My favourite album of all time.

[Peter Korsten]

My reply took even longer than Andrew's, but my favourite album of all 
time is probably Jean-Michel Jarre's "Équinoxe". Here is a YouTube link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucN2X-jtxZE

It was my first introduction to synthesiser music, and one of the my 
introductions to music in general.

This album is so radically different from pretty much anything else. The 
album is a whole, not just a collection of tracks of which 75% is 
filler/fodder. There are no song titles either. And the sounds are 
unlike anything that constitutes popular music.

It's like an abstract concept album, apparently a day in the life of a 
human being. There's literally no weak track (except perhaps the "Band 
in the rain" part), and it starts and ends with absolutely blissful 
sounds. Especially the first two minutes are flabbergasting, taking you 
to some strange and wonderful place.

It's much more ambitious than Oxygène, an album that I never quite 
connected with as much as I did with Équinoxe. The sounds are bigger, 
the melodies bolder. Those little, strange, throwaway sounds, that are 
so typically Jarre, are much more prevalent. The supposedly narcissistic 
Jarre is emerging, on his way to his first mega-concert at the Place de 
la Concorde.

There are plenty of other albums that are great, such as Marillion's 
"Script for a Jester's Tear" (perhaps more so than "Misplaced 
Childhood"), or Madonna's "Ray of Light", or Queen's "Innuendo", or so 
many other great albums. But none have had such a profound impact on me 
as Équinoxe has.

- Peter