The one you hated at first but now you love? The one you dig on a sonic level but you can't quite explain the meaning of any of the songs? The curveball in their catalogue that only diehards would appreciate?

My obvious answer is


New Amerykah - Part One (4th World War)

But I might also say:


Madonna - American Life
Michael Jackson - HIStory
Britney - Blackout
Brandy - Full Moon[b]
[b][Edited 12/27/08 19:04pm]

Not to rag on your choices, but you don't get the message behind New Amerykah? (And are you open to hearing some clues that will help you get it?)

While waiting to see the response to my offer, I will answer the question.

a) The one group I've always had trouble getting the message to is Celtic Frost, but then I heard Monotheist, and was reading Aleister Crowley at the same time, and it took about a year and a half of listening to it before I finally was able to understand the storyline from start to finish.

not necessarily ones i've grown to love any more than i ever did, in fact a few of them have fallen quite a bit in my estimation. but they're ones i ponder often, am infuriated by, or equally satisfied and confounded by:



Prince - The Rainbow Children - because there's a lot of crap to wade through to appreciate the brilliance struggling to get through from underneath. it's damn near suffocated. probably the only album in a decade-plus that feels like he actually put some effort into.

Madonna - American Life - i hate this album as much as i love it. i love the sound, and about half of the songs, but are too many MJ-styled "poor, rich and famous" me tracks where she's telling us "do as i say, not as i do"

Bowie - Outside - the interludes are stale after the 3rd listen or so, and the concept is a little on the annoying side, but the songs themselves are great.

Beatles - White Album - this one's been discussed to death, so no need to explain

U2 - Pop - I like almost every song on here, but they're all so obscured by the roughness of the production. the brilliant moments rarely shine through for me.

Mercury Rev - The Secret Migration - it's a beautiful record and the melodies are immediate, with arrangements and performances that are bursting at the seems. the lyrics, though, are infuriatingly cheesy and preoccupied with enchanted forests and such other such shit.

Bjork - Medulla - some great songs here, and i really do love about half of the album, because i feel like half an album is all she put out, while the rest of it is too in love with the all-vocals gimmick to have remembered to apply it to some actual music/songs.

So sorry, but please re-explain? You listed what you think is wrong with the albums, but I didn't hear you say why the albums challenged you as a listener.

errant said:

what i listed as being wrong with them is what challenges me to listening to them. i like them all, but the qualities i describe are the things i try to overcome when i listen and am often rewarded when i'm able to.

hmmm...I took it to mean an album that you maybe had to listen to many times before you understood it fully, or an album that maybe challenges how you see life or conventional wisdom.

errant said:

eaglebear4839 said:

that's why in my opening sentence, i explained that i was doing my own take on it, rather than what was described by the thread.

eaglebear4839 said:

i get the theme of the album as a whole (it's apocalyptic, meant to expose the poverty and misery of the 'have-nots' in our society)...but certain songs I still have no idea what they're about.

The Cell
Master Teacher (I stay woke?)
Amerykahn Promise

badujunkie said:

in America we can
look like what we want
once we sell our soul

New AmErykah was probably
the most challenging of
her catalog to me also
[Edited 12/28/08 10:10am]

New Amerykah is her only ambum I like. lol

Ahhh...I understand totally. Here's my take on those songs:

The Cell - the first verse is about temptation, vices that people fall for and the "system". The lyrics to this song are good sticking points, now that I look at them again.

Master Teacher - seems to me that this song is about staying conscious no matter what kind of mud gets flung at you or in your way.

Amerykhan Promise - Starting the message but with a party feel (kinda like the way George Clinton did with Flashlight). For me, what makes this song make sense when you listen to the dialogue at the end.
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badujunkie said: