Which album covers the most musical genres that you are aware of?

sitruk7 said:

Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs.
Maybe not the most, but still quite amazing!

Ween - Chocolate & Cheese...or maybe Shinola, though that's not as much diverse genre-covering as it is diverse style-jacking.
[Edited 9/23/06 11:54am]

Duh, Sign O The Fucking Times beeeeeoooooch.

Shakira's 'Fijación Oral, Vol 1.' is diverse. I hear reggaeton, synthpop, industrial, garage rock and Burt Bacharach-ish 60s pop when I listen to it.

Silent Hill 2 Ost

The first album that came to mind...

Prince-Sign O The Times! Gotta go now-SNL is on!!

Aside from what's already been mentioned, these 2 come to mind...

SITKOL

Prince's "Parade". I feel like slapping the hell out of him every time I think about it.

The most diverse album that I have ever heard was, "The Love Below". To me it was and still is a great display of imagination. There are those who say that Dre did not rap enough or that he sounded like others on this cd. Well, for me this cd, like Common's "Water for chocolate", raised the bar on what rap would sound like if people used their imagination instead of their index finger.

...

There's a number of albums that came to mind.... arrgh, I couldn't pick one, but here's a few of 'em:


Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia -Ryuichi Sakamoto



Former Yellow Magic Orchestra co-founder Ryuichi Sakamoto has always had a broad range, and this album is a great example , spanning Classical, Pop, Jazz, Avant Garde, etc., virtually, every track takes off in a new direction, yet Sakamoto's great compositional skills remain the focus.

Michel Colombier -Old Fool Back On Earth



Late Composer Michel Colombier is probably best known by Prince Fans as the the composer of the incidental music for Purple Rain, But he'd been scoring music for decades , moving backand forth between Classical, Jazz, Rock and Fusion, working with everyone from singer songwriter Paul Williams to Jean Luc Ponty to legendary bassist Jaco Pastorius. This double album was for me his crowning achievement. essentially a soundtrack to a series of his dreams, Colombier covers Classical, Pop, R&b , Jazz and beyond. One of these pieces, the instrumental "El Solitario", was covered by Earth Wind and Fire. Lyrics were written , and it was renamed "We're Living In Our Own Time", on their "Electric Universe" album. The original was also resurfaced on the "Against All Odds" soundtrack...


Extension Of A Man - Donny Hathaway



Donny's finest hour. I love the way the grand orchestral piece " I love The Lord , He Heard My Cry" segues into his now classic ballad, "Someday We'll All Be Free"! This album glides so easily from the orchestral into Soul, then Jazzy Funk, over to the Blues, to Ragtime, to Gospel and back again. IMO, Donny was definitely at the peak of his talents here...

Awakening - Narada Michael Walden



Back In 79, I grabbed this album because of the dance hit "I Don't Want Nobody Else (To Dance With You)", much of "side 1" was dedicated to Funk, Rock, Pop and Dance, but it didn't prepare me for what unfolded on the rest of the album. Side 2 for me seemed to be a crash couse in Jazz-Rock Fusion, Calypso, sweeping orchestral arrangements and moving ballads. it featured an all star cast, with artist like Carlos Santana, The Pointer Sisters, The Stairsteps, Angela Winbush, Patty Scalfia, The Brecker Brothers, Hiram Bullock, Airto, Wayne Henderson, Pleasure, Bobby Lyle, and several Tower Of Power alumni, It definitely turned me on to what a musical chameleon Narada was. People who now only know him as a current R&B/ Pop producer would probaly be floored to see how much range he actually had. (It's also funny, because last year I read four completely different musical biographies, on Joe Zawinul(Weather Report), the group Chic, Rock Guitarist Jeff Beck and a history of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Narada turned out to be the common denominator in all four books(he played in Weather Report, and with Jaco Pastorius, Chic's Tony Thompson was taking lessons from him in NYC, and he played with Jeff Beck as well as writing half of Jeff's classic "Wired" album, and at the age 19, he replaced legendary drummer Billy Cobham in the Mahavishnu Orchestra....)


Stevie Wonder -Journey Through The Secret Life of Plants



Yeah, this is the one that still gets beat up on the playground, lol! Definitely not for all tastes, and not Stevie's most satisfying moment for most fans, But it was definitely a pivotal moment. Stevie was actually reaching and stretching his creative abilities, and it's interesting to read the different takes on this album in the musical publications of the time. While most R&B and Pop fans were confused and turned off by it, many jazz magazines like Downbeat and Musician were gushing praises, and predicting that Stevie would be moving on to to do Jazz and Classical pieces of Ellingtonian proportions.

But instead, Stevie seemed to be personally stung by all the bad press it got in the R&B/Pop world, and he hasn't really been the same since. He continues to occasionaly put out fairly pleasant safe albums once every decade, but I wonder what might have been had he continued on this creative streak...oh well....




See, Now there's dozens of others I'm thinking of, from Joni Mitchell, Prince, Marc Anthony Thompson (Chocolate Genius)...Too Many, Damn, Lol!!!!


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[Edited 9/25/06 10:55am]

Parade is already mentioned, so I would like to add Midnite Vultures, by Beck. I can't think of any genre that isn't covered there.

Prince, Tonex, Stevie, Mint Condition, to name a few artist.

Since Pagi beat me on the Donny joint( ) I'll have to choose this album as the ONE of the most diverse albums ever, IMHO:



This is one of the MOST daring albums from the 70's. Even at an adventurous time in the music scene, they still weren't ready for a man with so much to deliever like Shuggie. Like Stevie, he too mastered the art of instrumentalism,,,but he wasn't as accessible.
[Edited 9/25/06 10:33am]

I noticed a big difference between side 1 and 2. I remember a cool instrumental is on side 2, but its been a while since i heard this. Walden pretty much changed altogether in the 80's of course, pretty much defining his own sound when it comes to power ballads.