Dear Doctor, My friends and I have been debating what makes a perfect album. What would you prescribe?
This question has caused the Doctor great consternation, as the greatest records are full of imperfections. Many a classic album has wrong chords, coughs, chairs creaking and other assorted noises that add to their wonderful atmosphere. In the first bars of the Police’s Roxanne there’s an errant piano chord followed by Sting’s laugh. On Caroline, No, from Pet Sounds, you hear Brian Wilson making his dogs, Banana and Louis, bark. David Bowie’s Andy Warhol keeps its false start (“hol as in hols”): a most perfectly imperfect moment on a perfect album, Hunky Dory.
So the perfect record is not about technical quality, budget, nor imperfections removed (most human failings are edited away to oblivion these days). Rather, it’s about a moment in time, emotions captured, questions asked, ideas launched.
What’s perfect for you will depend on your taste, but here are a few classics the Doctor would never hesitate to recommend… Mississippi John Hurt’s Avalon Blues (his toe-tapping guitar playing would be enough, but add that lullaby voice and you’ve found the sound of heaven). Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust – give this to any teenage child and let their dreams soar. Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On? If only he were still here to chronicle the world’s troubles, and teach us to think anew. He tells it like it is on that 1971 album. Now feel the southern humidity with the warm organ sounds of Jimmy Smith’s Back At The Chicken Shack and the enticing tones of Precious Bryant on her Fool Me Good. Sure got the Doctor fooled in the most perfect way.
• Post your questions for Cerys below
