a challenge

[trans-chigley express]

Hounds of love

I agree and considering side 1 includes Running Up That Hill, Cloudbusting, The Big Sky and the title track it's remarkable that side 2 manages to be even better.

[The Write Profile]

Love's Forever Changes seems to be one that fits this. If only because it gets pretty close to madness ("The Good Humour Man" and "Bummer in the Summer") before finally taking flight with "You Set the Scene", where Lee ends up celebrating the things that seemed to have scared him earlier in the record. It's an album of fierce mood swings, but one that really falls into place in that finale. So maybe it's not so much the second side as the closing track!

The Associates' Sulk includes "Party Fears Two" and "Country Club" on side two, which is exactly the sort of free-floating and almost joyful serenading that much of the first half of the record struggles towards. Put simply, they go for broke in the second half, and the music is all the better for it. I do enjoy the first side, particularly the menacing "Bap de la Bap" and the agonising "No", but it's the pop smarts of the second side that seem to be a more fully realised vision, if that makes sense.

Good idea for a thread, I might come back to this!

[Quaco]

[Quaco]

[sloopjohnc]

Locust Abortion Technician

At least on the second side, you can't hear the songs the Buttholes Surfers recorded over on the tape.

[pig bodine]

Ziggy Stardust
Harvest

[Osgood]

Zep IV (by a small margin)
One Size Fits All
Machine Head
Going for the One
My Aim Is True

[trans-chigley express]

Agree

Disagree

[trans-chigley express]

Going for the One

Yes, though side one is still stellar

[The Write Profile]

That's an interesting one- much like Revolver, it's an LP that's built around (or builds up to) the closing track. So in that sense, the closing tracks looms so large that it takes the rest of the side with it, if that makes sense! Mind you, there are few Beatles records that don't finish strongly: maybe Beatles For Sale runs out of steam, and Abbey Road's final side is a remarkable act of musical smoke-and-mirrors, affecting as it undeniably is. But right from their first LP, they knew how to pace things and how to end on a high.

I'm guessing the great Jazz albums lend themselves to having superior second sides by virtue of being suites that bring all these different themes and approaches together. A Love Supreme is perhaps the most obvious example, it starts off shuffling and chaotic and then builds up to these release of absolute euphoria by the time we get to the closing track.

[Quaco]

To me, 'Within You Without You' is just as towering as 'A Day in the Life', and the smaller songs are all great too. There are a couple lesser things on side one -- 'Lucy', 'WALHFMF' -- hence my vote.

[naughty boy]

[Bent Fabric]

:x

What he said.

[blindlemonjefferson]

On the Beach

[Bent Fabric]

On the Beach

I dig that. For as much heavy lifting as "Turnstiles" and "Revolution" do on Side A, the mood on the second side is powerful.

HIS Bringing it All Back Home?

[northernsky]

On the Beach

Without a doubt.
Also, Low. And with a certain sense of doubt, ”Heroes”
But no question at all: Together Alone. Despite ”Skin Feeling”.

[Ranking Ted]

Ziggy Stardust?

[naughty boy]

Not for me, no. I've always disliked the title track.

I mean, it's a fine side, but the first side is one of the finest ever!

[Penk!]

36 Chambers

to reiterate

[Penk!]

”Heroes”

Yes.