How I Define A "Great Album"

Any great album, as a whole, should be able set a mood and unfold in accordance with that mood, even if that mood is completely schizophrenic (see: Frank Zappa). In fact, ambient music exempted, I find that the more intense the mood is, the more memorable the album tends to be. This often means I'm usually the guy championing a band's most "difficult" albums, but somehow I'm okay with that. Put it this way: wallpaper can be pleasant, but I wouldn't put it in a frame and hang it in a gallery. A bit elitist, sure, but you have to understand: I think anything - anything - that constitutes a creative form of self-expression counts as art. Johnny Cash, Bob Marley, The Beatles - all massively popular, all near-universally loved, and all artists of the highest order, as important to their respective genres as Shakespeare was to english literature. If anything, I think the whole "music for the people" rhetoric that critics use to praise artists like Bruce Springsteen is condescending bullshit. Don't praise an album because you think it speaks to or for a particular audience you never took the time to know personally. You'll look like an asshole, or perhaps even worse, a rock journalist.