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

@8th-note I was happy to have seen Col. Bruce and ARU a few times. He might have been a strange character but the music was impeccable. I am basically frightened - by how good it was.

@czarivey Guess Coldplay is pop too then. Maybe even Metallica.

I really can’t answer the OP’s question. Choosing ONE CD as the "best" is nearly impossible. Maybe one by ELP or YES - but which one? Then you have crazy classical pieces that are staggering. Singer songwriters with good playing and great vocals. Molly Tuttle of late, etc.

Ah, so many CDs (or vinyl) and so little time...

Spyboy, Emmy Lou Harris. You're there. Hard to find, out of print before the vinyl resurgence. 

Jazz at the Pawnshop

Kevin Godley/Lol Creme's "Consequences".

Love/hate.

Leonard Cohen - "Ten New Songs"   Fantastic songs, well-engineered audio.

Nirvana Unplugged. I dont listen to ANY other Nirvana - but that CD is one of the best Ive ever heard. Couple live Dead albums come really close as well. Cant wait to comb this thread and discover some new music - great post. 

@kb673 Yeah, you really don’t want to play this game.
The facts are all there for you. Some of us already have them. Some don’t.
Here are some Cliff Notes, a “Fake Book,” if you will: just Google “Tin Pan Alley.”
Then come and talk to me about “mountain music/bluegrass and blues.”
There you go again with “genre.”
If “pop” is a “genre,” please define it.

Difficult choice. An album I am fond of from A to Z is L.A. women from The Doors (remastered)

Frank mc 195 agree+1

You folks who think everything is rock or pop.... I was around before rock n roll existed as well as pop although the other classes of music were already there for a long time. We certainly didn't call that music rock or pop for sure.

The Stones great rock just about any cd is great but I'll mention Beggars Banquet.  my favorite stones song "Goodbye Ruby Tuesday", great rock music and great memories. As for their CD quality they all sucked. I mean imagine if the Stones actually had a well-engineered musical CD.

Johnto got it right the best group ever simply the Beatles. It was a time in society that was right for Peppers. Pot and LSD came on the scene,along with fond memories of 20 plus college kids in a black lit room passing joints around with "a day in the life"  playing on the turntable. Woo let me turn back the clock 50 years lol.

Looking for a CD or Album with the song 'Like Young" by Amdre Previn on it. Found the song on the CD, KTEL Jazz classics. Turns out all the songs are great  jazz hits.

@tylermunns

"pop," as a musical genre, evolved primarily from bluegrass/mountain music and blues.  You're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.

If, to you, pop means popular, then any genre can be "pop," depending on who you're talking to.

Anne Bisson - UHQCD - Blue Mind

The Jazz in the Pawnshop series are really fine sounding and great music to boot.  I listen to them over and over again. 

"Ella and Louis"

@bigtwin DEFINITELY Jimmy Smith/Harvey Mason supposed to be bombastic!

kingbr, second the Diana Krall SACD.  For something completely different, Point Yellow, Dolby Atmos edition...the "stage" moves around the room using various pairs of 7.1 speakers.

Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra - New World Records 

Slatkin conducting 

Michael Colgrass -Deja vu / light spirit 

Jacob Druckman- Aureole

Many more gems in my archives!

Top on the list for me "Midnight Mood" .Unison music. Only available on the used market. Personally I can't get enough of this CD

second on the list," Between The Lines " Jazz Cafe

Both albums produced by Mark Baldwin

Guaranteed music you have never heard before.

I think you are looking for titles a little off the beaten path so my nomination is for Col. Bruce Hampton and the Aquarium Rescue Unit - self titled live album. These guys are sort of a cross between the Allman Brothers and Frank Zappa and the album is one of the best live recordings in my collection. The musicianship on this album is stunning.

Anything by Rory! It still shocks me how many people still do not know of him.

UFO Mechanic Michael at his best.

I'm torn between King Crimson's Live in Chicago and Music is Our Friend (live in Washington and Albany 2021)

Very similar shows and tight recordings. This version of Crimson is extremely powerful and the catalogue of tracks hit on every era of Crimson music.

I believe Fripp stated that the Washington DC show was their last, shame, because I really believe they have more to share.

Jazz at the Pawnshop! Being away from this hobby for several years I decided to buy a new amplifier. At the time I had a Conrad Johnson Premier 2. I bought it with me to demo the amp. (Adcom GFA 555) . The dealer connected everything (CD, Preamp, and Amp) to Magnipan speakers. There was another customer in the shop at the time. After listening to several CDs the customer asked if we can listen to the system using a turntable. He then played Jazz at the Pawnshop. That was my renaissance into a lifelong Audiophile.

@hipsterjefe Graceland was the first disc I heard as well.  A gradeschool buddy invited me over to show me his dad's new CD player, and that was the only CD they had at that point.  

One of my favorites is Pink Floyd's Pulse double disc.  I typically hate live recordings, but I get excited every time I play that one.

I have a ton of other favorites, but a couple that stand out to me are Sponge's Rotting Pinata album, and the X-Files movie soundtrack.  I don't even know why those two are on the top of my head right now, but I have thoroughly enjoyed both and the production on both sound great..

@czarivey Two CD's that belong in your collection:

Jimmy Smith - Dot Com Blues

Junior Wells - Come On In This House.

I am going with something I still play.  Supertramp' "Crime of the century".  Sonics still blow me away.

Mine would be " The Wonderful Sound of Three Blind Mice " by the Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio  I bought this CD back in 1995 and just recently I thought I would buy another one for back up I eventually found one and at the time The selling price was $300!

The CD that warms my heart and shows off the revealing nature of my Maggies is Take Five by Dave Brubeck on SACD.  I would also add I agree with Live at the Fillmore as noted above.

I will posit that Paul Simon’s "Graceland" (Warner Bros. Records, 1986) is the best CD in my collection. Why? It is literally the very first CD I purchased, back in 1987. This was a big step, as it required the purchase of a CD player too! Expensive investment, for a college student. After a lifetime of vinyl, the allure of CDs was...well, you all remember.

Paul Simon composed/wrote/recorded much of "Graceland" in South Africa, drawing on the rich music traditions of Southern Africa, and using African musicians/bands. This was during the waning and violent times of apartheid, so the music really resonated with its global audience (to be fair, there was controversy over Paul’s decision to even go to S.A to record). Other tracks draw on Cajun and East Los Angeles musical input and influences. "Graceland" won several Grammys.

I still am drawn to the hauntingly beautiful tracks of "Graceland" for inexplicable emotional reasons.

If we are talking technically about “sound” and production, and not “our favorite “ then I would have to say the XRCD Version of “Warm Your Heart” by Aaron Neville. Beautiful recording and sound from the JVC XRCD process. 

My top two are Layla and the Allman Brothers Band Live at the Fillmore.  That is pretty much how I learned to play the guitar.

I also guess that Helter Skelter is a POP song.  LOL
So suggestions that I can relate to also.

Happy Listening

Hapy Listening.

The first Golden Earring, LIVE CD the live version of Vanilla Queen has great guitar work, also their live version of Eight Miles High is fantastic.

I have two CD'S that sound pretty good   THE CHARLIE DANIELS BAND  FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN and  GENESIS - THE GREAT LOST LIVE ALBUM

Everything by Cake - as in - any of their albums.

Mickey Hart   "Around the world for a song".👍

Junko Onishi - Cruisin’ (if you can find it). 

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. 

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.  

@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.

To really hear and “show off” what my system can do it’s Diana Krall’s “The Girl in the Other Room”. Plus every single song is just so emotionally involving especially “Departure Bay” the last song on the CD. It’s honestly the one CD I play in it’s entirety and sit with my eyes shut and do not move…
 

For just pure jammin out it’s undoubtedly Iron Maiden “Live After Death”! 🤟🏻🤟🏻 Man that one is truly timeless!😂

I have to agree the Beatles in my opinion are a pop band, with one or two rock songs in their locker, all music is not Pop, it not all rooted in Rock n roll, pop is a mainstream popular music, a great deal of rock music is born from the blues, Metallica is not Pop they are a massive metal band but you wouldn’t define them as being popular with all listeners yet my favourite band, Jazz also is not Pop as it’s not popular across the board and I’ll vouch for that as I can listen to the stuff. 

You wouldn’t declare One Direction, Take That, Coldplay rock bands. 

For me it is Incubus / Science. Unique, interesting, recorded well and definitely rock.

@kb673 I beg to differ.  
As I said, it’s all pop. It’s all rooted in “Rock N’ Roll,” which is popular music. Pop.  
Blues is absolutely pop. So is country.  
That’s “Rock N’ Roll.” (with a bit of gospel thrown in there)
Songs with a verse, a chorus. Repeat. Some sort of middle section. Repeat.  
Pop. All the same s**t, just different flavors.

You’re just thinking of “pop” in the terms that record companies, radio stations and media marketing schemes have sold you as “different genres.”  
The better to take your money with.  

If you want to accept a marketing scheme as objective reality as far as delineating, segregating and categorizing music goes, that’s your prerogative.  
If you want to just swallow these marketing labels that were made up to give certain businesses more money, go nuts, friend.

I prefer to just listen to music and decide for myself if I like it. You know…with my own ears. 

You’re also free to define what “pop” is, and how it is in any way useful to sit around and say:  
“no, no, that’s not rock and roll, that’s pop…no, no, that’s not metal, that’s stoner rock…no, no, that’s not reggae l, that’s ska…no, no, that’s not punk, that’s hardcore…”

The Beatles Releases from 1965 through 1969 were so far ahead of their time that the were revolutionary. Rubber Soul, Revolver, The White Album or Abbey Road. They certainly had a few pop songs, but so much of their music was not pop at all and the boys were capable of Rocking.They even bordered folk.

Ane Brun : “How beauty holds the hand of sorrow” , Yello :  “Touch” , Mari Boine: ”The best of” ,…

@ czarivey    Where is "rock" identified as a qualifier?  ... by who's definition?

@ tylermunns   Blues is not pop, classical or jazz; many of the artists mentioned are not "pop," and do not fit cleanly in one of your three grossly oversimplified categories of music.

+1 for It's a Beautiful Day

King Crimson, "Starless and Bible Black"

Shadowdance by Shadowfax…

The remastered 96 bit It’s a Beautiful Day cd sounds spectacularly good, especially “Wasted Union Blues”…..one of the heaviest tunes of the 60’s.

My Hendrix Band of Gypsies cd with 2 bonus cuts was (I think) rare up until the complete concerts box set can out and has it all.

So do bootleg cds count? I have some Stones bootlegs that are pretty good (was gonna mention The Beatles bootlegs but….)

Occasionally box sets sell out and aren’t available except used. The Ten Years After 1967 - 1974 complete albums box has been reissued but packaging is inferior and doesn’t contain the “discovered” Cap Ferrat recordings.