What are the most ambitious albums you've ever heard?

[Suguru101]

Nightwish created/defined Symphonic Metal with this album.

Ghost Love Score is kind of the perfect unity of both genres.

[Just2McFly]

Janet Jackson - Velvet Rope

[Milbuck]

Kid A by Radiohead comes to mind immediately. Had no idea what to think when I first heard it, it's grown on me since.

Amnesiac as well, although I liked it from the start.

[ZeN]

Nightwish created/defined Symphonic Metal with this album.

Ghost Love Score is kind of the perfect unity of both genres.

[BigBoss]

I love this album.

[Suguru101]

Have you heard their other albums? Have a favorite?

[RedBlackAttack]

Not really an album.

Not in the sense that it was an official Hendrix release while he was living. However, the ambitiousness comes from the guitar work displayed in the compilation. His interpretations of "Born Under a Bad Sign" and "Mannish Boy" are absolutely nothing like the originals and display a guitar style/sound that changed the way people look at the relationship between a guitarist and their gear (amps, pedals, etc). I always felt like "Blues," unlike the more popular Experience albums, was the best example of his innovative style.


Some of the most ambitious albums ever released completely flopped, like Neil Young's "Trans," wherein he used a voice modulator to, in part, mimic the sound of disabled people who need those kinds of devices to communicate.

It received horrendous reviews and is considered the album to skip in his collection. Ambition can sometimes have great results, but it can also go the other way.

[Chris99]

My personal favorite tracks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIrKSqb4H4A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18HDfiMNlRE


Full album: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcjhJLcIDOA

[ThePhantomCreep]

Tom Waits - Rain Dogs
Mr. Bungle
Faith No More - Angel Dust

[J Shuttlesworth]

Nice lists so far.

A few that came to mind...





Miles Davis - Kind of Blue (Full Album)






Miles Davis - Bitches Brew (Full Album)

[/URL]

Yes sir

Some more jazz albums that come to mind:





Oddly enough, all of these were recorded in the same year as Kind of Blue

1959 = GOAT year

[Akrazotile]

[Budadiiii]

[Akrazotile]

But on a serious note:

[ThePhantomCreep]

Ween's entire body of work qualifies as ambitious (and brilliant). I nominate "The Mollusk" if for no other reason that it's their best album IMO:

[LJJ]

Emerson Lake & Palmer - Pictures at an Exhibition
ELP's famous prog-rock rendition of Mussorgsky's piano suite. It's an absolute trainwreck. At the end of their run in the 70s ELP actually toured with a symphony orchestra as their backing band.

Tool - Lateralus
Another example of ambition gone wrong. Really, really pedestrian metal wrapped in the most pretentious drivel imaginable.

Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells
Now an example of an ambitious album that was pretty good. An album with only 2 tracks, 20+ minutes each, instrumental and didn't really have an identifiable genre at the time. Also:

Mike Oldfield plays: Acoustic guitar, bass guitar, electric guitar, Farfisa, Hammond B3,[3] and Lowrey organs, flageolet, fuzz guitars, glockenspiel, "honky tonk" piano, mandolin, piano, percussion, "taped motor drive amplifier organ chord", timpani, vocals and tubular bells.

The best music generally gets made when ambition isn't really involved.