My formative albums

[strange_powers]

I was tagged to do this by ultraruby, and I'm feeling nostalgic. In the chronological order I heard them:

1) Cat Stevens - Teaser and the Firecat

Because Dylan is too dense for little kids. My dad used to play this album (and Tea for the Tillerman and Catch Bull at Four, but this was my favourite) a lot when I was small. It's a gentle, folky, sad and

Comments

[ultraruby]

Aw yay, I'm glad you did this!

I bought Promenade purely on the Select review. Such an amazing album. And such nerve, to make it! I think that's a thread running through lots of my favourite and formative albums - the apparent audacity of people having ideas and then following them up.

[strange_powers]

I agree - my favourite albums list would be quite different to this, but the shocking difference of Liberation and Promenade (but especially the latter) did a lot to endear them to me. Hearing it for the first time, that long build-up on Bath... I can still feel what that felt like when I hear it now. Incredible.

[barrysarll]

It's so nice to find someone agreeing about Promenade as the single greatest record ever made - even people giving the laurels to Hannon usually seem to favour Liberation or Casanova.
It would still be even better without the line about dolphins, though...

[strange_powers]

The daft jokes are part of the charm for me - and Hannon knows when to keep them out and when to put them in. No jokes in Geronimo, for example.

[barrysarll]

Oh yeah, for the most part I agree - at least as regards him then, and him on record as opposed to live where he had a distressing tendency to clown. It's just that the line about eating dolphins is the one time where his idea of what's amusing when and mine are not in perfect accord.
Still, maybe it's for the best that even with my favourite album ever, I only give it 99% rather than a hundred. Something to keep looking for...

[strange_powers]

Given that the whole song is about scoffing down as much once-living (or still living in the case of some of the shellfish) I feel you're being a bit picky. But I know what you're getting at.