There can be only Ten (Albums)

Alright, you can only keep 10 albums because reasons. No 50 song box sets, just albums as they were originally released.

What makes the cut?

My list:

David Bowie - Station to Station

David Bowie - Low

Tom Waits - Rain Dogs

Tom Waits - Frank’s Wild Years

Dirty Three - Self-Titled

Dirty Three - Horse Stories

Mariachi El Bronx - Self-Titled

Gogol Bordello - Gypsy Punks

Man Man - Six Demon Bag

William Elliott Whitmore - Song of the Blackbird

This changes completely from day to day... but...

Regina Spektor - Begin to Hope

The Kinks - Something Else by the Kinks

Built to Spill - Perfect From Now On

Pavement - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain

Modest Mouse - This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About

Andrew Bird - The Mysterious Production of Eggs

Emancipator - Soon it Will Be Cold Enough For Fires

Paul Simon - Graceland

Sufjan Stevens - Illinois

John Coltrane - A Love Supreme

Wu Tang - 36 Chambers

SoundGarden - SuperUnknown

Kendrick Lamar - Good Kid mAAd City

Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels 2

Vince Staples - Summertime '06

Pusha T - My Name is My Name

David Bowie - Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust

AC/DC - Back in Black

Childish Gambino - Awaken my Love

Dr Dre - The Chronic

I no particular order:

"In Becoming a Ghost" - The Faceless
"Ritual" - The Black Dahlia Murder
"Akróasis" - Obscura
"good kid m.A.A.d city" - Kendrick Lamar
"What A Time To Be Alive" - Drake & Future
"Thousands of Evils" - Vildhjarta
"Catalyst" - New Found Glory
"Crystal Ball" - Prince
"The Eminem Show" - Eminem
"Britney" - Britney Spears

Ten - Pearl Jam

That's it, I chose Ten.

edit: I may have misinterpreted the question...

King's X - King's X

Rush - Signals

Dream Theater - Octavarium

Porcupine Tree - Lightbulb Sun

Kaiser/Mansfield - Trimmed and Burnin'

Frank Zappa - Strictly Commercial

The White Stripes - White Blood Cells

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon

J. S. Bach - Violin Concertos (Any single disc collection is fine as long as it has the Double Violin Concerto, BMV 1043)

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 OST

Man, that was tough. I could easily pick another ten albums... this list is pretty skewed towards rock, and it's missing a lot of my musical interests that I'd be bummed not to have access to.

Time to display my bad, limited taste in music.

• RTJ 2
• RTJ 3
• Plastic Beach- Gorillaz
• Demon Days- Gorillaz
• Bestiary- Hail Mary Mallon
• The Impossible Kid- Aesop Rock
• Skelethon- Aesop Rock
• None Shall Pass- Aesop Rock
• I Am the Night- Perturbator

If EPs don't count as albums, number 10 is Carpenter Brut's Trilogy, since it's a collection of 3 EPs of 6 songs each, and his first actual album. Also I didn't include any soundtracks cause that gets into some tricky territory.

I'm pretty picky with music, so I find I rarely like more than 2 or 3 songs from any given artist. Enjoying an entire album is pretty rare, so when it does happen, it's usually from an artist that really clicks with me and I end up liking a whole lot more than just one album. The ones above are the ones that get the most play. Lots of Aesop Rock especially, but he's pretty much the most consistent dude ever so I don't feel bad about it.

If I was limited to one per artist, I'd probably struggle to hit 10 unless soundtracks were allowed.

Oh boy, that sounds tough. Let's see:

• Tool - Ænima
• The Mars Volta - Frances the Mute
• Foo Fighters - The Colour and the Shape
• David Bowie - Hunky Dory
• Queen - A Night at the Opera
• Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf
• Nick Cave - Let Love In
• Opeth - Blackwater Park
• Gåte - Iselilja
• Anything Edvard Grieg, preferably with at least Solveig's Song and Hall of the Mountain King

Yeah, not easy. These are the albums with at least one song I just can't live without, most of them have several if not the whole album. I still have many, many songs I would like on here. And I didn't get any synthwave on there, no movie or game scores and a depressingly low amount of old classics.

• Radiohead - Ok Computer
• Radiohead - In Rainbows
• The Strokes - Is This It
• The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
• The Killers - Hot Fuss
• The Cure - Disintegration
• Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
• Daft Punk - Random Access Memory
• Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
• Gorillaz - Gorillaz

Muse - Absolution , The Last Shadow Puppets - Age of the Understatement , Queens of the Stone Age - ..Like Clockwerk , Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights , Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures and Frank Ocean - Channel Orange came somewhat close.

These are the essentials:

• Against Me - Searching for a Former Clarity
• Blink 182 - Enema of the State
• Brand New - The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me
• Death Cab For Cutie - The Photo Album
• The Doors - The Doors
• NoFX - White Trash, Two Heebs and a Bean
• The Offspring - Smash
• Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
• The Postal Service - Give Up
• Your Codename is: Milo - Ignoto

These three are very close, but can't replace those above:

• Ian Dury - New Boots and Panties
• Less Than Jake - Anthem
• No Comply - With Windmills Turning Wrong Directions

Oh god, "no compilations" makes this hard as hell. I've got to have my corny 90s pop hits, but I'm sure as shit not wasting a slot on Aqua or New Radicals or something.

• Type O Negative - October Rust
• Marilyn Manson - Mechanical Animals
• Snoop Dogg - Doggystyle
• Eminem - MMLP
• Leaves' Eyes - Vinland Saga
• The Residents - Demons Dance Alone
• The Residents - Duck Stab
• Ghost - Meliora (does the deluxe edition qualify? Gotta have "Square Hammer" on there)
• Horrorpops - Hell Yeah
• Portishead - Roseland NYC Live

Gaaaah, so much I have to leave out. Curse my hypothetical predicament!

lets see...

pink floyd - meddle

king crimson - in the court of the crimson king

frank zappa - we're only in it for the money

Les Rallizes Denudes - heavier than a death in the family

Can - soundtracks

Miles Davis - kind of blue

Bill Evans - Portait in jazz

the doors - strange days

Satie - piano works

john zorn - naked city

• Burzum - Hvis Lyset Tar Oss
• King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King
• Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden
• Dead Can Dance - The Serpent's Egg
• My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
• Bathory - Hammerheart
• Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F♯ A♯ ∞
• Metallica - Ride the Lightning
• Motorhead - No Sleep 'til Hammersmith (Live albums count right?)
• The Angelic Process - Weighing Souls With Sand

I chose albums I've never got bored of and an assortment of genres depending on my mood.

This made me laugh more than it probably should have.

• Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness
• Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool
• Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works Vol. II
• Mastodon - Blood Mountain
• Tool - Lateralus
• Muse - Origin of Symmetry
• Midnight Sister - Saturn Over Sunset
• Jeremy Soule - Elder Scrolls: IV OST
• Kow Otani - Shadow of the Colossus OST
• Yoko Shimomura - Kingdom Hearts OST

Runners Up:

• Janelle Monae - The ArchAndroid
• Deftones - Koi No Yokan
• Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
• J.S. Bach - The Well-Tempered Clavier I & 2
• Joe Hisaishi - Spirited Away OST
• Hans Zimmer - The Ring OST
• Opeth - Ghost Reveries
• Michiru Ōshima - ICO OST
• Akira Yamaoka - Silent Hill 3 OST

Nick Drake - Pink Moon
Songs: Ohia - Didn't It Rain
Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works Volume II
John Fahey - Days Have Gone By
Neil Young - Zuma
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band - Safe As Milk
Talking Heads - Remain In Light
Daniel Bachman - Seven Pines
Fiona Apple - When The Pawn...
McCoy Tyner - Sama Layuca

In no particular order, and one album per artist:

Dream Theater - Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From a Memory

Megadeth - Rust in Peace

Boston - Boston

Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf

Devin Townsend Project - Deconstruction

Gojira - The Way of All Flesh

Rush - Moving Pictures

Metallica - ...And Justice for All

Queensryche - Operation: Mindcrime

Between the Buried and Me - Colors

No particular order...

Nine Inch Nails - The Fragile

Nine Inch Nails - With Teeth

Soundgarden - Superunknown

The White Stripes - De Stijl

Pink Flood - Dark Side of the Moon

David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

Silversun Pickups - Swoon

Smashing Pumpkins - Adore

U2 - Achtung Baby

The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

1.Eminem-Marshal Mathers LP

2. Wu Tang Clan- Enter the Wu Tang

3. Dr.Dre- the chronic 2001

4. Brand New- Devil and God are raging

5. Jeff Rosenstock- We Cool?

6. The Front Bottoms- Talon of the Hawk

7. Lil Peep- Hellboy

8. Wicca Phase Springs Eternal- Corinthiax

9.Regina Spektor- Soviet Kitsch

10.Gift of Gab- Rejoice rappers are rapping again

Pretty weird list looking at it now haha

1. Thrice - Vheissu
2. Sigur Ros - Agaetis Byrjun
3. Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
4. Radiohead - Kid A
5. At the Drive-In - Relationship of Command
6. The Mars Volta - Frances the Mute
7. Nas - Illmatic
8. Circa Survive - On Letting Go
9. Bjork - Homogenic
10. John Coltrane - Blue Train

Edit: the albums that I feel worst about leaving off this are Lateralus by Tool, Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd, RTJ2 by Run the Jewels, and The Pariah, the Parrot, the Delusion by dredg, which was on the list until I remembered how much I love Blue Train and realised I didn't have any jazz on the list.

@jaqen_hghar: I wanted to squeeze in some Nick Cave, but it just didn’t make the list for me. Let Love in, Tender Prey, and Skeleton Tree were all on my short list.

...Dig, Lazarus, Dig, too...

@isentorr: Live albums...man, I’d be tempted to replace Bowie’s Low and Station to Station wifh Stage and A Reality Tour...

• Grouper - Ruins
• Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane over the Sea
• Biffy Clyro - The Vertigo of Bliss
• Frightened Rabbit - The Midnight Organ Fight
• The Twilight Sad - Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters
• Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
• Richard Dawson - Peasant
• Mark Kozelek and Jimmy Lavalle - Perils from the Sea
• Sharon van Etten - Are We There
• Braids - Deep in the Iris

Edit: This is an impossible task and I have missed so many possibilities...

There was that Facebook chain post of "Post your 10 most influential albums, one each day" going around for awhile, so to make it easy for myself I'll just go with what I did for that.

In no order:

1. Nonpoint - To The Pain
2. Fear Factory - Obsolete
3. Soilwork - Natural Born Chaos
4. Alter Bridge - Blackbird
5. The Haunted - rEVOLVEr
6. Breaking Benjamin - Saturate
7. Sevendust - Animosity/Seasons (both are tied, too hard to choose)
8. Deftones - Koi No Yokan
9. Taproot - Blue Sky Research
10. (hed) p.e. - Broke

1. Megadeth - Rust In Peace
2. Lamb of God - Ashes of the Wake
3. Judas Priest - Painkiller
4. Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath
5. Deep Purple - In Rock
6. Deep Purple - Machine Head
7. 2pac - All eyes on me
8. Snoop - Doggystyle
9. Ice Cube - War & Peace (War)
10. Michael Jackson - Off the wall

There's no room for Gorillaz or Dethklok... hm.. oh well.

1. Chakra- Satekoso

2. Metallica- ...And Justice For All

3. Don Caballero- What Burns Never Returns

4. OutKast- Speakerboxxx/The Love Below

5. Joni Mitchell- Court and Spark

6. Stereolab- Dots and Loops

7. David Bowie- Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)

8. This Heat- Deceit

9. Yes- Relayer

10. The Doors- The Soft Parade

@brackstone: There are no bad tastes in music, only bad reactions to tastes in music.

I've always been more of a singles guy than an album guy, but this is roughly accurate. No particular order.

1. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy - Kanye West
2. Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City - Kendrick Lamar
3. Ride the Lightning - Metallica
4. American Idiot - Green Day
5. The Number of the Beast - Iron Maiden
6. Red Dead Redemption OST - Bill Elm and Woody Jackson
7. Chicago - Sufjan Stevens
8. Born to Die - Lana Del Rey
9. Take Five - The Dave Brubeck Quartet
10. The Best of Simon and Garfunkel - Simon and Garfunkel (I know it's a compilation but I've listened to it way more than most "real" albums)

1. Blind Guardian- Beyond the Red Mirror

2. Iron Maiden- Seventh Son of a Seventh Son

3. Cynic- Traced in Air

4. Death- Symbolic

5. Blind Guardian- Imaginations From the Other Side

6. Death- The Sound of Perseverance

7. Iron Maiden- Dance of Death

8. Nobuo Uematsu- Final Fantasy IV Soundtrack

9. Masaharu Iwata & Hitoshi Sakimoto- Final Fantasy Tactics Soundtrack

10. The White Stripes- White Blood Cells

Honorable Mentions: A bunch of Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young stuff, some stuff from Jack White's various projects, some more Maiden albums, the Persona 4 soundtrack, some classic Sabbath albums, Cynic's "Focus", Blind Guardian's "A Night at the Opera", Wolfmother's "Cosmic Egg", and Jason Becker's "Perpetual Burn". And really, way more, but that's probably a long enough list haha.

Dave Matthews Band - Crash

Radiohead - OK Computer

Pearl Jam - Vs.

Led Zeppelin - LZ 4

Nas - Illmatic

Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

The Doors - Self Titled

Rolling Stones - Beggars Banquet

U2 - Achtung Baby

Bruce Springsteen - Darkness On The Edge Of Town

Something like that anyway

I love early Pearl Jam but I prefer Vs. and Vitalogy over Ten. I guess if the only album in the world can be Ten it's not the worst thing to happen.

Without spending 3 hours on this, here are 10 albums:

1. Dream Theater: Metropolis Pt. 2
2. Godspeed You! Black Emperor: Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
3. Daft Punk: Alive 2007
4. Alcest: Shelter
5. Within Temptation: Hydra
6. Opeth: Damnation
7. Girls' Generation: Holiday Night
8. Metric: Fantasies
9. Metallica: Ride The Lightning
10. Mono: Hymn to the Immortal Wind

in no particular order...

mark lanegan - bubblegum

pj harvey - to bring you my love

csny - deja vu

pearl jam - binaural

tarantella - esqueletos

wovenhand - consider the birds

arctic monkeys - whatever people say i am thats what im not

grandaddy - the sophtware slump

monsters of folk - monsters of folk

qotsa - villains

Open Mike Eagle: Brick Body Kids Still Daydream

Kendrick Lamar: DAMN.

Kid Cudi: Man on the Moon

Gorillaz: Demon Days

Pink Floyd: The Wall

Daft Punk: Random Access Memories

Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin III

Linkin Park: Meteora

Limp Bizkit: Chocolate Starfish and the Hotdog Flavored Water

A Tribe Called Quest: We Got It Frome Here... Thank You 4 Your Service

Currently my 10!

Some fantastic choices in the posts above, along with some albums I'm not familiar with but I think I'm going to have to check out.

Limiting myself to one album per artist, because if I didn't, this would predominantly be a list of The Who albums. Here goes:

• The Black Crowes - Before the Frost.../...Until the Freeze
  • It was a toss-up between this and The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, but BTF.../...UTF wins out by virtue of being both longer and more varied, so will likely stand up better to repeated listening.
• Clutch - Earth Rocker
  • Over the last five years Clutch have become one of my all-time favourite bands, and it all started with the release of this incredible album back in 2013. It's rare to find a band this on top of their game, this deep into their career.
• Emmy the Great - Second Love
  • A bit left-field compared to the other, more rock-oriented picks, but this album holds special personal significance for me and my girlfriend. Closing track Lost in You is the song that brought us together, but the whole album is evocative of our relationship.
• Explosions in the Sky - The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place
  • This instrumental album helped me rebuild myself after a particularly devastating loss about six years ago. It's just incredibly uplifting, optimistic music.
• Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace
  • Maybe a controversial pick over The Colour and the Shape, but ESP&G has been my favourite Foo Fighters album since it came out in 2007. It's a perfect blend of harder and softer songs.
• The Gaslight Anthem - Handwritten
  • Another album from my "rebuilding" phase and one that will always hold deep personal significance for me. Much like the Foos pick, I'll concede it's not their best album, but it is my favourite.
• Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti
  • Yes, I'm picking a lot of double albums here, but if I'm limited to just ten then I'm going to opt for the longer, more varied picks. There isn't a bad track on Physical Graffiti, and Ten Years Gone holds the honour of being my personal favourite Zeppelin song.
• Paul Weller - 22 Dreams
  • This was another tough choice between two albums. While Stanley Road is the quintessential Weller album with the most hits-per-pound, I adore the conceptual nature of this more experimental stage in his solo career.
• Radiohead - OK Computer
  • Probably the most clichéd pick on this list, but it's here for a good reason. In my opinion, no other album has captured the essence of modern life in such a stark, bleak, terrifying way and made it sound so hauntingly beautiful.
• The Who - Quadrophenia
  • The easiest pick on this list. My favourite album ever. Has been ever since I heard it for the first time. I remember digging the vinyl out of my dad's record collection and listening to it in full every day for about a month. Even now I revisit it regularly, and I wouldn't ever want to be without it.

@alick: I almost put Meddle or Animals above The Wall. Those 3 are tied for me.

• Station to Station - Bowie (could also be Low or 1. Outside here... depends on the day)
• Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - Elton John
• The Colour and the Shape - Foo Fighters (Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace a close second here)
• OK Computer - Radiohead
• Siamese Dream - Smashing Pumpkins
• Antics - Interpol
• Persona 5 OST
• Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs - Derek and the Dominos
• Fashion Nugget - CAKE
• Selling England by the Pound - Genesis

Those are in no particular order, and I kept it to one per artist, or else there would be several more Bowie albums on there. Just missing the cut were For Your Pleasure - Roxy Music, Midnite Vultures - Beck, Making Movies - Dire Straits, and Room on Fire - The Strokes.

• The Beach Boys - Smile (2011 Smile Sessions 19/20 track release)
• Talking Heads - Remain in Light
• Van Morrison - Astral Weeks
• A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory
• Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde
• The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground & Nico
• Edan - The Beauty and the Beat
• John Coltrane - Interstellar Space
• Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
• Sufjan Stevens - Illinois

Vision Creation Newsun, Death Certificate, Jersey's Best Dancers, Anima latina, Madvilliany, Faust (1 or 4), Long Season, Loveless, Knee-Deep in the North Sea, Amnesiac, Pet Sounds, Still Valentine's Day, Skylarking, Dylan's Bootleg Series Vol. 4, and Spiderland could probably all make this list on another day tbh. I have so much more music to uncover and understand in my life making a list like this feels so wrong. Saying what albums are my favorite always feels so disingenuous to me too.

This list is unordered and kept to one album per artist. Greatest hits are not included as it seems like a loophole.

• I see you - The XX
• Elephant - The White Stripes
• Sigh No More - Mumford & Sons
• Pure Heroine - Lorde
• Black Holes and Revelations - Muse
• Honeymoon - Lana Del Rey
• Hybrid Theory - Linkin Park
• Hopes and Fears - Keane
• Blonde - Frank Ocean
• Graduation - Kanye West

1)Wee Small Hours- Frank Sinatra

2)Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins- Rabbit Fur Coat

3)Emmy The Great - First Love

4)The College Drop Out- Kanye West

5)Jolene - Dolly Parton

6)Start Today - Gorilla Biscuits

7)Volume 2 - She and Him

8)Songs - Regina Spektor

9)Like the Linen- Thao Nguyen

10)Pussy Whipped - Bikini Kill

Radiohead: OK Computer

Pearl Jam: Yeild

Daft Punk: Discovery

David Bowie: Hunky Dory

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club: Howl

Bjork: Debut

Blur: 13

Mumford and Sons: Babel

Bob Dylan: the Freewheeling

Queens of the Stone Age: Songs for the Deaf

Man that was harder than I thought it would be. I went with the albums that I have listened to the most, and can still listen to after hours of repeat listenings.

I thought I was the only one around here that even knew who King's X is.

Death Grips - The Powers That B
Swans - The Seer
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
Lightning Bolt - Hypermagic Mountain
Run The Jewels - RTJ2
Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do
Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool
The Drones - I See Seaweed
Nier: Automata OST
Under The Skin OST

Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.A.A.d. city

Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Daft Punk - TRON:Legacy OST

Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not

Скриптонит - Дом С Нормальными Явлениями

Dr. Dre- The Chronic

Lady Gaga - The Fame Monster

Nirvana - Nevermind

The Pixies - Doolitle

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross - The Social Network OST

This was fun!