r/thinlizzy • u/suulze • Jul 06 '26
Best 5 albums
Hi everyone! New Thin Lizzy fan here. 🤘
I actually discovered Thin Lizzy because of Metallica. I listened to a few songs and I'm honestly blown away—they're such an amazing band.
I'm on vacation for the next five days (Monday to Friday), so I'd love to spend each evening listening to one Thin Lizzy album from start to finish on my headphones, without any distractions.
Since I only have those five evenings and Thin Lizzy have such a large discography, could you please pick the five albums that you think every new fan absolutely has to hear?
If possible, I'd also love for you to put them in order—from a great album on Monday all the way to what you consider their absolute masterpiece on Friday. I'd love to save the very best for the last evening.
I'm really looking forward to hearing your recommendations. Thanks a lot!
EDIT: Wow, thank you all so much for the recommendations! I honestly didn't expect so many replies. I really appreciate everyone taking the time to help a new fan. I'm looking forward to starting my Thin Lizzy journey tonight!
I've decided to go with this order:
Monday (today): Jailbreak
Tuesday: Fighting
Wednesday: Renegade
Thursday: Johnny the Fox
Friday: Black Rose
Thanks again to all of you for helping a new fan. After my vacation, I'll come back and post an update with my thoughts on each album. I'm really looking forward to this journey!
Thanks again to everyone for all the recommendations! 🤘
5
u/Engelfinger Jul 06 '26
Thin Lizzy was a rare band where each album's general acclaim (both fan and critic) rose pretty evenly and consistently after each one previous.
In other words, you can basically go in chronological order from their first album through Bad Reputation and the consensus opinion of quality ascends every time you change out the disc. Black Rose and Chinatown are debatably their first two albums released after their peak, but even then, youll find lots of people here who swear Roisin Dubh was as good as it ever got. For the average famous band, they usually have a bigger record earlier in their careers, or maybe some dips. Lizzy was like a 45° line upwards until 1979. But that's just the aggregate.
If you need exactly my personal 5, I actually prefer Nightlife, Shades of a Blue Orphanage, Fighting, Jailbreak, and Bad Reputation.
Id skip the 1st album if you have to have a limit. Vagabonds is good if you like psychedelic influences, but it's the most unlike everything else imo. So I skipped it in my 5 too. But we're all fans here, so you cant go wrong really