A Working List Of The Most Beautiful Albums Ever Made, to me.

A constant work in progress

Sidewalks and Skeletons - Future Ghosts

Katatonia - Night is the New Day

Katatonia - The Great Cold Distance

Clubroot - III-MMXII

Chvrches - The Bones Of What You Believe

The Deftones - Koi No Yokan

Nightwish - Once

Tool - Salival

Mazzy Star - So Tonight That I Might See

Rammstein - Sehnsucht

Grimes - Halfaxa

Lana Del Rey - Born To Die

 

Lana Del Rey - Paradise

Radiohead - Amnesiac

Drive - Soundtrack

Serj Tankian - Elect The Dead

The Mountain Goats - Tallahassee
This album has incredibly beautiful and poetic liner notes that enhance the already potent story the whole album tells. You can see them at the album's official website, here.

The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love

Depeche Mode - Violator

Fever Ray - Fever Ray

Apocalyptica - Worlds Collide

Apocalyptica - Amplified: A Decade of Reinventing the Cello

Deftones - Adrenaline

Tool - 10,000 Days

 Deftones - Saturday Night Wrist

VNV Nation - Futureperfect

Die Form - Inhuman

Nick Cave - Let Love in

Depeche Mode - Songs of Faith and Devotion Live

Deftones - White Pony

Nine Inch Nails - The Fragile

Nick Cave - The Boatman's Call

Nick Cave - Murder Ballads

PJ Harvey - White Chalk.

VNV Nation - Empires

A Perfect Circle - Mers De Noms

Bjork - Homogenic

 

Bjork - Vespertine

Bjork - Post



The Knife - Silent Shout: An Audiovisual Experience

Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine (Remastered)

(and probably one of the best aphrodisiacs for gothic perverts)

Die Form - Suspiria De Profundis

Die Form - Bach Project

Die Form - Duality

Die Form - Extremum

A Perfect Circle - The 13th Step

Air - The Virgin Suicides Soundtrack

 Sisters of Mercy - Greatest Hits Volume One: Merciful Release

Sisters of Mercy - First and Last and Always

 

This Mortal Coil - Filigree and Shadow

 

Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral

Sneaker Pimps - Becoming  X

Cirque Du Soleil - Alegría 

This one is a misfit on my list, to be sure. But Cirque Du Soleil creates some transporting soundtracks to their supernatural performances, and this one is one of their best. It's also lodged deep in my childhood, so maybe that's why it earns a place here when it mightn't otherwise. The second version (below) has two extra tracks that are heartbreakingly beautiful. 

"Man is free to do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills" - Schopenhauer

Incidentally, Schopenhauer was extremely creepy looking, resembling a villain from The Last Unicorn:

On Facts

"Facts?" he repeated. "Take a drop more grog, Mr. Franklin, and
you'll get over the weakness of believing in facts! Foul play, sir!"
(The Moonstone)

Trust II

10.29.10

Raindrops play the windows.
I remember this song
It’s called
Trust in me.

Its Title is irony.

Shut your eyes.

My affections apologize
And go too far
Breathe, they gasp.

This needs to be replayed.

They gasp.

At the prospect
Of possibility.

The search for something safe
The search for something sound
Exhausts the human
condition
And what most of us never find.
That is the extent
To which gasping at Possibility
Extends.

The prospect
Of being safe and sound being at home
In you in just
The simplest of forms.

I was home once, when I was a child
Now I see
Clipped in staccato,

I breathe,
And I fathom

Possibility

One of the Most Beautiful Things I Have Ever Seen

Jungle Book Snake Song

In the Jungle Book, Kaa, the boa constrictor sings this to Mowglie to entrance him into sleep. Siouxsie and the Banshees cover this piece of gold from my childhood (song's on the playlist). It's exquisite.

Trust in me, just in me
Shut your eyes and trust in me
You can sleep safe and sound
Knowing I am around

Slip into silent slumber
Sail on a silver mist
Slowly and surely your senses
Will cease to resist

Trust in me, just in me
Shut your eyes and trust in me