Those rare albums that are great on first listen.

About 45 years ago when I bought The Who//Who’s Next my impression was, "Wow! This is a great album from start to finish!"

Elton John:  Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player

Fleetwood Mac/Rumors and The Eagles Hotel California struck me the same way

Jackson Browne: Running On Empty

Linda Ronstadt/Simple Dreams

Aliota, Haynes and Jeremiah: I believe was self titled. It had Lake Shore Drive, Uppers And Downers, Snow Queen, Long Time Gone on it. I wish I had a TT and still had that LP.

Quite some time later I’d say the same thing about Lucinda Williams/Happy Woman Blues and her selftitled and Sweet Old World and Car Wheels On A Gravel Road and Essence. (Yes, I used to be a Lucinda Lunatic.)

Steve Earle: Guitar Town and Exit Zero.

Cowboy Junkies: Black Eyed man

John Prine: The Missing Years

I am sure there are others, but those are just a few that struck me as great stuff the first time I listened to it, and I couldn’t wait to listen to it again.

On edit I’ll say that when Bruce Springsteen/Darkness On The Edge Of Town came out I was not getting Bruce, but now I do not know why and it should have been on that list.

I made a playlist of some of the suggestions.  I got a little bored so stopped after the first page.  I also ignored posts with more than 5-6 suggestions and I did exercise a tiny bit of editorial discretion.  Also, if the album didn't come up immediately in Qobuz I didn't research it further.  The playlist is supposed to be collaborative so feel free to add ONE song from the album you are recommending.  Please don't delete anything.  

https://open.qobuz.com/playlist/21601335

Van Morrison - Astral Weeks, Moondance

Herbie Hancock - Empyrean Isles

Joni Mitchell - Court And Spark

R.E.M. - Murmur 

Jimmy Cliff - The Harder They Come 

David Bowie - Low, Blackstar

Roxy Music - Avalon

Traffic - John Barleycorn Must Die

Here are a few:

Every US Beatles album as it was released in the 1960s

Linda Ronstadt: Hasten down the Wind, Simple Dreams, Prisoner in Disguise, Heart like a Wheel, Mad Love

Kind of Blue - Miles Davis

Forever Changes - Love

It's a Beautiful Day - s/t

Warren Zevon - s/t

Mahler Symphonies 6 & 8 - Leonard Bernstein (first CBS CD release)

Mahler Symphony No. 2 - Simon Rattle CBSO; Bernstein DG; Abbado/Chicago

Mahler Symphony No. 3 - Bernstein, first CBS CD; Abbado/Vienna

The 35-minute sequence on disc 2 of the Beach Boys’ 1993 Good Vibrations box set that comprised what might have been released as SMiLe, had that LP been released in 1967. All I had known previously was the single "Heroes & Villains," which I dearly loved, even as the rock press of the day was referring to the Boys as "Doris Days on surfboards." Oh, what we had missed.

Going back in time again, I remember I felt that way about

Jimmy Buffet: Changes In Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes and Son Of A Sailor

Warren Zevon: Exciteable Boy

Dire Straits: the first side of Making Movies and all of Love Over Gold

and a bit more contemporary:

Bruce Springsteen: The Ghost Of Tom Joad

Josh Ritter Live At The Record Exchange EP