either Meet The Residents or Duck Stab
Marquee Moon
any of the first four Royal Trux albums (well, maybe not Twin Infinitives)
Extra Width
Memphis Sol Today!
Keynsham
either Honeymoon in Red or Shotgun Wedding
The Bribe
either Mix Up or The Voice of America
Miss America

Sorta kinda off the top of my head, subject to change from day to day, and I'm a total dabbler so "reasonably conversant" is tricky. But those are some of the albums I return to again and again.

To talk about showtunes with me, you have to own at least 10 cast recordings. Movies, Andrew Lloyd Weber, and Wicked don't count.

I tend to buy a lot of "best of" style CDs, which I don't really count as proper albums, so they haven't been considered here. Given my very mainstream music taste, pretty much everyone would know these. Also, ask the same question next week and you will get a different answer.

Pink Floyd - The Final Cut
Pink Floyd - The Wall
Dire Straits - Love Over Gold
The Eagles - Hotel California
Good Charlotte - The Young and the Hopeless
John Butler Trio - Sunrise Over Sea
Led Zeppelin - How the West Was Won
Meatloaf - Bat Out Of Hell
Peter Frampton - Frampton Comes Alive
Skyhooks - Livin' in the 70's

This question makes me feel like an old man, nothing from this century or even close, but I'll give it a shot:

Talking Heads, Fear of Music
Talking Heads, 77
Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon
Peter Gabriel, Security
Devo, Are We Not Men?
Devo, Freedom of Choice
Living Color, Vivid
Nirvana, Unplugged
Led Zeppelin III
Frank Zappa, Apostrophe / Overnight Sensation
Frank Zappa, We're Only in it for the Money

And for TPS: love the Guys and Dolls original soundtrack, I can do the whole thing by heart.

I'm more of singles guy than an album guy, but:

Born To Run - Bruce Springsteen
Who's Next - The Who
Go Girl Crazy! - Dictators
Rocket To Russia - Ramones
Nuggets - Various Artists
A Love Supreme - John Coltrane
Master Of Puppets - Metallica
Maggot Brain - Funkadelic
Live 1966 - Bob Dylan
The Band - The Band

and one to grow on:

Exile on Main Street - Rolling Stones

Klang, you obviously didn't read Section 2B, Article 98 of the Metachat Posting Regulation Bylaws which states that when polling members for their personal canon, the original poster is compelled to list his own.

Heh. I don't think I can talk music with Lentro then, or TPS either. The only cast recordings I have are Hair and Fame.

I wasn't thinking so much "These are my favorite albums" as "these are my common cultural touchstones." Like, I would expect people (music nerds) to be reasonably conversant in Marquee Moon, but definitely not Caberet Voltaire.

For me, I think it's likely—

Bitches Brew— Miles Davis
Doolittle— Pixies
Man Machine— Kraftwerk
Ill Communication— Beastie Boys
Nevermind— Nirvana
Ramones-Mania— The Ramones (basically, a greatest hits)
Nevermind the Bullocks— Sex Pistols
Funkadelic— Funkadelic
Thriller— Michael Jackson
Straight Outta Compton— NWA

And obviously, there are a fair number more that I think are important to know, ones that I think everyone who's a music nerd, or who has an interest in any random sub-genre should know, but those are the ten (off the top of my head) that I expect everyone I encounter to have at least given a reasonable listen. I can also say that I don't necessarily like all of them all the way through, and don't necessarily listen to all of them anymore, but I think it's an interesting thought experiment.

Taz, I was typin' it up.

Talking Heads- Fear Of Music
Urge Overkill- The Supersonic Storybook
Prince- Dirty Mind or 1999
Mekons- Fear and Whiskey
The Flaming Lips- The Soft Bulletin
Spiritualized- Let It Come Down or Ladies And Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space
Pulp- This Is Hardcore
Neutral Milk Hotel- In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
The B-52's first (self-titled) album
Belle and Sebastian- Tigermilk
Sonic Youth- Daydream Nation
The Stooges- Fun House

I cheated- that's 12.

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea - Neutral Milk Hotel
Extraordinary Machine - Fiona Apple
With Teeth - NIN Not everyone's favorite. And Downward Spiral IS a better album. Suck it.
Blonde on Blonde - Dylan
Empire Burlesque - Dylan Especially for "When the Night Comes Falling from the Sky"
The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle - Springsteen Especially for "Rosalita"
Bachelor No. 2 - Aimee Mann
Funeral - Arcade Fire Which I liked before everyone had heard of it. Suck it.
Illinois - Sufjan Stevens
Pretty Little Head - Nellie McKay

Honorable mention (most could as easily swap with one on the list):
Ancient Heart - Tanita Tikaram
Animal Logic - Animal Logic
Colossal Youth - Young Marble Giants
Auscultate - Salt
Different Class - Pulp
Troubador - J.J. Cale
The Name Above the Title - John Wesley Harding
OK Go - OK Go Which I liked before everyone had heard of them. Suck it.
Spool Forka Dish - The Blue Up? (Ana Voog)
A is for Accident - The Dresden Dolls
Has Been - Shatner
Oh, the Stories We Hold - Anna Fermin's Trigger Gospel

22 -- ignore all rules territory.

Doolittle is a good one I forgot, and I also forgot The Velvet Underground & Nico. 10 isn't nearly enough.

Touchstones?

Pixies - Surfer Rosa
Split Enz - True Colours
The Clash - London Calling
Straitjacket Fits - Melt
Nirvana - Nevermind
Fugazi - In on the Kill Taker
Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane over the sea
Archers of Loaf - Icky Mettle
AC/DC - Back in Black

hrrmmm and some more.

And for TPS: love the Guys and Dolls original soundtrack, I can do the whole thing by heart

Oh, me too, I used to do the whole thing in my parents' basement. We should do a Mecha production of Guys and Dolls. Starring Meatbomb as Sky and ThePinkSuperhero as Adelaide. Auditions for other roles to be held soon.

God, I could come up with a new complete list just from those others have posted. 10 is too hard! In fact, I would add the following from what others have said:

Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd
Nevermind — Nirvana
Nevermind the Bollocks — Sex Pistols
Thriller — Michael Jackson
1999 - Prince
The B-52's first (self-titled) album
Blonde on Blonde - Bob Dylan
True Colours - Splpit Enz
London Calling - The Clash
Bat Out of Hell - Meatloaf (OK, nobody mentioned that, but you all wanted to ;-)

None.

Some of my post productive and interesting musical conversations have been with people whose listening histories and musical interests had absolutely no overlap with mine - most notably, people from cultures entirely different from the modern American post-industrial one I inhabit.

I've been fortunate to sit in sessions with Arabian fishermen and whale hunters from the Grenadines and Alaskan natives, and we went round the circle trading songs and had no reason to ever stop, all enjoying and finding interest in one another's tunes, though we knew very little in common. You don't need it. Music has universality. There's no prerequisite needed for respectful musical conversation. Having a requirement list to just talk about music would be a serious restriction on where such a conversation could go. I can't imagine saying to any of those people, or even for that matter any of the American musicians I know "I can't talk about music with you unless you start with an understanding of Sgt. Pepper" or "Elvis" or "Kitty Wells" or anything like that. It's way too limiting.

Open the doors. Don't shut 'em.

er, that's "Most", not "post."

I love "ignore all rules." That's basically all I was trying to say.

I'm so out of the loop, I only recognize about 1/3 of what's been listed . . .

I'd say only two: Dark Side of the Moon and Bitches Brew. Those are the only two recordings I absolutely couldn't do without.

Moonlighting -- The Rippingtons
The Best of -- Sade
Low Spark of High Heel Boys -- Traffic
II - Led Zeppelin
Pulse -- Pink Floyd
Romantic Warrior -- Return to Forever
Todd -- Todd Rundgren
Aja -- Steely Dan
Breakfast in America -- Supertramp
Tommy -- The Who

This will make a great series to revive my music blog. "The ten albums I assume you've heard before you start looking for new indie music." I'm not sure if I should start chronologically or do it by decreasing accessibility. But some albums that others have mentioned are definitely on the list.

Miko, I like the way you think. I like music, but a lot of the stuff that I used to like I'm no longer enchanted by and a lot of the stuff I like now, I didn't like before. I can generally enjoy almost anything that's played well and with feeling.

Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George & Ira Gershwin Songbook.
Never No Lament: The Blanton-Webster Band.
Yardbird Suite.
Kind of Blue.
A Love Supreme.
Mahler: Symphony No. 9
Beethoven: The Nine Symphonies / Solti, Chicago SO CD (bit of cheat, since it's a CD set, but f**k, if you don't know Beethoven, get out o' my face)
Disraeli Gears.
Pet Sounds.
Art Tatum: 20th Century Piano Genius. 2 CD set. Not his best recordings, but I've got my very well considered reasons.

I built my Hi-Fi to play two records: The Cowboy Junkies' Trinity Session, and Coltrane's A Love Supreme. However, I can only handle sitting down to *listen* to each of those about once a year. To fill out the rest of the rank of personal canon, there are:
Ella's Songbooks
Pixies - Surfer Rosa / Come on Pilgrim (the CD release)
Van Halen - 1984
Jawbreaker - 24 Hour Revenge Therapy
Operation Ivy - self titled
Beastie Boys - Check Yer Head
Grateful Dead - Workingman's Dead
Dire Straits - Making Movies

Wow, I can't believe the person I come closest to being worthy of talking to is klangklangston. Didn't expect that.

Ya know, I get annoyed when I read stuff like this because it comes off as snobby or like so much inside baseball. Same happens with wine lovers or just about any one who has a passionate hobby or pursuit. But I think I'm actually just jealous that I don't have anything in my life that I'm as passionate about that some of you are about music.

Sorry, lemme fix that: ...that I'm as passionate about that as some of you are about music.

Hooray Miko. I agree. What a silly idea, that two people need the same background to enjoy talking about music!

But still it made me smile to see everyone's lists -- both because it's nice to recognize some common experience, and also because there's still a lot of great music out there I don't know yet.

Philip Glass - The Photographer
Kraftwerk - Computer World
Tangerine Dream - Force Majeure
Mussorgsky - Pictures At An Exhibition
Alice Cooper - Welcome To My Nightmare
Sweet - Desolation Boulevard
Be Bop Deluxe - Sunburst Finish*
Deep Purple - Made In Japan
Joan Jett - Bad Reputation
The Ramones - It's Alive
Steppenwolf - 7

* "Go and tell all your friends, that you witnessed the end, of the world in a dream."

It's Alive is a Ramones concert that was an import album in the 70s. Although the crowd noise is mixed a bit high, it was an excellent recording of the band and a lesson in energy.

I wrote off Alice Cooper in college ('76) but in '92 after writing lyrics for quite a few more years, I listened again and heard a master songwriter whose true talent lay beyond the content and the glam. Two other masters of glam were the British acts Be Bop Deluxe and the Sweet.

Reading through the score while listening to Pictures At An Exhibition always enlightens me. Mussorgsky was among the first composers to attempt making music that was visual, with the listener given only the work's name and an invitation to imagine freely.

Right on, Miko.

1. Free to Be You and Me

2.

Actually, I'm with Miko on the limitations such a list creates. Though, truth be told, my motivation is different: I like to hear about new things because agreement about music is static and boring unless my interlocutor is Voice-In-Skull, in which case it's okay, I guess. There's no avoiding Voice-In-Skull so we may as well get along.

It is totally still fun to see lists of people's favorite recordings.

That's the truth, there.

I tend to think of it less as a list of albums other people must be conversant in to talk music with me and more a list of albums that, if you're not familiar with, I'll bore the hell out of you talking about:

Free to Be You and Me - Soundtrack
44 Violin Duos - Béla Bartók
Blue Öyster Cult - Extraterrestrial Live
Sixty Foot Dolls - Joya Magica
Charles Ives - The Unanswered Question
David Bowie - Hunky Dory
Nelson Sargento - Sonho de Um Sambista
The Commodores - Live!
Mississippi John Hurt - The Complete Okeh Recordings
Sam Cooke - One Night Stand: Sam Cooke Live at the Harlem Square Club

Narrowing it down to ten misrepresents the sheer volume of nattering on about music I do and gives a false sense of security to possible future interlocutors.

Yep, I mostly misunderstood the question. Some of my list still works: Marquee Moon is seminal as Klang mentions. While it would make more sense to have a Pussy Galore album on there (say Dial 'M' for Motherfucker), the Blues Explosion and Trux stuff comes close (and I mostly prefer those bands to PG). The Residents album should probably be Eskimo or The Commercial Album (maybe Freak Show). Zorn is probably better represented by something like Naked City or The Big Gundown. And I'd probably throw Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation on there even though I haven't listened to it in years.

Another one in the Miko camp.

Huh.

Oh yeah, I agree with Miko, and maybe I (wilfully) misinterpreted the question as well. I took it as "what albums are seminal in informing your musical tastes" or something like that.

"Ya know, I get annoyed when I read stuff like this because it comes off as snobby or like so much inside baseball. Same happens with wine lovers or just about any one who has a passionate hobby or pursuit. But I think I'm actually just jealous that I don't have anything in my life that I'm as passionate about that some of you are about music."

Well, yeah, which is why I tried to keep it out of the "these are ten albums that define my personal aesthetic."

But for Miko et al., you really talk about music without any outside referents? Without any shared experience? Without saying "That song you played reminds me of this other music?"

I'm not sure whether to retreat into incredulity or envy— I have a hard time hearing (or seeing or smelling or tasting) something without it immediately and uncontrollably reminding me of something else. (Maybe it's ADD). And I find that without some baseline of a common language, it's hard to communicate exactly why the connection is significant.

This sort of came about when someone at a recent dinner party started talking about Modest Mouse and The Bravery (and a smattering of other petit indie bands) and couldn't connect them to anything else. Without that shared grounding, mentioning those bands (which I have only a tangential memory of) was pretty useless as communication.

I have my music in common with almost no one. I'm going to the ProgPower festival in Atlanta in October, with my favorite band on this earth headlining. It's the biggest festival of its kind in the US, it happens just once a year, and it only draws about 1000 people. These festivals sell out stadiums in Europe. I obviously live in the wrong country. With that said, in alphabetical order:

After Forever - Decipher
After Forever - Invisible Circles
Brave - Monuments (this isn't even out yet but I went to a listening party last week and I can already tell it's going to make this list)
Dream Theater - Scenes From a Memory
Faith No More - The Real Thing
Iced Earth - Horror Show
Lamb of God - Ashes of the Wake
Nevermore - This Godless Endeavor
Opeth - Blackwater Park
Symphony X - V
Tool - Ænima
Tristania - World of Glass

That's 12. Yeah.

But for Miko et al., you really talk about music without any outside referents? Without any shared experience? Without saying "That song you played reminds me of this other music?"

For me, I hear the original question as more a "what I require of others" than a "what we have in common," if that makes sense. We all have shared experiences and common ground when discussing music; I wouldn't expect everyone to be familiar with Sam Cooke live in Miami, but in a conversation about the chitlin' circuit or the gospel influence on soul/pop/rock or Cooke's attempts to keep up-to-date in the face of rock and soul wildmen like Little Richard and James Brown, I would expect the person I was speaking to, to understand the words soul, pop, and rock (by understand I don't mean "agree with my definition of," either), but I'd only hope for anything more. I might say "Curtis Mayfield," and they think, "Lou Rawls," but we're getting somewhere with that. After all, life's only interesting when you're wrong. We all manage to have completely different lives and remain interesting to one another, for the most part. If anything, I'd rather talk to someone with completely different stuff in their head than someone like me (I talk to myself enough as it is).

Yeah, I think Hugh's got it. Genre-awareness is probably more key than any specific album(s). Obviously communication is easier when you have cultural touchstones in common, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's required.

Off topic: this question reminded me of the truly ridiculous brouhaha a couple of years ago, when certain clueless critics (Sasha Frere-Jones) claimed that indviduals without any hip hop in their collections are racist. Please note that I am by no means saying that that's what klang had in mind when posting this thread. It's just a connection my mind made.

It's great shorthand when you know the same genres and even the same artists. But I read the question the way Hugh did, as if I would have to 'require' awareness of certain bands in order to discuss music. I don't, not at all. Genres, like bmarkey said, are helpful as a framework, but even more so is a basic sense of global music history and a comparative sense for various types of world music.

I guess mostly when I'm engaged in the deepest conversations about music, it's about the music I'm playing or listening to right then and there. Either that, or I'm learning from someone else and they're doing the describing and/or playing of the music, probably singing or demonstrating as they go. I like the way musicians talk to other musicians about music. But my approach to music is probably kind of weird, and not all that pop-oriented or referential. I actually find discussions about music that aren't in some way didactic to be kind of dull, just lists of stuff people like or idiosyncratic reasons why they do or don't like stuff. Though I also have likes and dislikes, I really like talking about music as a cultural phenomenon, constantly changing, things influencing other things, in broad swaths through history.

So maybe it's just that I don't participate in that many conversations about music that aren't in a musical setting to begin with. And when I do, usually it's about a specific artist (a recommendation, some analysis of the sound), so there's already a shared knowledge. But I don't think there's any set of ten songs or albums in this world which would set anybody up for a comprehensive, full discussion of music. The vast world of music is just far too abundant, and too full of cul-de-sacs and offshoots, to be sufficiently represented in ten selections as a formula for basic literacy.

Also, I think Sasha Frere-Jones is an eedjit.

"Though I also have likes and dislikes, I really like talking about music as a cultural phenomenon, constantly changing, things influencing other things, in broad swaths through history."

Well, yeah, but that's where I think there is some requirement of common language— where people should be expected to realize that this guy's referencing Dylan or what have you.

"But I don't think there's any set of ten songs or albums in this world which would set anybody up for a comprehensive, full discussion of music. The vast world of music is just far too abundant, and too full of cul-de-sacs and offshoots, to be sufficiently represented in ten selections as a formula for basic literacy."

Well, of course not. I was trying to boil things down to as basic a level as possible, and probably should have clarified by saying "pop" music as well (but that's an ugly mess of semantic entanglements too).

Re: Clueless Critics

Wow. Somebody called someone he disagreed with a racist.

What a novel rhetorical tactic. You don't see that very often these days.

Anyhow, back to the topic at hand . . .

I am leery of composing the personal canon you request, mainly because I've been so radically fucking wrong about music in the past. The music I listened to in my early thirties wasn't all that different from the music I listened to in my teens. My music collection stagnated as I wrote off most of the good music being produced around me as wussy, self-indulgent Williamsburg shit.

And then, one day, I started to listen to new things, to give new artists a chance. And I never went back to the old ways.

If I was so wrong then, I might be just as wrong now. Perhaps my new personal canon is lurking around the corner, one conversation or party or show away.

I think music is more fun when you view it that way.

Not a big deal, in the grand scheme of things, I feel like Sasha Frere-Jones' opinions are being misrepresented. Here's an old Mefi post on the topic (or just google for 'rockism').

And, speaking of canon fodder: first ten off the top of my head, all-hip-hop edition, with all the caveats that everyone else has already mentioned, plus a cushion of, say, ten or fifteen years of hindsight:
Run-DMC - Raising Hell
Eric B and Rakim - Paid in Full
De La Soul - Three Feet High and Rising
Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique
NWA - Straight Outta Compton
A Tribe Called Quest - The Low-End Theory
Dr. Dre - The Chronic
Wu-Tang Clan - Enter the 36 Chambers
Notorious B.I.G. - Ready to Die

A bit random, and ten is not enough, but:

Beatles - White album
Talking Heads - 77 and Speaking In Tongues
Living Colour - Stain
Chemical Brothers - Dig Your Own Hole
Elvis Costello - My Aim Is True
Laurie Anderson - Big Science
Johnny Cash - American Recordings
Neil Young - Tonight's The Night
Leonard Cohen - I'm Your Man

1. Negativland - DisPepsi
2. Ween - GodWeenSatan (substitute Cake or tmbg for add'l $1.89)
3. The Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour (because "conversant" requires a big Beatles foundation)
4. Anything synthy and pre-1984. ELO, Nomi,Gary Numan, listener's choice.
5. Future Bible Heroes - Eternal Youth (any Stephin Merritt will do, but this is my favorite)
6. David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust
7. Dead Kennedys - Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
8. Billy Joel - The Stranger (An Innocent Man is okay if the conversation's before 4pm.)
9. Weird Al Yankovic - Even Worse
10. Tom Waits - Rain Dogs

That was fun. I think the data points of these ten successfully guarantee that my omitted favorite performers might come up, by a sort of extrapolation or triangulation. But what a boring ten things to have to listen to forever.

Here's my list for Wednesday, 22.08.07

The Gilded Palace of Sin - The Flying Burrito Brothers
Time (The Revelator) - Gillian Welch
The Beatles - The Beatles
Greetings from Michigan - Sufjan Stevens
Heartbreaker - Ryan Adams
Being There - Wilco
Sea Change - Beck