Classic albums?

What elevates an album to the status of classic. Obviously, this is all subjective, however, I am interested in hearing your thoughts.

 

If you've never even thought to skip a song on an album the hundreds of times you've played it, that's a classic album.

 

My friends and I used to refer to them as "Press Play" albums.
I agree with the ones mentioned above, and would also add Appetite for Destruction and Pearl Jam's 10.

 

Agree on both of these. I think there's a case to be made that Appetite is the most classic of classic albums.

Maybe the ultimate "Press Play" album is Tom Petty's Full Moon Fever.

 

Full Moon Fever dominated my senior year of high school. I just went and checked out the track list. Been a long time since I've heard "Zombie Zoo."

 

I believe we must be the exact same age.

 

Silk Degrees.

Born to Run.

Gilded Palace of Sin.

No schlock or throwaways at all, except for maybe "Hippie Boy" on GPOS.

 

Boz Scaggs and The Flying Burrito Brothers. I'm gonna hafta trust ya on those. I'd never even heard of those albums; had to look 'em up.

 

Ehhh, even the most classic of classic albums have one or two, shall we say, "less classic" cuts.

IMO the White Album is probably the greatest album ever, full stop. But I still occasionally hit the FF button through "Wild Honey Pie." And I gotta be in the mood to stick through "Revolution 9."

To me, a classic album is one for which you remember all the songs, and their running order.

 

There are some albums that make it hard to believe there was a time when it didn't exist.

Like, fans of The Who in 1972 knew the band had a new album coming out, so they went to the record store the day it came out and picked up "Who's Next" and went home and put it on and heard "Won't Get Fooled Again" and "Baba O'Riley" for the first time.

It's hard for me to even imagine that. That's probably a decent sign of a classic album.