or Mork or genre. And no rush, these are hard questions.

  6. We each made a list that reflected our evaluation of the question at hand. I’m not saying that’s the only question. I thought it was the best question for us starting out, and I think our Essential list was improved because we all brought our own dissenting definitions to the lists.

    The idea that our list mirrors the RS list, when nearly half the elpees are different, seems exceedingly cranky. Which I like, too. Can’t wait to get on to more interesting topics.

    Tomorrow.

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