God Tier
 

What albums do you consider god tier, and why? What makes them stand out from other albums by the artist?
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Holy Diver - Dio

Dio appeared like a comet in the sky, blazing brightly across the metal firmament for really two years. Between this and the follow-up The Last in Line, they crafted a pair of superb metal masterpieces that are hard to beat, albums with even some airplay potential. Then they just seemed to fizzle out. Sacred Heart was full of filler tracks, and after Dream Evil I just gave up on them. Checking them out later for a major article in one of my journals I found I had not missed much, with really only Killing the Dragon standing out among their later albums as anything approaching this kind of class. Too little, too late, and then Ronnie left us. :(

But Holy Diver has, apart from the title, songs like "Don't Talk to Strangers", "Gypsy", "Straight Through the Heart" and "Rainbow in the Dark", and there's just not a bad track on it. The coming of age of Vivian Campbell, only 21 at the time melding with the hard-nosed experience of Rainbow's Jimmy Bain and the thundering drums of Carmine Appice's brother Vinny, all overlaid with the unmistakable vox of RJD made this less an album and more almost a religious experience. An album I never tire of playing, and never skip songs on.

The only thing wrong with Holy Diver is that I don't want to listen to that full minute intro of air blowing before the title track every single time.

ORI!!! :beer:

FFS you lazy ****s! Put a bit of effort into it, why don't you? Anyone can post a ****ing picture of an album cover! :rolleyes:

The Black Queen-Fever daydream

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Dark love 80's pop nuff said......... members of NIN & DIllinger escape plan come together to make a great album this is a great concept album every song on here is a banger. Takes me back to the elctro club scene in 1982


Deadsy-Commencement

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Dark love 80s pop nuff said ....... From chers Baby boy Elijah


also ...KORN Cuz well KORN!

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That's it
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Troll's more of a mashed potatoes guy.

I have no idea what you mean by that.

"God Tier" is a little overblown for my liking tbh, but an album that I think of as being on level apart from the efforts of other musicians is Astral Weeks by Van Morrison.
Even the two-word title is a well chosen indication of what you will get: the mundane suffused with mystery. Details grounded in everyday life take on heightened significance as VM's ruminations on his Dublin past become reminders for us all. Anyway, that's what the lyrics seem to do on this album. VM's vocal style can lull you for a while with a stream of unemphasised, scattered ideas, but buried in there like gems are vivid images of single moments, frozen like they do in the movies. I hope this bit from Madam George gives an idea of what I mean:-

And outside they're making all the stops
The kids out in the street collecting bottle-tops
Gone for cigarettes and matches in the shops
Happy taken Madame George
That's when you fall
Whoa, that's when you fall
Yeah, that's when you fall
When you fall into a trance
Sitting on a sofa playing games of chance
With your folded arms and history books
You glance into the eyes of Madame George

VM's singing comes from the heart. At first it may not appeal, but it works like salt, an antidote to the music which is so exquisite that it risks being too perfect. Loose, mildly jazzy and acoustic, the instruments contribute a kind of melancholic wash of sound that does two things, imo: (a) gives a cohesion to the album so that one song drifts into the next and (b) tricks your brain into forgetting about verses, choruses and hooklines and thus gets in, under your consciousness - hence the "level apart" I mentioned at the start.

Here's a track where all those things come together:-



The only thing that perhaps marrs this track is that it turns out to be in praise of a 14-year-old, so is a bit off by today's standards. Can we be charitable to VM and take him at his word, that he is only looking, victim of a weird crush, Death-In-Venice style? I hope so.

Finally, maybe "God Tier" is justified for Astral Weeks because Van The Man never found this level of inspiration again, imo, although he tried hard and got pretty close with various tracks - notably "Almost Independence Day" for example. But, yeah, for the rest of his career he was relegated from God's Tier and became a worthy, but striving mortal like the rest of us.

That's a nice review. Beautiful album, Madam George is the standout for me. It creeps up in my subconscious now and then, it's weird how it's catchy or memorable, but because of the texture and lyrics more than melody

I'm glad to hear you like the album too! You're right, Madam George is the standout, and you explain very well what I was trying to convey; the way the music swirls around and you find yourself lifted up without realising how it's happened.

Given the foregoing, it's odd that it's only this morning that I'm finally having a go at the Veedon Fleece album, said to be the closest thing VM did to Astral Weeks; all good so far, but music like this takes a listen or two before you fall in love with it.

oh I should check that one out too. I never went past Astral Weeks and Moondance

Hey, that would be really nice: if we discover the joys of Veedon Fleece together at the same time!
Don't forget to stop off via this track on your way though, please:-

^I like this song for a start

Out of over 30,000 pieces of physical music and
over 1 and a half million digital tracks that I have,
this piece towers above them all.

A friend from Norway reminded me, back in 2003,
that I had told him back in the early 80s, that,
even tho I thought the idea of a "god" was just
pure nonsense, this piece was the closest I'd come
to some kind of deity recognition. We then sat near
the mixing desk in the middle of a performance space
listening to the complete work, completely surrounded
by speakers while Stockhausen himself guided the
sounds throughout the hall. In the later years, I would
be tutored by Stockhausen (as "klangregissseur") using
this very same work. Even tho it's a work that has had
multiple essays, academic papers, and even full books
written about it, it's a work that is essentially ineffable.

https://i.imgur.com/8ODK0yO.jpg

Thanks for making the efforts, guys. Really appreciated.
I have to say, I'm about the opposite of a Van fan. I don't hate him - nothing against him necessarily - but his music and his voice bores me. I will admit to liking this one though.

I am surprised once again by how connected you are to musicians of international stature, rostasi! Your listening-experience story is difficult to top, and made more sense when I read how Hymnen was conceived as a quadrophonic piece.
I listened to about 45 mins of it but found it pretty difficult tbh. Perhaps I'll return to it again later.

Quad was the original, but all concerts were (and are still) presented in 8-channel surround,
so that was an added extra to the experience. A challenge too when working the soundboard.