Music: Best Albums of the Year series: 1975

[Saturated Fats]

1967: The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
1980: AC/DC - Back in Black
1994: Nirvana - MTV Unplugged in New York
2000: Radiohead - Kid A
1973: Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
1988: Metallica - ...And Justice for All
2004: (TIE) Madvillain - Madvillainy // The Killers - Hot Fuss // Green Day - American Idiot
1969: The Beatles - Abbey Road
1991: Nirvana - Nevermind
1977: Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
1985: Tears for Fears - Songs from the Big Chair
2007: Radiohead - In Rainbows

1965: The Beatles - Rubber Soul (17 votes)

2nd Place: The Beatles - Help! (12 votes)
3rd Place (tie): Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited (9 votes)
3rd Place (tie): The Who - My Generation (9 votes)
5th Place: The Zombies - The Zombies (Begin Here) (7 votes)

The Fab Four go 3 for 3 in the years in which they have been nominated, which isn't a surprise. I don't particularly rate Rubber Soul, but I also don't see 1965 as a canonical musical year, certainly for pop music at least. It was something special for Jazz, which is where most of my list came from.

This year, we'll jump ahead a decade to the titanic year of 1975, where some truly era-defining masterpieces were released. Dig deep or don't - there is a bounty of amazing stuff to vote on and discuss.

The next year that we will be covering (which I will do on Friday) will be 1996.

Click to read more...

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Thank you for including Welcome to My Nightmare in the poll!!! I'll take the time to listen to Godbluff before posting my list, I wasn't aware of it and it looks interesting.

 

[WetcoastOrca]

What an amazing year!
1. Neil Young Tonight’s the Night
2. Neil Young Zuma
3. Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here
4. Dylan Blood on the Tracks
5. Dylan and the Band The Basement Tspes
6. Fleetwood Mac
7. Paul Simon Still Crazy
8. Rod Stewart Atlantic Crossing
8. Bowie Young Americans
10. Springsteen Born To Run

HM
Steely Dan Katie Lied
Joni Mitchell The Hissing of Summer Lawns
Alice Cooper Welcome to my Nightmare
Eagles One of These Nights

 

[YoSoyLalo]

Blood on the tracks ez

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

1) Alice Cooper – Welcome to My Nightmare
2) Slapp Happy & Henry Cow – Desperate Straights / Henry Cow – In Praise of Learning
3) Lou Reed – Metal Machine Music / Lou Reed – Coney Island Baby (the simple fact that these two albums are by the same person is amazing)
4) Peter Hammill – Nadir's Big Chance
5) --------------------- (wrong year)
6) Gavin Bryars - The Sinking of the Titanic / Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet
7) Miles Davis – Agharta
8) Taj Mahal Travellers – August 1974
9) Plume Latraverse – Le vieux show son sale / Plume Latraverse – Pomme de route
10) Lady June – Linguistic Leprosy

HM:
Lard Free – I'm Around About Midnight
Cecil Taylor – Silent Tongues
Robert Wyatt – Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard
Funkadelic – Let's Take It to the Stage
Led Zeppelin – Physical Graffiti
Quiet Sun – Mainstream
Hatfield and the North – The Rotters' Club
Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention with Captain Beefheart – Bongo Fury / Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention – One Size Fits All
Lula Côrtes & Zé Ramalho – Paêbirú

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

easily Physical Graffiti, every track on there hits hard.

In My Time of Dying
Kashmir
Houses of the Holy
Trampled Under Foot
Ten Years Gone

 

[Teemu]

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run
Fleetwood Mac - Fleetwood Mac
Willie Nelson – Red Headed Stranger
Jeff Beck - Blow by Blow
Steely Dan – Katy Lied

 

[kihei]

Rod Stewart: Atlantic Crossing
Neil Young: Zuma/Tonight's the Night
Led Zeppelin: Physical Grafittti
Burning Spear: Marcus Garvey
John McLaughlin: Mahavishnu Orchestra: Visions of the Emerald Beyond
Chris Squire: Fish out of Water
Joni Mitchell: The Hissing of the Summer Lawn
Jeff Beck: Blow by Blow
Paul Simon: Still Crazy after All These Years
Roxy Music: Siren

A year with incredible depth and variety.

 

[Langdon Alger]

easily Physical Graffiti, every track on there hits hard.

In My Time of Dying
Kashmir
When the Levee Breaks
Houses of the Holy
Trampled Under Foot
Ten Years Gone

When the Levee Breaks is on Led Zeppelin IV.

I would add one you left out, which is the Wanton Song.

 

[Saturated Fats]

Wish You Were Here is in my top-3 albums of all time, so it naturally laps the field for me. It's just such a spectacular work of majesty. The way that it alternates from Prog Rock mountaintop-seeking in Shine On, to the forward-thinking, appropriately machine-like Welcome to the Machine, to fun-loving cheekiness in Have a Cigar, to the subtle heartbreak of the title track, and back to more soaring musicianship in Shine On Pt 2 is near the top of what I believe music has been, and can be. It's melodramatic as it gets, and that is probably why I love it. Of course, I consider Floyd to be the greatest band of all time, so I am again biased there.

Anyway, my top-10 is distinctly tiered:

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here

Van der Graaf Generator - Godbluff
Patti Smith - Horses


Joni Mitchell - The Hissing of Summer Lawns
Steely Dan - Katy Lied
Camel - The Snow Goose
Jeff Beck - Blow by Blow
Steve Hackett - Voyage of the Acolyte

Mahogany Rush - Strange Universe (my dad had this album and I remember the cover standing out to me distinctly, for some reason)
Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks
Elton John - Captain Fantastic and the Brown-Dirt Cowboy

 

[Eisen]

Scorpions - In Trance

 

[Mescaleroman]

Gentle Giant - Free Hand
David Bowie - Young Americans
Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run
Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
Renaissance- Scheherazade and Other Stories
Sparks - Propaganda
Alice Cooper - Welcome to My Nightmare
Roxy Music - Siren
Rush - Fly by Night
Supertramp - Crisis ? What Crisis ?

HM - Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks

 

[Langdon Alger]

What? No one likes Queen - A night at the Opera?

 

[Chili]

A Night at the Opera
Wish You Were Here
Welcome to my Nightmare
Born to Run
Young Americans

Added:

Supertramp-Crisis? What Crisis?
Styx-Equinox
Chris DeBurgh-Spanish Train and Other Stories
Eagles-One of These Nights
Blue Öyster Cult-On Your Feet or on Your Knees

Good year for music.

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

Went with Welcome to my Nightmare and Sabotage

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Damn, that was a good year. Floyd, Sabbath, Zep, Coop, Queen, Rush, Aerosmith, Bowie all with massive albums. Also marked the debut of Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham in the Fleedwood Mac lineup.

"Okay, let's take a bunch of people who hate each other's guts and put them on a huge pile of cocaine and musical instruments."
Fleetwood Mac: "First of all, f*** yes."

 

[reckoning]

I'm shocked Dylan isn't doing better in the poll. He seems to be well liked on this boards, and Blood On The Tracks is one of his best.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Another Green World is in the running for greatest album of all-time. Few songs reach the breathless highs of Golden Hours.

 

[WetcoastOrca]

A Night at the Opera
Wish You Were Here
Welcome to my Nightmare
Born to Run
Young Americans

Added:

Supertramp-Crisis? What Crisis?
Styx-Equinox
Chris DeBurgh-Spanish Train and Other Stories
Eagles-One of These Nights
Blue Öyster Cult-On Your Feet or on Your Knees

Good year for music.

Chris De Burgh- Spanish Train is a great call. I loved his early music and this was such a unique album before he turned to some more sappy love songs.

 

[Cas]

I'm not sure which 1975 Rush album I prefer - I like Caress of Steel, and everyone likes Fly By Night. I guess Fly By Night was the better and more influential album, though.

Sabotage is a strange album. I listened to it again today and I don't know what to think about it. It's good, but it's also very weird.

Wish You Were Here is enjoyable, though I haven't listened to Pink Floyd in years. The fact that I can remember all of those songs despite not hearing them in a decade or more is a big point in its favor.

I don't know if I like A Night at the Opera. I'm very much over "Bohemian Rhapsody" and nothing else stands out to me.

Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow is a nice debut, but it's not really a great album.

The only song I can remember off Physical Graffiti is "Kashmir," but I haven't listened to much Zeppelin in over a decade either. I guess its hard to consider it as better than Wish You Were Here under those circumstances.

I'm going to go with this ranking among albums on this list or elsewhere I have heard:

Rush - Fly By Night
Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
Black Sabbath - Sabotage
Rush - Caress of Steel
Rainbow - Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow
Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti
Queen - A Night at the Opera

That surprises me.

 

[kook10]

other -
Burning Spear - Marcus Garvey
Waylon Jennings - Dreaming My Dreams

 

[Hockey Outsider]

My choice under other is "The Snow Goose" by Camel - 16 songs of instrumental progressive rock. Good usage of flute - Jethro Tull is the first prog band people associated with that instrument, but Camel uses it well here. A beautiful, peaceful album (loosely based on the Paul Gallico novel).

"Wish You Were Here", which is already running away with the vote, is also my top pick. But I'll also highlight Fela Kuti's "Expensive Shit" (a literal title - in order to pass a drug test, he purchased and used someone else's feces). That was one of (at least) three albums he released that year. Caustic lyrics, pulsating percussion and wild (nearly atonal) saxophones and pianos. It brings you to do a different time and place - picturing the chaos of Lagos in the 1970's. It's a messy, complex album and is a good starting point for the rest of Kuti's sprawling catalogue.

 

[frisco]

Other than Night At The Opera, Born To Run, Fleetwood Mac:
John Denver-An Evening With John Denver
Bee Gees-Main Course
Equinox-Styx

My Best-Carey

 

[MakeTheGoalsLarger]

I would vote for Styx - Equinox as my #1. Although i know 3 songs on the album. There isn't a single album named here that I own.

 

[plank]

1. Tonight's the Night - Neil Young
2. Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd
3. Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen
4. Toys in the Attic - Aerosmith
5. Dreamboat Annie - Heart
6. By Numbers - The Who
7. Physical Graffiti - Led Zeppelin
8. Northern Light-Southern Cross - The Band
9. Nightrider - The Charlie Daniels Band
10. Pieces of the Sky - Emmylou Harris
11. s/t - Relatively Clean Rivers