What is the VERY BEST CD album you've ever heard?


Just like with records, I came across releases on CD that were never popular, but bring lots of interesting music and so I started collecting CDs that do have collectible value for the reason of a great and rare music presented.

So far album "Sauce Hollandaise" by Ashra is on my #1 desirable list

"Best Band You've Never Heard In Your Life" by Frank Zappa is my 2nd best CD I've ever heard. 

 

czarivey

@mrmeaner Once again, as we see in this thread here, someone made a fuss about calling the Beatles, “rock.” Who cares? We all know the Beatles. Nothing bad is going to happen, no egregious misappropriation occurs if someone calls the Beatles “rock,” or “pop,” or whatever. It’s all madeup label malarkey anyway. It’s all pop.  
Yes, everything in popular music is essentially rooted in Rock and Roll. I really don’t want to be didactic and don’t have the energy for a history lesson, but, yeah. Everything from the last 60+ years of popular music essentially flows from the Rock and Roll Big Bang of the mid-‘50s.

Metallica has sold 125 million albums.  
Nothing is “popular with all listeners.” 
You’ll actually find people that don’t like…Michael Jackson…Beatles…Adele…Mariah Carey.  
But Metallica has sold 125 million albums.  
Pretty popular. Intro, verse, chorus, repeat, bridge/interlude/solo, repeat.  
Pop. 
I already said Jazz and Classical wasn’t pop.  
I don’t know how I’d describe One Direction, Take That and Coldplay other than, “crap.”

One is free to call this stuff whatever they want.  
I just prefer to describe the sounds of things than to just bluntly, hamfistedly apply made-up marketing labels to music.  

People either are brainwashed by all the marketing labels and accept them as “fact” or “truth,” just really enjoy segregating and labeling things, reflexively equate “pop” with “bad,” or some combination of all the above.

I think of a couple of releases that seem to me be creatures of the CD era:

The Centennial edition of The Complete Robert Johnson brought out sounds I don't think anyone ever knew were there.

Though I don't know that it's any great shakes sonically, the 1988 studio cast recording of Show Boat was a revelatory document of what was possibly the greatest American musical.

Another monument of the CD is the encyclopedic box set: the Bear Family collections of Uncle Dave Macon, Louis Jordan and Bob Wills, the Bluebird Fats Waller and the Fremeaux Integrale Charles Trenet are particular prizes to me.

This rock vs. pop thing is obviously some sort of snobbery but I can't quite see what it's being snobbish about.  

It’s absolutely not a snobbery thing, if your a jazz fan and someone said it’s just pop music plenty would say something. My wife’s mother & uncle was at the Cavern to first night the Beatles played there and many nights after and even they can define rock & pop.

as for a stand out cd Seeds of Love from Tears for Fears is one of those for me.