This is a difficult thread to interpret, because it could apply to most of my collection of ~1200 albums as I don’t buy music I don’t like, and my taste doesn’t change to make me dislike things I used to like…
But if I absolutely had to thin out and keep the ones really most important to me, I guess they’d be the maybe 100 or so albums that I replay most often - quite a few of which I’ve had for 50 years or best part of already!
The following came to mind as fast as I could write them down. 72 I think - but if I spent a little longer thinking I guess I’d reach that hundred…
Beatles - Sgt Pepper, Abbey Road & Let It Be
Blach Sabbath: Black Sabbath, Paranoid
Edgar Broughton: Sing Brother Sing, The Edgar Broughton Band, Inside Out, Oora, Superchip
Budgie: Never Turn Your Back On A Friend
Deep Purple: *The Book of Taliesyn, Deep Purple, Fireball, Made in Japan”
Focus: Moving Waves
Genesis: From Genesis to Revelation, The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
Guns ‘n’ Roses: Appetite for Destruction
Jethro Tull: Thick as a Brick, Too Old To Rovk’n’Roll
King Crimson: In The Court Of The Crimson King
Led Zeppelin: LZ1, LZ2, LZ3, LZ4
Marillion: Script For A Jester’s Tear, Misplaced Childhood
Moody Blues: Days of Future Past, In Search Of The Lost Chord, On the Threshold Of A Dream, A Question Of Balance
Hazel O’Connor: Breaking Glass
Pink Floyd: Atom Heart Mother, Meddle, DSOTM, The Wall, Final Cut
Quatermas: Quatermas
Queen: A Night At The Opera
Sniff ‘n’ the Tears: Ride Blue Divide, Love Action, Fickle Heart, The Game’s Up
Strawbs: *By Choice
Ten Years After: Sssh, Cricklewood Green
Tanita Tikarum: Ancient Heart
Twelfth Night: Live and Let Live, Collectors’ Item
U2: Under A Blood Red Sky
Uriah Heep: *Look at Yourself”
Roger Waters: Pros & Cons of Hitchhiking, Amused to Death
Rolling Stones: Through The Past Darkly, Sticky Fingers
The Who: Tommy, Who’s Next
Wishbone Ash: Argus
Yes: Fragile, The Yes Album, Tales from Topographic Oceans
Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Van Cliburn, Symphony No. 6
Grieg: Peer Ghynt full version with vocals
Orff: Cumina Burana
Puccini: La Boheme, Turandot
Schubert Trout Quintet Members of Vienna Octet with Walter Panhoffer
Verdi: La Traviata
Vivaldi: Four Seasons Nigel Kennedy, Cantatas Bellezza Crudel
Now, I know I haven’t complied with the request to pick out individual albums and say why - maybe when I have a bit more spare time I’ll pick some of those out and do just that.