When it comes to albums I can listen to over and over and over, there's nothing even in the same spectrum as Massive Attack's 1991 debut Blue Lines. I got it on cassette (because that's how you mostly got music then), and I think I literally listened to it every day for about 18 months. I wore out the cassette tape and had to replace it. And then a few years after that when my cassette player broke and I shifted to CD, Blue Lines was among the first I bought. I wouldn't surprise me to learn I've listened to this short--only nine songs--album a thousand times.
Blue Lines navigates like no other album the deep grey areas where soul, hip-hop, psychedelia, reggae, and R&B overlap. The term "trip hop" was pretty much invented for this group. They've gone on to have a long and always-interesting discography. Their most recent album was released in 2010.
Here's a Pitchfork retrospective review of the album that does a really good job of contextualizing Blue Lines.
Personal and almost-sad note: when it comes to narrowing down a "favorite band," the two contenders are Massive Attack and Bjork. And I've never seen either of them live (though I did go to a Sugarcubes concert in high school so I guess that kind of counts for Bjork).
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