Ritual de lo Habitual by Jane’s Addiction. Very difficult question. I would’ve said NIN’s The Fragile, but I dunno. Ritual has that SOMETHING about it.
Excluding soundtracks and ‘best of’ comps id have to go with ‘The Downward Spiral’. An album of great exploration and atmosphere that, from what ive experienced, has not been matched.
Lateralus is pretty great, but I can’t pick ONE album to represent all my tastes. If I had to pick one it would probably be something that made me nostalgic and wasn’t necessarily the most technically impressive album ever.