Here's a very extensive Swans discography if you don't mind going through a lot of text.

http://swans.pair.com/DISCOGRAPHY/SwansDsc70.txt

Thank you very much

By the way, from just glancing at what you have, you included quite a few live albums, but forgot the fantastic double-album "Swans Are Dead"...

((Maybe you should just edit your poll and add an "Other" option to take care of any ommisions! ))

There is a way to edit the poll without making a new thread? Whaaa?

Well, so Haakon tells me -- I've been having problems with it, myself.

There should be some sort of "edit thread" button around somewhere.

Love of Life...Yes I know I'm a pussy

Alright, I don't have alot of Swans albums yet but so far my favorite is "The Great Annihilator".

children of god, without a doubt.

Children of God
White Light From The Mouth of Infinity
Soundtracks for the Blind
The Great Annihilator
Public Castration is a Good Idea

Yes! Just listening to me Swans downloads from eDonkey - totally in no order, so it goes straight from 'Love Will Save You' to 'Your Property' - RRRUUUUGHGHG! Swans are the best music to put on whenever you're in a Mood.

The thing about the Swans is that Michael Gira is kind of serious - I've heard that he did loads of acid when he was about 12, and at some point ended up in a Turkish prison? As someone who has experienced intense acid craziness I can see the influence. Whenever I listen to the Swans I think about where Gira got his unremittingly harsh worldview from - my own is pretty harsh, which is why I find the music so emotionally resonant, but my up-bringing was as comfortable as can be, so I wonder whether I am qualified to be so pessimistic.

I voted for White Light From the Mouth of Infinity, just because I had to choose one - Love of Life is equal. Both are from their 'beautiful' phase, but I don't think you can impose any kind of preference on their No Wave stuff - it's without distinguishing qualities, and that's how it should be: pieces of noise, not softened by interpretation.

More regarding Gira's pessimism: it's a pessimism about humanity, which doesn't preclude spiritual hope, as demonstrated by 'Love of Life'. It sits pretty comfortably with what I believe, which is that humans are pretty much doomed animals, for some reason gifted with a tantalising glimmer of spiritual insight, just enough to make them suffer a million times more intensely - if humans were invented on purpose, it'd have to be a pretty twisted super-being who invented them.

That's what I think about when I listen to the Swans, anyway - what other band provokes such contemplation?

Maybe I should have voted for Soundtracks for the Blind, just because I think it's an astonishingly strange and involving album, totally unlike anything else ever recorded, and it didn't get enough votes.

If the Swans were an alcoholic drink, they'd be a straight double scotch in a communion chalice.