Good comments. This really is a tough question and it seems the anawer for me varies by the particular time/day I think of it.
I'll start by eliminating Abbey Road, 2 great -unrelated songs - and a "lesser" one.
The other albums on my list all have 3 opening songs that "hang" well together and comprise a mini "opera" within an album.
AHDN - Theme - Love, semi-innocent - getting more complicated. Themes of work, appreciation - then regression to teen crush-ons in an adult mind - followed by vulnerability and brevity in falling in love.
Rubber Soul - Theme: "Now love is REALLY getting complicated!. Because the girls-women-"baby''s are !
The boys are noticing the girls are "players" now and it both frustrating and exciting! Use my car, leave me still naked in the bath? Your not taking my call? It's all there in the first 3 songs. NOTE: This was way before formal women's lib."
Revolver: Theme: Death, taxes, surviving by dissassociation - sounds like a universal, timeless and sure thing and the BeaTles nail it!
SPLHCB: Theme: Alternate realities. The band becomes another, we struggle together with friends, sometimes alone in the dark and we can take a trip to other worlds. Nailed that particular period in time, too!
White Album: Theme:The Get Back movement. Rollicking 50's early 60's music, stripped of technology, get out and play in nature and look inside the glass, we designed it, we can reveal and expose it to simplicity.
Next time you listen to these albums, these words may occur to you!
I can't pick!!!!!!
