Saddest Album Ever?
 

I'd say that definitely the top nominees would have to be:

The Antlers - Hospice
Nick Drake - Pink Moon
Some Pink Floyd stuff to an extent
Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks
Joy Division - Closer

But besides those, what other sad albums can you people think of?

Because for some reason I love sad albums

<.<

I don't think Joy Division or Nick Drake ever struck me as particularly sad just because Ian Curtis and Nick Drake suffered untimely deaths, it would be like suggesting Nirvana made sad music. Even Elliott Smith's music doesn't really connote sadness to me. Of course, if by "saddest album" you're referring to an album played largely in minor keys, there's a superfluity of those, David Bowie's Low, for example. (It's kind of a cheap songwriting trick to hijack a listener's emotions, usually finding its way onto the album closer).

The most evocative musicians I can think of were people like Daniel Johnston and Mark Linkous -- gifted songwriters whose material revolved around their own insular worlds. Sparklehorse's It's a Wonderful Life pretty much hits the nail on the head for me.

Elliott Smith's first 3 albums are particularly 'sad', whilst you could dip your toes into the sadcore/slowcore genre with bands such as Codeine, Sun Kil Moon, Red House Painters and American Analog Set.

Codeine - Frigid Stars
RHP - Rollercoaster LP
Sun Kil Moon - Ghosts of the Great Highway
AAS - The Fun of Watching Fireworks.

This and "Songs In A&E" are particularly somber albums.

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Beck's Sea Change perhaps...

OooOoohh or a Van der Graaf Generator album.... "H to He, Who Am the Only One"

Mastodon's "Crack The Skye" is a pretty sad album, but also an uplifting one. It's got sort of a double concept, one being about a paraplegic boy who astral travels and becomes disconnected from his body, and the other being about Brann's (the drummer) sister's suicide, and his feelings and experiences that came with that.

Radiohead's album "Ok Computer". It completly depresses me to the point that I don't like to listen to it anymore.

For me, anything by Empire! Empire! (I Was a Lonely Estate).



For me, it sort of sums up that miserable rainy day attitude where you just feel empty. I can't really listen to them for too long or else I'll just feel horrible.

HURT vol. 1

I forgot "F# A# ∞" by Godspeed You! Black Emperor, that album is very dark, miserable, and bleak. One of the few albums that actually frightens me.