So, I'm sure there are plenty of music lovers here who appreciate this sonic art, and consider it an important part of their life. I'm curious what others here deem to be albums they hold dear. What albums, front to back, every single track, is amazing and important to you?

I'll start by selecting Nine Inch Nails' "Pretty Hate Machine", honestly NIN doesn't really have a bad album to my ears, but "Pretty Hate Machine" was so raw sounding to me. I never heard anything like it, I mostly stuck to one genre for a long time, so hearing this album actually opened my mind to other genres, and now I listen to all kinds of music. The synths gave me chills, the heavy hitting drums pounded on, and Trent's dreary, depressive and militant lyrics just mixed together to create this feeling of everything being lost, pretty hopeless even, but still he fights on. Defiant until the very end. It has a minimalist approach to its production, and it brought a pretty underground music genre to more ears.

So, I consider "Pretty Hate Machine" one of my all time favorite albums, and it was the album that led me to other artists and genres of music that I enjoy to this day.

Does anybody else have albums they hold in extremely high regard?

There are a few.

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
Jane's Addiction - Nothing Shocking
Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks
Nirvana - In Utero
Belly - Star
Beatles - Rubber Soul
P.J. Harvey - Rid Of Me
Hole - Live Through This

I could probably think of a few more and I might be back.

I judge these albums not on their historic context or quality of certain songs, but to their quality as a whole. For example, "Sgt. Pepper". It's a more historic record with some better songs, but it also has a few experiments that didn't work. :P The records I mentioned above literally have no bad notes for me and it's rare if ever that I don't listen to them all the way through without any skipping around.

Blind Guardian - Nightfall in Middle Earth
Iron Maiden - Powerslave
Rammstein - Reise, Reise
Nick Cave - Tender Prey

To name a few.

Motörhead - On Parole
Kyuss - Blues for the Red Sun

On a personal level, I think the follow albums did a lot for me:

Def Leppard - Hysteria/Slang
Status Quo - Piledriver/Hello
Dr. Hook - Bankrupt

The positive vibes, great use of melody etc just hooks my happy side no matter what mood I'm in. I think I have just named three of the most uncool bands in rock/metal history but I really don't give a shit. It is great cheerful stuff, something that is sorely lacking in music.

DEVO - Freedom of Choice
Daft Punk - Human After All
Kraftwerk - Computer World
Isao Tomita - The Planets

These albums expanded my perspective of music, and what is possible with sound in general.

I like the cut of your jib, sir! I've never been able to find a copy of Belly's Star, but I do own King and like that one a lot.

Some for me:

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
Beatles - Revolver
Jethro Tull - Songs From the Wood
Jethro Tull - Heavy Horses
Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin II
Dire Straits - Love Over Gold
Rush - Moving Pictures
Tragically Hip - Day for Night

If I had to choose one it would be: My Dying Bride - Turn Loose The Swans.

I'm pretty much the same, even one mediocre song on an album that is otherwise flawless can ruin it a just a bit for me. Some might say it's a harsh way to judge an album but I really can't help it. Historical context is just interesting facts, but doesn't really affect my album ratings.

Some more albums I consider amazing:

Atmosphere - Overcast!
Amazing underground hip-hop album from Minneapolis, MN. My home-city. Introduced me to more conscience hip-hop, and other underground(ish) hip-hop artists. Pretty much changed the way I saw hip-hop.

Black Dahlia Murder - Nocturnal
One of my favorite metal bands. Fast, loud, aggressive, the moment I heard them I bought all their albums. I think this is their best. I just really dig the dark humor and tales of fucked up people and things happening. It reminds me of Tales from the Crypt in music form.

Sadistik - Ultraviolet
An underground rapper from Seattle, Washington. Amazing and poetic wordplay, can be anywhere from dark to hopeful to melancholy. Very dream-like production. I had this album on repeat for a straight month.

System of a Down - Toxicity
All these years later I find this band is still really great to listen to, they're fast paced aggressiveness and Serj's vocal range from down right screaming to opera singing is just.. fun to listen to honestly. Not a bad track on this album.

Enter Shikari - Take to the Skies
An awesome mixture of Electronica and Metal. I think this album pulls it off pretty well, this band switches their sound pretty drastically every album though, so don't expect this same thing on anything else they've done if you decide to check it out.

Birthday Massacre - Superstition
This band just astonishes me. The 80's synth-pop vibe mixed with the heavy sound, and the vocalist's beautiful voice juxtaposed to the dark lyrics just creates an absolute delight to my ears. This is probably one of my top 5 bands.

Mindless Self Indulgence - You'll Rebel to Anything
I don't know what it is about MSI, but the way they pick everything apart and proceed to mock and make fun of it, including the listener, is just really, really amusing. If it wasn't for their sound and production I might not like it, but in this case it really just adds to it all.

Chelsea Wolfe - Abyss
Absolutely haunting. My album of the year for 2015, her album "Pain is Beauty" is also really, really fucking good. But Abyss comes out ahead just a bit. This album is a result of her sleep paralysis, and it's not often almost every track on an album can give me chills, but this one pulled it off. She just might be my favorite artist of all time. Beautiful album for those who can appreciate the darkness. I had to go on a walk at night and have a smoke after I listened to this :D

My taste in music is wide-ranging, but I tend to listen to just the few songs I really like from each artist. As such, there are very few entire albums I feel very strongly about. That said, there are a few of them, so...

Billy Joel - Piano Man
Rage Against The Machine - Rage Against The Machine
Dire Straits - Brothers In Arms
Metallica - The Black Album
Depeche Mode - Violator

My favourite album ever is definitely Switchfoot's Vice Verses. It all fits together, but every song stills feels unique.

From my side, I would add anything from Nightwish (Tarja era).
But then there are many more, quite a lot already mentioned. Fantastic album, surprised it was mentioned as didn't seem that well known.

A really difficult question because they are too many and I mean *too many*!

I'll post a small list of albums that i can't get enough but I feel it isn't fair for any of those that doesn't appear on the list.

Jaco Pastorius - Jaco pastorius
Jethro Tull - Thick as a brick
Miles Davis - Kind of blue
Dave Brubeck - Time out
Pink Floyd - Dark side of the mun (:P)

and now some harder stuff:
Black Sabbath - Black sabbath
Iron Maiden - Iron maiden / Killers
Metallica - Master of puppets
Judas Priest - Painkiller
Muse - Absolution
Emperor - Anthems to the welkin at dusk
Cradle of Filth - Cruelty and the beast
Bloodbath - Nightmares made flesh
Empyrium - Songs of moors and misty fields
Vision Bleak - Carpathia
Samael - Passage
Arcturus - Aspera hiems symfonia
Covenant - In times before the light / Nexus polaris
Hypocrisy - Abducted
Necrophagist - Epitaph
Amon Amarth - Fate of norns
Atheist - Elements
Dark Tranquillity - Projector
Dissection - Storm of the light's bane
Death - Symbolic
Enslaved - Vertebrae
Immortal - At the heart of winter / Battles in the North
Kreator - Extreme aggression
Megadeth - Rust in peace
Mercyful Fate - Melissa
King Diamond - Abigail
Obscura - Cosmogenesis
Gojira - The way of all flesh
Orange Goblin - Time travelling blues
Candlemass - Epicus doomicus metallicus / Nightfall / Ancient dreams
Therion - Theli / Secret of the runes
Paradise Lost - Gothic / Icon / Draconian times
My Dying Bride - The angel and the dark river
Anathema - Alternative 4 / Eternity / A fine day to exit
Tool - Lateralus
Exodus - Bonded by blood / Tempo of the Damned

This is neverending madness. I'm stopping now. :P

Way too many to really count, but for today I'll single out one.

T.Rex: The Slider

As much as I say I don't have a "all time favorite" album, this is the one I'd end up mentioning if pressed to name one. It's a shame that Marc Bolan has been a bit forgotten, he was a fantastic vocalist and he was a incredibly underrated guitarist and he was an absolute megastar in his prime. Well, I think you could add the "it's a shame they've been forgotten" to nearly all of the old 70s glam rockers, they've all been forgotten it seems, at least by classic rock radio and mags. If we're being honest I'd rather hear some T.Rex, Sweet or Slade on the radio instead of just yet another AC/DC, Led Zeppelin or Queen marathon.

im fine with a queen marathon as long as it aint the usual suspects
and how many songs from queen II are played on the radio anyway ?