Albums where the longest songs are the best (or worst)

Worst: The Byrds - Younger Than Yesterday ("Mind Gardens")

Procol Harum: Shine On Brightly ("In Held In Twas I")
Yes: Fragile ("Heart Of The Sunrise")
Yes: Close To The Edge ("Close To The Edge")
Yes: Tales From Topographic Oceans ("Ritual - Nous Sommes Du Soleil")Yes: Going For The One ("Awaken")
Yes: Drama ("Machine Messiah")
ELP: Emerson Lake & Palmer ("Take a Pebble")
ELP: Tarkus ("Tarkus")
ELP: Brain Salad Surgery ("Karn Evil")
ELP: Love Beach ("Memoirs Of An Officer And a Gentleman")
Genesis: Nursery Cryme ("The Musical Box")
Genesis: Foxtrot ("Supper's Ready")
Genesis: Wind And Wuthering ("One For The Vine")
Genesis: And Then There Were Three ("Burning Rope")
Genesis: Invisible Touch ("Domino")
10cc: Sheet Music ("Somewhere In Hollywood")
10cc: The Original Soundtrack ("Un Nuit a Paris")
10cc: How Dare You ("Don't Hang Up")
Supertramp: Even In The Quietest Moments ("Fools Lullaby")
Pink Floyd: Meddle (already mentioned upthread)
Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here ("Shine On You Crazy Diamond")
Pink Floyd: Animals ("Dogs")
David Bowie: Station To Station ("Station To Station")
Depeche Mode: Some Great Reward ("Blasphemous Rumours")
Marillion: B-Sides Themselves ("Grendel")
Kraftwerk: Autobahn ("Autobahn")
Jean Michel Jarre: Zoolook ("Ethnicolor")
Orbital: In-Sides ("Out There Somewhere")

I can think of four albums where the longest track is the worst. Besides "Da Capo", they are the following:
The Beatles: White Album ("Revolution #9")
Velvet Underground: White Light/White Heat ("Sister Ray")
Jean Michel Jarre: Waiting For Costeau ("Waiting For Costeau")

Are. You. Fucking. Crazy. And. Or. Deaf. And. Or. Unable. To. Listen. To. Music. Without. Throwing. Up.

Regarding "Sister Ray" it is some of the worst crap ever put on record by anybody. It has no tune, no harmonies, and whatever is in there is buried in awful and ugly NOISE!

Wow, that's...completely wrong. Especially the last one -- that's the ONLY good part of that album, it's a terrific loooong ambient piece. Whereas from what I remember the rest of the CD is proto-Yanni crap!

Anything that has a tune is always better than anything that does not, and that is a universal rule that covers any musical genre.

The problem is that your definition of "tune" is much much much too strict, and so you're missing out on a whole realm of experience that can be had outside of the realm of the 4-bar phrase and the clear-cut melody. Yoruba drum patterns, sound poetry a la Reich or Amirkhanian (or "Revolution No. 9"!), the elliptical melodies of Schoenberg or Morton Feldman: these too can be "tunes", and if you can't perceive them -- if to you they sound random, dissonant, noisy -- then perhaps you might want to consider the possibility that your ears could be stretched further than they already are, that there's music you could love if you learned how to hear it properly.

To me, "Revolution No. 9" is full of tunes! Like that little oboe fragment that weaves in and out, or the little symphonic excerpts that show up here and there. It's a soup of tunes, rhythms, and gestures that recur. It may be deeply flawed, but it's nothing if not tuneful -- in putting on the avant-garde mantle, Lennon and Harrison betray their roots, and I mean that in a positive sense. I think it's great.

(P.S. You're also crazy re: APB vs. AHM, but at least you're in good company -- many people think so. I love APB, though...)

Worst: Velvet Underground - Murder Mystery
Roxy Music - Bogus Man

Somehow I knew this was Geir right away.

Although the entire "White Light/White Heat" album is of course unlistenable in general too. Every single track is awful.

And I KNOW there's got to be a little schadenfreude involved in a statement like this. You just like to watch us wince.

Best: "We're Not Adult Orientated (Neu Wave Live)" --Stereolab
Worst: "Hawknose Harlequin" -- Amon Duul II [o god how i loathe that record]

Seriously. TIN is one of the most successful (and out-there) musical experiments the 80's ever birthed. With a rhythm section to die for (Chambers and Moulding, take a bow).

Yeah, as CBEP said earlier, the loud-to-even-louder crescendo of Head Down is one of the most effectively-recorded songs I've ever heard. You can even hear Cornell's mouth clicking as it opens to sing! And the 'Head high' bit is accompanied by an outrageously good dual guitar line.

Grandaddy - The Sophtware Slump also owns this thread, btw. Yeah, Miner At The Dial-A-View IS a totally awesome (and sad) song, the opening track being a given.

Worst: "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands"

White noise, the White Album, White Light/White Heat...I'm beginning to sense a pattern...

Geir sez Crazy Frog is better than Brian Eno!

Brian Eno often has a tune, or at least he used to when he was at his best pre-"Discreet Music" and "Music For Airports".

Be that as it may (and I wouldn't go nearly that far in my praise for it), it is undeniably a terrible fit for the album, and seems especially out-of-place after two very upbeat, silly songs.

The one exception to this is 'English Settlement', which ends with one of the greatest 1-2 punches in rock music history.

What I mean to say, is that it doesn't matter if TIN isn't anything like the two tracks before it, and moreover it has a spiritual cousin on the album by name of 'Living Through Another Cuba', a grossly underrated electro experiment which I reckon the XTC boys pulled off admirably.

best:

neutral milk hotel - in an aeroplane...('oh comely' and 'two-headed boy pts. 1 & 2')
amorphis - elegy ('elegy' and 'my kantele (acoustic reprise)')
pink floyd - meddle ('echoes')
coverge - jane doe ('jane doe')
dark tranquillity - the mind's eye ('insanity's crescendo' and 'hedon')
jane's addiction - ritual de lo habitual ('three days' and 'then she did...'
mogwai - come on die young ('christmas steps')

worst:

daft punk - discovery ('too long')
the beta band - the 3 e.ps ('monolith')
lou reed - berlin ('the kids' and 'sad song')
yo la tengo - i can hear the heart beating as one ('spec bebop')
cursive - the ugly organ ('staying alive')
wilco - a ghost is born (those two overly long clunkers)

(Must resist temptation to change name to "Charlie Howard Has Shit Taste")

none of those are anywhere near my favourite albums by the way, they just struck me as appropriate choices. or are you referring to the song choices?

Seconded. One of the most aptly titled tracks ever.

and yeah geir, the record is full of super tight tracks, 'too long' just doesn't make sense right at the end

-- You've Got Scourage On Your Breath (papiermachealamphibia...), October 24th, 2006.

blahblahblah this isn't the point, all of those other closers you mention are much better songs, capable of standing on their own, AND they don't seem nearly as out-of-place as "Nihilon". And if "Living Through Another Cuba" is electro, then I guess Ted Leo must be Lady-fucking-tron or something (good song though).