Double Albums

[HeartWorm]

Ah come on, be honest, it's mostly shite. They've been dining off Appetite for a long, long time - the greatest fluke ever, I put it to you 😂

Always baffles me how much of the illusions material they ignore playing live in favor of about 4 or 5 covers. Wichita Lineman is a dreadful cover, surely there's something from either album that merits being included ahead of piss like that.

[Bürggermeister]

If we're going non-Metal, Quadrophenia by The Who is up there with the very best... and only 3 minutes longer than Load 

[Giggles]

Well since we're going non metal, it would be rude to omit 'Joe's Garage' by Frank Zappa. Full immersion potential with gripping narration throughout

[Anton Arcane]

If you think about it, the move from records to CDs resulted in most bands making what would previously have been double albums. The average album length went from 35 minutes or so up to over an hour a lot of the time, just because they felt they had to fill 72+ minutes, usually with shite. Most bands don't have that much quality material in them at any one time. For perspective, Reign In Blood and South of Heaven combined still come in about 15 minutes shorter than either of the poxy Loads individually.

Yeah I mean, at the time, And Justice For All for example would could have qualified as a double album, especially with it being a double LP and all. But that would make the Load era quadruple albums and the world has enough problems without four Load albums.

I have a weird thing with Judas Priest's Metal Works whereby even though its a "best of", it was my introduction to the band and I listened to it so much that the track sequencing became ingrained to the point where I think of it as a double album in its own right.

[John Kimble]

I have mixed feelings about the Fragile. It undoubtedly has some great moments but its also when Reznor started going down an overblown, self-indulgent route that he's been stuck in ever since. The Downward Spiral for me is the epitome of a desert island disc, I could just never get sick of it.

[ochoill]

I have mixed feelings about the Fragile. It undoubtedly has some great moments but its also when Reznor started going down an overblown, self-indulgent route that he's been stuck in ever since. The Downward Spiral for me is the epitome of a desert island disc, I could just never get sick of it.

Downward Spiral my favourite too but I still love the Fragile, pretty much only have no time for Starfuckers off it but love all the rest.

On topic: yeah the Fragile probably my favourite double album.

Others that come to mind are Swans' "The Seer" and "To Be Kind", love them both.

Kayo Dot's "Hubardo" also ridiculously good and consistent start to finish, but always struck me as just a long album rather than a double.

Old Man Gloom - "The Ape of God" I and II both designed to go back to back.  Deadly too.  I have the review leak version downloaded there somewhere from years back too and it's missing a fair whack compared to the final two combined.

Fairly sure I am forgetting something particularly lethal but I'll think of it later.

[The Heretic]

Live After Death?

[Carnage]

Of course.

The Fragile is a good shout, but if we're doing double Swans albums I'd have to go for Soundtracks For The Blind.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

So the original double albums, like The Wall or The White Album, were they called double albums simply because they were 2LPs? And then that eventually became 2CDs? Leading to the possibility of 4LP double albums.

[Trev]

Dream Theater - Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

Always had a soft spot for this, picked it up along with Images & Words for a tenner and played the two of them relentlessly for months

[Carnage]

So the original double albums, like The Wall or The White Album, were they called double albums simply because they were 2LPs?

That's my understanding of it anyway.

[Mr Barlow]

Jeff Wayne's "War Of The Worlds"

[Bürggermeister]

So the original double albums, like The Wall or The White Album, were they called double albums simply because they were 2LPs? And then that eventually became 2CDs? Leading to the possibility of 4LP double albums.

That's the point I was making earlier, the double album was not always a conceptual thing, like The Wall or Quadrophenia, often just where bands had a bulk of material they wanted to release which went further over the basic 44 minute capacity of a 12" record so that it would cause playback issues due to the groove compression required. The arrival of CDs as the main selling medium gave a 74 minute capacity for a single disc which, of course, bands started to fill as longer albums were seen as better value. Load is significant as it was, from memory, one of the first albums released to push CD capacity to 80 minutes which, of course, is as long as, or longer than, a lot of double albums from the era of records - Fleetwood Mac's Tusk for example. Load and Reload would each be double albums had they been released 10 years previously.

[Mooncat]

My two favourite double albums both came out on the same day:

Husker Du - Zen Arcade
Minutemen - Double Nickels on the Dime

Not a bad track between either of them. If I had to round out a top 3 then I'd also have Electric Ladyland by Hendrix. The Du/Minutemen albums make a great drinking double header. As do Electric Ladyland and Bitches Brew for another good double album double header.

[londonleatherboy]

Wasnt Keepers of the 7 Keys 1 & 2 supposed to be a double album as well but the label wouldnt have it