The Downward Spiral isn’t a perfect album, but it has some incredible highs. There are 5 tracks after the biggest miss on the album, all of which combine to form one of the greatest 20 contiguous minutes of music on any recorded album.

The closer is preceded by a muffled track, reintroducing a melody from earlier in the album, describing the final descent to the bottom.

The closer is Hurt.

This album isn’t for everyone, it’s angry, depressing and nihilistic. The polar opposite of a Beatles album theme-wise.

But it absolutely belongs in the conversation.

I haven’t seen it, but I’ll take your word for it. In any event, using a single vocal performance from someone who has eclipsed the age of 70 doesn’t seem like evidence like they weren’t good or excellent. I’m not saying Ritchie is the greatest in any event, but this cover of his work lacked the soul that makes the original so good, to me at least.

This is a good pick, she’s one of the best doing it right now for sure. How do you feel about Merrill Garbus? Different vocal qualities, but one of my favorites ever.

Thanks, I’ll check these out.

My post was a reference to the fact that every time there is a post about covers, the first person to write Johnny cash hurt gets an automatic 10,000 upvotes. Its pretty good I guess, but I think it’s worse than the original.

I don’t know, trying to out-soul Lionel Ritchie is a losing man’s game.

Thanks for sending, but I’m not feeling it personally. It sounds to me like Counting Crows cover of Big Yellow Taxi. Worse than the original in every way.

However, as you said, that’s not really his thing, so is there maybe a hidden Faith No More gem that I should listen to?

Add these in:

Sturgill Simpson - A Sailor’s Guide to Earth

OutKast - Stankonia

If he doesn’t like any of these, you need to walk away, your friend is lost.

I feel like telling the tale of how you saw David Hasslehoff live is worth the gas money

I had never heard a John Prine song until I hit 40. I don’t know how.

Anyone coming across this post asking who John Prine is, go listen to his self titled album immediately

Fair enough, I guess I’m looking for reasons beyond lowest and highest note achievable for why he always shows up in conversations like this. I never really liked Faith No More, I’m not going to go scouring through their albums to find what I’m missing, so I typically ask for suggestions in cases like this from fans. In the case, maybe I asked the wrong question.

I know it’s easy to make fun of Wham, but I’d rather listen to Last Christmas than most non-classic Christmas songs. Everyone I know personally likes it. Also, his vocal performance on that song is pretty great, so I’m not sure you are making the point you think you are making.

Here’s another great, more recent vocalist. Merrill Garbus is a powerhouse, and has got loads of style. I like to highlight her vocal skills every chance I get, since she never seems to enter the conversation of best modern vocalists.

https://youtu.be/FpmJSnmyFqk

I’ll help!

I see this suggestion often. I know he’s got range, but can you point me to a song that is vocally moving?

Here’s my favorite song, lyrics are powerful and deep, and there is a good display or emotional range and power. Just don’t ask Tool fans any questions about anything Tool related unless you want a pretentious dissertation (j/k…sort of).

https://youtu.be/tSvdbCDZ5UY

I used to steal a cassette of Faith to listen to after bedtime. I lost touch with George Michael’s music for awhile, but have been returning to it here and there recently. Father Figure is one of my favorite songs, and a great example of what you are talking about.

Another top vocalist not mentioned yet here is Maynard. Different genre, but he can (or could) do it all.

Yeah, Freddie is probably the greatest ever in terms of raw technical chops, so you could probably actually quantify his greatness.

If you want to bring things like soul and emotional delivery into the equation, it becomes a lot more subjective, and I don’t think he was the best when you start considering intangibles.

I can’t decide whether to upvote or downvote here, so I’ll just leave as is

You don’t have to Like Johnny Cash’s Hurt, but you are required to think it’s better that the original and the best cover of all time.

He stripped away all the annoying innovation and boiled it down to spoken word. If that isn’t excellence, I don’t know what is.

Thanks for the song suggestions, I listened to all of them.

First off, the good:

The Lamar suggestions are solid. He’s pretty universally celebrated, but I hadn’t listened to anything from this album. Solid. I liked this more than what I have listened to before from other albums, even though I think this one hasn’t been as broadly celebrated.

Joji was good as well, I’ll listen to some more of that album, but the song you suggested was really good.

I didn’t like the Cudi song quite as much, but is was pretty good as well.

The not so good:

I’ve never liked music like Drake, but I’ve never listened to him, so I gave it a whirl. Definitely not for me.

Similar with Lacy, but that one was definitely better than Drake for me

Given that we have pretty different music taste, I think 3/5 was pretty good!

OP, this is the best suggestion imo. You can further specify categories I believe, but this is the best list of all time ranked albums I have seen. Go down the list and you can obviously skip ones you have already heard.

I’ll take a listen here shortly and get back to you. Here are a couple of 2022 standout songs for me. May not be your taste, but you never know…

Big Thief - Time Escaping

https://youtu.be/CkIvGej2WyI

The Smile - We don’t know what tomorrow brings

https://youtu.be/3oEkWwX9iX4

Come on. Almost all artists still release collections of songs 30-75 minutes in length. Shorter is typically considered and EP, longer a double album.

Singles are…single songs, sometimes released standalone.

I think everyone knows what album means, regardless of whether you are streaming or buying a physical media, or digital files for that matter.

Your top 5 albums

Why so aggressive? Seems like this purpose of this post was to start a fight, not a discussion.

What’s your favorite song (or two) on all of these?

Let's focus less on being confused, and more on immediately burning people at the stake. I mean, why think about it, right?