all that you touch

Is there such a thing as a “perfect” record? So much of the music that people describe as “perfect” is informed by the individuals taste and that makes it incredibly hard to ever have a consensus and makes those 100 greatest album lists seem more trite and worthless than they already are. There seems to be this belief that the Beatles have made the best records ever made, and while I think they are a great band who made some of the best pop music put to vinyl but I don’t think they ever made a perfect record.
Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts club band is often at the top of the lists for greatest album of all time, and while there are stretches of brilliance found on it I don’t think that every song on it is good. I hate Lucy in the sky with diamonds, I like the music to she’s leaving home but the song itself is sort of stupid, fixing a hole, and when I’m sixty four could be described as cloying. Revolver which I think is a much better overall record than Sgt. Pepper also has its fair share of stinkers. I don’t think anyone would ever say Dr. Robert, She Said She Said, and got to get you in to my life are their favorite’s songs by the Beatles. Now, I’m not saying that the Beatles are awful or incapable of greatness; in fact one of my favorite songs is for no one. It happens to be bleak, mature, and relentless for two perfect minutes of pop perfection; but I don’t think that as a band the Beatles had that “perfection” that some of their songs.
From beginning to end I would think that everyone can agree that Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd is as close to perfection as we are ever going to hear in this world. For starters I think it captures the sort of angst and existential despair that everyone feels at some point in their life. It walks that fine line of being specific and universal in the themes it is trying to build. It’s free from the self pity and joylessness of being a rock star that would be found on each subsequent album. Most importantly the band understands that a record can aspire to more and can be more than a bunch of singles found in one place.